All choices carry over game to game. You can go to the official website, create an account, and set up your choices just as if you played the first two games. I do think you should play the first two. They are great games. I had a child with an apostate Mage in dragon age 1. In part three my son is 10 years old. My new character gets to converse with my first characters old love and learn about the kid. Play the first two games. Then jump to the third. Because of the platform generation change you will still need to visit the website and input your choices. Worth every second though.

DA:I throws you into a much bigger world than the previous games, which is good and bad. It's got the standard bunch of open world laundry list quests, but you can focus on the main story and still do fine if you don't feel like wandering. The hinterlands can be a little rough, as you do spend a lot of time there in the beginning of the game, but for most of that time, you're still in the prologue. Once you've gone through some important story missions, the game will open up a lot more. The downside for me is that I was never a fan of the Orleasian stuff and the main plot spends a lot of time in Orlais. It really is a bit like Mass Effect in a fantasy setting, though they did put a much bigger emphasis on tactics I think. The one mechanic that threw me at first was the uh... "Armor" buff you apply to warrior type characters when you enter a fight. As there is no healing magic, you will need to focus any tank builds for damage mitigation rather than relying on a large HP pool. I played the game as a rogue. I played the first game as a dual wield warrior, but they took that option away in the latter games, so a rogue it was for me. Mages are quite powerful and the heavy armor melee archetypes hold up quite well too. If you plan on playing it completely in real time and don't want to micromanage your party members, I'd suggest lowering the difficultly a little. If you are a lore junky, there is a lot to read and some of the zones you go to are completely unrelated to the main story but do have massive significance to the world's overall plot. Don't be afraid to explore, as you can always run away. As I did when my level 14 self came nose-to-nose with a level 23 dragon. There was much "nope" to be had. I honestly haven't played in a while, but I have the official guide if you have any specific questions. Edit: I haven't played any of the DLC yet and the guide doesn't cover that. Edit 2: there's a website (official) called Dragon Age Keep, it gives you a rehash of the story so far and let's you pick what choices you made in the original games. It's not necessary, but it's is kinda cool. I don't remember if you can apply it to a game in progress or not.

It's fundamentally still a child of the Bioware formula. If you played stuff like KOTOR you won't have a problem with this.

Hope this helps

Going to be honest without playing the others and not knowing the lore of the universe might hinder your enjoyment. You might find yourself confused.. It's not nice to people who don't know stuff about fade or old gods ect. I hope I'm wrong though. Not really advice but I'd picked up the latest dlc for it. it pretty much extend the main storyline and gets you excited for the next one and overall better ending. Have fun man

Archer Assassin

I didn't care for the 1st one so I haven't played any others