Zesty Deep Cuts: Dragon Age Inquisition

“we’re all depressed here at zesty aroma”

~Stairmaster

Got Dragon Age Inquisition on day one on impulse. Never played a Dragon Age game before, so why did this appeal to me? I’m not sure, friends, could’ve been a few things. Could’ve been Assassin’s Creed: Pirate Adventure was a fool’s purchase and all the sea shanties in the world can’t change the Ass Creed series into something I enjoy. Could’ve been Srol’s been awful happy about Dragon Age 2 recently and I caught that hype. Could’ve been my recent experiences as a Dungeon Master got me reachin’ out for anything similar for a little creative inspiration. Could’ve been a few things, but it doesn’t matter what since we’re here now. Maybe that’s why I’m not a student of history.

So we got some dragons, alright, some type of age – okay, I see that. I think I know what I’m getting into here. Of course I’m picking to play as a Wizard. Press that start button and-

Well, I suppose we don’t have a start button anymore. Call up Bob Dylan and let him know the times are a-changin’. Not sure why they had to go and get rid of the start button, you know, I found a certain consistent reliability in it. Now we got “Options” and a nameless touch pad.

I suppose Charles Darwin would be telling me start buttons disappearing is just the way of things, assuming he was still here to tell, and yeah I suppose I can understand and respect the cosmic evolution of it but I just miss that start button. Especially when the title screen of a game tells me to “Press ‘Options’ to Begin”. What are we doing here?

So I press Options to begin, and choose to be a human wizard, instantly sort of wish I chose a dwarf instead, and we get started running through some type of hell with neon spiders chasing me and it’s somewhat weird because I ain’t trying to be chased by neon spiders you know.

That is to say, the game starts quickly. Throwing you into a decisive moment in history instead of, say, throwing you into the shoes of some farmer or errand boy. The game is free of the boring introductions and tutorials of RPG’s past (like Secret of Mana – remember that? All in the village for like two hours just picking acorns or whatever) and instead engages you from its point of inception.

Yo kio insert a picture of the beginning of Secret of Mana here. Take the photo yourself though, I don’t want to be taking someone else’s Secret of Mana photograph. That would be bad form.

Being a Bioware game, there’s lots of dialogue, lots of reply options to choose from. The core gameplay is a team based real time battle system that is actually really fun and engaging. You can have a party of up to four, they seem to be competently directed by the AI but you can also pause the action and go into an overhead strategy view to get steady plotting.  Playing as a Wizard is a blast. All casting spells on enemies. All bustin’ shots from your staff. All staff shots having effects and such. Be a Wizard.

I mentioned earlier this is my first Dragon Age game, but I don’t feel whatsoever lost in the plot or lore of things. I did a little wiki reading ahead of time but even that might’ve been unnecessary. Each of the Dragon Age games has you playing as a different character anyways, so this isn’t like jumping into the third Mass Effect or anything like that. If you just know a few pieces about the world Dragon Age takes place in you should be good to go.

The lore is actually pretty engaging. It’s a world I want to learn more about, I’m happily exploring around with a sense of wonder wanting to learn everything I can about the land of Thedas- and that’s a crucial part of a good fantasy game.

I just ran into a dragon for the first time last night. I was exploring, came out of a chasm and – bam – a dragon! The game is full of rewarding explorative moments like that, and the dragon steady whooped my ass. This isn’t like Skyrim with its weak ass dragons ass flailing around like half a chicken at the chicken store.

Speaking of Skyrim, this game can’t help but remind me of it. It has a lot of the best parts of Skyrim, and fixed a lot of the wrong parts. For example, scaling. Skyrim had all of the world’s enemies scale, so no matter if you were level 2 or level 40 fighting a skeleton would be about the same exact level of fight. That’s a horrible thing, makes any character development or progress feel ultimately meaningless. To contrast this, think about Pokemon. Your first time walking down the road, each pigeon you fought was an actual struggle. Come back to that same road later in the game and you’re smacking them pigeons right out of the sky. You know that you have grown and progressed, that you’ve become stronger, and it makes the game feel more like a hero’s story than a mobius strip of fighting the same damn skeleton over and over. Dragon Age: Inquisition doesn’t scale, so that dragon that just whooped my ass better enjoy it’s time before I come back and deep fry myself a turkey. Turkey being the dragon.

Dragon Age: Inquisition feels like a beautiful cross between Mass Effect and Skyrim, and it also reminds me of the CRPGs I used to play all those years ago. The environments are all beautiful and varied. The parties seem like good buddies. It’s Bioware so I guess people are going to bone at some point… Tell you the truth I’m only about seven hours into the game, but dang I want to play it. It’s a game I want to play. I could be watching a South Park and thinking to myself, “Dang would I rather be playing that new Dragon Age right about now”.

This seems like a template Bioware will keep using. I feel if the next Mass Effect were to absorb the beautiful open-world elements involved in this game it would certainly be the best Mass Effect of the series.

So, yes, I would just about recommend the hell out of Dragon Age: Inquisition to anyone that enjoyed Skyrim or any previous Bioware entry. It’s a game bursting at the seems with content, without ever falling into the drudgery of a boring grind. It’s a wonderful game and you should play it. It’s certain better than Assassin Pirate Creed: Battle of the Templars Adventure. Dang why did I even buy that.

Keep on Chooglin’