Dragon Age: Inquisition is the Game of The Year (no spoilers)

[binary solo]

I think it has some flaws in the gameplay department and some aspects of DA 2 are better IMO.

Some small things, like the final shot combo animations for mage basic attacks in DA 2 differed depending on the elemental damage for the staff you were using. IN DA:I all the final attack combo animations are the same. I don't like that your attributes are auto-levelled. What's the point in even having attribute scores in that case? I don't like the fact that you have to go into tactical view in order to do pause and play. I would have liked them to keep ability use as part of the menu wheel so that in action mode you can still operate in a fully pause and play way. I don't like that in action mode you have to hold down R2 to keep doing basic attacks, you should be able to chose between holding R2 and pressing once then the character attacking until the enemy is dead or you assign to a new enemy. I don't like that you don't have full access to all active abilities in combat. The battle system limits you to 8 in the quick slot menu, so you have to change the set up of the quick slots. Again if they'd kept access to all your abilities in the wheel menu access all abilities would not be an issue.

Compared to the voice acting of Hawke, the VA's used for the player character are bland and terrible. VA's for your party members are great. Cassandra and Varric are awesome VAs, I haven't got far enough in to collect the full compliment of companions, so I can;t totally pass judgement on VA. Not a big fan of the Orlesian ambassador lady's VA, The person might be a native french speaker, meaning their accent is legit, but it almost sounds like a fake french accent.

I'm still coming to terms with the lack of healing magic. I'm fine with healing not being a school of magic for the mage class, which harks back to classic D'n'D. But I feel like the equivalent of the cleric (or druidic) class could have been introduced, with lots of support and crowd control based abilities.

Graphics are not the best. First in class so far this generation on PS4 for open world is inFamous. Next in line among the open world games I've played, is Shadow of Mordor. Do DA:I comes in at 3rd from my perspective.

Not sure I'm fully on board with the central pivot of the plot thus far. The plot for DA2 was great, it was a very "human" plot, the struggle between freedom and safety. But I am not far enough into the game to know whether what initially seems like the central plot point is actually the central plot point, or if it's just the pivot of Act 1. So I must reserve judgement there too.

All that said, I am really loving the game over all and so far it is the best 2014 game I've played. So it does get my GOTY despite some of my complaints.