Dragon Age: Inquisition: No Pain, No Game

TL;DR Score:            10/10
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Recommended Age:   13+
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Comparable to:         Skyrim, Mass Effect
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Platforms:                 Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

After far too many hours of gameplay (72), I can say that I was fully satisfied by my forty dollar investment into my first Dragon Age game. I remember playing a demo for Dragon Age: Origins back in the day and hating the gameplay, but for some reason I found it thoroughly appealing this time around. As a third person fantasy role-playing game (RPG), Inquisition entertained both the storyteller in me and the gamer in me. Because, if nothing else, this game's story is tremendous and original.

As in all fantasy RPGs, you begin the game by creating your own character. The races are pretty familiar: human, elf, dwarf, and a unique race called the Qunari, who are essentially large, eloquent orcs with giant horns. The three classes to choose from are also familiar: mage, rogue, or warrior. But unlike most RPGs, both the race and class that you select will affect the story and how your character is treated. For instance, in the world of Dragon Age, named Thedas, elves were once a great and powerful people but now have become a collection of nomadic tribes, called Dalish, and so are treated as inferior by most of Thedas' humans. I chose to create a Dalish elf rogue, since I get tired of the hack-and-slash of most warrior classes and, honestly, mages usually get too confusing for me with their diverse skill set. This allowed me to play the game almost completely from my character's perspective. You increase the power of your character and members of your team over time, but can choose to just auto-level the others or get hands-on with their development. A nice feature for combat as well is the option to go to a top-down strategic mode to give orders to your team and develop more strategy in your fights. I'm not big on real-time strategy (RTS) styled gameplay, or even massive online battle arena (MOBA) gameplay, so I mostly just stayed with my elf and fought from third person, but those options are available.

For anyone who has played one of BioWare's previous games (I've played their Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect series), the dialogue wheel should be easy to use. Every conversation has different ways to go, as each line of dialogue from your character is a choice by you and will affect the story and your relationships with other characters. Whereas some games use this dialogue choice as pretty much the entire game (like most of TellTale Games' media), this is just another feature in an incredibly immense world. There are many, many side quests, long and action-packed story quests, enormous regions to explore and conquer, and a time-based war table where you order members of your Inquisition to perform tasks which will affect the game and story, or gain rewards and power (used to unlock more regions and quests). With the diverse mixture of gameplay and the option to strengthen your friendships with other characters (leading to interesting backstories, more quests, or romances) during down-time between quests, there is literally no shortage of things to do.

However, I have not even touched on the part of the game that impressed me the most: the story. Bold and far reaching, it begins with your hero stumbling upon some sort of ritual that destroys most of the leaders of Thedas, including The Divine, a female pope of sorts. All that remains is a strange, green, glowing mark on your hand that allows you to close rifts torn in the world to the Fade, a mixture between hell and purgatory, allowing demons to flood into Thedas. With the power to save Thedas literally in your hands, people begin to worship you and claim that you are the Herald of Andraste (God). Your enemy is a man who has done his best to transform himself into a god and does not care who dies in his journey to godhood, claiming that he has seen the thrones of the gods and saw that "they were empty." Throughout the game, every act that you perform that requires either teamwork, intelligence, or pure luck will be attributed to Andraste's favor and guidance on your life, leading many people back to a faith that they had forgotten. Dragon Age: Inquisition puts you into the life of a religious figure and how they are created and mythologized, which is a unique experience in itself and raising many interesting questions about what really happened in the lives of the big religious figures of our world today (Muhammad, Gandhi, Jesus Christ, etc.). Inquisition also makes you feel very invested in your friends and your character, allowing you to immerse yourself in a rich world filled with interesting stories and comparisons to modern life (like the Qunari life, where everyone is assigned a role and obeys without question, or the freedom of powerful mages, and whether they should be enslaved or freed).

Without a doubt, I can say that Dragon Age: Inquisition is one of the best games that I have played in years, and definitely trumps Skyrim for me in both gameplay and story. So, if you're looking for a new fantasy RPG to jump into, I would highly recommend this game.