#and also to hopefully get an option to stab/punch Solas at this point

[aeantizlkamenwati]

Veilguard Thoughts

I just need to get my thoughts out of my head and the Void seems like a perfect place since I can’t write a review on console. I’m all for civil discussion, but at the end of the day this is my opinion/feelings after 20 hours. Perhaps it'll change once I finished the game, but I doubt it. Beware minor spoilers.

Warning: Incredibly long. TL;DR at the very end.

I’ll start this off by saying it’s not a bad GAME, just a bad DRAGON AGE. It runs nice (only had one crash, and minimal amount of stuttering on fidelity mode, one time the screen went completely black but the dialogue and music continued which was vaguely terrifying. Some movements are janky in cutscenes, but overall, not bad). It's pretty, I like some of the new designs. The music is nice.

I’m not a fan of this style of combat (never could jive with God of War or Bloodbourne; my preference for real time action is like Hades and DMC) mostly because I can’t cancel an action with dodge/block and the AI focuses solely on Rook so you end up getting swarmed and unable to properly see the flasher plus the timing is weird af. I tried playing on what I assume was supposed to be Casual mode (Keeper) because it said “emphasizes party composition over reflexes” and well…it lied. To the point that I was not having fun because the game is 70% combat, 20% exploring and 10% story. So I turned it to Story mode because I could not be bothered and enjoyed it slightly more. It feels very MMO, team-based, looter imo. The UI, how it handles, the depth of the story and how it goes about it (the Mission Accomplished Journal screens specifically), the emphasis on combat over anything else…

And here we get to my problem: I only enjoy it when I pretend it’s just a generic fantasy game and not Dragon Age. Because it doesn’t FEEL like a Dragon Age. It feels as soft as everyone’s skin texture. I don’t care about the story or the characters and it boils down to the writing.

It feels juvenile.

Like I loved DA because it was willing to confront the worst in humanity. The disgusting parts of war like Loghain selling elves to slavers, or the nunances of blood magic. Presenting choices that are morally grey like sacrificing the Circle or the Templars in DA2 (yes that choice was heavily forced and stupid but still). It didn’t shy away from it. There was levity, but the characters had multiple sides. They could get angry, they could get snappy or sappy. There was GROWTH to them. Zevran’s romance arc if you choose to reject the earring without more commitment was beautiful. DA2’ romances were…a little stilted, but I still enjoyed them. Inquisition also had lovely little arcs, depending on the romance. But even friendships felt natural as you got to know these people.

And Veilguard falls flat. They were okay with pissing off the culture war babies with trans/nonbinary options, but not with showing us the bad things. The game TELLS us “this is bad”, but doesn’t show why. They have their soap box moment of “slavery bad” like it’s not 2024 and anyone worth the air they breathe knows that, how about you still show that since we are IN THE HEART OF THE SLAVE TRADE?! Where’s the option to maybe be an escaped slave? An escaped Saarebas? They refuse to give us blood magic because “it’s messy” Yeah. It is. That’s the point. Maybe let me decide if that's a line I'd like to cross? No? Necromancy is fine? It’s like we traded the dark adult themes for better sex scenes.

The major choice I’ve gotten to means NOTHING outside of metagaming. It’s like they were trying to show they could be edgy or that “now now you can’t save everyone because we say so and we are going to force one of your companions to hate you”. And it boils down to who you want to romance, who is vital as a support character, and which faction do you prefer? Has nothing to do with anything else and there’s no way to fix this forced hardening, so have fun with that I guess? It’s not like I chose the dialogue options or anything, it feels as shoe horned in as DA2’s ending tbh. Like here have a shitty decision for no other reason than we want you to.

Then BioWare seems to have tried to both cater to the newbies and the ones who read/watch/listen to the extra media and fail to find a middle ground. It relies too heavily on codexes and journals and other media (which was my gripe with Inquisition) to do the heavy lore lifting (for example as someone who did not read Tevinter Nights yet nor listened to the third-party podcast, I have no connection to Rook's backstory).

But at the same time, it treats us like we are stupid? Going back to how juvenile the writing feels: it repeats itself a horrific amount. Every time Solas says “the Evanuris” it’s apparently a contractual obligation for him to say “or the elven gods as you would call them” immediately after. The amount of freaking out about them CONSTANTLY is like they are afraid we forgot after an hour. And again I kept thinking: how about you stop telling me they are terrible and why I should be scared and SHOW me?  D’Meta did nothing because I didn’t see it happen like watching Loghain call the retreat after watching darkspawn slaughter the army. Another example in the beginning is after you get the dagger, you speak with Harding and you can discuss magic. Rook notes they know dwarves are called Children of the Stone. Five seconds later Harding goes in the most “I’m speaking to a toddler” tone: “Dwarves call ourselves Children of the Stone. Some of us have what we call Stone sense.” Like…Rook would know that??? If newbies are confused they can go look in the glossary (isn’t that what that’s for?) or give an option to ask a question. It just feels so fucking patronizing.

Then it spoils so much of the story with the Varric interludes, or repeats itself AGAIN when I think they are there for style and suspense. Like Varric I already know they need to craft a red lyrium dagger, they straight up TOLD ME. That scene didn’t need to be in there at all. Solas’ little monologue rehashing everything in the beginning was unnecessary, and honestly him just telling us who we were against without us first seeing how bad it was…just…It took the suspense out of it. Like imagine if Inquisition straight up told you that Corypheus was the baddie just immediately in the Temple of Sacred Ashes prologue scene. That’s what it felt like.

Which brings me to the dialogue and characters I suppose. The companions have the depth of a shallow pool and Rook has less. They have moments where I like them, but tbh I don’t really care for any of them because how could I? I can’t talk to them. It feels empty. I like that they have lights telling me when I have new dialogue, but I miss having conversations with Dorian or Zevran, getting to know them before I started flirting with them. But nope. None of that. And good god the flirting is cringey because of it. Just comes out of nowhere and feels like teenagers. Again, there are moments where I’m like: THAT DO THAT, but it goes right back to the blah stuff. Like whoever wrote the Crows, good job. I loved Teia almost immediately. Viago great. Illario, I’m intrigued. Lucanis by default also interests me, but unfortunately, I don’t get to explore his character much. Irelin is also good. I liked the Veil Jumper fight you could get into with Strife (felt like witnessing a father/child yelling match). Where’s that sort of dialogue with everyone else?

And ROOK. Oh god Rook. They make a big deal about us not being able to be a people pleaser, and yet that’s the only personality Rook has. My favorite moment of Inquisition was in Trespasser where the Inquisitor could FINALLY have a human moment and BREAK. It felt like they had been bottling it up for so long and they just couldn’t anymore. I don't foresee Rook getting that sort of moment.

Rook is just three flavors of customer service. There’s no option for them to be anything but the dashing hero who has boundless optimism like a puppy. Where’s the option be the reluctant hero? The ruthless “hero”? They are just a bumbling idiot with witty one liners.

They feel like a teenager’s first protag as they try to give them “flaws” but never show those flaws. Nothing you do matters, just how you say “yes I’ll help”. There’s no nuance. No places where I think Rook can grow without ME. Rook is just a blank doll without me projecting onto them and even in BIG supposedly heartwrenching moments, Rook is just an idiot. And put them with the juvenile and forced dialogue of the companions? It feels like they are a pre-teen who’s been put in charge of a bunch of toddlers while the nice uncle tries to soothe them and the abusive dad yells.

The abusive dad is Solas btw. Varric says he views us all as children, to which I want to reply: yeah and he’s a piece of shit dad who rubs their toddler’s face into their diaper going “LOOK AT THE MESS YOU MADE BAD BAD BAD!” Like honestly, you can tell it’s not the same people writing these characters. Solas feels like they decided the low approval Solas was the canon no matter what. In Inquisition I truly felt like he was redeemable. This Solas? Nah, I want to stab that bitch first chance. Like he’s giving me no reason to like him and he’s being a dick for no fucking reason. Maybe later on we learn a reason, but in 20 hours there’s ZERO. That’s a problem if you are trying to get me to see his side of things. And the tonal shifts from when he shows that he regrets stabbing Varric? Feel forced, like my dude I think you are lying just because you seem to be unable to comprehend half of this is YOUR fault.

Which ties into my last gripe: this is not MY Thedas. The decision to make only the last fifteen minutes of a paid DLC mean ANYTHING (and tbh I have yet to find where the hell it actually matters in 20 hours. I have two saves about the same amount of progress: one Solavellan and the other Dorian, they are basically the exact opposite choices. I can't say I've found where anything has changed, so what was that about them not wanting to do one bit of dialogue???? At least in Inquisition within the first two hours I could find those bits of dialogue) that decision made it where none of these characters matter to me. They feel more like carrots dangling in front of long-time players trying to entice us closer, but when you grab the carrot…it just vanishes.

That’s not MY Morrigan. That’s not MY Varric, MY Solas, MY Dorian. They are NewBioWare’s versions of them. The Inquisitor? The character I played over 100 hours as isn’t MINE. They are a stranger because they tore away any agency I had. They just picked whatever personality they wanted and said LOOK SEE CONNECTION. But there’s no history, no connection, NOTHING. There’s so many places where I can see where they could’ve done something. And if I can see them, why couldn’t anyone at BioWare?

They forgot that DA’s uniqueness wasn’t just the companions (and these ones are just below DA2’s since we didn’t get to interact with them either, so…), it was the world and how it reacted to choices in previous games. How new heroes might have to deal with the consequences (and to be fair, no DA game has ever actually managed to deliver on that, but they at least TRIED).

This though…

TL;DR: this should’ve felt like a homecoming and instead it feels like BioWare demolished my home, spray painted the ruins with soft pastels and is trying to tell me it’s the same, if not better. And it’s not, and probably never will be again.