Dragon Age Inquisition Playthrough: Castle Seige

Wow, we almost quit before the cool part. We are continuing our Dragon Age Inquisition playthrough, and we hit the part with the castle siege. We had previously quit playing through this after a long period of grinding quests and zones, and we decided to do another last throwdown with this game.

Glad we did.

We began the castle siege part of the game, and we were pleasantly entertained by this large set-piece adventure. It was an exciting climax to the story, and we wish there could have been more of these action segments in the game, rather than the long and boring sandbox searching and questing parts in the game.

It is almost as if the sandbox parts of the game just can't compare to the story parts, and frankly while I love sandboxes, these weren't done as well as other sandbox games. It dragged the great parts of the game down, and I was wishing there was more story and less roaming. It is a hard thing to say, because I like my sandbox games and there frankly aren't enough of them, but I feel there is some truth here.

The sandboxes in this game feel large and empty, with not much going on. There aren't wars happening between mages and templars, or the good guys and the demons, and everything feels static and less alive. The zones themselves are masterpieces of world creation, pretty with weather effects and organic terrain, but they feel like they can't compare with the great story missions in this game. As a result, the entire game feels dragged down by weaker sandbox zones.

The castle siege represents some of the best work by the team, and that moment shines as one of  the great RPG action sequences in this and the last generation of console and computer RPGs. It is epic, dramatic, has lasting consequences, and it shines as a great climax to an engrossing story. I wish this part could have came earlier in the game, or the game would have even started with something like this event. We also wished the castle siege was longer, with a build up and more interactive battler parts.

We wanted to finish the story by playing this through with the pen-and-paper game, but we may just delay that for a little bit. We toughed out the boring parts and are now focusing on the story missions, and the game is rewarding us for doing so.

I still want to play a modded version of the roleplaying game, perhaps using the RPG's leveling and rules, and the videogame's powers and spells. I want to make this an epic campaign and tell our own story in this world and with this cast of characters. I will need to come up with conversions and some rules to do this, but I feel it will be a great game for everyone who wishes to join in our group's fun.

But the console game? It has been redeemed, at least a little bit, and we learned some important lessons on sandboxing and what makes for a great story adventure. There is a balance here that I feel needs to be addressed in this game, but for now, we are sticking through playing this until the end, and putting aside the optional parts for the main story line. I hope in future games they address the empty-feeling sandboxes, and find ways to insert story missions into these open and sparse spaces. As for the story missions? They are top notch and fun, and we are savoring the likely few we have left in this game.

And then, we will get to telling our own.