Dragon Age: Inquisition’s greatest achievement is its writing

Polygon:
"During the past week or so, I've spent some time with Dragon Age: Inquisition. Like many of the game's reviewers, I am deeply impressed with the game, its world, its story and its characters.

Dragon Age: Inquisition isn't merely about exploring a beautiful and vast world, or fighting through combat challenges, or managing power portfolios of character rigs and skills. It's about hanging out with the game's party members, the dozen or so men and women (human or otherwise) with whom you will be spending an awful lot of time."

[rbailey]

If there ever was an article to sell me on this game then it would be this one. Good writing is something that is missing in alot of games today so I'll definitely be picking this up next week.

[Grown Folks Talk]

Off work in 45 minutes. Then home to start my trial via EA Access. I'll return to give my thoughts. Bear in mind, I liked DA 2 waaaaay more than Origins.

[Eamon]

You did? lol. I guess everyone has their own tastes.

[Larry L]

To hear someone say they liked DA2 more than Origins is pretty mind-blowing to me personally. But I liked DA2 as well. Origins to me was a perfect 10/10. It was an absolute materpiece, even on consoles. Even better on PC with the option of isometric view. Everything from visuals, to effects, to environments, enemies, progression, relationships, every aspect of the writing. All incredible and far outshined the few things that weren't great about the game like the smaller areas, even though there's freedom of choice in which order to do things, it still felt kind of linear. I compare it to Mega-Man games in that way. And no loot system or multi-player (don't get on my case, I think the game would have been perfect for 4 player co-op).

Even though I liked DA2 on it's own merits, compared to Origins it was worse in every way. Very rushed and lazy which was the complete opposite of Origins. I've never seen the same cave so many times. One thing it did BETTER than Origins was the combat. Maybe they went a little TOO fast paced with it, but I really liked the combat. It still felt like Origins, just sped up and I loved all the cross-class combos.

I've watched all the video reviews and previews I could find for Inquisition, and I must say that I can't believe this game is not getting just straight 10s across the board from reviewers. I'm a bit stunned by anything under a 9 to be honest. The game looks even better than Origins, and I don't mean graphically.

It has everything that was great about Origins on PC even greatly improving on that formula, and keeps the one thing that was better about DA2 which was the faster pace of combat, and even goes to the length of making that faster pace completely optional. Deep is an understatemant for the story. I've heard reviewers talking about having put damn near 100 hours into this game, beating the campaign, and according to them they've probably only seen 70% of the game's content. Showing huge still greyed out areas of just the first area's map, nevermind all the other areas of the game!!

Astounding. I can not way to get my hands on this game. One thing that I havn't seen even mentioned in any of the vids I've watched, and I'd really like to hear about is the party member tactics programming. I find it odd that it's not metioned in reviews. I wonder if it was taken out for Inquisition. With the lack of healing options in the game, maybe tactics programming is no longer vital.

[Lord_Sloth]

While I preferred Origins to DA2 I'll agree that it probably gets a much worse rep than it actually deserves. My only issue with it was the 3 story arcs seemed random. They hyped up the Qunari battle in the trailers only for it to amount to about 1/3rd of the game only.

[Grown Folks Talk]

That's why I threw that in. Across most forums, i'd think I was the only person who liked 2. It was smoother, as Larry said, combat felt better. Looked better. Origins just never grabbed me. Perhaps it's the name. Arkham Origins got traded in before I solved the Black Mask apartment. Maybe I just hate origins.

[ArchangelMike]

You know what, I also ended up playing Dragon Age 2, much more than Origins. I guess it was just... more... accessible?

[kevnb]

Almost no games have good writing anymore, this should be good :)

[linkenski]

If it wasn't Polygon that made this statement I would be more hopeful. Bioware are self-proclaimed "talented writers". Just becuase they put emphasis on story for their marketing doesn't mean they are actually good writers, and the last 3 games they've released showed a lack of skill on multiple fronts and I've also heard some critisisms regarding DA:I's plot and its lack of drama.

I'm not trying to crush the hype. I'm just lowering my expectations so I don't set myself up for a disappointment for the third time in a row. DA2 was a big disappointment and Mass Effect 3 is maybe the biggest gaming disappointment in my life, and no, not because the ending sucked... because the whole thing was sabotaged from within from being as great as either ME1 or even ME2 on certain levels.

ME1 had a great plot and okay characters, ME2 had decent and downright great characters but a lacking plot, and ME3 had a mediocre plot and mediocre characters, a terrible intro and the maybe the worst ending of all fiction ever, just because of how much self-imposed damage it caused to the franchise.

Fool me twice, Bioware.

[nX]

Buy this game guys, we need to prove that well made RPG's can be a commercial success. I can't wait for next Tuesday, going to take at least one day off from work for this 😊

[Nwah]

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[viperman240]

I came here to post that, you beat me to it, by an hour lol

[Blacktric]

It's Polygon, a website that hired writers that get offended by Bayonetta's confidence in her sexuality, judging a Bioware game's writing...

I don't even know what I was expecting.

[mochachino]

What does this mean??

"Advancing technological platforms also help, of course, allowing the developers so much more space to explore the potential of relationships than ever before. At its crudest level, characters have more wiggle room to say for themselves, and about one another."

The better hardware power allows characters to say more about themselves and others??? Someone please explain this to me.

Also, what does this mean???

"Dragon Age: Inquisition's writing proves that game characters can be deep and complicated, that they don't need to serve as limp puppetry, badly mimicking the favored archetypes of well-meaning programmers"

What do programmers have to do with character personalities and design, wouldn't that be the job of designers, writers/actors, and artists?

[linkenski]

It's written by Polygon and alas, hyperbole garbage.

[viperman240]

Almost sounds like something David Cage would say.

He believe graphics makes the narrative and story better. Just look at the walking dead games. its not a demanding game at all, but that still doesn't stop the game from pulling on your heart strings.

If devs want to improve the graphics for games, got for it. But without improving your writing as well, its just such a big contract in watching so good play out so stupid.