I love the dragon age series, my favourite RPG games by far. I honestly think inquisition was my favourite game of the series so far and has a lot of replay ability. I can say enough good things about this series the combat, story, characters, crafting, I absolutely love these games. I’m hyped for dreadwolf.
For anybody playing this for the first time, an important piece of advice:
Don’t be a completionist. Leave areas before you’ve done everything in them and don’t do any side quests you’re not interested in.
It’s my least favorite Dragon Age but it got a lot more hate than it deserved because other open world games trained people to play it the boringest way possible.
Interesting. So the side content is mostly uninteresting, I take it?
I still have only played DA:O, which I really liked. I still haven’t played the sequels, would you say they’re still worthwhile or is it for the best to leave the story at the end of Origins?
Not in the sense where they failed to make it interesting, more in the Breath of the Wild type philosophy where any side-content you do is indirectly progress toward the main goal so there’s a mix of things of varying levels of interestingness in all directions. You have an organization that raises in “power” or whatever they call those points whenever you do a side quest and you need to bank up certain amounts of those power points to do the next story mission or unlock the next region. That progression is paced in such a way that you simply don’t need to do most things.
Many quests are genuinely interesting but other ones are just filler. And some filler between good quests is inoffensive, maybe even a refreshing little diversion. One generic filler side quest is essentially “stand next to this portal and kill all the ghosts that come out of it”. Doing that once in a while is okay, doing it as many times as there are portals to find is torture.
I still haven’t played the sequels, would you say they’re still worthwhile or is it for the best to leave the story at the end of Origins?
The short version of that answer is that the sequels do not have what you love about the original but you might also like them for the different things that they are.
Awakening feels less like a sequel (technically an optionally standalone expansion but I’m counting it) and more like a fan mod. It’s nerdier, sillier, edgier, and has that high-effort mod habit of adding concepts that should logically be new mechanics but are executed by old ones because you’re doing it on minimal skill and zero budget. I think that’s a pretty cute vibe but it’s fundamentally just Origins again but worse.
2 has high highs and low lows and, while I personally love it, it’s negative general reception is very fairly earned. The thing that it was trying to do in the first place, story-wise, is something that would already have been divisive even if the rest of the game were flawlessly executed and it was emphatically not flawlessly executed. The simplest way I can describe it is that it is not a story about an adventure, it’s a story about a place. You do not leave that place, you just stay there over the course of several years and experience the historically significant events that are happening there. So the narrative focus for you as a protagonist is on how you feel about things rather than what you’re accomplishing.
Inquisition, conversely, is the least interesting one from a conceptual standpoint but, like, it’s competent from a technical standpoint and the harsh criticisms you tend to hear usually stem from misunderstandings about its design rather than the lack of creative ambition. There’s another new evil horde and you’re another special dude who’s the only one who can stop them and now you’ve got a personal army instead of being an underdog. There’s more political conflict than the first game but the politics are less complex. Ultimately, though, I think the most important factor of any open world game is simply the degree to which you want to spend time in that world regardless of what it is you’re actually doing and it’s an interesting enough world to spend some time in. Certainly, it’s worth trying for free.
Thank you for the extremely comprehensive run-down! I don’t think I’ve ever had it laid out so clearly before.
I think I’ll keep them on my tentative “to-do” list, but maybe not at the highest priority. I loved Origins but with how it ends I don’t have a super pressing need to continue the story immediately. There are so many good games out there, and more keep being released. It’s hard to find time for all of them. I’m really looking forward to Hellblade 2 next.
I think I will get around to them at some point, though. Exporting my save through all three games and seeing callbacks and consequences does sound interesting, and I’ve heard that is something that does happen.
My opinion is that Inquistion is the best of them. Story wise and characters are far better. Even though there are a number of returning characters, they are fleshed out and have more memorable scenes.
The downside to it is the gameplay can be arduous and taking on every side quest can feel like a fruitless endeavour.
Half-Life and its mods defined my high school years. I have core memories of TFC 2fort with Eminem’s “Stan” playing in the background. Of finding a server, adding it to my Favorites, and eventually becoming part of the community.
Valve’s eventual inclusion of voice chat elevated the social aspect to another level.
I have replayed Half Life 2 a few times. Some parts of the game feel really goofy now. There are many physics based puzzles in game. Like needing to weigh down a see saw like platform with cinder blocks to get across a gap. I think at the time these were really revolutionary, but they feel silly now. At the same time, I’m hard pressed to think of shooters that still include that type of puzzle (but I also don’t play many shooters nowadays).
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