Dragon Age: Inquisition - editorial mini round-up

Unsurprisingly, the internet has many opinions about the fancy new Dragon Age game. Here's a few of them!

Philip Hargreaves at The Sixth Axis actually likes the multiplayer mode.

Originally, Inquisition’s online multiplayer started out as its own standalone game. During the development of Dragon Age II, BioWare used the Frostbite 3 engine to create codename “Blackfoot”. Although never released, the co-op dungeon-crawling experiment lives on through the series’ latest instalment.

Someone at Gamefront has already finished the game (beating all our Watchers? Dart?) and didn't love the ending.

Inquisition has a few parts that give off that “ran out of money” vibe, the most egregious of which is the final battle with […]

And that's where I stopped reading, fearful of spoilers. Lastly, Erik Kain at Forbes fuels all our worst fears by declaring that Inquisition is a great game … for an MMO.

For that matter, Inquisition actually feels like a very good MMO, with much better quests and stories than your average title, built around a wonderful, richly detailed world. […]

Now, all of this has me wondering if BioWare isn’t just warming up, if Dragon Age: Inquisition isn’t just a test-bed for a Dragon Age Online. A blueprint of sorts, which we’re all beta-testing.

No.

More information.

Heh, from all I've read so far here on the forums, the game does sound very much like a Single Player MMO, doesn't it? Then again, didn't the first Dragon Age already pave the way? Maybe it really is the final step of an iteration towards something greater, something grander, something massive … mwahaha.

Wouldn't surprise me. Got to get more money's out of our fans somehow..

In my opinion, this is the best RPG in the modern gaming world. Excellent work, Bioware. Under the glorious enlightenment and guidance from EA, a game publisher with precise long-term vision in future game development, Bioware finally manages to make a RPG suitable for everyone, but not just a game accessible only to a minority of hardcore RPG players.

DA: Origins is an old-school and medicore game only appealing to a tiny market niche. DA II breaks the medicority, and introduces the popular mass effect decision tree and button-mashing mechanics, which attracts tons of Call Of Duty (COD) and action gamers around the world, contributing to its great success. However, it still suffers from a linear and small game world, and repetitive dungeons.

DA: Inquisition evolves from its predecessors by combining the best elements of 2 popular RPGs in modern era. It adopts the sandbox open world, lightweight RPG perspective and enormous fetch quest system from the highly praised Elder Scroll Skyrim, as well as the popular decision tree mechanism and the combat elements from another Bioware's master piece, Mass Effects 3.

By having a cohesive reasonance of 2 best elements from 2 outstanding RPGs, and adding tons of creative elements, this game simply becomes one larger than the sum of all parts. You have a large world to explore, tons of item collection and FedEx quests to play with, and the best button mashing mechanics to finish off your opponents. Skyrim and this game is great because they both remove the annoying character stat building mechanism. Stat is now only granted from equipment, how amazing and creative, isn't it? In addition, this game adopts the perfect RPG gaming style of Skyrim, i.e. explore first, just forget the plot, which removes player's frustration to recall memory about the main quest and story line. This is just like a great and sincere invitation to all COD fans and action gamers, as well as any potential causal gamers. It caters for the taste of all gamers around the world via greatly enhancing its accessibility. It is a master of everything rather than a jerk of all trade. This is a game for everyone!

You may worry about that the return of the old-school tactical view from the mediocre DA:Origins may ruin your fantastic game play experience. Don't worry about that, it is just implemented for those hardcore players for their happiness in pausing the game all the time, breaking the pace of combat. This game can be handled easily by controlling your own character only under an action game style. The tactics setting of companion is simplified to an user friendly level for further accessibility. In contrast to DA: Origins, you can’t set up some complicated tactics for your companions, but this is unnecessary anyway. Friendly fire is disabled by default, so just forget your companions, and let them either fight or fall. You can handle fights easily by charging upfront and having high reflex in right timing of attack, dodge and button mashing. You can enjoy a fluid flow of combat all the time!

Overall, by removing the complexity and annoyance from old-school RPG, adding the best elements from 2 most famous modern RPGs, and introducing an exciting button mashing combat mechanics to the game, this game has reached the highest height of RPGs that none in the world could ever reach. This is a milestone of RPG development, and should be referred to in future development of RPGs. Today is an important day that marks the beginning of revolution in RPG history! A new era of RPG has come! From now on, we can step forwards and forget about all classic RPGs in the old-school days. Everyone, express your praise and gratitude towards our beloved developers, and join us to have fun in this master piece of art now!

In case if there are expansions or sequels for this gift from god, which are highly probable considering how successful this game is, we really hope that first-person shooting mode, QTEs and the mechanism of climbing tower to reveal map can be implemented. This will further induces passion from every gamers, because these elements are universally regarded by every gamer as the best features that have ever existed in shooter and action games!

By the way, I am looking forwards to see at least 1000 DLCs for this game, because its scope is so huge, and with so much potential to further expand on. Don't keep us waiting, our wallets are ready! We hope that our beloved developers will listen to our suggestion and request, and release the DLCs and expansions ASAP for us.

http://www.metacritic.com/user/DragonKnight

Forbes, the new voice in RPGs it seems… /s.

Brilliant review by DragonKnight. I guess many Metacritic users didn't understand it or (more likely) just didn't read it after the first sentence.

Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what "irony" is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like "goldy" and "bronzy" only it's made out of iron.

Originally Posted by Ron Obvious
Brilliant review by DragonKnight. I guess many Metacritic users didn't understand it or (more likely) just didn't read it after the first sentence.

His review is No 1. under "most helpful" section, so no worries, there is still hope for human kind.

They pulled a total Kingdoms of Amalur on this one. It was originally designed to be an MMO… and it shows.
Quote by MisterPibbs at Metacritic.

Hurry hurry click on Forbes link, guess who hacked them?

I like the game but just want a patch already so I can start it without the quad core workaround.

I'm now thoroughly convinced that the folks who somehow compare DA:I to Mass Effect 3 never actually played Mass Effect 3, and are simply finding ways to continue to troll on and on about it.

I can only wish that an MMO ever turned out to be like this. It's got the right mix of deep lore and story with strong elements of "sandboxy-ness". For example, the Hinterlands feels massively huge, but with detailed content and good graphics at the same time. And it doesn't feel like the game is rushing you to the next linear point in the story. Where can we get an MMO like this? Sign me up please lol.

Even though after 20 hours I've only explored 50% of the Hinterlands I wish these areas were 4 times as large. Maybe a physics system for objects and bodies to enhance the sandbox effect. Keep the maximum amount of players that spawn in to a map to about 10. But then, wouldn't it just be Dragon Age Inquisition with multiplayer for the main story, but not an MMO?

Edit: DragonKnight's review has me laughing though. I do think that Dragon Age Inquisition is a compromise between making a hardcore rpg vs satisfying casual (and console) gamers to get the funds required to make a huge rpg. Inquisition is *not* a hardcore RPG, but it definitely has some salvaged elements of hardcore rpgs that I have a hard time finding from other rpgs currently: 1) Interesting character dialogue (besides player ego stroking) 2) Deep in-game world lore 3) Incorporating moral mini-decisions into the game that enhance immersion 4) Character personalities that are "different" than what I'm used to seeing in most rpgs.

Other than that, Inquisition is kind of casual and handhold-y.

Ugh I didn't like the ending either. I am not going to spoil it, but NONE of the many questions about the "mythological truth" I have in my mind since DA1, none of them were answered at all.

It's just so frustrating.

And I agree with the critique, the shortness of the end was hilarious.

Originally Posted by elikal
Ugh I didn't like the ending either. I am not going to spoil it, but NONE of the many questions about the "mythological truth" I have in my mind since DA1, none of them were answered at all.

It's just so frustrating.

And I agree with the critique, the shortness of the end was hilarious.

Well I suspected this was coming and now you have confirmed it I don't believe this will ever come and part of the reason is that they are making things up as they go along!

All this means is that I am in no hurry to play it and can wait for some bug fixes.

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory
I'm now thoroughly convinced that the folks who somehow compare DA:I to Mass Effect 3 never actually played Mass Effect 3, and are simply finding ways to continue to troll on and on about it.

There actually is something you can compare in ME3 and DA3.
Multiplayer part.

Originally Posted by elikal
NONE of the many questions about the "mythological truth" I have in my mind since DA1, none of them were answered at all.

They've said from the beginning that they want the religious truth behind the world's supernatural aspects to remain a matter of faith.