Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition

I'm so very late with this one, and there is a very good reason for that, I've been playing and enjoying the game.

Dragon Age: Inquisition throws you directly into the action, going with the trope that the main protagonist have lost his memory he or she now stands accused for killing everyone in the meeting between the templars and the rebelling mages. Being a captive as the lone survivor and having a strange magic bound to your hand, your sent of to close the gigantic fade rift that tore the sky apart and killed everyone at the meeting, everyone but you.

From there the game is pretty much open for you to explore, with overwhelming numbers of quests to do, people to talk to, requisitions to fill and monsters to kill. This game is the result Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age making a love child! 

The Good

I love the openness in this game! It's the best that BioWare have produced since... Ever! There's so much to explore, and I'm pretty sure that it's designed to be more than most players will care to do. A game where there's always something more to go back to and do is a really good game. 

I must admit that I was afraid of the combat system in this game, but the tactical view have a nice flow and it is easy to tell your party what to do (even if they don't always listen, more on that later), and you don't always have to use it either, for those easy quick fights, some fast paced action might be better suited.

The war table also is a fun feature, where you order your advisers to investigate plots, gather resources or scout new areas to open them for exploration. I can only hope that a high tech version of this will be in the next Mass Effect!

Companions also have a story, and so much character! You'll have to speak to them often, and my only concern is that I don't have time to invest in all the characters. You'll have to help them with missions and bring them on side quests, which ruins my perfect combos! The ones I talked to are great thought, and remember to talk to the advisers as well.  

The Bad

I started playing on Nightmare difficulty, where almost every foe is deadly and will kill you if you don't know what to do. This game mode forces you to learn how to handle your party. Sadly, I had to change the difficulty to get past a certain step in the story where you can't change the party, and the notorious AI keeps screwing up what I'm trying to do. The AI of your party members make this game harder than it has to be, and that is the games major flaw. They sometimes outright refuse to do what you told them to and keep attacking something instead of reviving a fallen team mate. This made made the game more frustrating than fun, and the constant micromanagement in every battle felt more tedious than challenging. If you consider playing on Nightmare, make sure you optimize your party, and absolutely make sure to be over leveled!

The rest is minor flaws, things such as when you use your mount, your other party members disappear, only to reappear when you dismount. I'm guessing this has to do with pathing and the mounts being larger than characters etc. But it had been nice to have your whole party mounted and trotting around.

Bottom line

This is the best game I played this year, and it's the best in the Dragon Age series. It's not perfect, and I consider the AI a major flaw, but that's also the only major flaw there is. I hope that BioWare use this game as a foundation to build the next Mass Effect game upon. The only thing you have to consider before buying this is that your social life will probably take a huge hit from this. The hours spent in game go real fast, and there's always that "one thing left" to do.