Video Game Review: Dragon Age: Inquisition

After all the events of the last two Dragon Age games, the entire land of Thedas is thrown into peril.  A giant hole appears in the sky.  Rifts start forming all over the world, with demons sprawling out of them.  The Divine is dead, leaving the Chantry in shambles.  The war between mages and templars rages on, and Red Templars start their own invasion.  There are dragons to kill, Orlesian plots to foil, Venitori agents to hunt down, and Darkspawn to kill.  And in this third game, it's up to you to lead the Inquisition to resolve all these problems and become a new hero of the realm!

DA:  Inquisition takes all the best aspects of the last two games for a more refined gameplay.  As before, you can customize your character and build him/her up as you see fit, and you have a bunch of charming companions to control as well.  Controlling four people at a time, you travel through multiple open-world maps to slay hoards of enemies, find loads of secrets and treasures, and discover more of the story.  The amount of ground you get to cover is huge, and you can easily spend hours upon hours combing through each map and completing all their tasks.  Among the activities you can engage in, there are artifacts, landmarks, collectibles, puzzles, dragons, keeps, camps, rifts, secrets, and more to find.  As you progress, you'll eventually unlock huge potential in your skills, your crafting abilities, and your resources.  When you aren't going around killing things, you can send out dispatches across the land (much like the Assassin missions in the Assassins Creed games), which will net you even more rewards.  The game gives you a ton to do, and it empowers you with enough flexibility in shaping your characters and their gear to make them a force to be reckoned with.

What makes the game even more rewarding is the story and characters.  It is a basic premise, but it is also a grand and epic tale that incorporates many different subplots sprawled across the entire land.  Each character adds a bit of color and personality to the mix - there are a number of companion quests that help build them up even more.  The main character can be played either gracefully, aggressively, or with a sense of humor, and all personalities make him/her appealing in their own ways.  At this point, all of the myth and events of the last two games carry over and contribute to different parts of the story, tying up the entire franchise really well.  It also leaves enough open for a possible fourth game (which I'm sure is inevitable).  Choices made in the last games can be carried over or built up from scratch using the Dragon Age Keep website, although it only amounts to small, subtle changes.

On the PS4, this game looks gorgeous, especially in regards to the settings and locations, which look very detailed, clean, colorful, and fantastic.  Most movements are smooth, but some far-away creatures can get suttery for some reason.  Character animations are good and all the different people look good.  Each area is designed really well, with a phenomenal attention to detail.  Gameplay is easy and smooth throughout, with a lot of consideration put into the systems for skills and crafting to make it manageable and empowering.  Voice acting is decent, the writing is good, the sound design is good, and the music is great.  Unfortunately, the game is still not flawless; glitches are common, with plenty of instances where characters tend to float in the air or get stuck in places.  I've seen the camera do dumb things.  It also seems like some quest icons can be glitched on the map or they may not register properly.

The other issue with the game is that, eventually, you will run out of things to do.  Once you've spent 100 hours going through all the quests you can and exploring every inch of the maps, you might find yourself growing bored.  Regardless, most of the game is a smooth and high-quality RPG experience, with a great immersive world and a fun cast of characters.  It's a definite must-play for franchise fans.

4.5/5 (Experience:  Very Good | Story:  Very Good | Game:  Very Good)

Video Game Review: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

The films of Studio Ghibli have teleported audiences to fantasic new worlds, the likes of which haven't been so captivating or endearing since the glory days of Disney.  Nausicaä, Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, Ponyo, Arietty, and so many more, have all presented fantasies full of deep imagination, myth, and emotion; with Ni No Kuni, however, the studio adapts all these same strengths into a new medium, using its full potential to allow gamers to not just see the fantasy, but to live it.

If you've seen and enjoyed the films of Studio Ghibli, then you'll feel right at home with this game; it's all designed and rendered to match the look and style of the films.  Once you leave Motorville and enter the other world, you'll become immersed in a universe full of magic, whimsey, and wonder.  It's a world populated by fairies, monsters, steampunk kingdoms, weird animal people, and majestic landscapes.  The game has its share of cuteness and its share of epicness.  Above all, it presents a vast world with dense mythology and deep storytelling; it's like a hundred times more satisfying as Ghibli's films, because it's all spread out so far and so wide, and there's always something to explore.

The game itself plays out much like other JRPGs on the market; you spend your time gathering a party, roaming around the landscape, and fighting your way through hoards of monsters with hundreds and hundreds of battles.  As the game progresses, you grow more powerful, learn new spells, find new companions and creatures, and eventually fight your way to the finale.  Grinding for experience and loot can be repetitive (especially if you're aiming for the platinum trophy and looking for those elusive alchemy ingredients), but the main story keeps things rolling pretty well.  Overall, whether playing the main quest, bounty hunting, or running errands, the game is consistently engaging, highly immersive, and incredibly addicting.

The story is great; it starts off tugging the heartstrings really hard, for its opening is quite tragic.  As the story goes on, it turns into a sprawling epic that digs deeper into the myth and history of the fantasy world; some of the revelations, especially regarding the White Witch, are pretty invoking as well.  The story is full of lovable characters; even the villains are lovable, once their motivations are revealed.  Classic themes of good-vs-evil emerge, but what makes this game unique is that it's not all swords and sorcery; the good and evil exist more on an emotional level, and most of this conflict involve fixing hearts that are broken.  It's not only a different mechanic for some of the quests, but it's also a fresh new take for fantasy fiction in general.

This game runs smooth and reliably.  It uses pretty basic graphics that emulate cell-animation (with some quality anime cutscenes on occasion).  Despite not having terribly detailed textures or renderings, the game looks great for its given artistic style.  Gameplay is quite easy, with an intuitive control scheme.  There are oodles of tutorials available, making the game accessible for young, old, experienced, and unexperienced gamers alike.  The levels and world design are pretty decent, and there is a ton of places that can be explored.  Voice-acting (for the English version) is good.  The game is written well-enough, although I think it has a tendency to over-explain the objectives and over-simplify things.  Designs for all the settings, characters, props, creatures, and everything else is highly imaginative and fantastic.  Music is really great as well.

Throughout the game, I could easily identify countless references to the Studio Ghibli films:  My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, Nausicaä - and really, the whole thing plays out a bit like Howl's Moving Castle.  Even on its own merits, however, Ni No Kuni is still a phenomenal world all on its own, filled with endless hours of addicting gameplay, emotionally powerful storytelling, and whimsical experiences.  At the time of this writing, it stands as my favorite JRPG, and it is highly recommended for gamers young and old.

5/5 (Entertainment:  Perfect | Story:  Perfect | Game:  Very Good)