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Introduction

I owned an Xbox One, so that means I have the option to buy a monthly payment of EA Access, granting me access to a trial of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Lucky me! So I started a broadcast of it on Twitch, with my older brother watching me play. And to top it off, I decided to play it on the highest difficulty: Nightmare. Unfortunately, I forgot to make sure that my channel store it for later, so I can't share it with you. Thankfully, I have a good enough memory to describe the gist of it, so onward to glory!

Spoilers for the Inquisition and previous games in the below section. Read at your own risk!

The Story So Far

Conspiracies from all over Thedas, a civil war brewing in Orlais, and a demonic invasion from beyond the Veil, intending to wreck the world in more ways than one. In the center of it all was me, the Inquisitor. I am Neeshka, a female Qunari rogue who was a mercenary of the Valo-kas company, well-known in the Free Marshes. If you want to be technical, you could say that I'm a Tal-Vashoth, one who abandoned the Qun. I was supposed to make sure the peace conference at the Temple of the Sacred Ashes, that one at Haven, go smoothly. As you can tell, it went horribly wrong.

The first thing I did after waking up (and customizing my appearance), I looked around, lost in the vast void. I looked up, finding a woman beckoning to me. So I went to her, through the thick, green fog. As I walked up the hill, strange spiders, a whole bunch of them, chased me. As far as I know, I did not sign up for this! Just before I reached her grasp as I crawled on the ground, I found myself whisked back into the physical world of Thedas and lost consciousness. Two, maybe three guards had found me like this.

I woke up in a dungeon. A strange, green glow appeared on my left hand, bringing me great pain. The door swung open, bringing in Cassandra Pentaghast and Leliana. Cassandra interrogated me, accusing me of causing of whatever mess I don't really recall. Leliana asked me nicely, but I still don't remember what happen. Leliana left to the forward base while Cassandra brought me outside and cut me free from my bindings. She showed me a giant, green glow in the sky. She and many others called it the Breach, where demons travel from the Fade to here, wreaking havoc on the world. A tremble happened, causing me great pain as the mark spread. Unless I do something about that breach, I would die. I guess I had no other choice but to help.

Cassandra and I went on to find a rift, so we could find a way to close the Breach. On the way, we were crossing over a bridge, but it fell apart because the debris from the Breach struck it down. As we landed on the frozen lake, we were ambushed by a pack of demons. As Cassandra was holding them off, I found a pair of identical daggers conveniently placed by a fallen crate. Naturally, as an adventurer myself, I grabbed them and slew the shade that attacked me. After the fight was over, Cassandra wasn't happy I had a weapon in my hands. Hey, what I was supposed to do, lie down and let that thing kill me? Thankfully, Cassandra saw reason and we continued on. At nearby ruins, we stumbled upon Solas and Varric fighting some demons. At the center was a rift. It was smaller than the one at the Temple. After we fought and killed the demons, Solas brought my marked hand up to the rift and it sealed off. After being amazed by the effect and introducing ourselves, we continued on, with Solas and Varric joining up.

We make it to a fort and, after resupplying our potions, met Leliana and Chancellor Roderick, who was less than helpful. He told us that we need to get out of here, stat, and demanded that I should be put on trial. In case you haven't noticed, idiot: if we leave, the Rift will spread and it will kill me. But there was another problem. Our scouts were lost in the mountains and we were losing our soldiers by the minute. We have two options: save the soldiers or take a shortcut to save the scouts. I chose to take the short, indirect route, using our soldiers as a distraction, to save the scouts.

We went to Ground Zero, grabbing Leliana on the way. All around us, we could see bodies burnt to a crisp. At the center, we found the Breach. We heard voices and a vision of a grand cleric, presumably Justina, held hostage by a giant, dark figure. Cassandra pressed me what happened and, no, I still don't remember. How many times do I have to tell her that? But we got another problem on our hands. A Pride demon appeared as we prepared to close the rift. It was a tough battle, but as it was close to its death, I sealed the rift and I blacked out again.

Some time had passed and I woke up in a shack. An elven servant found me there and apologized, informing me that Cassandra wanted to see me as soon as possible. The Breach was stabilized for now, but the sky was still torn apart. I went there and met up with Roderick, Cassandra, and Leliana. He was less than pleased to see me and left angrily. With the formalities and with little choice I had in the matter, we formed the Inquisition.

I wandered around Haven, doing some work for some of my cohorts to help with our army. I talked to Varric, Cassandra, Solas, Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana, along with the rest of my cohorts. Leliana was bitter about what happened at the Temple, saying it was the Maker, playing it as a game. I told her otherwise. Cullen left the Templar and Cassandra left the Seekers after they cut off from the Chantry. Varric told me what happened to Hawke's companions. Carver went on Grey Warden business, Merril left to help the elven refugees at Kirkwall, Isabella became an admiral of a pirate fleet, and Fenris was hunting down Tevinter slavers, and Aveline continued to be the captain of the guard. Strangely enough, he hasn't mentioned Hawke at all. As for Solas, he was a Fade Walker; he can connect there at many ancient places, dreaming of lost battles, both forgotten and remembered. He seemed pleased that I expressed curiosity.

Inside the fort, I found Josephine arguing with an Orlesian noble who claimed he owned the land. Josephine pointed out he needed to confer to the Ferelden courts for that matter. With that, the noble left, leaving me with her and a mage who specialized in studying monsters and creatures. I can't remember the mage's name, sorry. Josephine came from Antiva and wounded up helping the Inquisition because she was a friend of Leliana and wanted to help bring order back to Thedas.

I went to my war room and my advisers talked about what we should do next. Leliana said there was a cleric attending to the wounded from the fight between the mages and templars at the Hinterlands. I sent a scout there and, after tying up loose ends and prepared my equipment, traveled there.

One of my scouts, Harding, told me of the situation with the cleric. She told me the cleric can't leave unless I could find a way to help the refugees. But first, I have other tasks to attend to. It wasn't like she was going anywhere anytime soon. And to end it all, I roamed around the lands with Varric, Cassandra, and Solas, doing a few tasks to gather agents and resources for my army, setting up camps around the area, sealed a few rifts, and some menial tasks here and there. Oh, and I got a horse, so that was nice!

Gameplay

There's a steep difficulty curve, especially within the first hour, but I got used to the controls real quick. As you know, there were no healing spells, save for the Knight Enchanter's Focus Ability, Resurgence, where all party members, even if they're unconscious, were fully healed and a glyph was placed, healing all party members within it every second for ten seconds. More focus can increase the amount healed by the glyph.

I have a few tips for this game:

You can't heal after combat, so you have to rely on your health potions. Use them sparingly; you start out with eight and can upgrade to 12 later on with an Inquisitor perk. You get a perk by leveling up your Influence.

Get a horse as soon as possible. You can get a horse as part of a side quest.

Grab some regenerative potions. They're great to be used as backup and it can be used individually, unlike the regular health potions. The downside is that you can't replenish it by resting. You have to use elfroots at a camp.

Watch your step. You can take fall damage. What doesn't help is that you don't regenerate out of combat.

On higher difficulties, use the Tactical view. It can help you set up strategies to take out enemies more easily and quickly.

If you're playing as a ranged character or companion, elevation and range are your friend. If you're on high ground, the enemy's AI will have to go to you while you whittle down their health bar.

Bring a mage. They can have the ability to set up a barrier, negating damage for a period of time. The warrior can do that with the Shieldwall ability, setting up defenses to nearby allies. They can also set up their own guards via War Cry. The more enemies it goes, the more guard the warrior gets.

Be wary of high-level enemies. They can thoroughly kick your ass.

Save early, save often.

So far, I seemingly can't increase my attributes this time. I can do that by setting up my equipment or picking passive abilities.

If you want to see more of the game, check out my channel. I'll be doing more of Dragon Age: Inquisition on the Xbox One. If you want to contact me, here is the available information:

My Xbox Gamertag: Nord Ronnoc

Twitter: @NordRonnoc

Email: NordRonnoc@gmail.com

If you have any questions or such, let me know. But please be courteous and excellent to each other. Do not discriminate based on gender, sexuality, race, etc. Thank you.