I've Seen the Light on Dragon Age, and It's Glorious

So Dragon Age confirmed to be in this years Giant Bomb overall top 10?

Damn it Patrick I can't buy this until next month why are you torturing me. I want to play this so bad =(

If I had a cent to give I would buy this. I am genuinely glad bioware seems to have some wind back in their sails. From what I hear, not perfect, but damn good.

Glad to hear you're liking it!

Its a good game, one I am enjoying after the travesty of DA2, but I have had a few issues pop up. The Keep didn't work for me, I made selections, and noticed a few of them seemingly did not take in my play through, like who is king in Ferelden. Also having a LOT of dialogue bugs and glitches on the PS4, which force me to reload a save or skip through them missing out of potentially cool or interesting points.

I'm really bummed out by the third game's clunky and imprecise third-person action controls (far worse than DA:O and DA2, at least as far as the PC version is concerned), but the open-ish world is indeed impressive and immersive from what I've seen so far.

I'm kind of in the same boat, regarding jumping in.

I should. It's cold outside. I now have 3 extra hours per workday.

Hmm.....

I think there is still merit to playing Dragon Age: Origins, if only to see how they handle the origin story of your different characters. I think I spent the first 10 hours of the game creating different characters and playing through the unique scenarios.

I... I... enjoyed Dragon Age 2. The more personal story was something I wish more videogames would do and I'm not someone that enjoys getting super-deep in combat system. It was a flawed gem for me.

@egge: I have not treated it as an action game at all, but as a real time w/pause, and it hasn't seemed clunky to me, maybe just a different outlook on how its played? If I had been a fan of DA2 I would definitely think the combat was off if I was treating it like an action game.

The real problem is the sketchy AI, I only go into tactics mode when I need to during big fights, but that means the AI soaks up a ton of potions in minor fights and really performs poorly. And never mind any fight that is even remotely difficult.

I can't stand Dragon Age. I wanted to like the first game but just couldn't. It was the most uninspired, generic, cookie-cutter fantasy dreck imaginable. You could only do worse with something like Dungeon Siege. And it's really a shame, because the actual combat was really satisfying, and the graphics were lovely. In the end, though, the game was so disappointing I wrote off the franchise completely. I have no interest in returning.

Still playing through DA1 then 2 again before jumping into 3. I've got the time

I'm really not liking the writing so far. The sequence of events that lead to you becoming the leader of this extremely powerful inquisition make no sense to me. These character don't know anything about you except that your hand glows green, and they still put you in charge of everything after 3 days that you mostly spent unconscious.

It almost feels like they had a longer opening section at one point but decided to cut things short to get you to the open world faster. It's weird.

I really can't understand the hesitance from so many casual AND seasoned gamers concerning the Dragon Age series. Even traditional RPG fans seems to dislike it or be hesitant. People act like the original was a niche PC game. I only played the console version of Origins and absolutely loved it. I don't see it as a specialized game of any sort and I am amazed it falls short of the mainstream.

@fear_the_booboo: A more personal story is fine, if they had told it well; I felt like there was a huge dissonance between the story they wanted to tell (A struggle between two sides, each partially right and partially wrong, and you're forced to choose when there is no right answer), the story they told (Everybody is insane), and the allowances made for game play ("We need to pad this out so here is a flimsy reason to re-enter this copy and pasted dungeon which only serves to undermine the plot points we've been trying to establish!").

Pity the game was rushed out the door by EA, it could have been something much more interesting if they had more than a year to develop it.

I'd be really interested to see what you thought of the previous games (if you ever had time to play them). I loved Dragon Age 1, but DA2 was so stunningly bad that I thought I'd never care about another one of those games. I guess I'm pleasantly surprised that 3 is getting such a good reaction. Once I have time to play it I'll jump in. I'm disappointed about the lack of tactical view though.

You didnt even make it to Wasteland this year either PK. It has easily been the year of Strategy, most notably, Crpgs and most notably a lot of people including yourself trying other genres because lets face it the main stream, while producing good games, has become stale. Keep up the good work and try to get Jeff into some horror games will ya.

Also spooking with scoops rec. Depths of Fear::Knossos

After Dragon Age II, I feel every reason to be hesitant, though I admire Inquisition is evidently much better. I'm not investing any time in the game until there's a price drop, though.

You should play Origins after you're done with this. All the Dragon Age games seem fairly different.

So many people seem to really like this game. I'm just not digging it. The combat has got to be the worst part. It feels so 'detached', it's like i'm watched these characters fight from a great distance.

I hope Vinny gets a chance to play at least a little, and that Patrick convinces the others to check it out too. This feels like one of those games that could really easily get brushed aside in GOTY discussions.

I'm really sad that I didn't have time for Wasteland 2, but it's such a deep game. I cannot fathom touching it until January.

Even as someone who counts Baldur's Gate II and Planescape Torment as two of my favorite games, I don't have any particular issue with the more cinematic/mainstream changes Bioware is going through--it's perfectly possible to enjoy the strategy AND action games, and the big secret about the Baldur's Gate games is that their strategy elements are really, REALLY overblown. Throw the fighters in the front, cast mage spells from the back as needed, and turn on buffs/potions for the boss fights, pause a lot to get more milage out of your commands, wash, rinse, repeat; there's a need to memorize which spell takes care of which kinds of magical barrier/ailments, but that's about it, really. The ability to rest wherever actually makes those old games a bit easier than Inquisition, if anything. Not to mention Pillars of Eternity, Tides of Numeria, and Wasteland 2 are taking care of those old school itches anyhow.

@dbene: Well part of that could be the inability for EA to decide what the series is. Origins was a decent, if not great, old school rpg. It had flaws, its setting being a bit bland and shying away from their dark and gritty intent, but showed promise. Dragon Age 2 dramatically changed the gameplay to a poor action rpg, changed the art style (which was an improvement to me), and it suffered from a incredibly short development cycle. How can you get excited for DA3 when you have no idea what it really is going to be? They said a lot of things right pre-release, but once bitten, twice shy as the saying goes.

DA2, ME3, and SWTOR all wore somewhat away at the reputation BioWare had built among a portion their fans, and DA took the biggest hit in that. I was, pre-dragon age 2, a sure pre-order for the collectors edition of any BioWare game (and have the collectors editions to prove it). In contrast this time around I rented Dragon Age 3, and despite really enjoying it I am likely to do so again with whatever they release next.

Not sure how far out of you're comfort zone this is. At this point the DA series is just Mass Effect with swords.

Not that that's a bad thing. But it's not THAT different.

@mrwakka: All the problems you cited are fair. Still I felt the story had some good to great moments that were worth living (some of the deaths were extremely brutal and emotional in my playtrough). I'm mostly bored with "save the world" scenarios these day, and personal stories is more in line with what I do when I do tabletop RPGs.

I'll be frank, obviously the game was a huge step down from Dragon Age Origins, but I liked it.

The narrative that nobody enjoyed Dragon Age 2 is unfortunate as I see some pretty occasional pushback; not that it's unequivocally great but it has some merits and doesn't deserve the beat dog reputation it has. It's rare for me to see even people who liked it say it wasn't flawed, myself included. At the same time, DA2 for its heart and great attempt at a smaller story (up until about the third act), is the most imminently skippable of all the games.

On a more positive note, great to hear that DA:I totally works jumping in and having all this to soak in for one game.

I feel like I should spend more time with the Character Creator in the future. Every dude I make looks like an Alternate Reality Barack Obama.

Obama can't slay dragons, man.

Seems real strange to me to recommend a 60+ hour game based on the first few hours, but glad you're enjoying it Patrick!

I tried playing Origins but I found that it was either too difficult or I had poorly leveled my characters, and I never got past 11 hours because it was way too hard and I was constantly being torn apart. Should I retry playing Origins or go ahead and buy this game? Was there something I was missing in the first game?

*shrug* maybe not the best screenshot to sell me on this game because the printed Quest goals at the top right remind me of a boilerplate fetch-quest from World of Warcraft or the more recent (ugh) Destiny.

But what if you don't like the story, setting and any of the characters?

What's nice (so far) about Inquisition is how fetch quests are given out. There's lots of them, but they're easily accomplished on the way to more meaningful quests. It seems like a way for the game to dish out XP.

@fear_the_booboo: It did have high points, not to mention some memorable characters, which is one area I think Inquisition stumbles a bit as none of the companions have been a stand out thus far.

I agree on DA2. It wasn't the epic be all end all of Origins, but I enjoyed. The biggest disappointments were taking away my micromanagement inventories and the lack of environments. I think it should have been a spinoff game instead of called DA2.

All playing Dragon Age: Inqustion has done is make me want to revisit Skyrim for the umpteenth time, and for that I am thankful.

@patrickklepek: Most of them can be picked up and forgotten about, usually. If I finish one so be it, but I don't spend a lot of time specifically hunting down elfroot for an hour or the like, which I think makes them a little more palatable this time around. None of them seem to be required really to advance that I recall or have seen thus far.

The tactical view/cam is in this game and I really like the way it works. What has been taken out is the in depth tactics AI for your comrades.

I actually find that Dragon Age Inquisition is strikingly similar to Dragon Age 2, which makes the think that the only reason people disliked Dragon Age 2 was because of the few locations, and that makes me sad.

As Dragon Age 2, Inquisition also has painfully generic and dull combat, there are no tactics and in certain ways its even more dumbed down than DA2. It has the least amount of abilities ever, healing completely removed and most of the combat is just hammering the attack buttons and chugging an occasional potion. It feels almost exactly like Dragon Age 2's combat, and that was one of the biggest turnoffs for me in that game.

I also think the writing is quite bad, the story is dull and the characters are not even close to as memorable as the Origins ones. I also think the returning characters have been lessened quite a bit. I am also completely tired of the modern Bioware storytelling, it follows it to a fault with the extremely superfluous romance scenes, the good/bad guy with almost no subtlety to speak of.

Overall it just feels shallow, pretty but lacks any depth once you get into the core of the game. But hey if people like it, great. Its just not what I want from Dragon Age still.

That's actually exactly what I was wondering. The game looks really cool but I was hesitant since I've never played the first two.

I'm not a big RPG player though, so accessibility was one of my concerns as well, and coming off of Destiny which tells you absolutely nothing about anything, I was kind of intimidated to pick this up. Between the GB review and what you've said above, I'm more inclined to give it a chance.

Just like you I gave 999 a chance and thoroughly enjoyed it. You'll never know how much you might like something unless you give it a chance.

@gaspower: The change in personality was startling, and though they give him some backstory to explain it, it would have been more beneficial if they had followed the wirting advice of 'show, don't tell'. If they had managed to capture that event as a part of the game it would have gone a long way i think, and made the end all that more impactful.

@dbene: Ah, well that's good at least. As long as I'm clicking on my dudes to make them do things instead of WASDing around like an action game then I'll be happy.

Never played the Old republic so I cant' comment on that game.

ME3 I absolutely loved, but I did not do my full playthrough unto the new ending had been added and I also had all the DLC. The Leviathan DLC (in particular) added a lot to the story for me. I felt the combat was especially amazing in ME3 and played hours and hours of the unexpectedly great MP side game.

DA2 was a tad disappointing for me but I still think it is a fun game. I think it should have been a spinoff title in the DA universe instead of the sequel. DA:O was simply amazing to me. It was my game of year for that particular year. As much credit as Skyrim gets (and it is an amazing game) I spent way more hours on Origins and I feel it is a stronger title. But again, I know that is not a popular opinion.

After seeing more of this game, I'm glad I waited on it. This looks like it is trying really hard to be Skyrim (a game with AWFUL combat and an amazing world), and not at all trying to be like the first Dragon Age (a modern love letter to the games I loved). I'll wait on Pillars of Eternity and whatever that Torment game ends up being for what I actually want, and I'll come back around to this when it goes on sale or I feel like I need to play something like Skyrim.

This will be my first foray into Dragon Age - and I'm very excited for it.

You said Summer vacations were spent playing Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy, but I thought the endurance run you had with Ryan was the first time you experienced CT. Am I misremembering that?

@patrickklepek

I played DA:O and DA2 and the Keep was still way too deep, complex, and confusing for me. I really wish I could just upload my save games to the site and have it read them, rather than me pore through menus for 45 minutes trying to remember what I did years ago (and not wanting to re-download multi-gigabyte games just to load my saves and double check). I ended up just throwing my hands up and giving up before I finished checking out all the choices. I set the race/class/gender of my protagonists and called it a day.

Personally I loved DA:O and the expansion for it was good too in my opinion. The thing that was done best in that game to me was the shades of gray in the decisions. Where as DA2 mostly amounted to are you paragon, renegade or goofball.

Going through the Keep to rebuild saves lost to computer changes reminded me of that actually. Origins didn't have the wheel with icons that were that were always pointing to tonal decisions in the same places but more of a list of 3-6 choices on average.

DA:O had choices like do you allow someone who committed horrific atrocities to live because they did it to get something that would benefit their whole race and reached that goal. Executing the perpetrator means those people really did die for nothing and that society gets none of the benefits that their deaths served to bring about, but is that better than no justice being served. That choice wasn't even as binary as I am portraying it but that is the broadest strokes to avoid spoiling the game for anyone that may want to go back.

I don't know how many of those choices are involved in DA3 yet (I am only 11 hours in) but I am hopeful that we get a return to form in not only scale but also complexity. So far, so good on the rest of it at least.

People seem to have really extreme opinions about this series. I think this is a pretty good game. It's got some flaws, and I've seen a fair amount of bugs, but I've been entertained. That'll do. I mean, I did pretty much everything in Kingdoms of Amalur, and this is already a way better game than that, so I think I'll be fine.