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Review RPG Codex Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition

Roguey

Codex Staff
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In Exile is the worst kind of ignoramus, the kind who thinks he knows more than he does and is undeservedly smug about it e.g. "RPG Codex hates Torment and loves IWD" but certainly not limited to that.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Wow. One guy on there is gearing up for a fourth playthrough.

That seems crazy to me. One of the only things I like about DAI is that it's an MMO you can finish in a reasonable amount of time, and be done, and feel satisfied without having to play it any more.
 

Delterius

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Well, I'm not registering there so... if any of those people/HiddenX bother reading this post.

Yes, I did play Dragon Age: Inquisition from start to finish. In fact I had played through over half of the critical path when technical issues on my part caused the loss of those saves. Which is to say that I made a point of seeing this through, since doing otherwise would be a disservice the likes of which only people who are paid to review games get to do. What that earned me though was an easily bugged cutscene ridden final boss, but alas.

Whether or not I am exaggerating is something for others to decide, however, I can guarantee you this: these are my honest opinions on what I believed were the most important aspects of the game. If you see the review as biased, I would not fault you. This is the RPG Codex after all. However, let me remind you that at least once in the review I mentioned playing World of Warcraft. For several years, in fact and I even enjoyed myself. So I did not judge Inquisition purely from the eyes of some sort nostalgia ridden arse stereotype that people seem unable to remove from their minds but also as my "popamole" self.

So I agree, at least in part, with HiddenX. Dragon Age: Inquisition is an Action Adventure game. I just did not find it worth much at all.

As for the joxxer guy. Dude, Inquisition plays like a simplified version of World of Warcraft, as though permanently locked in that game's lowest levels. Yes, yes I did indeed kill everything with up to three cooldowns, on Nightmare and Friendly Fire activated.
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
“'I will bring myself sexual pleasure later, while thinking about this with great respect'”

It's like a bad doujin you can't fap to cause you kept laughing at every panel.
Fuck off to all who pretend the writing has a smidgen of redeeming quality to it.
Fuck all of you.
Go fuck yourself.
I'm too lazy to fuck you.
Buy a cucumber and thousand cuck your spouses while playing DAI.
Ride the cucumber assholes.
You've fucking lost it.

And for the codex to even entertain a review of it is pr. amusing.
'Let's have an in-depth breakdown of what has gone wrong in this trainwreck.' - Codex
The response so far?
Let's see...denial denial denial, wait, denial, denial denial denial denial, uh huh, denial denial wait, I got something, genuine ignorance and stupidity as result of poor birth, okay, moving on...denial denial denial...and....denial.

Welp. That wraps it up. Thanks for the fun.
Have they patched the tactical camera? :)
 
Last edited:

Xorazm

Cipher
Joined
Jan 22, 2015
Messages
106
In case anyone is curious, /v/ came out with their year-end awards a few days ago:

http://2014.vidyagaemawards.com/

Inquisition swept the awards for most hated, worst writing and worst character (with Sera and Iron Bull taking both the top spots).

I didn't make it far enough into the game to see what's irritating about Iron Bull, other than the fact that for some reason that I don't even care enough to understand, the Qunari now have a ridiculous set of horns growing from their heads. Sera, however, put me off right away by introducing herself with an jaw-dropping tonal clash - she shows up, you all kill the shit out of a bunch of soldiers, and she brags about how she stole their underwear. You'd think they'd be a little more annoyed that we just slit all their throats but somehow that's not remarkable to this little twee pseudo-pixie.

It's just another example of Bioware bowdlerizing what little spark remained in the Dragon Age universe by scrubbing out what last bits of interesting grit remained and turning the whole things into a bright, primary color theme park where twee cartoon characters gibber about childish pranks while a "mature" story does its best to pander to your messiah complex.
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
Have they patched the tactical camera? :)

If you mean the problem with low ceillings, then no.

i-will-eat-you-like-kfc.gif


We both know that is not what I mean.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Sera, however, put me off right away by introducing herself with an jaw-dropping tonal clash - she shows up, you all kill the shit out of a bunch of soldiers, and she brags about how she stole their underwear.
Uninterrupted for like three minutes. I was like jesus fuck god it wasn't funny the first time you said it enough enough enough
 

RPGMaster

Savant
Joined
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Messages
703
In case anyone is curious, /v/ came out with their year-end awards a few days ago:

http://2014.vidyagaemawards.com/

Inquisition swept the awards for most hated, worst writing and worst character (with Sera and Iron Bull taking both the top spots).

I didn't make it far enough into the game to see what's irritating about Iron Bull, other than the fact that for some reason that I don't even care enough to understand, the Qunari now have a ridiculous set of horns growing from their heads. Sera, however, put me off right away by introducing herself with an jaw-dropping tonal clash - she shows up, you all kill the shit out of a bunch of soldiers, and she brags about how she stole their underwear. You'd think they'd be a little more annoyed that we just slit all their throats but somehow that's not remarkable to this little twee pseudo-pixie.

It's just another example of Bioware bowdlerizing what little spark remained in the Dragon Age universe by scrubbing out what last bits of interesting grit remained and turning the whole things into a bright, primary color theme park where twee cartoon characters gibber about childish pranks while a "mature" story does its best to pander to your messiah complex.


Iron Bull is a high school jock/American military fanboy.

If he didn't have horns no one would believe he was qunari.

He's one of those characters BioWare makes to be the complete antithesis of what we know about a race to show how diverse they can be but ends up just messing up their lore.
 

RK47

collides like two planets pulled by gravity
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Dead State Divinity: Original Sin
its like bioware didn't write the original DA or some shit.
 

DeepOcean

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Nov 8, 2012
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Calling Dragon Age Inquisition a MMO is a disservice to MMOs.If I wanted a good story but wanted to torture myself with terrible gameplay I would choose The Secret World any day of the week than this Bioware abomination.
 

eremita

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Messages
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I don't understand what are you trying to achieve with feedback from different sites (from people who are not like-minded), Delterius. Your review isn't structured for general audience. If you wanna serious feedback from all sorts of people, then you would have to analyze the game from different perspectives. Take combat for example: you say it's not deep, it's not actually that much tactical and it's broken. Did you backed those accusations up? Yes you did. Yet it doesn't matter at all... The fact is, there are plenty of people having fun, enjoying the combat. Why? If you reply it's because they're dumb fucks, you're gonna, of course, lose those people. So why are they having fun? Figure it out, then slap it into your review. Only then you can expect worthy feedback from broader audience than Codex. Because it seems to me that's exactly what you want.

BTW, if you think your review is already "broad" enough because it's analytical, then it implies this is your state of mind: people who like DA:I just don't know it's shit, therefore if I show them it is (and from hardcore point of view you did), they're gonna change their minds. This kind of thinking is flawed and you're never gonna succeed. Again, because you don't understand those people. So the guy calling you biased is actually right... He immediately realized what kind of perspective you have and that it is the only perspective you have, so he refused argue about the review.

Yeah, and if there's one thing codex is definitely NOT, it's open mined. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just how it is...
 

eremita

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Messages
797
I don't understand what are you trying to achieve with feedback from different sites (from people who are not like-minded), Delterius. Your review isn't structured for general audience. If you wanna serious feedback from all sorts of people, then you would have to analyze the game from different perspectives. Take combat for example: you say it's not deep, it's not actually that much tactical and it's broken. Did you backed those accusations up? Yes you did. Yet it doesn't matter at all... The fact is, there are plenty of people having fun, enjoying the combat. Why? If you reply it's because they're dumb fucks, you're gonna, of course, lose those people. So why are they having fun? Figure it out, then slap it into your review. Only then you can expect worthy feedback from broader audience than Codex. Because it seems to me that's exactly what you want.

BTW, if you think your review is already "broad" enough because it's analytical, then it implies this is your state of mind: people who like DA:I just don't know it's shit, therefore if I show them it is (and from hardcore point of view you did), they're gonna change their minds. This kind of thinking is flawed and you're never gonna succeed. Again, because you don't understand those people. So the guy calling you biased is actually right... He immediately realized what kind of perspective you have and that it is the only perspective you have, so he refused argue about the review.

Yeah, and if there's one thing codex is definitely NOT, it's open mined. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just how it is...

Deleterius's review doesn't explain or define "fun", which is up to you the reader to decide. When he describes the combat as repetitive cooldown management button timing etc, that's just a(n accurate) description, not a value judgement per se. There are people who enjoy that and that's fine. Deleterius doesn't share that enjoyment and he says so.

What you are asking for is an explanation of why some people enjoy repetitive cooldown management button timing, and that's beyond the scope of a review.
In " repetitive cooldown management button timing etc" it's the "etc." I'm asking for. From broader point of view, there's much more to combat than just cooldown management and the fact it's not that much deep. Does the combat play differently for different builds? Is there a variety of playstyles? Delterius approached the game (and the review) form gamist point of view - "Behold, I won this game by repeating three abilities!". Also, he evaluate every aspect of combat from the point of efficiency. But that's exactly my point. A lot of people just don't give a fuck about that and for those people, there's nothing left in the review. So what the review is missing imo is something like this: You can adjust your character's playstyle to fit your tastes. Using stealth and traps/ feeling basically like a jedi when playing Knight Enchanter etc. etc. (I don't know if it's actually true, I haven't play the game). Does it work? Is it implemented well (playable that way) and therefore satysfing or not? And yes, even stuff like: The animations look great and the combat feels really intense bla bla...

I'm pretty sure Laidlaw and his buddies weren't just creating something with three effective cooldown abilities. What is it they created as a whole and for whom? Did they succeed? We already know from the review that there are no tactical orgies in this game. Ok, far enough. What else?
 
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Delterius

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Entre a serra e o mar.
I don't understand what are you trying to achieve with feedback from different sites (from people who are not like-minded), Delterius. [...]

You are reading too much into this.

I like feedback from more people because I am an attention whore because its fun to read. Especially the detractors.

Further, I do not think that the concept of "Liking a Videogame" and, at the same time, "Agreeing with Points Brought Up By A Negative Review of that Videogame" is that mindblowing. Amazingly, we've seen a lot of that so far. Even at the BSN there's people who concede that Combat was abysmal and that they were in for the Plot.

That said, I ultimately have only one perspective in mind - mine and, hopefully, that of the RPG Codex. As I said earlier, whether I am biased or not is something for the reader to decide. Being analytical/informative/'professional' in the review is merely an effort to not be a dumbfuck who's easily written off as a pathological hater, which I am not.

Lastly, was I too much of a "gamist" when approaching combat? Perhaps I still did not make this clear. I have always enjoyed a multitude of games which I found incredibly easy, but, in those, there generally was something to make things interesting. Its not a matter of difficulty; "tactical" depht or some other buzzword people enjoy so much in order to make themselves feel superior. I am talking about something unique that keeps me engaged and willing to make use of varied tactics. Something which I can point out to my friends and say "this is the game you want if you want to do X".

Sometimes its something simple. In Demon's Souls, I particularly enjoyed the different weapon attacks and the monsters. In Dragon's Dogma I liked the controls; the ability to climb monsters and the weight that game gives to spellcasting. In Baldur's Gate 2, I like the rules system and the spectacular magic battles - the same applied, to a much lesser degree, to Dragon Age: Origins. Inquisition plays like simplified version of World of Warcraft, my friends aren't around to keep me entertained and the action component of managing your rotation is non existant, while the possible rotations themselves are much simplified. The game is designed from the ground up to keep you using a single character and barely paying attention to the AI companion, which limits the game to pretty much clicking ability buttons as they come up. As such, it failed to pick any of my bones.

Does that mean I oppose to anyone else liking Inquisition? Frankly, no. In an universe of a few millions, there's bound to be someone who's going to be entertained by things I dislike or that I already find pretty banal. My fifteen years old cousin's first videogame was Skyrim and she was entranced by shit like casting the first level fire spell. Which is to say, if playing Knight Enchanter and spamming whatever hotkey you assigned to spirit blade over and over again made you feel like a 'jedi' - I'd have probably said it myself.
 

PhantasmaNL

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria
Calling Dragon Age Inquisition a MMO is a disservice to MMOs.If I wanted a good story but wanted to torture myself with terrible gameplay I would choose The Secret World any day of the week than this Bioware abomination.

Ok, drifting a bit off topic but i wouldnt call TSWs gameplay terrible perse. Of all mmos i played (most only during the 'free' month...) i rate TSW absolutely the highest. Mostly because of the excellent lovecraftian atmosphere (Solomons Island, Transylvania), interesting and pretty original character building options (some expert window dressing was applied though) and good to actually great cutscenes/VA (some beat those in DAI easily).
 
Weasel
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Dec 14, 2012
Messages
1,865,661
I find reaction to Codex reviews interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, it reminds one of what the tastes of the masses out there are really like. It's possible to forget when only spending time on the Codex and it explains a lot in terms of modern gaming. It's also pretty lulzy seeing the bizarre ideas people have about the Codex, like the tard who thinks "they don't like PST". Finally, it's interesting to see a couple of people in the "finally, a review I agree with" camp. Always a minority, but positive nevertheless.

A brief search turns up hundreds of "DAI is awesome, GOTY" reviews. At least having a more critical review out there serves as a contrasting opinion for people who have only been fed Dorito-laden hype. Even if they liked the game and disagreed with the Codex review, it may make a few people think about the game slightly differently and open their eyes to what Bioware could have done better.
 

eremita

Savant
Joined
Sep 1, 2013
Messages
797
I don't understand what are you trying to achieve with feedback from different sites (from people who are not like-minded), Delterius. [...]

You are reading too much into this.

I like feedback from more people because I am an attention whore because its fun to read. Especially the detractors.

Further, I do not think that the concept of "Liking a Videogame" and, at the same time, "Agreeing with Points Brought Up By A Negative Review of that Videogame" is that mindblowing. Amazingly, we've seen a lot of that so far. Even at the BSN there's people who concede that Combat was abysmal and that they were in for the Plot.

That said, I ultimately have only one perspective in mind - mine and, hopefully, that of the RPG Codex. As I said earlier, whether I am biased or not is something for the reader to decide. Being analytical/informative/'professional' in the review is merely an effort to not be a dumbfuck who's easily written off as a pathological hater, which I am not.

Lastly, was I too much of a "gamist" when approaching combat? Perhaps I still did not make this clear. I have always enjoyed a multitude of games which I found incredibly easy, but, in those, there generally was something to make things interesting. Its not a matter of difficulty; "tactical" depht or some other buzzword people enjoy so much in order to make themselves feel superior. I am talking about something unique that keeps me engaged and willing to make use of varied tactics. Something which I can point out to my friends and say "this is the game you want if you want to do X".

Sometimes its something simple. In Demon's Souls, I particularly enjoyed the different weapon attacks and the monsters. In Dragon's Dogma I liked the controls; the ability to climb monsters and the weight that game gives to spellcasting. In Baldur's Gate 2, I like the rules system and the spectacular magic battles - the same applied, to a much lesser degree, to Dragon Age: Origins. Inquisition plays like simplified version of World of Warcraft, my friends aren't around to keep me entertained and the action component of managing your rotation is non existant, while the possible rotations themselves are much simplified. The game is designed from the ground up to keep you using a single character and barely paying attention to the AI companion, which limits the game to pretty much clicking ability buttons as they come up. As such, it failed to pick any of my bones.

Does that mean I oppose to anyone else liking Inquisition? Frankly, no. In an universe of a few millions, there's bound to be someone who's going to be entertained by things I dislike or that I already find pretty banal. My fifteen years old cousin's first videogame was Skyrim and she was entranced by shit like casting the first level fire spell. Which is to say, if playing Knight Enchanter and spamming whatever hotkey you assigned to spirit blade over and over again made you feel like a 'jedi' - I'd have probably said it myself.
Fair enough, you're right. The combat part of your review seemed to me that way, but I might just failed to see it there. Well, it happens. Anyway, since we're already talking about this. Is there really not anything interesting in DA:I's combat? Every class/build just rotates few abilities? I mean there's stealth, traps, alchemy, all sorts of shit. Nothing comes out of that?
 

Delterius

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Is there really not anything interesting in DA:I's combat? Every class/build just rotates few abilities? I mean there's stealth, traps, alchemy, all sorts of shit. Nothing comes out of that?

These things exist, certainly, but the design paradigms which put them all together don't go away. As I said, the game is designed from the ground up to keep you using a single character and barely paying attention to the AI companions, which limits the game to pretty much clicking ability buttons as they come up.

Let me give you an example: friendly fire is completely arbitrary. The Fire Mage tree has Immolation, a Fireball kind of spell which causes friendly fire. Fair enough. However, it also has Giant Wall of Searing Flames, which is totally safe to spam. The game is aware that it is not suitable to party wide management. Things are supposed to go by very quickly, after all.

In this environment, stealth and traps themselves are just some of the possible rotating abilities, especially for the Rogue. These are just more cooldowns to spam in the middle of the melee. Its not just unnecessary to, say, scout ahead with Stealth or to set up the battlefield with traps, but also impractical. It is not without reason that the enemy AI spam these 'trap' abilities on top of your guys.

Oh and nothing comes out of alchemy, really. You don't need more than the 8 (later 12) healing pots you can carry with you.
 

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