Dragon Age Inquisition

[IATIA]

I have not got it yet. Santa brought me instead, a 8800M GTX card for my M15x. I just finished putting it in this past weekend. All seems good, so hopefully I can I can pick up a copy of Dragon Age Inquisition soon.

[Jaysyn]

Who else got this for Xmas? Or before, I guess, if you don't have to wait for Santa.

I got it for my birthday, 60+ hours in & just made it to

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Skyhold.

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It's great. Makes me want to find DA:2 for cheap even though everything I've read about it said it couldn't hold a candle to DA: Origins.

[Napoléon]

I got it for my birthday, 60+ hours in & just made it to

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Skyhold.

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Jesus what the fuck were you doing?

I read that most players stay in the Hinterlands for ages not realising they don't have to do everything there and they end up grinding for ages.

The story gets better though once you get to Skyhold. I'm about 40 odd hours in and just romanced Sera. Like, I don't know whether I'm disappointed or not. I almost get the sense that there's a few too many characters to talk to in this game, daft as that sounds. You can easily spend an hour and a half just in between quests talking to your companions. I almost feel like I'm getting too much of a good thing. Also, some of the romance responses are cringeworthy as fuck. Like, my character literally said "Sera, I'm inviting you up to my quarters". Most of the time the responses are pretty good, but every now and then you end up saying something like a robot or something you just think "wtf did you say that for", and it kills the vibe.


Everything else is pretty awesome though, I'm just looking for things to criticize I guess.

[abaris]

I'm taking a page from your book and have a look at it before I actually buy it. Mainly because of Origins, which is a little bit too intrusive for my liking.

[Jaysyn]

Jesus what the fuck were you doing?

Clearing the Hinterlands, Hidden Oasis, Fallow Mire & the Storm Coast pretty much. I was having fun. I was level 12 before I left Haven. Still haven't figured out how to get the last shard in Hidden Oasis.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I'm 80 hours in, on the PS4, and my review is as follows (warning: some spoilers!£:

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Good

Great immersive story (at least IMO), great map designs that are numerous and somewhat diverse. Lots of room for customisation with different roles and equipment customisation. No need to follow the major storyline at all really until you need to access more maps. I'm lv. 21 and I've only just gone onto the fade, which I think is like the 3rd/4th map of the main quest?

You can reset your customisations and start an entirely new idea (within reason), and they've made it just complicated enough that with a party of 4 you can mix and match skills and abilities to create an entirely new party dynamic. Eg, get your tank in the middle whilst you have a couple of archers/mages doing different things from range. But if you don't like that switch it up and get a reaver charging head first with a two handed axe which s/he then swings into the carnage knocking things to the floor whilst your necromancer takes control of a recently deceased demon and mops them up on the floor. Funny to see how the same battle can be done in a myraid of ways depending on who you've got in your party and what skill set they've got.

Also, DECISIONS THAT MEAN SOMETHING (looking at your ME3!). When I chose to kill someone, people hate/like me. When I chose to leave someone on a map to die, people react much later in the game. When I chose to start a romance with someone, others dislike me because they want some herald poon.

Also, killing dragons. They can be awesome battles with the exception of one issue which I note below in bad.

Characters are good, and interact in funny ways when you're on missions. Some hate each other, and some have respect for each other, so part of the game is managing your relationships with them to ensure they like (or indeed hate) you. GFX ON the PS4 are also very good. Unlike the PS3 it seems, there's no lag in loading textures and maps load within about 5 seconds almost without exception.

Bad

Fetch quests. Everything's a fucking fetch quest. I know it's unrealistic not to expect fetch quests on a game like this, but really some of them don't even have a payoff except a little bit of XP. 'Find this piece of wood' - ok. With the shards at least you get stuff when you unlock the temple doors, but just seems like 60/70% of the maps are comprised of 'filler' fetch quests.

Worst thing, and I'll just say it, is the knight enchanter. Way, way too overpowered. I play on hard, but I could easily complete the game with just viv on nightmare with the right combinations of powers. It annoys me because I like viv as she's an asshole, and I like asshole characters in my RPGs. But I can't use her in a big battle because it's too damn easy. I mean her barrier makes her able to take down a dragon by herself, which ruins it.

Another negative is that the tactical view is totally irrelevent unless you're on nightmare difficulty. After around lv.10 you can waste most enemies aside the dragons and possible some of the high level demons and Templars by just running in and scrapping toe to toe. Equally however, I read that nightmare (less the knight enchanter) becomes tactical overload, where every battle is micromanaged. Sure I guess a lot of people like that, but I'm not one of them really (I do like using tactical view in larger battles though, just don't fancy it for fighting a single large bear, or a little fox).

Also, glitches. Bioware fucked up a bit on polishing the game off (unrealistic perhaps considering the size of the game?) I've fallen through the scenery at least 4 times I think thus far. Folks have posted some funny videos online of their escapades too:

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[Napoléon]

Also, DECISIONS THAT MEAN SOMETHING (looking at your ME3!).

Are you sure though? I mean, the characters you get to judge are largely inconsequential, and to my knowledge blackwall is about the only party member who can get killed.

From what I've seen the choices you get to make in Inquisition are just decisions that give the illusion of consequence, albeit very well done. They actually don't affect the gameplay much or even the story. From one review I read it doesn't even matter whether you fully upgrade everything in Skyhold, or even get to know your characters before the end of the story.

People bitched about ME3 but actually all of this stuff did matter. Even in ME2, if you didn't have the confidence of your crew they'd get killed in the final battle, or if you made the wrong call and put someone in position to do something they're not skilled to do they could die. In ME3 the whole point was to build up to a final battle, and it WOULD affect the overall outcome, despite what people say about the '3 coloured ending'. From what I've seen (I still haven't finished the story yet but I've read up on it), none of your 'choices' actually have much of an effect on the story. Certainly not as much as what ME3 did. Does it matter if you upgrade Skyhold? Does it matter if Solas disapproves of everything I do? I haven't seen anything so far to indicate that these things actually matter. There's actually no way of seeing what your companion's opinion of you is, so does it matter?

I don't mean to shit on the game, but if you're gonna compare the choice element to what's offered in ME3, I have to be honest and say that so far the choices don't seem to be making much of a difference to the actual story, unlike ME3.

[abaris]

People bitched about ME3 but actually all of this stuff did matter. Even in ME2, if you didn't have the confidence of your crew they'd get killed in the final battle, or if you made the wrong call and put someone in position to do something they're not skilled to do they could die. In ME3 the whole point was to build up to a final battle, and it WOULD affect the overall outcome, despite what people say about the '3 coloured ending'.

ME2 executed the illusion of choice fairly well. As opposed to ME3. People were mainly bitching about the ending and rightfully so, but that's fr another discussion.

[Napoléon]

ME2 executed the illusion of choice fairly well. As opposed to ME3. People were mainly bitching about the ending and rightfully so, but that's fr another discussion.

Pre-extended cut they had a right to bitch and it was the first thing I did after completing it. The ramifications of your decisions were explained after the extended cut was released though and honestly I think anyone who moaned after that was just expecting too much.

The main thing that disappointed me with that ending was that it had to end at all, and I suspect that's what it was like for most people. That is was rushed because of EA and their shitty business practices, leading to a completely blunt and unexplained end is what people were pissed about. But like I said, the extended cut resolved that, maybe not in the way everyone will like, but you can't say you weren't given choices. What you did actually affected whether people lived or died, and the fate of the entire galaxy in 9 different significant ways, with smaller aspects to the story changing depending on your smaller choices.

Whatever people say, Mass Effect was a masterpiece from game 1 to game 3.

But yeah, going off the topic of Dragon Age a bit, but it's not a bad idea to compare because they're all bioware games.

[abaris]

But yeah, going off the topic of Dragon Age a bit, but it's not a bad idea to compare because they're all bioware games.

And sadly EA too, which shows by tagging on multiplayer to make some additional dimes. I wait a bit with my purchase until it goes down to something like 40 or 30 dollars, which should happen later this year.