This was actually my first Dragon Age game, I went into it after finishing the Mass Effect Trilogy and since I got a brand new PS4, I wanted to try out Dragon Age so I started with the one title that was on the PS4, and yeah, I really liked it, so much so that I went back and got Dragon Age 1 and 2 for the PS3 so that I could see what the whole series was like
lmao no lie i did the exact same thing. except on xbox series s not ps4. played it after mass effect legendary edition. fucking loved it well over 100 hours and did the dlc's. so much replay value to
Same for me, but I felt like there were a lot of things in the plots and lores I couldn't really understand, and so I bought DAO and DA2 when they were on sale on Steam, and played the whole game Totally worth it
@@guccigucci5002 yeah, I do wish the Playstation consoles had more backwards compatibility, even though I have a PS5 now, I still have my PS3 so that I can still play all the games that I got on it
This isn't perfect, but it's a great game. A few epic moments, like the atack on haven and the castle assault. Oh, how I wish Bioware was the same as it was back then.
It was my least favorite one but I think part of that is just the overload of open world games. I used to crave open world but the over saturation of them, I have been craving smaller linear games like Dragon Age 2
@@PrettyPinkPersephone Yeah its a shame that it seems the only thing left from the company that brought us Baldur Gate, Kotor, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age is just the name(Also a handful of key OG people) but I'm willing to give this New Bioware a chance. The way I see it, Anthem and Andromeda was this new guard attempt at creating something new and it failed. I rather they learn from their mistake on a new IP and a spinoff then on their key games. Not trying to make it seem like I'm drinking the koolaid but I really do see this is as a chance for Bioware to foster new talent and hopefully get some new IPs that will be talked in the same vein as the glorious ones.
True, each title in the Dragon Age series are quite different from each other. I did have fun playing Inquisition though some quests do feel generic or feel better suited to an MMO, there is pretty good character interaction with plenty of dialogue and lore building as well. I will admit Dragon Age 2 is my favourite, ya it's the one most people dismiss but I just love the back and forth between characters and honestly it has some of the funniest dialogue in the series. Can't help myself Dragon Age 2 is just so much fun to play and one of the few games were you can go through the whole game as a sarcastic asshole.
DAII is my favourite of the series too and the one I've replayed the most even though it seems like it would be the least replayable. The story is the most unique and has some brilliant moments.
DA2 is also my favourite DA game (I know a lot of people think it's the worst one) Although the game time is shorter, I still like it as I think DAO and DAI can be quite long (especially DAI is way too overwhelming for me) I really like the friendly/rivalry system with companions, as the result would be different, thus adding another new path to explore Also one of the most memorable things is that Anders can flirt and show affection to Hawke first to trigger the romance (Like most BioWare games require players to choose the flirt option to trigger the romance with companions, but Anders is the exception and it is awesome, I think they should have more of romance option like this in future RPG games)
Its pretty simple - since personally I like it. While the gameplay is very meh and I felt like I just dont have enough good character options (especially at the end if you decide to execute certain person making you miss key party member unless you meta it), it is also the only DA game where the MC has a character, story of their own and feel a lot more real. I truly cared for Hawke in many ways I dont care for the Warden or the Inquisitor (they dont even really get names the same way) - nobody calls Hawke "the Champion". DA2 also has pretty packed story - though railroady af (0 choices made in DA2 matter inside the story or outside)
@@FuFightersStudio I totally agree with you on the name part. True, DA2 players don’t get to choose which race to play, but I think this also makes the players to be more attached to the MC more because you are playing his/her story, not anyone else’s story. On the other hand, DAO and DAI get to create characters with diff race, but sometimes I get the feel of “This could be anyone’s story” because the NPCs hardly called the MC’s name, and so I don’t feel as attached to the characters as Hawke does Also to me, Hawke is like the Shepard of DA series 😂😂😂
I actually played this for the first time in 2022 and beat it. I was slow getting into it at first but after a few hours the game had me hooked, all I was looking forward to after work was to go home and play DA:I.
@@carsonnesbit1178 had a blast running everywhere. This time I let the chargers die and was crushed of what happened at the end of the game as a result
@@colinvanoverdijk5855 I’m in the unfortunate minority of players who main male elves… and idk if you’ve noticed but they have atrocious frames in inquisition, kinda ruined my role play experience whenever I saw my big ass head stick mans arms clipping into his sides :(
While it suffers from empty open world syndrome, I thought the companions in Inquisition are all sooo good! (except maybe Blackwall). The mod that increases party banter is a must as all the characters have such good interactions with each other
This, even on console it's amazing. First time I played it was on PS4 some years ago and basically any interaction with any of the characters was amazing. Even characters I didn't like felt real enough to still interact with etc.
I loved this game. My only issue is that some of the open world game play locations have no real purpose. In mass effect, every region was part of the overall game. Other than that, the depth of the characters, story line, and the art are just amazing. And Trevor Morris is a genius- the music made the game. Great analysis :)
"In Mass Effect, every region was part of the overall game" *flashbacks to exploring planets in ME1 with mostly empty space, and many had nothing to do with the overall game* lol
Divinity Original Sin 2 doesn't really have a "voiced protagonist" in the same sense though. It's just for grunts and battle cries, dialogue is mostly unvoiced for your character.
Fair enough. I prefer it as well over Inquisition base game, but overall I slightly prefer Game of The Year Edition of the Inquisition over Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition.
Prewritten characters as main protagonists in DOS2 act totally as a custom character, they have no voiced dialogue. And just have the occasional context banter in a point of interest there is no difference with a custom character in that regard. Inquisition's main character is voiced through all the game (tho, DA2 managed it better, the Inquisitor sounds boring and bland in most cases, even when you supposedly selected an angry, sarcastic or surprised option).
Dragon Age has always been such an important series to me, I actually played it before I ever picked up a Mass Effect game, and this game, though I have a hard time comparing it to DA1, is just as incredibly special to me.
My complaint about the game, and it’s a small one, was that the expansion gave you a satisfying ending. And you had to pay for it! The main storylines antagonist was weak at the final battle plus the wrap up was weak. Otherwise, great game, 120 or so hours.
This game and Dragon Age II I had the opposite reactions to. Dragon Age 2 I didn't like at first and kept comparing it negatively to Origins (one of my all-time favourite games) but I've grown to really like it. It's a flawed game, but it has some really interesting ideas, some of which it executes pretty well like the Templar-Mage conflict. If BioWare had had more time to work on it, I think they could have crafted a masterpiece, kinda like how Mass Effect 1 to 2, Assassin's Creed 1 to 2 or Witcher 1 to 2 to 3. Inquisition I loved the first time I played it. And I don't hate the game now, but the more and more I've reflected on it, the less I like it. I think the writing took a serious nosedive compared to Origins and II. It lost a lot of the nuance that Origins and II had. I think because Inquisition leaned more into the high fantasy than the dark fantasy of Origins and II. The Inquisitor is an okay protagonist but compared to The Warden and Hawke they lack. I do like they allowed us to be different races, even if it didn't really add anything to the story unlike Origins where being an elf or dwarf made interactions and certain plot elements different. The main villain whatever his name is so uninteresting and generic. Also, it didn't help that The Witcher 3 made Inquisition look inferior in comparison, especially in the story department (ESPECIALLY IN THE SIDE QUESTS - Witcher 3 made side quests feel like main mission quests). I do like the companions in Inquisition.
I agree, though I grew to hate DA:I on my first playthrough on about the 30h mark already. Its downfall, imo, is the writing and that's a flaw in a game that nothing can remedy for me. And then there is the fact that no other gaming mechanic was good enough to even try to remedy it unless some of the characters. And most of those characters drew their charm from their characterization in the earlier games. It's like the team really sucks at coming up with anything new.
I played the DA series before ME since I was never really into sci-fi. It still is a very "me" game and it will always hold a special place in my heart. However, that being said, and I HATE to admit it, but story-wise, the Mass Effect trilogy beats it out.
I really liked the "atmosphere" and the tone of DA origins, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's so highly praised, but yeah ME story is really interesting
Inquisition is more high fantasy than dark fantasy when you compared it to Origins which had more gruesome atmosphere and themes, even the visual are more shiny and flashy now. This game could have been more interesting if it was entirely designed as the Trespasser DLC, self contained stories around sandbox maps because let's be honest aside from the main story and companion quests the rest is negligible. I remember during my 1st playthrough that I skipped 60 to 80% of the other maps and even is subsequent playthroughs where I decided to explore more and do the side content, it was more of chore rather than something fun (it sucks to be a completionist in this type of game) And I'm still bitter at the devs for some annoucements and promises they made before the launch, especially when you watch the live demo they showed in 2013 which was far superior in many aspects to what the game was on launch. And I wont talk about the flashy action packed gameplay that I just hate, a super dumbed down version to what Dragon Age used to be (and the damage sponge ennemies like you said + barrier + guard) Finishing on a positive note : Cassandra as a character and her romance were my favorite parts in this game.
I honestly really enjoyed the gameplay once I figured out how to actually do it correctly lol. I really like the main story and the companions/advisors, but I'll admit that about half of the areas were lackluster. Then again, you've got places the other half which can be REALLY fun to play through. And agreed, the best part of this are the companions/advisors, specifically Cassandra and her romance.
Visually the maps are fun for me, and I do explore every map. And yeah I'm a completionist. It is hard in this game, the only ones I skip are the mosaics. Those are too much of a pain to find. Has anyone ever found every mosaic?
I bought Inquisition a few months ago (semester vacation + it was on sale on steam) and I have been absolutely taken by the story. I loved, and love it so much. I'm playing Origins currently and later DA2, to return to Inquisition with a custom worldstate 👀 Can't wait for DA4!
i first played inquisition when it released and i was blown away. i suddenly got the urge to replay it in march this year and i was even MORE blown away. im someone who loves side quests and fetch quests, i like maxing my levels, i like learning new combat and getting stronger. nothin is better than the joy i get when i stumble upon a wheel of cheese while im exploring. the characters are all likeable to me. just...everything about inquisition makes me happy and im glad im replaying it. im on my second playthrough this year after failing to finish tresspasser (its HARD!!) and im doing much better w the combat this time around so everything is just so much more satisfying. god. even for its flaws i love inquisition. idk where im going with this comment but to say...i like inquisition a lot and im glad people are still playing it in 2022.
My main issue with Inquisition was that the game is huge. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the available content. Due to this i quit my first playtrough. Later i started a new playtrough and completed it, after that i do think the game is amazing. You just need the time and dedication to play through it.
I feel like what really got looked over was the character interactions and dialogue. The banter is among the best BioWare has to offer. Also, while some of the story leaves a lot to be desired, certain levels are absolutely amazing imo. And finally, I firmly believe Trespasser is easily one of the finest DLCs/expansions ever written.
In terms of companions. I straight forgot Vivienne existed for half the game Cuz she's up on a balcny that's hard to find the way up to, and is very out of the way of anything else. I was wandering around late in the game, and walked into her and was like 'oh, yeah, that wizard lady we recruited early'
I disagree with his statement that the companion writting in inquisition is strong. Thats just a lie . At best they are service-able , at worst they are annoying. Tresspasser also somewhat saved the game being bad by just saying it was all a goof , planned by that egg head.
I like how in Inquisition if you don't romance Iron Bull or Dorian that both of them will start dating if you keep both of them in your party long enough. It took me at least 3 or 4 of just running around the map waiting for their banter indicating they are dating to trigger.
I enjoy this game a lot. Dorian, Cole, and Iron Bull are my favorite compainions. I still have some DLC to finish in my play through. But ive done most. Getting all the dragons was fun. Wish there was more to killing them all but it was still fun.
Bioware did something even crazier with voices for the main character Dan. In SWTOR you can play 8 different stories each as a male or female character, everything is voiced and every story has a different voiceactor. You have Bioware style answers in that game too and they voiced the Addons too where every character plays the same story. That was mindblowing to me
I actually prefer the combat from DA2, it is just a little more snappy and crisp than DA:I or at least the animations. DA:I feels slow(er) compared to DA2. There might be little more variety in DA:I than 2, but I preferred the more action style in 2 (but yeah the enemy waves weren't that brilliant). :-)
@@jameslambertus5820 I have played DA:O, yes combat in that game is snails pace, but I was able to tolerate it as the game still had half a leg in the top-down rpgs. Besides I just compared DA2 with DA:I because that comparison was made in the video. :)
@@jameslambertus5820 . DAO is technically a TTRPG of old school, so the slow combat fits for completely to the game, but Inquisition is not anymore that, the combat is a total downgrade from DA2.
The best way I can think of to sum this game after all these years is pretty simple. I had one complete playthrough which included me doing Jaws of Hakkon and my game time was 140 hours. When I think back on it at least 80 of those hours could have just been completely excised and only improved the game. Then when I was going to go back and play the other DLCs my cloud save was deleted by Origin and I couldn't work up the will to do that again after making sure to 100% every area.
I hurt my back last year and have found myself with a lot of time for gaming. I have to say a lot of what you're saying is totally correct, but I'll say that a lot of these issues have since been fixed by the modding community. No, this doesn't excuse the original issue, but I'm just shy of 300 hours now in DA:I, and wouldn't be there without mods. I think it fulfills some of the promise of DA2, while creating some new issues. If you're a lore nerd, Descent puts everything on it's head. Dwarven ??? Great review!
I think the most fun I've had fun with DAI after literal hundreds of hours is challenging myself by not crafting weapons of armour and playing the game on nightmare difficulty. It makes the exploration meaningful, because most of the time whatever you get in quests or bosses is worse then what you have crafted. It was challenging, especially early to mid-game, but really fun
I've been binging so many of your videos. I finished my first ever mass effect play through last week and can't let go. But who knows, maybe I'll start my third DAI play through.
Definitely interested in that DLC video. This reminds me, can you make a video on Mass Effect's Shadow Broker DLC? In my opinion, by far the best DLC Mass Effect has to offer.
I’m playing through the dragon age series for the 1st time. Currently playing dragon age 2 and I love it. It’s on par with origins. The battle system to me is similar but way smoother than the first. Also love the companions a little more. Sten, Wynne, and Oghren were pretty forgettable, I have been having a lot of fun with the DA2 companions, though Fenris is pretty insufferable. Lol
While dao is my favorite, I liked how da2's story is basically about Hawke and his/her friends and their home city and not some newbie Gray Warden saving the whole world
I'm also playing through the dragon age series for the first time, currently playing inquisition. I liked the story and dialogues of dao but i didn't really like the combat. I loved playing through da2 as a sarcastic asshole. Inquisition is also good so far, i especially like the dragon age keep website feature so that the choices you made in dao and da2 are actually reflected in da:i.
Idk I finished it for the 1st time. Then downloaded a couple DLC packages and immediately started replaying it. Completely new character and I must say it is as refreshing as the my 1st play through. I really enjoy it 😌
I remember stumbling backwards into Origins back in like 2010 or 2011... Maybe 2012. I know Dragon Age 2 was out or was coming out... What an experience. My first time with a game with branching story lines and I remember for a solid week I enjoyed it. Wish I could get that feeling again.
Inquisition to me: is better than dragon 2 but doesn’t reach the highs of Dragon Age Origins and Awakening to me. Some amazing companions and advisors definitely on par or even better than Origins. It’s combat I think is at a good middle ground but improvements can be made. Romances are more diverse but some missed opportunities for some, others not getting enough attention. But those that do work like Solas, Cassandra, Cullen, blackwall as stand outs. That palace quest the choices, the endings, impacts depending on your race or even who you bring along is amazing. Legacy characters returning are either done so well or feel off, Morrigan’s development off screen and change of character feels weird at times for me. King Alastair or Queen Anora can be completely missed but warden Alastair is more prominent and other characters you can meet. Horse riding felt tacked on and needing depth along with the forts we can find which in development were meant to be divided up between your three advisors which just got dropped. But said choices are still there in the war map for handling war tasks. The castle you have in which you can upgrade overtime has no meaningful consequences outside some items and personal choice and design it felt like it was going to be the Normandy in mass effect 2 or the keep in awakening but just got dropped on importance. But to me it’s the story and it’s importance that annoys me from how the big conflict of the mages and templars is ended so lackluster, the breach in the sky kinda felt not important even though it seems to be a huge rallying point for everyone to stop the fade and demons invading but no one seemed to care unless you help them with their stuff. Multiplayer had potential but lacked heavily compared to mass effect 3 multiplayer. I love and hate this game with a passion it feels me with a mix of emotions cause alot is done well but others rather messy or not as well.
I truly believe that at least from a storyline and character development aspect, DAI is the best in the series and absolutely deserved GOTY recognition at the time. Yes, all of the "fluff" quests feel like something out of an MMO. And the war table "quests" are the absolute worst. However, even with its flaws, DAI with all of the DLCs is probably one of BioWare's best RPGs in my opinion.
I really like DAI, it's my second favourite Dragon Age game. However, there were many game mechanics shown in the gameplay trailers prior to release that just didn't make it into the final game that left me feeling somewhat disappointed in it. Trespasser is the best DLC of any Dragon Age game, they really did a fantastic job with that.
I have sunk so many hours into Inquisition. It is a very well made game, all things considered. If you can manage the stiff character animations (mostly faces) and the number of quests. Storytelling is great, and character design is very nice. Mass Effect fans will also like this game, due to some clever easter egg references found in there (such as the Krogan head trophy, and many text lines) *Multiplayer* There is also a multiplayer part, just like Mass Effect 3, where your objective is to eliminate the enemy threat. There are 4 different areas, and many variations of each map, as well as the Castle. You have to traverse 5 zones, filled with enemies to complete the run. The factions are the following: Demons - These are the same kind of enemies you find near Fade Rifts in the single-player, only in much greater numbers. Demons has many abilities that will knock the player down, and they deal mostly elemental damage, making it the second hardest faction for newer players. Red Templars - Like the single-player counterparts, these are normal enemies infected with Red Lyrium. These deal mostly ranged damage, but they have melee units as well. Shield troopers are by far the most annoying enemy of this faction, as they will charge at the player and has several knock-downs. This is the easier faction to face as a new player. Venatori - The Tevinter-based cult has many mages, and these guys deal a lot of elemental damage. Spellbinders can enhance the normal troops with magical barriers that not only protects, but also doubles the damage dealt. Like demons, this is one of the harder factions for newer players. Darkspawn - Ah, the enemy of old. This faction is tough, but manageable due to their lack of elemental resistance (with the exception of Emissaries). However, in Zone 4, the Darkspawn are replaced with Sha Brytol (the ancient dwarven faction found at the lower levels of the Deep Roads), and these guys does not mess around. The Bolters has the highest DPS out of any enemy unit, and can easily be a run-ender if the player is not careful. Qunari - Yep, the true Qunari are also present (also known as the Ben Hassrath). This faction is by far the toughest for newer players, as the Qunari are incredibly tough, has many resistances and several units has knock-downs. Their only true weakness is electrical damage. Certain side objectives occur in zones 2 and 4, much like the objectives found in the Mass Effect multiplayer. Protection: You have to protect an ally NPC throughout the zone. Doing so will grant all players in the group some extra gold. Though, the melee NPC is extremely dumb, and will most likely engage in fights, rather than avoiding it. Veilfire (Not present in Ferelden Castle): The area you are in are filled with a toxic gas that will slowly drain your HP. By standing near the Veilfire torch, you are in a safe spot where you take no damage from the gas. Your goal is to bring the torch to a brazier that will clear the area of gas. Doing so grants the group extra gold. Retrieval: The enemy has taken certain objects and lit them on fire. You have a certain amount of time to make it to the object of interest and retrieve it before it is too late. Like any other objective, this grants the group extra gold. Elimination: You are tasked with eliminating a marked enemy. This enemy is a much larger and stronger unit compared to its normal counterparts. However, this is the easiest objective to complete. Doing so will grant the group extra gold. Unlike single player, the multiplayer has 5 difficulty settings, with quite the big gap between them. *Routine:* This is the "easy" difficulty, made for beginners, and the difficulty that most players starts out on. XP gains and gold gains are low, so you need many, many runs to get 20 levels. *Threatening:* This can be called "Normal" difficulty. It does not require promotions to do well in, just decent gear. XP and gold gains are higher, and you typically need around 8-12 runs to reach level 20. *Perilous:* The "Hard" option. Enemies deal a lot more damage, and even the best armor does not reduce damage as much. However, the rewards are well worth it if you manage to beat this difficulty. You need around 5-8 runs to make it to level 20. *Nightmare:* The "Very Hard" setting. Enemies has resistances to certain elements (you will only deal a single point of damage to these, with the affected element). Enemies deal a lot of damage, and has around triple the amount of health from their Perilous counterparts. You need a lot of promotions and good gear to beat Nightmare. The rewards are good, and you gain a lot of XP and gold per run. You can make it to level 20 in around 3-5 runs. *Heartbreaker:* The "Insanity" option. Enemies has abilities similar to the player, has massive resistances and health, and they deal a ton of damage. This is by far the greatest challenge the player can face, and you need many, many, many promotions to do well here (around 500-600 in each category). However, this difficulty has the highest XP rewards, and can get you to level 20 in only 2 runs. Note: Gold-gains are the same as Nightmare. Characters in Multiplayer ranges from all classes (S+S Warrior, 2H Warrior, Archer, Double Dagger, and Mage), both genders and all races (human, elf, dwarf and qunari), and their abilities are a mix of various single-player abilities from every skill tree. Isabela from Dragon Age II makes an appearance here as well, so if you want to see her Inquisition looks, give her a try. She and a few other characters has unique abilities not found in the single-player. All in all, the multiplayer part is just as fun and addicting as it is in Mass Effect 3, as well as Andromeda.
The quantity over quality aspect of Inquisition killed it for me. I recently tried to replay all games in the DA series. Origins was fun but the combat felt really dated compared to recent CRPGS. 2 had interesting combo mechanic, the cast and story were great, game areas were too repetitive so overall enjoyable for game length. Inquisition felt like a single player mmo - dry combat, collectables, empty big maps.
Q: How does collecting 30 Elfroots for someone strengthen the Inquisition? A1:The Elfroots are used to create something that either strengthens the Inquisition or weakens its enemies. A2: The Elfroots are used to deal with some problem and the people who benefit from this aid the Inquisition in return.
I lost interest in DAI about half way through. I just got so bored of doing the side quests and stuff (Yeah mostly I'm a completionist) that it drove me crazy. Plus in the DAO I romanced Leliana and so I was massively disappointed that they (Bioware) Jacob'd her by denying her as a companion, and a romance option. Plus the whole war room (aka war assets) thing and the open world its just bad. Bioware clearly didn't know what they were doing designing this game, trying to do too much trying to please too big of a crowd instead of just focusing on a good story and characters. This is ME Andromeda of the Dragon Age series, they both share the same problems (from a design standpoint).
@@zhazhagab0r I don't know. I just don't like what they did to the character. Plus if she died previously she is revived for the purpose of being in this game.
Dragon Age Inquisition is probably the best example of a game made lesser by following the open-world trend. Everything suffers the second you get away from the main story, gone are the interesting character interactions and properly developed quests. I've literally started and stopped the game 4 times in an attempt to force my way through it, with only the last try being a success. I didn't even get to the actual inquisition base until my second playthrough, but when I did I finally found a segment of the game I genuinely liked. I spent at least an hour just wandering around and talking to people, and enjoyed doing it. Then, I got back out into the open-world maps I just unlocked, and remembered this is what the majority of the game is. There are so few titles I'd want to be more linear (especially RPGs) but DA:I so poorly executes the open world design that it makes the final product borderline unplayable
They both suffer from using a game/graphics engine that was designed form the ground up as a FPS engine. Andromeda gets some gameplay element advantages from it at least, but Inquisition I think is worse off for bioware being forced to use it. (sure, it made the game all shiny and new, but that was where the benefits stopped for me - it couldn't, and still can't, remember a window size setting from one session to the next!)
Played Andromeda first, so never realised this was a prelude to that cluttered mess. With 4 transitioning into a Single Player title, hope they manage to scrub some of the excess the Live-service would've brought and have more meaningful quests.
I would be 50% more okay with the war table missions IF your unique inquisitor "sidequest" wasn't one of them. In the first Mass Effect, what sort of background your Shepard has determines which of one or two unique sidequests you have access to. It's like a lazy version of the origins from Origins. Instead of meeting the qunari inquisitor's old mercenary band, or the elven inquisitor's clan, we just get walls of text. It's a missed opportunity to help flesh out the inquisitor's history and let us connect with them as a character. The war table missions also have very little effect on the main game outside of rewards, and by that I mean very rarely does anyone react based on your choices. You can accidentally wipe out the elven inquisitor's entire clan and you get zero reaction from them. It really feels like they had the structure for sidequests that were just cut for time to be fully programmed in, so they turned them into text walls instead.
I've tried 3 different time to get into DAI but always got bored quickly after a few main quests. Not sure what it is about the game that just doesn't stick with me like how Origins and 2 did
I remember being so unsure when I bought it never really played a game like it before but it was a really good time and ive been trying to play the classic bioware games ever since. playing mass effect legendary for the first time makes me want to go back and play this
I agree! There’s a surprising amount of amazing stuff in that game that people miss when they rush through it. And it doesn’t get enough credit for the huge variety of options each play through gives you
I love DAII! I think it actually had the tightest plot and the voice acting was phenomenal. Every time I played through, I found new details that just made me like the game even more. Like I didn’t notice on my first play through that Bethany was airbrushed and her boobs were even bigger in the opening sequence than in the game because Varick was embellishing details. After I noticed that, I watched for cinematic embellishments and it was just another layer of fun. The combat was pretty satisfying to me and there were opportunities for me to be strategic (both of which I think are lacking in DAI). I absolutely fell in love with the alignment system - the friend to rival spectrum is so unique and it actually changes how the characters respond to you in the final battle so it matters. Even if they are friends with Hawke, if they don’t agree with Hawke’s worldview as demonstrated by Hawke’s choices in the game, they will not choose to fight with Hawke. And you can’t combat that by giving them presents. I don’t even mind that they reuse sets, which I think is the most common complaint about the game. They did the same thing in DAO and to me it added to the charm because it felt like a play or production with budget constraints and it made me chuckle. Best of all, everything ties together in that game. The side quests are all aligned with the main quests and everything works together to advance the plot and develop the characters. Even when you do fetch quests, the little things you fetch are all on the way to something important. There’s no point in time where you go to a location specifically to fetch something stupid that doesn’t advance the plot. And Anders’ fetch quest is actually pretty brilliant. He doesn’t need Hawke to go with him while he collects stuff for his “magic potion”. He’s purposely implicating Hawke in what he’s doing to take advantage of Hawke’s name and advance his own agenda! I love that! When I saw that it evoked a genuine emotional response because I trusted him too! It was great. I really like that game and I don’t understand why other people don’t see it’s charm so thank you for posting your comment and making me feel less alone.
"Combat doesn't require much strategy" "A lot of enemies are massive damage sponges, which makes it tedious" Those are contradicting statements. You need to use strategy (like combo effects, such as freeze and shatter, as well as weaknesses) to take down the "massive damage sponges" faster. Example, combo on the rogue is the ice flask followed by twin fangs. Does a shit ton of damage. Or fire flask and throwing knives. Can also work with comboing different class abilities.
There's a War Table operation called "Power for a Price" that lets you buy power & influence for big war table things like opening up new areas.(Side note, you can advance your system clock to skip the waiting for some of the longer war table ops) Which somewhat negates that "level gating" but I'd still recommend being at a decent level going into some places. There's also a still useable glitch involving the storage chest in the underforge in Skyhold where you can dupe items and sell them for unlimited gold or depending on what you're duping, like Amulets of Power for instance, you can use just about any skill/ability your class has to offer as long as you have the appropriate weapon type if you're a Warrior or Rouge. The Amulets don't actually level you up, they're just free skill points so leveling is still necessary.
You can also get some companions to leave after enough time if they don't like what you're doing. With Sera there's an option in her dialogue wheel after letting her join you can straight up tell her "You don't fit in with the Inquisition" or something to those lines. I haven't done it myself since I kinda like Sera. For Cole, when you get to Skyhold you can tell him you don't want him in the Inquisition right away or if you get him to dislike you enough he'll just leave. Cassandra, Varric, and Solas won't leave no matter what you do. Dorian& Vivienne I'm not sure if how can eventually make them leave. Though for Blackwall & Bull they've got personal quests that have consequences that I won't explain because spoilers.
Just putting this out there, but I would be totally down for videos about choices in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I've over 100 hours in already and I feel like I've only scratched the surface of what this game is about.
Origins was my first game in this kind of genre. I struggled with the combat and found the game difficult even on the lowest setting. Eventually I got the hang of it but once I got DAI I honestly enjoyed the more simplistic combat. I prefer to enjoy the story and world over the worry of dying all the time because I am too incompetent to understand a combat system that is something other than mashing 2 buttons. The companions in this game I felt were way better than Origins. It felt more personal rather than story driven to me.
I'm so glad you made this video! I just finished my first playthrough and I share most of your thoughts about this game.. one thing I can say is that I think I like Inquisition more than Origins (please everyone don't be mad). I played Origins last year and it felt a bit dated, plus, and I cannot stress this enough, I HATE non voiced protagonists. When I play an RPG I want to feel completely immersed in it and a silent protagonist just doesn't work for me. I also did not mind the fact that important outcomes were shown during dialogues, I mean the game is extremely vast and it happened that I played weeks apart due to lack of time, and since the story was so long and complex I enjoyed those little reminders when choices needed to be made, it helped me not to feel lost. Also I loved playing a Qunari! The American voice for my female Qunari warrior was spot on. I can't compare Inquisition nor Origins with DA2 because the reviews were so bad I skipped it altogether. Should I give it a try?
I've played and completed this game at least a dozen times. I've thoroughly enjoyed each of my play through. The story wasn't that bad but it definitely lacks the depth and mystery DAO had. DAO's overall atmosphere was dark and gritty from the darkspawn threat and although there's also a looming terror in DAI, it didn't really felt as gripping as DAO had. The side quests are infamous but personally the most annoying part of this game were the collectibles. The map is littered with it like Assassin's Creed or Horizon Zero Dawn. Most of these collectibles just unlock codex entries which unfortunately I never bothered reading. My favorite element of this game is definitely the companions. While not as compelling as DAO or even DA2 (unpopular opinion maybe), I still enjoyed the company most of the time. I agree the combat was so dull and bare boned compared to DAO. It's really just auto attack with skill casting.
I think voice acting in Mass Effect is completely fine. When it comes to Dragon Age type games with varieties of builds, it becomes difficult to picture the voice you’re given fitting a person who slings magic or is sneaky or specializes in ranged attacks. Mass Effect you always know your combat style is limited to two/three areas and you just adjust based on those areas, so a voiced protagonist feels more natural
It has it's drawbacks for sure, but I still replay it about every year or so. DA:I has the best companion party banter when you are out and about questing. I wish they'd done the same for ME, especially in 1. I don't bother with romances anymore but my favorite was Bull. The character creator is a massive time sink that kicks you in gut when you get into game and see how wonky your 'tweaks' ended up outside of cutscenes, so be careful how much you do there. I love the world and stories, but just like with ME, Skyrim and Witcher 3, quality of life mods make up for much wasted time in game when I like to hit the ground running. As for the 'collect-a-thon' items I only grab the tiles because they make pretty decor for my Skyhold. Corypheus still has the best villain entrance ever, despite being a waste of dev afterward. And my favorite main game moment will always be my Inquisitor taking Griffon Wing Keep with Bull, Dorian and Varric. "Shall we knock?" ha!
I’ve barely played any of the game since it first came out, but no exaggeration, I remember spending 3 hours total working in the character creator, seeing the results in-game, and then backing out and making tweaks lol. Now every time I start creating a character in a game, I think to myself “Now how can I make this stretch to three hours like DA:I?” The one that came the closest was Cyberpunk 2077 at 2.5 hours lol
The war table is what I loved about dragon age inquisition. In the Mass effect trilogy playing as Shepard always made me feel like I was the only competent person in the whole damn galaxy, but in dragon age inquisition it gave you more of sense that your are a leader and you have competent people around you. The advisors feel more like they are there to help you instead of boss you around with random quests
If you're reading this and want to try the game, make sure to install (on nexus mods): *War Table - No Waiting (great for the replay value); *More Banter (serious, I didn't unlocked half of the interactions on a complete gameplay due how random the banter nature is, I never had Iron Bull hooked with another character of our party for example and I wasn't even aware); *Spirit Blade Revert (if you're going to play as KE, no this don't make KE overpower by any means and the nerf was totally unjustified); *Bugs be gone (fix many skills problems, especially magic where your mines sometimes do 1 damage). Funny that some things that you mentioned wasn't a problem for me, especially war points because I naturally explored everything that was available for me at the time, so I always was overleveled for the story content. I liked very much of the dragons and the challenges, the only thing that rubed me in the wrong way is that money is limited and some materials are inaccessible because they only appear at a certain point or are exclusive to some story maps. Other thing that I hated was how the classes was balanced, dunno why Bioware nerfed Mages so much and keep Artificer and Tempest intact, since they are the most broken class of the game. The last thing that I hated about combat was how some classes are CC reliant (Templar for example) and bosses are totally immune to CC, making your entire skill kit useless!, DA suffer from the same problem of Skyrim, where's there more content than your character can grow, cap our lv at 25 was stupid, you have the feeling that you're playing an unfinished game and at the same time the mods aren't exactly on the point, so you have nowhere to run.
In da2 there was a really in-depth menu you could use on how your companions would behave in battle, like warrior use shield bash but only on enemies with a certain status (frozen etc) and only if they’re above a certain health (as to not waste stamina on a 1 hit kill). It was a little overwhelming at first but a nice strategic element to build your unique team. DAI really dialled that down so a healthy mix in between would’ve been great. Also bring back Isabella haha
DA Inquisition was my first experience in the Dragon Age series and I really liked the game!! Played it multiple times. I have played DA Origins recently for the first time and really liked it too!! Haven't played DA 2 yet and hopefully it's not as bad as people have said.
For me i like the combat in Dragon age 2, is pretty fast and cool if you use well your habilities, also i love how the companions comment in the combat, i have a lot of fun playing with Isabela, Varric, Merril and Aveline in combat 😂 I didn't like much the inquisition, is nice and has a lot of history yeah but it's too damn long and very open world, and since i like doing all perfect i did a replay BUT i give up when i was in the party of the empress, is just too much 😂
@@thedankgnasty1890 i agree with you, but it is kinda tricky to get everything perfect in there, also the race of the player affects in the points of that quest and that annoys me :”/ But i did learn that probably the best is to make the empress and the elf join forces and be like lovers again
I have a Dragon Age Inquisition phase every year, meaning I do 1 - 3 runs back to back and when I'm done, I shelve it (digitally) until next year. Last time I prepared some nice faces for my PC and kept all mods so this time I'll have less work :> Good you reminded me, it's almost time again.
I just discovered this game series in 2022....now...I am on Inquisition having played thru the series up to this point this year. Discovering multiplayer however, has my actual game on near stop mode as I absolutley love the multiplayer on Inquisition for PS3. It may not be everyone...but me, I LOVE IT!
I tried playing this game a month ago and uninstalled it shortly after. I had to big problems with it first just like you pointed out the MMO style quests, and I felt all the NPCs you interact with are just too cool. They all have custom made armor and clothes save for the one droopy eared elf. He was had the exact opposite problem.
I like all 3 dragon age games. However I like the story of DA 2 and Origins more than Inquisitions and I totally prefer the character customization and character building of Origins over the other games. Now I´ll go have another crack at Origins since it was calling out to be replayed the last days anyways and this video pushed me over the brink :D
I love DA:O. Disliked DA2 at first, but loved it after I started playing as a healer. I have tried to play DA:I, but I find I lose interest right at the start of the game. It feel's like I'm playing an MMO (I'm on PC), and if it feels like that, then I might as well just play my favorite MMO instead. I just can't get myself to try the game out again. I wish I could, but the gameplay just feels off as hell to me, since it feels like an MMO. Someday I will probably try it again, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it.
@@shadow4040 No worries. I do not play any Dragon Age game without modding it. Not after DA:O. Fine game without mods, but a great game with mods. :) DA:I seems to be quite a divisive game, for some reason. It seems to be a game that's okay to play once but not that fun to play more than once. The story and the characters are all right, but the gameplay...eh.
Feel like this game doesn't get its due it's amazing if not just because of the incorporation of dragon's keep feature alone! If you played all the other dragon age games you can actually import the world state and choices you made from every other game that you previously played...all build on the previous decisions through all the games from dragon age 1 all the way up to Inquisition. All can be imported to adjust the world accordingly to how you originally left it years ago on the previous game. I am currently playing through a world state that was started in 2009( my first playthrough of dragon age origins) and using those world choices in inquisition!!! The world is just as I left it & the characters I made from previous games ( if still alive via my choices) will return to make cameos exactly how I design them. 🤜🤛 Looks great on PS5 and let me import via dragon age server my world state from 3 previous games I played on Xbox! Really enjoying the attention to detail of your quest...website even makes a narrative story video for you based on your choices to recap before you start the next one...narrated by Varric too! 🤜🤛
A lot of people like to argue that they went soft with the companions… but I’d like to argue against that- they just don’t glorify the morally grey characters (3 characters in particular) I will be interested to see if BioWare will go ham enough to go dark again when we reach the land of slaves. Like you can’t really sympathize with that fact lol
I have NEVER played Dwarf in DAI. Mainly cuz I'm a sucker for elves. But after seeing this and you pointing out the stool as a Dwarf romancing The Iron Bull in 16:24 I lost it!! I wanna replay JUST for that scene!! X'DD
DAI is a pretty good game. One that I really enjoyed playing and would recommend it to anyone. But once you really look deep into it and compare it to DAO, it just becomes a big disappointment.
DAO is very good but I felt that it was very easy for me to want to just skip conversations cause...well I got bored. I say this as someone played the Mass Effect trilogy and the other Dragon Age games and loved all the dialogue and story and never really skipped anything, I was always hooked. I can't pinpoint exactly why I felt that way, maybe it was the lack of a voice actor, maybe the voice acting itself wasn't always the best to hear, I'm not sure. It just didn't do it for me like other Bioware games do. Also it definitely was my fault, but I found DAO exceptionally difficult on normal and even casual difficulty. I loved the party banter in DAO though, I would always stand and wait to hear all the banter when they started.
It’s weirdly sanatized for a dragon age game. In DAO you see and feel the dirt and grime, hell you can participate in the slave and drug trades if you want. You can start as an elf experiencing racism and oppression, or a criminal grasping for copper in the gutter. That’s just not present in inquisition. There’s a trend of cleaning up darker and grimier settings to conform to industry standards and that saddens me. Should’ve seen a goddamn male desire demon too. I wanted big wiener demon man and BioWare yet again disappoints :(
@@itsluger6278 DAO is firmly an old school boomer strategy RPG, if you’re not playing it well and planning builds, micro managing big fights, and minimizing the loss of health, and stealing and selling everything not nailed down, it’s simply going to be a much harder experience. There’s a price to being a good person, and that’s the difficulty of carrying that out
@@PrettyPinkPersephone pretty sure it's "sanatized" because it's about the inquisition roaming all of Thedas, not the Wardens venturing in Deep Roads/during the Blight. The Blight is what makes the world dark and grimy in DAO. There is no Blight in DAI, instead you've got the Rift, giving the game a mystical, more "fantasy" style. If you're looking for dark and gritty, you got DAO. If you're looking for heroic and grandiose, you got DAI.
@@thedankgnasty1890 I don't think that's the cause, exactly. In DA:I you see mages warring with templars and people in a nearby village dying of starvation. Yet it made me feel nothing. It's the representation and writing that was off for me.
I was tired and sleepy but now im suddenly awake from your crazy jokes, good laughs. I'm getting to the conclusion that Dan was probably the mischief maker at school.
I’m not gonna even watch the video to say YES ITS WORTH IT and the only way your ever going to know is actually to play it instead of watching a video. 100% in my top favorite games. Ohh and don’t listen to every video you watch.
Okay I've heard commentary on my favorite games from countless youtubers. I enjoy yours to be sure, but that Rachel Dolezal comment caught me off guard so much I nearly spat out my water. 10/10 content here lol.
I picked up DAI a couple months ago because I saw it was on sale and thought I would try out a fantasy RPG because I had never tried one,I quickly fell In love with the character customization,Companions,Romances,Crafting,abilities and Main Story Quests.I didn’t know any lore or hadn’t played any of the other dragon age games and it was able to stand on its own for me which is impressive.It’s too Grindy at parts and needs to be scaled back when it comes to its open world or put more meaningful stuff in the areas but other than that it’s one of my favorite games of all time.It’s made me want to play the other Dragon age games and I couldn’t recommend it enough to people who like the Fantasy Genre.
I think they revealed Corypheus too soon. I think he should have been held off until at least Adamant, or maybe Wicked eyes. Having him at Haven spoiled it a bit, but I have played it to death so many times. The specialisations are great for warrior and rogue, but i think the mage spec are garbage. Never spec my mage, after trying them out the first time. Racking up dragon heads is the best part of the game for me.
Yes. Play it. I've literally never really got into it but I went back to it last night actually and. . . I just ask myself why I ever left hahaha. It's a really beautiful and great game. Im gonna try and finish it this time. I'm super ready to get home and play it. It stacks well today play it.
I recently played through Inquisition all the way through, though it was a bit of a dredge with all the fetch quests. I also had a computer that, though better than anything else I've ever owned, was still not enough to handle Inquisition at a steady frame rate even in low settings. I spent literally five minutes waiting for places to load, then had to wait longer for the game to not stutter as I began exploring. That, along with the long side quests made the game a longer experience than I was expecting and made me loose interest pretty quick. I did eventually complete it, powering through on the fact that I was writing a story with my friend, that followed her Inquisitor and my Elven archer throughout the Lore DA has to offer. I might play the game again, but it may take me a while to get around to it. Though when I do, it will probably be the characters that bring me back.
I never even finished the game. I had so many issues with the game it boiled over and I just ragequit. I still finished DA2, this one broke me. They made it open world and then didn't put anything in the world, just large stretches of nothing except for respawning enemies. The companions were all either bland, annoying or obnoxious (Maybe Iron Bull was good, I dunno, I never even got round to recruiting him). Existing characters were radically altered like Leliana, Cullen, and even Varric to a certain degree, they were basially different people wearing an old character's face. I hated that you were forced to do sidequests in order to earn enough power to unlock zones required for hte main quest, they're not really sidequests if they're mandatory, are they? Changing mages from healers to bubblers was horrible and very unsatisfying, and overall mages were just inferior in every way to previous incarnations, losing a lot of their coolest spells and schools, and even their visuals were kind of underwhelming, you know it's bad when an archer looks cooler than a mage. the rifts were not an exciting mechanic, just waves of usually overpowered mobs that you have to fight. The entire UI is a mess, it's painfully obvious it was designed for consoles first, which I could forgive if they'd made separate UIs for console and PC, but they didn't. I didn't even know who the main villain of this game was, because I never played the optional DLC from DA2. They introduced Corypheus, the antagonist of your next game, in a DLC. DLC's supposed to be optional content, and I'd already burnt myself out on DA2 at hte time, so I didn't bother playing it, so imagine my confusion when this mutliated dude showed up and everyone acted like I should know who he is. I had to google who the hell he was. The visuals in general are just kind of ugly. Everyone looks like they're coated ina fine layer of grease, they're so shiny, and their hair seems to be made of plastic. Bioware still hasn't managed to figure out that hair longer than one's jawline exists, and even if they had, they could never figure out how to add physics to it. The other races looks terrible, elves look emaciated, dwarves don't have a very dwarven build, they just look like someone literally scaled down a human body and stuck a human head on the neck. Qunari have overly human faces all of a sudden, but hey, they redesign the Qunari every bloody game so why start being congruent now, I guess. The war table's a pain, just pointless busywork to make you waste power for negligible rewards so you need to go grind more power to unlock zones for the main quest. And that's just what I could think of of the top of my head. If you like it, good on you, my sister loves it, she's completed the game at least 5 times or more, but I absolutely despise it.
about to finish my playthrough of origins, can’t wait to make a second playthrough role playing as an elf who is very short tempered by humans. might play the second game first cause i play on nightmare and it’s a headache sometimes
Playing it for the 1st time today, without the nostalgia for the previous titles I've never played. Dragon Age Inquisition doesn't hold up. I can't believe it won a GOTY, even for the year it was released. DAI is incredibly boring. I feel ripped off, and I got it on sale for only 6 bucks.
I have never played a Dragon Age game but did buy all 3 when they were on sale on steam. I got Origins downloaded but I'm not sure if I should start with that or Inquisition. Thanks for the details on this game though, looking forward to start 1or the other.
I played Inquisition first a couple of times (sans DLCs) using the default history and completing it two different times. However, I wanted to import my own histories so I got Origins and have played through several times so I had lots of options to import and to collect as many achievements I can get to satisfy my completionist tendencies. I have most if not all the DLCs to fill out my playthrough . I now have several playthroughs of #2 going and can't wait to import these into Inquisition again. Arduous but rewarding.
inquisition is still a great game to play for sure. no doubt better than majority of current day RPG's. also is loaded with so much content. especially with the dlc's and due to all the diff choices you make and all the diff character builds and parties, a tonnnnnnn of replay value
Ouch... 8 years.... jeez! I don’t know how but, I didn’t realise it had been so long! 😅 Let’s see... my last playthrough must be... two years old or more by now! 😱 I guess it’s time to play it again! Apart from all the good reasons to play this game already mentioned in this video (With or without reservations), I would recommend it for the characters. Especially the banter between them. I have spend hours running around with the sole purpose of hearing them talk to each other. 😂 Try it, you won’t be disappointed. Thanks Dan! Stay safe. ❤️
Dragon age 2 will always be my favorite game but now that i have origins and can play it now it's my second favorite gane I see why people love it so much
It's a great game. Buy it. The story is great, the characters are awsome (exept for cole) , the worlds can be a bit boring sometimes but there are a bunch of them.
This was actually my first Dragon Age game, I went into it after finishing the Mass Effect Trilogy and since I got a brand new PS4, I wanted to try out Dragon Age so I started with the one title that was on the PS4, and yeah, I really liked it, so much so that I went back and got Dragon Age 1 and 2 for the PS3 so that I could see what the whole series was like
lmao no lie i did the exact same thing. except on xbox series s not ps4. played it after mass effect legendary edition. fucking loved it well over 100 hours and did the dlc's. so much replay value to
Same for me, but I felt like there were a lot of things in the plots and lores I couldn't really understand, and so I bought DAO and DA2 when they were on sale on Steam, and played the whole game
Totally worth it
@@guccigucci5002 yeah, I do wish the Playstation consoles had more backwards compatibility, even though I have a PS5 now, I still have my PS3 so that I can still play all the games that I got on it
@@riftshredder5438 with new ps plus subscriptions hopefully we will be able to play all this old games 🎮👍
@@sylvek19921 I'm not gonna pay a subscription to play games that I already own
This isn't perfect, but it's a great game. A few epic moments, like the atack on haven and the castle assault. Oh, how I wish Bioware was the same as it was back then.
The BioWare sleaze is certainly missing from their newer work. Which I think was a neat part of their identity that’s sort of lost now
2 and Inquisition is when Bioware started to lose it.
It was my least favorite one but I think part of that is just the overload of open world games. I used to crave open world but the over saturation of them, I have been craving smaller linear games like Dragon Age 2
@@PrettyPinkPersephone Yeah its a shame that it seems the only thing left from the company that brought us Baldur Gate, Kotor, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age is just the name(Also a handful of key OG people) but I'm willing to give this New Bioware a chance. The way I see it, Anthem and Andromeda was this new guard attempt at creating something new and it failed. I rather they learn from their mistake on a new IP and a spinoff then on their key games. Not trying to make it seem like I'm drinking the koolaid but I really do see this is as a chance for Bioware to foster new talent and hopefully get some new IPs that will be talked in the same vein as the glorious ones.
I find inquisition extremely boring and uninteresting, origins is much better
True, each title in the Dragon Age series are quite different from each other. I did have fun playing Inquisition though some quests do feel generic or feel better suited to an MMO, there is pretty good character interaction with plenty of dialogue and lore building as well. I will admit Dragon Age 2 is my favourite, ya it's the one most people dismiss but I just love the back and forth between characters and honestly it has some of the funniest dialogue in the series. Can't help myself Dragon Age 2 is just so much fun to play and one of the few games were you can go through the whole game as a sarcastic asshole.
DAII is my favourite of the series too and the one I've replayed the most even though it seems like it would be the least replayable. The story is the most unique and has some brilliant moments.
DA2 is also my favourite DA game (I know a lot of people think it's the worst one)
Although the game time is shorter, I still like it as I think DAO and DAI can be quite long (especially DAI is way too overwhelming for me)
I really like the friendly/rivalry system with companions, as the result would be different, thus adding another new path to explore
Also one of the most memorable things is that Anders can flirt and show affection to Hawke first to trigger the romance (Like most BioWare games require players to choose the flirt option to trigger the romance with companions, but Anders is the exception and it is awesome, I think they should have more of romance option like this in future RPG games)
Its pretty simple - since personally I like it. While the gameplay is very meh and I felt like I just dont have enough good character options (especially at the end if you decide to execute certain person making you miss key party member unless you meta it), it is also the only DA game where the MC has a character, story of their own and feel a lot more real. I truly cared for Hawke in many ways I dont care for the Warden or the Inquisitor (they dont even really get names the same way) - nobody calls Hawke "the Champion".
DA2 also has pretty packed story - though railroady af (0 choices made in DA2 matter inside the story or outside)
@@FuFightersStudio I totally agree with you on the name part. True, DA2 players don’t get to choose which race to play, but I think this also makes the players to be more attached to the MC more because you are playing his/her story, not anyone else’s story. On the other hand, DAO and DAI get to create characters with diff race, but sometimes I get the feel of “This could be anyone’s story” because the NPCs hardly called the MC’s name, and so I don’t feel as attached to the characters as Hawke does
Also to me, Hawke is like the Shepard of DA series 😂😂😂
I would say origin had the best story, da2 had the best characters, and inquisition had the best gameplay. Just my opinion
I actually played this for the first time in 2022 and beat it. I was slow getting into it at first but after a few hours the game had me hooked, all I was looking forward to after work was to go home and play DA:I.
I literally JUST completed playing my 4th playthrough last week. I keep enjoying in more each time. I highly recommend playing it in 2022
You poor soul, I can’t begin to imagine how much time you’ve spent running around in the hinterlands😂
@@carsonnesbit1178 had a blast running everywhere. This time I let the chargers die and was crushed of what happened at the end of the game as a result
@@carsonnesbit1178 Gotta learn to walk before you can Kick demon Ass. But ya need all that Elfroot for later. Potions need it.
@@colinvanoverdijk5855 I’m in the unfortunate minority of players who main male elves… and idk if you’ve noticed but they have atrocious frames in inquisition, kinda ruined my role play experience whenever I saw my big ass head stick mans arms clipping into his sides :(
What’s your favorite thing about the game? I started a week ago and I’m hooked. I thought DA2 was amazing but this is incredible
I think I've played through DAI a couple times, but once you know what its about, all that filler material becomes harder and harder to slog through.
While it suffers from empty open world syndrome, I thought the companions in Inquisition are all sooo good! (except maybe Blackwall). The mod that increases party banter is a must as all the characters have such good interactions with each other
even blackwall is pretty good, if you follow his plot.
This, even on console it's amazing. First time I played it was on PS4 some years ago and basically any interaction with any of the characters was amazing. Even characters I didn't like felt real enough to still interact with etc.
I actually liked blackwall (Thomas), but Sera always annoyed me personally. Cole was really interesting to talk with too.
I really like Blackwall’s romance 😆😆😆
I also always felt kinda bad cus I romanced Josephine, and hung out with Blackwall all the time.
I loved this game. My only issue is that some of the open world game play locations have no real purpose. In mass effect, every region was part of the overall game. Other than that, the depth of the characters, story line, and the art are just amazing. And Trevor Morris is a genius- the music made the game. Great analysis :)
"In Mass Effect, every region was part of the overall game"
*flashbacks to exploring planets in ME1 with mostly empty space, and many had nothing to do with the overall game* lol
@@TheMagicalPinata And the same bases, and the same base layouts.
I Always prefered DA Origins And about the voices, I think Divinity Original Sin 2 has more people who can voice the main protagonist
Divinity Original Sin 2 doesn't really have a "voiced protagonist" in the same sense though. It's just for grunts and battle cries, dialogue is mostly unvoiced for your character.
Fair enough.
I prefer it as well over Inquisition base game, but overall I slightly prefer Game of The Year Edition of the Inquisition over Dragon Age Origins Ultimate Edition.
Prewritten characters as main protagonists in DOS2 act totally as a custom character, they have no voiced dialogue. And just have the occasional context banter in a point of interest there is no difference with a custom character in that regard.
Inquisition's main character is voiced through all the game (tho, DA2 managed it better, the Inquisitor sounds boring and bland in most cases, even when you supposedly selected an angry, sarcastic or surprised option).
Those were old games why do some of you people still play old gen consoles anyway you like zombies that won’t let things for the better gens
I am currently playing DAI again and I am loving it. I am almost done with the main story 90 hours in.
Dragon Age has always been such an important series to me, I actually played it before I ever picked up a Mass Effect game, and this game, though I have a hard time comparing it to DA1, is just as incredibly special to me.
My complaint about the game, and it’s a small one, was that the expansion gave you a satisfying ending. And you had to pay for it! The main storylines antagonist was weak at the final battle plus the wrap up was weak. Otherwise, great game, 120 or so hours.
Yeah Corypheus was a huge waste of potential. It's a bummer that the ending to the base game didn't match the quality of Trespasser.
Yeah.. the multiple dragons (that are optional I may add) are more of a challenge than the main antagonist.
This game and Dragon Age II I had the opposite reactions to. Dragon Age 2 I didn't like at first and kept comparing it negatively to Origins (one of my all-time favourite games) but I've grown to really like it. It's a flawed game, but it has some really interesting ideas, some of which it executes pretty well like the Templar-Mage conflict. If BioWare had had more time to work on it, I think they could have crafted a masterpiece, kinda like how Mass Effect 1 to 2, Assassin's Creed 1 to 2 or Witcher 1 to 2 to 3.
Inquisition I loved the first time I played it. And I don't hate the game now, but the more and more I've reflected on it, the less I like it. I think the writing took a serious nosedive compared to Origins and II. It lost a lot of the nuance that Origins and II had. I think because Inquisition leaned more into the high fantasy than the dark fantasy of Origins and II. The Inquisitor is an okay protagonist but compared to The Warden and Hawke they lack. I do like they allowed us to be different races, even if it didn't really add anything to the story unlike Origins where being an elf or dwarf made interactions and certain plot elements different. The main villain whatever his name is so uninteresting and generic. Also, it didn't help that The Witcher 3 made Inquisition look inferior in comparison, especially in the story department (ESPECIALLY IN THE SIDE QUESTS - Witcher 3 made side quests feel like main mission quests). I do like the companions in Inquisition.
The Templar and Mage conflict was super rushed and Hawke sucked as a protagonist.
100% Agree with your comment, Rockingbird. That's exactly what happened to me.
I agree, though I grew to hate DA:I on my first playthrough on about the 30h mark already. Its downfall, imo, is the writing and that's a flaw in a game that nothing can remedy for me. And then there is the fact that no other gaming mechanic was good enough to even try to remedy it unless some of the characters. And most of those characters drew their charm from their characterization in the earlier games. It's like the team really sucks at coming up with anything new.
I played the DA series before ME since I was never really into sci-fi. It still is a very "me" game and it will always hold a special place in my heart. However, that being said, and I HATE to admit it, but story-wise, the Mass Effect trilogy beats it out.
I really liked the "atmosphere" and the tone of DA origins, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's so highly praised, but yeah ME story is really interesting
Inquisition is more high fantasy than dark fantasy when you compared it to Origins which had more gruesome atmosphere and themes, even the visual are more shiny and flashy now.
This game could have been more interesting if it was entirely designed as the Trespasser DLC, self contained stories around sandbox maps because let's be honest aside from the main story and companion quests the rest is negligible.
I remember during my 1st playthrough that I skipped 60 to 80% of the other maps and even is subsequent playthroughs where I decided to explore more and do the side content, it was more of chore rather than something fun (it sucks to be a completionist in this type of game)
And I'm still bitter at the devs for some annoucements and promises they made before the launch, especially when you watch the live demo they showed in 2013 which was far superior in many aspects to what the game was on launch. And I wont talk about the flashy action packed gameplay that I just hate, a super dumbed down version to what Dragon Age used to be (and the damage sponge ennemies like you said + barrier + guard)
Finishing on a positive note : Cassandra as a character and her romance were my favorite parts in this game.
I honestly really enjoyed the gameplay once I figured out how to actually do it correctly lol. I really like the main story and the companions/advisors, but I'll admit that about half of the areas were lackluster. Then again, you've got places the other half which can be REALLY fun to play through. And agreed, the best part of this are the companions/advisors, specifically Cassandra and her romance.
Visually the maps are fun for me, and I do explore every map. And yeah I'm a completionist. It is hard in this game, the only ones I skip are the mosaics. Those are too much of a pain to find. Has anyone ever found every mosaic?
@@jimmym3352 Nah, i explore the best i can but never did i find every mosaic maybe one day
I bought Inquisition a few months ago (semester vacation + it was on sale on steam) and I have been absolutely taken by the story. I loved, and love it so much. I'm playing Origins currently and later DA2, to return to Inquisition with a custom worldstate 👀 Can't wait for DA4!
i first played inquisition when it released and i was blown away. i suddenly got the urge to replay it in march this year and i was even MORE blown away. im someone who loves side quests and fetch quests, i like maxing my levels, i like learning new combat and getting stronger. nothin is better than the joy i get when i stumble upon a wheel of cheese while im exploring. the characters are all likeable to me. just...everything about inquisition makes me happy and im glad im replaying it. im on my second playthrough this year after failing to finish tresspasser (its HARD!!) and im doing much better w the combat this time around so everything is just so much more satisfying. god. even for its flaws i love inquisition. idk where im going with this comment but to say...i like inquisition a lot and im glad people are still playing it in 2022.
My main issue with Inquisition was that the game is huge. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the available content. Due to this i quit my first playtrough. Later i started a new playtrough and completed it, after that i do think the game is amazing. You just need the time and dedication to play through it.
I feel like what really got looked over was the character interactions and dialogue. The banter is among the best BioWare has to offer. Also, while some of the story leaves a lot to be desired, certain levels are absolutely amazing imo.
And finally, I firmly believe Trespasser is easily one of the finest DLCs/expansions ever written.
In terms of companions.
I straight forgot Vivienne existed for half the game
Cuz she's up on a balcny that's hard to find the way up to, and is very out of the way of anything else.
I was wandering around late in the game, and walked into her and was like 'oh, yeah, that wizard lady we recruited early'
I disagree with his statement that the companion writting in inquisition is strong. Thats just a lie . At best they are service-able , at worst they are annoying. Tresspasser also somewhat saved the game being bad by just saying it was all a goof , planned by that egg head.
That's kind of bad world design imo, that your companion is tucked away in a corner somewhere
@@vroiderantas . Totally agree with this.
@@jmjedi923 To be fair Vivienne is a bit shit so I don't care she's out the way somewhere I don't need to see her lol
@@vroiderantas It's an opinion, it cannot be false. You can not agree with it, but even that isn't an objective true or false statement.
I think it's decent with the dlc's etc I think if they cut down on some of the fetch stuff it would be a bit better.
I like how in Inquisition if you don't romance Iron Bull or Dorian that both of them will start dating if you keep both of them in your party long enough. It took me at least 3 or 4 of just running around the map waiting for their banter indicating they are dating to trigger.
I enjoy this game a lot. Dorian, Cole, and Iron Bull are my favorite compainions. I still have some DLC to finish in my play through. But ive done most. Getting all the dragons was fun. Wish there was more to killing them all but it was still fun.
Yes. Dorian Pavus. Next video
For a 2014 game it still looks and plays amazing. One of my favourite games and I replay it at least once a year 😅
True but I don't like MMO combat system.
It’s not an abandoned castle anymore if you’re with your homies
Bioware did something even crazier with voices for the main character Dan. In SWTOR you can play 8 different stories each as a male or female character, everything is voiced and every story has a different voiceactor. You have Bioware style answers in that game too and they voiced the Addons too where every character plays the same story. That was mindblowing to me
I actually prefer the combat from DA2, it is just a little more snappy and crisp than DA:I or at least the animations. DA:I feels slow(er) compared to DA2.
There might be little more variety in DA:I than 2, but I preferred the more action style in 2 (but yeah the enemy waves weren't that brilliant). :-)
Lol if you think the battle in DAI is slow wait until you play DAO.
@@jameslambertus5820 I have played DA:O, yes combat in that game is snails pace, but I was able to tolerate it as the game still had half a leg in the top-down rpgs.
Besides I just compared DA2 with DA:I because that comparison was made in the video. :)
@@jameslambertus5820 . DAO is technically a TTRPG of old school, so the slow combat fits for completely to the game, but Inquisition is not anymore that, the combat is a total downgrade from DA2.
DAI is good, not as Origins but fun nonetheless. But DA2 has the best combat and companions of the series, it's highly underrated.
The best way I can think of to sum this game after all these years is pretty simple. I had one complete playthrough which included me doing Jaws of Hakkon and my game time was 140 hours. When I think back on it at least 80 of those hours could have just been completely excised and only improved the game. Then when I was going to go back and play the other DLCs my cloud save was deleted by Origin and I couldn't work up the will to do that again after making sure to 100% every area.
I hurt my back last year and have found myself with a lot of time for gaming. I have to say a lot of what you're saying is totally correct, but I'll say that a lot of these issues have since been fixed by the modding community. No, this doesn't excuse the original issue, but I'm just shy of 300 hours now in DA:I, and wouldn't be there without mods. I think it fulfills some of the promise of DA2, while creating some new issues.
If you're a lore nerd, Descent puts everything on it's head. Dwarven ???
Great review!
“I guess I’m just a Godamn casual”
absolute gold.
Love your channel Big Dan! Keep it up, Ty for the vids!
I think the most fun I've had fun with DAI after literal hundreds of hours is challenging myself by not crafting weapons of armour and playing the game on nightmare difficulty. It makes the exploration meaningful, because most of the time whatever you get in quests or bosses is worse then what you have crafted. It was challenging, especially early to mid-game, but really fun
I've been binging so many of your videos. I finished my first ever mass effect play through last week and can't let go. But who knows, maybe I'll start my third DAI play through.
Definitely interested in that DLC video. This reminds me, can you make a video on Mass Effect's Shadow Broker DLC? In my opinion, by far the best DLC Mass Effect has to offer.
I’m playing through the dragon age series for the 1st time. Currently playing dragon age 2 and I love it. It’s on par with origins. The battle system to me is similar but way smoother than the first. Also love the companions a little more. Sten, Wynne, and Oghren were pretty forgettable, I have been having a lot of fun with the DA2 companions, though Fenris is pretty insufferable. Lol
While dao is my favorite, I liked how da2's story is basically about Hawke and his/her friends and their home city and not some newbie Gray Warden saving the whole world
2 isn't anywhere close to Origins .
I'm also playing through the dragon age series for the first time, currently playing inquisition. I liked the story and dialogues of dao but i didn't really like the combat.
I loved playing through da2 as a sarcastic asshole.
Inquisition is also good so far, i especially like the dragon age keep website feature so that the choices you made in dao and da2 are actually reflected in da:i.
Idk I finished it for the 1st time. Then downloaded a couple DLC packages and immediately started replaying it. Completely new character and I must say it is as refreshing as the my 1st play through. I really enjoy it 😌
I remember stumbling backwards into Origins back in like 2010 or 2011... Maybe 2012. I know Dragon Age 2 was out or was coming out... What an experience. My first time with a game with branching story lines and I remember for a solid week I enjoyed it. Wish I could get that feeling again.
Inquisition to me: is better than dragon 2 but doesn’t reach the highs of Dragon Age Origins and Awakening to me. Some amazing companions and advisors definitely on par or even better than Origins. It’s combat I think is at a good middle ground but improvements can be made.
Romances are more diverse but some missed opportunities for some, others not getting enough attention. But those that do work like Solas, Cassandra, Cullen, blackwall as stand outs.
That palace quest the choices, the endings, impacts depending on your race or even who you bring along is amazing.
Legacy characters returning are either done so well or feel off, Morrigan’s development off screen and change of character feels weird at times for me. King Alastair or Queen Anora can be completely missed but warden Alastair is more prominent and other characters you can meet.
Horse riding felt tacked on and needing depth along with the forts we can find which in development were meant to be divided up between your three advisors which just got dropped. But said choices are still there in the war map for handling war tasks.
The castle you have in which you can upgrade overtime has no meaningful consequences outside some items and personal choice and design it felt like it was going to be the Normandy in mass effect 2 or the keep in awakening but just got dropped on importance.
But to me it’s the story and it’s importance that annoys me from how the big conflict of the mages and templars is ended so lackluster, the breach in the sky kinda felt not important even though it seems to be a huge rallying point for everyone to stop the fade and demons invading but no one seemed to care unless you help them with their stuff.
Multiplayer had potential but lacked heavily compared to mass effect 3 multiplayer.
I love and hate this game with a passion it feels me with a mix of emotions cause alot is done well but others rather messy or not as well.
I truly believe that at least from a storyline and character development aspect, DAI is the best in the series and absolutely deserved GOTY recognition at the time.
Yes, all of the "fluff" quests feel like something out of an MMO. And the war table "quests" are the absolute worst.
However, even with its flaws, DAI with all of the DLCs is probably one of BioWare's best RPGs in my opinion.
This
Have to disagree with the war table, but otherwise agreed
I really like DAI, it's my second favourite Dragon Age game. However, there were many game mechanics shown in the gameplay trailers prior to release that just didn't make it into the final game that left me feeling somewhat disappointed in it. Trespasser is the best DLC of any Dragon Age game, they really did a fantastic job with that.
I liked Trespasser the first time i played it, but i absolutely adored it on the second playtrough
Nope Awakenings was.
@@adeptdamage3669 . Exactly.
I have sunk so many hours into Inquisition. It is a very well made game, all things considered. If you can manage the stiff character animations (mostly faces) and the number of quests.
Storytelling is great, and character design is very nice.
Mass Effect fans will also like this game, due to some clever easter egg references found in there (such as the Krogan head trophy, and many text lines)
*Multiplayer*
There is also a multiplayer part, just like Mass Effect 3, where your objective is to eliminate the enemy threat. There are 4 different areas, and many variations of each map, as well as the Castle.
You have to traverse 5 zones, filled with enemies to complete the run.
The factions are the following:
Demons - These are the same kind of enemies you find near Fade Rifts in the single-player, only in much greater numbers. Demons has many abilities that will knock the player down, and they deal mostly elemental damage, making it the second hardest faction for newer players.
Red Templars - Like the single-player counterparts, these are normal enemies infected with Red Lyrium. These deal mostly ranged damage, but they have melee units as well. Shield troopers are by far the most annoying enemy of this faction, as they will charge at the player and has several knock-downs. This is the easier faction to face as a new player.
Venatori - The Tevinter-based cult has many mages, and these guys deal a lot of elemental damage. Spellbinders can enhance the normal troops with magical barriers that not only protects, but also doubles the damage dealt. Like demons, this is one of the harder factions for newer players.
Darkspawn - Ah, the enemy of old. This faction is tough, but manageable due to their lack of elemental resistance (with the exception of Emissaries). However, in Zone 4, the Darkspawn are replaced with Sha Brytol (the ancient dwarven faction found at the lower levels of the Deep Roads), and these guys does not mess around. The Bolters has the highest DPS out of any enemy unit, and can easily be a run-ender if the player is not careful.
Qunari - Yep, the true Qunari are also present (also known as the Ben Hassrath). This faction is by far the toughest for newer players, as the Qunari are incredibly tough, has many resistances and several units has knock-downs. Their only true weakness is electrical damage.
Certain side objectives occur in zones 2 and 4, much like the objectives found in the Mass Effect multiplayer.
Protection: You have to protect an ally NPC throughout the zone. Doing so will grant all players in the group some extra gold. Though, the melee NPC is extremely dumb, and will most likely engage in fights, rather than avoiding it.
Veilfire (Not present in Ferelden Castle): The area you are in are filled with a toxic gas that will slowly drain your HP. By standing near the Veilfire torch, you are in a safe spot where you take no damage from the gas. Your goal is to bring the torch to a brazier that will clear the area of gas. Doing so grants the group extra gold.
Retrieval: The enemy has taken certain objects and lit them on fire. You have a certain amount of time to make it to the object of interest and retrieve it before it is too late. Like any other objective, this grants the group extra gold.
Elimination: You are tasked with eliminating a marked enemy. This enemy is a much larger and stronger unit compared to its normal counterparts. However, this is the easiest objective to complete. Doing so will grant the group extra gold.
Unlike single player, the multiplayer has 5 difficulty settings, with quite the big gap between them.
*Routine:* This is the "easy" difficulty, made for beginners, and the difficulty that most players starts out on. XP gains and gold gains are low, so you need many, many runs to get 20 levels.
*Threatening:* This can be called "Normal" difficulty. It does not require promotions to do well in, just decent gear. XP and gold gains are higher, and you typically need around 8-12 runs to reach level 20.
*Perilous:* The "Hard" option. Enemies deal a lot more damage, and even the best armor does not reduce damage as much. However, the rewards are well worth it if you manage to beat this difficulty. You need around 5-8 runs to make it to level 20.
*Nightmare:* The "Very Hard" setting. Enemies has resistances to certain elements (you will only deal a single point of damage to these, with the affected element). Enemies deal a lot of damage, and has around triple the amount of health from their Perilous counterparts. You need a lot of promotions and good gear to beat Nightmare. The rewards are good, and you gain a lot of XP and gold per run. You can make it to level 20 in around 3-5 runs.
*Heartbreaker:* The "Insanity" option. Enemies has abilities similar to the player, has massive resistances and health, and they deal a ton of damage. This is by far the greatest challenge the player can face, and you need many, many, many promotions to do well here (around 500-600 in each category). However, this difficulty has the highest XP rewards, and can get you to level 20 in only 2 runs. Note: Gold-gains are the same as Nightmare.
Characters in Multiplayer ranges from all classes (S+S Warrior, 2H Warrior, Archer, Double Dagger, and Mage), both genders and all races (human, elf, dwarf and qunari), and their abilities are a mix of various single-player abilities from every skill tree.
Isabela from Dragon Age II makes an appearance here as well, so if you want to see her Inquisition looks, give her a try. She and a few other characters has unique abilities not found in the single-player.
All in all, the multiplayer part is just as fun and addicting as it is in Mass Effect 3, as well as Andromeda.
The quantity over quality aspect of Inquisition killed it for me.
I recently tried to replay all games in the DA series.
Origins was fun but the combat felt really dated compared to recent CRPGS.
2 had interesting combo mechanic, the cast and story were great, game areas were too repetitive so overall enjoyable for game length.
Inquisition felt like a single player mmo - dry combat, collectables, empty big maps.
I recently finished a playthough and I gotta say I still love this game. The design and characters are great. And the lore is intriguing.
Q: How does collecting 30 Elfroots for someone strengthen the Inquisition?
A1:The Elfroots are used to create something that either strengthens the Inquisition or weakens its enemies.
A2: The Elfroots are used to deal with some problem and the people who benefit from this aid the Inquisition in return.
I lost interest in DAI about half way through. I just got so bored of doing the side quests and stuff (Yeah mostly I'm a completionist) that it drove me crazy. Plus in the DAO I romanced Leliana and so I was massively disappointed that they (Bioware) Jacob'd her by denying her as a companion, and a romance option. Plus the whole war room (aka war assets) thing and the open world its just bad. Bioware clearly didn't know what they were doing designing this game, trying to do too much trying to please too big of a crowd instead of just focusing on a good story and characters. This is ME Andromeda of the Dragon Age series, they both share the same problems (from a design standpoint).
Wouldn't you have wanted Leliana to stag faithful to your warden, though?
@@zhazhagab0r I don't know. I just don't like what they did to the character. Plus if she died previously she is revived for the purpose of being in this game.
Dragon Age Inquisition is probably the best example of a game made lesser by following the open-world trend. Everything suffers the second you get away from the main story, gone are the interesting character interactions and properly developed quests. I've literally started and stopped the game 4 times in an attempt to force my way through it, with only the last try being a success. I didn't even get to the actual inquisition base until my second playthrough, but when I did I finally found a segment of the game I genuinely liked. I spent at least an hour just wandering around and talking to people, and enjoyed doing it. Then, I got back out into the open-world maps I just unlocked, and remembered this is what the majority of the game is. There are so few titles I'd want to be more linear (especially RPGs) but DA:I so poorly executes the open world design that it makes the final product borderline unplayable
They both suffer from using a game/graphics engine that was designed form the ground up as a FPS engine. Andromeda gets some gameplay element advantages from it at least, but Inquisition I think is worse off for bioware being forced to use it. (sure, it made the game all shiny and new, but that was where the benefits stopped for me - it couldn't, and still can't, remember a window size setting from one session to the next!)
Played Andromeda first, so never realised this was a prelude to that cluttered mess. With 4 transitioning into a Single Player title, hope they manage to scrub some of the excess the Live-service would've brought and have more meaningful quests.
I would be 50% more okay with the war table missions IF your unique inquisitor "sidequest" wasn't one of them. In the first Mass Effect, what sort of background your Shepard has determines which of one or two unique sidequests you have access to. It's like a lazy version of the origins from Origins. Instead of meeting the qunari inquisitor's old mercenary band, or the elven inquisitor's clan, we just get walls of text. It's a missed opportunity to help flesh out the inquisitor's history and let us connect with them as a character. The war table missions also have very little effect on the main game outside of rewards, and by that I mean very rarely does anyone react based on your choices. You can accidentally wipe out the elven inquisitor's entire clan and you get zero reaction from them. It really feels like they had the structure for sidequests that were just cut for time to be fully programmed in, so they turned them into text walls instead.
I've tried 3 different time to get into DAI but always got bored quickly after a few main quests. Not sure what it is about the game that just doesn't stick with me like how Origins and 2 did
I remember being so unsure when I bought it never really played a game like it before but it was a really good time and ive been trying to play the classic bioware games ever since. playing mass effect legendary for the first time makes me want to go back and play this
Unpopular opinion, DA2 is my favorite. Please don't kill me.
You're not alone. It's the one game in the series Tumblr won't shut up about.
It might be my favorite too, though I enjoy all of them for their own reasons. I like that they're each a bit different.
I agree! There’s a surprising amount of amazing stuff in that game that people miss when they rush through it. And it doesn’t get enough credit for the huge variety of options each play through gives you
I love DAII! I think it actually had the tightest plot and the voice acting was phenomenal. Every time I played through, I found new details that just made me like the game even more. Like I didn’t notice on my first play through that Bethany was airbrushed and her boobs were even bigger in the opening sequence than in the game because Varick was embellishing details. After I noticed that, I watched for cinematic embellishments and it was just another layer of fun. The combat was pretty satisfying to me and there were opportunities for me to be strategic (both of which I think are lacking in DAI). I absolutely fell in love with the alignment system - the friend to rival spectrum is so unique and it actually changes how the characters respond to you in the final battle so it matters. Even if they are friends with Hawke, if they don’t agree with Hawke’s worldview as demonstrated by Hawke’s choices in the game, they will not choose to fight with Hawke. And you can’t combat that by giving them presents. I don’t even mind that they reuse sets, which I think is the most common complaint about the game. They did the same thing in DAO and to me it added to the charm because it felt like a play or production with budget constraints and it made me chuckle.
Best of all, everything ties together in that game. The side quests are all aligned with the main quests and everything works together to advance the plot and develop the characters. Even when you do fetch quests, the little things you fetch are all on the way to something important. There’s no point in time where you go to a location specifically to fetch something stupid that doesn’t advance the plot. And Anders’ fetch quest is actually pretty brilliant. He doesn’t need Hawke to go with him while he collects stuff for his “magic potion”. He’s purposely implicating Hawke in what he’s doing to take advantage of Hawke’s name and advance his own agenda! I love that! When I saw that it evoked a genuine emotional response because I trusted him too! It was great.
I really like that game and I don’t understand why other people don’t see it’s charm so thank you for posting your comment and making me feel less alone.
@@beccangavin I appreciate your reply and support man. Glad to find someone who likes DA2 for the same reasons I do.
"Combat doesn't require much strategy"
"A lot of enemies are massive damage sponges, which makes it tedious"
Those are contradicting statements. You need to use strategy (like combo effects, such as freeze and shatter, as well as weaknesses) to take down the "massive damage sponges" faster.
Example, combo on the rogue is the ice flask followed by twin fangs. Does a shit ton of damage. Or fire flask and throwing knives. Can also work with comboing different class abilities.
@@elock1277 Ahaha that sounds amazing. I'll have to give it a try.
There's a War Table operation called "Power for a Price" that lets you buy power & influence for big war table things like opening up new areas.(Side note, you can advance your system clock to skip the waiting for some of the longer war table ops) Which somewhat negates that "level gating" but I'd still recommend being at a decent level going into some places. There's also a still useable glitch involving the storage chest in the underforge in Skyhold where you can dupe items and sell them for unlimited gold or depending on what you're duping, like Amulets of Power for instance, you can use just about any skill/ability your class has to offer as long as you have the appropriate weapon type if you're a Warrior or Rouge. The Amulets don't actually level you up, they're just free skill points so leveling is still necessary.
You can also get some companions to leave after enough time if they don't like what you're doing. With Sera there's an option in her dialogue wheel after letting her join you can straight up tell her "You don't fit in with the Inquisition" or something to those lines. I haven't done it myself since I kinda like Sera. For Cole, when you get to Skyhold you can tell him you don't want him in the Inquisition right away or if you get him to dislike you enough he'll just leave. Cassandra, Varric, and Solas won't leave no matter what you do. Dorian& Vivienne I'm not sure if how can eventually make them leave. Though for Blackwall & Bull they've got personal quests that have consequences that I won't explain because spoilers.
2:44 that’s exactly how I’d sum up DA:I, for the most part I really liked it and I thought it was a good addition to the overall story
Just putting this out there, but I would be totally down for videos about choices in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I've over 100 hours in already and I feel like I've only scratched the surface of what this game is about.
Origins was my first game in this kind of genre. I struggled with the combat and found the game difficult even on the lowest setting. Eventually I got the hang of it but once I got DAI I honestly enjoyed the more simplistic combat. I prefer to enjoy the story and world over the worry of dying all the time because I am too incompetent to understand a combat system that is something other than mashing 2 buttons. The companions in this game I felt were way better than Origins. It felt more personal rather than story driven to me.
God I can't believe it's already been 8 years!
I'm so glad you made this video! I just finished my first playthrough and I share most of your thoughts about this game.. one thing I can say is that I think I like Inquisition more than Origins (please everyone don't be mad). I played Origins last year and it felt a bit dated, plus, and I cannot stress this enough, I HATE non voiced protagonists. When I play an RPG I want to feel completely immersed in it and a silent protagonist just doesn't work for me. I also did not mind the fact that important outcomes were shown during dialogues, I mean the game is extremely vast and it happened that I played weeks apart due to lack of time, and since the story was so long and complex I enjoyed those little reminders when choices needed to be made, it helped me not to feel lost. Also I loved playing a Qunari! The American voice for my female Qunari warrior was spot on.
I can't compare Inquisition nor Origins with DA2 because the reviews were so bad I skipped it altogether. Should I give it a try?
I've played and completed this game at least a dozen times. I've thoroughly enjoyed each of my play through. The story wasn't that bad but it definitely lacks the depth and mystery DAO had. DAO's overall atmosphere was dark and gritty from the darkspawn threat and although there's also a looming terror in DAI, it didn't really felt as gripping as DAO had. The side quests are infamous but personally the most annoying part of this game were the collectibles. The map is littered with it like Assassin's Creed or Horizon Zero Dawn. Most of these collectibles just unlock codex entries which unfortunately I never bothered reading. My favorite element of this game is definitely the companions. While not as compelling as DAO or even DA2 (unpopular opinion maybe), I still enjoyed the company most of the time. I agree the combat was so dull and bare boned compared to DAO. It's really just auto attack with skill casting.
I'd argue that the companions in DAI were somewhat superior to the other games.
Inquisition is really underrated to me
I think voice acting in Mass Effect is completely fine.
When it comes to Dragon Age type games with varieties of builds, it becomes difficult to picture the voice you’re given fitting a person who slings magic or is sneaky or specializes in ranged attacks.
Mass Effect you always know your combat style is limited to two/three areas and you just adjust based on those areas, so a voiced protagonist feels more natural
Thank you for the review, I think imma try the game 👍🙂
It has it's drawbacks for sure, but I still replay it about every year or so. DA:I has the best companion party banter when you are out and about questing. I wish they'd done the same for ME, especially in 1. I don't bother with romances anymore but my favorite was Bull. The character creator is a massive time sink that kicks you in gut when you get into game and see how wonky your 'tweaks' ended up outside of cutscenes, so be careful how much you do there.
I love the world and stories, but just like with ME, Skyrim and Witcher 3, quality of life mods make up for much wasted time in game when I like to hit the ground running. As for the 'collect-a-thon' items I only grab the tiles because they make pretty decor for my Skyhold.
Corypheus still has the best villain entrance ever, despite being a waste of dev afterward. And my favorite main game moment will always be my Inquisitor taking Griffon Wing Keep with Bull, Dorian and Varric. "Shall we knock?" ha!
I’ve barely played any of the game since it first came out, but no exaggeration, I remember spending 3 hours total working in the character creator, seeing the results in-game, and then backing out and making tweaks lol. Now every time I start creating a character in a game, I think to myself “Now how can I make this stretch to three hours like DA:I?” The one that came the closest was Cyberpunk 2077 at 2.5 hours lol
All complaints aside I'll admit that when I heard "The Dawn Will Come" I was fully hooked.
The war table is what I loved about dragon age inquisition. In the Mass effect trilogy playing as Shepard always made me feel like I was the only competent person in the whole damn galaxy, but in dragon age inquisition it gave you more of sense that your are a leader and you have competent people around you. The advisors feel more like they are there to help you instead of boss you around with random quests
If you're reading this and want to try the game, make sure to install (on nexus mods):
*War Table - No Waiting (great for the replay value);
*More Banter (serious, I didn't unlocked half of the interactions on a complete gameplay due how random the banter nature is, I never had Iron Bull hooked with another character of our party for example and I wasn't even aware);
*Spirit Blade Revert (if you're going to play as KE, no this don't make KE overpower by any means and the nerf was totally unjustified);
*Bugs be gone (fix many skills problems, especially magic where your mines sometimes do 1 damage).
Funny that some things that you mentioned wasn't a problem for me, especially war points because I naturally explored everything that was available for me at the time, so I always was overleveled for the story content. I liked very much of the dragons and the challenges, the only thing that rubed me in the wrong way is that money is limited and some materials are inaccessible because they only appear at a certain point or are exclusive to some story maps.
Other thing that I hated was how the classes was balanced, dunno why Bioware nerfed Mages so much and keep Artificer and Tempest intact, since they are the most broken class of the game.
The last thing that I hated about combat was how some classes are CC reliant (Templar for example) and bosses are totally immune to CC, making your entire skill kit useless!, DA suffer from the same problem of Skyrim, where's there more content than your character can grow, cap our lv at 25 was stupid, you have the feeling that you're playing an unfinished game and at the same time the mods aren't exactly on the point, so you have nowhere to run.
In da2 there was a really in-depth menu you could use on how your companions would behave in battle, like warrior use shield bash but only on enemies with a certain status (frozen etc) and only if they’re above a certain health (as to not waste stamina on a 1 hit kill). It was a little overwhelming at first but a nice strategic element to build your unique team. DAI really dialled that down so a healthy mix in between would’ve been great. Also bring back Isabella haha
DA Inquisition was my first experience in the Dragon Age series and I really liked the game!! Played it multiple times. I have played DA Origins recently for the first time and really liked it too!!
Haven't played DA 2 yet and hopefully it's not as bad as people have said.
For me i like the combat in Dragon age 2, is pretty fast and cool if you use well your habilities, also i love how the companions comment in the combat, i have a lot of fun playing with Isabela, Varric, Merril and Aveline in combat 😂
I didn't like much the inquisition, is nice and has a lot of history yeah but it's too damn long and very open world, and since i like doing all perfect i did a replay BUT i give up when i was in the party of the empress, is just too much 😂
The empress party is a really good quest tho, it's interesting and different
@@thedankgnasty1890 i agree with you, but it is kinda tricky to get everything perfect in there, also the race of the player affects in the points of that quest and that annoys me :”/
But i did learn that probably the best is to make the empress and the elf join forces and be like lovers again
@@Franju98 yeah
I have a Dragon Age Inquisition phase every year, meaning I do 1 - 3 runs back to back and when I'm done, I shelve it (digitally) until next year.
Last time I prepared some nice faces for my PC and kept all mods so this time I'll have less work :>
Good you reminded me, it's almost time again.
I just discovered this game series in 2022....now...I am on Inquisition having played thru the series up to this point this year. Discovering multiplayer however, has my actual game on near stop mode as I absolutley love the multiplayer on Inquisition for PS3. It may not be everyone...but me, I LOVE IT!
Jus rebeat all three like last week I’d say dew it
I tried playing this game a month ago and uninstalled it shortly after. I had to big problems with it first just like you pointed out the MMO style quests, and I felt all the NPCs you interact with are just too cool. They all have custom made armor and clothes save for the one droopy eared elf. He was had the exact opposite problem.
I like all 3 dragon age games. However I like the story of DA 2 and Origins more than Inquisitions and I totally prefer the character customization and character building of Origins over the other games. Now I´ll go have another crack at Origins since it was calling out to be replayed the last days anyways and this video pushed me over the brink :D
I love DA:O. Disliked DA2 at first, but loved it after I started playing as a healer. I have tried to play DA:I, but I find I lose interest right at the start of the game. It feel's like I'm playing an MMO (I'm on PC), and if it feels like that, then I might as well just play my favorite MMO instead. I just can't get myself to try the game out again. I wish I could, but the gameplay just feels off as hell to me, since it feels like an MMO. Someday I will probably try it again, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it.
Believe me, once you get the ball rolling for this game, it actually gets good.
@@thedankgnasty1890
Many people say so. That's why I will probably try it out one day in the future. Still not looking forward to it, though.
@@Elora445 lol
@@shadow4040
No worries. I do not play any Dragon Age game without modding it. Not after DA:O. Fine game without mods, but a great game with mods. :)
DA:I seems to be quite a divisive game, for some reason. It seems to be a game that's okay to play once but not that fun to play more than once. The story and the characters are all right, but the gameplay...eh.
Feel like this game doesn't get its due it's amazing if not just because of the incorporation of dragon's keep feature alone!
If you played all the other dragon age games you can actually import the world state and choices you made from every other game that you previously played...all build on the previous decisions through all the games from dragon age 1 all the way up to Inquisition.
All can be imported to adjust the world accordingly to how you originally left it years ago on the previous game.
I am currently playing through a world state that was started in 2009( my first playthrough of dragon age origins) and using those world choices in inquisition!!! The world is just as I left it & the characters I made from previous games ( if still alive via my choices) will return to make cameos exactly how I design them. 🤜🤛
Looks great on PS5 and let me import via dragon age server my world state from 3 previous games I played on Xbox!
Really enjoying the attention to detail of your quest...website even makes a narrative story video for you based on your choices to recap before you start the next one...narrated by Varric too!
🤜🤛
A lot of people like to argue that they went soft with the companions… but I’d like to argue against that- they just don’t glorify the morally grey characters (3 characters in particular)
I will be interested to see if BioWare will go ham enough to go dark again when we reach the land of slaves. Like you can’t really sympathize with that fact lol
I have NEVER played Dwarf in DAI. Mainly cuz I'm a sucker for elves. But after seeing this and you pointing out the stool as a Dwarf romancing The Iron Bull in 16:24 I lost it!! I wanna replay JUST for that scene!! X'DD
Dragon age inquisition is one of the best games ever made. You really feel like you are playing a book. The world feels fleshed out.
I agree
DAI is a pretty good game. One that I really enjoyed playing and would recommend it to anyone. But once you really look deep into it and compare it to DAO, it just becomes a big disappointment.
DAO is very good but I felt that it was very easy for me to want to just skip conversations cause...well I got bored. I say this as someone played the Mass Effect trilogy and the other Dragon Age games and loved all the dialogue and story and never really skipped anything, I was always hooked. I can't pinpoint exactly why I felt that way, maybe it was the lack of a voice actor, maybe the voice acting itself wasn't always the best to hear, I'm not sure. It just didn't do it for me like other Bioware games do. Also it definitely was my fault, but I found DAO exceptionally difficult on normal and even casual difficulty. I loved the party banter in DAO though, I would always stand and wait to hear all the banter when they started.
It’s weirdly sanatized for a dragon age game. In DAO you see and feel the dirt and grime, hell you can participate in the slave and drug trades if you want. You can start as an elf experiencing racism and oppression, or a criminal grasping for copper in the gutter. That’s just not present in inquisition. There’s a trend of cleaning up darker and grimier settings to conform to industry standards and that saddens me. Should’ve seen a goddamn male desire demon too. I wanted big wiener demon man and BioWare yet again disappoints :(
@@itsluger6278 DAO is firmly an old school boomer strategy RPG, if you’re not playing it well and planning builds, micro managing big fights, and minimizing the loss of health, and stealing and selling everything not nailed down, it’s simply going to be a much harder experience. There’s a price to being a good person, and that’s the difficulty of carrying that out
@@PrettyPinkPersephone pretty sure it's "sanatized" because it's about the inquisition roaming all of Thedas, not the Wardens venturing in Deep Roads/during the Blight. The Blight is what makes the world dark and grimy in DAO. There is no Blight in DAI, instead you've got the Rift, giving the game a mystical, more "fantasy" style. If you're looking for dark and gritty, you got DAO. If you're looking for heroic and grandiose, you got DAI.
@@thedankgnasty1890 I don't think that's the cause, exactly. In DA:I you see mages warring with templars and people in a nearby village dying of starvation. Yet it made me feel nothing. It's the representation and writing that was off for me.
Inquisition was the most interesting to me. It’s not like the other ones in most ways. I always go back to it.
I just finished a playthrough just late last year, and I had a blast. I prefer the combat and skill tree in DAI.
And everyone should ride The Bull
Ahh I think I know what you mean hehe
I was tired and sleepy but now im suddenly awake from your crazy jokes, good laughs. I'm getting to the conclusion that Dan was probably the mischief maker at school.
I’m not gonna even watch the video to say YES ITS WORTH IT and the only way your ever going to know is actually to play it instead of watching a video. 100% in my top favorite games. Ohh and don’t listen to every video you watch.
Okay I've heard commentary on my favorite games from countless youtubers. I enjoy yours to be sure, but that Rachel Dolezal comment caught me off guard so much I nearly spat out my water. 10/10 content here lol.
I picked up DAI a couple months ago because I saw it was on sale and thought I would try out a fantasy RPG because I had never tried one,I quickly fell In love with the character customization,Companions,Romances,Crafting,abilities and Main Story Quests.I didn’t know any lore or hadn’t played any of the other dragon age games and it was able to stand on its own for me which is impressive.It’s too Grindy at parts and needs to be scaled back when it comes to its open world or put more meaningful stuff in the areas but other than that it’s one of my favorite games of all time.It’s made me want to play the other Dragon age games and I couldn’t recommend it enough to people who like the Fantasy Genre.
I think they revealed Corypheus too soon. I think he should have been held off until at least Adamant, or maybe Wicked eyes. Having him at Haven spoiled it a bit, but I have played it to death so many times.
The specialisations are great for warrior and rogue, but i think the mage spec are garbage. Never spec my mage, after trying them out the first time.
Racking up dragon heads is the best part of the game for me.
Yes. Play it. I've literally never really got into it but I went back to it last night actually and. . . I just ask myself why I ever left hahaha. It's a really beautiful and great game. Im gonna try and finish it this time. I'm super ready to get home and play it. It stacks well today play it.
I recently played through Inquisition all the way through, though it was a bit of a dredge with all the fetch quests. I also had a computer that, though better than anything else I've ever owned, was still not enough to handle Inquisition at a steady frame rate even in low settings. I spent literally five minutes waiting for places to load, then had to wait longer for the game to not stutter as I began exploring. That, along with the long side quests made the game a longer experience than I was expecting and made me loose interest pretty quick. I did eventually complete it, powering through on the fact that I was writing a story with my friend, that followed her Inquisitor and my Elven archer throughout the Lore DA has to offer. I might play the game again, but it may take me a while to get around to it. Though when I do, it will probably be the characters that bring me back.
I never even finished the game. I had so many issues with the game it boiled over and I just ragequit. I still finished DA2, this one broke me.
They made it open world and then didn't put anything in the world, just large stretches of nothing except for respawning enemies.
The companions were all either bland, annoying or obnoxious (Maybe Iron Bull was good, I dunno, I never even got round to recruiting him).
Existing characters were radically altered like Leliana, Cullen, and even Varric to a certain degree, they were basially different people wearing an old character's face.
I hated that you were forced to do sidequests in order to earn enough power to unlock zones required for hte main quest, they're not really sidequests if they're mandatory, are they?
Changing mages from healers to bubblers was horrible and very unsatisfying, and overall mages were just inferior in every way to previous incarnations, losing a lot of their coolest spells and schools, and even their visuals were kind of underwhelming, you know it's bad when an archer looks cooler than a mage.
the rifts were not an exciting mechanic, just waves of usually overpowered mobs that you have to fight.
The entire UI is a mess, it's painfully obvious it was designed for consoles first, which I could forgive if they'd made separate UIs for console and PC, but they didn't.
I didn't even know who the main villain of this game was, because I never played the optional DLC from DA2. They introduced Corypheus, the antagonist of your next game, in a DLC. DLC's supposed to be optional content, and I'd already burnt myself out on DA2 at hte time, so I didn't bother playing it, so imagine my confusion when this mutliated dude showed up and everyone acted like I should know who he is. I had to google who the hell he was.
The visuals in general are just kind of ugly. Everyone looks like they're coated ina fine layer of grease, they're so shiny, and their hair seems to be made of plastic. Bioware still hasn't managed to figure out that hair longer than one's jawline exists, and even if they had, they could never figure out how to add physics to it. The other races looks terrible, elves look emaciated, dwarves don't have a very dwarven build, they just look like someone literally scaled down a human body and stuck a human head on the neck. Qunari have overly human faces all of a sudden, but hey, they redesign the Qunari every bloody game so why start being congruent now, I guess.
The war table's a pain, just pointless busywork to make you waste power for negligible rewards so you need to go grind more power to unlock zones for the main quest.
And that's just what I could think of of the top of my head.
If you like it, good on you, my sister loves it, she's completed the game at least 5 times or more, but I absolutely despise it.
16:21 Cassandra's reaction always makes me laugh😂
about to finish my playthrough of origins, can’t wait to make a second playthrough role playing as an elf who is very short tempered by humans. might play the second game first cause i play on nightmare and it’s a headache sometimes
Playing it for the 1st time today, without the nostalgia for the previous titles I've never played. Dragon Age Inquisition doesn't hold up. I can't believe it won a GOTY, even for the year it was released. DAI is incredibly boring. I feel ripped off, and I got it on sale for only 6 bucks.
The Rachel dolezal joke had me dying big dan 😂 this video definitely got me interested in the series again
I have never played a Dragon Age game but did buy all 3 when they were on sale on steam. I got Origins downloaded but I'm not sure if I should start with that or Inquisition. Thanks for the details on this game though, looking forward to start 1or the other.
Your metaphors are insane man! Had me cackling at that lizzo joke LMFAO
I played Inquisition first a couple of times (sans DLCs) using the default history and completing it two different times. However, I wanted to import my own histories so I got Origins and have played through several times so I had lots of options to import and to collect as many achievements I can get to satisfy my completionist tendencies. I have most if not all the DLCs to fill out my playthrough . I now have several playthroughs of #2 going and can't wait to import these into Inquisition again. Arduous but rewarding.
inquisition is still a great game to play for sure. no doubt better than majority of current day RPG's. also is loaded with so much content. especially with the dlc's and due to all the diff choices you make and all the diff character builds and parties, a tonnnnnnn of replay value
Ouch... 8 years.... jeez! I don’t know how but, I didn’t realise it had been so long! 😅 Let’s see... my last playthrough must be... two years old or more by now! 😱 I guess it’s time to play it again!
Apart from all the good reasons to play this game already mentioned in this video (With or without reservations), I would recommend it for the characters. Especially the banter between them. I have spend hours running around with the sole purpose of hearing them talk to each other. 😂 Try it, you won’t be disappointed. Thanks Dan! Stay safe. ❤️
Dragon age 2 will always be my favorite game but now that i have origins and can play it now it's my second favorite gane I see why people love it so much
It's a great game. Buy it. The story is great, the characters are awsome (exept for cole) , the worlds can be a bit boring sometimes but there are a bunch of them.
I'm ashamed to say that Spanish inquisition joke at the beginning actually got a chuckle out of me... Anyways, brilliant work as always, Big Dan!