It's not without flaws but I really like DA:I. For $20 it's at least worth seeing the side-character plotlines which I thought were great for the most part.

But yeah, like in most open world RPGs it's easy to put way too much time in needless and unfulfilling mini-tasks (and that goes for Witcher 3 aswell, since we're comparing the two, apparently). DA:I has tons of that stuff but it's easy enough to skip.

I would recommend picking it up for $20.

i'd say it's a good deal at 20$, decent cast of characters and an alright combat system. I put in a 100+ hours in it, though i'd say the side quests and stuff weren't that great and mostly filler/fluff

I'll just stick my oar in: I played about 120 hours of DA:I but didn't end up finishing it. Here is my pros and cons list:

Stuff I Liked about DA:I

• The tactical combat mode really made the game a lot more enjoyable for me than even Origins, at least in combat. I just felt like I had a lot more control over my characters and that made it easier to keep everyone alive.
• It looks real nice, with the exception I think of some of the spell effects which are surprisingly chunky compared to the characters and environments. This might just be because when games try and make things translucent they end up looking like 4-inch-thick perspex.
• It's got a pretty neat character creator?
• I think there are some things in the main quest that explore interesting elements of the Dragon Age lore. I think the general view is that the main bad guy is a bit lame, but I actually thought he had some interesting potential - unfortunately it is squandered slightly by the fact that he's barely in it, at least in the first two thirds of the game.
• Fighting dragons is pretty satisfying.
• I think the system of approval from your NPCs is interesting, and adds a much needed layer of complexity to the moral choice systems. It feels like a well refined version of what was in DA:O (which could basically be gamed by buying gifts).
• There's a battle scene near the beginning that is probably the first game-battle that felt like I was taking part in something of the scale of a real battle? Obviously it's all smoke and mirrors, but I appreciated it.

Stuff I disliked about DA:

• The story really dragged - hence me not finishing it. I think this is a problem in a lot of RPGs, where the perception that RPGs need to be loooong means they dilute the focus of the story a lot. Other people have said it, but introducing a world-ending threat, then making the first act of the game all about ending petty political feuds, was a terrible move.
• Not a lot of interesting side quests. Even the ones that don't end up basically being "find a note which adds a quest marker, go to quest marker" tend to be pretty dull. I think the main problem is that what you actually have to do tends to be go to a place, kill dudes. I think the real strength of older RPGs was having quests tied to dungeons you would explore.
• Very restrictive in terms of how you build your character. This is sort of a trend in RPGs and Bioware RPGs in particular. Choosing a thief means a certain set of skills, and only using certain types of weapons and armour, and from a certain set of specialisations. There are certainly different ways to play within that, but it always frustrates me when I'm not allowed to make a non-ideal character that I think sounds cool. It also has an impact on my next point...
• Bad loot and crafting. This game makes the classic mistake of making crafted items way way better than any found loot. I don't think I ever found a weapon that I ended up using, because crafted weapons always had better DPS, and there aren't really any special or status effects that make up for that shortfall. It takes a lot of the joy out of opening chests. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if the crafting was a bit more varied, but I found a recipe for a weapon that I ended up using for basically the whole first third of the game, in the first area. I don't know how the system could be improved, but I definitely feel like the Witcher 3 or even Diablo 3 balance this stuff a lot better. DA:I is almost as bad as Kingdoms of Amalur for this.
• Engaging with a lot of the game's systems means doing a lot of grinding. Grinding means out leveling the main story very quickly.

I could probably say more, but this is what springs to mind most immediately. I would definitely say it is worth $20 if you have nothing else to go with, or to be a bit more charitable, I don't think you'd regret spending that $20. But what other people say is true, there are other games around that offer a lot of what DA:I offers, better. I think everything that is a "pro" for DA:I is done better in one of the games already mentioned, but maybe none of them do all of them - Witcher 3 has a more engaging story. Divinity Original Sin has better tactical combat etc.

Incidentally, I think it's weird that Divinity gets so much shit for having a bad story, kind of? Like, it is trash, but Divinity games have always had trash stories. It's kind of part of their appeal....

Have you played the original Dragon Age and its DLC and whatnot? If you crave an RPG with more tactical depth (read: WITH tactical depth, DA:I has none to speak of) then you might be better off just going to the source, if you haven't already. DA:O was such a fantastic game. It's like DA2 but with multiple locations and combat + loot in a more traditional dungeon crawlery style. (DA2 had loot only for the main character for some reason.. can't remember DA:I much tbh.)

I would go for DA:O before Pillars of Eternity and whatnot. Better in all ways.

Or just put those 20 bucks into Fallout 4 which has been mentioned. I'm thinking F4 is going to be one of the must-plays of 2015 (one of many.)

Anyways, 2015 has basically been 1998-2 as far as great games are concerned, so there should be no shortage of games better than DA:I.

DA:Inquisitions biggest problem imo is that all the side content is basically generic MMO land type of stuff and most of it's landmass is likewise just filler with occasional kill dudes find =thing repetitive quests with no personality. Main story peaks a third of the way through but slides back after that with a weak ass villain. Companions are well done. Mobile management sim is a shallow time sink. If you aren't a completionist and mainline it it is mostly fine. Combat while still has some cool stuff has mostly been culled down in options from previous DA games, even compared to 2. If you aren't too frugal with your $20 and are just in need of shit to fill your time sure go for it.

@ds9143: so true.

I would say that DAI does have some interesting boss battles of you like WOW style combat (though they do tend to drag on a bit).

Still not enough to justify the purchase, in my book.

I enjoyed this game a whole lot. Now that it's been a while I will cede that the main story is bland if you have to put a word to describe the whole thing. But not all of it was bland, considering how much of it there is. I clocked in at 120-130 hours or so and obviously most of that was doing sidequests or collecting things. There's still a lot of story in the game, the main story goes through several different phases and I thought many missions were interesting storywise. Mostly the back third gets more and more bland for me, I thought the early and middle parts of the story were good! There are a lot of sidequests with story as well, many of those were great!

I had fun exploring the environments, and I think it looks really good even on console. A few of the areas were completely unnecessarily open world, for example there is one area that is massive and area but utterly lacking in content that was just bothersome to get through.

There's a home base aspect that I liked, was fun strolling around in.

It's never not worth $20, it's well crafted and pretty and quite fun.

the issue I have with people saying "Choose the witcher 3 instead" is that they are kinda different games arent they? like in dragon age your playing your story. In witcher you are playing geralts story arent you? I guess my question is: is there as much character choose? are you building your own character like in a bioware game or is it just that they are both western RPGs?

I dont know...seems games should be taken by thmeselelves not based on other games that are kinda like it

I havent gotten to witcher 3 yet so maybe im totally wrong here

It is absolutely worth 20 dollars.I bought it day one at full price and i thought it was completely worth it.I still think DA:I is the best game in the series,even after going back to the other two games recently.I also would rather play DA:I again before i would play the witcher series,pillars or whatever else was recommended over it.At the end of the day i understand this game is insanely divisive,so at 20 dollars you need to just try it yourself to see what you think.

@bradbrains:

That's only true to a point. DAIgives you choice but at the cost of most of it being very superficial and character interactions based on your choice being very inconsistent...

Witcher 3 is telling you a very specific story but your actions do have an effect on how it all turns out (more than just what color filter the end credits are colored in) and more importantly for me, characters respond in believable ways to your actions.

It really bugs me when some huge event happens in a game and than your close advisors and "friends" in the story have little to no response to how it would effect your character. Or they respond in very out of character ways... This happens continually in DAI.

In the Witcher 3 even random NPC respond to the choices you make in the story.

@twi: yea that seems totally valid

I guess my point was these games kinda seem to be trying to accomplish different things within the WRPG mold.

I actually purchased dragon age recently and choose it over witcher because of being able to create my own charcter and the bioware conversation tree style which they do really well. also the price (cheap student). also battle system are totaly different

@bradbrains:

Totally fair!

I never finished it but it's definitely worth 20 bux, i paid full price and not really mad i did but it couldn't hold my attention all the way through. I may go back and try to play again , but if you don't have the witcher 3 i would put money into that instead as it's a much much much better game. If you've got 50-100 hours and are into standard bioware character interactions and storyline i say go for it.

If you have an Xbox One you can get a years EA Access for $20 and that includes all the vault games (if they're your jam) which includes DA:I

Yeah, 20 bucks is a pretty good price. I personally like the Witcher 3 far better than DA:I but if you want to burn some cash on it for a pretty cheap price (video game-wise) then go for it.

Dragon Age Inquisition was a fun enough game which dragged on a bit much and lost my interest about 5 hours before the end, but that's on me for deciding to try & do everything early on.

It is absolutely worth $20. It's a good game. I thought it was great when I started it and it's not, but it's definitely worth $20. Hell, I didn't feel ripped off buying it at launch.

@humanity: What gets me about Inquisition is the way they changed some pretty important mechanics from Origins. The random-loot system is just bad, I don't understand why you would implement that when games like Dark Souls and Origins already have manually-placed loot down. The sparse party banter also really bugged me. I think the number of times my party interacted with one another was in the low teens. The combat basically had me on autopilot mode (nightmare difficulty and some mods do help with this however and actually let a serviceable combat engine shine). Side quest design also leaned too much on mmo design, which I think holds true for all of the entries in the series, but the payoff to these in Inquisition was built up as you finished more and more parts only to have the hidden dungeons be a massive disappointment because of the random loot system.

Man, I don't know. I want to like and defend this game just for the characterization alone, but other recent rpgs do the gameplay thing better and The Wither 3 arguably beats Inquisition in it's sole strength; the writing department. I don't know. DAI is a perfectly serviceable RPG, but the OP has much better rpgs to spend his hard-earned money on.

Personally, I was going to wait for the complete "game of the year" edition to hit $20 before I pulled the trigger on it, but then it turns out all the DLC is served up as download codes inside the box so fuck that (I am physical-centric on console releases). Cheap standard edition sounds good, go for it.

@the_tribunal: Hey man, I played a heck ton of Inquisition, beat it, and had a lot of fun from beginning to end. That said, I can't really disagree with much of what you said apart from the party banter complaint which was actually a bug - I played after the patch and they all talked pretty frequently. I think part of enjoying Inquisition requires you to distance yourself from the previous games and treat it more like a reboot rather than a sequel. Combat was in fact awkward and either too hard or too easy depending on your level. I did have some interesting fights but most of the time, playing as a mage, I was able to wipe out my opponents pretty quickly. Thing is, I don't know, I didn't mind that. In a way I enjoyed the power fantasy. There were just enough peaks and valleys in terms of difficulty to keep me on my toes once in a while but also make me feel like a complete badass otherwise.

I collected all those shards and unlocked all those hidden temple doors for a completely inadequate payoff and while in every other game I'd probably be pretty pissed off, in Inquisition I honestly didn't care. The game struck this unique chord with me where I simply liked the flow of the gameplay. Those much maligned, as people so frequently label them, mmo styled quests were perfect in my opinion because I never had to waste my time returning to a quest giver - it just went. Poof, here is your experience go find six more soldiers that are lost or whatever and I was happy to go do it. I'm not going to make up any excuses for the game, it certainly had it's fair share of problems and shortcomings, but ultimately I just had fun playing it.

how is this even a question. I thought it was nuts this wasn't on the staff's top 10 list this is an excellent game

Skip it.

I don't like the game but $20 is not a bad deal

Not as compelling as DA:O (which is one of my personal favorites) but the combat is fun on harder difficulties and it's fun to explore the gorgeous environments. In terms of content alone I think it's worth $60 and I never purchased any DLC. At $20 definitely pick it up and just play it when you're in a drought.

As a fan of DA lore, I liked having the two countries (continents?) to explore but I think the BioWare formula has kind of worn out its welcome on me. This particular save-the-world story was too heavy handed in my opinion. After DA:I and 2 you could tell they were building up to something grand story-wise, and while this had me very excited early on in Inquisition as the story started to come together, I was kind of left with the impression that they blundered it (is that even a word?) after playing through probably 85% of the story. Granted I played in two separate chunks of about 60 and 30 hours months apart. I tell myself that I'll return and finish it but I don't think that will be happening any time soon after this fall's release schedule.

As others have said, lots of customization (which was one of my favorite parts of the game). Lots of side content that is mostly meaningless, and the game does a poor job of letting you know that most of it really is unnecessary. Essentially they lock areas / main story missions behind a sort of currency (the name escapes me) that you earn for completing missions, and early on it seems like this currency is going to be hard to come by so you feel the need to complete a lot of side content. A little less than halfway through the game (some could argue earlier) this currency becomes extremely easy to acquire, but by this point a lot of people burned out on the game which is a bummer, because all of the areas are definitely worth seeing just for their art design alone.

The combat's difficulty can vary. I played on hard, and there were a few fights early on where I definitely felt like I was maybe under-leveled or had a poor party composition and thus really struggled. I think it has more to do with the game's weird healing system where (it's been a while so someone correct me if I'm wrong) there are no healing spells (aside from a rez) and you depend entirely upon a finite supply of potions. You can refill these fairly easily in the open world, but in some of the more linear segments there are specific caches which you must rely upon to refill your supply. I think I may have missed one of these caches in the specific encounter I'm thinking of, because I went into a boss fight with a low supply of healing potions and the fight felt legitimately impossible. I want to say I was about to say fuck it and lower the difficulty to easy before I loaded a save from about an hour earlier and found I had missed a potion cache right before the fight. That said, the difficulty evened out over the course of the game and it's very possible to over-level for the main story. Even if that's the case, there are always the dragons to take on if you want a challenging combat experience. Said dragon fights are the best in the game. I think I only beat two of them but they're definitely my most memorable combat experiences, they are similar to MMO boss fights and it is quite difficult (but not unwieldy) to manage a party of four in these fights. With specific regards to these fights, I think they were better done in DA:O and its expansion because it was easier to control characters but now I'm just nitpicking.

If you like RPGs pick this one up just to see how you like it, because it was (and still seems to be) quite divisive so you might really enjoy it. Since we're all comparing it to the Witcher, yes the Witcher 3 is a better game. DA:I is a very formulaic BioWare RPG. If you know what that means, you can manage your expectations pretty well and get a lot out of the experience. I never played Witcher 1, played through probably 2/3 of Witcher 2 upon release and don't remember any of it, and thought Witcher 3 felt very fresh and caught me by surprise with its quality.

Is the game $20 with or without the DLC?????