How essential is knowledge of the previous Dragon Age games to play Inquisition? I have the latter and I'm wondering if I should buy the others for background knowledge or if it does a decent job of being a comprehend-able standalone.

 

It's perfectly comprehensible without the previous games. The first game barely interacts with Inquisition at all, and from the second, only a couple of characters make appearances (one is one of your party members in Inquisition), but you don't need to know anything about them, really. The important bits are explained right away, and the other details from their game are irrelevant. There's nothing getting in the way of just diving right in to Inquisition and having a blast.

That said, you should definitely go play Origins first, as that's far and away the best game in the series, in pretty much every respect.

Also, don't even bother with DA2. It's, well, it's basically the game version of this

 

That's cool.

I've heard the same thing about both Origins and DA2. I guess I'll get Origins then. Is the DLC/Ultimate Edition worth it?

 

I actually had a similar question, but in regards to The Witcher. I've heard amazing things about the entire series, of course, but I wasn't sure how awful it would be to start out on the latest one.

 

The Origins DLC is a bit of a tossup. Some of it is really good, and some of it is really bad, and still more is just sorta meh.

The good bits of DLC are:
Awakenings (Expansion, not necessarily DLC, but same difference)
Stone Prisoner
Warden's Keep
Witch Hunt
Return to Ostagar

And I would say it's worth getting the Ultimate Edition at this point just for those. All of them except for Witch Hunt I consider basically essential for a playthrough of DA:O, and if you romance Morrigan, Witch Hunt becomes essential as well (instead of just really good).

The only thing is, I would strongly recommend avoiding/disabling the Golems of Amgarrak and Leliana's Song DLCs as they're pretty shit IMO. Darkspawn Chronicles is similar, but I'd recommend playing through it at least once, just because the concept is so interesting, even if the execution leaves much to be desired. The rest of it is just sorta whatever.

Edit:

Witcher 3 is a pretty decent entry point, in all honesty. I played Witcher 2, and there's basically zero reference to that game, in Witcher 3. I'm not entirely sure on all the details, but from what I've heard, I think that the Witcher 3 is more-or-less a continuation of a couple of the books, while the other two Witcher games were standalone stories, if that makes any sense. Either way, at least in the first 10 hours or so (all I've played to this point), there's literally nothing from the first two games in the third.

 

Inquisition draws on a lot of lore from both of the previous games, but it's not strictly necessary I guess. Some things change depending on previous actions taken in the previous games, though there is a default (and you can manually change the emulated save to create your own game history)

Varric was a party member in 2, and is a party member in 3 as well. Cassandra had an important role in 2, and is now a party member in 3. The Player Character from 2 makes a few appearances in Inquisition. There are multiple references to events that happened in 2, but I don't think its all that necessary to play it. Varric and Cassandra's roles are explained very early on in Inquisition. The one interesting nugget is that the main bad guy from Inquisition is actually from one of 2's DLC (which I never played). Didn't effect my enjoyment of Inquisition at all.

There's a lot of callbacks to Origins as well. Leliana and Morrigan, who were both party members in Origins, play important NPC roles in Inquisition (Leliana much more so). There's tons callbacks, too many to list really. It's not really necessary to have played it, but the truth is that Origins is still a better game than Inquisition (and I replayed Origins after I finished Inquisition, so I stand by that).

FWIW, I rate Origins an A+, Inquisition a B+, an DA2 a C-. But, you can safely play Inquisition without knowing a single thing about the world. I would definitely recommend playing Origins though, since it has some of the best storytelling I've ever seen in a game.

 

Thanks for the help!

 

The Witcher in 5 minutes.

There were a few others I watched before starting Witcher 2 actually, but I don't have them bookmarked at work. If I have them at home, I'll paste them in tonight. This one's a pretty good start though.

 

Whatever, I'll throw in my two cents.

Origins is boss, one of the best games I've played hands down, though if you don't know the game, some aspects can be frustrating, especially w.r.t. combat. My advice is to not play a sword&board warrior and not have one in your party. Go 2H. Dual-wield is probably not a good choice for a first-playthrough, because you get the most out of it when you grab specific gear, sometimes in specific order. Have a rogue with lockpicking maxed out. Stack potions. Really, there are plenty of little things that go into streamlining some bits of the game. Though I suppose on a virgin playthrough you'll be too into the lore and atmosphere to notice many of those annoyances. I know the game pretty well, PM if you end up playing and need advice.

Mod-wise, I'm not a big modder, but for a first timer I'd get auto-loot from danexus. Makes life so much easier.

DLC is a mixed bag. The three adventures accesible from within the game: Soldier's Peak, Return to Ostagar and Stone Prisoner are all solid, but I would only consider the last one really necessary.

Side adventures: Leliana's Song is forgettable but completion yields a pretty sweet set of armor, very useful for rogues in particular and remains very respectable until the endgame. You don't import your Warden into it, so if you get Deluxe Edition (which is really cheap and definitely worth the price for all the content) play it before starting the campaign to get the armor.

Darkspawn Chronicles is an interesting "what if", but probably not for a new player on higher difficulties. You have to rely on tactics and player experience to punch through Hard and Nightmare difficulties. Can safely play it after the first campaign run.

Golems of Amgarrak is kind of wierdly placed. It has a pretty cool horror-sorta story, but it's really just a high-level dungeon crawl. You're really meant to import a character that's finished Awakening into it and ideally a character you imported from the base game into Awakening first. The end boss is in popular (and my own) opinion the hardest in the game. Now, defeating that boss yields a one handed weapon (appears for you in both base game and Awakening). It's alright for early game in the base game, but it's real value is its literal value - you can sell it for a fuckton of gold. Basically, once you run a character through the game you get this weapon and can start a second play through with a huge gold boost, which allows you to grab some very powerful endgame-tier items early. GoA is not for everyone because it's a test of your skill and nothing else. Some players think it was unnecessary.

Witch Hunt is unfortunate because the adventure is, imo, really boring, but the ending is pretty important story-wise. Do it if you're a completionist, but otherwise you can just watch the ending on YT.

Awakening is the proper expansion and is essentially more of the base game. If you like Origins, you'll like this too. And I mean it when I say it's a proper expansion. It's a whole independent campaign, with plenty of content, standing between a DLC pack and a whole separate game. Some elements are simplified, but it's really understandable for what you get given that it's not supposed to be a standalone sequel.

I will defend DA2 to my dying breath, but I realize I'm in the minority and that's fine. I've never ignored the game's flaws, but I have found tons of fun in it as well. But yeah, as far as DA series goes, Origins is a must-play, DA2 probably isn't.

DA2 DLC is not worth it money-wise. Origins is a legendary game by now and DA2 got widely shat on, so we never got a Deluxe Edition which is a shame in my opinion, because how hard is it really to just make low-price package? It costs EA nothing and they might get sales out of it. As is, DLC has to be acquired through those fucking BioWare points which is a disgrace and makes all DLC hugely overpriced, especially for the item packs.

Item Packs are for people who want to squeeze every last bit of dps out of their builds, but there is plenty of great gear in the game if you know where to look. You can complete the base game and DLC missions with only vanilla game gear with the right builds. Forget Item Packs.

The Exiled Prince is meh. It adds a new companion, but it's not necessary. Tbh, I torrented it before Origin store was a thing. Good to have, but the game stands without it.

Now, the two big DLCs: Legacy and Mark of the Assassin. If you really want to spend money, might as well get both, but if, say, you can only get one, get Legacy. It's just better content and ties into Inquisition. MotA is strongly meh, imo. It's good for some OP gear that carries over into the base game and a few challenging fights, but you'll get both of those in Legacy. You can play Legacy and MotA at any point in the game after the prologue, but I personally think it's post-campaign content, or at most Act 3 if you want the high-level gear for the campaign's endgame.

 

As someone who's drawn to these games more by characters than anything else, I am a fan of DA2 too.

 

While you can probably start with the Witcher 3 without feeling too lost I personally really think that reading the books and having playing the previous games adds a considerable amount of depth to it, most importantly in regards to its characters. Though in all honesty I would argue that the books are perhaps even more important/useful than the previous two games since most of the cast first appears in them.

That said Witcher 1 was never the most accessible game (especially if you haven't read the books) and I don't think it has aged very well so I would say that you can safely skip it. Witcher 2 still looks pretty and since it isn't the longest game I would really suggest you try it out first, simply to get to know the characters and world.

 

I'm three hours into Origins and loving it. One thing I particularly like is how well done the sound is - the voice acting is superb and the game's music fits really well and does its job to get you into the mood.

I'm not an enormous fan of the combat but I can live with it. I chose Rogue because that's normally what I choose in RPGs, and it kinda feels like the best strat for me at the moment is just to max my bow skills and make my companions meat shields and a healer. This is especially annoying because one of my favourite RPGs ever is the 2006 Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, which had the best swordfighting hands down of any game I've played in the last decade, as well as entertaining terrain/enviroment use (though the game was buggy and the physics were wonky, I'll admit).

Animations are a bit stiff but it's a seven year old game - I don't really care since I'm mostly playing this for the story. I'm not super far in yet, but what plot I have encountered seems excellent. I'll probably finish this over the next couple weeks and might give a summarising thoughts post.

 

Hugplx

Ikr? Snarky Hawke is boss. Plus the male VA is just perfect. Combat system is enormously fun in how fluid it is and imo enemy waves dropping out of the sky are part of the fun. Some fights are just unbelievably cool with particular builds. And I'm sorry, Origins, but DA2 has you well beat in terms of party synergy. The shit you can pull with a Berserker Vanguard Hawke with the right party tactics is insane.

Plotless

I don't wanna shit over your build choice, but... you chose the worst rogue build. Now, I've done a full rogue archer: base game, Awakening, all DLCs. But that was my like, 6th full run. Early to mid game archer is boring, tbh and late game isn't much better. Archer gets fucking great in Awakening when you get a totally broken ability that turns the archer from "eh, least we're doing some damage" into "DEATH FROM AFAR MOTHERFUCKER". If you're early into the game you can still switch do dual wielding daggers. That build can be brokenly powerful, but is monotonous - it's all cloak, stun, backstab. Imo the most fun you'll get out of a rogue in Origins is dual wielding full size weapons with the dual wield skill tree. Awakening adds some epic skills to all classes, bit personally the most fun I've had in the vanilla game was as a 2H warrior. If you use a warrior in your party, seriously, don't use Alistair with his boring sword&board. 2Handers are better tanks because of the Indomitable ability and generally do more damage than sword&boards. Aaand their passives are better.

Sword&board is utterly useless in DAO. 2H FTW. I did a 2H run where my party was 2H MC, 2H companion warrior, backstab rogue and debuff mage. Two 2H warriors with Taunt, heavy armor and mage debuffs is a thing of beauty. It's also fucking hilarious at times.

I'm pretty sure Dark Messiah was 2008...? And if you've never played a melee staff mage with the constantly reapplied immunity shield you haven't lived. The blue mana-on-hit staff plus the shield is a broken combination.

 

Plotless what origin did you choose?

 

I've always preferred 2H Warrior MC, Melee DPS Shale, Debuffer Morrigan, and Dog. That party is a thing of beauty. It's fun times all around.

Edit: Damn, you guys are making me wanna play DAO again. Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.

 

Human noble.

ScottPress

I'm not really a min/max fanatic and don't really have much investment in the combat but I do have more points in dual wielding stuff than archery. Should I just keep maxing dex and cunning or is there a better stat distribution?

 

Dex and cunning. Throw a few points willpower

Human noble is great.

My "canon play through"

I wish the mage origin had a better backstory. The mage is the funnest clsss to play imo

 

If you go for a backstabbing build, pack cunning and get Lethality from the rogue skill tree.

If you just like swinging daggers or wanna keep the bow, go for dex. High dex will also up your defense.

If you decide to go for dual wielding full sized weapons, use pre buffs to get minimum required dex for DW mastery (36 IIRC) and then pack strength. Granted, this build is counter intuitive for a rogue.

Most overkill rogues go for backstabs, Assassin spec and cloak. Also, with a rogue you'll have so many skill points that you should max poison making to get more powerful bombs. A couple well placed grenades will do short work of mooks.

As for as specializations go, I personally always go for Bard, because the first song buffs party stamina regen. The second bard song might seem like a better deal with the crit buffs, but stamina/mana regen pays off enormously, especially since your mages won't have to chug potions every second of the battle and your warriors actually will have stamina to use abilities. Awakening adds stamina potions, but vanilla only has mana and health. Warriors have to watch armor fatigue (there are a few armors that boost your mana cap/regen, there's a set in the game that grants a stamina fatigue bonus instead of a penalty) and rely on party buffs or kill enemies to regen stamina. That's why you use a 2hander for your party warrior - they'll actually get some kills, unlike the puny sword&board.

Really, there are so many little things to know about the game, but I don't wanna spoil things for you. A lot also depends on what difficulty you're playing at. Also, have a mage in your party and don't bother buffing their hp. If your mage is in melee range, you're doing it wrong. Morrigan gets Mind Blast right off. Get it for the other mage companion if you use them instead. Also, it's a good idea to invest in the Mana Clash spell - mage insta kill will make your life much easier. Enemy mages are always priority targets. After that take out archer clusters (Scattershot is OP), then lieutenants (yellow name).

 

Cheers for all that!

 

I bolded it, but it still doesn't feel like I can emphasize it enough. It finally felt like it really, truly clicked for me about a quarter into my fourth playthrough or so. It's one of the deepest games I've ever played, in both story and mechanics, and I still feel like it doesn't get talked about enough.

Wait until you wade into a few of the better fanfics for it too.