Inquistion's strenghts

-Variety of companions(or characters in general) and their backstories
-Excellent voice acting
-Soundtrack
-Quality of secondary antagonists(not you Corypheus)
-Quality DLCs
-Plot twists
-The insane amount of possible endings

Well, even though I do criticize DAI a lot, it doesn't mean I disliked everything about the game. It does have strengths.

- Soundtrack. It has some excellent music, I just wish we could hear more of it outside of main missions.
- Banter. Despite the whole banter bug issue, it was spot on like always.
- Interactive banter. A very nice addition that I hope will carry over to future games.
- Some great main missions like In Hushed Whispers and Champions of the Just. Particularly like how you have one companion connected to each storyline.
- Calpernia, an interesting lesser antagonist.
- In terms of combat, really like the guard system.
- The introduction of Solas as the new villain was really well done and I'm excited to see how they will write him in DA4.
- The unique dialogue options you get if you play as a mage.
- The dragons, even though I wished there were fewer of them. After a while it felt like fighting a dragon was just part of the job.

First time Bioware has ever created a diverse group of characters that were different, empowered in their own ways, and speak their minds. Characters weren't there to pander to the player or become "yes men". I like the fact that what I say can influence every character in the game positively or negatively, I think that was the highlight for me and where I believe my choices actually mattered. That was the highlight that made me come back to play this game over and over despite all its shortcomings. That was their major triumph.

Pretty refreshing to think about stuff DAI did well instead of the bad

- Return of the multiple race options. I remember the first thing that made me go 'wtf' when DA2 released was the lack of race options.

- Emotion dialogue wheel for reacting to stuff. It wasn't in every dialogue, nor were the options always varied enough. But the Sad/Confused/Stoic/Angry/Pleased/Surprised dialogue wheel was great and I hope it becomes standard.

- Cassandra's accent. In the mids of obviously fake caricature accents (Josephine, Orlesians), Cassandra's was great. I hope in future when they decide on accents they look at how Cassandra's was developed for guidelines.

- Antagonists that weren't pure MWAHAHAAH EVULZ. Despite Corypheus' story being hidden so well I doubt half the players saw it, he had a motive past MWAHAHAHA KILL KILL EVIL. Solas and even Samson had reasons for their actions too beyond malicious nature. 

- This didn't end up making it to the game but the alpha Crestwood storyline with it's decision looked pretty awesome and would definitely have been a strong content I'd like to see in the next game too.

- For the most part, great voice acting and actors hired for the inner circle.

- I really liked how most of the crafted gear looked different on each companion to match their general aesthetic. Really nice touch. Absolutely loved Solas' hobo-nomad looks and Vivienne's high fashion maleficent garderobe.

- The musical direction. Holy shit the music at the end of Tresspasser still gives me FEELS over how perfectly it fit there.

- Subtle animation/etc changes depending on stuff. Solas' facial expression and body language being different at the end of Tresspasser based on your relationship with him was amazing. Telling Solas you have never been interested in his endless explanations ever at the end of Tresspasser was amazing. Elves seeing the crossroads different was amazing. Solas walking away differently depending on dialogue at the end of the Crestwood romance scene was amazing.

- Dorian being a Tevinter person who wasn't evil or against everything Tevinter is. Fenris was great and all but he was about as anti-tevinter as one can get. The rest of the vints we've met before were pretty mwahaha. Dorian being completely fine with slavery and other Tevinter stuff (other than the corruption) and still being a good guy was great. Him saying many slaves were better off than many southern peasants was awesome. I really hope we have more characters in future who's opinions might be considered controversial but are still good guys. Fenris' opinion on mages is another case like this.

Really everything that wasn't related to the plot or the mmo gameplay and quest design was amazing in the base game. Trespasser fixed the writing and some of the gameplay. Gaider is gone now and Weekes is still here, so writing should be top notch again. So they should definitely keep everything from Trespasser and the good ass companions and romance from DAI.

- The locations were gorgeous. Lots of the scenery was well made.

- Cassandra was incredibly well written, and many of the others were pretty good too. In fact, there was only one utterly trash NPC (Dorian)

- Many of the main-game, on-rails quests were really good. Champions of the Just was the best, but the Fade part of the Adamant quest was really good.

- The Descent was a lot of fun, it captured many of the strengths.

Good thread idea. I think people sometimes forget just how many improvements we got between DA2 & DAI.

1. Environments: Gorgeous and varied playgrounds, each with their own colour palette, lighting, wildlife and sounds. They felt large enough to give you some breathing room to explore, and some nice verticality. Feeling like you're part of a larger world, but small enough that they aren't overwhelming. So much better than the linear environments in the previous games. With continuing improvements in environment fidelity, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what's next. With some stronger side-quests, and less resource grinding, they'd be perfect.

2. Crafting: I thought the crafting & tinting system was great. You could now craft armor and weapons, not just for yourself, but for your companions as well. Mastercrafts were a very nice touch. I realize with the asset limitations on older consoles we didn't have a much variety as we might have liked, but that's something that shouldn't be an issue going forward. More filtering options for schematics & crafting materials would be nice though.

3. Movement: Even the "little" things - jumping, climbing, sliding, falling can add a lot to the overall experience. Hopefully we'll get to add flying & swimming to that list in the future.

4. Mounts: While in DAI they were somewhat disappointing in practice, I think it was a good foundation to build on. Some of the mounts were just fantastic - the Harts and Nuggalopes especially. Hopefully, each companion can have their own mount in the future, and we can fight, banter with companions, and interact with the environment while mounted.

5. Customizable Home Base: Again, something new for DA. We had a decent selection of options and would just hope to see this feature grow in the future. I like that in ES we can display armor, weapons, trophies and would definitely like to see those options in DA.

6. Indoor Environments: Notice all the work they put in here (especially when compared to DA2)? All the food, clutter, books, paper, dishes, furniture, art, vases, rustic to rich, and on, and on. You go into someone's home, and... it looks like someone's home. Can't wait to see all the new little touches they cook up in the next game.

7. Music: I think Trevor Morris did a good job in DAI. Some of the standouts for me - The Siege of Adamant & the ambient environment music in the Western Approach. They really helped set the tone for those areas. But the Tavern Songs were the real standout for me. They're all great.

8. Secondary Associates: It was nice to have such a large number of people we could talk to and chatter to listen in on outside of our companions. It really helped bring life to some of these hub areas (Skyhold made the best use of this).

9. Companions Interacting In Hub Areas: Though not new to DAI, it always adds something special to the game when we see companions interacting with one another in our hubs. I really want to see more of this, even if it's not in a cinematic. Just a few companions talking to one another at a bar, or around a campfire, shopping, etc. I want to have more opportunities to get all the companions (or just large groups of them) together. Whether it's to discuss the events in the game, to playing games, at a marketplace, to just chatting while traveling on the road. We need more of those I think to see how relationships between companions change over time.

10. Classes/Combat: Loved that they brought back a melee-mage class and there's quite a number of abilities across all the classes I liked in the game. The Knight Enchanter, Reaver and Tempest were my favorite specs overall. Love to see more Hybrid Classes in the next game (Warrior-Mage, Warrior-Rogue, Mage-Rogue). I loved that they brought back Tactical View, though I'd like more if they could somehow make everything above ground level transparent so you don't have to worry about camera position so much, and allow you to move cursors through obstacles, instead having to around them.

11. Character Creator: Far and away the strongest one they've made so far. And again we had a magic mirror to correct our horrible eyebrow decisions. But, always room for more improvement!

12. Companions: While I personally felt that this was the weakest (overall) cast in the DA series, they were still enjoyable, and had a nice, wide variety of backgrounds. The VA was good as always, and there were a few standouts. The companion quests are an area that could use some improvement though. As they are so integral to the game, they deserve more attention overall.

13. Secondary Antagonists: They were certainly more interesting the the primary antagonist, which they really should have fleshed out more to make him less a "force of nature" villain. I'm actually kinda hoping we'll see Calpernia again in a future game. And the Solas twist was excellent, and it gives me hope to have an interesting, complex primary antagonist in the next game. And of course, the Evanuris are also waiting in the wings...

14. Wildlife: I loved that there was a mix of hostile, neutral, and non-hostile wildlife, and their behavior in the environments (roaming around, predators hunting prey, etc.). They really, really helped breathe life into their environments. And it's also the little touches - like having adorable nugs and fennecs around. It's something I missed in MEA, where all the wildlife was hostile, and none of it cute.

Dragon Battles
No underwear sex scenes
Dawn Will Come scene

The best zones for me were:
Crestwood
Fallow Mire
Frostback Basin

Best Questlines:
Into the Abyss
What Pride Has Wrought

Best Characters:
Dorian
Blackwall
Solas

replay value

DAI is pretty. LEt's me dress my protag and my companions in colors/fabrics I Want. Has good music. And has Cullen. Cully Wully.

The strength of RP in DAI is the exploration of Faith. This was supported, in part, by their Religion Tracker so they could determine the next Divine.

I've enjoyed a lot out of the game, expressing myself as Laidback Agnostic, Rabid angry Atheist, Devout Dalish, and now a Devout Andrastian. I would love to have explored a Kossith who still tried to follow the Qun or a merc Dwarf that believed in the Ancestors even as they were excluded from them, but I assume, probably correctly, that there is literally no support for the latter two.

I think others have already covered the bases, but here goes:

1. Visuals. DA:I is a good-looking game, and miles ahead of previous Dragon Age games in this department. The game feels like a collection of 3D landscape paintings. It’s not just the environments, though: the gear and the characters are also the best-looking in the series.

2. Crafting. I don’t care that much for crafting; it is more of a “nice to have” kind of thing in my book. That said, I like the flexibility of the game’s system. To be honest, when I played it I was less focused on the functionality of different recipes than in how they looked, which sort of goes back to my first point. You could create some really stylish getups.

3. Characters. On the one hand, there have been better Bioware casts. On the other hand, there have been worse ones. Overall I liked the characters in Inquisition. Interacting with them was the most enjoyable aspect of the game. In this area, I’d like to praise the hidden relationship meter: it obscures the gameyness of the system and reigns in the urge to min-max approval. I hope they keep that feature going forward.