Poll: Should I buy Dragon Age Inquisition?

[Infernai]

It's been no secret that my expectations for Dragon Age Inquisition has been somewhere...well, let's not mince words. It's been practically non-fucking-existent. And judging by recent releases, I feel I've got a good reason to be skeptical.

Dragon Age 2, while not the coming of the Anti-christ by any means, was ultimately a game that felt like it could have been a mini-series instead, and that's not getting into the repeating environments, character derailment (Goddamnit Anders!) and the fact a certain red haired girl has miraculously reattatched her severed head if you chose to kill her (Or she had a twin that she never told us about that's wandering around just to fuck with the Warden should she run into them again...)

SWTOR more or less rendered KOTOR 2 worthless and killed the Exile off like a ***** (I'm not upset at the fact she's dead...much like Shepard, it's the circumstances of HOW she died that got me pissed off) and the handling of the original Kotor cast in the game. I admit, I'm probably in the "YMMV" camp with this one so don't take it too seriously. Weird as it sounds, I would have preferred to have left Revan and the Exiles fates a mystery and give the heroes/villains of the new age a chance to shine.

And then there's Mass Effect 3...

You all know what happened and, because this topic set the fucking internet on fire, I will choose NOT to bring up why I disliked it so I can avoid giving people PTSD.

So, with all that out of the way. I have tried to keep my expectations tempered: I've been burnt more then once with Bioware over the past few years, they've made missteps and the direction they've chosen to take their games lately has ultimately left a sour taste in my mouth. And yet, the reviews coming out have all been positive and most people have said it's...good?

Well, I never said I would swear off Bioware merely that if enough people said it was good I would go get it. Just no jumping up and buying it first cab off the rank or pre-ordering anymore.

So, the question I pose to you: Is Dragon Age Inquisition a game I should by?

Is it ultimately better then Dragon Age 2? Does it clear up some of the retcons? ...Has a certain city rhyming with shmirkwall been burnt to the ground and sunk into the ocean? Does the ending/s suck? Is Bioware back quality-wise?

And, above all, is it worth getting?

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't buy AAA on launch anymore, but if you don't have a problem with that then I guess you should get it. It is full of content that will keep you busy for hundreds of hours on a single playthrough.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's been a weird experience for me.

I've played it for about 9 hours, and I generally found the game to be quite... dull. There's nothing I can point to and say is outright bad, except for the lack of hair options, but I really don't find it that engaging yet.

None of the characters I've met as of yet are interesting, except maybe for Sera, but that just might be because she brought a bit of life into the company.

And while the areas are frikking huge, I feel this is kind of a detriment to the overall experience. Though that might be because I never found the action in the Dragon Age games that riveting. In the previous games these sections were way, way shorter, which meant you could get to the story segments faster. In Inquisition you're spending huge chunks of time running around these expansive landscapes. And to me this kind of lost its luster after the first two times.

I'm also not a fan of the voices used for the protagonist, though I've only tried out the two female options. Again, just kinda dull. And unlike DA:O and DA2 you never get a good feel for your character's origin. You're just sort of chucked into the game with a few lines of 'you're a noble/you're a dwarf'. It makes it weird when some characters start asking you where you're from, since I have no fucking clue.

I'm playing it on the PS4 so the game does look splendid, and I'll probably keep playing it.

 

[Gizmo1990]

What I have seen makes me want to get it but not at the prices I have found. The best price I have found for PC is £40 (the digital copies are £50, which makes no fucking sense) and that is too high. Half the reason I game mostly on PC these days is the price difference and while I understand that this will likly be the norm from now on it is still ingraned in my head that new PC games are between £30 and £35.

Plus I am a little hesitant because of DA2. I hated it and damn near every character it introduced (the dwarf was ok) but more importantly I remember very little of the story and I never played the DLC which I have been told has a big impact. If I do get the game I will have to spend half an hour on the wiki reading up om everything I have forgoten/never played and that is just boring.

Bottom line I will probebly get it once there has been a big price drop.

 

[kuolonen]

Don't buy it yet I'd say. The whole launch has given me a very icky feeling. The fact that they wanted to put the latest in DRM onto the game kinda of makes me wonder if they don't want people to see it before they buy it. Probably other reasons too, but seeing what some people are saying about it...

And dear god the companions. I think back on ME companions and this comes up:"man that guy was cool, he looked bad ass, I still love her" etc. I look at new ones and I think:"meh, meh, dear god that is the romance option? And that is the other? AND that is the one for both genders???" I bought ME3 at launch, and I didn't regret it, even with the thing we do not speak of

Spoiler

the ending, though fixed, at least for me in EC

because other than that, rest of game felt solid.

DA:I, at the moment, I feel would be something I'd regret buying.

 

[StormShaun]

*Looks up*
Hmmm ... [sub][sub]By Andraste, this is terrible, just terrible.[/sub][/sub]
It looks like I'll be taking "the optimist", and "Dragon Age fan" role in this thread. (So you might want to take a little bit of salt with my opinion. Also that I play with a PS4.)

The game just released yesterday, and I have already played twenty hours into it (and I don't even know if I'm 20% into it).
Overall, I must admit, I am royally pleased with Inquisition. It is currently hitting most of the things that I wanted. The only problem I have is that some of the War Table stuff goes on forever, and that there is a lack of (facial) hair styles. About the voices, sure, I wish they had more, but hey, they voice a lot, so I am quite impressed by it, and it ain't bad!

The gameplay feels like they improved Dragon Age 2's combat system, yet they made a new tactical system which is easy to access. I feel that the combat is fine, and everyone is able to play one way or another. The conversation system seems improved from DA2's. It feels that it has more variety, and the choices feel really heavy sometimes. Heck, I had to reload saves before bosses sometimes. >.<

The story feels like a Dragon Age game. Yeah sure, whatever, save the world, but deep inside I'm sure everyone loves to be the messiah/hero/dick hero. I don't mind it, it isn't about the overall story for me, it is about the many stories included in this giant adventure, and I really like them. There is heaps of stuff to do as well.

The environment looks great on the PS4, the huge environments seem really natural. You may question if they are too big, but you start to get used to it, and begin to love looking all over. I'm still impressed with how many areas they have included.

The characters ... hmm, well I have started to like a few. Varric as the bro friend, and Cassandra as the romance interest. Yet others do interest me, so I hope to get closer, and get to know them more.

In the end, I'm believing so far, that Dragon Age: Inquisition is worth it if you are a RPG fan, especially if you are a Dragon Age fan. The gameplay feels great, the story is intriguing, and the environment feels as if it fits in with the world. Also, the music sounds great. The only downfalls are just the Dragon Age Keep, which needs to be improved, and that they need more hair/facial hair styles.

If I had to give a score.
9/10. "The Maker would sponsor this game".

EDIT: Oh yeah. This can change in the future, but I have faith that it won't.

 

[Fox12]

I keep hearing that bioware claimed to draw from Dark Souls and Skyrim for inspiration, and there's always been a powerful LotR vibe to it, like most fantasy stories today. And this worries me. Does the game have its own identity, or is it just playing follow the leader. Because if it adds nothing new to the table in terms of story then I may as well go play those games instead. Bioware used to be the ambitious trend setter, but now it just feels like they're following the market like other, lesser studios.

So I suppose that's my question. Is the game unique, or is the traditional story about a group of elves, dwarves, and men fighting a dark lord? Because I'm going to be able to afford one game with my ps4 when I get it, and blood borne and Witcher 3 are both looking rather solid.

 

[KenAri]

Bioware used to be a 'Definitely pre-order all their stuff, I trust them' developer. It held true for years, but let's look at their latest titles; Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and SW:TOR. Of those, Mass Effect is the only game worth playing, and even that was imperfect at launch (the free extended-ending DLC stuff almost making it acceptable). DA:I looks promising, but so did TOR and they made a real botchjob of that. I know EA is to blame for everything here, and I'm hoping that EA learned from this and realised they need to give Bioware some space, but let's be real. Publishers are incapable of learning.

I'm gonna wait and see how this one fares the initial week. It might be one of those 'Grab the demo first and see if it's worth paying for afterwards' jobs.

 

[Drummodino]

Well I'm about 5-6 hours into it and so far I'm enjoying it greatly. It really does feel like a good mix of Origins and 2, it has the level of detail (I just spent about 10 minutes in a tavern listening to the songs being sung by the bard) and tactical view of Origins combined with the excellent combat animations of 2.

Also they weren't kidding when they say this game was huge. I've spent the majority of my playtime just running around the first big open world area, doing sidequests, closing breaches, hunting down artifacts and crafting materials. Speaking of crafting, it has what appears to be an incredibly robust crafting system for weapons, armour and potions.

It also looks fucking beautiful, even on fairly low settings (PC). Just make sure you leave mesh quality on high to avoid plastic hair.

All in all I'd recommend it at this stage. I think Bioware have knocked it out of the park.

 

[duwenbasden]

Waiting for a sale. I don't buy $60 games unless I am absolutely sure I'll put at least 300 hours into it.

 

[kuolonen]

Bioware used to be a 'Definitely pre-order all their stuff, I trust them' developer. It held true for years, but let's look at their latest titles; Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and SW:TOR. Of those, Mass Effect is the only game worth playing, and even that was imperfect at launch (the free extended-ending DLC stuff almost making it acceptable). DA:I looks promising, but so did TOR and they made a real botchjob of that. I know EA is to blame for everything here, and I'm hoping that EA learned from this and realised they need to give Bioware some space, but let's be real. Publishers are incapable of learning.

I'm gonna wait and see how this one fares the initial week. It might be one of those 'Grab the demo first and see if it's worth paying for afterwards' jobs.

Pretty much word-to-word how my relationship with bioware has been progressing, with exception that my feeling of ME3 are tad more positive. You ever get around to it let me know how bad/good it was.

PS: You will not be able to play a... "demo" at least for a couple of weeks because of the new DRM from denuvo is causing problems for people who make... "demos".

 

[Ferisar]

Bioware used to be a 'Definitely pre-order all their stuff, I trust them' developer. It held true for years, but let's look at their latest titles; Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and SW:TOR. Of those, Mass Effect is the only game worth playing, and even that was imperfect at launch (the free extended-ending DLC stuff almost making it acceptable). DA:I looks promising, but so did TOR and they made a real botchjob of that. I know EA is to blame for everything here, and I'm hoping that EA learned from this and realised they need to give Bioware some space, but let's be real. Publishers are incapable of learning.

I'm gonna wait and see how this one fares the initial week. It might be one of those 'Grab the demo first and see if it's worth paying for afterwards' jobs.

Pretty much word-to-word how my relationship with bioware has been progressing, with exception that my feeling of ME3 are tad more positive. You ever get around to it let me know how bad/good it was.

PS: You will not be able to play a... "demo" at least for a couple of weeks because of the new DRM from denuvo is causing problems for people who make... "demos".

Or you could not pirate the game and just buy it for 24 hours, play it for said 24 hours, and return it if you thought it was shit because its platform supports that. Novel, I know. /waits patiently for steam to learn their lesson from someone else for once in its lifetime

 

[Morgoth780]

I voted for Witcher 3 just because the footage I've seen of DA:I doesn't interest me much.

I haven't looked at reviews, but if it's good and it interests you, I'd say go for it. Witcher 3 won't be here for 4 more months.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I recommend waiting a bit. Sales are coming up and the game has a few bugs that may impact enjoyment. Just hold off a bit and don't expect perfection and I think you will like it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Haven't played it yet. Girlfriend is doing her playthrough, and loves it. Impossible-to-please friend who was disappointed in DA2 and loathed ME3 is playing it, and seems remarkably upbeat about it. Majority of critical reviews have been positive to glowing (in before "ethics in gaming journalism").

There is a large cadre of "Hates Bioware Now" people on this forum, in part because of EA, in part because of ME3's ending, in part because "It's AAA so it's shit". So you're going to get the kind of quality feedback you get in the Metacritic user score section, where 95% of the 0/10 and 10/10 scores haven't even played the game in question.

So should you buy Dragon Age Inquisition?

I have no idea, buddy. It's your money. Buy what you want.

 

[Casual Shinji]

and that there is a lack of (facial) hair styles.

What I don't understand is why there are atleast TEN Bald options for the human female. That's almost half the Options Bar.

The way you can tweak a lot of the facial features by cursor is pretty neat though.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

yeah as it's been mentioned, the gameplay functions are...odd. it doesn't have auto-attack outside of tactical mode, and there is no easy way to loot all or you have to be pretty damn close to the loot for your character to loot it, I have no idea why the "point and click" function that was in previous games is not used here, so much more fluid for a mouse, who the fuck decided that the left mouse button should be reserved for basic attack, and it doesn't even follow the person you are attacking, so there is little to no point in clicking on them, just in that direction.

alot of the problems I have with the game can be fixed by mods (such as the attributes auto-leveling for you, what the fuck bioware? did you entirely forget stat management is a huge part of rpg's? Who in the hell ever asked you to take it out?) so hopefully someday soon modders pick apart the game and fix these things that should be there.

Also, having to spam clicking the "v" key all the damn time is getting really annoying, it was much easier in the past games to just hold down "tab" or something at least.

Now the world is pretty damn immersive, it definitely takes the best parts of dragon age and the best parts of a game like, say skyrim, and combines them. The characters are pretty good so far from what I've played, and I'm enjoying the armor/weapon customizations, but I can't say too much more since I've only played about 4 hours or so.

I would wait for the inevitable black friday/christmas sale(s), I'm sure it'll get down to 40ish bucks by then.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I pre-ordered the Witcher 3 because I trust CDProjekt to deliver. Even if it isn't revolutionary, just more of The Witcher 2 will be enough for me to justify my purchase ^_^

As for Dragon Age Inquisition, I cannot say. I have the funds available to buy it, but it might mean being more financially restricted in the coming months to make up for the £40 loss. It certainly looks good, and the release hype has been pretty convincing in making me consider buying it, but I want to wait for TotalBiscuit's, Yahtzee's and Jim's opinions on the game before deciding. That might take some time, but I only trust them amongst reviewers.

And even amongst the three, I only truly care about Yahtzee's take, since he truly digs into the game to find what is wrong with it. TB will probably like it, Jim might give it a slightly more reserved review, but none truly try to look for badness as Y does.

 

[Da_Schwartz]

I visited this site jus tto find a thread like this today. Okay, so im a huge RPG fan, enojyed the other 2 DA's immensely. But yea, im sorry but inquistion is pretty dull..im a good ten plus hours into it, and so far nothing about it is exciting, at all. As said before the game seems huge, and detailed and there are so many side quests etc etc. SO far:

What i like: Scale..umm oh crap..

What i don't like: The character creator is crazy detailed but unless you want to devoted multiple hours and constant restarts usually your main comes out looking pretty busted. Alot of the things like crafting and slotting and upgrading aren't explained very well but alas not that hard to figure out. The map is godawful, hard to tell the differnce between roads, valleys, canyons, and mountains :/ and this game is in dire need of an good HUD. How you can have a game this big wihtout one is beyond me. The menu system item, journal, and basic screen navigation doesn't feel fluent at all. Its very unpolished and unintuitive. Graphical glitches galore, especially in eariler sections of the game and snowy patches on the floor. (Remember that RAGE game) Also combat is, weird. there is no auto attack ive ket to dabble or even need the set npc AI chart. so far its just go get that guy and hold down the attack button. Also remeber that moment when you first played DA2 and the combat was fast and fresh and way more responsive, yea its kinda like that all over again with more been there seen that. Hmm, what else. Oh, the landscapes are nice, (a pure skyrim lotr hybrid) but alot lighter this time around, i suppose without the blight the game is much more colorful this time around. I can see why the game was delayed, and tbh it still feels unfinished, close, but not there. So far the other characters have been extremely generic, nothing interesting to say and i dont care where they come from or how they got here. FOr me it really makes me want to just get the old gang back together and start making fun of allistar and slapping morrigan and teasing shale..this series has had some great dynamic characters and even only ten plus hours in you can tell that they wont even come close to any of them.

I could go on..but its unfair to bash a game this harsh ive barely dented. So that is enough for now. In short RPG wise does it have the DA2 wow factor? No. Does it grab you by the shirt and sink its fangs in you straight from the start like skyrim? no. Is it a better world then LOTR? Probably not. ALl things said, its not a bad game. lol. It's just...boring. I find myself wanting more and more and just wondering where the hell all of these great reviews came from. It's a hard game to explain, but it seems you always feel a bit lost while playing. not sure where to go..or what to do, who to talk to, which button to push or how to get to the correct screen. I'd wait. id get my money back if i could and give it another go after some much needed patches, or pc mods.

 

[Amaror]

snip

I have played Inquisition for about 12 hours now and i will answer your question. It depends. It depends on what your expecting.
If you expect an Dragon Age: Origins 2 then don't get it, it's not that.
I am a bit sad myself about it but i think the Bioware that produced games with carefull tactical gameplay is dead 100%. It doesn't exist anymore. You certainly can use tactics in Inquisition but you need to use the tactical camera for that and the tactical camera is tedious as hell.
The controls for taccam on pc are just plain horrible, it's hard to even move the camera and a chore to use. Additionally it barely zooms out the view so it's basically useless anyway. Another sad things that shows how much tactical bioware is gone is the tactics menu. It doesn't exist anymore. There are no if-then scenarios anymore. You just tell your ai what spells they are allowed to use and when to drink potions, that's it. No deep customization whatsoever.
It's not as horrible as it sounds, though. The AI is fairly proficient in combat and uses they spells fairly reasonable. It has one flaw though. Positioning. The AI is horrible in positioning. One common fight are fade rifts. these spawn waves of demons and when you killed them all you can close the rift. the problem is between each wave there is a short time were there are no demons around. And when there are no enemies around the Ai want to hug their master. So when you happen to be a meele character, all your mages and archers will walk right up to you and be right there at the front of the fight where the baddies spawn. You can order them to move, but to do that you have to go into tactical camera, which is horrible as i allready said.

But enough complaining. If you can deal with the fact that there will be not many tactical fights, that the battles are action-oriented and that there are no tactics options then yes, you should buy the game. The presentation is fantastic, the characters are fun and there is an absurd amount of content. As i said i am 12 hours in and i only went to the very first open- world area and didn't even really touch on the main story. The game is massive. It's definetly better than Dragon Age 2. The game shows in every aspect that a lot of time and love went into making it as good as it can be. It doesn't reach the quality of gameplay that origins did, but i am fairly certain that no bioware game ever will again. The old bioware is sadly dead. The new bioware is still good at what it does, although what is does is different then what old bioware did.
If you want a content-heavy action-rpg with good characters, buy it. If you want an tactical rpg with carefull planning you will sadly not find it here.

Edit: Oh yeah nearly forgot some of the "options" and "reactions" of other characters on you are really fake. Some reviewers gushed how one horsemaster was racist towards them when they were playing as an elve or qunari. I played a human and the guy was still racist towards me, because he doesn't like the country i am from apparently. So same reaction no matter what you are.