DA:Inquisition - Review after 100%
 

Mortismal gaming did a review on the GOTY edition of Dragon Age: Inquisition after completing 100% of the achievements.



Thanks Redglyph!

More information.

Took him 6 years? Today marriages take less.
Tried getting back into it, but imo hasn't aged well. Too cartoonish, MMO-like. Ended up committing Hinterlands suicide.

He did KotOR 3 weeks ago ;)

I always find these delayed reviews funny. They mention the 100% as if it gave the review any added value. I wonder who they think their audience is. Maybe someone who lived under a rock and just logged into the internet for the first time today?

Skip forward to around 35:37 if you just want to hear the review wrap-up/summary.

Anyway, I for one like late reviews for games from awhile back, since I have not played many of them, it helps me decide on what looks good and if I might want to play them, especially after the game has been fully patched.

I know there are other gamers out there like me who don't get around to buying and playing many of these games until years later.

Plus, I just think I like older games better these days….the quality of newish games seems pretty mediocre, in general, over all. Microtransactions galore, and multi-player focus for a ton of them, shortish games, not much value for money spent…no thank you. At least when talking AAA type games anyway.

Well, the wonders of the digital era, YouTube and whatnot, reviews that were made when the game was actually relevant can still be looked up years later. Having a review made 6 years later adds absolutely nothing to all the reviews that were already done between say 1 week and 3 months of the game's release, especially one game that had no DLCs or major bugfixes over a longperiod of time.

The only value I can see in a 6 year late review is they can tell you how well the game aged, but if as you admit, you prefer to play older games so does it even matter? Plus it's something you can judge yourself by watching an old review/gameplay video too. Anyway, I always say, it doesn't hurt anyone, so yeah, good for them, if they had fun making the review. Just kinda pointless, but it's not like anyone is doing useful, productive things towards the betterment of mankind 24 hours a day. :movingon:

The 100% is not a bad idea actually, when you consider there are so many reviewers who only play the beginning or rush through in order to be first to publish. If you watch the video, you'll hear that he mentions that at the beginning. He did 100% of recent games too, like CP2077 or Wasteland 3, it is one of the "products" of his new channel, along with CRPG classes and lore. And it seems to work pretty well.

Others like NeverKnowsBest and Noah Caldwell-Gervais do the same, although they each have their own approach.

As @Arkadia7 said, not everyone directly buys games. I don't have much time to spend on them and when I do, I want to make sure it's worth it. So I usually wait for them to be fixed, and I appreciate a good, recent review of a non-recent game, because it's in a more mature state, has probably received extra content, and performs differently on recent hardware.

And if that's not for that reason, I actually like to hear others' opinion on famous games I've played, or haven't play. Maybe it's a history thing, a preference that is harder to explain. :)

All valid points, but what I mean is that this is something you can do when the game releases, not 6 years later. Hell, I even see more value on doing a review of a 25 year old game that maybe some younger people didn't even know to bring it into the spotlight for a bit, but DA:I was overly reviewed in all ways during the first three months of its reease, rushed, 100%, and otherwise.

My guess is that he recenyly decided to make a name for himself as a reviewer and is trying to cover games with a big name to advertise himself, and seeing it somehow made it to RPGWatch front page, it seems to be working, so good for him.

I explained why this couldn't always be done on game release, but that may not apply to all games. For this specific game, I have no idea whether it has changed after release, but he explains his choice in the video.

NeverKnowsBest and Noah Caldwell-Gervais have been around for a long time, they don't do that for advertisement, I think at least one of them does that for a living.

People whine when a review comes from somebody who hasn't completed a game. Now we're whining when a review comes from somebody who has. Sheesh.

This argument would be somewhat relevant if it was the same people doing both things, or if there was any context at all behind it. As it is, is quite a meaningless way to increase your post count.

Took a week to play this game for me not six years. The reviewer is a sloth.:lol:

Anyway probably one of BioWare's best RPGs this generation. Sure it has flaws I can't deny that and wont, but compared to the rest of their recent games it's damn true.

So yes one more post added to my total count to make it 25,868.:p

I was a big fan of DA:O and played through it 3 times. I didn’t follow any coverage for DA2 and went in completely blind. Boy was I disappointed, so much so that I uninstalled it and shelved it for several years. When DA:I was released I though I should give DA2 another shot. After several years of separation and cooling down I was able to enjoy it. still felt it was a step in the wrong direction but I enjoyed it for what it was.

I still need to play through DA:I. I’ve tried it a few times but have never left the hinterlands my completionist style is probably to blame. I think when I try it again I will try and stick to the main story.

As for the review I see no problem with reviewing a game that is 6 years old. It’s still their take on the game after their first play through just as a review done when it comes out would be. I also appreciate that it’s a 100% play through as I’d guess few if any reviews were based on a 100% play through.

"100% play through" isn't the same thing as "100% achievements". The former is what I'd call completionism - finishing all quests, exploration, and content you can find. The latter, particularly for single-player games, is the realm of OCD / autism.

The notion that we would/should care what % of the achievements a reviewer finished is actually hilarious. I'd hope he's just using that as a fun title for his videos as opposed to putting it out there because he thinks it's important / meaningful.

Poor wording on my part. Sometimes I expect people to know what I mean not what I say. :lol:

Ive gotten 100% achievements on several of my games and as someone who has I find it meaningful. So Ill be off to the doctor for my OCD. :lol:

Spoiler: there's no cure :lol:

I'm glad I have no interest in achievements. They seem like they'd be more of a headache than anything else if you're determined to get 100%, and I already have enough things in life that I'm OCD about. :)

I like achievements when they display something that is part of either a choice or a challenge you managed to overcome, and it's kind of fun to see how many others made the same choice as you, or managed to beat that same optional challenge.

When you feel compelled to do achievements like "defeat 10,000 enemies while mid-jump" and the average player gets 150 mid-jump kills in a regular full playthrough, yeah that may be going a bit too far!

While I would proudly proclaim my disinterest in achievements - and it's strong - I must concede that it's not really that different from, say, clearing out an area 100% for "actual" content.

I've played enough RPGs and MMOs in particularly, to know that much/most content in very big open world games is entirely skippable. If it's not story-related and doesn't have anything tangibly unique to experience - it's mostly a waste of time and serves only my OCD. Oh, and potentially my XP pool.

So, in that way, I won't speak ill of achievements - or maybe I will, and just accept that I'm dumb and have my own version of them.

I blame Xbox 360 by the way, as it was definitely around that time when achievements became mainstream and a thing that all games just had to have, regardless of platform.

It's a trivial thing to implement for developers and it's obviously going to extend the lifetime of the average RPG way, way beyond what the actual content would otherwise justify. For the people into them, that is - and it's not so small a segment as you would think.

As such, I can hardly blame developers (or, more likely, the suits) for insisting on them.

As for DA:I - I think that game had plenty of strong content even without all the superficial crap.

It didn't directly motivate the player to clear everything, so I won't blame the game for wasting my time like that. Of course, if you did clear everything - it was exhausting.

But it remains a very good game, I think. Not quite up there with the original - but not that far from it, either. Certain parts of the game was far superior as well - including the character progression and the sheer visual variety of the overland areas.

Story wasn't half-bad, either.

All subjective, obviously.

I don't play for achievements, but it's fun to see some of them later, makes me smile and reminds me of events in the game. :)

When I quoted "100% achievements" from the video for the news post, it thought this may pop up. We shouldn't be fixated on that; if one actually watches the video, it becomes quite clear he's mainly interested in the story and doesn't care about the achievements or the filling quests in DO:I. As often, the discussions easily turn around the few words people would read, and not the actual content itself which is skipped. It's perfectly fine since it triggers all sorts of discussions, but let's not give the author false intentions, here he's only interested in reviewing a game he has taken the time to play through.

I'm fine with that. DA:I was a pretty good game, and I have good memories of it. Me wondering the purpose of a review 6 years later doesn't evaluate the review itself, it's just kinda impractical in my opinion but if he had fun doing it and gets some viewers because of it, all the more power to him.

While I'm very, very critical of most YT content - I can see the point in reviews like this, if handled well.

I have a gigantic backlog - and I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about games I missed that I should probably play (or even games that I tried but ended up dropping). Sadly, I end up thinking and fretting about the "right choice" much, much more than actually playing a game.

Reviews like this can alleviate some doubt - especially because they can compare older games to more modern ones, with a more informed and insightful underpinning than would have been possible at release.

I find myself often checking this kind of material out on YT.

Also, since I exercise from home quite a lot these days, and I absolutely CAN'T do that without some kind of background noise - I much prefer the larger more meaty videos that can last for the entire training session at 1+ hours.

I never start a game with the idea of getting 100% achievements. If I exhaust the games content but find I’m still enjoying the combat, gameplay mechanics then I’ll start working my way through the achievements to give myself something to do other than just play through the content again.

If at anytime it starts to feel like a chore then I know I’m done and I just quit. For instance I was really enjoying nioh 2 so I thought I’d do the achievements but some of them were to get max proficiency in all the weapons which I had no interest in so I didn’t do them.

So for me it’s not an OCD thing it’s simply a way to prolong a game I’m enjoying.

I've never quite understood even the concept of achievements within a game, perhaps because such a thing didn't exist when I first started playing video games? In any case, I've never gravitated to them, and I doubt that will ever change. Quests I understand, accomplishing tasks/goals the same, that achievement thing is just a meaningless word to me. At least within a game, my achievements in real life endeavours are to be honoured by me, for sure.

I noticed that on forums, where playstation crowd is discussing games, its pretty common to get platinum trophy achievement for whatever games they are playing. By my understanding, that means clearing all trophies (achievements) the game offers. To me, doing that for any game, makes absolutely no sense. But even more Im confused how common it seems, at least as far the internet discussions suggest.

I'm obsessive enough as it is, trying to explore everything. Then, trying to actually keep myself focused enough to complete the main quest can be daunting.

I cant imagine also giving myself ANOTHER metric to actually "finish" the game. I'd lose my mind!

The opinion quotes from the video I enjoyed hearing:

And then 10 minutes later he says:

Important points that have been repeated about a lot of 'RPGs' over the past decade or so. Shame really.

One advantage of reviewing a game a few years later is that the reviewer can play the product as it is, not as it was. That includes all patches and DLCs, which could change the overall quality considerable.

That might be relevant for anyone looking to get into the game later on. For example, someone looking to play Cyberpunk in 2024 should probably look at a later review, not the ones reviewing the buggy version that was released in 2020.