#I didn't know Taash's mother was gonna be a character

[bellarashallaplush]

Hi I was not expecting Taash's mother. Oh dear God. The mommy issues. Uh oh.

[invinciblerodent]

I'm sure this has been said already, but while I quite enjoy that every* companion's story in Veilguard seems to end in a binary choice (in which neither outcome is necessarily better or worse than the other), it feels a bit... weird, how Taash is not an exception to that.

Throughout the game, the Rivaini/Qunari conflict in their identity seems to walk in lockstep with the narrative's exploration of their gender. And, though the crucial part of that can be resolved for them fairly early in the game (and honestly I like how that also happens off-screen, it feels good that Rook is not a part of that conversation beyond the "hey maybe you should talk to someone" advice)(unless it's different for a nonbinary Rook, I personally played a cis woman so I don't know if that affects things), it continues to be referenced in banter and dialogue throughout the game via the characters commenting and adjusting, and the resolution of the conflict with their mother ties into the final quest itself- so it feels a little bit out of place in the end there, to have the former still come down to choosing one over the other.

Sure, one can argue that this "binary" choice is less like, say, Neve's choice (which, to my understanding right now, sort of results in largely the same actions, just with a different approach) or Bellara's (if she chooses to keep the Nadas Dirthalen, it can still always be destroyed later, if it proves dangerous), and it's more similar to Davrin's (in that it feels to me more like it's about a choice between honoring tradition vs. welcoming change) or Emmrich's (in that it's choosing between two equally important, sort of mutually exclusive parts of a character's identity that still nevertheless exist within them, and come into conflict).

I get how maybe they didn't want them to stand out from the lineup even more (7 is kind of an odd number of companions to have, and they're the only qunari, AND only nonbinary person in addition to 3 women and 3 men), I feel like having a third option, one that's maybe more of a commitment to their faction and puts being a Lord of Fortune ahead of both the Qunari and the Rivaini identities (and thus blends the two), would have been ideal, and more in-line with the tone of the entire character arc.

You know, you don't have to choose between being a man or a woman, Rivaini or Qunari, you can just be... yourself. Something different, the precise meaning of which you choose for yourself.

It would have really driven the message home, I think. I feel a little bit like it dropped me off just one block early like this.

*(I don't yet know if Lucanis' is gonna end like that too, I'm procrastinating on that bit right now lol, but 6/7 do, so I hazard a guess that either it was the choice he made automatically because he's hardened, or it'll come down to one in the main quest.)

[ryssabrin]

anyways here are some more detailed thoughts on veilguard! very very long and obvs with a lot of spoilers.

so i really loved the combat! it was super fun and challenging to the point where i got bored playing it on easy which never happens lol. i really like the flexibility for builds and how you could swap your companions abilities on the fly to synergize better with what loadout or party you were using. i'm excited to see what the other classes play like but it's going to be tough switching from rogue.

the world, environment and puzzles were all really fun as well. i know there were a lot of god of war 2018 comparisons but i would also liken it to horizon zero dawn tbh. i only had to look up two puzzle solutions the whole game which is nice lol. they were puzzles that really didn't give you much to go on as far as hints so i was stuggling.

the companions are all amazing! my favorite by far was bellara. her storyline really got me and jee young han's performance is amazing. having headcanoned her as my rook's bestie and then having her be the one that gets kidnapped by elgar'nan in the finale only to be able to fend him off and save the day was so gratifying and i cannot believe it worked out that way technically by chance. also playing as an elf and having her be part of the fight and be able to say "you are not my god!" was so fitting i couldn't believe it was the result of a variable choice. if i had picked neve instead it wouldn't have had the same impact at all because i didn't feel as close to her.

like i know techinically the choices relate to things you do and they're likely more limited than they appear at first so you're being railroaded to some extent but fuck that was fantastic game design.

davrin's romance was incredibly cute and and incredibly sappy and i loved it. i'm excited to see more of the other romances as well. also very funny romancing davrin as a crow given his feelings about assassins lol. the actual more "steamy" bit of his final romance scene was a bit silly but the move of going from a shoulder massage to rook being naked was very smooth lol. i really like the bit after though when they're talking about what they want their future to be it was very sweet. and i also was relieved to see how much they incorporated his dalish background as well. i was really worried we were gonna have another pair of elf companions that hated each other and was so happy him and bellara get along so well.

harding was an absolute standout as well. ali hillis gave an incredible performance and i really fell for her. completely gutted when i got her killed. idk what i would have done if i had chosen davrin for that bc i very nearly did except i knew i wanted him in my party so i chose harding and i felt so terrible. but again having chosen the redemption path on her questline and getting her scene about "no one [being] beyond forgiveness" about solas and then having her make the ultimate sacrifice felt so intentional as well. like getting the redemption ending for solas felt like doing it in her honor.

i also really liked taash and felt so bad for them when harding died. like damn their mom just died and now i got their gf killed too oof. they're the character getting the most flak on reddit for how blunt they are and like sorry you don't see the immense comedy in a character that has the subtlety and tact of a sledgehammer. "they come across like a moody teenager" yeah because they're like 22 and up until recently still lived with their very overbearing and hard to please mother. it's also a shame their storyline takes a bit to get going because the game wants you to level up a bit before fighting all those dragons lol.

i did like lucanis but i think i'll probably like him more on a romance run. he had less of a connection to the main story and didn't feel his storyline was as effective on the redemption theme as say harding's was. also feel like spite was underutilized.

neve hated me because i didn't save minrathous lol so i feel like i didn't get to see her full character. also sad i didn't see more of the shadow dragons! i was so confused why they introduced dorian only for him to never show up again and then i realized it's because he's locked to the saving minrathous route lol. her and lucanis were very cute tho! relieved i didn't end up separating both couples in act 3 lol.

emmrich was also very cute and i would die for manfred. him and strife getting together was WILD but good for them. finally, old man yaoi for real. emmrich's storyline did feel very tonally different from the rest of the game but in a fun way. the mourn watch are so whimsical! i think i def want to do a run where i romance him as a fellow mourn watch rook.

i very much liked the way the companion storylines were done. getting to know them through lil dates and banter and then having their "loyalty" mission be a whole series of quests instead of just one was really neat! and i like that they still had extra convos and followups after to fully round out their stories. that's something i felt was missing in previous bioware games for sure.

the varric reveal unfortunately got spoiled for me so i started picking up on the fact that nobody but rook ever spoke to him pretty early on. it was a well done twist tho and still very effective.

as for the solas of it all, damn character of all time. i do wish there had been more of his memories or at least codex entries on his rebellion. i would have loved to hear more about the other evanuris and not just elgar'nan and ghilan'nain. every time this man betrayed and lied and manipulated rook i loved him even more he's such a bastard i love him so much lmao. that whole convo where he's like "you have to be the one to kill elgar'nan and i pinky prommy the veil won't fall by my hand" i was like you big fat liar i knew he was cooking something up. honestly tbh that's on rook for hearing that suspicious phrasing and not reading between the lines until bellara revealed the truth later. he really is a terrible liar come on, rook!

i'm so here for the mythal stuff as well. i really appreciate that their relationship can be interpreted as romantic or not. just as an ace person i really like the possibility that their bond was so intense and special and codependent but not necessarily romantic. or it was romantic but in a way that we can't even really imagine. it's more layered than just "they were lovers" and i think that's really important. he did things he hated out of love for her and then kept doing them out of guilt over her death and regret that they could never reconcile. and he couldn't even face her again when he had the chance. a lot of solavellans are apparently sad that lavellan's not enough to convince him in the end but i think it's important that he gets that closure from mythal in order to move on to the happy future he always wanted with lavellan.

(as a side note my lavellan had mythal's vallaslin and she didn't let him remove them and the implications of him seeing mythal in her as a leader and literally on her face every time he looks at her makes me insane actually. like it's a reminder of the best parts that mythal left behind and of the peaceful and happy future she would have wanted him to have as his friend.)

i can say i was overall satisfied with how my lavellan came across and the ending she got with solas. and the lost elf theme playing on them leaving together i died! i ofc would have always wanted more but that's what fanfic is for. more happy than ever to be a sumalee lavellan enjoyer because she killed it. like i'm gonna see so many videos of the alix version and it won't sound right lol.

as for my criticisms i have very few. i feel like they could have done more to onboard new players or even refresh the memory of returning ones. i would have liked there to be a bit more of a crisis for the elves of the veil jumpers at the return of some of the evanuris confirming that they were evil. it felt like that was info revealed in trespasser/dai that wasn't really widely known outside the inquisition inner circle and now in veilguard it's like "oh yeah everyone knows our gods were evil tyrants" when that really shouldn't be the case. there's a codex entry about bellara having to remind herself to not call solas "fen'harel" and i would have liked that to actually be conveyed more in dialogue. have her call him that the whole game tbh. it is still a title he bears even if didn't choose it himself. also they all know entirely too much elvish lol.

i do fully get why they wouldn't want even a small faction of enemies to made up of elven worshippers of elgar'nan and ghilan'nain tho. like it's not exactly the best idea to have your oppressed minority/indigenous peoples analogue group become an enemy you have to fight and kill in a video game esp when they're being manipulated and lied to. much easier for it to be blood mages or an invading force like the antaam.

on that note i was sad we didn't see any involvement of the larger qunari nation. like the antaam split from the arishok and the rest of the qunari and they just don't do anything at all? the whole game? i don't think there was any mention at all of the qunari offering any aid or intel or even what they were up to during the events of the game. like are they just chilling on their island not dealing with the blight at all lmao. like i was low key excited for a sten cameo and then that whole aspect of the qunari storyline never got picked back up.

also disappointed we didn't see anything of the awakened darkspawn. it was such a cool direction for the story to go after origins and it's been dropped completely. i had some small hope for davrin's storyline to lead there and then it didn't. the isseya thing was cool in it's own way and def made more sense with the theme of accepting your past and building a better future but there was still room to at least hint at it lol.

i also kind of wish the letters we get from the inquisitor about how southern thedas is doing could have been cutscenes. or at least like the little varric vignettes. doing it as a letter was likely a lot cheaper and having cutscenes would have required more choices to be input but that would have been an easy way to appease the fanbase who loves that shit without having to actually write in those characters. i don't agree that your actions and choices from the previous games are all invalidated now and don't matter and i think that's a ridiculous overreaction. those choice still mattered when you made them and those games are their own contained stories.

i also keep seeing people complain about the "crows retcon" and i don't really care about that either lol. either we just say house arainai was uniquely awful and zevran destroyed them and thus the current crows aren't like that or we're really out here complaining that bioware decided they wanted to walk back on child trafficking? idk i'm not really upset about it. the crows that zevran was in was 25 years ago and it seems like the different houses have different standards and practices it's not unbelievable that the organization changed in that time and the houses that did that shit don't exist anymore and the people responsible are all gone.

not sure how i feel about "it was all the elves all along." like that's kinda where the story was going for a while so i can't be too surprised they didn't come up with something else. the old gods and the evanuris being one and the same is like the oldest fan theory in the book. i really really wish merrill could have been in the veil jumpers. apparently eve myles is like just really not interested in doing voice acting/video game work again? so that might be something that was out of bioware's control. i also would have liked to see some fen'harel loyalists. they canonically exist as per tevinter nights so it's wild we don't see any in game.

i don't really get why the tone indicators were what they were for rook. like the sarcastic option is there and then sometimes you purposefully pick a different one to be more serious and rook still says something sarcastic. i distinctly remember one that was the ?!! option or whatever it is and the paraphrase was like "that's really bad" about the blight or something expecting her to say something more urgent and sober and concerned and she said "well that's not ominous." i genuinely cringed lol. i didn't mind the dialogue for the most part and i loved erika's performance but i wish rook could be a bit more mature in spots lol.

as for the "hr speak" criticism i get where people are coming from but really what it feels like is just everyone treats each other in good faith. they don't immediately get angry and defensive over everything. (obviously a very foreign concept to your average youtuber, twitter user, or redditor lol so i see why they hate it.) it's a much nicer way to communicate with people and something more people should do! so i actually really liked that aspect.

also very disappointed we didn't destroy the veil! lol i know i'm in the minority on that but it would have been such a cool twist. totally makes sense we didn't with the way they wrote solas's story tho. i do also wish the inquisitor felt like they had more of a say over what happens to solas. it's really all down to rook's decision and that doesn't seem fair. i would have like at the very least for one of the last convos you get to be with the inquisitor making their case to rook, whatever that case may be.

overall i really loved it! some of the writing is a bit awkward on lore and the tone is wonky at times but it has so much heart and it felt so reactive to you and your choices. it starts slow but they really were not lying about act 3 it's a real doozy. i was honestly a little concerned i wouldn't like it in the first 10-15 hours or so but then it really started picking up. i had totally planned on doing a more vengeful and combative second run with probably a dwarven warden (that feels like the combo that would get the biggest axe to grind against solas), but after seeing the "good ending" idk if i can do it lol. i am really curious at how different the choices and outcomes can actually be but he's just a sad little guy i don't want to fight him or lock him up forever!