Let me start by saying that Dragon Age: Origins is still one of my favourite games. I also really enjoyed Dragon Age II.
So I was very pleased when I heard about Inquisition! I got it on release and was pleased to see almost universal praise from critics!
Then I played it. I wanted to like it, I tried to like it, but couldn’t. After only a few hours of play I gave up in disgust. It was a while ago but the main issues I remember were the awkward camera angles when running around, and worse, during combat. Also looting corpses and chests was tiresome rather than the simple click of the past.
I moved on, didn’t look back and played other games. Then yesterday I felt like playing something different than the turn-based games that have filled my time these past few months and started replaying DA origins. I am loving it again! However it got me to thinking about Inquisition again. Have any of you played it? If so have they patched it to make it more playable? If not, is it worth persevering with? Maybe it was only due to my very high expectations that it seemed bad to me?
As a slight tangent, does anyone else think that the quality of pc gaming developed in the west has severely declined in the past 5 years (for rpg and strategy anyway)? The late 90s and the decade after were truly a golden age…
I played and enjoyed Inquisition. Actually, I played it one and a half times before getting distracted by another game and never finished my second play through.
It doesn’t fill the same place in my heart that Origins does but I found it enjoyable despite its oddities (like the looting you mention). I certainly enjoy it leagues more than DA2 and thought it was a much more worthy successor to DA:O. I haven’t played it since January though so whatever has changed in the last six months I couldn’t tell you.
I don’t necessarily share your view of PC gaming. Even in RPGs, there’s been a shift towards large open world games (Skyrim*, DA: I, Fallout 3 & NV, Witcher 3) but they’ve all been quality titles in my opinion. I guess it depends on what you’re looking for in an RPG. If you keep everything narrow and linear like DA:O, you can focus on a handful of characters and plots. If you’re going to have a big open world, you can’t put the same time into everyone and everything you might run across.
*Well, that and the previous couple ES titles but Skyrim really spurred all the “It’s like Skyrim” comparisons.
I loved Inquisition and think it is the best of the DA series so far. Environments and areas were much improved, less of the nonsensical reuse of generic maps and areas, and much less linearity to advance the plot. The main party character cast was mostly well-developed and interesting. DA:I doesn’t really open up as a game until you advance the plot past the initial starting zone and close the first big rift mission.
My only gripes were with the inventory and loot system. The prior games suffered from this as well, so you won’t find much improvement in DA:I. Inventory management is clunky and awkward. Item variety or effect on the games is shallow. Loot you find is 99% vendor trash, and the “epic” loot is inferior to easily crafted custom items. Midway through the game I stopped caring about what anyone was finding, and just did periodic “crafting blockpoints” to upgrade my equipment. A shame, since they put so much work into artwork, armor, and items, but it has very little game play significance.
Jophiel: The games that you list are in my view inferior to their predecessors. Skyrim (although it did come out 4 years ago ) was decent but I preferred Oblivion and Morrowind. I do like open world games but Skyrim didn’t grab me like Oblivion.
Dragon Age has gone downhill. I haven’t played Witcher beyond the original so can’t comment on that. Also series like Civilisation and Heroes of Might and Magic appear to have peaked…
I loved Inquisition and played it obsessively. As strategic combat goes, it was no answer to Baldur’s Gate or even Dragon Age: Origins. But it was nonetheless enjoyable.
Overall, CRPGs have been getting better despite abandoning some elements that were really good to begin with. The Dragon Age franchise has not been going downhill, even though it has replaced the strategic combat system of the first game with a new system which was apparently supposed to have a strategic overhead view element but which was a pain in the ass to use so you might as well concentrate on spamming the same stuff until your enemies drop. But the combats were fun and the world is rich with characters and lore.
Divinity: Original Sin is charming and has a good answer to those who desire an old-style strategic combat system.
The Witcher 3 is not quite a wide-open world game, but sure feels like it, and characters are vividly rendered. Even the marginal characters who look alike are well voiced and their little dramas are interesting.
I really liked Inquisition and am replaying it. My biggest problem I guess is the load times on the xbox (yeah well) and the lack of viable romances. The only romance that is at all interesting to me is Cullen’s, and to my SO, the lady ambassador’s (her name escapes me at the moment).
Blackwall pissed me off so much because
he sleeps with you then runs off to his personal quest. He didn’t come clean first!
I feel like DAI really learned some lessons from the bad ending of Mass effect 3.
I don’t like any of the Witcher games. All of the choices are bad and give depressing results.
Because you’re from the Mirror Dimension. I liked Dragon Age and never got into Mass Effect.
Do you have a goatee?
Oblivion kept me playing because that sort of open world first person concept was new to me at the time but, in retrospect, I didn’t care about the plot and none of the characters stuck with me at all. Also the game system itself was laughably broken both for good and ill. Simple to exploit, simple to accidentally screw yourself.
In my opinion this is a great time to be a RPG fan - there’s turn-based games, action RPGs of various sorts, MMOs, all sorts of indie games and so on. If somebody claims all the best games are ancient and nothing good is coming out any more, I’d think they were different back then and have changed so they don’t really enjoy RPGs any more, not that the current RPGs are actually bad.
I had a great time with RPGs back then, sure. But that was mostly because I didn’t know better. I’ve tried replaying the old games and playing some old classics for the first time and they tend to be unplayable to me - poor UIs, annoying inventory management, way too much walking around, crappy or missing quest logs and maps, outdated graphics and all sorts of mechanics that punish the player with tedium like having to rest for 5 min of real time to get to full mana. If you love playing those games still that’s great for you, but I don’t have that sort of rose-tinted nostalgia glasses to wear.
There are still some newer games that I’m enjoying. I love the refreshed Kings Bounty series. I just find that a lot of new games look great but don’t play as well.
Nobody has said if the combat/camera issue has been solved so I’ll assume it hasn’t. That doesn’t seem to have hindered your enjoyment though. I’ll give it another go, perhaps starting with lower expectations will mean that I end up enjoying it. I hope so!
The controls were basically a bare bones controller mapped to keyboard scheme.
A lot of people complained about its big open empty areas with mostly MMO fetch quests. This didn’t really bother me, since I like MMO type games, but the controls. ugh.
They added a few QOL features, better loot scanning and an auto attack, that really isn’t very good… Oh and a loot chest and the Black Emporium.
I always thought Origins was… okay. I played it through to completion, but it just didn’t “catch” for me. I dipped 2 altogether, due to a combination of lack of the enthusiasm I had for the first one, and the bad reviews.
Inquisition, on the other hand, I loved. Haven’t beaten it yet - I realized I was close to the end and have held off on finishing it just cause I don’t want it to end. (Also, Arkham Knight)
I have been thinking of going back to Origins and giving it another shot.
Gah! It was worse than I remembered! You have to walk almost on top of loot before clicking does anything and that’s made more awkward by the camera angles. Camera angles also make combat frustrating. The options mention tactical view for combat but it doesn’t happen in my game, I scroll back as far as possible but the camera is still barely over the characters shoulder and I almost can’t see the demon in the valley I’m supposed to be fighting, am I stupidly missing a shortcut key? Is it possible that the people here who like the game are all playing on consoles?
I think I spent 200+ hours into DA:I, so at one point I must have enjoyed it, but after I finished it left me very unsatisfied. I said this before in other threads, but nothing you did in the entire game mattered in the end. While ME3 was reviled for its ending, at least there what happened to you was dependent on how you reacted in all the previous games.
In DA:I, no matter how you solved your quests, which party members you befriended, the amount of reputation you had gained, how you upgraded your keep, none of that had any impact on how the end game was presented. This wouldn’t have bothered me so much if the game didn’t make you feel like it should.
At least in DA2, even with all it’s flaws, it felt that when you made a choice (do you save your brother or sister, will you become a smuggler or mercenary, do you take sides of the mages or templars) the game world would respond to that. In that way, DA2 was by far the superior game, although inferior to the masterwork that was DA:O.
It’s a mediocre main questline on top of a shit show of an “open world”, which really was nothing more than the smaller areas of a crappy MMO who’s online servers have been taken down.
Almost no side quests of any narrative substance, almost no interesting loot. Combat completely strips out the interesting tactical elements of the previous games, replacing them with button mashing. It’s barely worth a playthrough for maybe two of the companion quests and the main storyline. The new Bioware had itself a squat and shit this one out, pretty much ending my interest in what was one of my all time favorite franchises.
I’d suggest you play the Witcher 3, or Pillars of Eternity, or Divinity: Original Sin, or Wasteland 2, or Might And Magic X: Legacy instead.
I also found that I did not like DA:I as much as I wanted to (and I was a big fan of the first two, yes even the second one). I think some of it is just my interest in computer gaming is waning a little and some of it is the game itself.
I played it both times with mouse & keyboard. I don’t remember having anywhere near the control issues some people report but maybe I’m just more accepting of bad controls. Since it’s been six months since I played, I can’t offer any details to help you though.
My thoughts on most of the criticisms are in the thread linked above so I’ll refrain from defending the game. Like I said, I played through once and again for half of it so I apparently enjoyed myself.
“Tactical view” isn’t just pulling the camera all the way back, it’s a separate command that sets the camera to an almost directly overhead view. I’m playing on PS4, but a little googling suggests that the “T” key does it for PCs.
) was decent but I preferred Oblivion and Morrowind. I do like open world games but Skyrim didn’t grab me like Oblivion.
