Poll: Favorite Dragon Age

[Nixou]

Best gameplay, story and character simply must go to Origins. The Inquisition story just kept getting worse, ending up with a straight 'kill the bad guy ruining the world' plot

While Origins had the much better and more subtle "kill the Dragon ruining the world"

 

[OpticalJunction]

Dragon age origins had the best story, best characters. Dragon age 2 had the best combat and user interface. Dragon age inquisition has the best world, and the best music.
If you could merge the best of all these games you'd have one pretty awesome dragon age. Overall I liked the 1 the most.

 

[bug_of_war]

Honestly it'd probably be Dragon Age 2 for me. I liked it a lot (bar every companion wanting to fuck me) even with it's flaws. Most of it's criticism is valid, but I really liked the story and combat enough to forgive it's basicness. I understand it's a HUGE step away from DA: Origins, but I was alright with that. *GRANTED* I did only pay 15 dollars for it...

As for DA:O and DA:I, they're tied for me. There are features that I enjoy and features that I absolutely loathe in both of them. Some of it being a matter of me not liking having to play it a few times and look up some stuff on wikis to figure out what the hell is going on, others are just petty things like the combat/areas. The Fade and Deep roads shit me off, I've never been a fan of the old school choose you lines of dialogue but never hear the character speak, and fuck the terrain of most areas in DA:I.

Unpopular opinion, but you know...

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Origins is one of my favorite games of all time. Strangely enough, I didn't mind DA2 the second time around when I played it with a sarcastic female lesbian Hawke. It was a much better experience than male Hawke. But it's still not as good as Origins.
I haven't played Inquisition and I don't feel any urge to play it. I might get it if it ever drops in price on Origin or if god-forbid EA comes to their senses and gives consumers a fuckin' choice to purchase it on Steam.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Origins was the most epic, and the most focused.
DA:II was a nice detour, and whilst it was flabby in terms of design, it was fun and had a lot of nice moments.
DA:I is the middle child: story that can't get enough of itself, one-note characters and lazy design choices. Dragon Fights were fucking awesome though.

I'd say Origins wins(with Awakening: that expansion is the shits), with DA:II and DA:I being on about the same rung for me. Despite my dislike for Inquisition, it's not irredeemable, but if DA:II had received at least one more year's worth of development time, Inquisition would've been the nadir of the series for me.

 

[Godhead]

To me Origins is the best. An incredibly fun combat system, with a proper dialogue system,[footnote]Death to the Wheel of Dialogue! Or at the very least allow us to see the entire block of text we'll say before the Voice Actor says it, like in DE: HR[/footnote] and a passable enough story to move the game along with some genuinely great bits interspersed throughout. To be fair however, my exposure to DA2 is the demo, which I thoroughly disliked due to what I thought was a poor combat system and the dialogue wheel that BioWare seems to be intent on pushing to the ends of the world. And all I've seen from DA:I is gameplay videos and the like.

 

[kasperbbs]

Origins was the best D.A. for me, It might not have been the prettiest or had the best combat, but overall it was more fun and focused. I wont even get into detail why D.A. 2 was the worst one. Inquisition is a good game, but it feels like it was designed to waste your time, in order to progress you need to level up and to do that you need to do a bunch of fetch quests scattered across the maps, it kinda feels like i'm playing Guild wars 2 again, only with a party this time. It even has jump puzzles..

 

[Sanunes]

I have to agree with a previous poster, I have a love/hate relationship with Dragon Age: Origins. There are things I like about the game and some things I like a lot, but I find its short comings much harder to overlook then Dragon Age: Inquisition. There are many things I do like about Inquisition and some design decisions I question, but overall I am enjoying the game more and since this was a brand-new engine for BioWare and they had to design the game to work on the older consoles I am curious to see where they go from here. Dragon Age 2, to me isn't a bad game its an average game, its just a bad BioWare game. Then again I am probably "biased" because I also think Mass Effect 2 is BioWare's worst try and RPG mechanics for aside from all the side quests for companions there is very little I enjoy about it.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Origins is by far the best of the lot. A proper party based RPG with stats, tactics, gear, role playing, great companions and a toolset for modding.

DA2 wasn't great, but it's better than Inquisition. The combat, while a vast departure from DA:O is at least enjoyable. The story, role playing, lack of options for race selection, no gear or stats are all detrimental IMO and serve as a clear-cut distinction of the end of old BioWare and the beginning of EA-BioWare. The copy/pasted maps and annoying companions didn't help it either. Putting a 2 on the title was amongst its worst failings since it was not in any way a continuation of Origins.

Inquisition...I suspect I'm about halfway through it and I'm not enjoying it. I don't like the 8-skills build (Guild Wars style) after the freedom of past games. The balance is absolutely appalling, crafted as tho an MMO and not a single player game. It takes an entire party throwing all the elements, shooting multiple arrows and slashing with multiple swords and daggers to kill the lowliest enemies. Combat drags on far too long and the skill level-up system is unrewarding and so. fecking. slow. Wandering around the different zones, which are all linear, chock full of invisible walls and obstacles make getting to actual gameplay content take 5x longer than it should.

The horses gallop/sprint barely faster than I can walk without it. Every zone is the bloody same; traverse rocks, pick up crafting mats and shards. Plant flag poles. Do fetch quests for NPCs. It is not fun. It is as tho they made all these maps and areas but instead of making them even slightly unique or interesting, they couldn't be arsed to put in any actual content and just put MMO style filler bullshit in instead.

I suspect Leliana is alive too, even if she was killed in DA:O and that world-state was imported. I saw a BSN forum post where the writer basically said "Yeah, live with it. That's how it is." So why bother having the import feature at all? I think this game was created by new, younger people who, under EA's rule, tack on multiplayer, add in micro-transactions, make an MMO with Dragon Age flavour and call it a day. I can't even get motivated to continue with it, and I've given up on the open world zones...I just want to bee-line the main quest and call it. A well-made but ultimately boring game that cannot compare to its 6-7 year old predecessor.

 

[Weaver]

Origins is the only one that can be played in a proper tactical view.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Best gameplay, story and character simply must go to Origins. The Inquisition story just kept getting worse, ending up with a straight 'kill the bad guy ruining the world' plot

While Origins had the much better and more subtle "kill the Dragon ruining the world"

True, but at least it had Loghain to add some morally grey and character development to the mix. DA:I on the other hand just had the mustache twirling Corypheus for the entire game.

While I won't deny that Loghain added much to DA:O, I think calling his actions "grey" is giving too much credit. While *he* genuinely believed he did right, from any other point of view I think it's clear he betrayed his King and Kingdom and usurped the throne. I've not once sympathised with him in any way, even tho I understand his actions from his point of view.

I think the "grey" came in the form of how we dealt with the Dalish/Werewolves, Branka/Orzammar succession, Anora, Morrigan and a few other bits and pieces. As for the Alienage, Urn and Circle Tower, I didn't see much grey there either. The aggravating thing is that with Origins I think in a way BioWare tried *too* hard (and I will still credit Origins to old BioWare). They likely sat around the conference table and, taking all the different fantasy tropes, decided to just mess them all up because they thought "this will make it different and dark/gritty". They screwed over mages by making them feared, loathed, untrusted, subservient, etc. They screwed over elves by making them discriminated against, slaves, herded into ghettos, etc.

They also did the same thing we saw later with ME3. They simply didn't make any good choices available to us as the player. Your choices were bad, worse or less bad. That is not morally grey, that is lazy and bullshit. Have grey endings, have bad endings and have good endings too. That at least covers all bases. Simply removing the possibility of a good ending is nothing but annoying. See how ME3's ending got received for proof of how players feel when the character they've roleplayed for 100+ hours can only pick between choices that are incongruous with everything else they've done prior to that point.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Origins is definitely the worst for me. It's not so much that it's bad on its own, but the game is basically KOTOR Clone #3 (after Jade Empire and Mass Effect). Same basic plot, same basic chosen one style hero, same "find the X" progression structure plus side quests. I'm so glad that ME3 and DA2 changed things up in that regard(Inquisition seems to be as well, but I haven't beaten that one yet, so I'll reserve judgement).

DA2 may have it's flaws as far as gameplay goes(mostly the wave combat and recycled environments), but IMO it trumps DAO completely in the story department. Add that to the improved leveling structure, the friend/rival system and the unique skill trees for companions, and DA2 was a big improvement for me.

 

[Limie]

Well, I'm going to be voicing a rather unpopular opinion it seems, because personally, I think Origins is the worst of all three. But, let me clarify: Origins had some of truly spectacular companions, and the story itself was rather engaging. My problem was the gameplay, being an absolute slog on console for me.

Dragon Age 2, on the other hand, simply had gameplay that felt better, more dynamic, and while the dungeons were repetitive, I felt it was partly justified since you spend almost the entire game in the same area. Why would the areas change drastically? It's story was a little iffy, but ultimately I had more fun with Dragon Age 2 than I did with Origins.

Inquisition, however, felt like it had the best parts of both. Choice of race as well as class and gender for the player character. Combat that felt good and simply wasn't a single button press per enemy. A very engaging story, and some of the best companions yet, with what I consider a few exceptions. Inquisition gave me the most fun of the three, and if it comes down simply to how many times I've replayed all three games, Origins has to be the bottom rung for me.

No i agree with you. Origins had the worst gameplay for me, but the best story and characters. However, I can forgive the gameplay for good story.
I felt that dragon age II had the best gameplay, good characters and I enjoyed some of the story and hated other parts.
Inquisition is just bland. Not bad but not remarkable. The characters are unremarkable, I frequently find myself having no idea what to do to progress the story and the little silly side quests are really boring. But the biggest deal breaker for me in Inquisition is the font size. It is really small, to the point where it gives me headaches to read and I have to sit a foot away from my tv (it is a large HD TV too). For an RPG that relies on reading for dialog option and lore books this is unforgivable and I think a major contributor to me not knowing what to do and takes away from the enjoyment of the game completely.

 

[DSK-]

Dragon Age: Origins for me was the best. Great characters, lots of fun, witty and interesting dialogue, no limited shitty dialogue wheel, mabari pet, being able to play a complete and utter dagger-wielding nutter of a character, best dark spawn designs of all the DA games so far and a very good, if cookie cutter, Bioware story.

DA2 was a convoluted mess in regards to pacing and story, and I really detested the change in art style that went a few steps back from Origins, and Inquisition...well, if I wanted to play an MMO I would have. For the paltry amount of storyline I got for my money I was bitterly disappointed.

 

[Sanunes]

Dragon Age: Origins for me was the best. Great characters, lots of fun, witty and interesting dialogue, no limited shitty dialogue wheel, mabari pet, being able to play a complete and utter dagger-wielding nutter of a character, best dark spawn designs of all the DA games so far and a very good, if cookie cutter, Bioware story.

DA2 was a convoluted mess in regards to pacing and story, and I really detested the change in art style that went a few steps back from Origins, and Inquisition...well, if I wanted to play an MMO I would have. For the paltry amount of storyline I got for my money I was bitterly disappointed.

Just out of curiosity how wasn't Dragon Age: Origins just as limited as the Dialogue Wheel? You had normally up to six responses which is what fits into the dialogue wheel.

 

[DSK-]

Dragon Age: Origins for me was the best. Great characters, lots of fun, witty and interesting dialogue, no limited shitty dialogue wheel, mabari pet, being able to play a complete and utter dagger-wielding nutter of a character, best dark spawn designs of all the DA games so far and a very good, if cookie cutter, Bioware story.

DA2 was a convoluted mess in regards to pacing and story, and I really detested the change in art style that went a few steps back from Origins, and Inquisition...well, if I wanted to play an MMO I would have. For the paltry amount of storyline I got for my money I was bitterly disappointed.

Just out of curiosity how wasn't Dragon Age: Origins just as limited as the Dialogue Wheel? You had normally up to six responses which is what fits into the dialogue wheel.

There was a far greater variety of things to say, and how your character was able to word them. You didn't have a summary that, in some cases in the ME and DA2/I games, wasn't what I expected based on said summaries; You said what you clicked.

I also remember being able to flat out say "No" in certain situations in DA:O where I would then try to do the same in DA2, only to be forced to agree to it anyway, which pissed me off no end. I just felt able to roleplay more because of the DA:O system.

Having a voiced character seemed to limit your ability to respond to certain situations how you might like to, in various ways.

Perhaps I am a victim of rose tinted glasses, but moments such as this make me smile (I love Jory's reaction)

Spoiler

 

[Sanunes]

There was a far greater variety of things to say, and how your character was able to word them. You didn't have a summary that, in some cases in the ME and DA2/I games, wasn't what I expected based on said summaries; You said what you clicked.

I also remember being able to flat out say "No" in certain situations in DA:O where I would then try to do the same in DA2, only to be forced to agree to it anyway, which pissed me off no end. I just felt able to roleplay more because of the DA:O system.

Having a voiced character seemed to limit your ability to respond to certain situations how you might like to, in various ways.

Perhaps I am a victim of rose tinted glasses, but moments such as this make me smile (I love Jory's reaction)

Spoiler

Fair enough. From my experience the "investigate" options that you would find on the dialogue wheel were just bundled with all the other options making it look like more, but again it really boils down to how you interpret what is being offered. Just like I got really frustrated with Origins when I would pick an option and the NPC wouldn't take it the way I thought they would for it would have been too harsh or too soft when I wanted the opposite.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

They also did the same thing we saw later with ME3. They simply didn't make any good choices available to us as the player. Your choices were bad, worse or less bad. That is not morally grey, that is lazy and bullshit. Have grey endings, have bad endings and have good endings too. That at least covers all bases. Simply removing the possibility of a good ending is nothing but annoying. See how ME3's ending got received for proof of how players feel when the character they've roleplayed for 100+ hours can only pick between choices that are incongruous with everything else they've done prior to that point.

I don't really understand this complaint. There were plenty of "good" choices available in Origins so long as you tried to get them. The good choice for the Dalish quest was to cure the werewolves. The good choice for Branka's quest was to side with Caridin and protect another generation of Dwarves from being subjected to the Anvil. The good choice for the Circle Tower quest is to save the mages instead of kill them all. The only major quests with no obviously good choice was the Orzammar quest where you have to choose between the nice traditionalist or the harsh progressive and maybe the final battle where you have to choose whether to sacrifice yourself or Alistair (or possibly Loghain), or give Morrigan an Old God baby.

OT: I'm currently waiting on Inquisition to download and haven't played 2, so I'm kind of stuck choosing Origins, which I'm fine with because I really enjoyed Origins.

I was talking about the ending for the most part. F.ex, it was not possible to have Alistair and the Warden survive without Morrigan's ritual. It was not possible to sacrifice Loghain without losing Alistair from the party. It was not possible to have Alistair crowned and survive without the Warden dying or doing the ritual. In other words, we couldn't have everything because BioWare forced the ritual, choice and other factors on us.

From a story point of view, I can't deny it is not as valid or interesting as anything else (it is). Ultimately it doesn't matter a great deal barring the epilogue and one cameo in DA2. It does add a difficult decision to make. Saying all that, it would have been nice to have the option to save both Warden and Alistair without resorting to Morrigan's ritual. It's a moot point anyway, the ending is what it is. I just think it was indicative of BW trying too hard even then.

 

[spartandude]

Ive only just started Inquisition so my opinion isnt complete yet, although i will say its Bioware's best game in years... which isnt saying much as I hated DA 2, SWTOR and ME 3. But Origins is still one of my favorite games of all time. In fact after hearing glowing praise for Inquisition I decided to replay Origins and force myself to actually complete DA 2 for the first time (always gave up through the first act) and I ended up playing through Origins (Awakening and Witch Hunt) twice.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Origins is by far the best of the three followed by DAI and then DA2 dead last.

It was the closest thing to Baldur's Gate's Bioware of old greatness that we've gotten.