71 hours total. 12 Dragons total. One big bad down. The rest of this post will be full of spoilers and about choices made etc etc so do NOT read on if you haven't finished or if you don't want your playthrough spoiled in any way, go back to that other DA:I thread. This is for those who have finished and want to talk about it, or those who don't mind spoilers.
I suspect this first playthrough will be my "canon" playthrough. Hard to say while I still don't have the internet fixed at home, so I can't use the Keep to customize the starting conditions. So a Dalish Rogue starting from the Default World State has now kicked every arse on Thedas, thoroughly.
There were choices to make quite early on. Mages or Templars? Mages, obviously. If we are to lock up and tyrannize people for their potential danger, there won't be many left walking free. The circles are no more than another symptom of religious tyranny from the Chantry that needs to be burned down. Grrr. Besides, I don't like Samson. This means I got to fight a Tevinter magister, go forwards in time and see what the Big Bad would lead to and come back and break the bastard. Thoroughly.
BIG REVEAL all of a sudden. Closing the breach was met with a rather nasty surprise. A fellow we thought dead back in DA2 was less dead than expected. Corypheus, the Magister of Tevinter who had torn through the Fade and walked in the golden city, the man who had gazed upon the throne of God and seen that it was empty comes for the Inquisition. That first run at the breach was not the intro. Turns out everything up to this point was the introduction as far as I'm concerned, because now the game really starts up. At about 10-12 hours in if memory serves. A grinning little elf is standing up to Corypheus and his archdemon dragon, then damn near buries everyone under a mountain.
Skyhold is mine.
This was then followed by a very prolonged period of cleaning up a metric ton of zones, meeting Hawke (who in this world state defaulted to male mage, rather grr about what happened in Kirkwall), picking up some more followers and starting a relationship with Iron Bull. To my glee, it's fairly heavily hinted that the relationship is D/s in nature where the Inquisitor who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders and is responsible for every good and evil in the world near enough, gets to lay down all that responsibility and just have someone else in charge while they're in private.
Another cool thing is that Iron Bull's lieutenant is about as trans as the setting allows, passing for a man. It's handled maturely and with respect, and the character is quite pleasant to deal with. I quite like that.
The sidezones available at this point are largely not fully connected to the main storyline but they're all touched in some way by the chaos of Thedas and the dark hand of Corypheus. DA:I suffers the same problem as pretty much every RPG out there, in that everything else stands still while you're off gathering herbs and metals, and delivering flowers to people's graves or bunnyjumping around a mountain side because you're pretty sure there's something up there and you can't be arsed finding the proper way up and you just know you can trick the physics engine into thinking you can get up here if you can just find that right angle and what is this about the world ending? THERE MIGHT BE RARE HERBS UP THERE, DAMNIT STOP PESTERING ME!
This is a good thing though. The world is gargantuan and I am grateful the game lets me explore it in peace at my own pace.
Cue the corrupted wardens. The Western Approach has been thoroughly explored and the second Keep has fallen to the Inquisition. The Wardens have been tricked into spawning an army of demons and allow their mages to be under Corypheus' control. Not on this elf's watch. Massive siege, fighting through an army of demons, saving the Wardens she can in the process. Warden Commander gives the Arch Demon a right proper kick up the arse and in the process sends you and your companions to the Fade.
Hawke didn't make it. I got a lot of stat points and finally proved the Andraste bit was just idiocy, so that's okay. Elven powah forever! Wardens are now mine.
Sidequests. ALL THE SIDEQUESTS! Also, Dragons.
After finishing the Wardens questline, I simply do nothing but clear every zone, do every sidequest and hunt down every single dragon I can, because it's just flat out awesome. The dragon fights are the best fights in the game, bar none. They've scaled them up quite a bit from the previous games, made them stronger, bulkier, bigger and take a fuckton more to kill one of them. Early on I spend more time running around reviving team mates than I do doing damage to the damn things.
This leads me to getting some fantastic weapon schematics (clearing every zone, doing every war room operation, checking the right vendors etc) and obviously the best crafting materials in the game. Fairly soon I have my rogue wielding two(!) 400ish dps weapons that do AoE damage, while wearing a piece of armor that makes her tankier than everyone but Cassandra and having a build that allows her to almost stay perpetually in Stealth and instagibbing enemies as she comes out of it. On big bads, I've managed to get over 20k crits on top of the damage done building up that Mark of Death. That 20k+ crit would have been closer to 30k if I'd had time to build up tier 3 focus before the fight. Then I realized, once I've done all the sidequests, companion quests etc, that I'm about seven levels higher than the recommended level for the Orlesian Court storyline mission. Ah well, such is RPGs.
Gnnrgh. Boooooring. The intrigue and court stuff is not for me. OMIGOSH MORRIGAN YAAAAY! Suddenly worth it.
Empress saved. Posh bitch owes me now, good to know.
DALISH TIME! Temple of Mythal, yaaaay. Of course we go the difficult route, chasing Samson around. Walk the path of petition, having more trouble than I like to admit with one of those shiny floor puzzles. Thoroughly stomp Samson, especially since I've done all the sidestuff, the war room operations etc that gives me a Rune that ganks his armor. Interesting stuff about Mythal, the Dread Wolf etc. Elven lore is very interesting in Thedas. I want more. The Temple delivers. Morrigan isn't entirely happy, but come now. Who really expects the Dalish Inquisition? I gargle the well and start hearing voices. This is how it must feel like to be part of the Chantry.
MOAR ELVISH STUFF PLZ KTHX!
oooh, more elvish stuff. Time to summon Mythal.
... you know what, fuck it. I'm not spoiling this. This is too good. It's mindblowing. I squeed so hard and I had to sit back and think for a while. Whatever, eleventh dragon down, except I don't get to actually kill this one.
Long story short, this is where it all ends. I've spent 70 hours exploring the world, hunting down everything Corypheus has inflicted upon Thedas, building alliances, gaining agents, aided my companions, righted small wrongs, made a few bigger ones and generally kicking every ass that comes before me. I am now thoroughly overpowered and I only got one thing left. Corypheus himself and his not-quite-an-archdemon dragon.
Welp, Bioware delivered. None of that ME3 bullshit. Just a good build-up, a good story and... an ending that promises so much more to come. Not spoiling that bit either, just yet. Play the game yourself, finish your fight and watch the credits and what comes after.
Mythal have mercy, the Dread Wolf comes.
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Topic: Dragon Age: Inquisition SPOILERS thread. (Read 619 times)