Dragon Age: Inquisition

[Carlie]

So I finished the game last night, went to bed at 1am and didn't turn on my PS4 immediately when I woke up this morning. It feels so weird.

 

[Ami]

I've decided to romance Cullen. Seems to be the most appealing choice to me right now. I find it odd though, as I checked out all the available choices and I was able to have romance dialogue with Cassandra. Thing is, I'm a female Inquisitor. Is it really just there for banter, or is she an actual option?

Because this would be beneficiary and I would do her, too.

 

[Russell]

According to this: http://uk.ign.com/wikis/dragon-age-inquisition/Sex_and_Romance

No. I'm a male Inquisitor and I have the option to ask Cullen if he's seeing anyone, so I think you can ask anyone if they are interested, there's probably some funny dialogue when they turn you down.

Spoiler: Romance options spoilers

Cassandra
Males, Any Race (She's straight)

Blackwall
Females, Any Race (He's straight)

Josephine
Males and Females, Any Race (She's Bi)

Iron Bull
Males and Females, Any Race (He's Bi)

Sera
Females, Any Race (She's gay)

Dorian < (Who the hell is this guy?)
Males, Any Race (He's gay)

Cullen
Females, Human and Elven only, (He's straight & not into Qunari's)

Solas
Females, Elven only (He's straight & racist)

On a side note why hasn't "No one expects the Dragon Age Inquisition!" become a meme yet?

 

[Lex]

You can have romance dialogue with all the characters no matter what race or gender, but some of them rebuff you (I flirted with Cullen at the start, his response was hilarious).

Anyway

Spoiler: Massive plot spoilers, do not click unless you want them. Second to last mission.

FLEMETH

FLEMETH

FLEMETH

I AM SO HAPPY. And also happy about the fact that a popular fan theory was correct: that she possesses the soul of an old god. I can't believe how much Morrigan has changed, she was willing to do whatever it took to save her son. I need to wonder what the hell Flemeth was planning to do with him.

You know I saw this coming and I didn't see it coming. I like the fact that it's an elven god too, it really blows up the lore. I STILL WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HER AND I HOPE SHE SHOWS UP AGAIN SOON. AND I AM LOVING THE INSTRUMENTAL ROLE MORRIGAN IS PLAYING RIGHT NOW.

ahem

 

[Joe]

I've decided to romance Cullen. Seems to be the most appealing choice to me right now.

Cullen greatly approves.

I decided to romance Josephine with my female elf inquisitor. She is by far the sweetest most adorable thing.

Spoiler: Romance spoiler

I actually had to have a duel - with swords - in the middle of the capital to win her affection. Her family had betrothed her to another Antivan noble and the only appropriate way to settle it was like this.

The man in question was touched by our true romance and conceded.

She also does that thing when she kisses where she raises one leg behind her. Adorbs.

On a side note why hasn't "No one expects the Dragon Age Inquisition!" become a meme yet?

I genuinely have no idea

 

[Ami]

Sorry, this was the best I could find.

 

[Carlie]

Spoiler

She also does that thing when she kisses where she raises one leg behind her. Adorbs.

Spoiler

This has always made me wanna vomit, same with Cassandra. As much as I love her, I wanted to hit her in the head with the awful romance poem/book I head to read to her. If you can't tell, I'm not much of a romantic.

The devs said they used the meme "Nobody expects the Inquisition" during production so much that it wouldn't be used in the actual game.

 

[Lex]

I completed the game last night. I decided not to post about it right away because I wanted to allow my brain some time to gather thoughts, but I still don't think I'm ready to thought splurge about it right this second.

What I will say is that I never thought I'd want to replay a Bioware game immediately after finishing it, especially Dragon Age. But this one I really fucking do.

Final save file: 117 hours. I've done pretty much everything except some stuff in the hissing wastes.

 

[Ami]

I'm only 10 hours and 50 minutes in so far, but still really enjoying it. I kind of squee'd a little when Leliana referred to my Warden. So far, my favourite conversations are with Varric and Cassandra:

"You never mention your part in the Champion's story, Varric."
"I don't want to bore people."
"You mean you don't want to incriminate yourself."

Edit: Just found how to make Daenerys. So incredibly tempted to start again with this character.

Edit 2: Had a crack at it, here's how it went:

 

[Russell]

Edit 2: Had a crack at it, here's how it went:

Wow. That's really good.

 

[Ami]

Thanks! I ended up streaming the game for six hours today and met some nice folks.

 

[Carlie]

I uploaded some funny videos from Inquisition and some more plot related ones:

Spoiler: Cassandra (Act 1 Spoilers)

Spoiler: Pay attention to what's going on behind Dorian (Act 1 Spoilers)

Spoiler: Romanced Cassandra and the Iron Bull Banter (No Spoilers)

Spoiler: Morrigan (Big Spoilers)

Spoiler: Morrigan (Massive Spoilers)

 

[Dawnbreaker]

Had a chance to play some of this game today (finally!), and I have to say, it's really, really fun. The dialogue is excellent, the battles are smooth, and I'm really starting to love the story. I admit some of the controls are wank and I still don't care for the grainy graphics, but wow! I can easily see myself falling in love with this game. <3

 

[Fangu]

Fangu my avatar and signature are from the trailer of Dragon Age: Origins:

The hell?? She looks nothing like the in-game model!! Awrite majorly jumping to conclusions there, sorry about that! I just snapped completely because I had just unsubbed to two people on DW who I trusted completely, and I'm already staying away from Tumblr, so it was a case of GODDAMN I'M NOT SAFE EVEN ON TLS!

But I'll be careful regardless.

Also I've sort of come to the conclusion that I think this game is sub-par, both storywise, art direction wise, gameplay wise and let's not start talking about the UI, which is nothing but a fucking joke. The only reason this game has sold well, is from the hype. I'm still going to complete it, but after playing it for 30 hours my conclusion is that it's not fantastic. It's an average game with a horrible, bugged out* PC version. I have been more annoyed than pleased while playing it. At one point the story was so melodramatic and lame it felt like the game was sporking itself, which just made me laugh out loud.

I know my standards were ridiculously high coming straight from Valkyria Chronicles, but still. I had really high expectations from this game, and so far the only things that are positive are a) it's very pretty (except for the costumes (that aren't armour), which are so immensely tasteless it makes me gag) and b) the upgrading system is all right. (And c) the Fire spells sound awesome. BOOM.)

* 'It's BioWare' is not an excuse.

 

[Lex]

I am so disappointed with everything you just said, I think it's a phenomenal game. I would honestly give it a perfect score if I were writing a review if it weren't for the bugs. I've read that the PC version suffers from a myriad of problems though so idk. I disagree about the story. And the characters are my favourite of the series so far.

 

[Fangu]

Well I already have a problem with WRPG's in general, plus I never really got into the way BioWare tells stories (or not). I'm supposed to be given options, but I still feel like I'm being shoehorned into a particular kind of character, with all three options of answering being way too loud (Nice loud, Haha loud and Offensive loud, depending). In a strange way, having options doesn't make me feel like I have options, while when I have stories told (subtly) for me, I can fill in the lines with my own headcanons. Western (English speaking) works often lack subtlety, and this game is no exception. The story just doesn't appeal to me because it's a load of blah blah blah and -- somehow it feels like it's screaming stuff into my ear, and... that's what I meant by the game sporking itself: It takes itself way too seriously. Which made me stopped caring. I make odd choices now just for luls, because I don't care what happens anymore.

(And don't get me started on the antagonist stuff. Just... fuck me. So disappointing.)


I've heard DA:I's story works better if you're playing as a human Inquisitor though (which it was originally written as.)

 

[Ami]

My Week With Dragon Age: Inquisition

 

[Carlie]

The hell?? She looks nothing like the in-game model!! Awrite majorly jumping to conclusions there, sorry about that! I just snapped completely because I had just unsubbed to two people on DW who I trusted completely, and I'm already staying away from Tumblr, so it was a case of GODDAMN I'M NOT SAFE EVEN ON TLS!

Most of Bioware's cinematic trailers have different models for their characters than their in-game ones. I've always found both Morrigan's and Leliana's outfits in the trailer to be far superior to anything they can wear in the game. There's a mod for them to have their Sacred Ashes outfit in the game which I tried once I got the PC version of Origins but Morrigan's did not work at all.

 

[Hisako]

INCOMING BRAINVOMIT

Unfortunately I'm still on the hype wagon, and I've put in about 20 hours into the Hinterlands alone Finally moved onto the Storm Coast (past Val Royeaux, ofc) and picked up Iron Bull, Sera and Vivienne.

I think for me the game hit the sweet spot with many things. There are plenty things that make the videogame part of the game stand out glaringly, which I will touch on later, but all in all I'm loving the game to bits.

***

The thing I love the most out of it so far, as it has always been the case with a BioWare game, have been the characters and companions. They're all fairly written and they all have their niche in the plot. It's a little contrived to have them spill their life stories to the player on the outset, but at the very least as always the writers gave them more context than many games out there might. I went in expecting to love some, and hate others, but all in all the worst I could say about them is that Solas is taking longer for me to like than many of the others. Sera was a hoot from the outset, though I could certainly see her being incredibly aggravating and annoying to others and her humour was very blunt.

Also, holy shit my first encounter with Jennifer Hale's voice in the game and I could barely recognise her. That was a first.

***

The plot is bullshit, by the way. I trust there'll be an interesting tweeest to it or whatever, but as it stands BioWare is an awful big fan of overplaying the classic Joseph Campbell's Journey/Chosen-One plot and it's really tired. Unfortunately this is just something that we got because the overwhelming feedback on Dragon Age 2 was that everything, including novel storytelling and smaller-scale, personal stories, was something players wanted reserved for sidequests and DLC. So so far, not impressed by the story itself, but that was to be expected after Dragon Age 2, and hopefully that'll change as the game progresses.

***

I will sing praises for Inquisition's combat all day and it is by far the best thing I think has improved over previous games. To me it's found that perfect balance between active, direct control and overhead, macro party strategy. Two of the big differences involve health management and active defense. The move away from healing as a central mechanic of health management, and towards damage mitigation is huge, and it shakes up the foundations of combat. This is my take on why:

For health management, minimising healing options to a finite pool of shared potions (not easily replenished while travelling unless you backtrack to/discover a camp) and a high-level mage spell places a massive emphasis on managing other resources such as stamina/mana, enemy aggression and even time (in the form of cooldowns and timing attacks/defense), that in previous Dragon Age titles were kind of there, but never really resources that on any difficulty were all that difficult to manage. Now they're all much more important factors and for me it's a deeper, more balanced mix.
Add to that damage persisting to the party even post-encounters, and this would have been an aggravating problem, but what I like most about it is that the rest of the game itself (the stuff involving combat, anyway) is designed around this new system. Camps seem to be reasonably plentiful when discovered so the annoyance of backtracking to replenish potions and stamina is minimised - not to mention camps themselves factoring into the Inquisition's growth as a gameplay mechanic. Similarly, gathering herbs and resources located around the world (of which there are also plenty) directly factor into health resources, on autopilot, without having to go into an inventory or crafting menu. That for me in Origins really slowed the pace of the game sometimes (in a game which already had terrible pacing issues). Healing potions themselves aren't constrained by cooldowns, and persistent damage means that players can't cheese their way through zones which are supposed to be gated by level (or at least, most zones ).

The second big difference is simpler but the difference I enjoy the most(and ties into the complexity and depth of the first), which is active defense. Giving an active ability to mitigate huge amounts of damage (an active shield block for sword/board, active parry functions for 2-handers and dual-wield rogues, etc.) means the player is no longer only passively watching the battle play out over tactics and the pause-play function. The party can still function without, but I find that having direct, timed input into attack and defense makes every fight feel incredibly tactile and much more involving.
This isn't a system that's perfect - on harder difficulties this means in order to survive optimally there's a fair amount of babysitting involved, switching between party members to actively control defense - but what matters is that the defense options are still just as rich and broad as they were in previous games, if not more, and is now a second-to-second, direct, active process on the part of the player.

***

Unfortunately, a third big difference, the tactical camera, still continues to be fucking garbage, in any case. By far the biggest problem with the game, it's a matter of two steps forward and two steps back. Giving orders still feels clunky for me as I never thought it would, and I'm never entirely sure if I go back into over-the-shoulder mode the orders I've given will persist. People complain about the camera being constrained by the walls, but my even bigger problem is when the camera hovers around trees and suddenly it goes apeshit. Half the time it zooms in super low to the ground, making it unusable regardless, the other half it hovers above the tree but the tree model remains in view, meaning all I can see is foliage and not the actual battle going on underneath.
It's fucking infuriating and it boggles my mind to see them mess it up after they made so many great improvements to it, such as no longer constraining the view to the character selected, the ability to set multiple waypoints, or removing the horrible, counter-intuitive snap-to-enemy functions AoE spells and abilities had.

***

I actually really love the visual design of the game. I love that the art style that they flaunted from the Dragon Age Keep made it into the game - though much of it is probably a shortcut/cost-saving measure to reuse assets made by the art department. Frostbite 3 looks fucking fantastic even on the middling settings I have it on my PC and I think it really shows how the engine can shine when it isn't being constrained by shitty color filters ala the Battlefield series. For me my favourite part of it is the tarot-style depictions of the companions and the advisors. For many they look nothing like the characters, but that's the fun of it! And that they change dynamically based on the Inquisitor's relationship with the character is icing on the cake. Cullen looks like a middle-aged man in his card, lol, but I think returning character's redesigns (Leliana, Cassandra, etc.) are nicely well-done enough. I'm easy to please, though, and I never really had a stake/never really saw the massive appeal in Leliana or Cullen so I didn't notice a huge difference.

***

I will concede that overall on the whole the user interface is incredibly over-designed, and in some places unintuitive. This is talking from the perspective of a PC user. It's not Skyrim-levels of horrendous, but there's something about the animation of the menus and the layout that feels sluggish. I feel the important visual elements could have been kept, but just made navigation snappier.

 

[Joe]

May I just say that I played as a 2handed warrior. There was nothing more gratifying than landing those active blocks. Timing a block just right to counter a bigger enemy's sword swing and send them into the ground ahead of me made me all giddy. Because it wasn't terribly easy, it never felt stale.

Not to mention I was given guard defense as a result of successful blocks. I felt rewarded in this game for playing well, which none of the previous games ever did.

 

[Russell]

There's a block button in combat?
(My Inquisitor is a Sword & Shield guy), I assume I can block with my shield...

I'm thinking a block button would have been useful when I was getting curb stomped by

Spoiler: Minor Hinterlands spoiler

that big yellow bastard Dragon.

I killed it in the end but still.

I'm 30 hours in, when was the block button explained? Did I blink and miss it?

 

[Fangu]

^ Don't worry, you're not the only person confused about whether stuff has been explained or not.

Satsu, that was gold. One day I might be calm enough to articulate properly about the stuff that bugs me. I have a group of people on DW who are just as disappointed as I am in certain areas. I might just steal their words because they're explaining it pretty well.

tl;dr if you're having a feeling this game is irking you in some way, you're not alone.


(I also feel like adding that you (generally speaking) liking a thing that I disapprove of, does not mean I disapprove of you, your opinion, or that I'm trying to say you've obviously misunderstood something since you're not seeing the same things that I'm seeing.)

 

[Russell]

The plot is bullshit, by the way. I trust there'll be an interesting tweeest to it or whatever, but as it stands BioWare is an awful big fan of overplaying the classic Joseph Campbell's Journey/Chosen-One plot and it's really tired. Unfortunately this is just something that we got because the overwhelming feedback on Dragon Age 2 was that everything, including novel storytelling and smaller-scale, personal stories, was something players wanted reserved for sidequests and DLC. So so far, not impressed by the story itself, but that was to be expected after Dragon Age 2, and hopefully that'll change as the game progresses.

I agree the chosen one thing is overused, but I didn't mind it that much.
The villain reveal later on made up for this for me.

Critical Miss spoofed it well:

 

[Joe]

There's a block button in combat?
(My Inquisitor is a Sword & Shield guy), I assume I can block with my shield..

It's actually an ability. I believe both 2hand and Sword+Shield can use the Block and Slash ability. It can be found in the Vanguard skill tree near the top. This ability allows you to hold a blocked stance and will counter an enemy melee attack so long as you're struck from the front. It deals good aoe damage, prevents an attack on you and increases your guard. It's awesome.

Sword+Shield specific, I think you guys have an ability called Shieldwall, where you lower your speed but place the shield in front of you. I don't know exactly how this works but I assume it similarly prevents damage and increases guard.


Re: The Story. I absolutely adored the entire thing until the last ten minutes (Also known as: Mass Effect 3 Syndrome) which felt really shoe-horned together. Other than that I feel like the story was really well set up, and paid off a lot of set ups and twists from previous games. I won't go further than that, but if it wasn't for the final few segments it'd be getting a perfect score from me (Bugs notwithstanding)

 

[Lex]

Inquisition sells 1.14 million units in its first week.

It's interesting to see that almost twice as many copies sold on the PS4 vs. XBox One, even though they target-maketed the game to XBox One consoles (still can't figure out why).

Also really good to see the game doing well.