[DAI] Dragon Age: Inquisition, the First Ten Hours

I've been playing Dragon Age II. People so love to hate DA2, but it actually reminds me quite a bit of JRPGs-- a hub town, fast travel from one neighborhood of town to another, companions with narrow storylines and intense dialogue, and angsty love interests. That might be my own personal choice of attempting to make the very hard decision between guilt-wracked Anders and ex-slave Fenris, but they are both so very pretty. Of course, the combat is ridiculously easy and I can't seem to decide whether I should turn the difficulty up or not; the side quests are almost too numerous; etc. The story, though. The story is intense, and all the side quests support it. If Dragon Age: Origins was the beginning of the overarching epic, Dragon Age II is almost a side-story, focusing on one hero trying to deal with the problems in one city, and often failing.

I just received Dragon Age: Inquisition a couple weeks ago, and have played it far less than I would like. A lot of talk has gone on about how expansive DAI is, the story, what people love, what they hate, and a number of broad generalities. People don't seem to be talking much about what the game actually is, how the game actually works, and what you spend your time doing.

DAI draws on a number of sources. Skyrim was an obvious one, but it also takes some hints from Far Cry and similar shooters, action RPGs like Dark Souls, and a healthy dose from the MMO format. Skyrim is largely present in the aesthetics in the beginning-- namely, the wintery mountain landscape. That's where the similarity tends to end. You journey with companions somewhat quieter than they were in DA2, but they do still talk, unlike in Skyrim, where the sporadic sentences were never enough to make you feel like you weren't discovering new lands on your own-- and that was what Skyrim was about, so that was fine.

The entire "rift" storyline has been played out in numerous MMOs (i.e. Rift, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, etc.), and the game starts by dumping you out of one and informing you that you're now marked as the only one that can close them. You can decide this is providence, that it's some weird twist of fate, or that all these people who think that you're their Herald are high. Whatever you want. But you still have to do it, because otherwise these people are going to imprison you as as suspect in the destruction of the peace meeting between the mages and the Chantry.

The game operates from a base town, but no more are the JRPG-style fast travels from DA2. You can travel to a number of large territories. Each territory has an expansive map, which isn't all the way filled in. Your inquisition has outposts to start, and, similar to Far Cry, you have to reclaim areas and form camps, since the maps are taken over by the fighting. When you gain influence by diplomatic treaties formed in the War Room, new lands open up and you are able to establish your first camp there, thus opening more maps to you.

Health potions are restocked every time you rest at camp again, and a limited supply of health potions is your only way to heal, since healing magic is gone from the game. (I don't mind it being gone so much as I wonder about the lore behind it being gone. Granted, maybe if you're a mage you never studied it, and your other mages are a Tevinter-- a country known for pain, not healing-- and Solas, who very distictly has his own specializations and agenda. The Knight Enchanter specialization for a mage Inquisitor does have some heailing abilities. Someone did mention that healers are in short supply because of the war. I would kill pretty much anything to have Anders and Merrill join my Inquisition.)

Your enemies are the rogue Templars who have split off from the Chantry, the rebel Mages who have turned to dealing with demons in their desperation, and the demons themselves, pouring out of the Rifts from the Fade. There are also various fauna that you can kill for the hides or other crafting materials, numerous metal deposits, flora, and houses to loot that have been abandoned due to the conflict.

Weapons and armor can be crafted and customized. Potions can be crafted as well. Each character has their own skill trees and abilities. Abilities are accessed through the hot keys on the bottom of the screen, and repeated clicking will do a standard attack.

A typical gaming session might begin with leaving your current camp location and venturing out to explore and fulfill nearby quests in your current territory. Your Inquisition army might need some supplies, and you keep on the lookout for the necessary materials to fulfill the requisition. You acquire materials as you make your way around, and establish a new camp along the way. You'll run into a few quests, find a few glowing shards, and solve a few dilemmas. You'll doubtless kill some things along the way.

There's definitely a lot to do, which provides a kind of complete world immersion, similar to but very different from Skyrim. In Skyrim, you were struggling up from your bootstraps. In DAI, you already have an army. There are civil wars in both, but DAI's is better implemented-- if only Skyrim had done it this way, with battles raging in certain areas... but civil war hadn't quite broken out in Skyrim yet.

Regardless, I am looking forward to playing more of this game, which is polished and compelling.