Dragon Age: Inquisition Review

*Reviewed for the PS4

Dragon Age: Inquisition is the most expansive RPG I've played in years and it's become my personal favorite out of the trilogy. BioWare has outdone themselves in filling Thedas with things to do. I clocked in 14 hours in the first two days that I owned the game and if it weren't for school I would've kept going. Inquisition takes things from both Origins and Dragon Age II and perfects them in terms of gameplay, graphics, storyline, quests, and expansiveness. All the Dragon Age lore is here, but the nice thing is that Inquisition does a good job of filling you in on what you missed if you didn't play the first two games or have very limited knowledge of the world. It's a fantastic RPG, so lets break it down.

The storyline is simple, kinda. There's been a Breach from the Fade in Ferelden and your character is tasked with forming the Inquisition, gaining support, and closing the Breach. In the beginning you are left with a mark on your left hand from the Breach capable of closing rifts throughout the world. The Breach is unleashing demonic forces from the Fade all over the country and the Templars blame the Mages and the Mages blame the Templars. It's weird, it sounds confusing but once you start playing it's rather simple. Dragon Age is ripe with political strife in it's stories and the choices you make/the people you support impact the outcome. As per each Dragon Age came you have to travel about the country gaining support for your team, in this case the Inquisition, and collecting followers. It's an interesting story with a scary antagonist, classic fantasy elements are in play but they all work together. It's a good story, not altogether amazing, but good. Ancient enemy intent on world domination, sound familiar?

The war table

Dragon Age's character creation is very in depth. There are four races: Human, Elf, Qunari, and Dwarf. You get to pick from three classes: Warrior, Mage and Rogue. After picking one of each, the game gives you a small background story based on your choices and then lets you start modeling your character's face and voice. Literally anything you can think of that you might want to edit or create for your character is here in the customization. It's the most in depth character creation screen I have ever encountered. Each class has four different trees to choose abilities from. I picked a Warrior on this first playthrough. The abilities allow you customize how they perform in combat like what special moves they have or if you're a mage what spells you can cast. At around level 10 in the story you get to undertake a quest to choose a specialization. Warrior's can choose from Templar, Champion, or Reaver. What class specialization you pick determines how you perform in combat. Templar boots the entire party defense/damage. Champion boosts your own defense essentially making you a full tank, and Reaver allows you to do massive amounts of damage as your health decreases. I love the customization of this game. No complaints here.

Gameplay and specifically combat is awesome. I will say that this style of RPG combat doesn't appeal to everyone. This is not a fighting game. This is not The Elder Scrolls. Dragon Age is more tactical. Dragon Age: Inquisition's combat is a mix between Origins and Dragon Age: II. It has the tactical auto-attack side of Origins mixed with the "button smashing" of Dragon Age: II. It's fast paced and fun. Using your party to combine devastating attacks between melee characters(warrior, rouge) and your mages is extremely rewarding. The game presents you with four difficulty levels at the start and playing on Normal presents a steady challenge throughout the entirety of the game. There are certain areas of the game that will be a higher level than you, requiring you to grind for a bit and then return. The difficulty can be changed at any time however. I find that the process of leveling up takes a bit longer than it should. Too much XP is required to get to the next level which frustrated me, but it makes it that much more rewarding when you do finally level up. One thing that is required for most story missions is Power. A resource you gain by completing side quests, managing the Inquisition war table, closing fade rifts, and other stuff. Certain missions require Power points of up to 20 whereas some only require 1. It's a unique system that relates everything you do back to the main questline.

I always felt like everything I did in the game held a purpose, nothing was meaningless. Even quests that seemed like a "fetch quest" or a kill order usually related to the main story somehow. The quests are rewarding and they lead you to new areas to explore like hidden ruins or temples. One of my favorite things is how Inquisition still calls back the things you did in the previous games. There are consistent references to the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall. If you have an Origin account and have played the first two games you can upload that data so that the world starts out how you molded it in Dragon Age 1 and 2. A cool feature for avid players of the series, but it's not an issue if you don't have that. But I highly recommend reading up on Dragon Age lore and the events that happened in the first few games. IGN did a Dragon Age in 5 minutes video which you can see here.

The Loot system in this game works quite well along with crafting armor and weapons. To craft weapons and armor you have to find schematics throughout the world, usually found on dead enemies or loot chests. BioWare has really outdone themselves with things to do in this world they've been creating since Dragon Age Origins. I spent a good six hours exploring the first open sandbox that your character reaches. And unlike Origins or Dragon Age: II, these areas are massive. there isn't any main path you follow like in Fable or anything, it's more similar to Elder Scrolls where if you see a mountain in the distance, you can probably go climb that mountain. Animals are also running around everywhere and hunting has become an important part of the game, if you wish to modify or upgrade your weapons and armor with the leather that animal hides give you. There are so many side quests in each area that at times it can almost be overwhelming. When I started to feel that way I just abandoned all my quests and went exploring to see what I could find, usually I found more side quests. It's hard to pack in everything in one review. In the IGN review of Inquisition, author Vince Ingenito said, "Ninety hours. Thats how long it took me to roll the credits on Dragon Age: Inquisition." Ninety hours is an impressive feat. I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for another RPG that I could play for that long.

This is an actual screenshot. You can go explore that...

As you can see above, Dragon Age: Inquisition is beautiful. On PS4 it runs at 1080p and 900p for Xbox One. Dragon Age is probably the prettiest on a high powered PC but I don't own one. Nevertheless, it's still gorgeous on consoles. The foliage is extremely detailed and the weather effects are incredibly realistic. My one complaint here would be the character faces during cutscenes. They are really solid but occasionally the animations just don't match up with the words coming out of their mouths. It's small but noticeable. The game has its share of bugs. Sometimes the sounds cuts out in the heat of battle and theres an occasional lag when lots of things are happening onscreen. A day one patch fixed some of this but every now and then you'll notice it. Did I mention the game has an amazing soundtrack? The music, composed by Trevor Morris, is incredible. It sets the mood and tone in every area that you're in and just works perfectly with the game. I'm listening to it right now as I'm writing this I mean it's brilliant.

All in all, Dragon Age: Inquisition is an incredible mark for fantasy RPGs. The story isn't terrible, the combat is fast and solid, the graphics and locations are sublimely beautiful, and theres an abundance of things to do in this game. Yes it has it's faults. It isn't perfect. Few games are. But I highly recommend you go pick this up for your PS4, Xbox One, or PC. You won't regret it. Just be prepared to lose the next 100 hours of your life because you will lose yourself in Dragon Age.

8.9

+Storyline is fair

+Tons of things to do

+Graphics are mind blowing

+Combat is a blast

-Occasional bugs and frame rate dips