Should I buy Dragon Age Inquisition? Honest Opinions.

jklinders

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Sep 21, 2010
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I haven't played Witcher 3 yet. I need a new GPU before I even consider it.

DA:I is a very good game. Gear locking is pretty annoying but you get a pretty good range of roles in your class. If you want to play a battle mage then Knight Enchanter is undoubtably your baby. that class is actually broken it's so strong. The armour might not improve with that specialization but you get in tradeoff self regenerating barriers that get stronger as you do damage. I was tanking with my knight enchanter better than my tanks, and doing more DPS then the rogues. Horrifyingly broken, but still fun.

I don't doubt that Witcher 3 is more your speed though. Get DA:I on a sale, EA has had several fire sales already on it and it's always better to follow your own judgement than others.
 

Rastrelly

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Mar 19, 2011
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DAI is shite. Plain and simple. It emulates characters, plotline and setting, but in fact it has none of these. It basically has no soul, and it shows. First areas drag for HOURS and they are tedious, and mere splashes of tolerable story are always choked by MMO-inspired artificial gameplay length.
 

chikusho

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I just bought Dragon Age: Inquisition half off on PSN. I think it's pretty great. About 50 hours in so far, and I'm just about to dive back in. If you get it cheap and have lots of spare time, you should go for it.
 

Smooth Operator

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OP you are describing and action RPG, while DA:I is closer then the others it isn't comparable. If you go and buy it for combat and combat only you will be sorely disappointed.

Witcher is the better pick in that case.
 

Grampy_bone

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LostTrigger said:
I've played dragons age origins and 2. They both were meh, only 20 minutes though. I want to give Inquisition a try but im not sure if i'll enjoy the combat. Im a battle mage at heart and I hate fighting with the staff in dragon age(which is my biggest gripe with the series, locked weapons/armor). I do know about the Knight Enchanter special class but you fight with an conjured sword and your staff, you also still keep your weak mage gear and as far as I know mages get destroyed in cqc.

My only option would be the warrior or rogue. Don't really care for supporting role(i think thats the templar) or sword and shield(champion). For the rogue, someone said it was diverse because you could use dual daggers or switch to bow and arrow, yet you cant switch weapons during combat(i hear) then that kinda ruins it for me. Also not a fan of the back stabbing. So through elimination my only class might be the two-handed sword/reaver but from what I saw it used moves that sacrifices your health. Lol I know im being overly picky.

A few of my favorite rpg games were dark souls, skyrim, and dragons dogma(adleast action rpg's) and im really not sure if i'll enjoy the combat. Everyone says its a great game but I hate the class locks because there doesnt seem to be one that suits my playing style, upclose and personal, badass armor, and a few spells/ranged attacks. On a side note im also thinking I might want to get the witcher 3 instead. Thoughts?
The combat is fun enough, more action-y than previous Dragon age games. The issue is the game pretty much plateaus out around level 10 or so (30-40% of the endgame level) and then just coasts on the same abilities for the rest of the game. You'll learn all your important abilities by then and not gain much more from levels after that. That wouldn't be so bad except that game is so damn long it just feels like a slog.

If you're not a completionist than it might not affect you as much, you can just proceed to the end of the game, but for anyone who wants to fully experience the game, it has all the fun and excitement of eating wet cardboard.
 

G00N3R7883

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Feb 16, 2011
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For context, Dragon Age: Origins is my favourite game of all time, Witcher 2 would be in the top10 somewhere, maybe even top5.

Finished Inquisition, 8 hours or so in to Witcher 3. Witcher 3 is vastly superior.

Inquisition has a good story, although the main villain is a bit under developed, but the combat sucks. They completely gutted anything resembling tactics, including removing healing magic (except for 1 character gets 1 spell about half way up the ability tree) and removing most of the pre-planned companion orders that you could do in the previous games (eg, most of the "when below 50% health do this" or "enemy class is X, use spell Y").

Witcher 3 has an amazing story (so far) and the combat is exactly what I expected based on previous games. Also the Witcher 3 side quests are almost like mini stories, whereas DA:I side quests were mostly basic fetch quests.
 

Ihateregistering1

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Mar 30, 2011
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It's already been repeated several times, but get Witcher 3 instead (assuming you can run it). I got Inquisition and put about 40 hours into it, but I'm honestly just kind of bored of it now and have no real desire to go back and finish it.

The combat can't seem to figure out whether it wants to be tactical or action-packed, the story feels weak, the characters (to me) feel boring compared to DA:O characters (with the possible exception of Iron Bull and maybe Solas), if you don't turn off 'friendly fire' your Mages seem to be idiots and will roast your guys alive. The villain is underdeveloped, and the endless gathering of materials is just grating after a while. Also, keeping track of upgrading SOOOOO many things on your weapons and armor is just an ass-pain (Witcher 3 has a lot of this too, but since you're only focused on one character it's much easier). The "war map" idea is kind of cool, but gets dull after a while.

I'm 20 hours into Witcher 3, and it's one of those games I think of constantly when I'm not playing it. The story is phenomenal, even side quests are incredibly well-done and interesting, the support cast is outstanding (The Bloody Baron is one of the best support characters I've seen in years). The game feels mature in an actual 'mature' way, not just "let's have lots of cussing and sex'. Monster hunting is a blast because you feel like you're actually, well, hunting, not just "go over to this cave and kill this thing". You have to actually investigate the site to figure out what you're dealing with, talk to people who've seen it, find out where it is, and then prepare accordingly (ie. oil on your sword, making the right kinds of bombs or potions, etc.). No matter how many quests you have going on at once in Witcher 3, you never feel overwhelmed or feel like "I have no idea where I'm supposed to go or what I'm supposed to do next". Oh yeah, and the game looks unbelievable. I'm running it on the lowest settings (I have a GEforce GTX 570 4GB), and it's still the best looking game I've ever seen.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Oct 25, 2011
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I suppose I can only add to the consensus: at anywhere near full price? No, avoid DA:I like some kind of plague Blight. It really is an SP MMO made up of zones, with barely a slither of a real story, shallow combat, and its maps are obscene sawn-off shotgun blasts of inane, Ubisoft/MMO style filler. DA:I is a huge game, sure, but the majority of it is nothing but a collectathon, repeating the same aimless tasks in each zone till the entire game blurs into one prolonged collectathon 'em up. Or something...

However... Even though I believe it to be BioWare's worst/least-good game I've played yet (started with KotOR, but have since played BG1 before it), and the 'critical' reception was so overblown I'm tempted to shout it was a fix, if you're a big BioWare fan to this day (which you don't appear to be... ), then you'll find plenty to enjoy amidst the puddle shallow filler and truncated, dopey 'story'. I've still found it enjoyable enough to get stuck into a second playthrough (80hrs and counting).

So yes, get DA:I - but only in the sales: EA/BioWare don't need more encouragement for them to believe this standard is good enough for a modern A/RPG.

And yes... just get The Witcher 3 at full price or something close to it - because they do need and deserve the support.
 

happyninja42

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I picked up DA:I a few weeks ago, and I've enjoyed it. I've beaten it and already restart a new playthrough with a different class. It's not the best game in the world, but it's fun. The combat is enjoyable, though the level of tactical modifications you can make for your teammates is very limited compared to previous games. The music is good, and I've had very few bugs.

Some people further up in the thread said the game has terrible load times, but I've not scene it at all. The loading is fairly reasonable, only a few seconds on my system. It's so fast in fact, that I just don't understand why those little codex tabs are shown while you load, as you barely have time to read more than a sentence.

I haven't played Witcher 3, and I don't plan on it. Witcher 1 sucked ass, and Witcher 2 is said to be more of the same shit, so I'll skip on the third installment of a game series that I just don't give a damn about.

Pick whichever one you want and run with it, but I'd suggest waiting on a sale regardless, because why not? Saving money is always good.
 

Ihateregistering1

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Happyninja42 said:
I haven't played Witcher 3, and I don't plan on it. Witcher 1 sucked ass, and Witcher 2 is said to be more of the same shit, so I'll skip on the third installment of a game series that I just don't give a damn about.
I don't know who told you that Witcher 2 was more of the same, but they must not have played it, because Witcher 2 totally overhauled just about everything from the first game. Combat was completely different, story was way more interesting and had a lot more variables (small decisions could completely change huge chunks of the game), and was generally just far more entertaining. My biggest problem with it was that the plot was difficult to follow if you weren't familiar with the game's lore, but a trip to Wikipedia can fix just about all of that. I'd still recommend Witcher 3, even for people who didn't like the first two games, it's really that good.
 
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KB13 said:
I've played both games and if you do get DA:I DON'T get it on PC, yes they've been getting patches and DLC first but trust me not worth it, the machine you need in order to get good frame rate and decent graphics doesn't exist.
What sort of PC are you running it on? I've got a $1000 laptop with a mid-low range GPU and I get 60 fps on medium settings pretty easily.

OT:

So far I've been impressed with DA:I more often than I've actually enjoyed it. It's got a lot of little touches that you rarely see in other games, the level design is interesting and tends to be filled with plenty of points of interest (Although the points of interest aren't all that interesting), the animations between your character and the environment are rather good (You shift your weight based on the incline to the ground), and a bunch of other little things like that.

In terms of gameplay, there's a definite shift of style. It seems a lot harder to play tactically than DA:O, but the classes play a lot better on their own. I steered clear of sword and board warriors because of how boring they were in Origins, but I've found playing as Cassandra to be quite fun, they did a good job at making their attacks feel like they have impact. Mages have also gotten interesting new abilities, but I haven't played far enough into it to have a real feel for them.

Character customization is also pretty good, if that makes a difference to you.

Right now the story's boring as hell though, and none of the characters have grabbed me like Morrigan, Sten or Alistar. It feels like they're not even trying. This is the factor that's been making me less and less motivated to play it.

So to sum things up: Story kind of sucks, characters are boring (at the beginning at least), gameplay is better if you're sticking to one character, worse if you're trying for tactics. Technically it's pretty impressive, and it's overall a nice looking game.

Except those hats. I have no idea why Bioware hasn't learned how to design hats across this whole series.
 

Gatlank

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Having played both (and actually owning Witcher 3) go with the Witcher. DAI get's old really fast.
After the first 10 hours it looked like i actually enjoyed everything the game had to offer, combat was unimpressive, characters were kind of meh compared to previous DA and the next hours that i forced myself to play the game to see if it would get good never went above bland.
The side quests are just grinding filler, never providing enjoyable breaks from the main story and things like the castle customization weren't that much interesting (the only thing exceptional in that castle was Solas mural).
If you're still unsure, find a friend with the game and try it first before going all in.
Maybe you'll like it but if you dont at least you saved your money for Witcher 3.
 

KB13

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The Almighty Aardvark said:
Except those hats. I have no idea why Bioware hasn't learned how to design hats across this whole series.
The hats!! I totally forgot about those!

 

Azure23

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LostTrigger said:
I've played dragons age origins and 2. They both were meh, only 20 minutes though. I want to give Inquisition a try but im not sure if i'll enjoy the combat. Im a battle mage at heart and I hate fighting with the staff in dragon age(which is my biggest gripe with the series, locked weapons/armor). I do know about the Knight Enchanter special class but you fight with an conjured sword and your staff, you also still keep your weak mage gear and as far as I know mages get destroyed in cqc.

My only option would be the warrior or rogue. Don't really care for supporting role(i think thats the templar) or sword and shield(champion). For the rogue, someone said it was diverse because you could use dual daggers or switch to bow and arrow, yet you cant switch weapons during combat(i hear) then that kinda ruins it for me. Also not a fan of the back stabbing. So through elimination my only class might be the two-handed sword/reaver but from what I saw it used moves that sacrifices your health. Lol I know im being overly picky.

A few of my favorite rpg games were dark souls, skyrim, and dragons dogma(adleast action rpg's) and im really not sure if i'll enjoy the combat. Everyone says its a great game but I hate the class locks because there doesnt seem to be one that suits my playing style, upclose and personal, badass armor, and a few spells/ranged attacks. On a side note im also thinking I might want to get the witcher 3 instead. Thoughts?
Knight enchanter is a pretty OP specialization that can make you practically invincible when specced right, of which there are many guides online. I played my first character as a Qunari knight enchanter so I could tank even more melee damage but my second character is a human rogue which I think is a more fun pick. It's specializations have abilities which for all intents and purposes are spells while still being a melee character with good survivability.

I like DAI, it's a fun game with a lot of good stuff there if you look for it. I'd say that you can safely avoid quests that ask you to something though. Fetch quests just aren't worth it in that game, with one notable late game exception which unlocks the best farming area in the game. That brings me to another thing, there's a significant amount of farming if you want to outfit your characters with the best gear, whether it's farming for schematics (all the best gear is crafted) or rare materials, it can be a bit of a grind in some parts. The overall storyline is interesting but as usual the meat of the narrative quality is in companion quests and a number of more involved side quests which pop up from time to time. I like the area diversity and if you do choose to get I'd recommend you do a few quests in the starting area then leave quickly. It's a big area and frankly most of the quests there are busywork that won't benefit you much, it's also the least interesting area by far.
 

Joseph Harrison

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Honestly, you came to the wrong forum if you wanted an unbiased opinion on a Bioware game, everyone on the Escapist hates everyhting Bioware with a passion (which is Ironic since Bioware won community choice game of the year and Bioware won march madness iirc), Dragon Age Inquisition is far better than people are giving it credit for, it's well reviewed, won tons of GOTY's and had the greatest launch in Bioware's history for a reason.

My opinion is that Witcher 3 is awesome too, but if you're looking to play a Battlemage, I don't think Witcher 3 is your shtick. Both games are great but both are flawed in their own ways. I personally like DAI more than WItcher 3, but Witcher 3 is still an amazing game, probably my 2nd favorite this year after Bloodborne.
 

The Madman

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Joseph Harrison said:
Honestly, you came to the wrong forum if you wanted an unbiased opinion on a Bioware game, everyone on the Escapist hates everyhting Bioware with a passion (which is Ironic since Bioware won community choice game of the year and Bioware won march madness iirc), Dragon Age Inquisition is far better than people are giving it credit for, it's well reviewed, won tons of GOTY's and had the greatest launch in Bioware's history for a reason.
Well that's just unfair. Not only did I not say I hated Inquisition, but I generally love Bioware games and have played pretty much every game of theirs going all the way back to Shattered Steel and Baldur's Gate, which I make no secret in considering one of my all time favourites. Dragon Age: Origins was a damned fine game as well I've replayed a couple times now.

I just also don't think Inquisition was all that good. It had some neat ideas and a smooth execution, but overall when I'll still be replaying games like Baldur's Gate 2 and the Mass Effect series years down the line, I just can't see myself replaying Inquisiton without some very drastic changes or some amazing dlc to expand upon the existing content.
 

Carzinex

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Mar 29, 2011
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For me the most stand out difference (their are plenty more for sure) are the loading screens. I've got a suped up PC and DA:I just felt like constant loading screens, to the point i just felt dejected when i knew i had to move areas.

The Witcher? For such a huge game (my god everytime i thought i was nearly finished another at least 5 hour quest line popped up) there are virtually no loading screens, even on initial load its so quick. I gotta hand it to CD projekt i wasn't the biggest fan of 1 and 2 but whatever engine they used is amazing.

Anyway completed Witcher last night can't wait to dive back in. Competed DA:i in first week of release and played the intro 100's of times but always quit, just no excitement for it after first playthrough.
 

Kwak

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If your plan is to get an RPG fix while everyone is raving about the new witcher so you can find something to take up your time with until W3 is old enough to come down in value (which is the position I'm in), maybe try Bound By Flame, which is lower in price than DAI at the moment (on ps4). It's definitely b-grade, but quite enjoyable on that level, and the combat is pretty good and challenging. I think it probably deserves a bit more credit than it got at the time.
Definitely not open world though.
I might get DAI too still just to see what it's like, but only when it's $30 or less (australian).