Dragon Age: Inquisition Review Thread

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Yep. It is one of those games that you just know is going to be great. They had the time, it looked the part and their confidence in it showed. I have no doubt that it will end up being my GOTY. Congrats, BioWare. I never stopped believing in you.
 
My plan suddenly change. I will buy DAI first and GTA5 later.

Cannot remember the last time I and my friends play RPG game separately but keep talking about it every times we can.
 
ironcreed said:
Yep. It is one of those games that you just know is going to be great. They had the time, it looked the part and their confidence in it showed. I have no doubt that it will end up being my GOTY. Congrats, BioWare. I never stopped believing in you.
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I kind of did. And now I feel ashamed. When they're on the top of their game, it's GOTY -material for me.
 
Nabbis said:
So... About the plot critique. I enjoyed the world building of DA:O and the lore entries in DA II. Am i going to be disappointed or is the plot critique more for the fact that the main plot is kinda cliche?

Based on the reviews, i really don't know what to expect. Everything seems to be so vague.
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Sounds like it's mainly the cliche save the world plot anyone in their right mind was expecting.
 
Nabbis said:
So... About the plot critique. I enjoyed the world building of DA:O and the lore entries in DA II. Am i going to be disappointed or is the plot critique more for the fact that the main plot is kinda cliche?

Based on the reviews, i really don't know what to expect. Everything seems to be so vague.
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I wouldn't be surprised if part of it is just lack of familiarity with the lore. Consider that corypheus probably wasn't a big reveal in da2s legacy dlc to anyone except lore hounds...and for those fans it was huge. Inquisition might be the same where what's going on seems cliche unless you know the backstory. That's what I'm expecting anyway.
 
Renekton said:
I thought they voluntarily chose to focus on TOR?

That was their WoW
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A different studio of theirs made TOR. In fact, it was made for that.
aspiegamer said:
Freaking hell. I might have to relax my 5-year+ EA boycott for this. So torn...
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EA seems to have kept their hands out of the pie as much as possible this time around. If ever there were a time that buying a game would send the message you'd want to EA, this is it.
 
Jibbajabbawockky said:
  1. Story is a rehash of Origins just on a bigger scale- Chosen One, Save the World from Ancient Evil.
  2. Taking design queues from AssCreed in terms of junk filler collectable quests, even if they tie into the Power mechanic
  3. Lack of big city areas- The RPGFan review mentions Val Royeaux, supposedly one of the biggest cities in the DA world, is limited to a marketplace and there are no areas like Denerim or Athkatla from BG2
  4. The PC menus are rubbish
  5. The tactical camera is not as versatile as the Origins tactical camera. The Eurogamer and RPGFan review mention how the Tactical Camera frequently gets stuck on objects in the environment and in areas with low ceilings. Which means its very much not like the Origins tactical camera which had the ability to break from the geometry to give you an open view on things, regardless of whether you were in an open area or an indoor location.
  6. The Tactics menu (that they've been reluctant to show in any streams) has been severely gimped and dumbed down.
  7. Various technical glitches unrelated to bad firmware- characters glitching through geometry, dialogue options disappearing
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Damn. I played DA1 almost exclusively using tactical view. This news effectively killed my hype. :(
 
Are there any video reviews aside from Gamespot? IGN and Gametrailers haven't put theirs up yet
 
Jibbajabbawockky said:
Seems like many of the negatives in some of the reviews are things I've been worried about for a while:

  1. Story is a rehash of Origins just on a bigger scale- Chosen One, Save the World from Ancient Evil.
  2. Taking design queues from AssCreed in terms of junk filler collectable quests, even if they tie into the Power mechanic
  3. Lack of big city areas- The RPGFan review mentions Val Royeaux, supposedly one of the biggest cities in the DA world, is limited to a marketplace and there are no areas like Denerim or Athkatla from BG2
  4. The PC menus are rubbish
  5. The tactical camera is not as versatile as the Origins tactical camera. The Eurogamer and RPGFan review mention how the Tactical Camera frequently gets stuck on objects in the environment and in areas with low ceilings. Which means its very much not like the Origins tactical camera which had the ability to break from the geometry to give you an open view on things, regardless of whether you were in an open area or an indoor location.
  6. The Tactics menu (that they've been reluctant to show in any streams) has been severely gimped and dumbed down.
  7. Various technical glitches unrelated to bad firmware- characters glitching through geometry, dialogue options disappearing
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These are the most common shared negatives the reviews have had? Cause that actually makes me even more excited lol. I'm perfectly fine with a save the world type of story, I like collectable quests and I'm going to be playing with a controller anyway so the bad PC menus don't matter to me. Also gonna play it like I'd play FFXII so I doubt I'll be using the tactical view much either. Lack of big cities is a bummer though.

So excited!
 
Nabbis said:
So... About the plot critique. I enjoyed the world building of DA:O and the lore entries in DA II. Am i going to be disappointed or is the plot critique more for the fact that the main plot is kinda cliche?

Based on the reviews, i really don't know what to expect. Everything seems to be so vague.
Click to expand...

I read the really in-depth one at PCGamer and Kotaku, and I especially noticed how Kotaku said they weren't sure if their choices really had any consequences throughout the campaign, but on the other hand PCGamer called the campaign "excellent" and meanwhile I've seen other sites claim that the main plot is a detractor from the character moments which is where the game really shines. I recall that on one of the sites there was a paragraph that said something like "just don't expect anything mindblowing from the campaign like a big unpredictable twist or something"

also a major or minor spoiler depending on what you consider it to be, regarding the endgame
your protagonist apparently is still alive after the credits and you can keep exploring a la Mass Effect 2
 
I'm really shocked by the people complaining that the game has a 'save the world/chosen one' style narrative. Basically the only BioWare game to attempt to deviate from that mild was DA2 and it gets universally panned except in very small circles.
 
Might dig into this over Christmas break, although the combat looked a bit boring in the one video I watched (archer moving and striking a wraith like Monster 20 -30 times before killing it) there appears to be tons of content and a deep world to espace in. Intrigued and will probably buy :)
 
Jsheldon said:
Might dig into this over Christmas break, although the combat looked a bit boring in the one video I watched (archer moving and striking a wraith like Monster 20 -30 times before killing it) there appears to be tons of content and a deep world to espace in. Intrigued and will probably buy :)
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I think the video you're thinking about was on Hard. Enemies seem to be damage sponges on Hard and Nightmare. Watching videos on normal makes the combat a lot more fluid in terms of enemies dying.
 
I'm glad this is looking great. I won't have time to get to it for a bit, I'm looking forward to it.
 
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Muntu said:
These are the most common shared negatives the reviews have had? Cause that actually makes me even more excited lol. I'm perfectly fine with a save the world type of story, I like collectable quests and I'm going to be playing with a controller anyway so the bad PC menus don't matter to me. Also gonna play it like I'd play FFXII so I doubt I'll be using the tactical view much either. Lack of big cities is a bummer though.

So excited!
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Exactly. Im gonna view mostly in tactical cause im playing on pc, but if the biggest complaint is that it sometimes gets weird cause of the surrounding geometry, then im really happy, cause thats minor at best. Junk collectibles can be bypassed for the real content, of which there seems to be a lot, lack of big city areas is a bit of a shame, but it entirely depends on what is there instead, tactics menu downgrade i can deal with cause i didnt use it taht much during DA:O anyway.

The familiar "gather your strenght and go to final confrontation" trope is a bit of a shame i admit, cause it was one of those things i criticized bioware for overusing, but i have to see for myself how predictable it gets, cause there is still a lot of flexibility within that framework.

Overall, pretty minor criticisms, so im excited!
 
How accessible is this overall (but mostly story-wise) if I haven't played any Dragon Age before? Can I just jump in without trouble?
 
The scores are whatever but the review text is great. I read some Dragon Age 2 reviews to compare and DAI strikes me as something worth getting excited about, and I don't usually feel that way. No crazy hype, but looking forward to next week's impressions.
 
mdubs said:
How accessible is this overall (but mostly story-wise) if I haven't played any Dragon Age before? Can I just jump in without trouble?
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You might be a bit confused for a while. It should pass, but you can help yourself by having a quick look at story synopses on the DA wiki and listening to Varric's narration on the Dragon Age Keep. Also, do read the codex entries in the game - DA codex entried typically help a fair bit in providing lore and context.
 
mdubs said:
How accessible is this overall (but mostly story-wise) if I haven't played any Dragon Age before? Can I just jump in without trouble?
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You'll want to read up on the plots of the previous games at least, it'd make everything much more meaningful storywise.

Also, if you're really serious about it, you'd probably want to take that a bit further and read up on the history of the Chantry, Andraste, Tevinter imperium, founding of Orlais, and other major lorepoints from before the games.
 
Zukuu said:
The former.

The two buddy-thing is very unrealistic. I mean, who READS a magazine in a friends house while he is playing video games next to him on a couch? C'mon.
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Meh, the picture on the wall and their reactions suggested that they were in couple in that video. I mean friends won't care about sex in video games.
That's why it was fun, imo.
 
kobe(beast) said:
Damn. I played DA1 almost exclusively using tactical view. This news effectively killed my hype. :(
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You can sort of see the wonkiness of the Tactical View in some of the streams anytime they're trying to move the camera around trees or any sort of elevation. The camera at it's most zoomed out just does not seem zoomed out enough, which I think one of the reviews mentions.

The tactics menu downgrade is annoying since that was so robust and great in Origins if you wanted to engage with it and now its sounds really bare bones.

From the PC Gamer review:
Control over the party’s tactics has been simplified. In previous games, orders resembled absurd algebra puzzles. If Morrigan drops below 25% health, should she turn into a swarm of insects? Sure, but only if she stops being insects at lesser than or equal to 50% mana. In Inquisition, you have some agency over when healing items are consumed, but skills can only be enabled, disabled or marked as preferential—giving them priority over other skills.

I miss the fine-tuning the old system enabled. Controlling Inquisition’s party requires either accepting the inefficiencies of the AI, or spending a lot of time micro-managing. Choose the latter, and you’ll find the tactics battle screen—used to assign orders to the party members you’re not currently controlling—has its own issues, all of which are with the camera. It gives you a top-down view of the battlefield, but is awkward to move and doesn’t zoom out quite far enough. There are times when it shines, such as during battles with dragons where there’s a large space and a single target. Against multiple enemies, things can get confusing.
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Eudaemonium said:
I'm really shocked by the people complaining that the game has a 'save the world/chosen one' style narrative. Basically the only BioWare game to attempt to deviate from that mild was DA2 and it gets universally panned except in very small circles.
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There is nothing inherently wrong with DA2's narrative of not being the Chosen One or saving the world from an Ancient Evil. I like that idea. I just think DA2 did a piss poor job of executing on that premise. Personally, I have no issue with a Save the World story like it seems Inquisition has, so long as it's done well. But I wouldn't mind some other sort of story either provided its done well.
 
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