Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Inquisition is an amazing game. The story is solid, the fights are fun, the abilities are varied enough to enjoy, but not so much that they fade to obscurity (like in DA:O). BioWare excelled again at writing characters that are believable, interesting, and intelligent. They set the bar for that in video games.

I thoroughly enjoyed the game, but spent the better part of a year completing it. Below is not a well-written review, but a hodge podge of thoughts, notes, and other things I wrote over the span of a year while I played it. Hope it is at least partly coherent



The fade rift in Hinterlands, is not killable with a party at level 3. Feels very out of place. Came back to that damn rift in the Hinterlands at level 6. Still not doable. The mobs are level 12 (thanks tac cam!), and brutal. Why did they put this so close to a spot I cross all the time?!

As for the party members. Solas seems even enough at the start, but then the snooty-ness comes out. And not in a good way.

Sera is a mischief maker, to no end. She's fun enough, but not deep. She doesn't want to be, and pushing it frustrates her.

Varric is the same as Varric from DA2. Sneaky, charismatic, fun-loving, and an all around awesome bro.

Cassandra starts out as you remember her from DA2. Very severe, very focused. As you get to know her, you chip away some of her armor. The story points between her and Varric are good. It makes her feel more human.

Cole is scary. Not horror scary, mysterious scary. Something is sad and dark in there and I want to know more. I love that people just don't notice him.

Blackwall has yet to join my party - TODO.

Iron Bull is smart, much smarter than I thought. I haven't bantered with him much because I've always needed a tanky character and Cassandra fit the romance-able tank role (*shakes fist at Avaline*). His conversations are good though - he's smart. It makes sense why and how he runs the mercenaries he does.

Vivienne is the personification of snooty-ness, in a shell of unbreakable mage will. She's awesome. I also loved that using the direct romance options are immediately shut down in an air of pity, like "No dear, I don't think so."

For the war table people, Cullen is the typical brilliant strategist, without going too overboard with the whole if-I-hit-it-with-my-sword-maybe-it-will-die schtick.

Lelianna comes back from DA:O, with more mystery than before. She's a powerful ally, and you quickly see that having her on your side is a really good thing.

I couldn't save Maneave in the fires, so Helisma replaced her. Hmm...



Starting Jaws of Hakkon at level 11 (it recommended around level 20). Any enemies would one shot me, so I had to be sneaky/careful/abuse the game. First scripted encounter at a boat man's place was un-winnable, but stealthing up to the group then running into a house somehow despawned them. Talking to the boat man and turning in a quest in the main hub boosted my group to level 13. A few more quests later, I'm level 15 and able to kill things. Also the mod I could buy for Bianca helped a ton with the DPS problem.

Carrying a veilfire torch into a cinematic is kinda neat. No one questioned why I was holding it, it was just there. Does that count as player choice? If so, I don't think they intended it...

Unique enemy mobs were a great addition. It feels like I've accomplished something when I kill them.

Just lost 2 hours of game progress because I tried to beat Jaws of Hakkon with a level 17 group. Unfortunately that's one level shy of getting a decent gear upgrade. Most of my DPS is just from Varric, with his no-level-requirements upgrades to Bianca. Dang it. No, I did not want to switch to casual -- I can finish this game on normal!

So I flipped back the main story line. Finishing up the quests from Adamant on. It didn't take too long. I short-cut it quite a bit by just buying my power from the scrolls merchant in Skyhold. I would have loved to spend more time on sidequests, and playing more content, but I don't have the time.

I finished up the remainder crit path, and finally beat the last boss. It was enjoyable, the fights were tough enough, but not overly. My party was quite overpowered with their Jaws of Hakkon level ~20 equipment.


I want to go back and play more side quests, but there are other things in the game queue to be beaten. Until then, it has been a pleasure old friend. I'll still be debugging you at work, so we'll have that for a while longer...