Song of Fire and Ice? Seriously I heard of people claiming origins of being being a lord of rings knock off not never Song of fire and ice. Its a dark fantasy series not a low fantasy last I checked.
Origins was actually pretty low fantasy.
1. Mages were more rare in Origins. This is partially explained by circle mages roaming free and Tevinter forces showing up in the South. Regardless of how legitimate the reasons, the outcome is that mages are definitely more ordinary and plain now than they were.
It's the difference between how cool Jedi were in the original trilogy, and how kind of trite they were in the prequels. Yeah, it made sense in the story, but that doesn't mean that it also doesn't have an effect on the viewer.
2. Mages were less powerful. They couldn't teleport or time travel, they were used simply as walking trebuchets in the battle of Ostagar; obviously more valuable than a random soldier, but were not nearly these potentially unstoppable machines of raw power that DA2 and DAI turned them into to make them a credible threat.
3. Mages were more easily subdued and controlled. They were just kind of students who could do some tricks for the most part. I mean, look at our experiences with them in Origins. We had Jowan, that female mage who was afraid of spiders, other random students, and Irving, who doesn't really do much. Not the most exciting bunch. Most of our interactions with mages and magic took place in Boring Hogwarts where things only really got dangerous when demons, not mages themselves, started causing trouble.
The exceptions are, of course, Flemeth, Morrigan, and that weird hermit in the Brecillian Forest. They were the only mages really shown to be something more (and most of the hermit's cred just comes from Morrigan saying he was powerful).
4. There was only one dragon and it was really secluded.
5. Our only real antagonist was just a mortal person playing politics.
6. Demons were rare and mysterious. I really liked that about Origins. We had our horde of mooks in the Darkspawn, so demons were our interesting enemies. Having them literally falling from the sky in Inquisition just feels like it's cheapened them, and nothing has really replaced them.
7. Qunari were just dark skinned, tall humans (to everyone who didn't read like one codex or something). Now they're Draenei without hooves.
8. Orlais, in my opinion, turned out to be too campy. And if you know me, you'd be shocked that I find something "too" campy.
9. Powerful items were rare. You'd go through most of the game with rather generic items with a few stats, so when you found a rare, named item, it was special. Now every bandit seems to drop a named two handed sword that triggers some massive attack that shatters the ground 10% of the time
10. Overall, abilities were less flashy. Rogues didn't teleport, warriors didn't charge forward creating a wind of vortex behind them. Mages actually got less flashy and less powerful in game play terms, though (except for Knight Enchanter, which has a lightsaber).
11. The color palate was less flashy, though I can't say that I don't like the visuals in this game better.
12. The weapons and armor were also waaaaaaaaay less flashy. DA2 and DAI are both straddling the JRPG line of over sized weapons and armor
13. We spent more time in drab, medieval locations, because Fereldan.
14. The immediate goal for most of the game is to use treaties to build political alliances, which is a hell of a lot less fantasy than "close a hole in the sky that demons are falling out of." Sure, we were getting the treaties to fight Sauron and his orc army, essentially, but there's a definite difference in tone between the game's two objectives.
15. In Origins, we were The Chosen One who needed to defeat the Ancient Evil, but only in a metagaming sense. You had to know the tropes to call it out. In Inquisition, we're beaten over the head with literally being the chosen one. We also have special Chosen One powers this time around. In Origins, we were just immune to the Blight, which I felt was a perfect way to do the "special Chosen One powers" thing, because it was exceedingly relevant but also in no way over the top. It was actually a very boring special power.
16. Our companions weren't really presented to us as The Ocean's 11 of Thedas. We had:
Alistair: bumbling Gray Warden intern
Dog: a dog
Liliana: a crazy bard
Oghren: some random dwarf warrior
Sten: a random grunt soldier from a strange land
Wynne: a seasoned mage, but nothing special
Zevran: an assassin who failed so spectacularly in killing you that many players just killed him without knowing he was even a companion
Shale and Morrigan are really the only extraordinary companions.
Contrast this with Inquisition, which gives you
Cassandra: A main character in other media, could easily have been a player character in her own game. Probably has more accomplishments under her belt than the Warden or Hawke
Cole: A spirit who can read and alter minds
Dorian: Probably equal to Wynne all things said (though, again, mages are beefed up in DAI's world)
Iron Bull: A leader in his own right, essentially a Qunari James Bond
Sera: Admittedly has some of the least impressive qualifications
Solas: I don't think I really need to say anything about Solas
Varric: The Tony Stark of Thedas
Vivienne: She thinks she's more important than she is, but she's still pretty damned important.
Most of our companions this time around have the qualifications of full-fledged player characters. And this was deliberate. They wanted us to feel like the leader of leaders. It just makes the story so huge, but that also makes it so much higher fantasy
17. They're obviously expanding the Elf lore more and more, which means digging back to a time when the world was decidedly more high fantasy.
I really wanted to get to 20. Also, I don't think all of these are bad things, though all things said I would rather have Origins 2.
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