Reviews VideoGame / Dragon Age Inquisition

Hamartia

Inquisition is a veritable Greek Tragedy; it boasts improvements over it's predecessors that may have made for a winning combination, were it not for a single damning flaw.

Inquisition has incredible production values, which are admittedly tarnished by lackluster technical optimization. It has Bioware's signature fantastic voice talent and sharp dialogue. It has a cast of characters who are varied, colorful, and sometimes even complex. It has thematic elements with genuine dramatic, philosophical weight.

But from the very second you finish customizing your character, and the game proper begins, it proceeds to tie an anchor around it's neck and dive head first into a toothless rendition of Bioware's boiler plate "Save the world" story.

The boring, recycled plot structure that is usually an irritant in Bioware's other games becomes a Plot Tumor, as all the rich stories from the previous games are touched upon and unceremoniously resolved, sometimes with little more than a hand wave. All the pathos the series has accumulated is rendered inert as a new protagonist, absolutely stinking of Plot Armor skips around Thedas and cleans up every mess they come across, all of which is uninvolving because we experience it from an alien perspective.

The worst offense comes when one of my personal favorite characters from the first game shows up to resolve their character arc. Paradoxically, this sequence was my favorite part of the game, but it's presence served to drive home how fundamentally unworkable the narrative is. I was only engaged in this sequence because of my previous connection to the aforementioned character, but the Inquisitor, the character I was supposed to be roleplaying as, had no reason to care anywhere near as much as I did.

My agenda as a player became contradictory to my agenda as a character; it created a disconnect between the two of us that left me intimately aware that The Inquisitor was NOT ME.

This happens with practically every event in the story; you are relegated to the role of an impartial observer. All the while you slog through an uninspired central plot that is virtually devoid of tension and incident; the main cast is almost never in believable danger, and consequences are relegated to the background.

Inquisition is fun while it lasts but supremely unremarkable; form without substance.