Inquisition completed

So, this is just to let the world know that, after about seven (eight?) months of time from buying the game on day one and around 180 hours of total gameplay, last friday I finally managed to finish my first playthrough of "Dragon Age: Inquisition" with my mage Trevelyan inquisitor (whom you can take a look at here)!

Yes, it took me quite a while since I lacked all the spare time to play consistently the game and I also wanted to explore every nook and cranny of all the areas in the game and complete any quest I'd been able to unlock.

Well, my overall evaluation of the game is positive and I expect to start additional playthroughs with new inquisitors. DAI was not a disappointment, so I guess I'm likely to play more of Bioware games in the future, assuming something intriguing should pop up (I'm not particularly interested in the new Mass Effect game, but a further Dragon Age game is likely to pique my interest).

***Beware of possible SPOILERS in the following***

It's unfortunate I've been stuck playing on an x360, so I couldn't enjoy the graphics at their best. The game really put my console's hardware to the test and I had to endure relatively long loading times (for a console) and the pain of seeing scenes being rendered first with (ugly) low res textures while the higher res textures loaded. Bugs gave rise to a number of annoying issues which apparently were (mostly) fixed only with the latest patch. One of the most annoying problems was that starting conversations with the companions often froze my x360 (I had to avoid talking to Cole for quite a while). Also, I ran into that silly "In Hushed Whispers" quest bug caused by entering Redcliffe for the first time by riding a mount: the game hang for a while, I missed whatever custscene was supposed to play at that point and the quest remained marked as "active" throughout the entire playthrough, but luckily it didn't screw up anything else.

For the most part I enjoyed the storyline of the game. I was particularly happy to see Hawke coming back for a part of the adventure: given what many people think of DA2 I thought that Hawke would be simply forgotten. Funny enough, it was actually the Warden from DAO who happened to go almost forgotten by Bioware. The companions in DAI proved to be quite interesting, with Cassandra surprisingly becoming a favorite in spite of my bias due to her role in DA2. Yet, I'm a bit annoyed that not all the companions from the earlier games made a comeback, not even for a cameo, in particular the DA2 companions (yeah, you know my "Bethany obsession", so I will not deny I was hoping she made an appearance in DAI).

BTW, did anyone else feel like the final quest was a bit rushed? I expected to have to fight my way through some nasty demon-infested dungeons before the final fight with the Elder One, so it came as a surprise when upon starting the final quest I was led directly to the final fight.

***END of possible SPOILERS***

Now I'm quite tempted to start a whole Dragon Age series playthrough, starting with new DAO and DA2 campaigns before I play through DAI again! Not sure whether I'll do that with the incoming summer, so in the meantime I should have more time for new XNALara/XPS pictures and model extractions!