This week: Dragon Age Inquisition

Waving my sword in the air like I don't care!

Screenshot: Dragon Age Inquisition

I played Dragon Age: Origins a few years ago.

By “played” I mean I got as far as the first hour-ish, hanging on by a thread as a mage in a party with not enough tanks. I died over and over on the easiest difficulty (yes, really) and promptly gave up.

(It was long before my time as a TTRPG player and a Baldur’s Gate 3 admirer—I certainly would have fared better today than three years ago.)

But I’ve yet to try again. So, while I’m not completely new to the Dragon Age franchise, I also know very little about it. Starting Dragon Age Inquisition felt like diving into something new. I went in completely blind, with no knowledge of the world or what to expect from the game mechanics, intent on discovering it all by myself.

I had some hopes, though, that were the reasons why I bought it in the first place:

• An open-world map that I could roam with no or few guardrails

• A high fantasy setting

• A rich story

Did it deliver? Let’s find out.

Welcome, Inquisitor, here’s a to-do list

The game wastes no time in thrusting the player into the story.

So. Much. Lore. So many notes, books, and codex entries to read right off the bat.

It’s not just the lore. The overwhelm is everywhere. It is, in fact, the defining characteristic of the game for me so far. There are so many sidequests, fetch quests, and collection missions. Grab this, find that, kill these, locate those, puzzle me this, puzzle me that.

So much to do!

In the early game, it was helpful—nothing like a dozen little missions to orient you around the map and get the lay of the land. But it got stale real fast.

Most, if not all, side quests are straightforward and demand no brainwork. The only difficulty lies in their quantity, which is really not a great way to challenge the player.

Sadly, throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the player to see what sticks permeates the game experience overall. From levelling up to missions and skills, many aspects of the game fit together a little awkwardly, not quite forming a cohesive whole. It wasn’t obvious to me what I should focus on to progress the story and level up effectively, so I gave up trying and just went with it, sword flailing.

Map

But first things first, the world.

I love me a good open-world map. There are few games that meet my high post-Witcher-3-open-world-map-roaming expectations, so I’m always on the lookout for games that deliver that fix.

The Dragon Age Inquisition map is massive. You can roam freely within each region and complete quests in any order. The fast travel system is generous—you can travel from anywhere to any camp you unlock or travel point you encounter. Go to other regions of the world at your leisure too!

It doesn’t feel truly open because you can’t climb, plus your jump is pretty shit. On the other hand, I’m glad that it’s there at all. What’s an open-world map if you can’t open-world it? Some areas aren’t meant to be brute forced, though, and brute force them you shan’t.

The sheer number of icons on the map, due to the endless sidequests, is once again infuriating. The perfectionist completionist in me can’t stand question marks. I had to actively start fighting against the urge to clear each region before progressing the story, lest I be here for another month and never finish.

Experience and leveling up

Very few missions in the game have a suggested level attached to them, so to be safe I wanted to buff up my beefcake dwarf as soon as possible.

Let me count the ways a character can level: there’s Ability points, there’s Perks, there’s Influence, and there’s Power.

Ability points you earn through the good old XP gain of killing foes, discovering codex entries and, possibly, collecting materials.

Perks are more like auxiliary skills to make adventuring easier, like inventory upgrades, gathering more herbs and the like.

You can claim Perks with enough Influence—one per each level. You gain Influence by completing story missions only, I think?

Completing sidequests and closing Rifts (a story thing; no comment to avoid spoilers) also grants you Power, and Power is needed to unlock missions to unlock new regions on the map…

Oh, and when you do those map-based missions, it’s actually your spies who do it for you, but you can assign different ones to each mission and only then go there yourself, but these missions are also timed to the real-life clock, so you need to be strategic about doing several at once, and, and, and

Sheesh.

It makes sense in the game I GUESS, but it’s difficult to explain outside of it—which is a reliable sign it’s not an elegant system at all.

I found XP and Influence gains slow, while Power is stupid easy to earn thanks to the number of sidequests available.

Inventory

The inventory is barebones and annoying to navigate.

It reminds me a lot of the inventory in The Witcher 2: The Assassins of Kings.

Less pretty, same dumb.

You have a starting carry capacity of 60 (well, my warrior character did, not sure if different for other classes). Each piece of armour, weapons, accessories and valuables count as 1 towards the inventory limit. Crafting ingredients don’t count THANK GOD. Once you reach capacity, you can’t pick stuff anymore. But you also can’t be over-encumbered, so that’s nice.

The inventory capacity is shared with your companions. No perks for having a jacked Cassandra on your team.

I love hoarding unique armour and weapons just in case, but I haven’t found a way to unload inventory anywhere else besides selling things to merchants. Maybe there is a way to do it in the later game that I haven’t unlocked yet?

Main character, NPCs and companions

It feels like all I’ve done so far is complain, but I’m also enjoying the game immensely for the story and the dialogue.

What I’ve heard so far is sharp and natural. The starter companion pack—Cassandra, Varric, and Solas—have distinct personalities, motivations, backstories. Other companions you can recruit later on are intriguing too.

(Except Sera. Sera is annoying.)

They all feel fleshed out and alive, their slightly wooden 2014 animations notwithstanding, so I’m trying to roleplay my lady dwarf warrior to meet them at their level.

There looks to be romance later on, but no clues as to how to check the relationship progression, except by the floating “[Companion] approves” or “[Companion] slightly disapproves” prompts. Plus, a little birdie told me most romance options are gender- and/or race-locked. So that’s fun. (Not.)

You can play as a human, an elf, a dwarf or a Qunari. Your class options are Rogue, Warrior, or Mage. Not a whole lot of options, but I appreciate that—decision paralysis at the character creation stage is my least favourite part of RPGs. So I went with a dwarf warrior, planning to build a tank.

Accidentally gorgeous makeup alert!

Unfortunately, story-wise, it was an entirely wrong decision. To keep it spoiler-free: the main player has a unique ability that helps with battling demons…. but using this ability as a tank becomes a touch hard when every foe is intent on targeting you. So many interrupted castings, so little health to try again.

I should have been a stealthy rogue, is all I’m saying.

The overall experience and story

No passing judgment on the story until I finish or at least get close to the end, but 15 hours in and counting, I’m very entertained. Slowly but surely, the game is drawing me in and getting me invested in the story and the companions I meet along the way. I want to learn and understand the lore better. The desire to go back to Dragon Age: Origins and give it another go grows by the hour too.

With how much this game loves the overwhelm, I had to get good at capping the number of sidequests to be distracted by. Once I did, my experience with Dragon Age Inquisition got infinitely better.

All of the gripes I have with the game I can live with, so my hopes for completing it are high.

Oh, and I saw a dragon once twice already!

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