And I thought I might share my experience. I played the PS4 version of the game, and was playing a female Qunari mage in the Hinterlands. My party was Cassandra, Varric and Solas.
Visuals:
First up, the game looks stunning. I didn't play the Xbox One version, but that was also on display, and I could see that it looked equally good on that system. The character models were pretty good. Cassandra looked a lot better in the game then she does in the trailer.
Dialogue:
There were two types of dialogue in the game. The typical cinematic dialogue, and the dialogue you got when running up to talk to random NPCs. The random NPC dialogue was a lot like Skyrim. You could move the camera while talking to the NPC, and you could exit the conversation at any time with a button press.
At one point during the cinematic dialogue I had the choice of four responses. I chose the left response that was a question, and I thought it was an investigative option, but it actually moved the conversation forward.
Quests:
The game was full of fetch quests. Go collect blankets for refugees, go kill bandits and get back my husband's ring etc. It was very much like the randomly generated quests in Skyrim. You could find these quests with a marker on the minimap. Sometimes the quests were given out through things like looting a bunch of corpses and finding a letter, but often they were given from NPCs.
When the quests were given from NPCs, they used the second type of dialogue I talked about above, and as far as I could tell they all followed the same structure, The NPC would talk, then I'd have two dialogue options, one was always goodbye, and the other asked the NPC a question related to what they had said. Then the NPC would have more dialogue and then I'd have the option to say goodbye to them.
Occasionally, this impromptu goodbye felt a bit weird, as it seemed like the Inquisitor should have said something different. I never finished any of those quests or handed them in so I can't comment on how dialogue played out at the end of the quests.
Towards the end of my time with the game I came across a stable with horses. I tried to mount them by couldn't. Then I talked with the stable master and at the end of the conversation he gave me access to one of his horses. When I ran back out to the stable one of the horses I had seen earlier had been saddled and I was able to mount it. This was when my time with the demo ended though so I never got to ride around on it.
World:
The minimap was poor. It didn't show buildings, or roads, or any terrain. It was more like a radar. This became a problem when trying to locate quests markers, as more than once I would run to the location and find nothing there, or find that the marker was actually inside a building or up a hill that wasn't shown on the minimap.
I was rushing a bit though in order to see as much as I could, so chances are I just missed whatever the marker was pointing at.
I saw a lot of beasts running around and enemies and friendly NPCs. Places felt like they had a history, and made me want to explore.
I interacted with several things while out exploring the world. There was a rift I closed, I planted a banner at a broken bridge and there was some sort of orb thing that when activated opened a screen where I basically had to play connect the dots with a constellations.
One combat encounter I had was coming across a bunch of templars and mages fighting each other. I didn't have the option to choose a side, but instead had to kill them all. The experience gave the world feel lived in. Like stuff was happening even when my character wasn't there.
It seemed liked there was pleanty to do in the world.
Combat:
I ended up engaging in combat quiet a few times during play. I never got to test the tactical camera as I didn't know how to access it, so all my combat time was spent viewed from behind my character.
Doing a base attack was a simple matter of holding down the trigger. I had three abilities mapped to square, triangle and circle, as well as another ability mapped to one of the bumpers. I could access the panel for three other abilties by holding down another trigger, but the demo only gave me the four abilities to use.
On the Qunari mage the abilities were:
Two aoe burn spells, that I believe were the same attack, though they shared seperate cooldowns. When I used them the game paused and I got to choose where to place the spell. Visually it was a burning red circle on the ground.
An ice attack that damaged and froze the enemy.
A blink/teleport spell that was heaps of fun. Seriously, you'll want to play a mage just for this.
Cassandra's abilities were a taunt, some sort of bash attack and some sort of channeled ability where she raised her shield. There was another one but I didn't play as her often enough to remember what it was.
Varric's abilities were a charged shot attack and a shot where he jumped backwards and did a flip when he used it. Basically that thing you see Sera do in that trailer. He had more abilities, but once again I didn't play as him much.
Far as I could tell Solas's abilities where mainly AOE party buff that were applied the same way as the AOE fire spell I mentioned before. I think one of them was actually an enemy cc. I played as him the least though so I can't really comment.
I switched between companions using the directional/arrow buttons.
Combat was pretty fun. Mages were immune to my mages freeze spell. Dudes with shields blocked all damaged from the front.
I didn't really find myself paying attention to my health at all, and died a few times. Occasionally, the character who died would ressurect themselves. I don't know how this worked. When combat was over all dead character would come alive with some health, just like in previous games. It seemed you could also res a dead companion by walking up to them and holding x, though whether you could do this during combat or not I'm not sure as I only did it once and combat had finished.
My entire party never wiped, and I never really worried about a character dying or losing health.
Story:
Other stuff:
Jumping is a lot of fun. I expect quiet a few people will bunny hope around the world.
Size wise, a Qunari compared to a human is the same as a night elf compared to a human in World of Warcraft. Not sure how many of you play WoW, but for those that do/have, that should give you a good idea of sizes.
There were a couple mentions of my characters class and race in the dialogue. For example, when talking to the stable master he said something like "I never thought the one to save us would be one of you big brutes".
When presented with the dialogue options, I asked if the person I was talking to had issue with me being a mage, or with being a qunari, and both times my character spoke the dialogue in a sort of cheerful/neutral tone. Most of my characters dialogue was said with that tone. I don't know if it was just the voice actor, or if it was just that section of story/those people I spoke with, but it didn't seem like I could play a harsh character, at least not all the time. I bring this up because I know some of you will want to play a mage that treats any religious person with hostility, and it doesn't seem like you'll be able to do that (but again, I was only playing a very small section of the game). That said, neither character had a problem with me being a qunari or a mage, so there you go.
Retour en haut
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