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.

So many games, so little time

So I've haven't written anything this week, mostly because I haven't played any new games. My goal is to play at least one new game each month, and write a review about it. It's much less than the average gaming site, I know, but those guys rarely pays for their games and instead get paid to play and write about them, lucky bastards...

Having Dragon Age: Inquisition waiting around the corner, I figured I have some time actually finishing some games and having time playing indie games and titles that aren't AAA. So this weekend I'll be getting some achievements for Shadow over Mordor, and then be playing Child of Light which have been on my to do list since release in September. A review should be up by the start of next week.

My Twitch has also been in some sort of hibernation for the last month, mostly because I haven't played any multiplayer game recently. I will stream all weekend, if your interested in Child of Light, and you should be, just look at those screenshots! I will also pick up Halo: Master Cheif Edition for some battle rifling, as soon as I'm done with Dragon Age.

Speaking of multiplayer games, Titanfall is on sale (50% off), with the season pass being dirt cheap (75% off!), so if your a Xbox One owner, or ever will be, this is your time to get a great fast paced shooter for a great price!

My guide to get back into Thedas

With less than one month left until Dragon Age: Inquisition is released the hype is higher than ever, and while the both first games where really good, if you forget about the lack of impact you really had to the story outcome in the second game, it's been well over three years since the second game came out and you might be in as much need of a lore refresh as me.

Sure, you can replay both games and be done with it. I'm on the other hand see more good releases now than I have time to play, which means that spending 20 hours per game for a quick play through just won't cut it. So, then what do I do to get myself into the lore?

First, there is this wonderful YouTube channel which have a lore series episode come out every Tuesday up to the release date. That's 12 episodes, every with 6 minutes of easy digestible chunks about a specific part of the lore. From races to nations to the Fade. I watched their series on Elder Scrolls before the launch of ESO, and it really got me into the game more. All the effort these guys have put into making these episodes make them such a delight to watch.

The next part of this short two step program is the comic books from Dark Horse Comics. I've read the first part, The Silent Grove, of three comics in the series following Alistair, Isabela and Varric in Antiva. And don't worry, this is the hardened version of Alistair that willingly became king, not the whiny one from the first parts of the game that can end up drunk in Kirkwall. The story is centered around Alistair and his mission of finding answers to his past, but also broadens Isabelas story, which hasn't had as much focus as Alistair's.
I can strongly recommend reading this comic, firstly as the story has been written by David Gaider, the game series lead writer of the game series. Secondly, the comic is beautifully drawn, and full of dark humor and the quick, sometimes snide, dialogue that made the first game, and every other BioWare game, such joy to play. This comic series is also one of the closest one to Dragon Age: Inquisition, happening two years before the game starts, making it a perfect way to fast forward to the current part of the lore.

While I eagerly wait to get my hands on the next comic book, and for the next episode to air, I'm trying to decide what to play in Inqusition and the only thing I've decided so far is that it's not going to be a mage, probably.