If there was an award for longest demo at E3 The Phantom Pain would win the gold but Dragon Age: Inquisition is a strong silver medal. A solid 35 minute of the game was shown off in a nice air conditioned booth and it showed everything to how massive the world of the game is going to be, to how your choices will impact more than just the narrative been the physical world as well. That is to be expected though as it is a Dragon Age title though. None the less, let me jump in and tell you want I think of this next installment to the franchise.
I'm going to start off as I have been with every other title I have been able to see at E3 and that is with the visuals for Dragon Age: Inquisition. As there shouldn't have been any doubt it looks beautiful. What is amazing to find out is that if you can see it in the world you can travel to it. That is except for space. No space travel in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I asked. That is not to say that the game world isn't amazingly huge and the area we saw in the demo was about the size of one of the largest areas in previous games. So this will undoubtedly lead to hours upon hours of gameplay much like other titles and MMOs out there.
There is no denying that Dragon Age: Inquisition also looks as close to a true DnD or Pathfinder video game as we are going to get without there being another title created by WotC. Read that as a good thing as that still is probably the best version of the fantasy RPG out there in the world in my opinion. I think we would be hard pressed to not make the comparison in one way or another when it comes to this genre of games and stories though. It is all a great jumping off point.
That said, it looks like Dragon Age: Inquisition takes one more play from their playbooks; that would be the tactics and being able to faux-pause the combat to direct AI players or set up your own character. This was demonstrated by the human rogue needing to get behind an enemy defending with a tower shield. With a quick button press the driver of the game was able to move into a "tactics" mode where he was able to direct movements and setup attacks. Then with yet another button push the plan gets hatched and it is only up to the one player controlled character to do their part as the AI does theirs. This kind of give the feel to make things easy or abused during the actual game to me but to be honest I think that will only be before those who have the tactical mind to pull these things off; so it balances out.
Lastly, and I'll leave you with a bootleg of half of the demo captured by someone not on this site, from what I could see in the Dragon Age: Inquisition demo is that the story seems a bit more fluid when it comes to the choices of dialog. By that I mean that it truly felt like choices mattered here as the results could happen more instantaneously and have their own dire consequences after the phrase was uttered. Not just leading to a new brawl but in the way the AI characters would help in battle. Like if you upset one of the helper NPCs they would be more likely to leave you to your own devices, most likely dying, than to come to your aid. Even if there was mad loot and XP to be had.
Dragon Age: Inquisition could be that last push to get me to embrace the franchise as many other rabid fans out there have already. I have had fun with the other titles and DLC but in the end it usually was a passing fad for me. Given my love for the table top versions of what Dragon Age: Inquisition looks to be taking more from this could finally be the answer to "why can't I have a better title than DnD Online?" Hopefully my prayers will be answered once I get to drive the ridiculously long game myself on October 7th. So many titles that day though…
