I knew about Flemeth's return (and Solas being some elven god thing) going into the game (thanks youtube preview pics/that random spoiler in the bioware forum, I just wanted to look up the class skills!), so the near-credit/post-credit stuff didn't exactly hit me hard. I'm not really fond of it - I don't like that Inquisition basically sets up another direct follow-up, beholden to all the pesky choices you make in the last three games, which, in turn, kinda invalidates them as a whole outside of like two or three things they can work into their newest game without gutting the product. I spent far too much time tweaking stuff in Dragon Age Keep, and seeing almost none of it reflected in-game was another reminder as to the limitations of these AAA productions where everything needs to be animated and voiced if they're not just dumped out as text on the war table. I don't really fault Bioware for its execution, but I wish that they would plan out these things better, conceptually, so that they don't run into these problems in the first place. By this I mean that they needed a clean slate and instead muddled up the waters with an entire game's worth of factors to tweak and take into account.
As for the story of the game itself, I guess things happened in it. Didn't particularly care by the end; Corypheus is a joke and this in turn demeans the introduction of Solas/Dread Wolf as the big baddie in the sequel. Perhaps if they were detached plotwise, but no, the latter set up the former and promptly lost control of both the 'guffin and the villain. What a fucking scrub.
I liked the characters, though. I think they're a good lot. Didn't play DA2, so Varric was a nice surprise for me; even went out of my way to craft a Legion of the Dead armor for him with silverite. His developing friendship with Cole was pretty touching stuff, and I wish there was more of it, and more of the interpersonal stuff between party members in general, relationships without the main character in their loop, stuff that makes their existence more organic than just serving as fodder for the protagonist's whims. Vivienne was Vivienne - I liked her, I understand others hate her, and overall she's probably the least developed character. Early on I figured that her endgame was becoming a Divine as a mage, but nothing came from that, although if it did I wouldn't know as she basically stopped talking to me after the halfway mark.
I knew something was up with Blackwall after seeing the note in the rookery about Warden-Commander Blackwall's speech in Orlais. Didn't quite expect the Jean Valjean treatment, though. Never used him much after the reveal. Wish the game capitalized more on the awkwardness, the discomfort of having the lie and the crime revealed, but there was a conversation between him and Cole that I liked.
Iron Bull was the shit. The Qun mission is pretty terribly set up, though. It's so goddamn arbitrary that it cheapens the decision made at the end.
I preferred Solas as the spirit weeaboo rather than the elven avenger.
Cassandra was a mixed bag for me. I really don't like the voice direction for her; it sounds stiff, and unnatural, and I get that the first part may be intentional but it never sounds natural. I wish they'd settled on the VA's more natural voice; her conversational tone would have suited the character just fine. Otherwise I was pretty fond of her when she was being a hardass, less so when we got to her vulnerable, romantic side. Tried going through the romance but I had to bail out when she mentioned flowers and being swept off her feet. No romance at all for the rest of the game after that. Too goddamn awkward. Just can't deal with them anymore.
Dorian is the best. Were there more quests after the encounter with his father at Redcliffe? If so I missed them. The list-y nature of my post is beginning to unnerve me but I'll never finish this post when I am more awake. His constant reassurances that the player-character is his best, and only friend was somewhat awkward - I mean okay that's cool because Dorian is a bro, but this is starting to feel like he needs to just kind of remind himself that - but otherwise he's a total bro and he gets along with like, everyone. Ended up chatting the most with Iron Bull and Varric in my game.
Sera is ok. Acquired taste, never really acquired said taste. Just kinda ignored her for most of the game. Leliana looks like an alien and her greaves are laughably bad, and I'm not fond of the direction her character took. Josie was pretty charming when she actually said something. Cullen is suave as fuck. Harding, Krem, and Ser Barris needed more love.
Generally I enjoyed DAI. One thing I sorely missed is its lack of petty asshole moments that are completely inconsequential but are important to at least setting the tone of your character, in a way that conveying conversational tone with poorly labeled dialogue wheel entries cannot. If I want to extort three gold pieces out of a starving peasant instead of just giving him his dead daughter's ring back - a hypothetical scenario and one which I'll of course solve in the most compassionate manner - or if I want to punch an old woman in the throat, by god and country I should be able to do it via pulling on the left or right trigger at the appropriate time. I understand that we are nominally the Inquisitor, and that he or she cannot be seen doing such things, but this lack of freedom to indulge in the jerk in turn makes transparent the drudgery of RPG questing as a whole. That people are so cognizant of their tedium with Inquisition, while praising Origin's same set of kill-fetch-reward loops, is a pretty damning sign of this, I feel.
