My question is, how did this get so many GOTY nominations from critics?
Their job is to objectively critique games, yet when ever I come into a GAF thread the base design of this game is getting torn to shreds.
This game was obviously aimed at the mainstream (streamlined, filler quest design, simple combat, etc) but what happened critically?
I think its the fact that it was almost like the equivalent of an Oscar bait movie, coming out at just the right time at the end of the year so it was fresh in reviewer's heads for GOTY awards and it was a really weak year for any similar "AAA" budget RPGs. Its a game that generally makes a nice first impression if you're starved for a BioWare style RPG with generally attractive graphics and nice production values. Almost in a similar situation as Oblivion was last generation, Inquisition was kind of the first big AAA RPG to get on new consoles.
To me, the game makes a real nice first impression up to what happens in Haven where the repetition of everything that follows isn't readily apparent. So with how reviewers probably burn through games, I kind of wonder whether they got that generally nice first impression and then wrote most of their reviews based on that?
I think if Inquisition came out this year, there is zero chance it would have garnered as many game of the year awards as it did last year. Between TW3 and probably Fallout, DAI probably wouldn't have even gotten many AAA RPG of the year awards
To be honest, I liked it too, more than DA:I, but you definitely can't finish the game without an unhealthy dose of tedium due to the Power mechanic and the lack of transparency of which quests were meaningful.
The bolded is a huge problem I had with DAI. I enjoy the story and lore to DA so I ended up doing most of the junk collectable quests like the shards and so on, thinking at least there might be some grand narrative payoff or acknowledgment to doing all that. But nope, closing all the rifts doesn't do anything different than closing the bare minimum. But the game doesn't communicate that at all to you, it just places those quests right alongside any other quest in your journal.
That's what I love about The Witcher is that the repeatable junk activities like monster nests or bandit camps are not even qualified as proper "quests," which is the right way to go about it. Of course if DAI took that approach, probably the only thing left in the journal would be the main questlines.
Game really takes the cake for Most Incompetent and Least Compelling Villain of all time, I mean goddamn.
Which is a complete travesty too considering the lore of the character and everything he'd have been involved in, he should have been one of the most compelling characters in the game. Instead BioWare found a way to make what should have been a great iconic villain into a Scooby Doo bad guy reject.
The game would have been much better had they not made the bizarre decision to completely isolate main/companion quests from the overworld exploration. They made some pretty great open areas with a lot of variety, they just lacked any real compelling things to do in them. Just toss in a major quest or two in each area and the game would have been much better.
Which, again, comparing it to something like The Witcher, comes across as a huge problem in their core design. Why bother with all this exploration and big zones when the majority of the time the actual story bits are in completely disconnected instanced zones? The times when the main story threads make use of the actual existing world like some of Crestwood or the one bit with the Western Approach were good. Yet within that same plotline they have the battle at Adamant in its own instanced zone. Why not have Adamant be some location connected to the Western Approach? Better yet, why not have all those similar desert areas just one huge map? Kind of how Velen and Novigrad bleed together in TW3?
Even beyond the quests though, I still can't fathom why there are no cities or even really towns in the game. Redcliffe is about as big of a city you're exposed to in the game, despite having Val Royeaux in it, which is supposed to be one of the biggest cities in the world of DA. I'm guessing its a technical issue but if that's the case, then maybe using Frostbite wasn't the best idea for an RPG.
Shame he doesn't work at Bioware anymore. The next Dragon Age game will probably be even more streamlined.
Gaider is still at BioWare working on their new unannounced IP. He's just not working on DA anymore. Which is a shame if they keep trying to bring back characters he wrote for like Alistair or Morrigan. Then again, I guess he could write those parts if need be since he's still at BioWare.
