We're not on a mission to convert the Jews (Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew. Jew, Jews) this time, but we are called back to Thedas this time at a time of great change in the landscape of that world, spiraling off from the beginning of the Mage-Templar War in Dragon Age II. Now it's a year or so later and the war has gotten nowhere fast, so the Divine (for the uninitiated, the Pope) of the Chantry calls a conclave to try and work out a peaceful solution.
Then somebody blows it up, killing everyone except for the Player Character.
Well, so much for peace in our time...
But wait! The Player Character survived by being thrown through a rift from the Fade, has a strange mark upon his or her hand that seems to react to a massive Breach that has opened up in the sky, and has no real memory of what happened in the explosion. As a result of this, Cassandra Pentaghast declares the Inquisition of old reopened and thus we have our title and plot all nicely brought up. As the Inquisitor, the Player Character must discover who really caused the explosion at the Conclave, stop them, and then find the way to seal the Fade Rifts that are opening all across Thedas.
Unlike DA 2, Inquisition actually goes back to being able to select from the three main races of the Dragon Age universe - human, elf, or dwarf - along with adding Qunari to the mix. They all have their own unique quirks to help with stats, such as Qunari having a higher resistance to physical damage because of their size. The classes are, as they always were, back to the original Warrior, Rogue, and Mage, though the former two classes have been split up into two sub-classes. Warrior is split into One-Handed and Two-Handed at creation, as is Rogue into the two bladed melee and the archery. Why? Especially since, afterwards, you can very easily just level up the other skill tree as well in either case?
Oh, and a minor side note before I go on - the Dragon Age Keep. Bioware, EA, what exactly was keeping you guys from just taking the saves from Origins and II off of my harddrive. I worked really rather hard on those to get my own personal canon together...and then you just give us the Dragon Age Keep as the only option. And while it's nice to just be able to pick and choose the things that happened in those games so that my game goes out almost identically, I don't really feel like I earned it when I can do that. I worked hard to play through those games to make the choices I wanted...and then you do that. It's just a little cheap, is all I'm saying.
Also, I can customize Hawke but not the Warden? C'mon.
But swinging back into the classes and how they work, I went with a warrior just to test the waters and see how everything worked. I remember reading that the combat would be more involving and be more tailored towards strategy...which is why I went through almost the entire game barreling into my opponents with all the grace and pre-planning of a kamikaze pilot and came through alright nine times out of ten. On the rare occasions where I didn't, it was because of a need to upgrade the armor and/or weapons of my team.
There is an option to go into an overhead tactical mode which, while interesting, really isn't all that necessary. The only real strategy you need is to not go out with a team of under-equipped mages and nothing else and you're fine. It goes back to the old school Dungeons & Dragons instincts - all about that party balance. I went through most of the game with two tanks (myself and Cassandra), a mage (Solas), and a rogue at range (Varric or Sera, depending on my mood) and - as I said - I did just fine with little trouble. So, engaging? Definitely, yes. As for all about the tactics? Not really.
Now there is some difficulty in the Health department, namely that characters don't go back to full health after every fight like in the previous games, and only a certain amount of health potions can be carried at a time. Also, tellingly of this mechanic, both Blood Magic and a Healing skill tree are not granted to a mage Inquisitor, or indeed any other character so inclined in class. This creates artificial difficulty, not actual difficulty, because it's not difficult trotting your way across the landscape (or, fast travelling) to go back to a camp to refill your supplies. It's just really time consuming. On my one save file, I've put in a little over fifty hours as of now, and I'm pretty sure at least ten of those were galloping my way back to the nearest camp to do so (and yes, fast travel is available, but I don't care for it).
Speaking of galloping, mounts are available for the first time in Dragon Age history, and they're pretty cool all things considered. Like in Skyrim, they help traverse terrain that is otherwise un-traverse-able on foot, though they sadly don't give the middle finger to physics that the equestrians of Tamriel can. They allow quick movement across the landscapes that otherwise would take a really, really long time to get across on foot. The downside, alas, is that you miss out on party banter if you do this, which has always been one of Bioware's strong suites with the writing and definitely does shine through here when you do give it a listen.
However, especially starting out, you'll have to give it a miss because the areas are literally just that massive. Jon Perry, the cinematic designer, was quoted as saying that one level of Inquisition was as big as all the areas in II, and I believe him. These levels are huge, and they legitimately do try to avoid the trap in the previous game of reusing environments, so definitely an A for effort for that. When it gets to the point that your characters are referencing that everything looks the same, as they did in II, you know it's time to fix that, and that they did.
Fixing puts me in mind of the crafting mechanics. Those who've read my Dragon Age: Origins review will know that I gave much grief over the traps, which I considered some of the most useless things I'd ever seen to clutter my inventory. Origins had you gallivanting around Ferelden seeking the means by which to raise an army to fight the Archdemon. You have no areas to control - in fact, in thinking about it again I could only come up with one instance where one might effectively use traps in the entire game - and thus will be running into or disarming traps, rather than setting them for enemies. I had feared they were going to try and force this back into the series when it quite thankfully went missing in II.
My fears, it seems, were unnecessary, as the crafting is just weapons and armor and it's actually pretty good. You can find schematics all throughout the world and bring them back to the fortress of Skyhold, home base of the Inquisition, where you can make your tools of war out of various materials you can collect out in the world and through missions from the war table.
Oh, I haven't mentioned the war table? How did I get eleven paragraphs in without mentioning what is certainly a vital part of Inquisition? Oh, right. Because it's rather pointless. To give it it's due credit, it does give you the feeling of being an actual military commander, and there is enough that you do on your own to make it still feel like an adventure, but in the end you're delegating. Which looks good on paper, but everything looks good on paper (at least the nice marble stock) and in practice it has the added problem of being rather boring. Reading the flavor text for some of them, you get the strange feeling that there's really awesome stuff out there in the world that you could be doing. While that is balanced with the world-ending quest, it is a bit of a disappointment.
That being said, there is a little variety in how you can handle missions. Leliana, Cullen, and new character Josephine have command over the espionage, military, and diplomatic arms of the Inquisition and will move depending on your instructions. This usually results in the same result for the bigger missions, and maybe a different item or a larger or smaller amount of influence gained depending on the approach. As far as I've been able to tell, there seems to be little to no consequence to what you pick, though certain options aren't available for certain missions. With said influence gained, you work your way up to getting Inquisition Perks, which allow you a multitude of tasty...well, perks...such as 10% more gold when selling to merchants or getting new dialogue options concerning various bits of lore.
Oh, and the dialogue wheel from DA II is back. Unlike there, the options aren't strictly Diplomatic/Sarcastic/Aggressive unless it tells you so. And there is more variety to allow you to develop a character that's more than just one personality type for every situation, which helps to make you more believable. No offense to Alyssa Hawke, the snarky rogue who treated almost everything with great wit and charm, but Hawke in any of the personality types didn't seem like they were all there when it came to interactions. One wouldn't react to, say, being punched in the nose the same way they would react to being told by their significant other that they loved them.
All this talk of DA II puts me in mind of the main Bad Guy. I'll avoid spoilers, but I am going to chide Bioware a little for their choice in this. Needless to say, this character doesn't show up in either of the previous games unless you happened to have played the one of the DLCs for II, so anyone who hasn't played that one you're going to have no idea who it is and be really, really confused. And while I'm sure that was what they were going for giving the character their own DLC, but anyone who hasn't played it is going to be out in the cold. Needless to say, the threat they pose is bad enough, but the big reveal cutscene that Bioware has doesn't really hold as much weight otherwise.
...no, it's not Tallis, you morons!
All my gripes considered, however, I will say this was a valiant effort by Bioware. I've made the joke that while Valve can't count to three, at least that's better than EA, who shouldn't even make the attempt. In this particular instance, I'll withdraw that. It might be just because it's far better than II was - cultivating a sense of urgency that doesn't make you feel as though you're just running around doing nothing until the plot actually shows up, and arguably having higher stakes than even Origins - and I've said before and will again that I'm willing to suffer through almost anything if the story is good, which it definitely is here. And, like the previous games, this one leaves me excited for the future of the franchise - particularly with the epilogue that arguably changes things even more than the gigantic world-eating hole in the sky and the post-credits scene - and whenever it's once more time to head into the world of Thedas, I am more than ready.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is now available from Bioware and Electronic Arts for PC, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
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