Quite a while ago, I wrote about what I thought of the Dragon Age series as it was prior to the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I won't say that I was wrong, because I still stand by those opinions, but Dragon Age: Inquisition has absolutely redeemed the series for me.
DA:I takes place several years after the events of Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 and it starts with a bang. The conclave, a gathering of templars, rebel mages, and Chantry religious figures, explodes, and a huge green rift is ripped open in its place. The player escapes the rift with no memory of how they got there in the first place, and a glowing green mark on their hand. Implicated in the deaths of everyone at the conclave, Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast invokes a backup plan put in place by the now-dead Divine Justinia, and enlists the player and others to close the rifts and stop whatever caused the explosion at the conclave.
Inquisition takes a lot of the best parts of Dragon Age: Origins and combines it with the best parts of Dragon Age 2. It is absolutely enormous. The game takes place in many locations spread across Orlais (a French-inspired state) and Ferelden (typical medieval state). The environments are as varied as they are large, with almost every common biome represented. It's a huge improvement over the complete lack of variety in Dragon Age 2. It's even an improvement on the large world of Origins.
Many improvements were made to the core gameplay of Inquisition over the previous games. The flashier, more action-focused attacks in Dragon Age 2 are refined in Inquisition. It's almost an action RPG, except that it also includes a "tactics" mode, where the game is paused and the player can micromanage their party members to their heart's content. Complaints against the lack of tactical options in Dragon Age 2 have been largely addressed. What you see is what you're fighting. No more bad guys teleporting in during a fight, except when it's to close a rift and then you're still seeing where they come from. My only complaint about the action is physiological. The attack button on a controller is the right trigger. I spent so much time playing DA:I that I strained a muscle in my right hand from holding down the trigger constantly. This is why I'm poorly suited for racing games. I suffer for you.
Some BioWare tropes are also minimized or adapted to better use in Inquisition. While you still gather a party of character sympathetic to your mission, and your actions still influence how they feel about you, it's not as overt and game-y as it was in previous games. There's no light side/ dark side meter. No good/bad. No saint/satan dichotomy. Conversations options are marked by tone, and not even by name. There's an icon that indicates a stern tone, and an icon for a sad tone, and an icon for a quizzical tone, among a few others. More often than not, conversation options don't have a tone at all. This makes playing the game feel a lot more natural. It's hard to say that you're going to go on a light side playthrough when your "good" options aren't marked outright. In my playthrough, I tried maintain a consistent point of view and that's my playthrough. If I were to play it again, I can't say I wouldn't make the same exact choices, with a few major, obvious exceptions.
There are no meters on your relationships with the people you attract. The choices you make will either be approved or disapproved to some degree, or cause no reaction from any particular member. For example, Seeker Pentaghast is religious and orderly. These aren't spelled out in a character profile. It's just traits I determined by her reactions. When I did things that supported the Chantry, Cassandra approved. When I made exceptions for bad people, Cassandra often disapproved. Again, these contributed to the feeling that the game world is living and that it's not super game-y about it. These characters have motivations and desires. I couldn't just buy their happiness.
The quest design is rather good, if heavy on collection and fetching. As is typical, the main quest line and the quests connected with party members are the best in the game. They're varied and expose more of the interesting characters. The party members have excellent in-game banter that seemingly never repeated itself. It lent to me mixing up my party more often than I do in most BioWare games. If there's one complaint to be made about the main story, it's that there comes a point where it feels like you've walked into a movie that's already started, and I'm not speaking as a Dragon Age newcomer. It's not overtly explained, but this feeling comes from having not played the Dragon Age 2: Legacy DLC. I can hardly be blamed for skipping it because I wasn't a fan of Dragon Age 2, but I now kind of wish I didn't. Without having played it, it feels like I might have missed out on something that probably should've been in Dragon Age 2 to begin with.
As with previous games, DA:I is heavy on lore and there is a lot to dig through, if you want to. If there's one thing DA:I could stand to steal from Destiny, it's that there's so much lore that it should really have come with a companion app/website to read it all outside of the game. It's interesting stuff, except that when I'm in the game, I want to play the game. Destiny was starved for background and motivating information. Inquisition is the opposite. I get enough out of the story that they give me. I want to be able to read the side/extra stuff when I'm not playing the game.
I went into Dragon Age: Inquisition skeptical, but left it a believer. It's an excellent Dragon Age game, and very good BioWare RPG. By improving upon video game parts that worked in the series, and making it feel less like video game in the roleplaying parts, BioWare has made something great. If you liked Origins, and you suffered through Dragon Age 2 like I did, you owe it to yourself to play Dragon Age: Inquisition to see the series shine again. If you haven't played either of them, Inquisition is still a good place to start, even with the middle-of-movie experience at some point.
The Math
Baseline Assessment: 7/10
Bonuses: +1 signature, excellent BioWare party members
Penalties: -1 awkward introduction of a major character that will make some players feel like they must've missed something among the many different ways to consume Dragon Age media
Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)
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POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014
Reference: BioWare. Dragon Age: Inquisition [Electronic Arts, 2014]
