Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Bioware's Return to Greatness

Hey everyone! I'm back again, with a review of Dragon Age: Inquisition to hurl in yo' faces!

Dragon Age: Inquisition is the third instalment of the Edmonton-Based game studio, Bioware. In it, you play the Inquisitor/Herald of Andraste, and fight against a world gone mad after a conclave meant to bring the Templar-Mage war to a halt was destroyed in a magical explosion, tearing a hole between the world of mortals and the world of demons. You have a mysterious mark that allows you to close these tears in the veil that have opened in the wake of the Breach, and this lands you as a key member of the reborn Inquisition.

But before we can discuss the story, lets get the technical shizwa outta the way. Inquisition is built on a new engine for Bioware. Before, they typically used the Unreal engine, but for their latest game they've switched over to the much more powerful Frostbite engine, and it shows. Animation is much smoother, and the physics are much more visceral and engaging. So many times, I've had my warrior smash apart a cart just because it happened to be behind an enemy I was slamming through it, and my hits really feel like they connect. The gameplay is somewhere between the Action-based RPG of Dragon Age II, and the more tactical combat of Dragon Age: Origins. However, unlike both games, it's managed to succeed surprisingly well at both. The tactical camera mode has an option to allow you to advance time only a short distance, allowing more tactically focused players greater control. The decent computer AI allows players who prefer more action-based combat to let their party members make generally decent decisions while the PC focuses on hack-and-slash. Combat also makes tactical positioning and combat more varied and emphasizes its importance. While in the previous instalments, things like flanking and positioning were important, the gameplay never really emphasized this except with the melee-built rogue in Origins, who received a backstab bonus and . However, in Inquisition the bonuses for flanking are much more obvious, as some enemies are extremely difficult to fight head-on due to their defenses.

But the game is far from perfect. There are a number of conversational glitches, such as with many of the scenes involving two spoilery-characters. They'll often stop talking in the middle of the cut scene, and not resume talking unless you skip through the scene, causing you to miss a lot of details of what's going on. This only seems to happen with cut-scene conversations, however, and the contextual conversations work very well. There's also some issues in cut scenes and even the main game with clipping, such as a dual-wielding dwarf rogue wearing the Inquisitor's Hat, as your daggers stick up through the brim of the hat. It looks hilarious but it can take you out of the game a bit.

No more murder-knife in Inquisition as well. Your character will use your equipped weapons in cut scenes (with one exception, but it's story based), rather than some mysterious super-knife like in Dragon Age II, or some sword your warden picked up off the ground as in the final scene of Origins.

The characters, however, are where Inquisition really shines. Where in the previous two games, relationships often felt a bit forced or like something you just needed to earn enough points in to win some sort of prize, in Inquisition the relationships feel much more organic. This is helped by the lack of an “approval” bar somewhere. You're still informed whether or not someone approves or disapproves of your actions, but there's no numbers attached. This also helps the romances a great deal. Unlike in previous games where, once approval was high enough or you flirted enough or whatever the characters would throw themselves at you and you'd unlock a sex scene, romances in Inquisition are much more involved, frequently requiring side quests and your character going out of his or her way to win their companion's affections. One of the romances even involves a duel! It makes them feel much more realistic and organic, and above all earned than in previous games. Also, you can't be stealth romanced in this game. You'll know right away if you're getting involved, and you have multiple opportunities to abandon a romance. There's a reason this game's version of the Paramour achievement is for “Committing to a romance.”

Inquisition is a massive, sprawling game with easily 80 or 90 hours of gameplay for the most dedicated of players, and no two playthroughs are ever going to be exactly the same. There are no “right” or “wrong” decisions in this game, and there's no perfect playthrough like in previous Bioware games. Above all, it feels like a return to Bioware's standards of excellence that we saw with Origins and even Baldur's Gate 2. If Bioware keeps this up, there will be only good things ahead for the studio.

Random Aside: Stats for Xan made in Fate Core

Hey everyone, today's blog post is not a review. Instead, I'm going to try something fun with two things I did reviews for, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Fate Core. I'm going to take my favourite companion NPC from Baldur's Gate and make him a character using the Fate Core rules.

First things first: What defines Xan enough to be his High Concept? Well, what we know is that Xan is an elf from Evereska sent to Nashkell to investigate the happenings at the mines. He's a rather dour, sarcastic and pessimistic fellow, doesn't get along well with Eldoth the bard and often wishes him ill (even showing a brief moment of happiness should Eldoth fall in battle), nor does he get along with Ajantis whom he sees as having an over-simplified worldview. Xan also has a powerful Moonblade, and is a Greycloak (a sort of magical law enforcement agent) of Evereska. Additionally, Xan was chosen by the Moonblade to be it's wielder--this hints that he's probably going to be someone important later on.

Most importantly, however, Xan is a Lost Greycloak of Evereska.  That tells us how he fits into the game universe.

For his trouble, I'm going to take a quote directly from his voice set. Our Quest is Vain. Or perhaps We're All Doomed might be more fitting. Our Quest is Vain has a little more zazz and proactiveness to it, so I'm going to go with that one.

Xan's Moonblade is a pretty powerful item, as well as something indicative of him having an important role later not (never happens in BG or BG2, but if the BG:EE guys are reading this... Baldur's Gate 3? Maybe Xan should become someone important!) and something that defines his position in Evereska, so for his background aspect, rather than going with his capture by Mulahey, I think his Moonblade should get its own aspect. Chosen by the Moonblade has a lot of clout to it, especially once you realize the importance of the Moonblade beyond being an awesome item for a mage to haul around.

Xan having as many lines as he does for Ajantis and Eldoth makes him stand out in Baldur's Gate, so I think we can assume those would make good aspects as well. Ajantis Lives in a Black and White World is a pretty catching aspect, I think, and really establishes his relationship with the paladin squire.

As much as I try to stick to his dialogue for these aspects, he doesn't have a really snappy line that defines his thoughts on Eldoth, so I'm going to have to make something up. We know he doesn't like Eldoth because he views him as crude, unnerving, and just plain mean-spirited, so lets say Eldoth Should be Locked Up, as I think that pretty much sums up why he can't stand the guy. Aside from Eldoth being evil, he's also quite unashamedly criminal, and Xan is a law enforcement officer.

That covers Xan's 5 aspects. Next, we're going to cover his skills.

As Xan is an enchanter, Lore is quite obviously going to be his peak skill at +4. Xan is also an investigator, so Investigation and Empathy should fit nicely at +3. I think he'd be pretty good at telling when people are lieing, and he is an enchanter. Next down we have Will, Contacts, and Rapport at +2. As pessimistic as he is, he's also the only person who can keep Ajantis from just randomly attacking evil party members. Finally, I think Notice, Fight, Athletics, and Resources. He can use that Moonblade if he has to (I mean, sure he's a D&D mage, but I'm not going to let the mechanics trump story here), and he's pretty good at keeping out of trouble. If he were back home in Evereska, I think he'd have more resources at his disposal than he does here on the Sword Coast. As an investigator, he's kept his eyes trained, but that's not his main method of investigation.

As for Stunts, I'm going to give him the stunt Arcane Enchanter. This lets him use Lore to Create an Advantage by casting mind-affecting spells such as Sleep or Charm. If I were trying to translate him as a D&D mage, I'd also let his magic attack, but I always used him purely for Crowd Control. I mean, he is  an enchantment specialist, and he's darned good at it, so I think this is a fairly simple stunt for him to have handy.

Next I'll give him the Practiced Investigator stunt, which gives him a +2 to Overcome aspects meant to hide a criminal's trail of clues.

For his third stunt, I think something concerning the Moonblade would be appropriate so, I'll give him a stunt Chosen by the Moonblade, which grants him a +2 when using Fight to attack in melee with the Moonblade. Some might think this gives him a +2 all the time, but then they forget that something as simple as having the "Unarmed" aspect put on him by a foe, or the GM being mean and compelling his "Chosen of the Moonblade" aspect to mean he left his moonblade at home will deprive him of this +2.

So, to recap:

Xan
Lost Greycloak of Evereska
Trouble: Our Quest is Vain

Other Aspects:
Chosen of the Moonblade
Ajantis Lives in a Black and White World
Eldoth Should be Locked Up

Skills:
Lore +4
Investigation, Empathy +3
Will, Contacts, Rapport +2
Fight, Notice, Resources, Athletics +1

Stunts: 
Chosen by the Moonblade (+2 when attacking melee with Fight if wielding the Moonblade)
Practice Investigator (+2 when using Investigate to Overcome advantages intended to conceal a criminal's trail)
Arcane Enchanter  (Can use Lore to create an advantage by casting a mind affecting spell such as a sleep spell or a charm spell. This can be defended against by Will.)

Mass Effect Overview, or Why The Mass Effect 3 Ending Wasn't That Bad (And why I'm Excited for ME4)

To anyone who knows me, it comes as no surprise that I love the Mass Effect games. I'm a complete and total Bioware fanboy, dating all the way back to the original Baldur's Gate games. I even wrote my business letter to them for my junior high language arts class. So one can understand why the vehemently negative reaction to the Mass Effect 3 endings kind of irked me.

"But!" I hear you say, "It completely invalidated all our decision through out the games! Without my own unique personalized ending, everything I decided was worth nothing!"

Well, first of all, that's complete BS. If you make it the bottom of the dungeon and get the Orb of Zot, no decision you've made up till that point matters at all. All that matters is you got the Orb of Zot. When you beat Bowser, it doesn't matter if you took a warpzone or not. The only thing that matters is that you beat Bowser. 

I think this mindset serves to demonstrate very powerfully just how much Mass Effect has mastered the illusion of choice. Because in the end, there are actually very few truly meaningful decisions. Up until Mass Effect 3, decisions you made had very little impact on the actual plot. The biggest impact was mostly on who would survive and who would die.

For instance, lets look at Mass Effect 1. This game is an absolute rail road. You get to Eden Prime, no matter what you decide you end up saving the opposite gendered human from you, and getting blasted by the beacon which gives you whacky visions. After that you have a few choices on where to go next, but ultimately no matter where you decide to go next the story plods along exactly the same. All the missions end the same way. There are a few instances (like with the Thorian Beast, or more memorably at the Krogan Breeding Facility) where you get to make decisions about who lives and who dies. But in the end these decisions have little impact on the actual plot of the story. You will still end up in a crazy fight against Saren. 

And the side quests don't really lead anywhere either. Scanning all the keepers gets you an Acheivement, and a little e-mail in ME2 that tells you "Oh yeah, by the way, keepers? Totally some kind of like thing that takes care of the citadel and used to be connected to some kind of alert system" which tells you nothing new about the keepers that you didn't already learn from Vigil. A few side quests get you some neat cameos in 2 and 3, but for the most part these side quests don't really net you anything--in fact, the simple fact that they net you resources in ME3 which can be used to help you get all the 3 endings is a vast improvement from the complete lack of impact they have in ME2, except to get the Asari business woman to recognize you rather than be stumped as to who you are. 

So, after two games in which your story had little to no impact on the actual plot, what, exactly, where people expecting out of the Mass Effect 3 endings? Did the original endings fail to tie things up? I think that's pretty reasonable. They didn't provide the sort of denouement that we wanted after spending so many years with these characters. Is it a reason to complete hate the game? I'd say "NO". The game itself was very well polished, took risks with the ME3 story and provided exciting and dynamic game play that the series had been crying out for since the original, which had stiff controls and confusing cover mechanics, and nearly impossible to aim guns.

That's another complaint I've heard. That the game play has "Sucked since ME2". What. A. Joke.

Mass Effect 1 couldn't decide if it wanted to be a Real-Time Sci-Fi ARPG with some third-person shooter mechanics, or a Cover-Based Third Person Shooter with some ARPG level-up mechanisms. It was poorly designed from a game play perspect, it's dungeons were all the same dungeon just with different rooms locked and unlocked (*COUGH*DRAGON AGE 2*COUGHCOUGH*), and movement mechanics that were baffling at best, and killed you off at worst.

ME2 was a vast improvement. The cover mechanics actually made sense, aiming the gun was far easier, and it had finally decided how to get that balance between RPG elements and cover-based shooter in such a way that it felt like it had a cohesive game design. Each of the classes was unique in its own way, but operated in such a fashion that everything made sense.

This illusion of choice, however, put unrealistic expectations on the endings of ME3, which for whatever reason drowned out the stellar gameplay, world design, and the rest of the ME3 story telling. 

A lot of people are now accusing EA and Bioware for "Milking" the Mass Effect series because of the announcement of Mass Effect 4. I'll admit I can't honestly see how furthering the series will work unless its assumed only the Red or Blue endings are canon, as the green ending was a little bit too weird admittedly, even with the expanded endings.

Ultimately, I'm excited to see where they take the Mass Effect stories from here, and I can honestly say I'm looking forward to it.