I’m writing this about a week ahead of time (I’m still slowly recovering my buffer) and I have no idea if I’ve gotten close enough to the end of Dragon Age: Inquisition that it might be a reasonable goal to finish it before the fourth game in the Dragon Age Franchise, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, comes out. That was my initial goal, months ago during the summer when I first made these plans, but so much has happened to derail that plan that what felt like a decent amount of buffer space has slowly slipped away from me. I mean, I even had a two-week period where I barely touched the franchise because I was so burned out from a mixture of sleep deprivation and work demands that I couldn’t over my dread at the thought of returning to Inquisition for the first time since 2017’s failed attempt to replay the game. I’ve overcome that, though, as I’m writing this (technically I overcame it weeks ago, but I’ve also overcome ALL my hesitancy to play the game), and am approaching the one-hundred hour mark (I’m in the mid-seventies right now). It actually feels like clearing the whole game and its DLCs might be achievable now, since I can absolutely melt every boss I encounter and I’ve made it through the biggest of the world maps in the base game. I don’t know how long the three DLC pieces are going to take me and I am saving them for a bit further down the plot line, but I think it might truly be possible if I can actually use my final weekend well. Still, all I’ve got is a pile of plans and the desire to feel hopeful about literally anything, so this might be wishful thinking on my part. I’m sure the version of me editing this the day before it goes up will have a better idea of how achievable that goal is [I don’t], but right now it feels like it might be within my grasp despite my fears of the week prior. Especially because I’m taking days off and can spend more time than usual playing video games in the last three days before the game releases since I won’t be doing any overtime.
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Dragon Age: Inquisition Is Stressing Out My Completionist Heart
Originally, I started this post complaining about how my completionist nature felt more like a curse while playing Dragon Age: Inquisition than while I was playing any other game, but then I started making comparisons to and excuses about Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and I had to admit that that game, actually, was the one that made me feel the most cursed by my compulsion to do things completely and perfectly. That said, my experience with Dragon Age: Inquisition is no walk in the park, as much as it feels like a walk in the park in comparison to FF7: Rebirth. Sure, I don’t feel constantly stuck and like the only interesting or fun parts of the game are trapped behind horrible, long, and boring stretches of open-world exploration whose only benefit is to provide you with the crafting supplies you need to use a crafting system that feels like it was built solely to justify the expansive, open, and empty maps of the game, but I definitely feel like there’s way to much junk to do in this game. I’m about forty hours into the game as I writing this and I’ve only just finished the first major plot (the first face-off with Corypheus and the destruction of Haven). All because I’ve spent so much time trying to do side quests, collecting resources, gathering influence, and trying to make sure I’m well-enough supplied to make all my own armor and weapons because the stuff you find usually pales in comparison to what you can make, all of which requires a pretty significant investment of resources and time. Time you have to spend pretty regularly if you want to keep everyone wearing top-notch armor. Which feels funny to do, considering most of my party members are wearing accessories that I got in the first ten to twenty hours of the game.
Continue readingRomancing My Least Favorite Character in Dragon Age: Inquisition
I actually had a really difficult time deciding what kind of character to play when I started up Dragon Age: Inquisition. I knew I didn’t want to be a Human, since I’d played a human in both the previous games, and I knew I wanted to be a mage which meant I wasn’t going to play a Dwarf, but I couldn’t decide between playing a Qunari or an Elf. I’d been having a lot of fun learning more and more about the Qunari in my replays of the first two Dragon Age games and, since I’ve apparently never spent much time or energy trying to learn about them in previous play-throughs, thought it might be fun to play through this (currently) final game with a Qunari lens over the whole experience. I was interested to see how the general residents of Thedas responded to my character, to be a giant woman, and to see how those who knew about the Qun responded to my character, a mage who had grown up outside the Qun and absolutely not let herself be collared and leashed in the way that most other Qunari mages were. On the other hand, knowing what I know now about how Inquisition can end and how Veilguard starts, I thought it might be fun to play an Elf and finally go through the romance sequence for Solas. I’d started a playthrough as an Elf, once, and thought it was pretty interesting to see how everyone reacted to an Elven Inquisitor, but I’d never actually romanced Solas before. I tried to flirt with him a bunch once, but I was playing a Human woman and he was not interested. Plus, Elven women are pretty fun! They’ve got the most flirt options and, personally, I’m interested in flirting with as many companions as possible! That said, since I’d be playing an Elven woman and absolutely won’t be playing through Dragon Age: Inquisition again any time soon, I knew that this was my one shot to actually romance Solas and see what its all about before Veilguard made it clear to me.
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