Dragon Age: Inquisition

 PC
User Score
6.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 4838 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,277 out of 4838
  2. Mixed: 968 out of 4838
  3. Negative: 1,593 out of 4838
Buy Now
Buy on

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. Agent99
    Dec 28, 2014
    9
    This is a really great game, I am thoroughly enjoying it!

    The scenery is beautiful and the sound effects are very realistic and enhance the experience. The story line is interesting and there are a few puzzles to solve too which is a great addition. I'm enjoying the new crafting stations which allow you to customise weapons and armour. On the down side: The game is difficult to    This is a really great game, I am thoroughly enjoying it!

    The scenery is beautiful and the sound effects are very realistic and enhance the experience. The story line is interesting and there are a few puzzles to solve too which is a great addition. I'm enjoying the new crafting stations which allow you to customise weapons and armour.

    On the down side:

    The game is difficult to play with a keyboard and mouse because you can't use the mouse to move around or interact but I bought a game controller for only $36 which solved that problem for me.

    The tactical camera is a little difficult to use because it doesn't zoom out as far as I would like but I am getting used to it and it's really not that bad but I do think it could be improved.

    The character AI function is pretty basic as to make it almost useless which is a pity.

    I was a little apprehensive to play this game initially due to all the negative reviews but so far it has been great fun to play and although it has a few issues as mentioned above I don't think this detracts from the experience overly much. I've played many RP games over the past 20+ years (starting with Eye of the Beholder in 1991!) and this is definitely one of the better ones.    … Expand
  2. sushimaster
    Dec 27, 2014
    4
    Problem after problem, screen occasional freeze, cut scene lag, tried alot of things and none seem to solve the screen freeze and crash. Could been a good game if i can play the damn game without it bugging on me.
  3. BoycottEA
    Dec 27, 2014
    0
    This game is not Dragon Age. It is World of Warcraft with a dragon age skin. There is no longer any aspect of the game that is still similar to such games as Baldurs Gate. From the intro of origins I was captivated by the story and was left wanting more which continued as I learned more about the world during time spent playing. Playing DA:I leaves me uninterested, I could care less aboutThis game is not Dragon Age. It is World of Warcraft with a dragon age skin. There is no longer any aspect of the game that is still similar to such games as Baldurs Gate. From the intro of origins I was captivated by the story and was left wanting more which continued as I learned more about the world during time spent playing. Playing DA:I leaves me uninterested, I could care less about anything said or written in notes or books. Origins pre expansion had nearly perfected the game mechanics for the style of game that it was. The executions were a point of thorough satisfaction. Origins had tactical and intelligent game play that created challenge for the player. Upon playing DA 2 I was terribly disappointed by the changes but it still managed to be good enough to play. I forced myself through six cumulative hours of DA:I after having repeatedly exited the game because I couldn't take playing it any longer. During this play I found myself desperately desiring to go back to the disappointing game that was DA 2 and had constant nostalgic memories of Origins and what it was. Upon reaching a town of rich noble characters that were all dressed up in Assassins Creed style masks and checkered outfits, I'll never play this again. The first boss fight consisted of right clicking a green rift in the sky to remove his invulnerability then hold auto attack until he died. There is no strategy, you are not needed to participate, your party can kill everything. Any given battle takes no thought and is over within seconds. Melee combat is awful even by action mmo standards, Neverwinter Online would have it beat hands down. DA: I is a single player mmo, with large areas for you to run around and collect evenly spaced iron deposits. Apparently they beleived people did such things because they thought it was fun. Filled with errands to kill ten rams and bring back meat for the refugees.… Expand
  4. fleshgolem
    Dec 27, 2014
    9
    A bit late to the party, but it took me a while to finish my first playthrough - 185 hours, in fact (according to the save screen). First important thing to know: friendly fire is a separate toggle now, it's not baked into the difficulty level. If people are finding combat too easy, it's likely because they didn't realize FF was a separate setting. With FF on, you can't just tauntA bit late to the party, but it took me a while to finish my first playthrough - 185 hours, in fact (according to the save screen). First important thing to know: friendly fire is a separate toggle now, it's not baked into the difficulty level. If people are finding combat too easy, it's likely because they didn't realize FF was a separate setting. With FF on, you can't just taunt everything and drop AoE on your own head. If you're looking for tactical/paused combat, turn on FF and go to at least Hard. I had tons of fun on Nightmare+FF.

    Ok, on to the story. It's a very, very slow buildup, but once it gets going... I had a couple moments in the early game where I was skeptical. It did seem like there were a lot of fetch quests. That all changed after a quest called "In Your Heart Shall Burn", which from the quest description sounds like it should be the final quest, but it's actually when the game really kicks off. On my next playthrough, I'll advance the story to that point as soon as I reach the minimum recommended level, rather than lingering in what amounts to tutorial areas. This sounds absurd to say, but maybe if the starting maps had been a bit smaller, it would have prevented people from shooting themselves in the foot with endless sidequests.

    Once the story gets rolling, there's loads of interesting stuff to do. Some of the most interesting content is completely optional or even unmarked. I won't spoil those areas for you, but one of my favorites was the Still Ruins.

    The companions and advisers also have loads of interesting quests, and unlike DA2 they won't necessarily tell you when they have something new. You have to keep talking to them and seeking them out, and that's a huge improvement, IMO. I've seen a fair number of Let's Players missing really cool companion quests because they don't talk to their followers enough. Like the story itself, some of the followers took some time to grow on me, but now it's my favorite Dragon Age cast to date.

    There's also lots of reactivity to the character's race and class. I played a Vashoth mage just to bask in the scorn, and the game didn't disappoint. The ambient dialogue is what really catches you off-guard - people muttering about how I must be someone's pet, or whispering about the heresy of calling an oxman the Herald of Andraste.

    Plus plenty of references to my choices in previous games. It was nice to catch up with a certain Warden after sparing him in DA:O. I know most people didn't spare him, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him show up because of my choice. Leliana also correctly avoided talking about my Warden, who never recruited her. She had a very different relationship with Morrigan as a result - meeting her in the Orlesian court instead of while adventuring with the Hero of Ferelden.

    Another optional thing: crafting and alchemy. This was something I sort of ignored at the beginning of the game, but it became necessary mid- to late-game. A character's base attributes are assigned automatically on level-up now, so crafting is the means by which you can customize your build. Want to make Cassandra a high-crit warrior? Grab some rare leathers, and you can remove the class restriction on rogue armor. I initially thought this would be kind of dull, but it became strangely addictive by the end. Daggers, especially, benefit from crafting, and can reach some truly obscene levels of DPS if carefully optimized. Ditto for alchemy - I ignored it at first, but I came to love my Antivan Fire and Tears of the Dead by the end.

    A final note. There *is* definitely room for improvement in this game, especially with the tactical camera. I didn't mind the fact that the tac cam won't pass through walls (it would be odd to attack something that's completely unreachable by walking, anyway), but I would have preferred if the tac cam was allowed to hover higher above the field. It didn't make the camera unusable, since I could move the camera around to whatever I needed to see, but it would have felt more fluid if it were slightly higher up. I also experienced some difficulty with using tactical mode + ladders, which I suppose is understandable since this is the first Dragon Age game with a z dimension. And maybe I didn't find it, but it would have been nice to have a Move All button, so I didn't have to individually path all four party members when I wanted them to move in a tight cluster. All that said, I was able to use the tac cam effectively for every fight in the game, so these were pretty minor inconveniences.    … Expand
  5. skaybay
    Dec 27, 2014
    6
    I always try to complete ALL the quests and gather as much of story titbits as possible before hitting the credits, but in case of DA:I the quests were too repetitive and soulless. Questing in DA:I felt like a single player version of Guild Wars 2. Both in the size of locations and amount of quests. If you wander off the main story expect bazillion of hours of completing mosaics, fetchingI always try to complete ALL the quests and gather as much of story titbits as possible before hitting the credits, but in case of DA:I the quests were too repetitive and soulless. Questing in DA:I felt like a single player version of Guild Wars 2. Both in the size of locations and amount of quests. If you wander off the main story expect bazillion of hours of completing mosaics, fetching meaningless items and closing rifts, none of which will have any impact on the story or the world.
    These quests would make for a great adventure if it would occur to BioWare to include some sort of multiplayer questing. Sadly, the current multiplayer incarnation is a copy of Mass Effect 3 online cooperation. Not fun at all.
    In DA:I we get to visit places that were only mentioned or hinted at in previous games, yet the world depicted in the game is simply too static to be believable. The sun never sets over Hinterlands. Bandits never actually attack the settlements beyond scripted encounters. Demons don't wander off from the rifts. It's all static. Like a pretty, very detailed snow globe. Also what's the point now to all these codex entries appearing on every step. It was a necessity back in the DA:O and DA2 days but with open world it's possible to tell all these background stories through places, objects, NPCs. I mean - The Elder Scrolls series has communicated the lore in this manner for years. Now, when DA:I has all the mechanisms for immersion at hand, why not use them instead of impersonal codex entries ? I don't mind reading in a game - but putting the adventure to a halt just to read a detailed description of the the history of a village - while actually being there, being able to see every rendered detail... It just seems lazy. Show, don't tell! And if they really have to tale it that way - put the story in mouth of a narrator, like Varric..
    And while we're at storytelling - it felt much more like a sibling to Neverwinter Nights than a fantasy cousin of Mass Effect. DA:I tells a generic epic story of saving the world from ANCIENT EVIL™. Villains are cartoonish and most of the characters in the party are too one-dimensional to consider true companions. Of course, there're some twists and companions are a little more than cardboard cut-outs but it's nowhere near to relationships from Mass Effect series. And non-inquisition NPC quest-givers are universally bland.

    The choices imported from Dragon Age Keep seem to have a lot more significance that whatever we decide through the course of the game, though most of them are only mentioned through party banter,some are retconned and some aren't referenced at all (*cough*Architect*cough*)

    Instead of a branching story we got a linear experience consisting of about 10 main quests and a few companion stories. The problem is that these stories aren't really interactive - you rarely get to choose something and if you do the chances are that it'll get marginalized in a few minutes and won't be referenced ever again. You don't really get to experience the consequences of anything you do. And it kills the replayability value.

    All the criticism that DA2 itemization received resulted in the worst inventory system I have ever seen in an RPG. Mass Effect style itemization - a system so boring and shallow that it got cut even from it's own sequel. Add to that inventory menu divided into 4 separate screens with no way for fast switching between them.
    Yeah, it's that bad.

    Mounts. I mounted a horse only for one quest that specifically required it. It felt like someone at BioWare decided that if they're going to market their games as Skyrim-like open world game they need horses. So they slapped together 3 different models, a few textures and Mass Effect 1 Mako driving model just for the sake of having horses in the game. They don't add any immersion and while travelling on the back of a horse you won't hear any party banter because your companions mystically vanish the moment you mount a horse.

    Skyhold. "We've got to prepare ourselves, that's where the final stand will take place! We've got to improve the walls! Strengthen the gates! Buy silky Orlesian beds...? Collect all the pieces of the Iron Throne™? And buy new curtains??" After initial excitement I've quickly forgotten I've got a keep. Because it's not a keep - it's an oversized dollhouse that makes you walk three flights of stairs to talk to companions.

    And last but not least - bugs. I encountered only one, but it was enough to make me angry for the rest of the game. At some point my character's voice changed to the default one. Permanently. Talk about immersion breaking.

    Dragon Age: Inquisition is not a bad game, but in it's repetitiveness and lack of substance
    it's become a single service entertainment - a few dramatic monologues, some explosions and a cartoon
    villain are enough to entertain me for a week or two but not enough to make me wish to return to Thedas in the future.    … Expand
  6. Figaro79
    Dec 26, 2014
    3
    Игра воспринимается дешёвой поделкой с блювотно-пафосным сюжетом, НЕ тактическими боями с простым закликиванием, кривой анимацией и слабой графикой и убогим дизайном всего и вся. Моя оценка 5 из 10, не более. И ещё. Что толку от всех этих вариативных диалогов, чего от них все кончают? Что ни "нажимай" разницы практически никакой.
    Такое ощущение что пресса просто продвигает этот треш за    Игра воспринимается дешёвой поделкой с блювотно-пафосным сюжетом, НЕ тактическими боями с простым закликиванием, кривой анимацией и слабой графикой и убогим дизайном всего и вся. Моя оценка 5 из 10, не более. И ещё. Что толку от всех этих вариативных диалогов, чего от них все кончают? Что ни "нажимай" разницы практически никакой.
    Такое ощущение что пресса просто продвигает этот треш за $...    … Expand
  7. Darkautumn911
    Dec 26, 2014
    10
    I have hated all other Dragon Age games, but this one is the most amazing game I have every played in my life. The feeling of growing your empire is so satisfying, and every character feels so real and well-acted. The story and pacing is amazing, and I am enjoying the game so much.
    The UI is a bit awkward, but feels the same as Mass Effect
  8. Anonymous_user
    Dec 26, 2014
    8
    I made an account because I'm completely baffled by the large amount of negative reviews.

    Performance: 9/10 Yes, you will not get 100 fps or anything even close to that. In fact, you will reasonably get 30-60 fps from what I've seen. I'm getting a solid 45 fps at 1080p on a G1 970 at the highest possible settings. I've even down-sampled and played at 2160p with a solid 30 fps. I've    I made an account because I'm completely baffled by the large amount of negative reviews.

    Performance: 9/10

    Yes, you will not get 100 fps or anything even close to that. In fact, you will reasonably get 30-60 fps from what I've seen. I'm getting a solid 45 fps at 1080p on a G1 970 at the highest possible settings. I've even down-sampled and played at 2160p with a solid 30 fps. I've had less than 5 crashes in 100 hours of play time and run into 0 game breaking bugs. Performance and graphics wise, there is nothing to complain about, unlike AC Unity.

    Gameplay/Controls: 7/10

    It can be called clunky at times, but that by no means warrants a 0/10. The controls are very mmo-esque, which I have no problem with because I've played many mmos. For those who haven't, I can see where you are coming from.

    Now, the tactical camera is actually very useful, especially for me because I'm playing on the hardest difficulty. In extremely challenging fights against things like dragons I literally pause the tactical camera every second to control my companions and select the best abilities to use. For some, this is terrible because they want brainless action. For others, it's welcomed because you can't mindlessly run in and wipe the floor with your enemies. Now, the tactical camera is not without flaws. As many have mentioned, the camera is too close and does not allow you to zoom out enough, but this is not game breaking. You can move the camera around, so it just takes more time and maneuvering. Also, the pathing system used when commanding characters to travel to a certain destination is terrible. The AI will not jump onto rocks and get to where you want them to go. This is also not game breaking, but it can get you killed a lot.

    Story: 8/10

    I don't have confidence in my ability to analyze a story because I always hated English and disagreed with the "professional" and "formal" analysis. To me the story is good, not spectacular, or terrible. There are many cameos of past Dragon age characters and references to past events. It explores the Dragon age universe further than any other game has and adds a lot to the Dragon age universe, for that I am grateful.

    I'm getting bored of writing this review, if I get a lot of users saying it was/wasn't helpful I'll add more, here's some numbers.

    Multiplayer: 7/10

    Characters: 8/10

    Fun Factor: 9/10

    Content-size: 11/10

    Completing this game 100% would take a REALLY long time, so long that it's disheartening.

    Biggest disappointment: Multiplayer... just disappointing

    Biggest surprise: Massive amount of content that doesn't feel like a grind... at least not as much of a grind as Destiny.    … Expand
  9. kpbds
    Dec 26, 2014
    9
    This is a good game works well on console. But it has its issues, one being when you in conversations the characters stand there like idiots catching flies with their mouths. But i have only encountered this issue a few times. A really big issue I have with this game is the wait times, they are awful they range from a good 10 minutes to one hour and forty eight minutes i hate that butThis is a good game works well on console. But it has its issues, one being when you in conversations the characters stand there like idiots catching flies with their mouths. But i have only encountered this issue a few times. A really big issue I have with this game is the wait times, they are awful they range from a good 10 minutes to one hour and forty eight minutes i hate that but most of the issues seen are fixable. So if your on console you should buy it it's good. Can't say the same for pc, they will have to wait for it to be fixed. Overall it's pretty good i enjoy it.… Expand
  10. dem5957
    Dec 26, 2014
    4
    The games breath and span is awesome-complete with overall strategy. compelling characters, and then they ruin the whole thing by using the most clunky PC interface in 15 years. My God, I thought I was back to 1995 using w,s,d, a to move-NO MOUSE movement??!!! Who ever took the project in this direction needs to be **** canned immediately! The PC game is obviously because Bio ware didntThe games breath and span is awesome-complete with overall strategy. compelling characters, and then they ruin the whole thing by using the most clunky PC interface in 15 years. My God, I thought I was back to 1995 using w,s,d, a to move-NO MOUSE movement??!!! Who ever took the project in this direction needs to be **** canned immediately! The PC game is obviously because Bio ware didnt want to deal with the backlash of not making a PC franchise in PC mode! It is obviously an after thought! Wow from the one PC gaming company, I used to trust....THIS!… Expand
  11. kartonio
    Dec 26, 2014
    2
    This game is a pre-digested action-RPG that has nothing to do with dragon age.

    3 classes (and the skill trees are pathetic), poor combos, next to no specialisation, no weapon swap, the inventory is (as always with games for consoles) a big crap, we lost a lot of story telling (which was better in DA1), interactions with companions (which was better in DA1), maps are not well designed,    This game is a pre-digested action-RPG that has nothing to do with dragon age.

    3 classes (and the skill trees are pathetic), poor combos, next to no specialisation, no weapon swap, the inventory is (as always with games for consoles) a big crap, we lost a lot of story telling (which was better in DA1), interactions with companions (which was better in DA1), maps are not well designed, some tasks are really "wtf???", is it also poorly optimised...

    Having Given money to the managers/shareholders of this company (EA) is a mistake and i deeply regret it.    … Expand
  12. Pentiado
    Dec 25, 2014
    0
    It's second time in my life I feel so angry that I need to write such review and the worst thing is to see all those bloggers and websites that I respected giving super high rates.

    - Dragon Age Inquisition is like MMORPG but where you are the only one person on the whole server. 90% of the game is so unbelievable boring...to continue the main story you need to kill x sheep, find x    It's second time in my life I feel so angry that I need to write such review and the worst thing is to see all those bloggers and websites that I respected giving super high rates.

    - Dragon Age Inquisition is like MMORPG but where you are the only one person on the whole server. 90% of the game is so unbelievable boring...to continue the main story you need to kill x sheep, find x herbs, letters put flowers on the grave of some peasant, find "special" colorful sheep for another peasant, find gold sheep for elf and run after it as long as needed
    - Side quests are almost never deeper than what you see at the first glance.
    - There are places that I would call "spots to get exp" where enemies are appearing constantly like in mmo. I loved fighting with dragons, especially then when all my team had no idea what to do and was standing like frozen next to legs of the beast and I needed to became each of them one by one and start hitting the enemy.
    - Tactical view is useless, your characters very quickly forget about orders. Blink of an eye and Varic is inside group of enemies, why? Maybe he was lonely in the safe place with his crossbow.
    - Bugs, bugs bugs. Third day my top 3-4 saves became corrupted and I wasn't able to open them, 6 hours of play lost. Thanks Bioware! Game crashes were common, sometimes everything was fine for three hours and another time game could turn off three times in 10 minutes.
    - Even on the nightmare game becomes easy after hitting 12-14 level. I ended up having almost 70k of gold because no matter what eq I had I was able to kill everything.
    - Your decisions means nothing. Whatever you pick result will be the same. Your teammates dislikes them? So what? Nothing will happen because of that.
    - Cooperation is just a big joke. My character was jumping on left and right during run and after couple of matches I realised that more interesting is looking on the growing grass. I loved what they did with Mass Effect 3 coop. I have spent hundreds of hours running over the same areas and killing the same monsters but it was super fun. DA coop almost made me cry.    … Expand
  13. aleferra
    Dec 25, 2014
    2
    Bunch of features removed to be able to release to consoles, no tactics at all.

    tactical camera is bugged, and is useless.

    really boring and dissapointing
  14. InCursio
    Dec 25, 2014
    8
    The game has wonderful graphics, the world is really nice to explore(+1), the controls are not perfect (-1), the character choice(race/class) aren't that (0), and it the classes are unbalanced (Mage>assassin>archer>reaver>tanks)(-1) well that's only true if you exclude the bug (which gives balance to mage and assassin play, as I would have never taken anything besides mage because the mageThe game has wonderful graphics, the world is really nice to explore(+1), the controls are not perfect (-1), the character choice(race/class) aren't that (0), and it the classes are unbalanced (Mage>assassin>archer>reaver>tanks)(-1) well that's only true if you exclude the bug (which gives balance to mage and assassin play, as I would have never taken anything besides mage because the mage has upper hand in the game) while all classes are split into two subclasses (warrior> two-hand/shield,sword and rogue assasin/archer) mage can become anything so it has more choice with it skills and uses.(mage is too op, some skills work with other skills to make insane dmg and CC almost as unfair as assassin bug) not like it's bad, but could be better (-1), also later on game becomes repetitive almost as some kind of mmo (look for shards, do quests, then more quests, look for secrets and treasures, more quests)(-1), but story is nice and it has some really moving elements which make you feel like you actually matter (+1) also the game has lots of things to do like collecting mounts and killing dragons, also crafting (killing dragons is too easy later on.... even in nightmare there are ways to kill dragons in few mins (without assassin bug, with bug it only takes secs) (0)… Expand
  15. Whitespliff
    Dec 25, 2014
    3
    I loved DA:O, played it many times with all the different classes & races.

    I lost interest in DA2 after a few hours, the story didn't captivate me.

    But this, I don't understand the high scores, maybe it's ok on a console but on pc the interface is just crap. I'm hoping they can mod this but it doesn't look very promising :-(
  16. Barnabat
    Dec 25, 2014
    3
    Do not buy, wait a year and grab it when is 5$, if you come from DA:O you will hate what they did to the series. Listen to all the bad reviews because its true.
  17. DrVarsims
    Dec 25, 2014
    8
    Not as good as Dragon Age Origins, but better than DA2. "Open World" is fun, but you cannot run from one end to the other, like Skyrim. Maybe better story than Skyrim though? Has long load screens, only once crashed after 50+ hours of playing.
  18. TimVanBeek
    Dec 24, 2014
    0
    The combat system is a mess. In action RGPs like Skyrim or the Mass Effect series, you have a good camera angle, view of your character, have to aim and get feedback about whether you hit or are hit and by whom. In tactic party RGPs like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights or DA:O, you get an overview of your characters and their foes, who is doing what, and give special orders (and onlyThe combat system is a mess. In action RGPs like Skyrim or the Mass Effect series, you have a good camera angle, view of your character, have to aim and get feedback about whether you hit or are hit and by whom. In tactic party RGPs like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights or DA:O, you get an overview of your characters and their foes, who is doing what, and give special orders (and only those) to characters to move to certain positions and perform special actions like casting a spell.

    DA:I fails miserably to deliver any of this. Whoever compares the combat of DA:I to Skyrim or Mass Effect hasn't played them for more than 10 hours.

    I feel betrayed by the positive reviews of this game.    … Expand
  19. JohnnyH
    Dec 24, 2014
    3
    Another huge disappointment, especially after years of extra development, delays and fan feedback. Bioware missed the mark again and this game doesn't deserve the Dragon Age brand, just another Skyrim wannabe hiking herb gathering simulator. For those looking for another DAO, look elsewhere, this game bears little resemblance to DAO. In a nutshell, DAI lacks immersion, story and is prettyAnother huge disappointment, especially after years of extra development, delays and fan feedback. Bioware missed the mark again and this game doesn't deserve the Dragon Age brand, just another Skyrim wannabe hiking herb gathering simulator. For those looking for another DAO, look elsewhere, this game bears little resemblance to DAO. In a nutshell, DAI lacks immersion, story and is pretty much a dumbed down action RPG. For detail analysis, carry on reading.

    Where to begin. I am +70 hours in on nightmare difficulty but just can't continue grinding to finished the game. The first 25 hours was exciting, thereafter got so tedious still doing the usual collecting 25 shards, find 15 letters, collect 20 blood lotus, establish 4 camps and kill bandits in each area. There are no buildups and conversations leading up to enemy battles, just follow map marker kill bandits and quest completion achieved & archived. I wouldn't even describe enemies and NPCs as two dimensional, they are just polygons populating the bland world of Thedas. No close up cinematic style dialogue with NPCs, again just about all conversation (except main quests) are distant third person with boring writing and one liners. I've explored all areas of the Hinterlands, Exalted plains, Crestwood, Western Approach, Emerald Grave, Shallow Mire, Stormcoast and a few other smaller areas, and honestly none of these huge areas are memerable. In each of these areas its the same quests (collect/find/kill) over and over that resemble MMO games.

    Combat and gameplay
    I play as a mage and gameplay is simple, just spam enemies with abilities still they die. Lyrium potions are unnecessary because mana regenerate very quickly. No planning and tactics are required for spells casting and reserving. So far, I have yet to use Lyrium potion even on nightmare difficulty. Ignore the over hyped tactical view, the zoom is far to close to the ground where you can't barely see the entire battleground. The tactical cam is absolutely unnecessary as a result of the dumb down combat.

    I believe +200 hours can be easily achieved on my first play through but its the quality that counts not quantity. Pretty graphics will be outdated as technology advances. Granted, this game is huge but full of chores that reminds me of SWTOR and Skyrim when it doesn't need to be. Was so looking forward to strong storytelling and tactical combat. Why can't Dragon Age just be Dragon Age.    … Expand
  20. xTobyMc
    Dec 24, 2014
    9
    I'm very surprised to see this game with as little as ~6/10 user rating. After 28 hours of an enjoyable and epic quest I have just completed the main story for DA:I and can easily say it's one of the best RPG's I've played. Unfortunately this was my first Dragon Age game so I can't compare it to the predecessors, but in itself it was very polished and kept me captivated for the entirety ofI'm very surprised to see this game with as little as ~6/10 user rating. After 28 hours of an enjoyable and epic quest I have just completed the main story for DA:I and can easily say it's one of the best RPG's I've played. Unfortunately this was my first Dragon Age game so I can't compare it to the predecessors, but in itself it was very polished and kept me captivated for the entirety of its length.

    The story has you venture a huge world and there are plenty of different regions to explore with all sorts of climates. Unlike other RPG's I felt the side quests were also interesting and not too dull, usually side quests are more of a chore than anything. Voice acting was fantastic, you grew attached to characters, and the freedom of choice during conversations gives you a sense of power.

    My biggest gripe with the game was probably the requirement to grind. A few times in the game I was below the recommended level requirement to continue the main story, so I'd have to spend a couple of hours just doing side quests to level up adequately. This seemed to slow things down a bit and I'm not a fan when games do this. PC performance was also a little bit of an issue. I run two GTX 970's so I was good to go, but the FPS on single GPU's isn't ideal, and of course many people run a single GPU. Having said this, the engine was solid. I had absolutely no screen tearing issues, graphical bugs, just nothing. The world looked beautiful at all times and I give a thumbs up to the overall graphics.    … Expand
  21. sepph
    Dec 24, 2014
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. When you mock players with such a disastrous looting and crafting system, they're gonna mock you right back with crappy reviews. So here you go Bioware / EA.

    Getting lvl 4 grey items in the end game from the loot chests in dungeons is simply ridiculous.

    The alternative to loot?
    Masterwork tier 3 - there are myths that a couple of vendors might sell them, but I've never seen one in 100h of gameplay and 50+ visits to each of those vendors. What's more, an influence perk is required in order to get this seemingly null chance of finding the schematics at the vendors. I'm not even going to start about perks...

    High-end materials for crafting runes? Random drop from a high-level rifts -> you might finish the game without having gotten enough mats for a single superior rune.    … Expand
  22. NakorZ
    Dec 24, 2014
    1
    What I wanted from this game was something reminiscent of Origins. At the very least I hoped for some dim echo of that masterpiece.

    Instead we got DA2 (2): Skyrim edition. Pro's - Decent world design - Good world graphics - Good music Con's - Camera is trash - AI is trash (won't listen to any directions) - Tactical view is worthless - Entire game is clearly made for    What I wanted from this game was something reminiscent of Origins. At the very least I hoped for some dim echo of that masterpiece.

    Instead we got DA2 (2): Skyrim edition.

    Pro's
    - Decent world design
    - Good world graphics
    - Good music

    Con's
    - Camera is trash
    - AI is trash (won't listen to any directions)
    - Tactical view is worthless
    - Entire game is clearly made for consoles in every way. They didn't even try to optimize for PC.
    - Combat is awful; they took every bad aspect of DA2 and duplicated it, then made it even a little worse.
    - Skill trees are a joke. Even worse than DA2, if you'll believe it.
    - My mages animations look like he is a **** airbender, just like DA2. I want mages to be regal, powerful. Instead they look like clowns.
    - Fetch quests. Everywhere, all the time.
    - Character graphics are oddly terrible. I couldn't make a character that didn't look retarded. Also shiny.

    By far the worst things for me is the total snub of PC as a platform. It was already obvious with DA2, but they have cemented it now with Inquisition. Bioware and EA don't give a **** about PC players, even when DA began as a PC title. It was lovingly crafted in every way for PC. Now, PC controls and UI are awful; barely adequate to even function, and definitely not enjoyable. Basic but important mechanics have been gradually stripped away from this series until what we are left with is a crude shell of what Origins was. Verily, anyone who can say Inquisition (or DA2) is better combat-wise than Origins truly had no **** idea what they were doing when they played it. This can be seen in the references to how Origins had too many skills that you didn't use; except of course, you did use them, if you weren't a total ****wit. Most of the skills combo'd together wonderfully and if you weren't a console pleb playing on easy, it was actually important.

    The thing I enjoyed most in Origins, outside of the story and characters, was weaving powerful magical combinations together to take out groups of enemies. That feeling is completely and utterly dead in Inquisition. Combo's still exist, but they are largely an afterthought and don't have nearly the same impact. Magic in general feels completely gutted, and from looking at the other skill trees the same appears to be true there as well.

    I predicted that Inquisition would be bad. Awful, actually. I knew it from the moment they revealed they were continuing DA2's story-line about the mages and templars. All I can say is that I hate to be proven right. I wanted this game to be good, a return to Origins. Instead it is not only a continuation of everything wrong with DA2, it's actually a steeper decent to utter console peasantry.

    RIP Origins, the only good DA.    … Expand
  23. dnl_ion2007
    Dec 24, 2014
    10
    best RPG I played in years. I can't remember since when I was that hooked for hours. great story, gameplay, graphics. I would recommend a controller to play this game
  24. gloriouspotato
    Dec 23, 2014
    7
    Instead of copy-pasting environments, now it's copy-pasting substance-less side quests and collectibles. It's a shame really because the main quests are great and demonstrate how good the side quests could've potentially been. Time travel and stopping an assassination at the Winter Palace made for such memorable events in the game. If only I could say the same for closing 50 fade rifts andInstead of copy-pasting environments, now it's copy-pasting substance-less side quests and collectibles. It's a shame really because the main quests are great and demonstrate how good the side quests could've potentially been. Time travel and stopping an assassination at the Winter Palace made for such memorable events in the game. If only I could say the same for closing 50 fade rifts and collecting 100 shards. They're not all terrible though, some side quests are decent, but most are forgettable. At least the game is able to provide useful incentives for completing this kind of busywork.

    Some other pros and cons off the top of my head include:
    + Detailed environments
    + Solid writing and character development, if a bit cheesy sometimes
    + Solid voice acting and nice soundtrack
    + Above average visual fidelity

    -- 8 hotkey limit reduces variety and number of strategies in combat
    -- Tactical camera too zoomed in, though still functional and useful on harder difficulties
    -- Underwhelming mage/rogue skilltrees, though warriors are improved in my opinion.
    -- Technical issues (fps cap, occasional crashing and glitches)
    -- User interface is lacking unless using a controller
    -- Poor companion AI, no tactics as in past DA games

    Put simply, an okay-ish game that fixes some of DA2's problems and also introduces some new ones. I'd also recommend playing with a controller for this one, it makes the experience much more tolerable.

    Overall rating: 7.3/10    … Expand
  25. dkaizer
    Dec 23, 2014
    4
    Besides looking beautiful, ultimately DA:I fails to live up to the first game in the series. The main story does not feel epic or grand at all and there is no sense of urgency. Companions are all right but cannot compare to Mass Effect companions as I am simply unable to feel anything for them. Armour and weapon design is severely limited and uninspiring. Play the multiplayer if you areBesides looking beautiful, ultimately DA:I fails to live up to the first game in the series. The main story does not feel epic or grand at all and there is no sense of urgency. Companions are all right but cannot compare to Mass Effect companions as I am simply unable to feel anything for them. Armour and weapon design is severely limited and uninspiring. Play the multiplayer if you are having trouble sleeping. I have to mention the main story again because it is one of the worst story lines every conceived in my opinion. It would be best to have a more linear, well written and memorable product like DA:O than something fluffy without substance and generic.… Expand
  26. Crebstar
    Dec 23, 2014
    8
    I honestly want to give this game a 10/10, but I cannot due to the lack of thought given to PC controls and the random crashes during cutscenes. The game is magnificent otherwise and truly a masterpiece. It really blows my mind that simple effort was not put into the PC control scheme. No auto attack and automatic move to when trying to loot baffles me, as it is simple to implement.
  27. skarr
    Dec 23, 2014
    1
    It has become a repetitive pattern nowadays. Consoles spoiled so many good games. It's really a pity to see the DA going down the same way. I will always cherish all those long hours spent on the rich game which was DA:O...the sequels are just garbage.
    Oh and please stop using the term "Role-playing-game" for anything that has some character progression and is set in a fantasy universe    It has become a repetitive pattern nowadays. Consoles spoiled so many good games. It's really a pity to see the DA going down the same way. I will always cherish all those long hours spent on the rich game which was DA:O...the sequels are just garbage.
    Oh and please stop using the term "Role-playing-game" for anything that has some character progression and is set in a fantasy universe with Swords and Boards. Anyways, I was pretty sure this was the outcome. Bioware is no longer in my "Insta-buy-title" list...it has ceased to be a long time ago.    … Expand
  28. MarcioLiao
    Dec 23, 2014
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Dragon Age is becoming a religion. DAO is god, DA2 is Satan and DAI is Jesus, because if you point out anything bad in DAI or anything good in DA2 people go ape ****

    What really hold this game down is the gameplay. Is simple awful for any pc user who likes DAO gameplay. Is a really bad pc port. Playing with Kb and mouse is infuriating and the "action" view is so boring. For the first time, in this franchise, i rush the **** out of the game, because it was boring.

    Story is just a copy-paste format from DAO but with less things to do. The wartable have waiting times of 20 hours. 20 HOURS!! 20 hours IN A **** SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAING! This timers are only there so the game could last longer. The "decisions" are pointless and without deph. The narrative ends in a silly cilffhanger.

    Companions are BORING as **** and their personal quests are pointless and without any real repercussion in the game or on their personalities.

    Graphics and sound are okay.

    I am a completionist, but i cant complete everything in this game, is boring. I finish it once and already uninstalled it. Next one, i going to pirate it, because people are praising DAI so high, that is obvious how the next game will be.    … Expand
  29. Agorash
    Dec 23, 2014
    2
    You will see many "don't believe those haters! boo!". Are you thinking on buy this game? Let's be honest. Let's think a bit and put the real facts over the table. Do you want a tactical RPG like was DA:O and badly tried DA2? Then you are in the wrong neighborhood. Did you enjoyed the added action in DA2 over the tactical mode? Then we can talk about the price. In PC version the game comesYou will see many "don't believe those haters! boo!". Are you thinking on buy this game? Let's be honest. Let's think a bit and put the real facts over the table. Do you want a tactical RPG like was DA:O and badly tried DA2? Then you are in the wrong neighborhood. Did you enjoyed the added action in DA2 over the tactical mode? Then we can talk about the price. In PC version the game comes with just a few bugs and mostly of them are visuals, not really annoying. Maybe you will see an extremely glossy lips and hair or some beards out of place, but today's "end games" are worst than this. I do not accept to release any kind of game unfinished, even with minor bugs, but we can tolerate those and don't make the game unplayable, you can enjoy it anyway. Story is long as hell and you have tons of missions, hours of gameplay, I swear you. Then? Why that many negative votes? And why the other half, mostly of them are really positive? Maybe because there are a minor half of DA:O lovers who were disappointed with DA2 and really hope to see on DA:I the DA:O essence reborn. And it's not? Absolutely not. DA:I it's more near to a Hack and Slash than any kind of tactical RPG, as they want to name it. Also you will notice the game seems to not be built to PC platform (Keyboard/Mouse) on interfacing. Default shorcuts are a bad joke for any veteran PC gamer, tactical cam, map interface or character screens are made to use gamepad buttons for sure. If you have a gamepad for your PC, and you like the idea of an action rpg with cool story, you will be not disappointed, but if you were waiting for the real succesor to DA:O on this third part.. don't waste your money and avoid any kind of frustation. I really, really loved the tactical part of this game and I miss it as hell, the current one seems to me too much orthopedical to play confortable. So just try it by other.. ways.. you know ;) Who knows, maybe you discover you like this other kind of games.… Expand
  30. Garfoodle
    Dec 23, 2014
    10
    I think its the game Skyrim wanted to be. Now put away your pitchforks, I love me some Skyrim, and if I had to chose between the two to play for the rest of my life, i'd chose Skyrim. But for a game i'll beat maybe twice, Dragon Age is the better choice. Not at all based on Gameplay and Graphics, mind, although those are quite good. Its the whole "Epicossity" of the whole affair.I think its the game Skyrim wanted to be. Now put away your pitchforks, I love me some Skyrim, and if I had to chose between the two to play for the rest of my life, i'd chose Skyrim. But for a game i'll beat maybe twice, Dragon Age is the better choice. Not at all based on Gameplay and Graphics, mind, although those are quite good. Its the whole "Epicossity" of the whole affair. Everything here feels like its epic. From its epic music to its epic quests, everything will determine the fate of humanity. I was doing everything for HUMANITY. OH WAIT, IM AN ELF, SCREW YOU GUYS! Really. Thats the good part. Somewhere around an hour in, I realized that I was an Elf. A Dalish one, as a matter of fact. And you know what? People in Thedas are dicks to my people. So you know what? I'm going to *Cut out for spoilers sake* and put an Elf high up. I'm gonna be a dick to everyone. I'm going to do what I WANT! SCREW YOU GUYS! And the game supports me in doing this!… Expand
  31. KB5K
    Dec 23, 2014
    3
    After all of the hype, I caved. I bought this game full price, brand new, and poured about 30 hours into it. Now I'm giving up. I can't explain how this game has garnered such praise from the gaming community, even to the point where it's considered a game of the year nominee over games like Dark Souls 2, which clearly deserve it.
    THE STORY: You're the chosen one. You and only you have    After all of the hype, I caved. I bought this game full price, brand new, and poured about 30 hours into it. Now I'm giving up. I can't explain how this game has garnered such praise from the gaming community, even to the point where it's considered a game of the year nominee over games like Dark Souls 2, which clearly deserve it.
    THE STORY: You're the chosen one. You and only you have the power to stop evil from taking over the land. Sound familiar? It's a cliche that you can get over, sure. The remainder of the story, however, is painfully boring (I've fallen asleep several times while trying to play through this game). It doesn't help that there is a mountain of lore that you really need to know to understand why things are happening. So if you haven't played dragon age in a while, you'll find that you're spending a lot of time either reading the in-game codex, or pressing pause to look something up on a wiki somewhere.
    GRAPHICS: Aside from nice light and shadows, DAI is graphically equivalent to a last-gen title. Speaking specifically to the hair design- I have never, ever, seen a game do this so poorly. I know Bioware has a long history of "sucking at [designing] faces" (their words, not mine), but the faces are actually quite well designed, and the character builder is pretty cool. The artist that designed the hair, specifically, did an extremely poor job, to the point where it's distracting. There's an article on Kotaku where users took a poll, and over 70% of players eventually restarted the game (some 10-20 hours in) because they simply couldn't stand to look at their character. It's really just that bad looking, and at this point I can’t understand why Bioware hasn’t worked to strengthen this admitted weakness of theirs.
    Graphically, environments aren't bad, and when the game eventually opens up they can be quite beautiful, albeit short of the "next gen" feel of other PS4 titles. Facial animation needs work; since Bioware prides itself on deep, enthralling stories, they should really put more stock into this area and take a page from LA Noire / Beyond Two Souls. Selling emotion is key to an engaging story, and sadly these characters are emotionless.
    GAMEPLAY: The environments in this game can be pretty vast and diverse, so there is a real sense of exploration. However, with dozens of "fetch quests" (many of which are issued to you even noticing, simply by picking up loot) the actions you take in the game don't feel meaningful, and thus, the quests aren't fun. It’s more of a list of things to do vs. things you’re interested in exploring. The combat system has some merit, but it’s ultimately a mess; it becomes very hard to keep track of who is doing what. On more than one occasion, I noticed that in the middle of a battle, one character was stuck behind on the edge of a cliff or on a rock- the AI was trying to rejoin my group but couldn’t. The "behavior" programming system (this allows you to automate character actions) falls very short of achieving what the gambit system in FF12 achieved, being a neutered version of what Origins used.
    There is a pointless inventory restriction on your characters, meaning you need to backtrack a lot to sell your valuables and free up inventory space for new loot. This adds no deeper strategy to the game, only the chore of backtracking.
    Technically, I’ve experienced a few hiccups. My game crashed repeatedly when I tried to respec one of my characters.

    Overall, this is a mediocre RPG with a generic, boring and bloated story, poor design choices, and semi-enjoyable gameplay mechanics.

    I wouldn’t recommend it, and honestly, it’ll probably be the last time I give EA / Bioware $60.    … Expand
  32. andrea_pietra
    Dec 23, 2014
    4
    Hurry up and save the world accompanied by a few weirdo companions that resemble wack packers from the Howard Stern Show including speech-impediment woman, a hairy dwarf with Mel Gibson's face, an effeminate elf who's more boring than Jeff the bore and egg-face no-features master-spy Leliana'Zorah nar Rayya in a game so deep that 5 out of 10 hairstyles for women are bald, featuringHurry up and save the world accompanied by a few weirdo companions that resemble wack packers from the Howard Stern Show including speech-impediment woman, a hairy dwarf with Mel Gibson's face, an effeminate elf who's more boring than Jeff the bore and egg-face no-features master-spy Leliana'Zorah nar Rayya in a game so deep that 5 out of 10 hairstyles for women are bald, featuring rehashed story and mechanics from most of your favorite games.

    In order to prevent the end of the world by the hand of little green floating demons who shoot tiny balls an ancient order called the inquisition(grey wardens) is restored with the mission to close all the rifts(oblivion gates) by exploring a map whose structure you'll be very familiar with, if you ever played Far Cry 3 or Tomb Raider, and drinking potions(estus flasks) that replenish at supply crates(bonfires) and killing enemies by swinging their weapons in the air in a similar fashion of any modern MMO.

    Have fun aligning plenty planetastrosomething constellation minigames and completing mindless side missions for no absolute reason and with no absolute challenge besides running towards the marker on your minimap until you forget whatever the hell you were supposed to do in the first place and thank the gods you torrented this game and didn't waste 60 bucks on it.    … Expand
  33. duhwayne
    Dec 23, 2014
    10
    I panned this game last time because it was unplayable on my system. They finally got the serious bugs out and most of the little glitches so now I can see how good it really is. Only played to level 16 so far but as much as I liked Origins this one is far better.

    Pros: deeper story, larger world, far more variety in locales and side quests, deeper and more interesting companions, in    I panned this game last time because it was unplayable on my system. They finally got the serious bugs out and most of the little glitches so now I can see how good it really is. Only played to level 16 so far but as much as I liked Origins this one is far better.

    Pros: deeper story, larger world, far more variety in locales and side quests, deeper and more interesting companions, in short everything is better.

    Cons: not many... still a couple of minor glitches in the user interface. On my system (a notebook) to keep it reliable I must run in low graphics mode or sometimes the dialog wheel doesn't show, it won't run in full screen mode reliably but windowed is just fine, sometimes slow to get going when changing locations on the map.

    Gets a 10 from me.    … Expand
  34. cihank1
    Dec 23, 2014
    0
    This game is utterly, absolutely, doubtlessly and irrevocably horrendous. I mean it. DA 2 was bad enough; but compared to this piece of crap, it's a masterpiece. DA:I is designed for consoles. I know that companies like EA make the majority of their profit from console users, so I get why they design games specifically for them. But there no excuse for it's PC version to be this useless. IThis game is utterly, absolutely, doubtlessly and irrevocably horrendous. I mean it. DA 2 was bad enough; but compared to this piece of crap, it's a masterpiece. DA:I is designed for consoles. I know that companies like EA make the majority of their profit from console users, so I get why they design games specifically for them. But there no excuse for it's PC version to be this useless. I can't overstate how disappointed I am. Menus, controls, graphics, gameplay... there is not a single saving grace in DA:I.

    DA:I is the perfect example of how money can buy you good reviews in the gaming industry. They must have spent a lot of dough in this regard. If you're PC user and a serious fan of RPG games, don't even consider buying this. I hate EA and Bioware. They ruined and amazing game with DA 2, and now they did it again. I hope you'll choke on those sacks full of money you make from naive consumers. Gods damn you.    … Expand
  35. PresCthulhu
    Dec 23, 2014
    10
    Last update after completing the game (and a major patch):

    Pros: - the writing is amazing - the environment looks great - the voice acting is extremely good - action looks and feels great - great atmosphere - plethora of interesting characters - multiple romance options - dumbed-down yet interesting character customization - really nice recurring things and imported key choices    Last update after completing the game (and a major patch):

    Pros:
    - the writing is amazing
    - the environment looks great
    - the voice acting is extremely good
    - action looks and feels great
    - great atmosphere
    - plethora of interesting characters
    - multiple romance options
    - dumbed-down yet interesting character customization
    - really nice recurring things and imported key choices from the previous games
    - sense of greatness
    - it has 100+ hours of content (with a single playthrough)
    - multiplayer is kind of simplistic, but oddly addictive
    - the world reflects to your choices (including your character pick)

    Cons:
    - some small polish is missing (small things like followers disappear after mounting and some odd animations)
    - HORRIBLE PC controls
    - tactical view is useless
    - the hair texture looks like something from 10 years ago
    - the armors look great, but they lack variety
    - STUPID fetch quests (although they are optional)
    - I personally disliked the war table mechanics (at least the way it was implemented)

    Overall I think the game is a very nice one. It is a really nice comeback, well done.    … Expand
  36. littleshieh
    Dec 23, 2014
    3
    average. so i should give it 5.
    it's nothing really "bad" imo.
    graphic is fine, the control is fine(for controller), the game play is ok, the storyline is acceptable, the feature is....name of BioWare i think? it's just average in every way. Which is ok. The main problem came from the strong feel of "playing a MMO ALONE", that bores me right after the main title "Dragon Age    average. so i should give it 5.
    it's nothing really "bad" imo.
    graphic is fine, the control is fine(for controller), the game play is ok, the storyline is acceptable, the feature is....name of BioWare i think?
    it's just average in every way. Which is ok.
    The main problem came from the strong feel of "playing a MMO ALONE", that bores me right after the main title "Dragon Age Inquisition."
    So i'm sorry, this game deserved a 3.    … Expand
  37. hierax
    Dec 22, 2014
    8
    DA:O is ok, its not the game EA hyped, but its not **** Nice graphics, nice sound. The world seems a bit static from time to time, not as living as in skyrim, but the fighting is fun and you can find interesting places everywhere, if you are up to search them. Little Details like hidden lookouts on top of some mountain made me smile. Im one of the guys who tries to jump up every mountain,DA:O is ok, its not the game EA hyped, but its not **** Nice graphics, nice sound. The world seems a bit static from time to time, not as living as in skyrim, but the fighting is fun and you can find interesting places everywhere, if you are up to search them. Little Details like hidden lookouts on top of some mountain made me smile. Im one of the guys who tries to jump up every mountain, and in this game you get rewarded for it, sometimes. Only the camera in the strategical view is a pain in the ass. I consider using a mod to be able to zoom out higher. The spells feel very powerful, the lightings/thunderclaps and explosions sound cool, its fun to cast spells. The sound of the swords and armors is nice too. I like the SP and would give it a 8/10, compared to skyrim with a 9,5/10.

    MP gets boring fast, the same few levels again and again. They say they are randomly generated every time, but that doesnt matter, the style is the same every time, you dont feel any difference. And there is no character customisation in MP, just trough the equipment. The given character models look ugly (in MP, in SP you can create your own). Most people use "just damage" skillsets, so you die at the Endboss if you didnt get a good tank and healer (barriercaster), sometimes there are 4 DD in a group, you can instaleave then. The Endbosses are the same every time. They dont look special or powerful or mighty, they hit very hard, and are a little bit bigger than normal enemies, nothing special. I would wish for random bosses at the end, or at least some tactics to be needed. MP is a 5/10 for me. I play it at PC, graphics at max, with a 7.1 system.

    So if you can get this for about 30€ or maybe 35$, its a good choice, but i wont buy it again for ~45€.

    SP 8/10
    MP 5/10
    Sound 9/10
    Graphics 9/10    … Expand
  38. Jetpil0t
    Dec 22, 2014
    5
    I really wanted to like this, I enjoyed DA:O and even DA:II (although to a lesser extent) however this game and all of its 90+ review scores has my mind blown. Perhaps it was simply the slew of terrible big budget games this year, but this game really let it go.

    I think if you compare this to the something like The Witcher 2 (which you obviously should), you will find that the    I really wanted to like this, I enjoyed DA:O and even DA:II (although to a lesser extent) however this game and all of its 90+ review scores has my mind blown. Perhaps it was simply the slew of terrible big budget games this year, but this game really let it go.

    I think if you compare this to the something like The Witcher 2 (which you obviously should), you will find that the controls, visual design, story and world design leave a lot to be desired. This game more closely resembles an MMO in the quest style, controls, level design, and combat scenarios than a high quality single player RPG. While the story is compelling, literally everything else about this game is a chore and significantly worse than previous Bioware titles.

    Controls are intended to have a weighty feel but end up more sluggish and disconnected, rendering combat more tedious than fun. Moving behind enemies and breaking from combat is painfully difficult and clumsy with the "tactical" mode being more of an unusable slap dash feature check than anything well crafted and useful. Quite simply the control system from movement, attacking, blocking to tactical positioning is poor, unresponsive and slow.

    I have played this with an Xbox controller and KB Mouse and while the controller in many ways feels more direct, the tactical camera, inventory management and so on are much worse. Really if you enjoyed the responsive combat, tactics and controls of The Witcher, this by comparison really feels no better than Guild Wars 2 (or similar). You cannot customize mouse controls or any Xbox gamepad controls along with a slew of other control oddities.

    Your character bumbles along over pebbles and stones, hopping up and down blocked by ankle height objects placed in the most awkward places, it screams of auto-generated horribleness. The world density is quite low with objects, supplies and enemies popping out of the map and re-spawning rather randomly. The simple act of looting anything apparently needs to take forever in this game and with loot everywhere it becomes one of the first problems you will notice. You can see that the environments are anything but hand crafted and once you explore any area you notice it is horribly bland, empty and overly similar from place to place.

    There is reasonable quest density but the quests involve more running from place to place than the multi-part, choice filled story driven side quests seen in (again) something like The Witcher or even Mass Effect. What we have here are mostly fetch quests the likes of which you have see in every MMO before. Enemies don't scale either, so regardless of difficulty if you attempt anywhere near moderate completion within an area, you will overleveled for most of the game. It really feels like they copy pasted half the quests for content, which leads to repetitive and simple quest design with no balance leaving you overleveled on anything other than the hardest difficulty. Difficulty again really comes down to leveling, the hardest difficulty really just means you can only battle enemies at your own level, dropping the difficulty allows you to challenge higher level enemies and finish the game without doing as much side content. There is no discernible difference to enemy design, strategy or character balancing. I finished the game on Hard, with 4 Warriors, no potions, no tactical camera, doing less than half the sidequests and failed to die once on my first playthrough.

    I mean the Witcher showed us that difficulty can open up new enemies, new behaviors in AI, even new bosses and require more use of magic, potions and strategy, here we have nothing more than health and damage increases with half of the in game mechanics being almost entirely unnecessary, it really blows my mind anyone would rate this a 90 or more.

    I think people on console hardly notice the painfully striking MMO type design blunders and balance issues, which is why PC people have appropriately nailed this game to the wall and for than than just the technical problems.

    So there are interesting design elements around the War Room and how the break up the world into smaller regions. While after some time this feels largely arbitrary and designed to hide world gating, loading and story progression, it's interesting and worth noting as a plus. The story is good, but it's an RPG, so it basically has to be. However the controls, balance, level design, quest design and technical problems that plague this game make it to strikingly average it is ridiculous.

    It's not a bad game, it's just really not a very good one. To that end I have no idea why everyone reviewed this so highly, perhaps as a console experience it's reasonable or perhaps only series fans were reviewing the material, but honestly I would take critic reviews with grain of salt.    … Expand
  39. fairusfarok
    Dec 22, 2014
    2
    Connection issues, Quests that are literally fetch this and that and doesn't contribute to the main story line, and also a paper thin character development. Such a let down from Bioware. If you want to play Dragon Age, stick to the first two. Dun waste your moolah on this one.
  40. quantesa
    Dec 22, 2014
    10
    Very amazing, highly enjoyed it - beyond belif - amazing, completely amazing, everyone should really try this game, I've been pestering about it a month now, re-play'd it 4 - 5 times, due to me having no life, and completed it 150 hours gameplay, it's amazing!
  41. Sajuuk
    Dec 22, 2014
    10
    This game is staggering in terms of content and possibilities. It's one of the richest games I've ever played.

    I have really, really enjoyed it. The controls were never a problem for me, and I really enjoyed doing sidequests too. It was an honestly pleasant experience for me.

    Looking forward to DLC and expansions!
  42. marc5477
    Dec 22, 2014
    5
    Overall, an average RPG. Not bad, but nothing great either. For the most part, the few nice upgrades are overshadowed by a slew of poor design decisions.

    First, the good. Large, open maps. It almost felt like an open world game when I was in the Hinterlands. Nothing like true open world games but I thought this was a good step forward. Good voice acting. Sure there are a few iffy    Overall, an average RPG. Not bad, but nothing great either. For the most part, the few nice upgrades are overshadowed by a slew of poor design decisions.

    First, the good. Large, open maps. It almost felt like an open world game when I was in the Hinterlands. Nothing like true open world games but I thought this was a good step forward.

    Good voice acting. Sure there are a few iffy moments but for the most part, the game is well voiced. Too bad the story was boring.

    The bad: Repetitiveness... there are not enough enemy types and even fewer combat options. There is no strategy in the game and it feels more like a hack and slash than a RPG. During my game, I found that 1 could beat the entire game spamming a single button (Spirit Blade). Playing as Cassandra was just as bad as I could beat anything with just 2 skills. It does not matter what difficulty you play on, combat is trivial.

    The Ugly: Horrendous AI. Unforgivable honestly. Enemies and companions get stuck in environments often. Sometimes, enemies that get hit don't react and just sit there. Companions act like idiots when left to their own devices and they almost never follow commands (such as hold position). Gone are options that you had in DA1 that allowed you to control AI behavior and instead you have exactly 4 behaviors total to adjust and 2 of them are just about when to use a health potion...

    Lastly, and I only add this for completeness, I hate the graphics. I am not a big graphics guy so i wont deduct points for it but I hate the ugly shiny film placed over objects. I actually think that Skyrim, without any mods, looks 10x better than this game despite this game being much smaller in scope. Again, not a big deal to me, but some people might care.

    Neutral: The story. The companions. The enemies. The combat. None of these things were very bad, but they are not worth complementing either. The story is tiring... the good guys turned bad, started an apocalypse but they eventually redeem themselves yadda yadda yadda. This would be fine if the characters were interesting but they are not. I did not care for any of the companions in this game nor the side characters and their dialog seemed long winded. I did not bother with any romances in this game because frankly, i did not like any of the characters. The enemy variety is very sparse. You will fight the same enemy hundreds of times. Combat is very repetitive because there are very few abilities to use. Not that it matters because the entire game can be beaten with 1 button on any difficulty (Spirit Blade once you get it). There is really no tactics in this game unlike previous DA games. You can just rush into anything and take them out easily as long as you have 1 character than can regenerate guard or cast barriers. You can also run away from anything if you want or you can shoot them from out of their range and they will never attack you... boring.    … Expand
  43. hir
    Dec 22, 2014
    0
    This section is for PC reviews.

    I wish people would stop coming in here, extolling the game and then give a 8/9/10 after revealing they are playing on one of the consuls.

    I think people who are coming here and giving the game a good rating after having played on another platform are younger players who don't really understand about the qualities that a genuine RPG should have.
  44. hoax7one
    Dec 22, 2014
    0
    I created a account here just for this game.

    I'm sure that this game is great but unfortunately it is also a nightmarish piece of bugged software. this game is not playable right now on PC! I can play randomly for 2, 10, 30 minutes, never played longer than 1h because it crashing all the time. So for 60euro game i got: > game that freezes all the time where i can ALT+TAB to close    I created a account here just for this game.

    I'm sure that this game is great but unfortunately it is also a nightmarish piece of bugged software.
    this game is not playable right now on PC!
    I can play randomly for 2, 10, 30 minutes, never played longer than 1h because it crashing all the time.
    So for 60euro game i got:
    > game that freezes all the time where i can ALT+TAB to close it.
    > game that is freezing my whole computer and I need to hard reset it.
    > DirectX errors all the time.
    > lately constant freezes with graphics driver not responding.

    And this is a GOTY award winner? EA and BIOWARE just rushed to release this game because they knew that they wouldn't win GOTY next year because of THE WITCHER 3!

    DO NOT BUY THIS GAME RIGHT NOW!!! Wait when it will be on sale and maybe then they will repair it with patches.    … Expand
  45. alexsch
    Dec 22, 2014
    8
    Great game itself but the PC version feels like a PS4 port. Takes zero advantage of keyboard/mouse or the raw power of a gaming PC. as an RPG it deserves a 10.
  46. nargs
    Dec 22, 2014
    1
    Really disappointing. I just could not play this this kind of port. Holding mouse button to change camera angle? Close combat fighting? TACTICAL view? really? Half of the play you have to fight camera. I love this how now they call "tactical view", but it is just awful. Go around with wasd? I have not even seen this kind of control. And you are just too zoomed in to see the whole battleReally disappointing. I just could not play this this kind of port. Holding mouse button to change camera angle? Close combat fighting? TACTICAL view? really? Half of the play you have to fight camera. I love this how now they call "tactical view", but it is just awful. Go around with wasd? I have not even seen this kind of control. And you are just too zoomed in to see the whole battle normally. I could just go on and on about how terrible is this port. I consider this as not playable.… Expand
  47. derpenstein
    Dec 22, 2014
    0
    This game has the WORST AI COMPANIONS in a videogame i have ever seen.

    Let me start by just saying that the AI can NOT in almost any case make it through a door after you. They are going to get stuck next to the door and get teleported after you once you made enough distance. In combat, as soon as you stop controlling them directly they will do everything they can to kill themselves    This game has the WORST AI COMPANIONS in a videogame i have ever seen.

    Let me start by just saying that the AI can NOT in almost any case make it through a door after you. They are going to get stuck next to the door and get teleported after you once you made enough distance.

    In combat, as soon as you stop controlling them directly they will do everything they can to kill themselves asap.

    All of the AI commands are worthless.

    Examples: You have 2 mages with a barrier spell enabled. They will BOTH cast it AT THE SAME TIME BEFORE COMBAT STARTS rendering one completely useless and the other one barely useful. This would have been an insanely easy fix if Barrier was cast one at a time once a character actually gets hit and not as soon as "combat starts" (i,e. weapons are drawn).

    Next: There is a 2H warrior ability called block and slash setting this ability to preferred will cause the warrior to stand idle in block stance for the entirety of the combat instead of using it whenever he is being attacked directly.

    Next: There is a tempest class ability called flask of fire that nullifies all cooldowns and causes all abilities to have no stamina cost at all allowing you to spam an ability over and over. I literally only had 1 other ability (long shot - set to "prefered") and after using flask of fire myself and switching to another character the AI DID NOT USE LONGSHOT more than ONCE.

    More: The AI cant handle the "interact" command at all. If you try to "interact" with anything and then switch to another character ( even when staying in tactical mode! ) the "interact" will immediately be cancled and the AI will go back to auto attacks. Which is **** because "interact" is used to revive in combat and overload rifts and a few other useful things.

    There are a lot, LOT more occasions on which the AI stupidity drove me to insanity but i'll just add one more:

    There is a cave in the storm coast which you can cross (2nd camp from the top - going north). If you try to cross this camp from the south entrance there is an area where the AI is not able to pass through. Instead they will get stuck running into a wall left of it.
    What makes this worse is that for some reason you cant even give move->hold position commands into the area behind it (even though its clearly meant to be passed through). If you try to nothing happens at all.
    I tried for 10 minutes straight to get my allies to hold position then move one of them further in manually and hold position in the first place it was possible after this area. If i did not use hold position command at any point in time the AI instantly went back to walking against the aforementioned wall. They even found the way back to it all by themselves.

    All of this while being assaulted by various mobs.

    But not even hold position command helped. After switching to the 3rd character, the first i moved ahead simply got teleported back even though there was barely any distance between the two and proceeded to walk straight into the wall all over again.
    I had to cross this particular cave by just running through with 1 guy letting the others die. Then get out of combat on the exit on the other side of the cave so my dead teammates got teleported to me and then go back into the cave from the north.

    Terribad!

    Add a short boring story, gay romance only, MMO quest design... and a lot of paid reviews.

    gg wp enjoy    … Expand
  48. purtusufu
    Dec 22, 2014
    0
    I wouldn't describe this game as a disappointment. My expectations for this game were that it would be a terrible mess. The game came out and it's a terrible mess. Good job Bioware/EA, you did not disappoint.
  49. zoot494
    Dec 22, 2014
    9
    Let me begin by saying I'm nowhere near a fanboy. I liked DA:O and hated DA2 and was never even planning on getting inquisition. I did and I have absolutely no regrets. I normally don't leave reviews (as you can tell this is my first review on metacritic) but I feel like everyone who left a negative review is just flat out mentally disabled.

    Honestly I've read the majority of the    Let me begin by saying I'm nowhere near a fanboy. I liked DA:O and hated DA2 and was never even planning on getting inquisition. I did and I have absolutely no regrets. I normally don't leave reviews (as you can tell this is my first review on metacritic) but I feel like everyone who left a negative review is just flat out mentally disabled.

    Honestly I've read the majority of the negative reviews and had to create an account just to say how stupid they all were. They complain about the controls and not there not being an auto attack. Please explain to me how the movement controls were crappy. WASD is the standard for all movement in any damn game, and they even included Q and E strafing. I have no idea how you would even implement click + move in a game where you *SHOULD* be constantly moving while attacking in order to maximize damage/strategic positioning. You complained about the tactical camera and then went on to describe how you were using it and you were using it COMPLETELY WRONG. Honestly I feel that's the only way to give this game a bad rating: you had no idea what the hell you were doing. The controls were fine and I was able to jump, strafe, and sneak up on my enemies when I needed to. Spam clicking? No idea what youre talking about there guys, you HOLD DOWN THE BUTTON. And to the people complaining about tab, youre no better. Tab is to lock onto a target, not to chose a target. You can click on the individual you want to target with your mouse. If you kill your target that you were aiming at with your mouse OMG CLICK TAB AND ITLL AUTO SELECT THE CLOSEST ENEMY TO YOU!! I honestly feel that the overwhelming majority of people who gave this game a negative review are simply confused, simple minded fools who didn't bother learning the controls, gameplay mechanics, or anything else of the sort before rating it. Sorry they didn't include a 20 hour tutorial for you on how to control your character. This is dragon age, it isn't meant for little kids.

    The combat actually required strategic thinking and using abilities in certain orders to achieve combos and coordinating with your AI characters to achieve even stronger ones. Bet half the negative reviewers didn't even know about this feature because they only spent 10 minutes playing.

    And then once again people complaining about AI controls and their short term memory... Oh god this was laughable. It's as if they didn't even go to the menu. You don't adjust your AI through the tactical camera, you go to their behaviors and change who they follow/attack/which skills they use and when.

    Not quite sure how you can say the menu was clunky, everything was extremely organized. Weapons in 1, and then split up into all the types of weapons, armors and their types in another, accessories and their types in another, upgrades in 1, and so on. I literally have no idea what the majority of people are complaining about. I really think they just didn't play this game because everything they are describing is them not playing the game it's supposed to be played. They are using the controls wrong, controlling the AI wrong, and flat out have no idea what they are doing.    … Expand
  50. Calcium
    Dec 21, 2014
    2
    First off, be aware that even in the user reviews there are several paid lackeys posting multiple 10/10 scores for this game. This http://www.metacritic.com/user/ChrisMattar is just one of many examples.

    I would also like to state that I am/was a huge Bioware & Dragon Age Series fan along with all the Elder Scrolls games. Back in the day, I was a modder for both DA:O and DA2. Despite    First off, be aware that even in the user reviews there are several paid lackeys posting multiple 10/10 scores for this game. This http://www.metacritic.com/user/ChrisMattar is just one of many examples.

    I would also like to state that I am/was a huge Bioware & Dragon Age Series fan along with all the Elder Scrolls games. Back in the day, I was a modder for both DA:O and DA2. Despite the bugs and repetitive areas in DA2, I found myself enjoying the game & storyline. However, I will point out that it was the community not Bioware who produced a viable import fix and gained access to a lot of valuable, immersive dialogue. Orgins, as I'm sure users' have stated, is a masterpiece. It may be buggy as hell, but it's still one of my favorite games of all time.

    Now onto my actual review.

    Pros

    - Breathtaking graphics (despite the fact eye candy is possibly the sole thing developers focused on)

    - I enjoyed the artistic Tarot cards used on the party selection screen. They changed throughout he game and were based on choices you made and how they affected your companions. Some (esp Varric's) were especially haunting - even moving.

    - They listened to fans regarding the involvement of Heroes from previous games and unique dialogue based on choices/romance from their former games in the series.

    - The tavern music. Touching, haunting, gorgeous.

    Cons

    - Repetitive, mind-numbing "quests." I don't feel particularly comfortable acknowledging these grinds as quests. These tasks remind me of grinding in MMOs for faction/raid gear etc. Except, you aren't playing online with your guild gabbing away in mumble/vent/teamspeak while grinding/crawling through a dungeon. You are alone running around static area after area listening to your inquisitor's footsteps. This type of experience composes the majority of the game. I'm not kidding.

    - My companions felt like 2-D cardboard cutouts - as did my inquisitor. Their see-through personalities and bland, un-creative (not to mention rare) banter made me wish I was playing my lone wanderer in Skyrim. That game had a ridiculous amount of quests & content yet Elder Scrolls didn't sacrifice quality for quantity. The endless fluff/filler "quests" feel like chores - not even the companion quests were spared. For instance, each follower has 2 personal quests. However, only one per follower actually contained story content. The rest were the same - fetch x of this y of that z of the other thing so on and so forth. They didn't even try with Vivienne - both of her quests are grindy and mmo like and her brief cut-scene is ... I can't even describe it but let's just say my 7 year old niece could put their creativity to shame.

    - PC controls. I refuse to even try a melee class. I found some decent tricks for my archer & mage but I can't imagine a warrior or dual wielding rogue build would be playable.

    - Jumping puzzles. Maybe it's less frustrating on console, but who in their right mind puts a jumping puzzle in a tactical, story based RPG?

    - We all know Bioware failed to patch numerous bugs in both former games. However, there were always ways for you to set up your parties' tactics to account for combat glitches. Even without user-generated fixes, it worked reasonably well. Some modders who were far more talented than myself published combat fixes and/or tweaks to the system that made it more enjoyable. Well, users no longer need to fret over followers failing to listen. Now we have a tactical game with no tactics. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't experienced it. Trust me, it makes no sense. You can't even set followers to aggressive or ranged so your squishy mages and archers will stand in front of a mob's great sword and pretend to tank or camp out in AOEs. You can't order followers to use x ability under y circumstances so they'll waste their stuns, barriers, stealth, etc on random enemies or an ally who already has a barrier. Then when you need said ability, well, too bad. Warriors can no longer be ordered to intercept enemies attacking your ranged followers. They have 2 options:
    1) mindlessly attack your ONE target
    2) stand next to your controlled character to *guard* him/her. In reality, the warrior just stands there being useless.

    - The "puzzles." First they aren't truly puzzles. They remind me of team-work exercises we had the kiddos do in 3rd grade. The most complex one I came across was "everyone light the fire at the same time." However, it took me 2 hours to complete this simplistic puzzle because the *HOLD* command is broken and followers randomly decide to run off and do their own thing.

    - This game confuses annoying for difficult. There are examples of frustrating, ridiculous scenarios across the board but I'll focus on the blatantly obvious ones. They have certain mobs (terrors esp) who repeatedly knock your party down. Normally, you would be able to adjust your party's tactics to account for this but, well, tactics were removed remember? Not to mention the fact – it doesn't really matter. The ability barely does any damage but “Terrors” are one of the most frequent mobs in the entire game and they will force you to lay there doing nothing over and over and over again. Sound like fun to you?

    That concludes my con list. The rest I'm not comfortable listing as either positive or negative because it depends on the audience. However, I have a difficult time picturing anyone enjoying this game who hasn't read the books and played through DA2 DLC. The entire game is based on content from the book series and that one DLC. For me, the fact I had so much background on characters alleviated the monotony. In conclusion, the game is... boring, uncreative, and I find my attention wandering constantly – and this is coming from someone who can tell you which NPCs are mangling elven pronunciation. It took a lot to drive me away.    … Expand
  51. condythug
    Dec 21, 2014
    0
    This game signifies the end of trust in the Dragon Age franchise and Bioware in general, especially after the spin that the developers put out that the game "is made for PCs". Lie of the year if I have ever heard of one. When you see 100% positive critic reviews then you know something smells since everyone knows that gaming critics/websites all are in the pocket of gaming companies andThis game signifies the end of trust in the Dragon Age franchise and Bioware in general, especially after the spin that the developers put out that the game "is made for PCs". Lie of the year if I have ever heard of one. When you see 100% positive critic reviews then you know something smells since everyone knows that gaming critics/websites all are in the pocket of gaming companies and they will never give a honest review; thus I have already long disregarded their reviews. Only user reviews are the ones you should trust since they are impartial and have nothing to gain.

    So to the game itself, it looks pretty and graphics are decent; but that's where the good parts end. The controls on the PC are terrible - you can't even move the mouse to the edge of the scree to rotate the view, and you have to right click on the ground everytime just to move somewhere. Attacking enemies with the controls is almost comical, no auto attacks, just wildly swinging the weapon and clicking mindlessly. This is not a RPG game; its more like a hack-and-slash action game.

    Dragon Age: Origins was one of the best real RPG games in the last decade and DA2 and DA:I are just money making machines for EA. Clearly Bioware has taken a new direction and strategy to focus on console games and dumbed down games to satisfy their bosses. Sad decline of Bioware from a top quality company to one that is now laughed around as an example of how a gaming company should NOT become.

    Anyway, in conclusion, don't waste your money on this game if u are playing it on PC. If you really want to try it, wait for prices to fall or try it in gaming cafes. You will save yourself a lot of money. Use it on really good RPG games and not this piece of trash.    … Expand
  52. imw
    Dec 21, 2014
    0
    First of all, sorry for my english.
    This is my first time to give my opinion about a game i hate so much.. Why? because i have high hopes for Dragon Age titles.. I love dragon age origins a lot, and wanted a sequel.. but this? This is a huge blow for me.
    In my opinion a video game must have a combination of enjoyable gameplay and a good story to keep me interested to play. I won't play    First of all, sorry for my english.
    This is my first time to give my opinion about a game i hate so much.. Why? because i have high hopes for Dragon Age titles.. I love dragon age origins a lot, and wanted a sequel.. but this? This is a huge blow for me.

    In my opinion a video game must have a combination of enjoyable gameplay and a good story to keep me interested to play. I won't play a game for just a story, because it's called a video game. If I want a story, I could just read a book or watch a movie..

    The gameplay evolved to nearly an action game, and the promised tactical view didn't help at all. Even the 1st game have much better tactical battle than this. And don't get me wrong, I also love action game... But, in DA:I, it feels much 'less' action then other games i played. It's clearly that Bioware want's a broader audience, but it didn't please both audience in my opinion. For action RPG i would play Dark Souls over this..

    And since the gameplay is horrible, i could't even play the game for more than 1 hour.. And the first impression of the game's story isn't superb either. DAO's first hour in the game is much better at pulling me into the game's world.

    I almost bought this game after reading some reviews at major sites.. But since it's not on steam, I delayed my purchase.. I'm lucky i've tried this game at my friend's place.. So, maybe the best thing EA/Bioware did to me is not distribute this game on steam. Thanks for DAO, and so long Bioware    … Expand
  53. Zhorge
    Dec 21, 2014
    8
    I wasn't going to buy another BioWare product after getting burned with the SWTOR, ME3 and DA2 fiascos, but my daughter talked me into it. I have been pleasantly surprised. It certainly has it's flaws and warts, which include:

    1, The campaign is stuffed full of MMORPG grind quests. 2. Too many generic FedEx quests. 3. Bad tactical/party controls. 4. The stupid ME dialog    I wasn't going to buy another BioWare product after getting burned with the SWTOR, ME3 and DA2 fiascos, but my daughter talked me into it. I have been pleasantly surprised. It certainly has it's flaws and warts, which include:

    1, The campaign is stuffed full of MMORPG grind quests.
    2. Too many generic FedEx quests.
    3. Bad tactical/party controls.
    4. The stupid ME dialog wheel where, all too frequently, what you say is a surprise to you because it doesn't even remotely match the option.
    5. The 'open world' isn't that open and is more like a bunch of really big rooms with artificial movement constraints rather than the openness of a Morrowind or Skyrim.
    6. The jumping controls and platforms are so bad that the minor jumping puzzles scattered about are nearly impossible.
    7. The inventory and save systems both suck.

    But the game, despite the flaws, has been very enjoyable. It's amazingly good looking on my computer (top of the line video) and it's been relatively bug and crash free for me, though it does crash hourly on my daughter's computer for reasons we don't understand.

    It can be a little lagish, despite my i7 processor, but nothing terrible, just the odd pause every now and then. But most of the time I get great frame-rates with no stuttering despite having the graphics turned way up.

    The world, which is really a bunch of big rooms, is still amazingly good looking and, hands down, beats every other CRPG I've played in looks. The best part was the ocean which is, simply put, the best rendered ocean in any game I've ever played. Ever. Regardless of genre. t's amazing and a far cry from the joke water of SWTOR some of their other titles.

    The main quest does a great job of tying in DA:O and DA2 into a uniform whole. Many of the non-FedEx side quests go well beyond 'mere-filler' are very interesting. The dialog, when it's not coming out of left-field, and NPCs are really well done. The crafting system is enjoyable and not overly tedious.

    My rating rating is 80/100 because of the MMO-grind elements and some gratuitous padding with FedEx quests.. My daughter, who isn't a driven completionist, gives it a 95/100 since she doesn't let herself get sucked into the MMO-like aspects..    … Expand
  54. amaldur
    Dec 21, 2014
    5
    The short version: Bioware has burned off all the goodwill it developed creating marvelous gaming experiences a decade ago.

    The Positives + The landscapes look good. Not great, but good. + The team at EA (I can't really call them Bioware any longer) clearly tried to address the complaints leveled against DA2. There are many zones with different backgrounds. The world feels large    The short version: Bioware has burned off all the goodwill it developed creating marvelous gaming experiences a decade ago.

    The Positives

    + The landscapes look good. Not great, but good.

    + The team at EA (I can't really call them Bioware any longer) clearly tried to address the complaints leveled against DA2. There are many zones with different backgrounds. The world feels large and contains many hours of game-play.

    + It was great to see some of my favorite characters return in DA:I.

    + The story ties up some loose ends and develops some open story lines.

    The Negatives

    + If I had to sum this game up in one sentence, I would say it takes exciting mechanics from other games and makes them dull. The perfect example of this is rifts. The MMO Rift used these to create variety in game-play, to encourage teamwork and to use as a vehicle for GM involvement. DA:I turns them into scripted encounters with no surprise or variety, thereby vitiating the very purpose of the mechanic. The war-table is another example. Unlike the rifts, though, the war table actually hurts the game by fragmenting the story.

    + The story is fragmented. Story is the essential element of any RPG game. Here, while there are some nice twists and emotional moments, the mechanics of the telling of the story interfere with the flow completely draining any interest. To me, the world seems to stop after I perform Story Task A. I then gather flowers, find stockpiles, fetch this or that for a while until I am level X, then I return to the war table to advance the story to Point B. It completely destroys immersion and impedes what could have been an interesting tale. It is a terrible, terrible mechanic.

    + MMO syndrome. I understand why MMOs contain meaningless fetch quests: there is no way that developers could possibly keep up with the demands of players who are online for ten hours a day month after month. Why are these quests littered throughout DA:I? This is a story-based, single-player RPG. Was it a lack of imagination or just the most expedient way to add hours of game-play, thereby addressing one of the complaints about DA2, without breaking a sweat. Either way, it's not good.

    + No review would be complete without addressing the woeful PC controls. They've been bashed to death so I won't go into detail but suffice it to say that Tactical Mode, walking to loot, combat movement and animation speed, and the needless simplification of the tactics menu make this game much, much less enjoyable than it could have been. These sorts of things show that EA doesn't really care about the game experience of it's players.

    + Lack of depth. Each of the NPCs looks interesting. They are of diverse races, backgrounds, outlooks. Super interesting, right? Well, no. Similar to the main story, all you get are one or two discrete instances of simple quests (kill this one group or one mob) and then a bit of dialogue. Done. The rest is just meaningless, sometimes story-inappropriate banter between characters as you walk. Really, there is not much there in terms of relationship.

    + Lack of enjoyable challenge. I was worried about playing at higher levels without a robust tactics command menu. I needn't have worried. The NPCs generally handle themselves. In fact, I can just start looting during fights often. Harder levels increase challenge but not the fun. The controls are largely responsible for this (see above).

    The fact that this was named Game of the Year says more about the year than the game. That reviewers rate this an 86 simply confuses me. Perhaps when it comes to AAA titles, 90+ means good, 80-89 means average and less than 80 means bad. That's the only way I can make sense of it.

    This is an average game made all the more depressing because you get the feeling that EA actually tried to make a good game. Perhaps this is the best they can do?    … Expand
  55. Dvarnrock
    Dec 21, 2014
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I've tried. I've really tried. I've read the reviews, I've watched some Youtube channels. I was hoping for the best beyond hope...
    But the very first scene have ruined it. Just smashed actually.

    Why? Ask yourself for a moment how did the Seeker and Leliana know that the mark can close the rift? Just... Who told them? Why did they think about it in a first place? And why, God why, did the Seeker say "You are lying!" but then all of a sudden changed her mind and set you free? And then she decided to get your to the place by herself... The Seeker... She commands soldiers of the Chantry! Why didn't she take along a squad of her men?

    The answer is simple... This game is just another one in the newest line of WOW products (films, games, books). One doesn't need to think while playing it. Just: "WOW! Look, I am enchained! WOW! Look, two mean looking women are coming at me! WOW! Look, they set me free! WOW! Look, there is the rift! WOW! Look, there are demons!... WOW! Look, they remember that there was the Inquisition once! WOW! Look, they make me their leader!"

    WOW! Look, the game of the year!    … Expand
  56. Kryptiic
    Dec 21, 2014
    10
    Easily the best game of 2014. SO much fun and even has an interesting story with important choices to make and tons of interesting characters to meet and make love to. This game is ABSURDLY massive and seemingly has a never ending stream of content. So many areas to explore, each having interesting places to go and each area being as large as some GTA games. I cannot get over how hugeEasily the best game of 2014. SO much fun and even has an interesting story with important choices to make and tons of interesting characters to meet and make love to. This game is ABSURDLY massive and seemingly has a never ending stream of content. So many areas to explore, each having interesting places to go and each area being as large as some GTA games. I cannot get over how huge this game really is. It feels like I will never finish the game.… Expand
  57. Dragor
    Dec 21, 2014
    9
    In my opinion this is the 2nd best dragon age game. The first one was the best total freedom for character development and what not. This is 2nd because character development is really restricted to 6 classes and no multi class. So you cant have a little magic with your sword swinging. But the story line is amazing the graphics are really good, the branches could have been more butIn my opinion this is the 2nd best dragon age game. The first one was the best total freedom for character development and what not. This is 2nd because character development is really restricted to 6 classes and no multi class. So you cant have a little magic with your sword swinging. But the story line is amazing the graphics are really good, the branches could have been more but the choices are really good what they have put it. if you need an rpg that is really good and with alot of hours to play get this one. If you want a true hack and slash game go with shadow of mordor.… Expand
  58. ici_chacal
    Dec 21, 2014
    5
    This game is so disapointing for me in terms of performance. This is so bad consol port that is almost not playable on PC. I hope they will fix it becouse now it makes me more problems than fun.
  59. Cloven
    Dec 21, 2014
    5
    I don't have the game - i've rated a '5' so it wont have any noticeable effect on the overall user score..

    After reading a lot of the reviews, i've noticed some things: Yes there are a lot of low scores 0-4, and it I guess a lot of people are reacting maybe too strongly to their personal experiences with the game. Then we have the reviews with the 10s Reviews with low scores    I don't have the game - i've rated a '5' so it wont have any noticeable effect on the overall user score..

    After reading a lot of the reviews, i've noticed some things:

    Yes there are a lot of low scores 0-4, and it I guess a lot of people are reacting maybe too strongly to their personal experiences with the game.

    Then we have the reviews with the 10s

    Reviews with low scores often go into great detail why they didn't like the game and usually make detailed pros/cons lists which I find useful.

    Many of the 10s reviews are very short and uninformative and very often focus on bashing people who gave a low score(basically useless 'info' to potential buyers), quite a few even admit they gave it a 10 to 'counter the low ratings' - don't you realize this makes you a hypocrite? just with a reverse bias. Many of these 'reviewers' also only have 1 review which makes me think about that Dragon Age 2 scandal...

    I know now I wont be buying this game until it has a massively reduced price - while I take very low scoring reviews with a big pinch of salt, I find it impossible to take seriously a review which gives a game a perfect 10/10 especially when there is no detailed explanation why.    … Expand
  60. husler
    Dec 21, 2014
    3
    I feel really sad about Dragon Age I. Horrible story line. side quest non related with main story. Why, Bioware make DA:I like this? Too many transformation from DAO till the game loss of originality of Dragon Age Series game. Combat system, control, dramatic movement, skill tree, fighting view, all it's nightmare for who really fan DA series. This game made not for Dragon Age SeriesI feel really sad about Dragon Age I. Horrible story line. side quest non related with main story. Why, Bioware make DA:I like this? Too many transformation from DAO till the game loss of originality of Dragon Age Series game. Combat system, control, dramatic movement, skill tree, fighting view, all it's nightmare for who really fan DA series. This game made not for Dragon Age Series Fan,it's looks like Skyrim version with 4 party controller. You really disappoint me Bioware!… Expand
  61. hunboy
    Dec 21, 2014
    10
    So you have problems with the controls and you give 0 point? you have problem with the hair, you give 0 points? This is ridiculous at best. Why are the casual, 10 year old kids even playing this game? It is unclear for me.

    I agree, the game has some minor flews, but let's be realistic, it deserves at least 8.5 points for the immense amount of content alone, let alone for the Bioware    So you have problems with the controls and you give 0 point? you have problem with the hair, you give 0 points? This is ridiculous at best. Why are the casual, 10 year old kids even playing this game? It is unclear for me.

    I agree, the game has some minor flews, but let's be realistic, it deserves at least 8.5 points for the immense amount of content alone, let alone for the Bioware level storytelling. My final verdict is around 9.-9,5 but I give 10 to somewhat even the score.    … Expand
  62. Cell1e
    Dec 21, 2014
    9
    For me this game is a 9. If it had to be at all moddable it would have got an instant 10.

    The problems I have with the game could have been fixed by mods and its such a shame they have locked out the modders. However it is a wonderful game with so much to experience it is surely worth a really good score. I love the storyline and the companions and the romances are wonderful, no real    For me this game is a 9. If it had to be at all moddable it would have got an instant 10.

    The problems I have with the game could have been fixed by mods and its such a shame they have locked out the modders.

    However it is a wonderful game with so much to experience it is surely worth a really good score. I love the storyline and the companions and the romances are wonderful, no real nut cases thank goodness! (apart from Sera and Blackwell, hehe)

    The armours are detailed and attractive but not enough designs-Bioware modders could have fixed that one for you.

    Not having a mirror of transformation is a shame, again modders Bioware?

    Hairstyles are dreadful!!! OMG hello??? Modder's would have fixed this one within hours of game release!

    The weapon designs are limited; as are schematics- Modder's could have sorted this.

    Storage is non existent in the whole beautiful castle/keep. Yes I'm saying it again...modder's could have helped with this.

    I love this game, its a fantastic effort and there is so much to love; graphics, happy ending with a hug from love interest (sigh oh you did so well there Bioware) interesting and fun quests, great crafting and gathering materials is really lovely in the beautiful open world environments.

    I have put in 200 hours and I'm hoping to have at least 2 more play-throughs yet to experience other romance arcs. You really get to know your companions in a total different way when you follow through the romances with them.

    I also think its a complete and utter shame people have scored this game so low. It really is worth a good score. There is so much to see and do.    … Expand
  63. SH1
    Dec 21, 2014
    6
    I am adding 4 points to my original score of 2 for great story. I still feel that there is too much grinding on the medium setting, and this detracts from the gaming experience because I can only enjoy it on "easy". I played it on a PS4 and did not experience any bugs.
  64. saletru
    Dec 21, 2014
    10
    This is the best game this year,the environments and writing are crazy good,side quests are good,the story is great...
    Of course the game has its flaws,but what game does not!?
    Inventory system is not the best,controls for pc are clunky but the game will have mods and the game overall is a beast!ps The biggest problem for me are locked fps at 30 in cutscenes. I cant believe how many bad    This is the best game this year,the environments and writing are crazy good,side quests are good,the story is great...
    Of course the game has its flaws,but what game does not!?
    Inventory system is not the best,controls for pc are clunky but the game will have mods and the game overall is a beast!ps The biggest problem for me are locked fps at 30 in cutscenes.
    I cant believe how many bad user reviews it has got,its just sad how people dont even gave it a chance and its funny that some people gave it a 0 out of 10,which is just crazy,its much better than origins!
    Graphics are amazing,but we all know what frostbite is capable of and they use the same vegetation engine that Avatar used called speedtree...
    Sound is amazing,when you hear your first dragon scream you will be amazed how real it sounds,music is top notch!
    Characters are great,every character has its own story and characteristics,but thats nothing new with bioware,they are beautifully written...
    Overall 10 out of 10!Its up there with the best rpgs ever made!    … Expand
  65. bohemond1944
    Dec 21, 2014
    0
    I have never been so disappointed with any game like DA:I. The game actually makes me concerned that people are following the evolution shown in the movie Idiocracy, because this is a completely dumbed down attempt at a single player RPG. Sure it's pretty, but it has no substance and actually destroys key elements that made DA:O and other Bioware RPGs so good, the leveling up/skillI have never been so disappointed with any game like DA:I. The game actually makes me concerned that people are following the evolution shown in the movie Idiocracy, because this is a completely dumbed down attempt at a single player RPG. Sure it's pretty, but it has no substance and actually destroys key elements that made DA:O and other Bioware RPGs so good, the leveling up/skill tree/crafting/ substitution of button mashing instead of tactical party management all seem aimed at a 12 year old audience. Absolute trash.… Expand
  66. chip3r
    Dec 20, 2014
    9
    I've been playing this game for two days so far and I'm very excited. I don't know why this game has so many low scores because obviously this game is not that bad. I didn't played a good modern rpg for a long time and dragon age feels soooo good. I can see a lot of work Bioware made to release this game. Nice graphics, nice music, A LOT of details in the game world, and I hope story willI've been playing this game for two days so far and I'm very excited. I don't know why this game has so many low scores because obviously this game is not that bad. I didn't played a good modern rpg for a long time and dragon age feels soooo good. I can see a lot of work Bioware made to release this game. Nice graphics, nice music, A LOT of details in the game world, and I hope story will be good too. Actions feels like a mix of Origins and Dragon Age 2 (which I liked too). 9/10 for me, hope this feeling will be with me till the end of the game. When I was a kid I didn't have access to so many games and I was so happy when some even mediacore game were released. Now you can sit on your chair, buy or download any game and then spill your bile in the comments. Why you have to be mad? It's just a game. Sorry for my English.… Expand
  67. clemente
    Dec 20, 2014
    3
    Only one word. Disappointment. No, two: disappointment and sadness. Sadness for what games have become in the last 10 years. Or maybe it's just me, getting older. And sadness for Bioware, may it rest in peace. This game is just an embarassing mess: impossible to play on pc, full of bugs, main story is a joke, side quests a drag. Epic, but an epic failure of the game. I only save theOnly one word. Disappointment. No, two: disappointment and sadness. Sadness for what games have become in the last 10 years. Or maybe it's just me, getting older. And sadness for Bioware, may it rest in peace. This game is just an embarassing mess: impossible to play on pc, full of bugs, main story is a joke, side quests a drag. Epic, but an epic failure of the game. I only save the artists and the designers, they really did a great job. But forget the rest.… Expand
  68. james2003
    Dec 20, 2014
    4
    What they have done here is piece the some of the best aspects of great games... and created a monstrosity. It's screams like Mass Effect in the world of Skyrim, which honestly leaves me a little unsure how to feel.

    Yet the worse thing about this game is the controls for the PC. Buttons all over the place, a Camera movement that was clearly designed for console D-pads only, and    What they have done here is piece the some of the best aspects of great games... and created a monstrosity. It's screams like Mass Effect in the world of Skyrim, which honestly leaves me a little unsure how to feel.

    Yet the worse thing about this game is the controls for the PC. Buttons all over the place, a Camera movement that was clearly designed for console D-pads only, and unintuitive controls. It's as if the game was developed by console elitist who have no idea what a mouse and keyboard looks like. They probably coded the whole thing through their xbox controller.

    There are some good points of this game, but you really have to struggle through at least the first half to appreciate it. The story is all right with some really good characters, a good mix of humour, and a step up on the naughty level from ME. The delivery of lines is painful and has no flow to it, which is linked to just bad timing. This makes the acting a horrid affair to watch and you may seriously consider stabbing out your eyes as relief during cut scenes.

    I played as an Archer and found the game practically auto aims for you stripping any challenge away. You struggle with PC controls with its hold right click to use a free aim camera and find yourself in a constant battle with overcorrection wobble.

    Then there are moments when the mouse suddenly does comes into play, such as looting the body, which leaves you searching the screen for the mouse cursor so you can right click and loot. I cannot begin to tell you how extremely annoy this is, but the moment you play you'll instantly understand why Bioware must hate PC players.

    NPC are actually quite proficient and end up making you look bad. Often battles range on while you quietly become the spectator and deal with any open rifts. Suddenly you realise that you are the NPC "the non-person character/unimportant character" and even though the story centres on you, you realise you're not there because you are talented you're there because you where given a gift by god. It must be what super models feel like...?

    The "Mass Effect" combat system seems to be a step back for Bioware in this case. Just poorly implemented and makes you scream in frustration, yearning for ME again. The whole game revolves around holding down the fire button, dispatching enemies, and then wobbling your way to the next group of baddies.    … Expand
  69. Rahelron
    Dec 20, 2014
    8
    I'm 30 hours in and I'm linking this game, even if it's not the masterpiece I hoped it was.

    I like the multi-region open world very much, I enjoy the crafting, the graphics and so far the story has been interesting. My 3 main gripes about it are: - Tactical combat is not tactical at all. Tactical camera is pretty much impossible to use and character abilities aimed to give you    I'm 30 hours in and I'm linking this game, even if it's not the masterpiece I hoped it was.

    I like the multi-region open world very much, I enjoy the crafting, the graphics and so far the story has been interesting.

    My 3 main gripes about it are:
    - Tactical combat is not tactical at all. Tactical camera is pretty much impossible to use and character abilities aimed to give you control over the battlefield are not that good either. I have never been able to funnel enemies in a meaningful way or use crowd control spells in order to take control of the battlefield.

    - Quest design is poor and ripped off from MMOs. The majority of the quests are exploration tasks aimed to force you to traverse the zones in order to find hidden locations or objects. Story missions are rare and pretty much absent if you go outside the main story-line. Even quests given by your companions involve collecting objects and little more. In 2014 players deserve better quest design.

    - Free roaming and exploration are in direct contrast with the story driven content. I want to complete the game, do all the quests and collect all the achievements, but doing that means also doing all the find-X-things quests that drive me away from the story. When I go back to the council room and I trigger the next story moment I usually find it difficult to remember what I was doing story wise.    … Expand
  70. Pugnares1
    Dec 20, 2014
    4
    If you were a fan of DA:O, KOTOR or ME, and you use a PC, you'll probably be disappointed with this game. I had really high hopes for it, and really wanted to enjoy it, but it is to games what the Phantom Menace was to movies.

    For: Graphics are pretty and the music suits the style and mood. That's probably about it. Against: Wow, where to start....(takes deep breath). DA:O was    If you were a fan of DA:O, KOTOR or ME, and you use a PC, you'll probably be disappointed with this game. I had really high hopes for it, and really wanted to enjoy it, but it is to games what the Phantom Menace was to movies.

    For: Graphics are pretty and the music suits the style and mood. That's probably about it.

    Against: Wow, where to start....(takes deep breath).

    DA:O was superb in both it's story line and AI tactical scripting. It was a game where the decisions I made had consequences on things that mattered. Nothing I have done in two playthroughs of Inquisition has mattered. All dialogue choices seem to have the same final result, If a companion approves or disapproves it doesn't matter. If I finish any of the kill X of Y quests it doesn't matter. If I run around planting flags like the game wants me to, it doesn't matter. Whatever I do on the tactical table doesn't matter. It's hours and hours of looting, grinding and farming for no real reason at all. Well, that's not terribly satisfying.

    Then there's the watered down group AI which makes combat pretty unenjoyable. Call me old fashioned, but I like my tanks tanking, my healer healing, and my dps dpsing. As I can't instruct my group on how they should behave, I can either micromanage them (oh joy !) or let them follow their innate, and bizarre decisionmaking. The tanks doesn't care if a rogue is bashing on my mage, the ranged dps choose to get close and personal, every fight becomes messy and chaotic.

    Which also leads to the combat controls. This game would appear to have been designed with consoles and button-mashing in mind. The abilities you have are fairly uninspired and are frequently on cool-down which means that auto-attack something you're doing regularly. Except....to auto attack you have to move your cursor around with the mob and mash the left button. I'm flummoxed why Bioware would have thought this was a good idea. Sure, I 'can' do this, but I'd just as much prefer to stick hot needles in my eyes. It pretty much means that any melee character is nigh on unusable and is a real deal breaker.

    All in all, I can't help but be disappointed with this game. If you're after a console button masher with a lot of things to click, you might like this. But if you're after a fresh, shiny new DA:O, I'm sad to say that it's step in the other direction.    … Expand
  71. Subflow22
    Dec 20, 2014
    1
    This is the first review I have written on this site. I just created my account for the sole purpose of writing this review. I'll keep is short and sweet with relevant info only. Taking into consideration that DA:O was one of my favorite games of all time, here is my opinion on DA:I:

    1.) This is not an RPG. It's an action game. The macro system that let you completely customize your    This is the first review I have written on this site. I just created my account for the sole purpose of writing this review. I'll keep is short and sweet with relevant info only. Taking into consideration that DA:O was one of my favorite games of all time, here is my opinion on DA:I:

    1.) This is not an RPG. It's an action game. The macro system that let you completely customize your followers behavior in combat has been ruined completely. It is not dumbed-down to 4 total options and the AI is awful. You can't even place your own stat points when you level, making me wonder why development even bother to make them visible. This is a thinly veiled insult to true RPG gamers that value character customization. This would make a good game for my 6 year old son on a console.

    2.) This is not a PC game. This is a console game. I'm not here to bash on console games or gamers - I play quite a few myself. I'm simply stating that the depth and breadth of granular control possible only with mouse and keyboard was not an important factor to the developers of this title. In fact, I find the game nearly unplayable with a mouse and keyboard. This is mostly due to the terrible camera controls and the lack of an auto-attack and mandatory animation with each (accidental) attack. Gamepad is mandatory.

    3.) The story line is, in my opinion, awful. Characters are terribly cliche without the quality back stories of previous DA characters. The use of the garrison and war room and such does nothing to add to the quality of the story or the perception of control. It's just clunky. I do not enjoy any of it. Choosing and such is a confusing and pointless exercise that I find painful and wish I could skip. The NPCs in the game are nothing more than cardboard cut-outs. Seriously, If you enjoyed Skyrim you will probably think this game is a joke.

    4.) This point is probably the most important. They hype and the reviews around this game highlight the ONLY thing that EA/Bioware have done perfectly in this game: Marketing. They spent a lot of money on this hype. Based on what I see in the Critic Reviews, I have to assume that they spent a lot of money on those reviews too. It is ALL lies. Bought and paid for. You have been deceived by a marketing campaign that intentionally lied to you to steal your money. Even here on this site! User Score 5.8? I've been reading through all the reviews here for hours, in utter fascination. So few positive reviews, but somehow the game still has a 5.8. The only thing I can think is that 0 reviews must not be counted?

    If DA:O set the mold, this is NOT a Dragon Age game at all. This is an impostor that stole from the world and the story. It almost feels like the REAL Bioware should pop up at any moment and and file a suit for theft of Intellectual Property or something..... This game is awful and I've never felt more cheated, lied to or robbed than I did in my first few hours with this title.

    Right now, I am going to scour the web for true Critical Reviewers that gave this title the score it deserves and I will use them moving forward as my sole source for future reviews.    … Expand
  72. cheshire137
    Dec 20, 2014
    9
    This is a very fun game, and beautiful. I'm coming from having played Origins and Dragon Age 2, as well as the Mass Effect series. Love the characters, love the fighting, love the environments. No more repeated maps! Huge world! Problems I had include the mounts being useless and stopping party banter, feeling like non-main questline quests didn't matter, and the ending is weak.
  73. order
    Dec 20, 2014
    0
    It's sad for pc gamers in this current age, so many great franchised titles are being focus developed for under powered gaming devices, when comparing to the hardware available in the gaming industry. Dragon Age: Inquisition for a console gamer is a good game. Although, take this title on the pc it turns into a pile of **** the main issue is the controls, yes i can plug a controller in andIt's sad for pc gamers in this current age, so many great franchised titles are being focus developed for under powered gaming devices, when comparing to the hardware available in the gaming industry. Dragon Age: Inquisition for a console gamer is a good game. Although, take this title on the pc it turns into a pile of **** the main issue is the controls, yes i can plug a controller in and play it, but then that's not the point. A game which was explained by the devs to be focused for pc gamers is a pile of **** with horrid camera angles.… Expand
  74. Monkfish
    Dec 19, 2014
    9
    I cannot put into words how amazing this game is. I couldn't really get into the first two, the second in particular but the world of DragonAge: Inquisition sucked me in big time.

    First of all it looks stunning on PC and performance is excellent 40+ FPS everyone on ultra+ on an R9 270. The voice acting is superb and the lip sync is excellent. Each character you meet is colourful and    I cannot put into words how amazing this game is. I couldn't really get into the first two, the second in particular but the world of DragonAge: Inquisition sucked me in big time.

    First of all it looks stunning on PC and performance is excellent 40+ FPS everyone on ultra+ on an R9 270.

    The voice acting is superb and the lip sync is excellent.
    Each character you meet is colourful and interesting.
    There are hundreds of quests to do and many are very interesting and highly intricate.
    There's lots to see and collect. You will constantly get side-tracked into doing other things because there's just so much!
    The world design is absolutely stunning. Honestly it left me stunned at how beautiful some areas are. There's also a lot of diversity in the locations, from vast deserts and burried ruins, to huge rolling hills and forest to stormy coasts and rocky hills.
    The story is superb and offers many different and important choices along the way.
    The game is highly polished, there are so many little details that I couldn't even write them all in this review but if you play it and pay attention to things in the game you will know. It's these little details that make the game.
    The music and sound effects are above exceptional.
    Armour and equipment crafting is simple yet very diverse and intriguing. The look and colour of crafted equipment even looks different depending on the material you use! If you use blue velvet your equipment is going to have blue velvet on it! It's very well done.
    There are no bugs I've noticed in over 100 hours of play time. Except for minor graphical issues like NPCs walking on thin air, but they go away promptly.

    To give you an idea about how good this game is, I played it for 30 hours and only finished Chapter 1! I then promptly made a new character just so I could play Chapter 1 all over again! I've never ever done anything like that in a game before. That just shows how fantastical this game is.    … Expand
  75. primarch1
    Dec 19, 2014
    2
    I won't rehash the myriad of well documented issues this game has on the PC. Suffice to say its a bad console port and a simplistic button mashing game with no tactical depth whatsoever. It does look pretty though. But looking pretty can't hide the shallow lackluster gameplay.

    At least the return policy enabled me to uninstall and get a refund. I'd me much more angry if I had actually    I won't rehash the myriad of well documented issues this game has on the PC. Suffice to say its a bad console port and a simplistic button mashing game with no tactical depth whatsoever. It does look pretty though. But looking pretty can't hide the shallow lackluster gameplay.

    At least the return policy enabled me to uninstall and get a refund. I'd me much more angry if I had actually lost money on this poor excuse of a game.

    Ultimately, If you like tactical RPG's and remember DAO fondly do yourself a favor and avoid this game.    … Expand
  76. inoxtomas
    Dec 19, 2014
    1
    first review, (forgive my English, it's not my mother language)

    this game is really too boring, seems like an MMO single player

    collect 10 of these, kill 7 of that, and go on..story is 'ok' nothing special, world is big, true but full of useless thing to do..

    combat is clunky to the hell..don't buy..if u want an rpg buy divinity instead of this crap..
  77. Dessembrae
    Dec 19, 2014
    4
    I wanted the story and depth of DA:O with the visceral and intense combat of DA2.
    I got neither.
    But, on the plus side, DA:I has something new to offer. The new AI is leaps and bounds ahead of both DA:O and DA2 in terms of godawful idiocy. One could almost believe that it's human. And that it hates you. And your family. All in all, if you liked Dragon Age Origins or Dragon Age 2 (I    I wanted the story and depth of DA:O with the visceral and intense combat of DA2.
    I got neither.

    But, on the plus side, DA:I has something new to offer. The new AI is leaps and bounds ahead of both DA:O and DA2 in terms of godawful idiocy. One could almost believe that it's human. And that it hates you. And your family.

    All in all, if you liked Dragon Age Origins or Dragon Age 2 (I liked both), then do not play this game.

    Summary
    -Combat is terrible, mechanics are really really clunky, bugged, slow, and impractical. Expect to get pushed back by auto-attacking your enemy so that your next auto-attack misses from the distance. Expect to get stuck on a pebble. Expect to miss your opponent because you tripped him and you can't reach him when he's lying down.
    -Story is impersonal. At no point do you feel drawn into your character and immersed.
    -Conversation options feel fairly limited, and unlike the two previous games, I frequently felt that my desired path through the dialogue was unavailable. Prepare to be religious at worst, reverent at best.

    -Dumbed down, and then dumbed down some more. For those who enjoyed the combo system of DA:O, and then sort of could appreciate the team combo-setup system of DA2, this new version is terrible. The new AI system (that you aren't allowed to customize anymore) is so damn terrible that a pidgeon would offer superior tactical choices.
    -Ugly people. For some reason, Bioware decided that everyone should be ugly. No more hotties (male or female), now it's ugly for everyone. (Note that this one is pretty damn subjective.)
    -Why the hell are Qunari talking about transexual lifechoices? What in the nine hells does this have to do with Dragon Age? Take your ideological agendas elsewhere you douchenozzles. I seriously recommend you switch your lead writer. (I think he/she would be happier in HR anyhoo.)    … Expand
  78. Windoze
    Dec 19, 2014
    0
    The most awkwardly forced instances of inclusion I have ever seen in a game.

    Now that that's out of the way, the story in this game is horrendous. Quite literally horrendous. The gameplay is the complete opposite of smooth, and the animations are something from a 2003 F2P Asian MMORPG; Now that that's out of the way. Why in the world would bioware force homosexuality into a game.    The most awkwardly forced instances of inclusion I have ever seen in a game.

    Now that that's out of the way, the story in this game is horrendous. Quite literally horrendous. The gameplay is the complete opposite of smooth, and the animations are something from a 2003 F2P Asian MMORPG;

    Now that that's out of the way. Why in the world would bioware force homosexuality into a game. It's despicable. This game isn't worth a squat. It's actually a disgusting excuse for a game.    … Expand
  79. SenshudoTV
    Dec 19, 2014
    9
    Overall, Dragon Age Inquisition is a very welcome return to form for Bioware. Graphical issues aside, it is a massive game that has huge replay value for any RPG fan and should keep you busy for countless hours between its single player story and new multiplayer campaign.
  80. AlexSeven
    Dec 19, 2014
    3
    I couldnt continue after about 5 hours of playing DAI. I looked forward to a deep and awesome RPG with excellent combat and exploration. All i got was a story and nothing else. Let me explain what i mean.

    First thing i noticed was that DAI has no strafe (side stepping) and it made me confused since its a mechanic that is in 99% of all games on PC. Without it you cant smoothly navigate    I couldnt continue after about 5 hours of playing DAI. I looked forward to a deep and awesome RPG with excellent combat and exploration. All i got was a story and nothing else. Let me explain what i mean.

    First thing i noticed was that DAI has no strafe (side stepping) and it made me confused since its a mechanic that is in 99% of all games on PC. Without it you cant smoothly navigate around objects and in combat. Without it you have to constantly turn your whole body. This might not be the biggest issue when just running around, although it is very annoying since strafing makes it so much better, but when it comes to combat there is a real issue with this. When you fight an enemy and another one comes on your side you cant just strafe sideways to not get hit by the one on your side. You have to TURN away from the enemies in order to move which will leave your back open for abuse, and so you take a hit or two in your back as you turn away from the fight just to reposition yourself to get away from the second attacker. Amazingly stupid and can only be explained with that DAI is a console game since they often dont have strafe. On PC this makes no sense whatsover since combat is massively crappier without it.

    The second issue with combat is that none of the characters can not move while fighting. This is the next big mistake Bioware made. Combat is seriously lacking in smoothness and skillful feeling which is something that SHOULD be in RPG's. Especially action RPG's like this. This means that when you for example fight with 2H weapons you move slow and you keep stopping as you hit while the enemies are moving around. Super annoying and plain boring. For some reason you also move much slower then you hold your weapon in your hand compared to when its on your back... Like the weapon got heavier for some unrealistic reason when its in your hands. 50kg does not magically turn into 200kg depending on if its on your back or front of the body. So the result is that combat feels slow and clunky. Clunky because you cant strafe. Only turn your whole body all the time you want to move sideways. And the result as mentioned above is that you get hit when you shouldnt be.

    Another thing about combat is that you dont really notice when you kill enemies. Bioware didnt do what most developers do and make that last kill-hit be felt and heared. No louder sound or some visuals when enemies die but instead just their tiny health bar that you often cant see if the enemy is dead or if its super tiny bit of health left. It makes it feel very unsatisfying when fighting. It also has you very often beating on a dead enemy in vain when you could have moved on and dealt with the rest of them. Just another annoyance to combat.

    Wjhen it comes to exploring - there is no exploring in this game. The game is big, true, but for some reason Bioware wants to cater to the least hardcore players (maybe mothers and grandmothers?) and flat out mark EVERYTHING on your map. Plus on the ground you have large blue glowing pillars showing you where to go. So you dont have to think at all when moving in the world. Just see the minimap or large map for markers and run there. When you have line of sight to the point you need to go to you see glowing pillars marking it and you see them from a far. On top of this you also have a button to press to find loot/plants/ore/anything useful around you without having to actually look and explore. So while you move you spam this button constantly and if there is a chest or a plant etc nearby it will make a sound and highlight the object (plus have a ping in the minimap). So no exploring whatsoever except for looking at the scenery. Again, no idea who was lead designer here, but that person shouldnt work on RPG's. Childrens games perhaps, but not epic RPG's. The hand holding meter is off the chart.

    The last thing regarding annoyances is that objects do not fade to invisible when they get between you and the camera. Good luck fighting in forests (which you do often). Trees will take up the whole screen and you see nothing while fighting or looking for things. Amazing that developers played the game and said "yep, this is great. Cant see crap but who cares".

    So finally, the hand holding, bad exploration and the slow/clunky movement/combat mechanics in DAI destroys that true epic RPG feeling of being fighting heroes out on grand quests exploring lands and secrets. It just feels like a casual console hand holding fest with bad annoying mechanics thrown in. The story im sure is good. The graphics and sounds are great plus the crafting is nice. However, if Bioware just went more towards their first Dragon Age (Origins) and expanded on that, this would be epic. Sadly Dragon Age inquisition isnt it. Casuals who play very little will perhaps be happy, but those that want epic adventures with great combat will be disapointed.    … Expand
  81. Krypto_Dogg
    Dec 19, 2014
    3
    PC controls are fine. Play with a controller.

    Warning: Bad dialog, terrible, childish writing. It's almost like they're trying to get the Nintendo demographic with this one. Naugthy little kids who want to have homosexual relationships that'll make them giggle in-game. I've made my character homosexual in Mass Effect, but from the onset here, even before the game has really started to    PC controls are fine. Play with a controller.

    Warning: Bad dialog, terrible, childish writing. It's almost like they're trying to get the Nintendo demographic with this one. Naugthy little kids who want to have homosexual relationships that'll make them giggle in-game. I've made my character homosexual in Mass Effect, but from the onset here, even before the game has really started to develop, it seems obvious who they're making out to be love interests and it's obvious whether they want them to be gay, straight, or bisexual. Lastly, the writing really is truly terrible. Dragon Age Origin's writing and dialog were boring, but not this bad. Not sure I've ever played a game with writing this bad and I've been gaming since Atari and Vectrex.

    I'll update this with only a slightly more mature review after about 20-30 hours of gameplay. Right now, it's a recommendation to save your money. Angry Joe and the lot of them have been paid off. Trust me, I don't blame them. You're a small time gamer who just wanted to vent and make friends. He meant to stay honest, but if he could make $50,000 a year just doing a few corrupt reviews a year, the marketing departments for EA, Ubisoft, Activision or whoever can save a little money and Joe doesn't have to worry about starving. Maybe he'll just do paid reviews for a living. Buy a house. Unfortunately that means he's no longer the people's champ.

    Final Edit: I woke up yesterday around 6 and gave myself until noon to find something interesting about the game. That's more than enough time. Instead, time just poured by without even so much as an interesting quest or bit of dialog. So I'm done.

    I still disagree there is anything wrong with the action, menus, or anything. Technically the game is fine and it's fairly obvious this is the game that was intended to be released. It's polished how they wanted it. It's an MMO, but a single player one but lacking the charm of how Bethesda does it. This game in no way seems to be related to competing with the Witcher other than enhanced graphics and larger world. This is an online MMO competitor/Skyrim competitor. It could be considered a Diablo 3 competitor if only the online component were allowed for 100% of the game, with single player only required for party banter and a side quest or two. As it stands, it's just really boring in pretty much every way. You could say mediocre mainly because nothing is essentially broken.    … Expand
  82. Vilquar
    Dec 19, 2014
    3
    This game screams MMO, quests are boring and bland, npcs do not care in the least about you, and the armor looks like garbage until higher levels. Combat is ok honestly, not wow but ok. Dialogues make me want to stab someone in the eye, you feel like a total errand-boy for any peasant you have displeasure of meeting. I do not understand what's with DA approach to early game armors and howThis game screams MMO, quests are boring and bland, npcs do not care in the least about you, and the armor looks like garbage until higher levels. Combat is ok honestly, not wow but ok. Dialogues make me want to stab someone in the eye, you feel like a total errand-boy for any peasant you have displeasure of meeting. I do not understand what's with DA approach to early game armors and how pathetic they look. Just because it's low level doesn't mean it has to be an eyesore, just don't make it as flashy. I don't even want to comment on disgusting headgear, not really a surprise there too. Typical AAA game where all the budget went into cut-scenes, and romance rather than an actual gameplay. Would be 4/10 if it at least was on steam, but nope better make it as obscure as possible - Publisher's logic.… Expand
  83. volmmer
    Dec 19, 2014
    1
    Made an account here just to warn others. DO NOT BUY this game. It is broken.
    SLI rig with two 980's. Flickering textures, and completely unplayable unless you want an epileptic fit. Yes you can turn SLI off and this works, but then the frames drop to below acceptable (2560*1600). And why should I do this, when I have two gfx cards? Unfortunately no refunds, so money wasted, and Bioware /    Made an account here just to warn others. DO NOT BUY this game. It is broken.
    SLI rig with two 980's. Flickering textures, and completely unplayable unless you want an epileptic fit. Yes you can turn SLI off and this works, but then the frames drop to below acceptable (2560*1600). And why should I do this, when I have two gfx cards? Unfortunately no refunds, so money wasted, and Bioware / EA as usual do not give a crap, but how can they ignore the score distribution above? Next time I'll check reviews on Metacritic first before buying.    … Expand
  84. hopefulgamer
    Dec 19, 2014
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is a good game, but it is not a great game. It has better graphics than its predecessors, but that's about it. The combat, sadly, has little depth. I remember doing combos all the time in DA 2 with my mage and my party warriors, but there are very few combos in this game. There is no blood magic and a mage has very few satisfying skills and almost no auras. I had to pause the game a lot when I played DA 2 and think about the combat strategy, but here there is no thinking involved and I have never paused the game even once, apart from targeting skills, and was just killed by a dragon once on normal mode. Is that a good thing? You decide. Also, I don't like any of the female characters in this DA. I loved Morrigan. And I miss the Mabari bloodhound. Still, nice maps and it has a more open world than the games before it 6.5/10… Expand
  85. pt122781
    Dec 19, 2014
    3
    Any one who gives this game less than a 9 does not know games. Sorry something is wrong with you along with the other critics. By far this is in my top 10 favorite games of all time. When u can't put a game down even after not even being close to the end and keeps you engaged for hours, it's a great game. Fantastic job Bioware, one of my favorite companies due to the Mass Effect seriesAny one who gives this game less than a 9 does not know games. Sorry something is wrong with you along with the other critics. By far this is in my top 10 favorite games of all time. When u can't put a game down even after not even being close to the end and keeps you engaged for hours, it's a great game. Fantastic job Bioware, one of my favorite companies due to the Mass Effect series too. This game is right up there with Skyrim. Great exploration, great combat, story great, and unreal graphics. I never played the other 2 games, but I didn't have to, because it doesn't matter. This game is unreal!!… Expand
  86. Oldsoldier
    Dec 18, 2014
    0
    Dragon Age Origins (the first) was a great game, I don't understand why they've changed the gameplay. Even here in Inquisition sequel, the combat system is boooooring and very worse, in tactical view you can see the 5% of battle land, characters jump... why? What's the problem with DAO system? It work, it make the game one of the best, why change it ? Biowere have lost the way with Dragon Age.
  87. Cidny
    Dec 18, 2014
    3
    BUGGY! Crashes like crazy, CRAPPY controls, horribad combat! Frame rate problems (Playing on a 760 GTX mind you). very boring story line...dry dry dry. The romance...pff. I romanced Blackwall. To avoid spoilers, it was bland. In Dragon Age Origins, when you and Alistar had a romance - it was great and connection abound. This romance felt more like..."hi how are you. *kiss* lets killBUGGY! Crashes like crazy, CRAPPY controls, horribad combat! Frame rate problems (Playing on a 760 GTX mind you). very boring story line...dry dry dry. The romance...pff. I romanced Blackwall. To avoid spoilers, it was bland. In Dragon Age Origins, when you and Alistar had a romance - it was great and connection abound. This romance felt more like..."hi how are you. *kiss* lets kill things."
    "Go away."
    "I love you."
    "Go away."
    "I love you." *DOES *IT*
    "oops"
    I love you anyways. *hugs on balcony*
    -end game-
    It feels more like a TASK than an actual game. I chugged out 150+ hours somehow. I tried to return it 10 hours in, but was past the 7 day grace period (I wasn't able to play it until after my vacation.)

    Too much walking around...you get punished for using a horse (aka - no idle conversation between your group). And SO MUCH TIME goes in between without doing anything.

    I made a new character in hopes Solas will be a better romance....*sigh* But I'm already bored. (In the Hinterlands again getting the horse master to join the Inquisition.) I hope for DLC to make this game better. Right now, it's like a very watered down version of Skryim. I really want to love this game...but I can't.

    +1 for graphics when it's not crashing. - 9 Not a real open world game. +1 for goats being tossed at castles.    … Expand
  88. ninesthousand
    Dec 18, 2014
    7
    Its a good game no doubt about it but not without its flaws. I will list the negatives first then describe the positives.

    As with any Origin game I expected to have some initial hassle with the client, even more so when I realized through the Task Manager that Origin somehow manages to take up more active memory on my computer while running then Steam does. I love the Dragon Age series    Its a good game no doubt about it but not without its flaws. I will list the negatives first then describe the positives.

    As with any Origin game I expected to have some initial hassle with the client, even more so when I realized through the Task Manager that Origin somehow manages to take up more active memory on my computer while running then Steam does. I love the Dragon Age series but despise Origins game client. I have not yet experimented with Offline mode so I don't even know if you can play the game offline. I notice that everytime I boot up Dragon Age it loads Origin and briefly a process called "EA Activation" or something like that, half the time the process crashes. I can see the reliance on this form of DRM as being a problem for some people.

    Secondly, this isn't a game you can really play on a laptop, not that many would expect to but I currently run it on a mid to high end gaming laptop and still have some issues even on the lowest settings. I noticed in the Nvidia Graphics Manager program I can turn down the resolution scale but if I do this has the curious effect of making the program unable to start. It could have something to do with Windows 8.1 but either way this game is not optimized all that well. It also tends to crash alot on startup but when you get into the actual game which for me has about a 50% chance then it usually wont crash. I have experienced about 3 crashes in-game out of the 25 hours I put into it so far.

    My last and fairly minor complaint is that some times the game can get dull and samey but it usually lasts for as long as you make it or not at all. To give an example many of the minor quests are usually fetch quests and make you feel like you are playing an MMO, granted you can generally only go for the bigger ones or more interesting quests but I feel that those who like to 100% games like this will find themselves grinding a great deal on this stuff. Even with that the combat is fairly enjoyable and they have done a good job of spicing things up with all the skills yet simplifying the Dragon Age formula the original had which has its ups and downs. I never felt bored to tears to the point I wanted to stop playing which is more then I can say for some other games of note. *cough Witcher *cough

    The good in this game generally drowns out the bad, even with some performance issues it looks gorgeous and the detail on characters are fantastic. The open world aspect seems endless and expansive, albeit not without some invisible barriers here and there but there is plenty to do and alot to run across. The story is slow to start but once you get involved its one of the best I've ever played so far in open world RPGs. The combat itself is very good and fluid once you grasp it. I will recommend this game at 60 dollars but only barely and those who have an issue with EA and DRM might wait til its either cheaper or a cracked version is available if and when that ever happens. (I say that in good conscience because I despise EA and for good reason.) But when it works its a really fun game.    … Expand
  89. Whadafug
    Dec 18, 2014
    6
    If you are a fan of Bioware's old RPGs you will likely feel that Dragon Age Inquisition is a stark drop in quality from a studio that prides itself on delivering complex RPG experiences drenched in well-written story experiences where the path the narrative takes is as much an element of the game as the contents of your inventory.

    The harsh truth about Dragon Age Inquisition is that it    If you are a fan of Bioware's old RPGs you will likely feel that Dragon Age Inquisition is a stark drop in quality from a studio that prides itself on delivering complex RPG experiences drenched in well-written story experiences where the path the narrative takes is as much an element of the game as the contents of your inventory.

    The harsh truth about Dragon Age Inquisition is that it tries very hard to appeal to two superficially similar but actually quite distinct groups of gamers...

    On one hand, we have a classic single player RPG experience based on the classics of the genre, most of which came out of Bioware of old. Dragon Age Inquisition attempts to build on those games and deliver something bigger, better, grittier but by doing so merely opens up huge chinks in its armour. Gone are the days where every line of dialogue spoken by your character was a choice you made. Instead, ala the Mass Effect games, players choose a "general feeling" over a specific dialogue choice, with the dialogue options being written to summarise several minutes worth of voice acting from multiple characters. This takes a huge amount of investment out of the game, and often you find yourself regretting certain dialogue choices purely because your character says something your character - in your mind - should never say. Of course the USP being thrown around by Bioware here is that, and whilst the quality may have taken somewhat of a dive towards the bottom of a very, very, very deep mid-ocean trench somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, there is much, much more sitting around listening to poorly written characters arm-chair philosophise about the morality of blowing up an entire town to save the world from an unstoppable army of the undead. Of course, in that scenario there really is no philosophising to be done; when faced with a demonstrably overwhelming soldiers of unkillable zombies and skeletons that would promptly massacre the entire world if given any degree of quarter, the plight of a small town with a handful of poor little villagers is invariably going to fall on deaf ears. Indeed, it is perhaps ironic that the player - who in previous games happily murdered hundreds if not thousands of innocent bystanders through a combination of inaction, ignorance, arrogance, and many other ances - would care or consider this issue as any other than a minor concern.

    Instead, we want gear. We want power. We want to cast giant fireballs out of our faces when we look angry at another monsters on the screen. Of course, we're not allowed to do that. We're allowed to use one of a handful of poorly designed spells that try to hide how poorly designed they are by being novel plays, abstraction if you will, on spells that already existed. In other words, the entire combat system is poorly conceived and poorly implemented, and whilst it does sometimes make for an entertaining few minutes it generally feels clunky, slow-paced, and boring. This is a combination of their being almost no depth to it whatsoever, and it clearly being based on the combat system from World of Warcraft.

    And that's the main problem I have with Dragon Age: Inquisition: it FEELS like it's an MMO. The game is huge. Indeed, it'll take you more time to complete DA: I, even when speed running, than it did to complete Origins and Dragon Age 2 combined. This isn't achieved through depth or meaning however, and instead is achieved by, and for the first time ever in a major single player RPG, making you unlock the next part of the story with a currency called "power". Instead of allowing you to move at your own pace, Bioware make sure that after each major plot event you have to grind power to unlock the next major plot event. At first, this isn't too offensive and you find yourself moving through content quite quickly... but as you progress further and further through the game, Bioware wants more and more power out of you. It is an irrelevant system that has no meaning on the actual game world - NPCs do not "react" to your power as it builds up - and it is quite clearly there to make you play the game at the pace Bioware wants you to play it not because you'll have more fun and just because... well... they say so. Arrogance to the max, if you ask me.

    And that's why I can't of sound mind give this game any more than a 6. It's a pretty good MMO, but there are no other players. It could have been a great single player RPG, but there's too much of an MMO vibe going on for you to really feel immersed. The story is lacklustre, with a preening **** for a main bad guy that is probably the worst villain to come out of Bioware in their entire history making games. Indeed, Dragon Age Inquisition is yet another road marker on Bioware's confidently constructed path to obsoletion.

    If Bioware wish to win back any credibility in the next generation, they're going to have to do something truly special. Personally I think the glory days of the Canadian game maker are long over.    … Expand
  90. jvmcnk
    Dec 18, 2014
    6
    Great game, I played like 30 hours. Some issues with loading times, tactical camera a little buggy and some crashes without error prompt. Huge areas, nice combat (+ or less like origins), wonderful exploration and nice loot system (it would be nice an auto-loot, but for me is fine). So why a 6/10, because when I started I was hopping to have romance relationships with anything that movesGreat game, I played like 30 hours. Some issues with loading times, tactical camera a little buggy and some crashes without error prompt. Huge areas, nice combat (+ or less like origins), wonderful exploration and nice loot system (it would be nice an auto-loot, but for me is fine). So why a 6/10, because when I started I was hopping to have romance relationships with anything that moves (even the dark one), but no I got fu..ing corridor in romance options. I mean the non linear exploration is not just for physical spaces is also for the relationship you forge with the npcs. Damn you Bioware, you ruin another title.… Expand
  91. Boglwe
    Dec 17, 2014
    3
    EA just keeps laying it on people and most people accept it; fascinating. I read all the bad reviews and all the good. The good reviews for this game must be by people whom are new to the gaming world, not playing on a PC, or simple minded (sorry). There are so many bad things with this game that it baffles me that peeps are actually enjoying this; Mobs disappear, graphics stutter, lessEA just keeps laying it on people and most people accept it; fascinating. I read all the bad reviews and all the good. The good reviews for this game must be by people whom are new to the gaming world, not playing on a PC, or simple minded (sorry). There are so many bad things with this game that it baffles me that peeps are actually enjoying this; Mobs disappear, graphics stutter, less then 30fps frequently on my gtx980, combat is silly, and poor character creation.
    I own many, many games dating all the way back to boxed version of Kings quest, The Dig, and UO. I have watched EA's steady march to greed before content since the mid 90's with the entire debacle of Ultima 9 and the treatment of Lord British. I am a gamer with a bit of extra cash sometimes so I do mind giving a company who distributed such a classic as U7 and Bards tale (original) the chance to make things good. Sooooo, after all the zero score user reviews, the high scoring critic reviews, my curiosity was peeked; could EA be handing out monies to critics, or are there that many EA haters out there that are bashing a game they never played? So, I bought the game, downloaded, starting playing via in home streaming through steamos.
    Many of the bad reviews spoke of awkward controls via mouse/keyboard. So I used my ps4 controller with my steamos; works great just like a console game should (note I said console not PC); that's my first point for the good. 2nd point pretty combat graphics for makes. 3rd is the fact that the game is refundable via Origin. That is really the only positives I found in this game. Sorry folks but it's true.
    I will not refund this game because I am Soooo curious if EA is going to patch all the problems away or is this it? I gotta know how bad a company can get, it is just so much fun watching it happen.    … Expand
  92. MrCommonSense
    Dec 17, 2014
    5
    Don't get me wrong, I actually LIKE this game but it should NOT have been released in it's current state. The game is broken and ugly and the devs should be ashamed of themselves for letting this broken thing hit the market.

    The GOOD: Easy to learn/Use controls that allow you to drop right into the game without any real learning curve. Rather extensive crafting capabilities that    Don't get me wrong, I actually LIKE this game but it should NOT have been released in it's current state. The game is broken and ugly and the devs should be ashamed of themselves for letting this broken thing hit the market.

    The GOOD:
    Easy to learn/Use controls that allow you to drop right into the game without any real learning curve.

    Rather extensive crafting capabilities that allow you to forge weapons and armor better than anything you will be able to buy or find.

    A pretty well thought out story with many deep and well written characters.

    The addition of mounts adds a new way to explore the maps although many may prefer to hoof it.

    The BAD:
    Remember the beautiful teasers that showed rich vivid colors smooth flawless textures and seamless gameplay that bioware claimed was on the consoles? That was a lie. Those graphics came from high end specialty gaming Pc's used to develop videogames.

    I own this game for the 360 and literally ALL of the games item/weapon/enviroment/character and armor textures are either missing or are broken,(Character models will usually load in after a while but they are still ugly and your facial hair floats off of your skin) Some weapon attachments actually float beside your head instead of fitting on your weapon! There are NUMEROUS stutter bugs during several key dialog moments that tell the story of your friends and allies that render them inaudible sometimes nothing is said at all and then you are asked by the game to make a tough decision based on the information that you weren't even told, Other times the conversation will just freeze completely.

    There are sometimes random lag spikes and frame rate drops for no apparent reason as well. Sometimes the game will reset your settings for no reason while other times NPC traders and quest givers will outright just not talk to you. Many times the game will actually stop responding at random and it won't fix itself until you restart your entire system.

    Another beef I have with this game is the fact that nearly all of the traders do not level up with you! They have the same crappy gear from the time you start till the time you beat the game and you will literally just visit them to sell crap because the stuff you get from killing enemies doing quests and crafting is literally better than anything they ever have, which is a stupid thing to do in an RPG.

    A-lot of the side quests you come across while exploring areas are nothing but cheap filler content with no substance at all and often times the theme of them is recycled from one quest to the next and they are really just pointless and boring.

    The combat basically boils down to you sitting there holding down the trigger to attack while periodically pressing buttons to use abilities, While this may not seem so bad at first it quickly loses it's appeal when you realize that the game has over 70 hours worth of game play to shrug though including side quests, A more open ended hack and slash combat system would have been a better choice in my opinion.

    Perhaps worst of all is the fact that the import game feature absolutely DOES. NOT. WORK. When creating a new character the import character icon pops up for a brief moment only to vanish right before your eyes. The two games you dutifully played through hoping you've made the right choices were completely pointless.

    IN CONCLUSION:
    This game WAS supposed to be an epic RPG but as usually these scumbag AAA game companies gave a big **** you!" to their customers by releasing an ugly and broken game that will leave you painfully aware of just how little that bioware cares about about you as a customer. Until this game is EXTENSIVELY patched, DO NOT BUY IT.    … Expand
  93. jmcmike
    Dec 17, 2014
    8
    OK, why all the hate? I finally created a metacritic account to leave some feedback. I am 10 hours in (really 8 I guess with a re-roll) and I don't get all the hate for this game.

    Is it DAO? No, it's not. The controls are definitely not PC first but they're not horrible, certainly not worth a "0" rating by any stretch. From reading some of the hate reviews here you would think that    OK, why all the hate? I finally created a metacritic account to leave some feedback. I am 10 hours in (really 8 I guess with a re-roll) and I don't get all the hate for this game.

    Is it DAO? No, it's not. The controls are definitely not PC first but they're not horrible, certainly not worth a "0" rating by any stretch. From reading some of the hate reviews here you would think that the tactical view is useless and that you're forced to play it like a click fest. Not true.

    List of common complaints with rebuttal:

    Claim: The tactical view stays centered on your character
    False - You can move the camera freely. Look at the key mappings or take 2 minutes to Google it for crying out loud! You can move with WSQE and even better by holding shift and moving your mouse! Sure it's not mouse/screen boundary movement but give me a break! You're a PC gamer and can't handle having to press a key to move the camera?

    Claim: You have to hold a button to auto-attack
    False - In tactical view (you know, the one where you claim you can't move the camera) your controlled character will happily auto attack without holding any keys and will move to the target to continue auto-attacking.

    Claim: Characters ignore orders
    False* - At least not that I have seen. When in tactical view, I can command characters to take specific actions and they do it.

    The only combat complaint I have so far is the limited zoom out distance and collision in tactical view. little annoying but totally learnable. Once I figured out how to use the tactical view as the devs intended it I have been blasting through fights on hard (or whatever the level is below Nightmare)

    That's all for now. I'll update my review (if I can?) after playing some more.    … Expand
  94. ChrisMattar
    Dec 17, 2014
    10
    The absolute perfect game in every way, story music visual gameplay, epicness. just breathtaking and memorable. The kind of game you can play for years and years, and that will leave you with fond memories. Thank the stars , finally a giant has arrived!
  95. mimetic
    Dec 17, 2014
    6
    100 hours logged and unfortunately a mediocre game wrapped in nice graphics.
    It's an ok game, but nothing like the rosy story told by the reviewers.
    I would give it a 3/10 if I were judging how well it delivered on the dev's promises. Give it half a year and hope they have patched out the most offending issues and don't get your hopes up high and you may actually get a decent    100 hours logged and unfortunately a mediocre game wrapped in nice graphics.
    It's an ok game, but nothing like the rosy story told by the reviewers.
    I would give it a 3/10 if I were judging how well it delivered on the dev's promises.

    Give it half a year and hope they have patched out the most offending issues and don't get your hopes up high and you may actually get a decent experience

    A good deal of people seems to encounter bugs but I have been mostly spared except for a few instances of origin crashing during some of the important cut-scenes and then insisting on killing the game.

    To sum it up
    The control of your character is clunky, as are the menus and the inventory.
    The tactical camera is next to useless and so is the AI governing your party members.
    The world has about zero persistence, with enemies popping out of thin air two seconds after your killed the previous spawn. Very much a mmo-drop-farming style world.
    The crafting and enchantment system is a chore to navigate and filled with crap items and blueprints.
    The inventory is very limited and cycling through your companions to check their gear is slow and greatly lacking in organization and general feeling of overview.

    The story itself feels bland and your choices mostly unimportant with some very frustrating now-someone-from-your-party-has-to-die-even-if-you-aced-the-mission cut-scenes.
    Recruiting the party somehow has none of the build a team feeling that the mass effect trilogy excelled at and the personal missions are mostly plain fetch quests.

    The dialogue that is supposed to be a big part of the game is very lacking. The biggest problem is that it can be difficult to judge which of the choices will be the sneering insult and which will be the supportive one.    … Expand
  96. Incanatrix
    Dec 17, 2014
    0
    Typical EA quality, no surprises. I load up the game for the first time, and bam: poor optimization with low FPS despite having a triple SLI 680 set-up, using the correct driver intended for the game, flickering effects on bushes and trees, etc. I don't purchase a game to mess around with the settings and google search fixes, I just expect the game to work. This is why I never touchTypical EA quality, no surprises. I load up the game for the first time, and bam: poor optimization with low FPS despite having a triple SLI 680 set-up, using the correct driver intended for the game, flickering effects on bushes and trees, etc. I don't purchase a game to mess around with the settings and google search fixes, I just expect the game to work. This is why I never touch EA/Ubisoft games.

    On the plus side, the one thing that Origin has going for it is the "great game guarantee". Refunded this piece of trash in a matter of 1 hour.    … Expand
  97. ratimir
    Dec 17, 2014
    0
    I had to register on metacritic solely for this review.
    Why? Because this game is a crappy mess, and a huge, huge disappointment.
    This is not RPG !!! This is MMORPG single player hack and slash. What is MMORPG single player hack and slash? It is something that every, truly fan of RPG would hate. What else ? This is MMORPG single player hack and slash with broken combat system, broken PC    I had to register on metacritic solely for this review.
    Why? Because this game is a crappy mess, and a huge, huge disappointment.
    This is not RPG !!! This is MMORPG single player hack and slash. What is MMORPG single player hack and slash? It is something that every, truly fan of RPG would hate.
    What else ? This is MMORPG single player hack and slash with broken combat system, broken PC controls, boring story line, fake advertised open world ect...just all in all terrible gameplay...

    Bioware, I wish you are remembered for the great games from the past like SW:KOTOR, ME and DA:O.
    So, please, do to all the fans a favor and don't make any more RPG games.
    Goodbye Bioware    … Expand
  98. belze
    Dec 17, 2014
    2
    I miss good old DA that was reall game not this.

    Awfull combat that doesnt even reqiure to think. just use one guy and let rest of your team do whatever they want.

    Where are heallers ? Support auras ? this game is so riped. Combat camera is awfull

    just anoter game with great name and awfull everything.
  99. Cloud981
    Dec 17, 2014
    10
    I will say frankly. Given that I have a weakness for Bioware games, i would say that my opinion is irrelevant,but objectively speaking,this game is absolutely fantastic. The story, voice acting, graphics, combat animations, free roaming, it's all on top level. There is no shallowness in this game and after 15-20h i felt i didn't even scratch the surface. It has couple of bugs,butI will say frankly. Given that I have a weakness for Bioware games, i would say that my opinion is irrelevant,but objectively speaking,this game is absolutely fantastic. The story, voice acting, graphics, combat animations, free roaming, it's all on top level. There is no shallowness in this game and after 15-20h i felt i didn't even scratch the surface. It has couple of bugs,but nevertheless it's a gem that will last for ages for a true RPG fans.… Expand
  100. endresults
    Dec 16, 2014
    2
    If you dare choose a human, Bioware will literally call your character privileged before the first cutscene. The first cutscenes introduce you to 'emotional' responses, where your character does more empathizing than info gathering and chatting, and it is garbage since the robot animations can't express true emotion and both of the voice actors for males are trash.

    This is a Bioware    If you dare choose a human, Bioware will literally call your character privileged before the first cutscene. The first cutscenes introduce you to 'emotional' responses, where your character does more empathizing than info gathering and chatting, and it is garbage since the robot animations can't express true emotion and both of the voice actors for males are trash.

    This is a Bioware game in name only. Thanks for the demo, China.    … Expand
Page:

Awards & Rankings

16
#16 Best PC Game of 2014
1
#1 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
1
#1 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 45 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 40 out of 45
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 45
  3. Negative: 0 out of 45
  1. Hyper Magazine
    Feb 9, 2015
    90
    Best Dragon Age so far, hands down. Pity about the naff writing. [Issue#257, p.51]
    Read full review
  2. GameOver.gr
    Jan 22, 2015
    100
    The masters over at Bioware have done it again. This epic journey into the world of Thedas will steal more than 100 hours of your time, hours so full of superb gaming that you'll never forget them.
    Read full review
  3. Eurogamer Portugal
    Jan 14, 2015
    80
    Despite numerous shortcomings, the new BioWare project is undoubtedly worth your attention. One of the best RPGs of 2014.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »