Poll: Favorite Dragon Age

[Asita]

I've seen a few threads on Dragon Age: Inquisition recently, and that got me to thinking. Exactly how does the franchise rank against itself? I know that Dragon Age II got a lot of flack early on, but have opinions mellowed out since then? How does Inquisition compare? And so on and so forth. Just how would you rank Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age Inquisition? Elaboration on your position is, of course, encouraged.

 

[Elfgore]

Origins will forever be the best Dragon Age in my mind. Ten playthroughs and I still enjoy it every time. I don't have enough time put into Inquisition to decide if it is better than 2. When I came back to play 2 after a few years, I found I enjoyed the game a lot more than I recalled. Inquisition is getting better and better as well as a play on my PS4. But Origins still has the top spot for me.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Origins is not only the best, it's head and shoulders above the others and miles in front of both in terms of the overall experience you have IMO.

DA:2 was IMO very poor. An arduous slog through a mundane world with no real good feelings to speak of, and when it was over I felt more "thank God for that" than anything else.

DA:I is only something I've played via a friends version, but I really don't like it at all. It's only just better than DA:2 in my book, but that's not saying much.

Both DA:2 & DA:I drop the ball on so many RPG-ing basics that it's frightening.

I think Bioware should make another sequel for DA:O, where the events in DA:2 & DA:I are totally ignored, and another timeline takes place all based around all the good stuff in DA:O. No "open world" or MMORPG gumph, no action-RPG crap, just Dragon Age: Origins 2 - a cracking RPG which will be played time and time again and make them absolute fortunes.

But that's too simple for them to do lol.

 

[Tayh]

Origins is, in my opinion, the best, modern party-RPG. We'll see if PoE or Torment: ToN will beat it.
DA2, while playable, was a disappointment in the combat and strategy part, not to mention the numerous recycled areas.
Haven't played more than 5 minutes of DA:I. Couldn't stand it. The controls and UI are just atrocious on PC. Fuckin' trash console-port.

 

[Fappy]

Origins is for sure the best, but I am really enjoying DAI still. DA2 is pure garbage though

 

[Bergthor86]

For me Inquisition is the clear winner. It's the only thing I've been playing, and my main topic of conversation, ever since it came out, and I just like it more the more I play it. Awesome game, and I would place it in my top 3 of all time. I do like Origins a lot, but I just hate the combat in that game (yes, I'm that strange person who prefers the new direction to the old one). Despite that I'd still say it's one of the better games I've played due to the great characters and story. Unsurprisingly, DA2 is the one I like the least, but I have warmed up to it slightly more recently and while disappointing compared to the other two games I'd still call it a good game.

 

[Asita]

Both DA:2 & DA:I drop the ball on so many RPG-ing basics that it's frightening.

Could you perhaps elaborate on that a bit? The most common complaints I recall about DA2 was the shift in combat, the repetitive level design, and certain elements of the plot and characters, and having yet to complete DA:2 or start DA:I, I'm afraid my frame of reference is rather limited without clarification.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I don't know...I like all of them in different ways. Origins had probably the best storyline overall and really felt like a complete adventure in itself. II and Inquisition are both clearly waiting for their sequels, which is a bit annoying for me.

II had the best characters though. I love Merrill, but everyone else was still fun to interact with--except the Prince. He needed to loosen up, but as we see in Inquisition, he's still just as stuck up as ever. Inquisition, on the other hand, probably has the worst batch of characters for me, and I didn't really find anyone that I enjoyed. Vivian was nice and is by far my favorite, but the others were just...meh. Which makes getting that romance trophy a real pain.

Inquisition is by far the biggest of the three though, and it has a lot to offer. I sank over a hundred hours into it in my first playthrough, and it does do a good job of opening up the lore and paving the way for future installments. This game really does feel like I'm building an army at some times.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I picked other. Overall I had the most fun with Inquisition. I enjoyed the story and the characters, it is easily one of the best looking games I have ever played, and I enjoyed the combat alot tho I like the DA:O style more.

HOWEVER as much as I enjoyed it I enjoyed DA:O story more. It was also quite short compared to DA:O and even DA2. I also don't thik the characters are as great as in DA:O. I really love Varric, Iron Bull and Dorien but while I like most of the others (Cassandra has a very sexy accent but Sera and Viv can just fuck off) I simply did not find myself liking them as much.

I have read a few complaints about the exclusion of magical healing from the game but I kind of like it from a story pov. I know that the lore states that healing with magic is crazy difficult to do so in my mind the reason my bad arse Warden is able to do it is because she is a da vinci or Einstine of magic and that makes me smile.

So while I love Inquisition I still think that DA:O is my favorite.

EDIT:
Figured I should say my comments about the combat are comparing Mage against Mage. I find the other classes boring but I think the Melee and Archery in Inquisition is more fun than the Melee and Archery in DA:O

 

[Longing]

Origins is by far the best and flops around in my top 5 favourite games of all time. It had the best companions (Alistair, Sten and Wynne) and the most focused story. You could see your goal straight ahead, get to loghain, gain allies and stop the blight. None of that dumb fast forward stuff from DAII and the story in DAI felt somewhat deceiving, in that the more interesting plot changed right after the "prologue" in favor of a more generic approach.

I do like the combat in Inquisition a lot more, it's a nice mix between the sluggishness of Origins and the too fast paced combat of DAII, but the game drags on way too much. I thought I would enjoy more hours of Dragon Age, but you have to wade through so much shit just to get to the important bits and it has one of the most disappointing ending ever, rivaling Mass Effect 3. Bioware needs to work on that shit, it's getting tedious. The only thing Inquisition has over DAII is the environments, the romance arcs and a handful of superior companions, which is why it's my least favourite game in the franchise.

Still a good game. Just miles below Origins.

 

[Nixou]

Gameplay-wise, Inquisition without a doubt. Story-wise, Dragon Age II.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Best gameplay, story and character simply must go to Origins. The Inquisition story just kept getting worse, ending up with a straight 'kill the bad guy ruining the world' plot. The lore is straight up boring, I don't care how much of it there is. But the freedom and exploration of DA:I puts it above DA2. Otherwise those two aren't all that different.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

Well, I'm going to be voicing a rather unpopular opinion it seems, because personally, I think Origins is the worst of all three. But, let me clarify: Origins had some of truly spectacular companions, and the story itself was rather engaging. My problem was the gameplay, being an absolute slog on console for me.

Dragon Age 2, on the other hand, simply had gameplay that felt better, more dynamic, and while the dungeons were repetitive, I felt it was partly justified since you spend almost the entire game in the same area. Why would the areas change drastically? It's story was a little iffy, but ultimately I had more fun with Dragon Age 2 than I did with Origins.

Inquisition, however, felt like it had the best parts of both. Choice of race as well as class and gender for the player character. Combat that felt good and simply wasn't a single button press per enemy. A very engaging story, and some of the best companions yet, with what I consider a few exceptions. Inquisition gave me the most fun of the three, and if it comes down simply to how many times I've replayed all three games, Origins has to be the bottom rung for me.

 

[Risingblade]

Origins is easily the best, worse I think i'll go with 2 since I haven't finished Inquisition yet.

 

[StriderShinryu]

If I had to choose one and only one, I'd probably go with Origins as being the best. In truth, though, I consider them all pretty much equal and all excellent games. None of them are perfect and each game has aspects that it does well that the others do poorly and vice versa. In DAO I loved the Origins system and some of the characters but found the overall plot to be fairly unsurprising with some weird pacing. In DA2 I loved pretty much all of the characters and really enjoyed how the story and game focused on one city instead of being a huge globe trotting adventure. Unfortunately, outside of the story, the city felt too stagnant and the reused environments were awful. In DAI I loved how the world felt large and developed with many interesting places and characters, but the large scope of the story felt predictable and I just didn't like most of the party members anywhere near as much as I did in previous Bioware titles.

 

[Frankster]

Origins is the still undisputed best for me.
Best cast, most ugly looking combat sure but it was the most tactical of the series and with mods is actually one of the best turn by turn combat rpg experiences you can get, decent questing and varied enough locales (if a bit small by modern standards) round up its strengths.
A fairly standard plot is pretty much its main weakness.

DA3 had its fair share of niggles, both from a game play and story perspective, but at the end I had more fun with it then I did with DA2 and that's what matters.
I'd say the climax of Da3 is the weakest of all 3 games, but then I remember how frustrating Da2's ending was and grudgingly concede Da3 didn't end that bad, just by the time you reached the final boss you were grossly overpowered assuming you did a decent amount of sidequesting.
This game really needed some secret bosses other then dragons.

Oh and Da2...Well it was a big disappointment, small gameworld that despite taking place over a decade never changes (even after qunari go on a rampage), and recyclable repetitive dungeons for the lose (it taking place in a single city is no excuse...Are you honestly telling me you only ever visit the same fucking cave for all of 10 years, each time a new monster/baddie moving in just after you've cleared the last ones?)

So it goes Da1>3>2 in my book.

combat that felt good.

Not having a go at you Texas Joker specifically since you're not the only one I've seen that said they thought DA3s combat was really good but this is something that really makes me scratch my head.

Wtf?

Da3 had me tearing my hair out anytime I tried to use a semblance of tactics. I'd fight a dragon, position my archer away from dragon, only to switch back to my warrior and have my archer teleport to the dragons feet. Or have my melee warrior teleport to the archer...

MMggrrgrrr... Even DA2 had a better companion tactical setup, and companions would obey orders a lot better. Controlling anything other then a single character in Da3 is a herculean chore.

As I said, I prefer Da3 to Da2 but if it wasn't for the fact that Da2 kept you locked in a small arena with waves of respawning enemies landing via drop pods straight into the battlefield, I dare say Da2's combat system wasn't actually that bad, and miles better then Da3's combat which attempts to fuse both Da1 and Da2's combat but fails to capture the strengths of either of them and just results in a bland puree.

 

[Nimcha]

I think Inquisition is the best. Origins was great at the time but doesn't hold up as well anymore. (I find it hard to play RPG games with a non-voiced protagonist these days) DA2 was pretty revolutionary in some respects but dropped the ball in level design and narrative focus/execution. I feel Inquisition is a good mix between the two, learning and improving upon the previous two games.

You're never going to please everyone though, and that's where BioWare is floundering a bit at the moment. I've always loved BioWare games and I think they should just make the games they want how they want to make them and not listen to whatever bandwagon started this time. For example, I loved the story in DAII, but apparently people didn't get that so in Inquisition we get yet another 'you're the random hero, here's the bad guy, go kill him'. Still fine, but less interesting.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

*snip*

I think the main reason I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition so much in terms of combat was because I never messed with the Tactics, or ever used any sort of Tactical Mode in any of them. That's also probably why I felt that Origin's combat was such a slog, but playing 'tactically' has never been my style, since I'm much more fast-and-loose when it comes to combat.

Ultimately, it comes down to personal tastes. For me, the Tactical Mode and Companion Tactics are wasted, but they're a great option for those that want to use it. Best thing about Inquisition is that it both are perfectly valid.

 

[Drummodino]

Inquisition >>> 2 >>> Origins

Origins is a game I have a love hate relationship with. Occasionally it will have awesome moments and occasionally the gameplay will just click and feel great. Most of the time though it feels like a slog though, the combat is very slow and dull and the story was pretty bland. The party members were a mixed bag, Alistair, Morrigan and Leliana were great, and Dog and Oghren were amusing. The rest were just bleh.

2 has significant flaws like repeated environments and unlikable characters *cough*ANDERS*cough*. But it had a much better player character in Hawke, a more intriguing story and several fantastic party members (Varric, Aveline, Bethany). It also punched me hard in the feels out of nowhere in the Deep Roads, which to date is probably the most shocking, emotional moment in a Bioware game for me.

Inquisition feels like they took all the criticism of 2 and threw the kitchen sink at fixing them. It's an amazing, beautiful game with terrific gameplay, the best cast of characters to date (not including Vivienne) and a really cool crafting system. The only criticism I have is that the main story is pretty generic and bland.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my bunker.

*activates flame shield*

 

[small]

to me they each had their good sides and their downsides.
well origins had a good balance of things for me, apart from areas being a bit small and linear.

DA2, liked the story and companions, the 2 story DLC were 100 times better too, its a shame they never did release more as they were fixing the issues with them. the reused assets really started to grind by 3/4 of the way through for me, there are only so many times you can visit the same cave, lack of companion customisation

DAI .. well they jumped onto MMO land a bit too much, im swamped with quests, having to wait hours and hours for npcs to finish quests in real time is annoying,the PC controls are annoying and obviously designed by someone who has never used anything other than a controller, so hard to control your companions (in origins you had no issue with assigning them accurate tactics for a battle), all of that said im enjoying the story, ive laughed out loud as some of the comments and cut scenes with companions, you actually feel like you are running an organisation, crafting is nice and detailed, areas are bordering on too large and are unique.

one thing that really is annoying me with inquisition is that once you get a class specialisation for your character you have so many abilities you have more abilities than you are allowed hotkeys so you end up with a pile of things you have purchased that you never use