Dragon Age: Inquisition Retrospective

Dragon Age: Inquisition is so often maligned for its MMOified systems and weak plot, but is it really that bad ?

A mere three and a half years after Dragon Age II's catastrophic launch, Dragon Age: Inquisition was released. It received a lukewarm reception, with criticisms primarily leveled at the MMOification of its open world and the overall blandness of the story. Today it is generally regarded as the worst game in the series by fanatics.

It is better than people remember. Basically every complaint about Inquisition‘s vapid level design, empty environments, boring combat, and tedious quest-grinds is accurate. Its gameplay is a lot like leveling in WoW Classic. It is also a very well-written game, with an interesting but tremendously uneven narrative. It is, at least, better than II, and in some respects an advancement over Origins. Today I want to discuss why.

The Harold of Andraste, Dialogue Wheels, and Trees

The Inquisitor

I played a male human mage in this latest playthrough, as I did when I originally beat the game in 2014. His name was Harold (guess why).

Like most RPGs released in the post-Mass Effect world, Inquisition has a voiced protagonist. I do not oppose voiced protagonists on principle, as many others do. Giving the player someone with real personality to inhabit is a positive impulse in a role playing game, because it is very hard to understand why anyone would form an attachment to a character who does not even speak.

But it is easy to do voiced protagonists wrong. Hawke is the primary reason why Dragon Age II is a bad game. He has no personality and no character. But Harold is a huge advancement. He still remains malleable, allowing him to function as something of a Hero of Ferelden-esque self-insert, but you can also see why he is a leader people respect.

The reasons why are demonstrated by the game’s improved dialogue wheel.

Dialogue Wheels

Every dialogue option in II has three paths: Nice, Snark, and Mean. A little picture appears by each to remind you which is which, as if Nice always being at the top and Mean always being at the bottom wasn’t obvious enough already.

Nice is still at the top and Mean is still at the bottom in Inquisition. Mercifully the little pictures have been removed.

Though the structure of the dialogue wheel is visually similar to that used in II (and Mass Effect: a wheel only has one shape), the manner of the writing is completely different. Whether you decide to be Mean or Nice, Harold always sounds like the same character. This was not the case with Hawke. In II, Mean was always excessively mean, and Nice was always ludicrously angelic. Snark was worst of all: choosing the middle option turned Hawke into a failed comedian using his adventures as the test-bed for his standup routine.

The lack of any alignment system or consistent voice between these three options makes Hawke seem to ricochet between personalities within every dialogue. He will go from maniacal evil to Joss Whedon deadpanning over the course of seconds. Though the dialogue itself is not individually grating in II (mostly), this complete incoherence makes Hawke the worst voiced RPG protagonist ever written.

This glaring issue was rectified by the time of Inquisition. Despite being less pre-defined than Hawke, as racial origins have now returned, Harold (or she) is written with a consistent voice and some kind of discernible personality regardless of which options the player chooses. The wheel still breaks down into Nice, Snark, and Mean, but Harold’s voice remains consistent across all three. Choosing the top, middle, and bottom options within a single exchange will not make your head explode.

Toning Snark down significantly has also helped. Harold does not feel like a comedian. This is a positive change. In effect, the game’s personalities divide into the new categories of Polite, Witty, and Straightforward.

Choosing between Polite, Witty, and Straightforward allows you to project yourself onto the Inquisitor while keeping the Inquisitor distinctive as a consistent personality. This is never an easy thing to accomplish in RPGs, and BioWare does it very well here.

That isn’t to claim that Harold is a great, compelling character. His voice actors are unremarkable and mediocre. He asks far too many questions for someone who should be the force of personality leading a major paramilitary organization. It can still be challenging to see what the other characters see in him, especially his romantic partners.

But that is how it is in every roleplaying game. Graded on a curve, Harold is a good protagonist.

Dialogue Trees

II does not have conventional dialogue trees. The conversations are linear. You can only talk to your companions when the game wants you to, and when you do, you are given a single option. Once it’s been selected, you cannot go back to a trunk and path down other branches.

Inquisition restores complete, branching dialogue trees to Dragon Age. It is full of well-written and easily navigable conversations. Options on the right side of the wheel always progress to the next tree, while options on the left allow deeper diving into the current tree. These left-side branches can go incredibly deep, taking the conversation into entirely new directions (after which it will terminate). This is not a small thing: in a computer RPG, the main gameplay is the dialogue, and giving players the options they want to choose gives them the agency that the game needs to be interesting.

Playing II and Inquisition back to back reveals the stupendous difference in this regard. II’s hastily written dialogue is very badly laid out. Inquisition’s is masterful.

But good trees don’t mean much if there’s nothing interesting to talk about. Thankfully, this game also provides companions worth speaking with.

Make Me a Match

I reach sixteen power and return to Skyhold. Before venturing to the War Room to spend it, I visit Cassandra. She is my chosen target for romance this playthrough, and I want to know if she’s up to anything.

Surprisingly, she is. She and Varric are in a fight over finding Hawke. It comes down to Harold to step in and keep them from killing each other.

Or you could do nothing and laugh on the sidelines. Up to you.

This scene is not marked on the map. It is not part of any quest. It exists purely as a reward for caring enough about your friends to check in on them.

This is not a one-off event. Every companion in this game has multiple cutscenes just like this one. Every person in your crew has his or her own life, and if you visit them, you will catch a glimpse of it. Once those scenes are over, everything returns to normal. But you will remember that Skyhold was alive even while you were away.

Pay a visit to Cullen and learn that he's undergoing lyrium withdrawal. Talk with Varric and meet the real Bianca. The designers didn't shove this down my throat; they just let it happen.

This genius is what makes Inquisition work. The cast itself is fine. The companions are mostly likable. But more than in most RPGs, they feel real.

Better, when you want to have an in-depth conversation with one of your friends, just go do it. You will be rewarded with a rich and fabulously written dialogue tree to explore.

II does not let you do this. II has no dialogue trees.

The Game

The main reason why so many people dislike Inquisition is because of its gameplay. Even on Easy, the enemies have vastly too much HP, and the sidequests have basically no story.

This is the paradox of Inquisition. Skyhold is bursting with engaging, emergent narrative. Missions like the Winter Palace bulge with memorable story. These are areas where the game has no or next-to-no combat.

But when you step into the open world, you will be playing Classic WoW. The story effectively vanishes. There are paltry snippets of stories. NPC encounters will occasionally result in dialogue with trees. Quests involve fetching things or killing people or going places. “Power points” are paid directly into your bank account.

I do not know why they designed the game this way. Even RPGs with excellent gameplay, like Mass Effect 3, don’t do this: everything in those games is narratively motivated, with very little busywork. You want me to grind in Dragon Age?

The consequence is that Inquisition is really two games. It is one excellent RPG and one terrible MMO. Everything at Skyhold and most of what involves the main storyline is fantastic. The characters are good and handled very well. But most of your time is spent slogging around the open world, gathering Power and crafting materials while War Room missions complete, wondering why they put so much bad into what could have been a great game.

In Summary

I loved Inquisition when it came out. I dug through the dumpster of gameplay in search of the Dragon Age fix I badly needed, and I really did find it. After six and a half years, I think I like it more. This game has some of BioWare’s best companions and most memorable story moments. Friendship with Dorian and intimacy with Cassandra are incredibly rewarding. They don’t top what’s in Origins, but they come very close.

The gameplay is not good. Inquisition is tedious to play. But the story will motivate you enough that it is not boring. That is more than can be said of II, for which I can really offer no praise whatsoever.

Put the difficulty on Easy. Maybe find a mod to make it even easier than that. But you should still play Inquisition today.