Okay, so you know that I am a massive Dragon Age fan because I don’t shut up about it. (Sorry, but not really if this annoys you.) Anyway, E3 was last week (or the week before. Time becomes a weird thing when you’re unemployed.) and whilst I didn’t watch the majority of it, (not that I didn’t have time. Just couldn’t be bothered.) I did say pretty much the only thing, apart from the disturbing lack of actual gameplay for The Sims 4, that stood out for me was Dragon Age: Inquistion.
Now, that may be an obvious thing as I am kind of a huge Dragon Age fangirl. (Not rabid fangirl. Everything has flaws.) But I was really hesitant when I first heard that it was in development because of all the problems with the second game. I was also really worried when I heard that it was going to be open world like Skyrim. Don’t get me wrong, I love Skyrim but for very different reasons and I wanted Dragon Age to be it’s own game. But I was really excited when I found out that they were letting us pick a race again in the game and that the Qunari are playable for the first time ever. This is a big thing because the Qunari have always been the mysterious Other that you can’t quite get your head around in the game, especially with regards to their religion. Also it means that I can finally play as a female Qunari mage and yell ‘Saarebas!’ whilst flinging fireballs at my enemies. (Side note: Saarebas actually means “Dangerous thing” in Qunlat, quite apt considering. Yes, I am that sad or awesome depending on how you look at it.)
Anyway, I can’t really say much on the companions. I’m glad Varric is back because he was my bro during DA2 and he might possibly be the best thing about that game. For me anyway. As for the others? Eh, we’ll see. I’m curious about Iron Bull though, apparently he isn’t all solemn like your typical Qunari. I’m interested in seeing what that will be like. As for Cullen, I’m not really bothered about him, I don’t get what all the fuss is about where he is concerned. I’m glad Leliana is back (though that was obvious from the end of the second game.) and I want to know what she’s up to. Likewise with Morrigan. I really want to know what happened to the demon baby I made her have with Alistair and I want to know how integral to the plot that is going to be. (Oh and I think we’re getting a Tevinter mage as a companion too. That should be interesting…)
Um, what else? Oh yes gameplay! I like the idea of targeting the limbs of a dragon to incapacitate it rather than just swinging a sword at it’s ankles until it dies. Also, I like that they’ve introduced spells that you can only use once per battle. It adds to the tactical element of the battle. I’m glad they’ve brought the tactics back properly as that is how I play the game. They’re also bringing it to the console versions too this time round, which is also good because the graphics whilst pretty look like they might chew up my laptop so I may have to get it for the PS3. (I hope not though. I’m a PC gamer at heart.) But yeah, I hope the tactics actually work properly this time round. I hope we get to lay traps again like in Origins, instead of just hacking and spamming fireballs. I hope that I don’t end up having to constantly babysit my companions like I did in the second game. That would be good. Also no waves of enemies. It makes flanking difficult.
I don’t know, I definitely feel a little better knowing that they’re going back to making it an RPG. I just hope we get crafting back. They’re definitely taking advantage of Frostbite 3. I do have one question though, weren’t they thinking of including a multiplayer element to it? There were rumors circulating around for ages and it hasn’t been mentioned since. Whilst I’m not a huge fan of multiplayer elements in single player games, I have to say it would’ve been awesome to be able to storm a castle with friends. But eh, oh well.
I just hope that it lives up to the hype to be quite honest. I know there will always be some element of disappointment but I hope that because it’s had a longer time in development that it’s going to be amazing. I just hope that Bioware have learnt their lesson.