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alongtidesoflight · 2 months ago

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so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

#datv #datv spoilers #dragon age: the veilguard #oh wow i hit a limit typing this #anyway to tie this up a bit: the good and bad to the environmental design being that well-known architecture like minrathous and dwarven #ruins look fire and remind me a lot of the previous games #but newly added locations are very... generic... very bland #i was very excited for rivain. i thought we'd get to see ships. not a bunch of ruins and a fighting pit and that's it #and why did i say to ignore a certain guy's review? bro because he was complaining about taash being ace and that taking up their screentim #and them being too up in your face about their identity. he did all this while she/her'ing them constantly #but my man they're trans. nb. not ace.#y'all need to be careful about bad reviews. they're coming from people who are upset about gender identity being handled as a topic in this #game. meanwhile they have no clue what they're even talking about. i don't think matty knows the difference between ace and trans #and neither do the hundreds of people who are one star rating this game currently #i liked this game. it's not top tier. it's not something i'll sink hours and hours and hours of my life into #it has tonal issues and it's moving away from what made dragon age stand out for me #but i do think that it's a genuinely fun play and people who are very invested in dragon age will squeeze joy out of it wherever they can #i had a hard time warming up to the new characters (taash and lucanis being the exception because they have an older bioware air about them #but solas's and varric's story (and don't get me wrong that's what veilguard is about) is GOOD. that is how bioware used to be.#and i wish they'd given us that energy all over the game. that direness. that grit. serious and mature writing.#that consistency is lacking #and whether you're gonna enjoy this game or not is entirely dependant on what you came here for and how well the game delivers on it #i think their weakest points are ironically the thing they advertised the most: the new companions and their writing #you won't find nuanced and good enemies here (i already reblogged something about this. you can go scroll around a bit and catch up on that #really the only thing that had me super invested and emotional was the main quest.#so make of that what you will. ultimately i was more frustrated with the game than i got enjoyment out of it. i was close to just put it #aside for now... until i went to minrathous to end ghila'nain's and elgar'nan's ritual. that all blew me away. still on a high off of it.#anyway yeah that review got cut short by the character limit maybe i'll add more to it tomorrow but rn... i am heading to bed #thanks for coming to my ted talk. also i'm sorry. zevran REALLY isn't in this.#dragon age

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dipplinduo · 6 months ago

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Scrapped Content for The Dichotomy In Our Hearts

Where have I been? Ah. Well. Would you believe me if I told you I have been writing and rewriting the same chapter across this past like...week? xD

I have been working through a series of ideas for chapter updates, but I've been very very stuck on The Dichotomy In Our Hearts.

When I tell you. I have written this one scene. OVER AND OVER. LOOOOL.

Ultimately, I've realized the voice of DIOH comes from a sweeter/reflective/"grow through growing pains" kind of tone. Not as much of a conflict-driven/angsty/"Kieran can you please chill the edge bc you're lowkey toxic chain'd" one, like with what you might see me write in Sweet & Sour Dipplins. And lemme tell you, it feels sooooo good to have this breakthrough, because one thing I've been actively trying to do with DIOH is distinguish it from S&S D across the board (but especially with Kieran & Juliana's characterizations & dynamics).

So that being said, I'm gonna rework the last two chapters. I was originally going to have them come out as part of a bigger update in general, but if you've been following this story you've honestly waited long enough, lol. So! I'm prioritizing this. Next update from me will come out within a few days with the conclusion of this story. <3 In the meantime, I figured I should share some of the scrapped work I had - it's a good scene on its own, but you'll see a different version of this scene play out in a more effective way within Chapter 4. :)

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Kieran huffed out a breath of the furious storm that had festered inside of him. He had hoped his time decompressing in the frosty woods would freeze over the raw cut to his already withering pride, but it proved to no avail as he walked along the cobblestone pathway to his home. He relished in what remained of the short-lived comfort he obtained through casting himself to the shadows as his home’s lingering lights began to expose his wounds back to the watching world. The rays were an anomaly for this time of night; his grandfather had always had a strict rule of dimming the house before bed, and Kieran was highly certain it was too late for people to be awake.

He braced himself with a careful inhale as he quietly stepped up to the shoji before him, and the door felt like a paper barrier between the last of his solitude and judgment itself. They couldn’t have been waiting up to lecture him some more, could they? At this point, he didn’t need any punishment beyond the torment of his self-criticism. He knew he was rash and reckless. He knew he was lucky the little boy was okay.

He just wished he was better. It was another moment he could’ve used to prove himself, but he blew it. Again.

The guilt already gripped into him mercilessly. It seemed as if the history of his inexcusable failures enjoyed repeating themselves - no matter how hard he tried to remedy them by pushing himself - and it seemed as if the world would do anything but retire the spotlight from him while he dug his grave further into the lifeless ground. The real salt in the wound was the dramatic irony of how he had failed this time, though.

Once again, his efforts were fruitless. Once again, Juliana had stepped in so effortlessly. Once again, she is showered in praise while he is showered in shame.

And of course she bore witness to his humiliation.

Kieran clenched his jaw tightly as he slid the shoji. He remained stealthy, but still nonetheless moved swiftly to rip the band-aid off to whatever awaited him indoors. He squinted his sensitive eyes against the blaring, toasty lights - they were more powerful than what had seeped through to the front porch - and the illuminance from the lamps refracted warm hues off of the yellow-orange walls. Minus the scattered lights, the house was void of his noisy family members. They must’ve all retreated to their beds as Kieran would reasonably predict. As Kieran’s vision adjusted to his bright and tidy home, his movements slowed to the sight before him. He stepped inside in a manner that was as Dedenne as he attempted to survey the situation.

Juliana was curled up against the kotatsu in an awkward position - one that looked far from comfortable. It appeared as if she had fallen asleep entirely by accident; she had donned her usual attire instead of the pajamas she was meant to borrow, and she was sitting up rather than lying down into the kotatsu’s blanket that poorly covered her lap. Her back was hunched over so she could rest her cheek against her forearms, which were somewhat sprawled along the wooden surface of the kotatsu. Her Deerling-like eyes remained sealed shut as Keiran inched closer, and there was a subtle droop in her parted jaw as she softly breathed. Odd touches of flyaways and frizz decorated her waved, somewhat messy hair, and Kieran noted slight creases that wrinkled in a hidden gray underneath her eyes.

Was she waiting up for him?

It was yet another moment that felt stolen and improper. When he observed her, he could see nothing but a much more vulnerable aspect of his rival that he felt he wasn’t meant to experience.

It was yet another moment that felt stolen and improper. When he observed her, he could see nothing but a much more vulnerable aspect of his rival that he felt he wasn’t meant to experience. She was supposed to be unyielding and ruthless with limitless capabilities. An obstacle in his path that he could overcome to clear his conscience.

Kieran bit the corner of his lip and exhaled slowly - the bewildering tugs of emotions on either end only added to his already building frustration. He quietly snagged the patchworked, quilted blanket that was draped along the plush sofa nearby her - why she couldn’t just resign herself on that at the minimum, Kieran didn’t know - and carefully wrapped it around her narrow shoulders. As he turned to leave, a gentle touch around some of his fingers caused him to gasp.

“Ki…Ki-”

Kieran’s mouth suddenly felt dry as his heart skipped a beat.

“-eran,” Juliana finished, and the weird sensation in his chest rallied heat around him. Why was he imagining she would call him…?

The touch around his middle and ring finger became a soft grip as Juliana stirred and began rubbing her face. Now that she was awake, reality struck him back into his senses and he suddenly felt as restless as he was in the woods.

Kieran tried to keep his voice even as he spoke. "Juliana, it's late. Ya’ should go to bed,"

Juliana blinked sleepily as she sat up, still holding his hand. "I was worried about you," she murmurs. "Are you okay?"

Kieran nearly pulled his hand away as the realization dawned on him. So this was what it was all about: pity.

She was the hero who looked down on him and pitied him before anything else.

The epiphany was a coarse grain of salt rubbing in his wounds, but it was somehow the easiest and most sensible thing to believe than any lingering alternatives. "Why do you care so much?" he snapped, immediately regretting his harsh tone but feeling unable to stop himself. "You don't need to pretend to be worried about me."

Juliana flinched as she became more alert. “Why would I pretend to be worried?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Kieran spat as he snatched his hand away.

“Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?” Juliana asked firmly as she rose, a hint of anxiety in her defensiveness. “Is this about Peacharunt?”

“It’s about way more than that.” Kieran tightened his fists as he steadied his gaze on a chair cushion, readying his words like canons. “You won again. Ya’ always do. I don’t need your pity as a consolation prize.”

“I’m not trying to pity you,” Juliana countered. “I just know that things have been hard lately, and I-”

Kieran turned to face her, his voice almost trembling as the pain in her face brought out some of his own. “That’s why ya’ came here in the first place, right? I just mess everything up left and right. Ya’ just want ta’ keep an eye on me and fix my mistakes. ‘Cause I’m so horrible.”

Juliana stepped closer and spoke softly enough to make the hair behind Kieran’s neck raise. “Kieran, you’re not horrible at all. But you’re acting like you are, and you keep pushing people away. You’re pushing me away.”

Juliana’s cries fell on deaf ears as the anger flared inside of Kieran, directionless. An ugly mix of self-loathing, resentment, and deep-seeded insecurity oozed uncontrollably as he spat out his words. "Stop beatin’ around the bush, everyone knows that I can't ever measure up to you!” His voice cracked with the weight of his emotions, and he turned away again, unable to face her and complete his thought. How even his own grandparents trusted her battle skills over his.

“This isn’t a competition. I’m not trying to compete with you,” Juliana breathed unevenly, as if there was something unsteady brewing in her.

Kieran's eyes narrowed, his frustration boiling over. "Ya’ think it's not a competition? It's always a competition! Everyone is always comparing us, and I always come up short. Do ya’ even know what that's like?” Kieran continued as Juliana opened her mouth in protest. “Ya’ don’t. ‘Cause you’re always the hero everyone wants and loves. You are perfect,” Kieran spat as an insult as he ran out of breath.

A pulsating surge of shock struck Kieran as his rival’s voice grew uncharacteristically intense. "You think I'm perfect? You think I don’t have struggles? That I don’t actually care about you at all?” Her voice cracked before becoming small and hushed. “How could you say such a thing?”

His eyes danced between hers in anguish, and he messily attempted to somewhat soften his outburst as he recalled her smile under the fireworks. “If you had any flaws they’d just be a work of art.” (MAKE CONTRADICTION MORE FLUID)

“I thought you of all people would know that I'm anything but perfect!” Juliana cried out, tears bursting down her face. “After everything you’ve seen me struggle with.”

As he witnessed the seams of her composure become undone, Kieran felt as if he was sinking, too. The tension in his fists released as he was taken aback, rendered speechless.

Juliana continued to fall apart before him, using both of her hands to wipe her face repeatedly as her voice trembled. “I don’t fit in at the academy. I miss being at home. And the only person that really feels like a home is the one person I’m pitted against. You’ve seen me fail over and over again with all of these things. You’ve seen parts of me I haven’t shown anyone else. But you... you act like I’m this flawless person who just waltzes through life without a care. And it hurts, Kieran. It hurts because I care about you so much, and you don’t even see it.”

Kieran’s eyes widened as he was hit with a sudden sense of clarity. He began to blink rapidly as he recalled the intimacy and affection he had misread as a threat. Her giddiness, her eagerness to accompany him and cling to him, her interest in his thoughts and moods. A tingle ruptured inside him as he pieced everything together.

She…liked him?

It felt like a haughty deduction, but it was the only way he could make sense of such strong feelings. He wasn’t sure what to make of it - what he was even supposed to do with it. Kieran hesitantly reached out an arm around the shaking girl’s back and nudged her forward. His hyperawareness grew as she collapsed into him as she sobbed, curling her fingernails around arms. It felt as she was slipping down, and Kieran unintentionally dropped to the floor with her as she buried herself against him.

It was a moment he was entirely unprepared for and could never predict. There was a part of him that felt good - as if his damaged ego was stroked and given value. There was another that raved about the attention he was receiving, to have someone fight because they cared. There was another part that was disgusted at himself for those feelings. There was another that couldn’t make sense of Juliana and her multidimensionality. Was he wrong about her? Does he have the right to be mad at her? Is he even mad at her? Why would she have a crush on him, if she even did? Kieran felt as if he was short-circuiting from the swirling contemplation.

He was ages away from speaking as Juliana continued to blubber. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! I don’t know how to make up for what happened with Ogerpon! And it breaks my heart to keep seeing you get so angry without knowing how to fix it!”

"Juliana, I..." he starts, staring aimlessly at the wall behind her as his voice trails off. “I didn’t realize…”

"Of course you didn't," she weakly replies against him to the point where it was difficult to hear. "You're too busy seeing me as this perfect person who has it all together, like everyone else. Well, I'm not. And it hurts, Kieran. It hurts.” She repeated, nearly nonsensical.

(Below are notes that follow the direction of the scene):

Kieran feels guilty and hugs Juliana awkwardly

I'm sorry/angry at self / feels disarmed by Juliana's crying

His thoughts eventually grow quiet as she sags further against him and nearly falls asleep

“We should both go to bed” wanted to escape but didn't want to leave, conflicted

(J) I’m sorry if I was being too much

(K): Thats the second time you said that/improved ability to observe Juliana

Was she afraid of taking up space? Starts to see how difficult that must be

Closes door abruptly, holds his hands to his face where Juliana touched him

~EMBARRASSED EMO ~ / Reflection on duality of relationship

#Kieran I heard you was conflicted B|#lolol but yeah thats full transparency on whats been going on over here I have felt so guilty about the lack of updates #for some reason I particularly always fixate on DIOH and go significantly more tryhard #I am confident that the tone change suits the story far better though like #even in this excerpt the complexity of Kieran's emotions didn't flow in a way that made sense #felt waayyy too forced #and also #THIS AINT S&S D KIERAN LMAO #Hope you enjoy xD give me validation and motivation pls #my fics #dipplinshipping #kieran pokemon #kieran x juliana pokemon #juliana x kieran pokemon #kieran x juliana #juliana pokemon #also TIL how to do “read more” on tumblr posts omg #I AM EVOLVING

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