Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age's progression as a series from game to game has been very interesting to say the least. I really enjoyed the strategic nature of Dragon Age Origins' combat, and the way it introduced you to a setting that seemed had a long history before you got there. I had to think about which decisions I wanted to make, who I wanted to take along with me and care about, and how to use them. Dragon Age 2 was a weird departure from being the savior of the world, and I thought it was kind of refreshing for that, but I understand why people didn't care for it. The combat was a little looser and the world was a little smaller. Now we have Dragon Age (3) Inquisition which has characters that can be argued as best in the series, but has some serious missteps.

Dragon Age's lore is somewhat of an in-between of Lord of the Rings (film) and Game of Thrones (show). It's not quite as dark and nude as Game of Thrones, but not quite as whimsical as Lord of the Rings can be. It has found a great middle ground between grit and fantasy, and is very easy to want to know every facet of its backstory. Personally, I really like the characters that make Dragon Age so great. Bioware has some great, creative writers that know how to develop characters enough to care about. Characters like Cassandra, Leliana, Morrigan, Solas, and Varric are some of the best parts of Dragon Age. The quips and comments that these companions throw around at you and each other feel real. It gives you an understanding of what these people care about and why they care. In turn, when they ask you to do them some favors, you may actually feel compelled to do so.

The important quests that Dragon Age Inquisition sends you on are terrific. There are some fantastic set-piece moments and character arcs that develop within these adventures. The main campaign quest line is good, but pretty standard fare for someone who has a basic understanding of what Dragon Age is. One who has delved deep into Dragon Age lore will obviously get a lot more out of it, but it isn't really necessary. I would, however, say that one who has played Dragon Age Origins, and Dragon Age 2 will get more out of inquisition than someone who skipped them. You might be tasked to defeat a dragon, hunt down an enemy of your companions, further the inquisition's cause, or do a menial collection/fetch quest. Inquisition provides a good variety of objectives, but the good quests to bad quests ratio is where the game starts to fall apart.

This third Dragon Age game has changed a lot of things about how a Dragon Age game plays. For instance, Dragon Age now has open environments. You can walk, or rather jog, around the many outstanding-looking environments and now reach higher ground through the new jumping mechanic. So, now you can effectively platform your way up hills or over obstacles. In theory, this is great in an explorative sense, but this new openness is used to some familiar, disappointing ends. There are rarely events or people worth finding in the world. Sure, there are quests that have you covering the vast majority of locals on each map, but they do so in order for you to place a quest item on something, talk to someone, or fight a creature or two. The most exposition is given through hundreds of text boxes that pop onto screen for your reading pleasure. Personally, I am not averse to reading something compelling, but given how many pop ups there are, it is ridiculous. This open nature also means you will spend a lot of time running around the same environment, and I definitely got tired of looking at things after a while. This was especially terrible when the game prevented me from reaching certain areas due to enemies being too high of level. The open world feels very much like a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game in that the world is open, but there is not much to find in it until the game directs you there. Also, the side stuff that it does direct you to is not very compelling.

The game offers mounts to get around the world more quickly, but they hinder your ability to gather items, engage in combat, and are just not even fast enough to bother with. Speaking of combat, the combat has changed. It is almost inadvisable to use the paused strategic view in combat, which is almost heinous in a Dragon Age game. Visually, the combat looks fantastic as dramatic spells fly through the air, warriors strikes look impressively powerful, and rogues can vanish and dash with great speed. In practice, however, the combat is more akin to a MMO than ever before. More often than not, I found myself sticking with a single character for the entirety of a difficult boss encounter which I had never done in a previous Dragon Age game. I'm honestly surprised they didn't take the Mass Effect route and just give you a way to select a party members powers quickly and not let you switch between them. I would hate that, but it seems to be the route this series is going in. I believe the problem arises with how you have to hold the right trigger to attack. There is no auto attack like in older Dragon Age games. Instead, you hold the button and your character attacks until you release it. Abilities can be triggered similar to an MMO by pressing face buttons. You can tell your party which powers you want them to use, but not why or when. It's a very dumb thing to remove, because now they just use their powers when you switch between them, and you switch back with them having used all of their mana/stamina. In general, your allies use their abilities when they see fit, and things work out. The combat is not very challenging or engaging.

The surrounding elements of Dragon Age are fantastic. The setting looks great, and when the characters explain the history of their world it works out. The sounds are well done, and then musical score is as beautiful as ever. There are specific songs that play in the tavern that are some of my favorites. Going back and playing the first and second games in the series definitely shows how far it has progressed visually. Each open environment you travel to from your keep looks strikingly different from the last. Each time I opened a new area from my war table, I couldn't wait to see what it looked like, though I wished Crestwood stayed all rainy and gloomy.

So, here we have it - a Dragon Age game that is fantastic in some ways and really disappointing in others. I can definitely say that I played a lot of it (205 hours in fact), but most of it (over 100 hours) is complete nonsense. That has never really been the Dragon Age way in such a massive way before this game. The characters and some of the outer layers are better than they ever have been. In fact, given how forgiving the combat was, and how poor the side content was, I really wanted to get to each story and character moment that much quicker. Other choices that Bioware thought were good are quite baffling. For instance, why do I have to wait several hours, or almost an entire day sometimes, for my war table to complete an objective to progress a questline forward? The war table is like a mobile game, but I digress. I completed everything that was available in the game, but given the dull nature of most of the content, it was hard. It was hard to force myself through it, and a lot harder than in past games in the series. It is odd to say, but I would advise anyone who plays this game to stick with the main content and try to skim over the side content as much as the game will allow. With that said, the moments that I really enjoyed were some of my favorites of all DA games. Dragon Age Inquisition has some fantastic moments, but they are rare when most of what it provides is completely uninspired.