Dragon Age: Inquisition
In an era when story-based single-player games tend to run around 10 hours, it feels odd to have just finished a nearly 80-hour play through of a game. DA:I is very good. There's a lot to do. It's held back from perfection by having a number of elements that are not used to their potential, I would say.
Mounts, for example, are neat to have, but totally overlookable. The war map missions are a nice way to interact with the world on a strategic level, but the different approaches your advisors offer seem to have minimal impact. Customization options for the keep are almost entirely cosmetic. In fact, consequence to choice in general feels a little bit lacking - I sided with mages over Templars, and should see how the other side plays out, but I don't get the feeling that much actually changes. All of these are things that add depth and variety to the game, but they would be better with more sense of repercussion.
That said, the story is pretty solid. The characters are great and pretty much all sympathetic in their own ways. There aren't any clearly-evil allies like there used to be (back in KoTOR, for example), though some are strongly opinionated. Iron Bull really stood out to me for being a strong believer in his society's incredibly-rigid structure while also being very quick to point out that it wouldn't work for everyone. Characters from previous games make appearances partway through, like Hawke and Morrigan. It all has a pretty epic feel. And the ending works, providing conclusion to the conflict set up, while leaving lots of developments in the world open to explore later.
The setting itself feels more appealing than I remember in Origins - it's screwed up, yes, but in a way that echoes reality rather than "the world's going to hell, everyone's gonna die." The mage-Templar conflict makes sense given all the intricacies. The difficulties of the Chantry and foreign powers like Tevinter all seem realistically messy and complicated rather than just "dark." And there aren't really any perfect answers. Of course, on the down side it's a little bit depressing to take all that in while keeping up with news in real life.
Mounts, for example, are neat to have, but totally overlookable. The war map missions are a nice way to interact with the world on a strategic level, but the different approaches your advisors offer seem to have minimal impact. Customization options for the keep are almost entirely cosmetic. In fact, consequence to choice in general feels a little bit lacking - I sided with mages over Templars, and should see how the other side plays out, but I don't get the feeling that much actually changes. All of these are things that add depth and variety to the game, but they would be better with more sense of repercussion.
That said, the story is pretty solid. The characters are great and pretty much all sympathetic in their own ways. There aren't any clearly-evil allies like there used to be (back in KoTOR, for example), though some are strongly opinionated. Iron Bull really stood out to me for being a strong believer in his society's incredibly-rigid structure while also being very quick to point out that it wouldn't work for everyone. Characters from previous games make appearances partway through, like Hawke and Morrigan. It all has a pretty epic feel. And the ending works, providing conclusion to the conflict set up, while leaving lots of developments in the world open to explore later.
The setting itself feels more appealing than I remember in Origins - it's screwed up, yes, but in a way that echoes reality rather than "the world's going to hell, everyone's gonna die." The mage-Templar conflict makes sense given all the intricacies. The difficulties of the Chantry and foreign powers like Tevinter all seem realistically messy and complicated rather than just "dark." And there aren't really any perfect answers. Of course, on the down side it's a little bit depressing to take all that in while keeping up with news in real life.
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