After being more-than-a-little disappointed in Final Fantasy 15, I got on the ol' interwebs to see what sort of RPG's the PS4 has with high ratings. Dragon Age was near the top of the list and I kinda liked the look of it plus a fantasy setting is my favorite kind. Also, since it was released several years ago I knew that there was a chance that it would be a cheap purchase.
To be honest my immediate thoughts on the game were that it seemed clunky but to be completely fair the last game I played was FF15 and one of the only redeeming factors of that game is the graphics and fluidity of controls, so it was unfair to think that and my mind changed after an hour of gameplay.
Also, when the game first started it was a long line of cutscenes before I ever even got to play, followed by brief moments of action and then more cutscenes. After playing the cutscene bonanza that is Final Fantasy 15, I wasn't really in the mood for this, so my initial reaction was that the game sucks. However, after the first hour of gameplay or so, there aren't very many cutscenes and for the most part they are reserved for critical moments in the game.
you have the choice of going "old school" during combat and to me this was very reminiscent of Baulder's Gate, which is one of my favorite series of all time. You also have the options of only directly controlling a single character if you wish and then all battles take place in real time.
The world exploration and collecting of various elements such as metals and herbs is something that I find quite nice actually. Some people might not dig this and it kind of reminded me of resource gathering in MMO's like Guild Wars 2. The loot-boxes normally contain garbage that simply weighs you down, and your party isn't capable of carrying just everything. I would imagine that a lot of these drops are RNG because every now and then something awesome is in a completely random-ass chest in a corner.
This trailer focuses mostly on cutscenes, as trailers these days tend to, but the gameplay is very nicely animated as well, so they are not scamming you. There are so many choices for character customization and your ever-growing party allows you to explore many different avenues of powers each class possesses. The game is open-world as well and this means that I am never at a loss for stuff to do.
As luck would have it I was able to get this game on an 80% flash-sale, So I ended up paying something crazy like $6 for the base game and 2 expansions (and I haven't yet finished the base game after a week or so.) I think the sale is over, but I reckon for an RPG fan, that getting this game for under $25 would be well worth it.