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Dragon Age Inquisition--the good and the ugly

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So I just recently finished Dragon Age Inquisition and I must say it has been a really mixed ride. I've been really unsatisfied with games that have been released in the past few years. Generally a rule of thumb I use to recommend games is that fact if I am actually able to FINISH the game (though this rule doesn't work all the time because I've finished Diablo 3 on Inferno 2 weeks or so after release using a monk (without cheat tactics like critical mass/low hp+high regen wizz *tbh wizz was pretty borked*) and I absolutely HATED it. Usually I am unable to finish games I find unsatisfying--that includes games well received games like Bioshock Infinite--though very refined and artistically/graphically awe-inspiring, I could not find myself to finish it. It didn't evoke the same intrigue for me that the first Bioshock had.

When Inquisition was revealed, I was really skeptical since I really liked Dragon Age: Origins, but strongly disliked Dragon Age 2. I liked that Dragon Age 2 was easier and more accessible than Origins (it played more like an mmo/rpg kind of style), but the game felt like a complete rip off. After I defeated the final boss I expected only to be half-way completed with the game. When I realized the game was over, I was in shock.

Ultimately I ended up getting Inquisition on release day.

The GOOD

TL;DR: GAME LOOKS GREAT, SOLID GAMEPLAY, ENGAGING STORY

First off the game was smooth and looks AMAZING. The game is built off DICE's Frostbite 3 engine--same one used for Battlefield 4. I was in awe with how beautiful the game was, though it was difficult to run the game at maximum settings with my rig and as a result did not play with a stable 60 FPS (was along the lines of an average 40-50 FPS with Mantle).

The Emerald Graves was by far my favorite location in the game.

In terms of game play, spells and attacks are pretty and appear very fluid. Team compositions are fun to experiment with. I started off the game in hard mode--not nightmare. I personally find Normal mode generally too easy and kick myself for not bumping up the difficulty--but I don't really have the time to dedicate myself to playing a video game so I didn't want to play nightmare. However, I found hard mode a bit too easy and regret not playing on nightmare now, though I really enjoyed the game and may do a second run on nightmare.

I originally started off as a 2 handed warrior (was going to build into Reaver) but it felt really weak (I didn't reach unlocking Reaver specialization) and progressing in the game was difficult as I often found myself running low on potions--you do not heal after fights and you have to go back to camp to heal. Mobs respawn relatively quickly so sometimes going back to camp isn't an option. However I switched over to Varric and realized how strong the bow man rogue was and ended up changing my starting class to Archer Rogue and found myself have a much easier time despite being on hard difficulty.

My party consists of a main composition of Vivienne (Knight Enchanter) as support, Blackwall (Champion) as a Tank, my main was an Rogue (Artificer) for damage. The last slot I switched around a bit. Originally it was Iron Bull who is a reaver but he kept losing health quickly and as a result I switched him out with Dorian (who is a necromancer). I ended up switching out Dorian with Cole (who is a double dagger Rogue--Assassin) however *spoiler* you cannot use Cole with the last boss fight so I brought back Dorian. For the last fight. Although you can keep playing through the game after you beat it.

Overall I had a blast with character combinations in my party but I felt the game was too easy--on hard mode. With my team composition I effectively NEVER had to use any serious strategy. I only had to control one character at most (most of the time my archer). In fact my archer was equipped with a bow that splits the attack into 3 arrows. As a result, dragons would be easy picking since each arrow would hit on average about 200-600 damage per an arrow. With the shear size of the dragon, despite the arrow split, all 3 arrows would land on the dragon and as a result would do about 600-1.8k damage per an autoattack (I sometimes found myself at times doing more damage spamming autoattacks rather than spells like long shot or full draw which have cast times). The only dragons I had trouble with were electric dragons however I found out that micromanaging Vivienne exclusively for these dragons was the key to defeating them with ease. I use her with Full spirit tree, some points in the Winter tree and almost complete Knight Enchanter tree. The electric dragons are special since they use the electricity ring debuff that draw these blue lightning circles around each character (if these large rings for each character collide, those involved in collision take severe damage). However with Vivienne, Fade Cloak removes the debuff instantly giving her the time to cast dispel on teammates. I also use Fade Step to keep her alive and be able to constantly resurrect fallen teammates to full HP.

The game also has an interesting War Room mechanic where you use "power" (which are gained by doing quests and closing rifts), to unlock new areas (the environments--although large are NOT contiguous and open world like Skyrim). You can also use your helpers to gather materials or acquire other resources like gold or influence. Your helpers, however for power based unlocks, actually require TIME to complete the tasks you give them. Some of these tasks actually take a very long time (one I had was 18 hours REAL-TIME; the game uses your system clock so it still counts down even when the game is closed however).

Another cool thing about the game is the implementation of DragonKeep. Although some people found it controversial, I thought it was an amazing implementation. It is basically a web based tool for recreating your story since Inqusition's story builds upon choices you've made in the past Dragon Age games. Unfortunately for me I do not have any of the saves from the other Dragon Ages (though I beat both of them and have them both on Origin and Steam [before the Steam/EA fallout]) so it was cool to be able to rebuild my story without having to play through the old games again. Really cool work by Bioware.

The UGLY

So overall the game is really quite fun, had some interesting new things and I enjoyed it...but what about the ugly things about the game? Personally these are the things that really make it hard to recommend such a fun game.

LONG LOADING TIMES
Nuff said.

BAD AI

Horrible. Terrible. Headache Inducing. Any of these can describe the AI in the game. First off, archers are pretty broken in the game and made my game easy on hard mode. This was solely due to the fact that the MOB/MONSTER AI is horrendous. A lot of times, the mobs may get stuck or just randomly stop attacking. Bosses and regular monsters alike appear to be affected by this. Archers can also snipe monsters from far away without triggering aggression and as a result my archer was able to solo level 12 rifts despite a party of level 6 members.

Not only is the MOB AI bad, but so is the AI for your companions. It was no where near this frustrating in the past Dragon Ages. Sometimes when fighting dragons your companion AI spazzes out--running back and forth randomly eating fireballs and blasts from the dragon for dinner as if it was trying to decide what to do. At times they stop responding to the attack command and just stand there or follow you around while you curse at your companions about how you are the only one doing work. It's very frustrating how inconsistent the AI is. The behavior configurations for your companions are also very limited in comparison to the past Dragon Ages, you can no longer configure certain spells to be cast for special cases. There are now only simple "disable, enabled" or "preferred" settings for spells. If you autolevel spells for your other characters, you are going to have a bad time due to the horrendous companion AI.

In addition to this, one thing that really ruined the game for me was the fact that the FINAL BOSS of the game was way too easy to defeat in comparison to ANY of the dragons I had fought--There are 10 dragons scattered across the regions, the weakest starting at level 12--I had fought this weakest dragon with a party of level 15 characters (I was overleveled) and yet it was much tougher to take down this dragon than it was to take down the final boss (who *spoilers* also has his own dragon).

ORIGIN BUGS

ORIGIN had crashed nearly ten times total for me. When Origin crashes, the game refuses to save and forces you to restart the game with origin running. As a result I have lost progress plenty of times. This was actually how I confirmed the AI was inconsistent as I had to fight the final boss TWICE since Origin had crashed and forced me to restart to an earlier save. The first time around the Bosses AI was buggy and did not fight back much. The second time around he was a bit harder to defeat since he used a lot more movement and combinations--though still miles easier than any of the dragons. Overall I did not lose too much progress since the game autosaves quite often, however I did have to do boss fights multiple times because of this--albeit the boss fights were pretty easy even on hardmode (assuming you have a viable team composition).

STABILITY ISSUES

Although this only occurred once for me, it DID happen. I was checking some items in my inventory and the game crashed to desktop. No error pop up, game just closed itself. Luckily the game seems to auto save often enough that I didn't really care.

GAME PLAY BUGS--Skyrim had a flawless release in comparison

Dorian, the necromancer, although equipped with very cool Necromancer spells, is a HEADACHE to have on your team. First off he has a spell that "marks" enemies to be temporarily resurrected to fight on your side. HOWEVER, the developers obviously did not pay special attention to the implementation of this spell. First off you can resurrect KEY QUEST targets. For example if you have a quest to eliminate some person in the quest, Dorian may end up resurrecting him. However there is a bug where occasionally the resurrected individual does not have a time limit and as a result is permanently resurrected. This causes issues where a user can no longer complete a quest since you cannot target friendly individuals. In some crucial quests it is required to eliminate the target in order to leave an area. This made it very frustrating for me when I had spent hours trying to figure why I couldn't leave a zone when it turned out Dorian had resurrected a key quest character that should be dead.

Achievements are also occasionally broken. Although Achievements are not very important, they are pretty much the only enticement to slay all 10 dragons in the game since theoretically you can beat the game without fighting any of them.

I beat all dragons but didn't get the achievement... I'm still bitter about this ;)

RANDOM GRAPHICAL GLITCHES

You can expect anything to happen. My characters randomly locked and looked like this.

Here is a video of it in action: http://www.hitbox.tv/video/336834

*Spoilers, a small turning point the game*Excuse the poor video quality as I was running the wrong settings on OpenBroadcaster. Though the video shows the bug in action.

Phantek PH-TC14PE

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Modded CM Storm QuickFire Rapid

Dragon Age Inquisition--the good and the ugly

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