Heather McGreal

If the brilliance of storytelling found in the last 4 hours (endgame) had been sustained or even built up over the previous 50+ hours of play it could have been a 10/10 but unfortunately I found the earlier game was lacking Character creation was easier than I thought it would be, diverse in options but not overly so as to induce an adhd overwhelm. The part where you input and create the inquisitor was easy to miss though. Technically speaking I was suprised to like the combat style, by end game I was checking for combos, dodging attacks. It ran fairly smoothly and looked good. I did have a few glitches - primarily the dreaded load save error which I found a work around for after the first day. I also found often when loading up a save my rook would be bald and default and I would need to go back to the mirror to get my customization back. Both were annoying but not game destroying. Story wise as an overall the story is good but feels in places more a book than a game. With a couple of notable exceptions I didn’t feel that rook shaped the outcome with decisions made and several plot twists were seen a mile away. As such I wasn’t entirely surprised by the ending but that didn’t at all take away from its impact. As far as companions go, while they are well written and developed characters the lack of PC interaction made me feel like rook was an outcast in the team. Having said that I loved that rook was not central to the plan with a bunch of companions hanging on. Everyone had a purpose and reason to be there and a job to do. They all had personalities though I didn’t feel there was a huge diversity of opinions - it was not hard to be gaining everyone’s approval every time. Romance wise this does not seem to be as integral to the game as previously. The Romances lack drama and depth and take 80% of the game to initiate. There was an amazing amount of Easter eggs to be found with previous game references, but it lacked in not having a full world state entered. By end game it is clear they didn’t care what state your world was in when you started. It would have been nice for just a few important points to be scattered in to make the game feel more connected to your personal world history and that was a missed opportunity. Despite a 10 year release delay the lack of small details tying this game to your previous world states does give a bit of a rushed feeling that is not expected. Like they had the story and would tell it as they chose regardless. I know a lot of this sounds critical and maybe it is, perhaps these shortfalls mean more to me because I play for the story not the challenge. But overall I did enjoy the game.