A mediocre plot sucks the enjoyment out of an otherwise good game (Spoilers Inside)
I really wanted to like Dragon Age: Inquisition. I spent hours and hours running across the varied landscapes of Thedas. Picking herbs, slaying dragons, and completing side objectives, I couldn’t help but notice how little I cared about the main story in a Dragon Age game.
It’s not that I came into DA:I uninterested, the opening of the game sucked me right in. Watching the castle explode surprised me and after making my bearded human archer I was excited to play Dragon Age. I watch him awake to being accused of the explosion. I felt the weight of Thedas as I watched my bearded avatar stare up into the green hole in the sky. I was invested to figure out what happened and to patch the sky up.
As I continued forward I watch myself become thrust into a leadership position, surrounded by fascinating companions, and then tasked with ending a civil war between templars and mages. These things made me feel a sense of joy at seeing what made me love Origins so much again.
But then I ended the civil war, siding with the templars and with their help I just patched the hole in the sky and in only a handful of hours into the game. I thought to myself “Wait, we did it? That was kind of easy” This was when I watched myself turn on DAI’s story from engaged to bored and one of the biggest reasons I lay at the feet of one character Corypheus.
Corypheus is DAI’s big baddy this time and he comes with an army of demons, possessed mages (or templars depending on who you side with) and even his own freaking Archdemon. Not to mention he’s also the man largely responsible for the creation of the Darkspawn in the first place. With all that you’d figure he’d feel like this massive new threat you felt intimidated by or at least respected. Sadly to say Corypheus is not much more than a saturday morning cartoon villain with a better vocabulary and more bloody powers.
I never not once saw why anyone in this universe was scared of him, considering as you play through the entire game you foil him at every turn. Him only ever getting one real win on you through brute force alone when he destroys your first base. (That’s immediately replaced by another one.) Even though we never see it I always imagined him shaking his fist and declaring he’d get me next time. Not to mention he looks like the cousin of the stretchy face villain from Star Trek: Insurrection.
But Corypheus isn’t the only story flaw, recall how I mentioned that I spent hours in the open areas? I can only recall two instances when those open areas actually interacted with the plot of the game. Almost every mission in the game is placed in a unique area detached from the main exploration areas making me often forget after hours of play what I was even going to be doing next.
This sucks because the open areas are a lot of fun and the combat grew on me really quickly. Wandering around with my team listening to their banter and even seeing it change as I grew to know them better I desperately wanted to like this game and I was eventually turning around on the positive until I reached it’s climax.
Do you recall Dragon Age: Origins climax? The summit to clear your name, the cutting down of a traitor, the deciding of who takes the crown as you bring together all the factions of the game to fight a massive army of darkspawn and eventually face down an old god in the form of a dragon. The Archdemon who’s coming your character has had nightmares about through the entire game. Yeah, put simply DAI’s is not as good as that. It’s actually borderline boring, except for watching two dragons fight though that doesn’t last long. Corypheus is backed into a corner so he tries to reopen the whole in the sky basically screaming “Here I am!”. I go there and banter with Corypheus a little before I just shoot him and his Archdemon with a lot of arrows until they both died. And like the moment when I sealed the hole with those templars all I could think was “Welp, that was easy.”
As my character went back to base where they were holding a big party all I could do was sigh and feel no accomplishment for slaying an old incompetent mage who I’d basically already beaten. And then the ending happens and it’s pretty much gives the impression that this game was just set up for the next game. Admittedly these events could come up in Trespasser which I’ve yet to play but it’ll be a while before I feel like doing so. All I know now is after this and DAII it’s going to take some serious convincing for me to care about Dragon Age again.
