A very long post about things that worked for me in DA:I and things that didn't, spoilers for the entire game:
The locales were gorgeous. I understand people who were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the zones, but I enjoyed riding my beautiful horse everywhere SO MUCH. (idk if it's just me or what, but that horse was a m a z i n g?! the animation felt so solid, i loved it.) Storm Coast wins personal favourite for the weather and the greys and the unbelievably pretty lighting, but the entire thing was basically like taking an extended vacation in a bunch of beautiful places.
Skyhold felt wonderfully lived-in. So many little touches -- the notes throughout construction, the conversations everywhere, how the people in the courtyard changed with your actions, the changeable decor. The wine cellar! Wandering through it gave you such a sense of comfort, made you want to protect it -- especially after Haven.
I've read a few reviews where people said they had some trouble connecting with their Inquisitor but I can't say the same at all; I loved mine to bits. I really benefited from playing a Dalish mage though -- you immediately run into so many things that make you question where you stand and who you are, and then as the story progresses it becomes more and more relevant to your heritage and identity. (I do also have some criticism there though, see below.)
The story beats were fantastic up until after the Temple of Mythal. Gosh, In Hushed Whispers completely floored me, and then the follow-up of In Your Heart Shall Burn, the move to Skyhold ... I had to force myself away from the computer at regular intervals, completely captivating. Even the complete change of pace in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts -- I mean, that could have been a disaster (hours of spying and political intrigue?) but instead it worked brilliantly.
Dorian's romance arc was touching, charming, and sexy by turns, with a shocking lack of cringey lines. (I can only really think of "How bad does the Inquisitor want to be?" though I'm sure there were a few more. I genuinely loved the "Inquisit me again." line, to be honest. YOU KNOW HE'D SAY THAT.)
The companion interactions in general were wonderful, both the banter and the actual cut scenes like Dorian and Cullen's chess game, Cassandra helping Cullen through the lyrium withdrawal, etc. (The banter bug is a tragedy, but at least I'll have lots of new material to look forward to once it gets fixed.)
Dorian, Cassandra, the Iron Bull, Josephine, Cullen: fantastic. I'm a bit on the fence about Varric (whom I love, I just ... wanted more maybe? wasn't sure about where the Bianca thing went?) and especially Solas (even more conflicted now I've gone and watched some of his romance) but leaning positive.
There's a theme to the game of deconstructing myths -- you get the elven gods, of course, but it also makes a point of doing it with the Dalish themselves, with the Grey Wardens (almost hilariously so; they're so weird), with the templars and the rebel mages, the Orlesian court, even Corypheus himself ... all these grand stories and in the end it's all about people being a) petty and terrible and/or b) thrown into terrible situations and forced to make impossible choices.
The crafting system is hilarious and fun (okay, make something with reasonable stats but it MUST NOT involve plaidweave), at least once I'd figured out the interface. On replay I'd start crafting much earlier and be less stingy with materials.
There's just so much to do. I spent so much time just sightseeing, crafting, talking to everyone, listening to ambient dialogue. It really is a world to get lost in.
The story beats after the Temple of Mythal, and especially the weird, rushed last mission, where I basically just threw up barriers on occasion and auto attacked the dragon and Corypheus to death. I was only level 19, so not crazily overlevelled either. I'm not calling for a harder fight necessarily, but it just felt really banal? And the victory felt so ... unearned. I spent the entire game gathering assets and strengthening the Inquisition only to then not get to use any of those assets in the final battle?
Even if I'm gonna roll with the whole "my army's still at the Temple of Mythal but we have to strike now" thing -- couldn't I have found a use for my companions, at least? They were all there in the end! ME2 did that so well, as did Origins, I think (it's been a while) -- surely something like that would have been an option.
Basically the ending wasn't satisfying from a gameplay perspective and it wasn't satisfying from a narrative perspective either, and that's a disappointment after all that extraordinary build-up. That's not to say it was a terrible ending -- it was a very straightforward and safe ending -- just that the longer I think about it the more I realise how little it resolved and how much more it could have been.
Solas, Solas, Solas. LOVE the idea, not convinced by the half-hearted execution. I realise his storyline is going to lead into future events and that the post credits scene was intended as a teaser, but it really needed to be a lot clearer and, uh, explain a lot more. Actually, well -- I think it shouldn't have been a post credits scene at all but been more properly integrated, including more set-up than a bit of easy to miss banter and a codex entry.
In fact, I really think they missed out on a chance to make the ending much more compelling and emotionally satisfying by integrating the Solas reveal. For instance, what if the orb hadn't shattered but ostensibly been depowered, and you were given a choice to either try to take it from Solas by force or let him leave with it? You could even bring that sort of thing around to a similar ending place so as not to complicate the story too much in the future, but it would have let the player have some input, would have given the Inquisitor more agency in those last minutes.
I think this is partly a problem of contrast because some of them were SO GOOD, but some of the companions felt a bit underwritten -- especially Vivienne. Simeon didn't get along with her too well, and I'll try becoming better friends on my Cassandra romance playthrough, but ... it's difficult to sympathise with someone who's embraced an obviously faulty system to this extent, and I wish I'd seen her question it even just a little bit. Instead we got the Bastien thing, which felt oddly tacked on -- "Let's show people Vivienne DOES have a gooey centre!" -- as well as inappropriately intimate on my playthrough. She'd been nothing but distant and patronising until I brought her the proper wyvern heart, and then she suddenly lets me see THAT?
Because you have the option to keep playing after you finish the main quest (which is nice!), all your companion's arcs end up in this weird limbo where everyone has plans but no one's actually leaving. This is particularly frustrating when it comes to your romance. For me, with Dorian -- does he leave and try to reform Tevinter? Does he stay indefinitely, growing more restless and frustrated? Does he leave but make plans to come back? I don't need definitive answers, but a general direction would have been nice. (I assume it's the same with both Cassandra and an Iron Bull who remained with the Qun, possibly others too.)
It's buggy as fuck on PC.
As good as it was to play a Dalish mage Inquisitor, it wasn't enough sometimes -- thinking particularly of the Temple of Mythal, where the Inquisitor's like, "So who was Mythal?" Dude, you're your Keeper's First, you should probably know these things.
Relatedly: The war table mission where you can accidentally wipe out your entire clan? By taking the option that seems safer, I might add. I really feel like that should have triggered a cut scene (the next time you're in your quarters, perhaps with your highest-approval companion?) that lets you choose how you're dealing with it, but ANY acknowledgement would have been better than no reaction at all, which felt super disorienting.
Not actually sure if good or bad --
Blackwall's arc. So with characters like Anders or Morrigan I've always been able to see the motivation behind the betrayal and at least sort of understand. With Blackwall though, his entire deal is so reprehensible and so mundane, and he STILL has the gall to play the morally superior card at every opportunity. He never comes off his high horse, only it's not even HIS high horse! Oh man. I hated having him around after his reveal. And that's me the player, not me the Inquisitor, which I think is my main point of critique -- I don't see this changing on future playthroughs, even with different Inquisitors. There's just not a lot to sympathise with, I think.
fwiw though a lot of people seem to have taken a much kinder view of Blackwall, and I guess it's good if a character that could have been boring turns out to be pretty divisive, so here he is in this "idk idk" category.
The criteria for things like the choosing of the new Divine and Leliana's hardening being so opaque. I like this a lot in theory, that the way you behave in the game world influences it just as much as your explicit choices. The problem is that you might want your character to grow and change a bit over the course of the game, and some of the things you say early on seem to lock paths in -- for example, Leliana apparently always hardens if you don't tell her not to kill her spy really early on in Haven (COMPLETELY overstepping your position at the time). Filing this under "neat but frustrating".
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