As a fan of Dragon Age: Origins, and as someone who wasn’t entirely displeased with Dragon Age 2, I was wary of Inquisition.
BioWare was met with heavy criticism upon release of Dragon Age 2 as many fans did not appreciate the changes from Origins to it’s sequel.
Combat became less strategic, more action based, with some of the tactical options available to the player having been removed. Combat animations were overhauled, choice of what your companions could equip was limited, and weapon choice was restricted by class.
Character customization was altered heavily, going from the choice of three races, three classes, and seven character background choices, to one playable race, the same three classes, and one background. You always played as Hawke, a voiced character with a set background, similar to the Mass Effect series, also by BioWare.
The story, however, was still on par with what one might expect from BioWare titles.
I admit, it’s not quite as fantastical as fighting the blighted army of Darkspawn and the Archdemon that commands them, to save your country as a Grey Warden Hero.
The majority of the game takes place in a city called Kirkwall, where you, as Hawke, try to survive the turmoil caused by many opposing forces residing within.
With the smaller world to play in, and the changes made from Origins to Dragon Age 2, a large number of fans were left with a sour taste.
So let’s get to the point: Is Dragon Age: Inquisition worth the buy?
Really, it depends on your situation. Have you played either of the previous games? Did you enjoy only one, both, or neither of them? Or are you entirely new to the franchise?
Inquisition is a (semi-) open world RPG developed by BioWare and published by EA, wherein you interact with characters, form a team, explore, fight enemies, and make choices that directly impact the outcome of the story.
I’ll try to avoid all spoilers, so if you are looking for a story synopsis, you won’t find it here.
To start, you are presented with character creation, which allows you to choose from four different races: human, elf, dwarf, or qunari (which are described as ox-men and have horns most of the time).
The appearance of your character can vary wildly, and I commend BioWare on the amount of customization options available. It is abundantly in depth, and I’ve no doubt many people have spent hours upon hours creating their ideal character.
You explore the areas in the game with party of companions. The areas are usually quite large, but are broken up in the map, allowing you to travel from one area to another, or to your home base when you need to rest, upgrade gear, and restock supplies.
It feels very open, but it’s more akin to Assassin’s Creed 2 and it’s cities than it is Grand Theft Auto V’s sandbox environment. After the main story is completed, you are allowed to continue exploring and finish up quests you may have left unresolved.
Refit your character and members of your party with new armor, weapons, and accessories like rings and belts to fully customize your team. You can loot enemy corpses or use schematics to craft armor and weapons. There are merchants who sell gear and schematics alongside the treasure you find while exploring, and you can brew potions which can be used to heal, damage enemies, or grant special properties to individual party members. Crafting runes makes a return from the previous Dragon Age titles, as does enchanting your weapons with magical properties from the runes.
You play the game in third person, with the camera placed directly behind your controlled character. Alternatively, you have the Tactical view, which is designed to allow further control of each member of your party mid-combat.
Combat has a nice punch to it, with satisfying animation to sound combinations.
As a warrior, you swing your sword with a loud hiss through the air, and a meaty *chop* as you connect with an enemy.
Mages display grand poise as they cast spells and twirl their staves about, slinging magical bolts towards foes.
Dual-wielding Rogues act as whirling dervishes across the battlefield, their blades dancing about with a deadly rhythm, while archers pull back tight on the strings of their bows, loosing a plethora of arrows deep into the enemy ranks.
Yes, the combat looks pretty, but what of the mechanics? With your choice of four difficulty settings, ranging from Casual to Nightmare, you control a party of characters, at maximum four, and minimum one (though, this is not recommended on higher difficulties).
The Action view is the default mode, where you control one character at a time, with a normal attack that you hold a button to sustain, in combination with eight skills you have selected through leveling up your character. It seems the game is more suited to this method of play, as opposed to the Tactical view, which is lackluster in comparison to the previous games.
The tactics menu, and by extension the Tactical view, are severely lacking in Inquisition, offering far, far less customization of the AI. No longer can you create situations where the AI will automatically combine moves for extra damage, nor can you set special parameters for certain actions, like setting your tanky character to protect your mage when they are at low health.
These situations still happen, but they are not so easily forced by the player. You will need to micro-manage each character individually for maximum synergy amongst your party.
The game still plays well, and combat is fun, but the sheer amount of tactical choice you had in the previous Dragon Age games is sorely missed. I would suggest you stick the the Action view to minimize frustration with the sometimes wonky AI, and lack of certain meta-game options.
Progress the main story or current quest by being victorious in key battles, talking to characters before, during, and after combat ends, or by exploring the world.
You interact with characters through a dialogue menu which presents to you a series of choices to make: You can ask for more details on the topic at hand, go on a tangent by asking an related/unrelated question, or advance the conversation by choosing what are generally “diplomatic”, “humorous”, or “aggressive”, options.
Talking to NPCs will be a large part of the gameplay in Inquisition, and you will form friendships, rivalries, and vendettas towards them. Luckily, if talking to people all the time isn’t what you enjoy in a game, you can skip through dialouge and get back to the smashing of skulls with ease.
Exploration, party customization, combat, and dialogue are excellently balanced, and at no point in the game was I eager to speed through one for another.
(There is one short segment in the game where you must gather clues and talk to NPCs which frustated me a little, but I attribute that more to my incompetence at piecing the mystery together than to any fault of the game.)
Inquisition is not perfect. Not by any means. There are a few bugs, and moments where you will scratch your head wondering what exactly happened (not related to the story). The game needs a patch to fix some things, but it is entirely playable, and I had no trouble completing it in my (80 hours long!) play-through.
The story is fantastic, exploring the world is great fun, the characters are well written, the combat is satisfying and fun, if a little lacking, and overall, I enjoyed my time with Inquisition. It doesn’t have the same wonder of Dragon Age: Origins, but it doesn’t make the same blunders as Dragon Age 2. Certain elements might be perceived as “dumbed-down”, but I say BioWare made a conscious decision to go for a more action-packed, faster gameplay, and it works. As a new player, you would be entirely satisfied with Inquisition, and as a seasoned veteran of the franchise, you will find a few cons, but many more pros. It creates a nice fusion of the role-playing elements with the combat elements of Origins and Dragon Age 2, respectively.