E3 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition Overcomes the Many Problems of Its Predecessor

Everything about the game looks great except--to me--the combat. I still see WAY too much DA2 in it. Ok, it's better--the movent's aren't too fast to be bellievable, weapons have weight, the tactical combat is back. The animations are still DA2, though. Effects are over the top, the mage isn't so much casting spells as using a magic weapon and I see enough DA2 in it to make me uneasy. I fear the days of 'when I push a button, something awesome happens' are still with us.

I hope I'm not the only one who'd rather have text dialogue options rather than a voiced player character. I hope it's not the wave of the future because I find voiced dialogue to be a little impersonal, confusing and a little bit cheesy sometimes.

How terrible Dragon Age II they tell us. Again and again and again. Will Inquisition fix what was wrong with that mess? Probably. It will probably also "fix" what the game got right, which seems to me to be more than you can hold against it.

Dragon Age II was a specific and personal story. It was story about Hawke and his family and the tragedy that followed the champion like a shadow. It was about the big philosophical argument behind magic in Dragon Age and how that debate transformed the space of Kirkwall and how that city and its denizens grew and changed over time. And you know what? I found the story shaped not only the NPCs, but my Hawke as well. It was the first time that my feelings for a character who had, for all intents and purposes, not changed, changed dramatically as I was strongly impacted by the story. And as that story unfolded, I felt powerless, which is exactly how Hawke must have felt at the time. Despite all of my skills, weapons and fireballs, I was unable to save the people who mattered most to me.

Dragon Age II wasn't about expansive open worlds that needed to, and would, be saved by me. It wasn't about some villain or demonic entity threatening all life. How uninteresting would that be? If I say "you must save the world", then you know that the world will be saved. Because that's not a story that can failed and produce a sequel. Hawke didn't have to stop an archdemon or a reaper invasion. Hawke's story didn't have a villain. It wasn't a war between good and evil. It was a war between competing goods. It had intricacies and nuances. It was about people and how those people changed over the years. In terms of an rpg, it broke all sorts of ground and did things right-- despite the amount of Kirkwall's thieves who wait for you to walk down any given alley. But this will all be swept under the rug, why? Because its popular to say Dragon Age II is a failure. Dragon Age II didn't fail us. We failed it. And in DA:I, we will pay the price. We will get a passable fun game that fails to try to be exceptional because we decided to punish failure instead of complacency.

You know what....I am a mite bit confused on what some fans actually liked about Dragon Age: Origins. My short story is this -- I played DA: Origins when it first came out on Xbox, because that's what I had. I wasn't a PC gamer back then, admittedly, although that's changed now. That version did not have the top-down perspective, and I frankly did not miss it or need it. As a matter of fact, I loved it. The combat was everything I loved about KOTOR and then some, and in my high opinion, KOTOR has the greatest combat system every invented. Years later, when I played DA: Origins on PC, I tried the top down perspective, and I hated it! It removed everything I liked about the game. Your characters are these teeny little specks, you see the whole map, and it reminded me a lot of a mediocre real-time strategy game, you know the ones that are as numerous as the stars?

So...maybe I'm a hardcore Bioware fan, because I happened to love DA2, but really this article sounds like they're building this game and leaning it more towards the real-time strategy side of things. No bueno! Bioware's mish mash of strategy, action, story, and role-playing is the most epic thing I have ever experienced! I don't want another Baldur's Gate, I want the Bioware I know and love. As a matter of fact, I haven't played a Bioware game yet that hasn't become an instant favorite of mine, and their stories are always the highlight of my experience, never just the gameplay.

/rant

So here is the thing... in the original game I created a character I became very tied to, and played through what felt like a very personal story. I played through all the expansions and ultimately followed Morrigan into some kind of void.

In part two I was force fed a generic fantasy dude, but over time I became sort of attached to the guy even though he never felt like my guy.

So now I have two characters that I would like to be able to play additional adventures with.

1) Just how much will we be able to customize our character? Are we stuck with a BIOWARE employees marie sue character?

2) It's all well and good that some of our favorite NPCs show up, but what about the two most important characters of the previous games?

Yeah, I want to believe in this too.

DA2 was disappointing in many ways, but not totally horrible. IMHO a 7.5 or 8 to Origins 9 or 9.5.

I think here they have a chance of hitting that mark again (origins I mean). They said a while ago they would be taking some notes from Skyrim - let's not forget that a lot of what we like to think is wrong with Bioware these days is the fault of the money people(+EA). And even they have to have taken notice of the relative disparity in success/popularity between DA2 and Skyrim. They can't afford to screw this one up.

There are those who say the people who made Bioware what it is are gone. While that may be true, let us not forget that the creator of Dragon Age, David Gaider, is also the one who was the lead writer of KOTOR.

I think you're being unfair to DA2. It wasn't that bad. It had fun gameplay and the story was awesome, not to mention extremely important to the lore. The only things that bothered me were some reused maps, but Kirkwall city design was quite good. That game is more of an urban story compared to Origins.

That being said, I have no doubt that Inquisition will make (almost) everyone happy.

I'm looking forward to Inquisition. I think they have pretty done everything to make it a good RPG in the tradition of their own company.

The art design is the only downer at the moment. I really dislike this weird mix of cartoonish and realistic elements... :-|

I think people are highly dramatic about Dragon Age 2. Sure it had it's flaws but the combat system was basically a tweaked version of Dragon Age Origns. People such as this author make it sound like it was a completely different beast when it simply wasn't.

I liked both games and disliked things in both games. I think people put on rose-colored glasses when looking at Origins. It was an amazing game (possibly my favorite game ever) though it had a lot of flaws in it. The combat was good but needlessly slow, the animations were good though could have been a lot better and faster... certain builds and classes felt slower than they need to be, visuals were decent but not nearly as good as some of the other games of the time. DA 2 improved some of these areas and of course made some mistakes itself. Overall I'd argue Origins was better but they are both two pieces of the same puzzle, one not meant to override the other. It's like a books series where some books hit a better note than others but you can still appreciate the overall series.

I can appreciate what Bioware tried... in DA 2 they had you stay in one area and see it change over a greater deal of time vs. making you run around a big area of the world in a relatively short period of time. It didn't work perfectly but I can appreciate their creative vision and their guts to change up the formula a bit.

People are frickin drama queens about games these days, especially Bioware games. Don't expect everything to be the same, try and appreciate different works for what they are and don't be so damned dramatic lol.

Is it all about magic in that episode ?

What about good old swords/daggers ?

Wind powered fan... I have a feeling this would be incredibly inefficient.

Still remembers when Bioware made games like Jade Empire and KOTOR... classics!

The biggest thing to remember here is the people that made Bioware what is was, are gone. Bioware is dead at this point, and nothing but a shadow of a name to sell more boxes for EA before they just close it off like they did to Mythic. The sooner people quit buying this garbage, the sooner what's left of the talent at Bioware (And there isn't much) can get picked up by a development studio worth something and we can see a few good games pumped out before the cycle repeats itself.

Let's see what some of the major problems with DA2 were:

Terrible relationships

Gross amount of asset re-use

Horrible final chapter and ending

Choices don't pay off

City that was supposed to change over the years barely changed at all

Mages significantly nerfed and far less useful than other classes

None of these problems would be evident from a 30 minute presentation, so how could you call them solved?

Calling Origins "dull" betrays your pathetic bias.

DA2 and ME3 really made me question the skills of Bioware's writers more than anything else. I initially put DA2's clumsy writing down to the game being a rushed mess in general but then along came ME3. A few of the character focused sections of that game's writing were excellent but the main plot was based on a contrivance which was then compounded by adding a deus ex machina into the last five minutes and Shepard's character development was reduced to some laughably bad slow walk dream sequences that would even embarrass the writer's of Hollyoaks. I really want this game to be awesome but all I see in the trailers is pretty landscapes and all I hear from the writer is their need to include different characters ethnicity or sexuality. I have no problem with inclusion of these character, I'd even welcome it but Bioware's writing of such characters has been haphazard at best and if their inclusion is a box ticking exercise then I really don't hold out much hope for them being interesting or relate-able characters. (For good examples of writing such characters take a look at Veronica or Arcade in Fallout New Vegas). A lot of the time gameplay trumps story for me but Bioware games are so focused on story it's impossible to ignore it, ME3's combat was excellent but the terrible main plot left me feeling like the game was a failure I just hope that its not going to happen again with Inquisition.

I really hope you are right Tom, I was likewise disappointed in DA2. I'm going to pre-order DA3 but honestly the only reason I'm doing so at this point is because I want to see how the story ends. With the ME3 story line all wrapped up this is Biowares last chance for me. To date there isn't a BW game that I don't own (well except the Sonic one). After ME3 and DA2 my willingness to continue buying BW games has taken quite a hit.

Oh please this game will be garbage

Bioware has impressed me so far with Inquisition, but I am going to keep an eye out.

Whatever, gonna play it, won't buy it under any circumstances.

Not impressed, their arrogance after DA2 left a bad taste in my mouth, will by this when it hits bargin bin status

They have not impressed with their latest titles

Mass effect 3 was mediocre at best and had an atrocious ending.

SWTOR was also mediocre, doesn't help that they decided to rehash dialogue on the main character in a fully voiced game, made me cringe more then once when your answer to someone is weird and out of place.

DA2 was a cash grab, same caves, weaker graphics and an unsatisfactionary story to boot..

Needless to say i will wait until i am sure DAI is worth my time and money before i even think of purchasing it.

So, you're going to give it an 8 then?

I hope there is a hard mode so every battle feels tactical. Get with the program Bioware. People like hard games today. People want to feel the Dragon's breath.