On paper, DA:I sounds like it really should be so much more than its predecessors. You have the mage-templar opposition turning into all out war, Orlais ripped apart by civil war, rifts between the physical world and the Fade opening and letting loose monsters, and an ancient sorcerer appearing and threatening to become an evil god.
The problem is that the combination of these things is far less than what you would think, and perhaps the writers threw too much into the story when some of it really should have been used in a separate work.
The war between mages and templars gets pushed aside for the most part, after a certain point more just the MC having the chance to ask characters their opinions and decide who you want to back for a position that makes decisions offscreen.
Orlais' civil war similarly doesn't really go that far, and it's resolved in a single mission that one goes into with very little information about any of the figures and issues.
The rifts don't really live up to how threatening they sound when, instead of epic struggles in an area twisted by magic, you travel around maps to find and close a few of them, after a few fights at each.
As for the main villain, Corypheus, he honestly seemed so uninteresting that I had to look up his name again. A sorcerer from the original Tevinter, one of the sorcerers who may have caused the Blights in the first place, and who appears with claims that there never was anything in the Golden City. But I found it hard to take him seriously as a threat and he didn't feel like he was saying anything interesting here.
Gameplay-wise, it doesn't feel like a huge improvement. You can travel around big maps that were impressive at first, then you find you have to get through mountains that are everywhere. Combat's alright, but it doesn't feel like it blew the first Dragon Age game out of the water. You can order some missions from the map, that take place in real time (sometimes taking a very long time to complete unless you're willing to constantly reset your machine's clock) and honestly sound more interesting to do personally than what the game has you actually doing. The supply requests take away the sense of being in command when you're repeatedly asked to do jobs you should be telling your scouts to doing.
It's not as though the game lacks anything of value. Most of the party characters have good exploration, even if it's short and lacking in proper buildup the Orlais mission is still fun, some side events are well designed, some of the fights with dragons and other enemies are fun. But it's really too sparse for a game of this length.
And I'd say it's telling that what really seemed most interesting in all the DA:I related works, the impending Qunari invasion and Fen'Harel, are shown to us in a DLC after the game. DLC I was never able to play myself because the plot-critical DLC that ties deeply into the game was never released for the PS 3 even though the game was available on the PS 3.
Biggest Problem of All for a Game, It's Boring
On paper, DA:I sounds like it really should be so much more than its predecessors. You have the mage-templar opposition turning into all out war, Orlais ripped apart by civil war, rifts between the physical world and the Fade opening and letting loose monsters, and an ancient sorcerer appearing and threatening to become an evil god.
The problem is that the combination of these things is far less than what you would think, and perhaps the writers threw too much into the story when some of it really should have been used in a separate work.
The war between mages and templars gets pushed aside for the most part, after a certain point more just the MC having the chance to ask characters their opinions and decide who you want to back for a position that makes decisions offscreen.
Orlais' civil war similarly doesn't really go that far, and it's resolved in a single mission that one goes into with very little information about any of the figures and issues.
The rifts don't really live up to how threatening they sound when, instead of epic struggles in an area twisted by magic, you travel around maps to find and close a few of them, after a few fights at each.
As for the main villain, Corypheus, he honestly seemed so uninteresting that I had to look up his name again. A sorcerer from the original Tevinter, one of the sorcerers who may have caused the Blights in the first place, and who appears with claims that there never was anything in the Golden City. But I found it hard to take him seriously as a threat and he didn't feel like he was saying anything interesting here.
Gameplay-wise, it doesn't feel like a huge improvement. You can travel around big maps that were impressive at first, then you find you have to get through mountains that are everywhere. Combat's alright, but it doesn't feel like it blew the first Dragon Age game out of the water. You can order some missions from the map, that take place in real time (sometimes taking a very long time to complete unless you're willing to constantly reset your machine's clock) and honestly sound more interesting to do personally than what the game has you actually doing. The supply requests take away the sense of being in command when you're repeatedly asked to do jobs you should be telling your scouts to doing.
It's not as though the game lacks anything of value. Most of the party characters have good exploration, even if it's short and lacking in proper buildup the Orlais mission is still fun, some side events are well designed, some of the fights with dragons and other enemies are fun. But it's really too sparse for a game of this length.
And I'd say it's telling that what really seemed most interesting in all the DA:I related works, the impending Qunari invasion and Fen'Harel, are shown to us in a DLC after the game. DLC I was never able to play myself because the plot-critical DLC that ties deeply into the game was never released for the PS 3 even though the game was available on the PS 3.