Esme Finally Plays: Dragon Age Inquisition

So, the last time I had updated my gaming computer was about 2012 and I haven’t been gaming too much since then, just replaying the same games over and over… Portal, Skyrim, Mass Effect rinse and repeat. Since I’ve gotten a new computer for my 30th birthday I’ve been doing a TON of gaming rather than reading and I’m going through the releases within the last 3-4 years and playing everything I’ve been missing out on. I’ll have a gaming series called “Esme Finally Plays”, and review some older games (but not too old) that maybe others haven’t gotten around to yet either.

Characters/Races:

1. Human
2. Dwarf
3. Elf
4. Qunari

Classes:

1. Mage
2. Rogue
3. Warrior

The customization of characters was pretty satisfying, a decent amount of options and the graphics are decent for being a few years old.

Plot:

So, the game begins with you being a prisoner, kind of like Skyrim, and you’re being accused of having a hand in the death of the Divine, a religious leader of the world. There’s a huge rift that’s been opened to the world of demons and some serious shit is coming through the rift. For reasons unknown your hand has a mark that can connect with the rifts and seal them. Your mission is to close the smaller rifts while purging the demons, and to finally close the largest rift set on top of the mountain that’s the source of power for the smaller rifts.

Party:

The beginning party your set with has a Warrior, Mage, and Rogue and what’s cool about this game is while you’re playing you can switch and be one of your side characters if you need them to do something, or if you die you can continue on the fight as someone else. I didn’t get very good at this, but it could be useful if you put some effort into learning the other characters abilities and get proficient with their abilities.

As you go you get more options for characters in your party, you gain them by forging alliances with other factions in the world. You are part of the Inquisition which is fighting the rift and trying to prevent a war. I actually much prefer the secondary characters to the ones I’m originally given, they seem to have more personality

You can also choose a romance which is cool, I like that in video games which is weird because I don’t particularly like them in books. Maybe because it’s interactive and I can choose? Not sure – but I chose Blackwell. The romance scenes aren’t nearly as graphic as they can be in other games, but it’s considerably more in depth than Skyrim, a lot more dialogue and more cut scenes. It def feels like an actual romance rather than just picking some persona at random with little to no dialogue like Skyrim, it feels more like a Mass Effect romance.

Gameplay

Like the majority of games, you can choose easy – difficult, and I chose normal since I’m still getting back into my groove with gaming. Normal setting was actually pretty easy as long as I didn’t wander into an area with super buffed enemies.

I almost always pick mage characters in these sorts of games so thats what I did with this one too – so I can’t speak for the other options in the game, but playing as a mage was fun. There are a decent amount of diversified spells, and leveling up while choosing my ability tree was fun. It’s not as complicated as some games, but it was complex enough to give you pause of what you wanted to pick. There is a decent amount of strategy in the game to make it through.

Here’s a video of game play

Overall there’s a lot going on during battles and it def kept my attention.

There are potions and whatnot in the game to help you out, but it’s no where near the complexity of something like Skyrim or WoW. There are only 3 actual potions you can make – and yes you get them by picking herbs. There are tonics and and grenades you can craft as well, 9 tonics and 5 grenades. I think my favorite craftable potion thing would be the Jar of Bees grenade. I just like throwing bees at people, and it’s even effective against dragons.

Jar of Bees takes down a dragon, you can skip to 3:45 if you want to see the kill without the wait.

Overall thoughts:

I really loved this game, it was casual enough on Normal to give me a slight challenge during regular play, and moderate challenge for boss fights. I’m just not in the mood to be overly challenged and frustrated with a game right now, and of course you could up the challenge if you want to.

The game play was exciting, simplified compared to some games, but complex enough not to feel like it’s too easy/simple.

The dialogue and cut scenes were well performed and the graphics were pretty good as well. I liked the fact I could turn off friendly fire, I hate killing my own people because I sucked and missed what I was aiming for – but many people like the challenge so having that as an option was a good choice.

This game was shorter than I thought it would be, I finished everything I could including all of the dinky side missions and finished in 76 hours of play. Now, that’s not a short game, but I thought it would be a bit longer than that. I’ve put hundreds of hours into Skyrim and I was hoping for something that size, but it was really fun and it also has replay value – I’ll go back as a different race and try out another class to see how things are different. I also have not played any of the DLC, there are 8 or so DLC options to chose from and I’m pretty stoked for that.

Overall 8.25/10

IGN gives it an 8.8

Metacritic gives it an 85% http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dragon-age-inquisition