Dragon Age Inquisition - Review

If you are into RPGs then Dragon Age Inquisition must of been one of your most anticipated games of the year it certainly was one of mine, does the third trip into the world of Thedas live up to the hype?

Once you start the game you are tasked with creating the character you will use to represent you in the world when you set out on your journey. As far as looks go you can choose to be male or female and choose from the races of Human, Elf, Dwarf and Qunari which is available as a playable race in the Dragon Age universe for the first time. The character creation options are very extensive and from some of the examples of characters I have seen posted online if you have the time and patience the possibilities are almost endless as to what you can create. 

As always the most important part of creating your character is to choose what class you will be, there are only 3 options here (Mage, Warrior or Rogue) which may seem quite limited but each of these classes has three skill trees so you can further customise your characters abilities by investing the skill points you earn throughout the game.

The game starts with a cinematic showing the destruction of the Temple Of Sacred Ashes by a massive green tinted explosion, this subsequently kills a large number of Templars and Magi and the Chantry leadership who had gathered at the temple to broker a peace treaty between the two factions. You wake up after this event and find yourself being accused by Cassandra (The Seeker of Truth from the previous Dragon Age game) of having been involved of the destruction of the temple. The Chantry decides they want you taken to Val Royeaux to be put on trial but Cassandra instead decides to take you to the rift that opened up after the explosion in an attempt to try and close it.

The first part of the game involves you following Cassandra to the rift and to me felt totally overwhelming as you try to keep your attention on following Cassandra whilst get to grips with the combat system and your skills at the same time, though after a few hours the combat becomes less confusing and more intuitive.

The combat system in the game is very versatile and allows you to play straight out action combat or you can also choose to play via the tactical view which changes the combat to a turn by turn based system where you issue orders to your party members turn by turn which makes for a slower more tactical fighting experience. I mainly stuck to the action combat style for the great majority of the game but switched to the tactical view on a few occasions when I encountered large groups of enemies and I needed to ensure my fellow party members effectively managed crowd control. Your party gains experience and levels up with you which allows you to customise their abilities along with your own by spending points in the three skill trees assigned to each class. The problem I had with combat (playing as a rogue) is that it did not feel like my hits had enough impact and even though I was hitting enemies and seeing the damage I was doing represented by numbers on the screen it just felt like I was going through the motions and it really didn’t feel like I was doing damage at all. Three Words “Shadow Of Mordor” - I know you are probably sick of me raving about the combat system in that game but it really is a shining example of the way combat in a game should be designed, if Dragon Age Inquisition had a combat system similar to the one in Mordor I wouldn’t hesitate to give this game a perfect rating.

The story in this game isn’t its strongest point it is your typical RPG fare where you take control of a character within a ravaged and doomed world and try to save the day, this aside it is almost impossible not to become immersed in the world that Bioware has created it is graphically beautiful and feels like it is alive due to wonderful small touches like when you run through some bushes and suddenly rabbits or other animals scatter everywhere to run away from you. The voice acting in the game is nothing short of brilliant and really brought all the conversations in the game to life, if you are familiar with previous Bioware RPGs such as the Mass Effect series you will be well aware of how fascinating some of the conversations choices in the game can be and what makes it all the more interesting is that your choices in these conversations actually do have an effect on the game world. As you play into the game you gain more power and allies for the inquisition, you can send some of these allies of on battles or espionage missions via the war room and these will serve to on some occasions serve to open up previously unreachable areas of the world.

Speaking of the world, the game is not open world like games such as Skyrim, it is broken up into various zones but these individual zones are so large and filled with so many side quests and areas for exploration it really doesn’t hamper the immersion at all. The game is massive and there are just so many things to do, if you get stuck on one quest there will always be other different quests to tackle so that you can level your characters up and then go back to the quest you were having problems with when you are more powerful. It is a world that begs you to explore it and I found it a pleasure to do so. I am currently only 30 hours into the game and I have really only just started to chip away at the tip of the massive iceberg that is Dragon Age Inquisition, it is estimated it takes anywhere from 60-90 hours to completely finish the game and once I do finish it I know I am going to feel a pang of regret like when I turn the last page of a great book because the world and story I became a part of will come to a close.

This game has been an absolute pleasure to play and has lived up to all I expected it to be, quite simply if you are a fan of RPGs or the Dragon Age franchise in general then run out and grab this game and if you are somebody looking to get into RPGs then this is a great place to start.

The Score

8.5

Review code provided by Electronic Arts

The Pros

+Massive world that feels alive and is full of great quests and missions

+Everything is immersive and addictive, including the crafting system

The Cons

-The combat can get repetivive and as it doesn't have a true sense of weight, it will leave you feeling disconnected from the events taking place around you