How’s the story and gameplay?

[Snake]

Iv never played the previous ones, but I was curious with this one, and it’s story and combat gameplay

[Pendergast891]

the story has some nostalgia bait from the previous 2 games, but you'll understand their importance/history from immediate in game context. You'll just lose out on any emotional attachment to them, whether good or bad.

i would call the dragon age stories very solid but very 'basic' medieval fantasy, with the first one being about a dragon and its invading army, the 2nd one being church vs mages (and a lot more 'choose your side' stuff) and the 3rd one starts off as the aftermath of the 2nd one, regardless of its outcome. The church and mages are having an armistice and their leaders are having peace talks in a neutral ground when effectively a magic nuke goes off there, killing everyone but your character (which is the very first thing you find out after character creation) and a demon rift is opened, and its growing larger and causing smaller ones to pop up across the land.

you are first tasked with finding allies to help close it, then track down who caused this to happen in the first place, and you'll meet with and ally with mainstay organisations and people from the past 2 games.

there is a thing where you link your origin account to a dragon age keep profile so you can set the world flags and previous events of the past 2 games because there is no save porting.

the gameplay is an action rpg with some very minor tactical focus. You control 1 character at a time in an up-to-4man squad, and you can swap freely between which one you control on a dime to accurately use their actions. Otherwise you can use the games fairly proficient default ai to have them perform autonomously depending on who it is (the characters class and unlocked skills, for instance the mages with barrier unlocked by default will put it on the team at the start of combat and on low health allies) and you can 'program' the tactics yourself to better suit your playstyle and/or the difficulty you've chosen.

theres 3 classes (warrior, rogue, mage) with each one having 3 specializations that change how your character plays (mage not so much imo, the base skill trees are the bread and butter for almost all specialization builds)

one of the major issues i have with the gameplay is that in making your squad, you practically have to have 1 of each class minimum to be able to fully explore the maps and locals if you don't want to constantly backtrack with new people to check the spot you couldn't unlock. There are many other issues big and small that others have had but i can't name them right now.

[St.Absinthe]

The story, in true Bioware fashion is well-written and poorly animated. It's a lot more high-fantasy compared to Dragon Age Origins/2. All of your companions are the standard Bioware group except this time you have an annoying chav everyone thinks is cute but is actually insufferable.

The gameplay leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. EA/Bioware tried to mix action combat and tactical RTWP gameplay together so you're left with really clunky not at all tactical action combat that becomes trivial past a certain point.

It's also open world and I don't understand why companies keep making open-world games when there's no immersive interaction with the world (see; Cyberpunk) or meaningful emergent storytelling. It's a pretty bad idea letting the player roam around for potentially hours looting crafting resources (barf crafting) when the plot demands itself to be resolved as soon as possible makes the gameplay/narrative contrast jarring as hell. Also, there are no more intimate conversation cameras in DA:I except for important cutscenes. Which means you never get to see any side character's faces unless you're doing something to progress the main story. Yeah your story is really sad lady, but the game's camera is about 20ft away from your face so I don't really care.

So in summation. If you like putting on a playlist for a couple of hours to hunt down ubisoft-esque collectibles, materials for crafting and trudging through other meaningless and shallow side content, pausing it for an hour or two to enjoy the main story, I'd start playing Inquisition.

If you want something that requires more thought and has a tighter story try playing Dragon Age 2 or Dragon Age Origins.

[Snake]

Thanks guys, sounds like the andromeda of the mass effects…I’ll give it a go still

[barzai]

Originally posted by Snake:

Thanks guys, sounds like the andromeda of the mass effects…I’ll give it a go still

I've got over a thousand hours on DAI--10-12 plays, give or take--on Steam alone, thus not including the roughly 800 pre-Steam PC hours and unknown--but significant--X360 time I have in.

We're talking well over 2000 hours, all in. At 70-100 hours per play--depending on how many of the side quests and how much of the DLC you've played--that's a good two dozen full games.

You can take that for what it's worth.

As much as I love ME, I'm beginning to think that DAI is the summa of BioWare's art.

[LukanGamer]

Originally posted by Snake:

Thanks guys, sounds like the andromeda of the mass effects…I’ll give it a go still

Its not even that at all... so don't worry to much, still not great especially for those of older times and or older age, but it no where near that bad or type.

Its more like idk most mainstream style games where they tried making it more main stream ie "open world", "casual","mmo-like". -> Instead of the focus of story+companions+choices that were its primary thing back when it was Bioware and not EABiowore and not today / Androdumb of EAbodead.

[Snake]

Originally posted by barzai:

Originally posted by Snake:

Thanks guys, sounds like the andromeda of the mass effects…I’ll give it a go still

I've got over a thousand hours on DAI--10-12 plays, give or take--on Steam alone, thus not including the roughly 800 pre-Steam PC hours and unknown--but significant--X360 time I have in.

We're talking well over 2000 hours, all in. At 70-100 hours per play--depending on how many of the side quests and how much of the DLC you've played--that's a good two dozen full games.

You can take that for what it's worth.

As much as I love ME, I'm beginning to think that DAI is the summa of BioWare's art.

Oh really? Cause I just finished my first playthrough of ME LE trilogy, and was after the same kind of story rich, gameplay etc where choices matter…so far I’m getting use to the combat, mouse and keyboard , probably need to bind more keys.

[LukanGamer]

if you want story rich and choices matter DAO is 1 the best games ever made and has plenty in that.
(DA2 is also better in those regards compared to this one, though falls in gameplay for most people especially maps and enemies).

[NJ]

Does one need to play the first 2 Dragon Age or can one play this game straightaway? Also is this game like Dragon Dogma or like Kingdoms of Amalur/Witcher 3?

Seen a bit of Youtube videos but I don't like spoilers

Thanks

[Snake]

No, but you could check out the story on YouTube to catch u up, with characters

[LukanGamer]

Originally posted by Snake:

No, but you could check out the story on YouTube to catch u up, with characters

not even that given how drastic some the characters changed ..
from looks (qunari) to station in life to mood and how they act etc... (leliana being massive one, which could even have a "bad day" or drastically change her ways->avoiding spoilers in DAO yet ignored later) and not to mention having no control of how 1st two game player characters act after you beat it even with imports.
Mass Effect this is not.

(all still great games, especially DAO, and DAI is better for the modern + more casual person).

[LukanGamer]

Originally posted by NJ:

Does one need to play the first 2 Dragon Age or can one play this game straightaway? Also is this game like Dragon Dogma or like Kingdoms of Amalur/Witcher 3?

Seen a bit of Youtube videos but I don't like spoilers

Thanks

Nani.... those games are all vastly different from each other.... unless your whole way of thinking is if it got sword and monster its all the same....
Guess it closest to Dogma for sake of fact its a party rpg (companions) but gameplay wise not like any of them .... as it closer to a real time turn based combat (with pause feature) and not combat direct action.

[Snake]

Originally posted by LukanGamer:

Originally posted by Snake:

No, but you could check out the story on YouTube to catch u up, with characters

not even that given how drastic some the characters changed ..
from looks (qunari) to station in life to mood and how they act etc... (leliana being massive one, which could even have a "bad day" or drastically change her ways->avoiding spoilers in DAO yet ignored later) and not to mention having no control of how 1st two game player characters act after you beat it even with imports.
Mass Effect this is not.

(all still great games, especially DAO, and DAI is better for the modern + more casual person).

Ah true, cuz I bought this one not playing the others, and I wanted to know who hawk was etc

[LukanGamer]

Originally posted by Snake:

Ah true, cuz I bought this one not playing the others, and I wanted to know who hawk was etc

Varric does a pretty good job on that
(again more so since hawk was a PC obviously in 2 yet here hawk just random and honestly may as well be someone else, especially given how "weak" and secluded they became like the warden who may or may not exist even and borderline may as well not).

[Snake]

Originally posted by LukanGamer:

Originally posted by Snake:

Ah true, cuz I bought this one not playing the others, and I wanted to know who hawk was etc

Varric does a pretty good job on that
(again more so since hawk was a PC obviously in 2 yet here hawk just random and honestly may as well be someone else, especially given how "weak" and secluded they became like the warden who may or may not exist even and borderline may as well not).

Oh true? Thought the quest with them was pre cool

[Njorl]

Originally posted by LukanGamer:

if you want story rich and choices matter DAO is 1 the best games ever made and has plenty in that.
(DA2 is also better in those regards compared to this one, though falls in gameplay for most people especially maps and enemies).

I thought the combat in DA2 was excellent. Where it failed was the dialog and the clumsy re-use of scenery.
Countless times while playing I'd click on a response and find that whomever coded up the interaction had no idea what the words meant.