Dragon Age: Inquisition is a game I started playing grudgingly. I never played previous games in the series. I never succumbed to the hype cycle of this release. I actively dislike video games that drown themselves in lore and feel the need to load you up on pointless details. In short, I thought this was a match made in hell.
And it was. For the first couple of hours at least.
For the first couple of hours I felt like I literally had no idea what the hell was going on. I didn’t understand the combat, I didn’t understand the plot, I didn’t understand the game’s systems and — worse — I had no idea what I was supposed to do, where I was supposed to go next. I was aching for guidance, and not in a good ‘Dark Souls’ way, in an ‘I’m not enjoying this and I’m extremely confused’ way.
Seven hours later, I’d be lying if that feeling has disappated, but I do feel as though I have a fundamental grasp on what the hell I’m doing and how things work. At this point, I’m starting to enjoy myself, and I’m starting to get a feeling for why people are engrossed in this universe.
For my part, I’m enjoying the ‘Assassin’s Creed’ style mission structure, the way in which there always seems to be something to ‘do’ in the near vicinity. I’m enjoying the combat — sorta — but most of all I’m finding the experience compelling. Dragon’s Age: Inquisition is a game that drags you in. It’s a ‘one more mission’ sort of experience. It reminds me of Dark Souls in that regard.
But…
Dear Lord this game does not account for Dragon Age newbies like myself. It does a terrible job of explaining its systems. It’s happy to spend pages and pages of dialogue on lore but doesn’t bother to tell you how its ‘power’ mechanic works. Happy to have you read pages and pages of letters strewn across the environment, but refuses to give new players a clear outline of the game’s basic plot points. At times Dragon Age: Inquisition feels like a game in love with its lore and overloaded with mechanical bloat. It’s a game that demands a lot from its players. It demands patience and a willingness to invest time. I’ve found that the longer I spend with it, the more I want to play. I think I’ll stick with this one for a while.
How are you finding the game? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
82 responses to “Community Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition”
Wouldn’t run on my laptop.
Buying a brand new PC just to play this.
$1159 out of 10.
Man I laughed my brains out. I give your joke 1159/10.
1159/10 for commitment. However sorry to say the game crashes on PC for some…
It crashed my computer so hard yesterday it would not boot up again.
Not the best PC port around.
as in your computer wont boot up again?
Yeah. Fixed it easily enough.
Think it’s time to get around to backing up my boot drive tho!
You’ll need to spend a lot more than that to run it on max settings.
I found the main story shorter than I expected but I still have a bunch of side quests to do. While I say it was shorter than expected that was primarily from all the reviews saying “85 hours just for the main story” when for me I’ve done the main story and sitting in the 30s for hours player. Once I finish off pokemon ruby though I’ll go back to my side quests in Dragon Age. I’d give it a high 8/10 probably as there are some ways it could have been better (more variety in enemies, more side quests that are stand alone stories/quest lines) but I still have it as my GOY vote.
! I am 20-25 hours in and I just unlocked Sky Hold not long ago :(. Been attempting to kill the hinterlands dragon for a couple of hours and constantly getting wiped with Cassandra, Iron Bull, Vivienne(ice) and my hero as a dual dagger rogue. Getting raped so hard I can not even down her to 1/3 hp. It looks so easy for those people on youtube 🙁
EDIT: My party is are level 13-12
Advice: Learn the mechanics, configure your warriors to have guard-restoring abilities, get your rogues/mage with barrier and stealth and keep them at range, and spend most of the fight in tactical mode, so you can move people out of the way and respond with abilities immediately.
Dragon will:
Cone of fire breath. Don’t leave squishies in front. Tank will have to wear it unless you give them mobility abilities like charge. Use dispell on burning quickly.
Tail swipe: Don’t let ANYONE be behind it if you don’t want them spending the entire fight on their ass.
Have multiple hardpoints: They share health, so don’t worry about targeting a specific limb, just whatever’s closest/visible. You don’t want your people dicking around trying to hit something inaccessible when a better target is right in front of them.
Wing-sweep drag into close range: Have everyone try to run out if they can, leave shield warrior still tanking in front.
Launch into the sky and do fire sweeps: Don’t be underneath them. I recommend taking shelter in some of the rock covers. It doesn’t regenerate its health, so feel free to run away and wait for the aerial bombardment to end.
Land on inaccessible areas and pelt fireballs: If you have mobility options you can kite these fireballs, running out of their path, but for the most part you’re going to get hit unless you take cover. Find some rocks to hide behind. I THINK from experience that she will pelt fireballs at whoever you’re actively controlling.
Spawn dragonlings: Try to take these out as early as possible with your DPSers; they should die fast at your level. Sometimes they will seem infinite, but they’re not. Just keep at it.
General tip:
Don’t be afraid to avoid using potions and let someone die if they’re in a position where you can recover them. Any party member who dies can be resurrected manually by another party member. Obviously having a mage with the rez skill can make this better, especially if they have the enhancement which also provides a barrier. As long as someone tanky is still able to use taunt or charge abilities on Dragonlings to restore their Guard, you should be able to completely revive three dead party members.
Thanks for the advice!
Did all of them. My cassandra tanks her head on with a 30% fire resist belt. Iron bull taunt disabled and dps right legs, rogue dps left legs, mage stay far and nuke.
Cone of fire breath is not an issue (hardly ever get hit since everyone is at the sides and cassandra is below his head lol), Tail Swipe no issue (leg swipe sometimes but meh damage), After he does his sky fire sweeps ( Take almost no damage here), I dodge them and hide under the dragon to completely dodge the damage.
Just for some reason when I lock my mage on a far spot and force hold spot with tactical, still walks to the front of the dragon to suicide. Main reason my potions are all gone :(. Will try again these few days to see how I go.
Just derp AI sometimes so annoying.
Yeah, dodgy AI is the reason you run in Tactical mode if you’re having any trouble. So you can catch trouble-makers, manually control them and get them out of trouble as soon as they start to deviate from the plan.
Time-consuming, but effective.
I got rekt by the dragons fairly early game. I then went and got my spec…
Bottom line, Knight Enchanter’s are the Mages version of Templars. =3
The most important thing I found helped take it out was using the tactical mode when needed and manually moving people away from danger areas and fire. On my first attempt without doing this I found party members would just stand like idiots in fires and kept dieing. Reminded me of some of the WoW raids I’ve been on and made me wish you could take control of other raid members characters :P.
I really, really, really don’t want to derail the conversation, but I also want to say something, because a large part of the problem is just letting it slide:
Unnecessary. Please just understand that and let’s just move on, everybody.
You mind not bring the whole SC2 pro gaming tweet into this conversation? We are discussing this openly with general gaming terms with a bunch of people that is open minded.
Not to mention the word is not being targeted to any specific person in general and does not induce any fear/overreaction from the digital character namely “Letrico, Cassandra, Iron Bull, Vivienne” as they do not have feelings and I kill them everyday when the dragon kills them.
Please just understand that and let’s just move on.
I’m open-minded. I have never used “rape” as a “general gaming term”. It is not cool, and should not be normalised, and I have no idea how it has become so (because I have not invested enough emotion in it to watch/read any of the various essays out there e.g. I have no idea what the “SC2 pro gaming tweet” is).
(EDIT: And I should point out that I was honestly nervous posting this, because I actually didn’t, and still don’t, want to make this another thread about that sort of stuff. But nobody else picked you up on it, so…)
It’s a shame you didn’t understand and instead chose to defend that position. You can have your last word if you wish and then yes, I will move on.
Enh, it’s more about trying to consciously make the effort not to casually say something deeply offensive to some people because it’s ‘always been’ synonymous with something unrelated.
Similar to when idiot kids use, ‘gay’ as a way to describe something negative.
It’s usually not actually a sign of raging homophobia, but even as a casual insult it’s still harmful, it’s still not good enough, and a conscious effort should be made to catch themselves and stop it.
(Edit: I don’t see Batguy as doing the screeching ‘social justice warrior’ desperate pursuit of wrongs to right, political agendas to push where they’re not wanted, waging war against complacency, blahblahblah… It’s just a casual acknowledgement that, y’know. I know the term’s been in regular use in gaming, it’s normalized… but would it do any harm if we decided for it to not be? Even if it’s just here? Because that might make life just a little better without costing us anything.)
Thank you, exactly: casual acknowledger, not social justice warrior. That’s me!
Not sure why I’m commenting because it just turns this into a bigger derail but I think context becomes important. If you call someone “gay” you are implying being a homosexual is an insult and something unwanted. Saying his party got raped to me is similar to people who say they are OCD because they like clearing each area in a game, or saying they wanted to kill themselves because a boss was hard. As someone who has a family member who has suffered from OCD and used to wash their hands until they were a bloody mess and as someone who has had a very close friend take their own life I sometimes find those phrases to be making light of serious situations as well but I wouldn’t mention it because they aren’t trying to be insensitive. Or how about if someone says their sports team murdered another team last night? It seems as soon as it’s an issue that predominately affects women people on the internet want to derail whatever discussion is going on to talk about it when it wasn’t meant to be taken as anything offensive.
That’s why I’m saying that even though in this context it’s not intended to be offensive, it’s not exactly necessary or integral to our discourse, and it’d be nice if we could prune that particular vocabulary out of our repertoire in this context. Not an admonishment as much as a polite request, just to make the world a little better for no real cost.
Sorry can’t agree. The term rape can refer to more than sexual violation so it is perfectly fine to use in this context and I think you need to look for problems where they exist (like the gay thing, I agree that needs to go from common use). Did you notice that the term suicide was also used? Isn’t that insensitive as well? Or is it just not your pet cause?
I can understand the dislike of the phrase, but would it have been so much better if he’d said “getting murdered so hard” (which is pretty much what’s actually happening to his characters)?
Thank you for highlighting that. 🙂
I’ve been making a conscious effort to stop saying raped and I’ve replaced it with pegged, short for pegging, in which a woman dons a strap-on and does you know what to a man. Is this an acceptable alternative or is there a special layer in hell for people like me?
On topic DA:I 8.5/10 from me. Doesn’t explain it’s mechanics well to new starters and is a bit buggy on PS4. Fantastic game though.
Here’s how you do it.
1. reroll mage.
2. specialize knight enchanter.
3.???
4. Profit.
This times a million.
I…. don’t want to reroll my 20 hours 🙁
Okay. Plan 2.
Do the same as above, but don’t reroll. Just make sure Vivienne is specc’d right.
But but knight enchanter look so damn op now after viewing a few YouTube videos. Solo dragon wth 🙁 alright I’ll reroll it. We’ll do it live! **** it we’ll do it live!
I have found it has sucked the fun out of the game because it gets too easy. I’m planning on respeccing out of it.
If i get stuck, i’ll just put Vivienne in my party and control her instead.
Hm. Maybe I’ll see how it goes. Thanks for the advice!
Orrrr run two mages that have barrier kn priority and just laugh your way to victory
Im looking forward to giving the co-op a try
I tried the co-op with EA Access… did not enjoy it at all, perhaps with 4 people it would be different, but it felt almost tacked on, no customisation and couldn’t take your SP character in.
Im thought it had customisation through gear you unlock like in ME3 MP?
Im gonna give it a try tonite.
Never played it, you can unlock gear/moves but couldn’t change the look of your character
Ok I played it with two ppl and its a bit of a grind….the gear does change your look…just managed to scrape enough coins to buy one chest …but I did get a rare Assassins dagger so it’s kinda got me excited again (just gotta figure out how to unlock the assassin now lol)
I got a lvl 3 dwarf legionnaire dude and my partner has a lvl 3 archer and yes we havnt managed to complete a lvl yet…but I do like how the maps are random 🙂
Yea I had just 1 other mate playing he was dwarfe I was archer and yea felt very repeditive took forever to level up but we still had no chance to clear a level, we only had the 6hr trial so gave up after an hour and went back to single player, I thought I read somewhere you could bring in your SP character and got to keep the gear you earnt in coop.
Its just like the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer but with deeper options.
ME3 MP was a grind till you gained a few LvL and had a full team to play with so I guess this is will be the same.
Like Mark, i had no previous experience with the first two games. But a couple of hours reading through Kirk Hamilton’s excellent beginners guide, and then doing the stuff on dragonagekeep.com has helped me figure it all out; i now know my Fade from my Chantry, my Qunari from my Elves. And so far, a few hours into it, i’m absolutely loving it. Going to be a hard choice between this, Far Cry 4 and GTAV as my GOTY.
I’m playing on Xbox One. I’m about 51 hours in with my character. Loved it from the very beginning. Most areas are huge, there’s heaps to do, and the game just looks damn gorgeous!
Three things I don’t like though…
1) mêlée combat seems super sluggish if you’re not using the tacticle mode.
2) conversation system is super buggy.
3) character models are just HD versions of those found in Origins and DA2. They move like they’re super stiff. I was hoping all that would be completely redone.
Either way, super fun game. I love everything Dragon Age, and this is no different. My new favourite game.
9.5/10
I seriously keep stopping mid-play and gazing around. The environments are stunning. I keep remarking to my disinterested wife, “Wow, just wow…..”. Having said that she agrees with me and tells her friends, “Computer games today!…..they’re just like interactive movies.” She’s a sweet gal. I love it how she refers to them as ‘Computer games’. 🙂
Edit: spelling
Better hurry up and finish Far Cry 4 so I can make a start on this.
Loving my time with it. GOTY contender for me.
I’ve only sunk just under 30 hours into it so far so I’ve still got lots to do in the game.
So far I’ve only completed 2 main big areas, i’m onto my third area now and i’ve only done around 3 smaller areas and a few main story quest. So far it seem like I’ll still have lots and lots to do.
At first when playing, I just stuck to using my main character, but if I ever felt bored on him I’d just switch to someone else such as a mage or rogue, and it just changes everything. It’s like starting from the beginning again, I have to learn how to use my attack and if I should tank, or support. This is a really big plus for the game as it makes it feel fresh and new.
Graphics or top-notch! Running on Frostbite 3 makes this game shine! It does take a beefy card like a gtx780ti to run it at ultra @1440p, though @1080 a 970 would do.
The quests seem to get bet much better the further go. Though some feel a bit repetitive, bit slightly different, so it’s not all that bad.
I’ve only killed one dragon so far and I’m level 14, I guess I should try to kill another one before I out-level it.
Overall: Really awesome game, combat flows well and swapping characters makes it feel fresh. Quest get better eventually, game looks absolutely beautiful! If you want to best experience play it on ultra, you’ll see why when you do.
a 970 is basically on par with a 780ti (as it is in most games): http://gamegpu.ru/rpg/rollevye/dragon-age-inkvizitsiya-test-gpu.html
I don’t think it’s necessarily the lack of experience with the series that was doing your head in early, the game brings a LOT of mechanics to the table that were missing in the first two games and you really need to take your time and put your own effort into working out what the hell is going on for the first few hours.
I’m 10 hours in and even simple stuff like potions and crafting are still a bit confusing.
I missed the text box that popped up on the screen the first time I got an Inquisition Perk for example, I knew I’d received ‘a perk’ but when I went to the character screen I couldn’t see where to select it, or even if I needed to select it. There’s no description in the codex, or in the tutorial section…. It’s not until I went to the War Table that I realised how to spend it. Stuff like that is kinda annoying and I couldn’t imagine trying to pick that stuff up if I didn’t already have a grasp of the more familiar mechanics that carried over from the two previous games (the skill trees and the like).
The story is a bit the same really, I went back and brushed up on the events of the first two games before I started and it still took me several hours to get to grips with the chantry/ templar/ mages dynamic and the various iterations within them.
The game’s great, I’m enjoying it thoroughly and I’m glad they made it as dense as they did, I can just imagine LOTS of my mates who would pick it up fresh and think it was garbage after a few hours and quit.
I’m at the final mission and am around the 50 hour mark, still have to *enter* the Hissing Wastes and finish the Exalted Plains.
I heavily agree with you Mark in regards to the tutorials. The crafting in this system confused me for the first 20-30 hours but as it just so happens, the more you spend with it the more familiar you get with it.
I’m trying to tackle a couple of side area along with each main mission within the game. So far it’s going great. Loving every bit of it – but as @outbreak has said:
I couldn’t agree with the bolded enough. There are side quests that are standalone and they’re really really well done, but there isn’t enough of them. That is something that DA:O excelled in that I’m ?saddened? about not rivaling/matching.
The Haunted House in the Emerald Graves. Oh My God. That place was creepy as shit.Great replay-ability, can’t wait to go through and do the polar opposite of what I’ve currently done. There goes my month of productiveness.
“Gee they sure don’t hold newbies hands in terms of lore from the first two games.”
“Gee this ‘Back to the Future 3’ movie sure is confusing, it’s like I’m meant to watch the other two first or something.”
(playing on PC with a controller)
The story and questing and the like 9/10.
The art design 5/10. Its all very generic. Looks nice but generic as.
The UI and playability 1/10. Truly dreadful.
Things I truly hate: no weapon switching.
The lack of Tactics in um the Tactics minigame.
The whole creating character thing (really really terrible hair and no save features and having to screw around with cut scenes, every time you want to try something different).
The whole gameplay feels like so much has been left off and sacrificed just to appease console gamers (EG: only eight skills, terrible UI). SO many things that should be in the game arent, its hard to believe this is made by Bioware. The story and dialogue and all those things show a return to depth for them but the UI and gameplay show how far lost they still are in terms of deep gameplay. Character models etc seem way worse than Skyrim?! They seem very old school.
Pretty good summation.
They made a big fancy looking open world, and butchered all the things that made Dragon Age a traditional cRPG. Its a hack-slash ARPG now; sad times. The tactical camera is completely halfassed, its too zoomed in and is difficult and unintuitive to use compared to how brilliantly it worked in Origins. But the biggest loss has to be the nerfing of the Tactics and Behaviours system, with have both been simplified to the point of uselessness. Combine that with a poor companion AI, and you have a recipe for frustrating combat.
The models looks decent as static images, but when they move, the jerky and unnatural animation (especially in cutscenes) becomes apparent. Bioware really need to invest in some mocap so their characters move believably. After playing The Last of Us, Dragon Age’s characters looks like Thunderbirds puppets.
At least Pillars of Eternity is coming soon, but for someone who is DA lore junky, its pretty sad to see the series turn into something completely different.
My PC version keeps crashing randomly. It seems to happen when I access my inventory or visit the weapons merchant, or load the map. No error messages, just crashes to windows. Very annoying.
I did an update of the latest AMD Catalyst drivers and for once since I bought the game it connected me to Origin servers and I saw some stability after that. But to be honest, it’s almost unplayable. Very sad
Happens to me with Nvidia cards too. Sometimes it just plain crash and exit to windows, luckily there are auto-saves or else I would be raging for the loss of hours of my progress.
Can someone tell me how it is on Xbox 360, I don’t care about shiny new graphics graphics, but I want to know if gameplay is still doable.
Are there lots of frame rate issues, do they cut any content, etc?
For whatever reason no publications are running separate reviews and I don’t want to have to upgrade my console but also don’t want to buy a broken game.
Loving it on PS4. Really dense. Lots to do. The camera can be a bitch at times, and the faces are all janked, but compared to DA2 it’s pure sex.
GOTY.
Maybe I’m missing something (I’m still early), but I found the game mechanics (combat, power, etc) pretty easy concepts to grasp. I’m playing a mage though, so I pretty much just stand back while holding RT, and chuck the occasional fireball/chain lightning. Sometimes I jump on top of things so bears can’t get me. Pretty easy stuff.
‘Guard’ is a pretty new concept for me, as a warrior. The idea of building up a permanent-but-disposable shield with some of your abilities is pretty interesting. I haven’t seen that kind of mechanic outside of WoW with the Death Knight’s Blood Shield. The constant need to keep that longer-lasting-barrier topped-up definitely influences some of my tactics.
Try specializing as a Knight Enhancer; also as a mage main you should make sure to combo your freeze and fire spells with your companions =] A good mage should basically be able to control the flow of every fight in the game.
Hint: Make sure to expend at least one skill point in the Barrier spell. It’s essential.
I have been widowed by this game.
Lol
As a newcomer to the series I’ve found it hugely overwhelming but ultimately engaging and fun.
I’m about 20 hours in and have just now at this point started to feel like i’m properly wrapping my head around most things, though I still feel a little clueless in places because so much of the mechanics are so dense and really will take a while to get a good grip on. I don’t usually play games that are this demanding from a player.
I was warned to read up on some DA lore to help understand everything and I did that and am happier for it, I don’t know how anyone can go into this word completely blind, the reading did help set a foundation for the world i’d be in. Even still, at times I have confused by the sheer history and characters that pop up, but i’m getting the overall gist of it.
I admit, tactile camera view is something I do struggle with, I hate ruining the flow of natural game play with constant pausing and shit, it feels stilted, but oh well, that’s rpgs for you. I imagine once I hit dragons and later bosses i’ll be forced to get good at it, sadly.
Overall I ‘m really digging it, it is a tad padded with too much shit, I don’t care how much they cater to regular players of the series, there is still way to much reading to be done for a video game. If I wanted to read 27 pages i’d pick up a damn book, but yeah I do kinda love the games unapologetic enormity.
Currently about 40 hours in (35 hours the first weekend, 5 over the next week…), level 16 party. I’m a little fatigued by the sidequests, and really should take the advice I keep giving people (“leave the freaking hinterlands”) and apply it to every side area. Currently wandering around a desert in Orlais, and it’s nowhere near as interesting as the Hinterlands was – some interesting tombs, but generally nothing but sand for miles. Need to just hop back on the main quest line, given I’m about 4-8 levels above where I need to be for it.
I’m enjoying it, but I have a couple of minor gripes about its design.
The War Room feels like it was originally intended as a companion app, and it’s a huge hassle to go there to reassign advisors when it could easily have been in a menu. Surely the Dragon Age universe has a spanreed equivalent to justify being able to coordinate forces remotely?
The combat, the resource gathering, the crafting, the questing, and many parts of the aesthetic, seem heavily inspired by modern MMOs. This is very subjective, but I find the need to go out and gather 20 of a certain herb to improve my garden, or to research potion upgrades, unnecessarily time consuming. There’s also the problem of enemy spawns feeling like an MMO – I’ve regularly had enemies visibly spawn in behind me, and a few times spawn right on top of me. I can imagine that being a nightmare if I were playing on one of the harder difficulties.
Technical problems aside (I’ve had the game crash several times, at one point the NPC I had to speak to to leave an area was outright missing, and I’ve had my PC completely freeze while playing twice (although I’m thinking that may just be my SSD dying, and not game related)), the time I’ve spent with the main questline has been amazing. I realise I sound like I’m not enjoying the game (I am!), but I just feel that the MMO-ness significantly mars what is otherwise a great game.
That’s a good point with the warroom, now that I think about it I have had times where I’ve wanted to check my quest log while looking at the war room table but as far as I could tell i had to exit then come back which meant more loading screens.
Bioware had thought about how they could tackle this issue and they added/kept it there as an incentive to *want* you to go back to base and not only use the war room but to talk to your companions.
I’ve seen the media post somewhere, I’ll try relink it if you’re interested in it.
I understand why they’d want you to go back to base, given it seems the only place you can converse with your companions (for some reason), or craft stuff. I just find that the frequency with which you need to visit the war room is far higher than the frequency at which new things to do while at your base appear; this has led to me generally going back purely for the three completed quests waiting in the war room, cos I’ve found that if I look for other things to do while there, I usually just spend twenty minutes wandering around not finding anything.
Also, it seems a bit odd that they’d allow fast-travel from the War Room – if people return to the keep for the war room, that would naturally be their first port of call, right? After that, if they couldn’t fast-travel from there, they might say “well, I’m here, might as well see what’s new around the keep.” Even just opening your map to leave, you might spot a new opportunity/quest/NPC that makes you want to stay in the keep to investigate. Instead, I usually travel to Skyhold, go to the war room, assign my advisors, and fast-travel back to where I need to go next. And my companions are all way off the beaten path from courtyard/spawn to the war room (in some cases, in the opposite direction), so I’m unlikely to go see them if I’m targeting the war room first.
I’d be interested to read that link – the whole layout of Skyhold and the existence of the war room and it’s location… the design of it just baffles me.
Seems I was a bit off with the ‘media post’. Saw it on Reddit and assumed that there was a link within the thread. Sorry about that mislead. You’ll find a shiteload of people that share view though.
http://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/2ng58w/theyre_needs_to_be_a_way_to_acess_the_war_room/
Yeah, not enough ‘interesting’ things to do. All of the merchants sell.. Crap.
Nice to know I’m not being any more nitpicky than others, at least. 😛
You can use the war room to have resources gathered for you without having to do it yourself. But I am glad they have the war room function. It means after a few hours I have a reason to return home and chill out for a while beyond “to talk to people”, otherwise honestly, would you ever go back to base?
It’s too good. Too good.
Finished it in around 70 hours. Would have been longer, but realised how close to the end I was.. so burned through it and started over. Now 20 hours into my second play through.
My review is simple: Best game ever.
What. The. Heck. Is with the Dracolisks. I was expecting like, Wyverns… different models. Not dragon skinned horses…
Inventory management system can be improved (on PC) some1 should put the end of just porting controls over across platforms and spend some time on adopting it to the platform…
game it self is great however I do agree its a bit hard to get your head around few things
8/10. Played Origins, haven’t played II. Too casual compared to Origins. Combat more fluid but somehow less interesting.
Yep, totally agree. It looks great and the world is huge, but its mostly filler, the combat is hollow and simplistic, and the game has no soul. Inquisition is no Origins.
Not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination though. Mages are OP. 3x barrier, CD reduction abilities + tank = unbeatable so far. Just quick switch your characters and keep rolling your barriers, haha.
Also – Dark Tranquillity reference? :p
Yes. You’re first person to ever get the reference.
I’m not too sure! Okay, I really wanted to roll a Rouge (I spelt that right? I think.) So I did, and I’ll compare this to Skyrim, I spent God knows how long in the character creator just fine-tuning, I was a little disappointed with the customization options, I mean I’m making me well, not me but someone like me, someone I can laugh at and get attached to.
The human male hair was mediocre at best, maybe because I had that damn plastic looking hair bug and didn’t know how to fix until after I made my character.. >_> I spent way to long to go back now, whatever. I had roleplaying in my mind, so I went for a cautious approach, every option at the start was cautions and not trying to hesitate. I refuse to save before an option, I feel as if that just ruins the experience, we cannot do that IRL so yeah. Anyway I selected an option that appeared to be cautious and my character spazzed out and abused poor Cassandra.
Okay, now the comparison to Skyrim.. I played 37 minutes of Skyrim before quitting. (managed 52 minutes in DA:I) while I had 4 hours to play I could only muster 1 hour before I felt like giving up. Skyrim I did give up, it wasn’t until many months later that I picked Skyrim back up and it was because of mods. Well, it was a sex mod, well not particularity (okay shut up, don’t judge me!) which led to my obsession with mods, from gorgeous bodies, to better husbands for my Dragonborn male, massive battles and general fixes — you guys getting annoyed that I’m talking about Skyrim? Yes? No? Good.
The morale is that mods made me start to enjoy Skyrim, I mean they were so powerful and I ended up having 170 mods running at all times and 16GB of mods, not including texture replacers. Mods made me buy the DLC because the mod needed the DLC to work, I didn’t even know Hearthfire allowed you to build your own house, I just wanted it for a better breezehome house, lol. Morale of this is mod support, why is their no mod support.. please tell me why theirs no mod support.
Whether it just be hair, or a.. sexy body, or making Cullen gay; or even — making them look sexier, better armour and all that juicy stuff, because mods I can drop the graphics to medium, use a better textures mod and feel like it’s on high/ultra and not feel the massive loss and also gain some solid FPS (to use on mods). I do realize it’s using Frostbite, which has never really been mod friendly, and I heard they’re having trouble with patches because of it.
Morale of all this? Without mod support after finishing the game twice (gay human playthrough, and then some random race) I doubt I’ll play it again, which sucks because the game has proven to be really fun, but mods can revive the game constantly by adding slight features, for example the massive battles in Skyrim, that was so cash. And not just the sex scenes.
So really, I’ll give it a 8/10 in hopes they add mods, if not 6/10.
Phew that was long, and rather fun to type out.. really wanna go play Skyrim.. for some se- crazy dragon slaying.
Edit: I seem to say ‘morale’ a lot.
SAVE ME!!! I can’t stop playing this game!
I play it in the mornings while I’m having breakfast, I find crafting and finding materials is great while having a coffee then I chat to my fellow party members.
Night time is business time though, quests and quests and more quests…so many quests!!!
I think I can live off stale bread and coffee for at least a month so if I take my annual leave I should be able to really be able to “knuckle down” and do the main quest.
Oh god the quests…
One of the most expansive, fun and engaging RPG’s ever made.
10/10
I was really disappointed by this game. I played the first one through to the end. The second one I gave up on after about 10 hours.
The quests in DAI are mostly boring go fetch this or kill this many of this style quests that would seem more at home in an mmo. None of the side quests had any substance. After my first 20 hours I started to realise that moving out of the first few areas wasn’t going to make any difference. I didn’t once in my 80 hours playing through this game come across an interesting side quest hidden away in some random cave or abandoned fort. Maybe I was looking for something this series of game doesn’t offer but I was completely underwhelmed by what was offered up during my first play though.
I uninstalled DAI and loaded up a couple of old school games I picked up free shopping at GoG.com when I was buying TW3 preorder during their Xmas pre order discount sale.
I’m enjoying NWN2 heaps more than DAI . Not really sure why so many reviews are so positive about DAI. If its game of the year for 2014 that says far more about the quality of games released last year than it does about the quality of the DAI gaming experience.