A civil war between the loyalists of the ruling Empress and a powerful noble faction broke out in Orlais. The Circle of Magi has gone rogue, and the Templar Order seceded from the Chantry to wage their own civil war on the mages. Can you save the world from itself?
gssgs
Excellent game. Better than the last two, an interesting story and plenty to do. Very long gameplay time: around 200 hours for a completionist (if not more, if you really take your time!)
Just a quick review. (Excluding Deep Roads DLC from this review.)
Merits:
+ solid Party-Based RPG goodness
+ your own faction, RTS elements
+ pretty much everything that isn't listed as a flaw
Flaws:
- little to no customisation of your faction; most of the customisation (except perks) is cosmetic and superficial, you can't e.g. pledge your service to (minor spoiler) the Elder One so you don't really have any freedom at all, you cannot e.g. build more defenses for your stronghold or defend it against invasions, recruit more inquisition forces, and so on, the RTS element is pretty shallow
- no benefit in rejecting agents/companions - illusion of choice - for example Cole - there is no real benefit in not having him as a companion, there is no real alternative choice
- areas are quite small (vs e.g. the Witcher 3, the second Witcher's area - the first big one - is like 4-8 times bigger than Hinterlands)
- invisible walls (vs Skyrim, DAI is terrible with placement of those)
- minor issues, such as (PS4) cannot remap X button (jump button) to any skills e.g. evasion (which functions as "jump" for rogues) and which also would allow for 2nd switch X button for another skill - most times jumping in DAI is pretty useless because of invisible walls; another minor issue e.g. BioWare screwing the game because of amulets of power exploit (ONE of the most important items as they give you or your party member additional skill point), (minor spoiler) the storage chest is available pretty late in the game, no accurate junk item indication, and similar minor deficiencies
- soft level cap; around 25 levels - game is balanced this way but for higher levels you either have to grind or kill dragons you already killed (so no real progress beyond that) - there should be some continuity, e.g. rifts un-sealing themselves and spewing higher level demons, or something
- a ton of farming in the field, a bit too much farming - it's pretty good but it could use some work and be more rewarding, there could be even more table operations for that (and higher levels ones, e.g. for dragon materials that last 24+ hours especially since those materials are finite because of perma-dead dragons), and be even more tied to the faction system (not just for requisitions and faction level, but gather metals to enhance/upgrade your stronghold, herbs to heal/save your troops etc)
- except for "final choice" dialogues, and emotion-based dialogue options, almost no hint how/whether your answer has any influece on reputation with that companion you are talking with - or talking near - and there SHOULD be - as any shorthand dialogue options BioWare give may be pretty confusing - since characters speak something entirely different and with a different tone of voice than suspected (especially those dialogues choices that do not accurately indicate even their tone/attitude or outcome) - the only bad thing about DAI dialogues inherited from other BioWare games - dialogue options should display EVERYTHING one's own character wants to say to avoid confusion what exactly he'll try to say - pretty much hating this and considering it totally unfair (dialogues are like 'guess what BioWare's main character wants to say by shorthand "Damn You"' - especially given that the context is often ambiguous)
- worse modding support than Skyrim; and definitely worse modding support and Game Master mode (well, there's no GM mode) than some of the previous BioWare games (looking at you, Neverwinter Nights!)
- the main storyline quests are... very, very short, only open-world side-quest experience extends the playtime
- still seems a bit rushed in a multitude of aspects, as well as could use more QA (alpha/beta-testing), and well to be honest, bugs are fairly common in all big RPGs
Summing up, a solid game yet not an entirely polished or feature-complete one. Especially the faction feature which could use more character and actual RTS elements.
Amazing 120 hour experience, graphics for areas were amazing.
I thought the classes were a pretty good change, loved being a mage knight with the lightsaber of magic. I liked the companions for the most part, their reactions also felt a little more realistic and less selfish whining like in origins. It was great to see that this 3rd game in this trilogy actually effects the story a bit more than another Bioware trilogy...
Can't wait to see what DLC will come out for this.
Pretty effects and lighting aside, the game's art style is the typical boringly realistic shade of boring most AAA games adopt these days. Unless its raining it'll bore your eyes, or rather as long as it isn't a happy generic sunny color-faded day it'll probably look good.
The game's mechanics in general ooze bad console-port, from that one second it takes your character to acknowledge you just pressed W to start moving, the ****** targeting system, 30 FPS cutscenes, and the hilariously obtuse "tactical camera." If I wasn't forced to buy it on Origin, I'd have to swear it were a Ubisoft game based on the aforementioned.
Perhaps the most criminal thing about this game is how much it feels like an MMO, minus the actual multiplayer; in fact, the limited multiplayer that you can play that has nothing to do with the single player campaign is essentially broken. Most of the game's content is not much less vapid than the typical MMO's and the primary story feels disjointed from all this extra nonsense bobbing about demanding your attention. So far, the first few hours aren't very interesting at all and I haven't been able to force myself to play anymore than a couple hours on any given day to find out if it does ever indeed become interesting.
Not until something like a dozen or more hours into the game does it actually become interesting, which is quite pathetic for what one would expect of Bioware game. Generally, you'd do well to do only what's non-MMO time-filler content as much as possible. You'll probably level fast enough to not have to.
After the succes of Dragon Age Origins,
Dragon Age 2 was a complete let-down.
Dragon Age will redeem itself with Inquisition,
the game is mouth watering in all aspects.
The only real huge lack is no modding support :(
Otherwise then that, a great, absolutely, great game!