Dragon Age Inquisition Review, Part 1 | Done to the Detail

Hello everyone and welcome to our place!

I’m almost finishing my second playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition and I thought, well… It’s time to do a review about it! This review will be done in parts. This, because the game is just immense and, well, we all know that we don’t have time to read 3000 word posts in one seat! 😀

For today I’ll be focusing in Story and World Building.

– Dragon Age: Inquisition –

Synopsis

Dragon Age Inquisition story starts a little after the story of the second. In fact, it starts days later after Cassandra questioning Varric (the way they told you the story of the second game).

Image found here!

The game starts with a conclave happening between the chantry and the mages. If you remember, from Dragon Age 2 there was a great event in the end of it that made mages and the chantry start a war. Well, this conclave objective is to start peace talks. However, a great explosion happens killing almost everyone attending. That huge explosion leaves a great rift in the sky. That rift enables spirits (in this case) demons to enter the Human World.

You, the Inquisitor (not for now, but you will be called that later) happens to be in the conclave, but you are able to leave the explosion unhurt, except for a mark in one of your arms. This mark ends up having a great power in controlling rifts, being one of them, closing the rifts. From here, you end up being the only person in the World to be able to save it from the rifts and people even call you the Andraste embodiment (Andraste is like the Holy Mary for the ones who don’t know about the franchising). This way, you just end up being an irreplaceable asset for the inquisition, an institution that is trying to save the world.

Image found here!

You will travel all over Thedas trying to save the world with a lot of side quests, politics and decisions to make in the mix.

Story

For me, Dragon Age: Inquisition is the one with the weakest story of them all. None the less, it is a good one!

The main story is not that big and you can easily see that they went more for the exploration and side questing rather than give you a strict story line.Basically, what you can see in a lot of RPGs coming after Skyrim. However, contrary to Skyrim, it is not so gigantic that almost seems that there is no end of it, which for me is good!

When it comes to your decisions, I also feel that Dragon Age: Origins gave you way more of a feel that you really could change the game’s story. It is true that there are some decisions that will impact the game, but not that many, to be honest. However, there are more grey areas where you may be changing some events without even noticing. And, let’s not forget, that everything you do here will probably have some minor impacts in the story preceding this one.

However, Dragon Age: Inquisition shines when it comes to side quest stories. If you are attentive and read at least the notes that you may pick while exploring you will see that all of the side tracking you are making has a small story behind it. Normally, they are good ones and even though you may not have any kind of decision in the outcome, the story by itself will be enough to make you explore without feeling tired of it.

Image found here!

While in Dragon Age: Inquisition you almost seemed like an army of more or less 10 people and in Dragon Age 2 an army of one with some friends helping, in Dragon Age: Inquisition you go way further. This is the inquisition and therefore it will have a big army and with different branches.

The evolution of the Inquisition is something that I also loved. You will see your army growing up, the castle becoming bigger and Inquisition getting more and more important! This way, you will get more the sight of a ruler. You will have a lot of quests where the only thing you have to do is to determine which one of your advisors is the best one to conclude that task. Again, if you read the quests, what the advisor is going to do and the outcome, well, it also is a nice time spent!

So, in the end, even thought the main plot can feel a little flat and short, all the details into it and around the exploration completely compensates that fact and makes it a pretty enjoyable trip! Of course characters here also play an important role, but I’ll talk about them next week.

World Building

Let’s face it, most of the World Building has been done in Dragon Age: Origins. If you read all the codex entries in there you will see that you have a lot of detail talking about the areas around Ferelden, such as Orlais and the Tevinter Imperium.

Nevertheless, in Dragon Age: Inquistion will be able to show you way much more. The game is passed in Ferelden and Orlais. This is where you can explore. Even though Ferelden was already in the first game, here you will have a lot more areas to explore and more deeply too. However, Orlais is the first time you will be able to explore it at all.

Everything is done to the detail! The way people dress, the weather, the architecture, accent, how people think, you name it. Everything was created to represent the best of this culture. Let me say, the differences are gigantic and I really like when games go towards to this kind of detail! To be honest, I think I know more of Thedas’ history than my own country lolol

Moreover, even though you don’t explore areas like Tevinter, Nevarra, and so on, you will have some quests in the war table for you to make some decisions. Moreover, they give you way more intel in these cultures than ever did! Of course it helps having comrades from there where they will speak about their hometown proudly (or not).

Dorian is one of those characters!

Basically, the World is built to every each of detail and it just amazes me how a team of people was able to create something so immense and with so much lore! I mean, they even wrote little stories that are seen as small tales from everywhere. Uff, this is the best part of the game and where it excels the most! The attention towards the detail.

– Conclusion –

Basically, although the story is not the greatest and I felt there was not so many decisions making impact, the world built along this 3 last games completely compensates it! The attention to detail is gigantic! In fact, if they wanted, they could write a book about it and just finish with something really near with The Lord of The Rings.

And you, have you played Dragon Age: Inquisition? What did you think about his lore, story and world building? One of the best or have you seen better? Comment down below! 🙂

See You Soon! 🙂

Dragon Age Merch:

– Europe –

Lyrium Potion Necklace Pendant | £14.00

– United States –

Dark Horse Deluxe Playing Cards | $7.00

– Canada –

Dragon Age Inquisition Dog Tags | CDN$ 20.17