I really don’t get all the hate this game is receiving. There were so many RPGs before that were neither revolutionary in any way nor actually fun to play but still didn’t receive such hate. I haven’t finished the game yet but invested a little more than 55 hours into it. So far every minute has been a blast :) !
The world is huge and offers a lot of variety. Actually the game often reminds me of a typical MMORPG like World of Warcraft, just without the other players. You have resources that needs to be collected to build new weapons or equipment, you have dungeons where you can find treasures and hideous monsters, different kind of mounts to quickly ride through the enormously large landscape, several races with different stories and of course different classes to choose from. I wouldn’t be surprised if EA and BioWare use this game as a template to publish a real MMO in the future. I, for one, would definitely buy/subscribe it!
Even though the graphics might not be the very best for a next generation console, it’s really pretty and doesn’t need to hide behind the competition. The zones are huge, show a lot of detail and offer a rich variety of animal life and plants. It’s impressive to see that the game doesn’t need to load when walking through a zone… even though they are really large. Even moving from one zone to another doesn’t result in a lot of loading time. Destiny’s loading times are far worse, for instance.
The sound is great, too. The music is wonderful and whenever I’m in combat, the sound effects are great and authentic.
The controls are tight and action oriented, which is absolutely fine by me. There is a tactical view but I prefer to fight in real time, giving the game a slight hack and slay character. I play on “hard” difficulty, which is manageable in the action view if you know your abilities and know what to do. I only switch to the tactical view when fighting dragons from time to time.
The story is great and entertaining. I personally liked the story of Dragon Age Origins and the Mass Effect trilogy better, but Dragon Age Inquisition is still doing a splendid job in sucking you into its story. The only thing I sometimes find exhausting is that you kind of regularly “have to” talk to your party members and NPCs to get hidden quests or to gain other benefits. As I said, you are not forced to talk to them but I feel that you would be at a disadvantage if you don’t do your regular rounds and talk to each and every one of them.This has been a BioWare issue from the first hour, though.
I do miss a kind of bank where I can deposit all the stuff that I don’t wanna carry around with me all the time. At the moment you either have to sell or salvage it.
Conclusion: Dragon Age Inquisition is a superb Action RPG with beautiful graphics, great sound and a gripping, well-told story! With 50 – 200 hours of unique gameplay (depends on the number of side quests you are doing), it’s hard to claim that the game is too expensive or that it doesn’t offer enough content for its price tag. Recently it received the Game Of The Year 2014 award and I can only share this sentiment.