Dragon Age II

The Best Dragon Age

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It has been a pretty wild ride for me and Dragon Age Inquisition. I remember when it initially released I had a pretty negative reaction to it, not in the least part because I ran into some significant technical difficulties. The negative opinion might have also been brought on by the fact that I had an awful lot of things on my plate. Warlords of Draenor was ramping up and that was an expansion I absolutely was serious about raiding in, as well as the fact that we were still very much actively raiding in Final Fantasy XIV as well. The combination of all of these left a pretty sour taste in my mouth, but I think a bit part of the experience was the fact that narratively it set me on a path of playing someone I considered to be the bad guys of Dragon Age 2.

As such it might come as somewhat of a surprise when I now tell you that after finishing Dragon Age Inquisition over the weekend, that I am pretty certain that it is now my favorite in the series. This game does more for the overarching cosmology of the setting that any of the previous games. It answers so many questions that were left hanging as well as creation all new mysteries to leave us waiting a fourth outing. Additionally to bring up a point raised on the podcast this weekend, Dragon Age Inquisition shows you a world worth saving. Ferelden during the blight was a miserable place, and Kirkwall similarly seemed to be horrible place as well. It isn’t so much that Orlais is that much better but you do get to see that the outdoor world of Thedas truly is breathtaking.

The real charm of Dragon Age Inquistion and the thing that ultimately won me over to its side… are the characters. In every other Bioware game there are always going to be one or two characters that by the end of the game I hate with passion. My friends have had to listen to my rants about these characters for years. In Dragon Age Inquisition there isn’t a single character that I did not come to love in the end. They all evolve over the course of the missions and the two of you grow together so that in the end you can look back on your time spent together fondly. I could not have said the same in those early hours with this game, but after over a hundred hours spent on this one play through I regret that the journey is over.

One of the more interesting things about Inquisition is that it has given me a new found respect for Dragon Age 2. The only problem is that now I cannot view my adventures in Kirkwall as anything other than the opening story arc of the Inquisition story. It makes me want to go back and play my way through it again because the events of Kirkwall play so directly into the events of the Templar and Mage war that I feel like knowing where it is going will give me a better appreciate of that story. I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 when I first played it, but it is a more cloistered experience than Origin or Inquisition. It is telling a smaller tale and as such it doesn’t feel like you had quite the same epic sweeping adventure. That said if you never played the second game I would absolutely suggest it as “required reading” for inquisition, because there will be plot points that probably land a little hollow. There wasn’t really a direct continuation of the story in Origins, but it feels like Inquisition takes place moments after the events of the second game.

So there we have it. The fifth time playing this game absolutely was the charm. I am looking forward to the next outing so much and I am hoping that maybe just maybe we see it before the end of the year. However given the lack of details and the still very early state the Game Awards Teaser appeared to be… I fully expect it to be a 2022 release. After experiencing the main story and DLC content I can say without a doubt that I am happiest with the way that Inquisition wraps things up. As such it is bumping Dragon Age Origins out of the way for my “favorite Dragon Age game” slot. Unfortunately this also bumps down Dragon Age 2 a rung, because it is still an overall worse experience than the first game but still one very much worth playing.

While I am apparently on this redemption arc for Bioware games kick, I am trying the OTHER title that I have never successfully made it thorugh. KOTOR and KOTOR2 originally released on the Xbox and I did not get to play either of them until the eventual Windows releases came out slightly afterwards. I loved Knights of the Old Republic when I played it in late 2003 and was absolutely rabid for a sequel. So when KOTOR2 The Sith Lords released in early 2005, I made every attempt to play it but encounter so many bugs that ultimately halted that experience. Similarly when it was finally released again through Steam in 2012 I gave it another attempt… but still largely found it to be a buggy mess. So here we are nine years later and an intricate series of third party patches applied… and things seem to mostly be going fairly smoothly.

It is a MUCH slower gaming experience than the more recent Bioware titles that I am used to. However I am starting to get into the swing of things. This is an era when this sort of third person RPG experience was not a “solved problem”. Interesting thing of note… sometimes Tam and I discuss when exactly mouse controls flipped so that what was inverted Y is now standard Y. Apparently it was sometime around the release of this game, because I ultimately had to flip the Y axis in order to get a control scheme that was more comfortable overall. The other interesting thing of note is that this exists in a world before “Quest Tracking” really existed and as such I find it interesting how there are no real waypointing going on directing you towards your objectives. I guess it was a different time in gaming, but I am getting used to it and hopefully can make it through the experience this time.

Now I am curious. Do you have any games that you bounced off and would like to return to? Drop me a line below. Also feel free to contest my proclaiming Dragon Age Inquisition the best Dragon Age game.

Changing Perspective

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Sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy a specific game. I noticed this quite a bit when we were doing the AggroChat game club. I am very much a victim to my whims and as a result when doing the game club titles, they almost felt like homework and as such I rarely enjoyed the experience going into them with that mindset. Similarly occasionally it takes me being in the right head space to finally be able to sink into a narrative game experience and enjoy it. Over the last few days I have been spending time in Dragon Age Inquisition, and this game and I have a fairly tattered past. Based on my calculations this is my fifth attempt to play this title since it released a little over six years ago.

One thing you need to know is that Dragon Age Origins is pretty much my ideal set up for a game of that sort. You get indoctrinated into this warrior caste with a mission to stand against the coming darkness, and while the game takes some twists and turns the core plot largely stays the same. You are the only hope this world has and the power to save it rests in your hands and it is up to you to gather the resources in order to make that final stand. It had an interesting cast of characters and did Dwarves better than any other game had up to that point. I have replayed this entire experience so many times over the years since it released back in 2009. I even had the weird experience of tanking for a raid made up of a lot of the writers back during the early days of World of Warcraft.

Dragon Age 2 was a significant departure from the formula presented by the first game. Instead of choosing your own character you were placed in control of a male or female character named Hawke, much in the same style as Shepard with Mass Effect. I more or less was fine with surrendering control over the character because Hawke was not super dissimilar from the sorts of characters that I would create on my own. It told a much more focused story set around the city of Kirkwall, and the narrative point of view was being told by Varric one of your companions who was being interrogated by an agent of the Inquisition known as the Seeker. I personally came to dislike that character, because she seemed deeply unreasonable during the course of events of this game.

So because of this Dragon Age Inquisition set out on a bad foot right off the bat by making our character ALSO be captured by this same Seeker named Cassandra Pentaghast. Strike two was the fact that this game sets you up to be the Herald of Andraste… which is the patron deity of the southern areas of the game. Side note I am not a huge fan of organized religions and when a game forces very focused piety upon me, I tend to bounce super fucking hard. I am fine with general terms like the Light in Warcraft being this universal force of good, but when you have to deal with the clergy and zealots that isn’t exactly my show. The third strike was how generally oddly the game seemed to treat Dwarves… who DON’T by nature believe in Andraste but it becomes super freaking odd when everyone seems to think you are some Avatar and has to comment about how wrong it is that you are a Dwarf.

What has changed on this play through is my willingness to just go with the flow. For years I have heard from trusted allies how much this game means to them, and I wanted to understand why. Instead of my usual Dwarven character I opted to go with a Human Noble, and instead of fighting against Andraste… I just decided to go with the flow and accept that mantle while generally going with the “I am not sure” options when asked about it. Collectively these options seem to make the game more enjoyable because it eased me over some of the humps that I was getting stuck on. The game takes a long time to really sink its hook it… and it has the disservice of giving you a giant open world zone which is a complete trap. Moving the story along gives you a reason to stay engaged in the world… and without those specific narrative beats it just feels like a somewhat poorly designed ARPG.

I am sure I will do a post later about my thoughts upon wrapping up the story. I honestly have no clue where exactly I am in the progression. I’ve unlocked “World Two” which greatly opened the setting up and I figure I will spend a lot of time roaming around and looking at stuff. Earlier I said I had replayed Dragon Age Origins multiple times, but weirdly I had never done that with the second outing. Playing Inquisition actually makes me want to go back and experience those events with the fresh perspective that this game provides. We were seeing a very narrow lens on the world surrounding the events of Kirkwall, and I think this broader view will make those events feel more meaningful.

So friends a question. Have you ever had this experience with a game that did not work for you but then finally given time and broader experiences finally clicked? Drop me a line in the comments before because I am curious about this.