Post #101735
August 03, 2017, 07:22:24 PM
My only complaints with 2 were that it didn't really build much from the first game (actually, it went a completely different direction)...and that there was so much rehashing of environments. One cave in particular had, if I recall right, over 7+ visits in either specific parts or the entire thing. If this was supposed to be the same place everytime, then that was alright...but this was supposed to be a completely different location every single time.
That was my biggest gripe. Some enemy infested areas had variety, while a lot of them didn't...and this was mainly prevalent in sidequests (though I recall some main-quest areas being identical to each other).
Other than that, I thought gameplay-wise that it was an improvement to 1...mainly in the battle mechanics. Compared to what a chore it felt like to use a mage in DA:O, I actually really enjoyed using them in DAII.
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Dragon Age Inquisition had a decent start, and some good ideas. I like the whole "wrong place, right time." type of scenario like Skyrim, where your character just happened to be there when action happened, and boom! They end up being the person meant to save the world. DAI didn't disappoint me in that area.
Even the more open areas caught my interest, as did the more refined character creator (still one of my favorites). Areas were much more beautiful to go through, and even the main base of operations (not the beginning area) was beautiful to look at.
The War Table bothered me. Having to wait in real-time as opposed to game time for insignificant side quests that didn't do much was more of an annoyance than anything. When it was just a couple of minutes, sure...that was alright. But the further along you were, the longer those times cranked up to the hours mark or even longer than that (if I recall, there was some that hit the 24 hour range).
To me, that bothers me on multiple fronts: It's either forcing you to endure pushing hours into the game just finish that irrelevant quest for a paltry reward...or it's forcing you to remember to even come back to the game after shutting it off for that period of time for the same result. In reality, the War Table didn't need such a restriction, it was highly unnecessary. The game even made you grind in areas to gather a certain amount of (the name escapes me right now) to even progress further in the game. At first, sure...I guess...but then it begins to feel like a chore.
The battle mechanics also seemed like a slight step down in favor of making it a mixture of both 1 and 2's style. 2's was perfectly fine...there was no need to try to tweak it further. Likewise, even the leveling system felt like a step down as opposed to the 2nd game's mechanics.
And some areas were just downright boring. Not to mention, for all of the lore that the first game gave, DAI still didn't expand on it very much (we still have yet to visit the often mentioned Tevinter Imperium in the games). It felt like a semi rushed project to get out there so that it could make it on the PS4's launch list. The main villain was boring, some of the side characters were forgettable, and some were just not as great as they made themselves to be. The one that especially comes to mind was Vivienne. She's supposed to be the First Enchanter and advisor to the empress of Orlais...but I recall her being as strong as Solas and Dorian.
Overall, it was just very "meh" to me. It wasn't a terrible game, but it wasn't fantastic like the first one. It improved on some aspects of the 2nd game (I preferred the dialogue setup in this one), but then it went the opposite route in other areas (battle mechanics, the god awful War Table in its entirety).
