Ok, I haven't finished yet, so I can't comment on the ending. Hell, technically I'm not out of the starting yet, only just got through Val Royeaux, after just going through the Hinterlands a lot. At least 10 hours in, probably 20. Also, playing on normal, which is stated as how the game is meant to be experienced, and hence how I feel it is meant to be reviewed. This should dispel any 'play on hard for more tactical' bullshit, as its called Hard Difficulty, not 'more tactical game' slider, and in general that means that it makes the game harder, which may encourage people to use tactics, rather than actually changing the gameplay to be tactical.
Now, the major questions:
Is it a good game? Yes.
Is it Origins II, or II... III? ? Its very much a sequel to II, not origins.
Should you get it? Depends on what you want from the game.
As a standalone title, its great. If you take Skyrim, and improve near everything that was wrong with it, and even the things that were right, you get Dragon Age Inquisition. Its not fully open world, but it may as well be.
However, that's largely what it feels like, at least to me. Skyrim. A really well polished Skyrim. Though, I guess that's what is to be expected with open world games, and perhaps Oblivion would be more accurate thanks to the gates.
For one, if you liked the tactical combat of Origins... Prepare to be disappointed. I've heard people say "On a scale of DA2 action to Origins tactics, its almost at Origins", but I'll say reverse that. The entire gameplay is focused on action button mashing. It is not centred around tactics. You can use tactics, and they do help, but only to the extent they will in any action game. Its not a game of skill, unlike Skyrim where you had to aim your bow at least, its more akin to an arcade hack'n'slash with level ups and abilities.
The main points that I feel contribute to this are:
The useless tactical view. Honestly, I think I've only ever used it to dish potions at this point, and occasionally move Varric out of melee [Because he is a ranged character... Who has an heavily favours using a 'drag myself to the enemy and melee them' attack. Genius {Maybe this isn't by default, but I've had problems with it from the start. I just use auto-level up for them, so maybe that's where it went wrong, but IDK}]. It is also very obviously designed for console use, and I still haven't figured out how to use it properly - my view always just sits above my main, and its hard to tell who I've selected because of this. The main 'tactical' part of the game, and its basically unusable, at least in my experience.
Another big thing is that there is still no autoattack, and autoloot is gone now too. If you want to auto-attack, you hold down the left mouse button. This also controls your camera movement though. Its also just a generic swing sword thing. Not homing to your enemy or anything, it basically just attacks infront of you, or likely where you're clicking if you're a ranger. Its just a button mash fest otherwise, spamming left click to attack. This naturally takes your mind off the actual tactical part of the fighting. Whereas in Origins you would issue your character an order, and wait for the times to use your skills when most appropriate, in Inquisition, like in II, you just pick an enemy and spam attacks, using your abilities as sort of 'special moves'. There are opportunities for you to use tactics, but the game doesn't really require you to. People say the boss fights are different, but in the 1 I've been in so far, I don't see that as true. The boss fights are just keep your tank to the front spamming taunt, mage at the back spamming Damage and 'Barrier', which really just works as a heal anyway [Adds a 'shield' healthbar on top of your own that slowly depletes. Literally just gives you temporary extra health], and your rangers standing back and shooting. No tactics or coordination required, just keeping your 'guard' and 'barrier' health up on your people.
Additionally, customisation is nowhere near what it was in Origins. Skilltrees are basically just DAII, and you're still heavily locked into classes, such that your character is a rogue, so they can dual wield, or a warrior, so they can sword and board, as opposed to Origins where you could have a dual wielding warrior, or a sword wielding mage, and actually make the character you wanted.
Potions have becomes gods. Healing potions are your main method of actually healing now, and you can carry 8 at a time. The fun part? Free refills every 100 meters at a camp, or whenever you want via fast travel to a camp. You're never in any danger in Inquisition, as you've always got these potions with you, or at least a 2 minute walk away.
At the same time, the game is more in depth than II in most areas. Crafting is actually complex and fun to do, using schematics to decide some base attributes and looks of an armour, then introducing materials to make it out of, each of which have a different effect dependent on which 'slot' they're used to make. The war room is more of a strategic thing, though I haven't really got a ton of payoff from its activities yet. Yes, it opens up new areas by spending 'power' to scout them, however it also has numerous timed quests of its own that, whilst interesting, for me have not yet given anything. Maybe this changes in the future, but as of yet... Nothing. What is interesting is the use of influence to replace all the 'herbalist' skills and such from Origins. Influence works similarly to levelling those up, or unlocking them in general. You can research things that improve your lockpick ability, or allow you to make better potions, or other things like that. They are, sadly, party wide rather than character centric, but at least they're there.
The games controls are horrible on the PC though. Its not Skyrim levels of bad, but its close. As said, tactical view is basically non-functional, the controls are a pain - especially movement, which can no longer be done by right click, but must instead be done via WASD walking places, which sounds fine, until you need really fine positioning to pick up some loot or go down a ladder.
Overall, its a good game. The things that I like are its graphics and aesthetic - it looks good, like a graphically updated Origins, rather than the hyper-cartoony to the point of ugliness II - it is enjoyable to play, if not greatly tactical, and the interworking between quests, side quests and the war table power and influence mechanics. You can kind of envision your side quests paying off when you spend power. You got your troops in the cold some food and blankets, earning power from the sidequest. You then spend this power on sending guards to protect some refugees, and you can almost see the people you saved going and helping the refugees to return the favour to you, even if it doesn't actually happen. Additionally, whilst the god forsaken dialogue wheel is still there, you can, thankfully, turn off tone prompts, so you don't really know the tone of what you're saying. With the tones seemingly more randomly distributed, rather than top left always goody two-shoes, and bottom left always asshat extraordinair [it is still like that, but sometimes the options aren't straight that, and its a bit more dialed down than previously.
Things that I didn't like are the current sidequests being just busy work and cross map treks, and the current dungeons being only one or two rooms. I don't like the PC controls, nor the non-tactical focus. The easy-recover potions are just OP, and they'd have been better off making them cost elf root [Min/Maxers may have complained that they needed to always go harvest elf root in order to always have full potions, most players likely would have played through and occasionally grabbed some elf root, not relying on always being able to have potions]. Leliana is very prominent, and doesn't seem at all like she used to be, which is really disappointing having played DA:O, though in a small bit of text description for one war room mission saying she does personally know the Teyrn of Highever, which is who my Grey Warden was, so maybe it references her origin a little, even if it is largely... Missed. Your origin is also non-existent, and it would have paid to extend the 10 hour intro tutorial thing by another 15 minutes to shove one in, just to give some more context to who you are. The game also suffers normal RPG issues; World is ending, better get this homeless man his lost necklace from the dungeon, and a bear is stronger than an army of fully armed mages and knights, which I would have loved to see actually be addressed [The former is, with the sidequests paying off thanks to the power thing, the latter I don't notice too much, but it is painfully still there]. Also, dat hair. God is it ugly. Also, so much is not explained in game, that was revealed in DA2 DLC, and books, and comics and more. I'm lucky I read through it before doing the Keep so I could make some good choices, otherwise I'd have no clue on a lot of things so far.
Basically, its a good game, and I'm impressed with what its accomplished, but its not Bioware. Its this new Bioware that made ME3 and SWTOR, DAII and ME2. And that's what this game basically is. Its the ME2 of Dragon Age. Stripped back mechanics, and the beginning of a shift in tone and gameplay and pretty much everything else, but still at its heart a game of the series. It is a Dragon Age game. The link can be tenuous at times, but its there. Depending on what it is you want out of the game will depend on whether you should get it. It is, however, a good and enjoyable game that it, IMO, worth playing.
