#and in turn Rook's age vs Lucanis'

[midnightwind]

I am once more begging games to make age ranges more obvious

[twiggyofthesprawl]

I finished Veilguard last night (SPOILERS ABOUND)

Buffer rook to prevent accidental thumbnail spoils

I had a lot of thoughts, so I decided to sleep on it and write a post when I had had time to solidify them. Having done so, I think the most telling critique I have of the game, is how much of it evacuated my brain the minute I wasn't actively playing.

I wanted to like this game. DA:Origins still remains one of my all time favourite RPGs. And for all its flaws, I genuinely love Inquisition

But Veilguard just left me disappointed. At almost every turn, my takeaway from the big setpieces was "if this had one more draft, it could have been great-".

At the end of it all, I find myself picking holes in the plot, the new lore, the characters. And it's not just me being cynical. Because there are aspects I love. It just lacked the consistency to ever truly win me over.

(mostly) PROS: Despite all the noise about how the game shoves progressive messaging down your throat, and how much the internet wanted me to hate Taash... they were fine? A bit grating at times but that's because I don't care for the kind of personality they have. The dialogue for their gender stuff came off a little stilted and corporate, but the actual arc is kinda cute. And their big moment in the finale whips. If I ever replay the game, I need to actually play their quest. But I got kinda burnt out after doing 4 questlines. Also their relationship with Harding? Precious

Emmrich feels like he's from an entirely different, much better game, outside of a few small moments. his dialogue is much less anachronistic than other characters and feels way more true to the older games. His storyline is campy but takes itself seriously enough that you can take it seriously. His struggle of being a necromancer who's scared of death is fantastic. It also has the single hardest line in the game

And yes, he is my husband and we love our son, but that doesn't mean I'm biased! Speaking of my son, Manfred is a perfect angel and I have no notes.

While it feels kinda out of place in Dragon Age, the combat was really fun and vibrant. And the fun I had outweighed the oddity. The artstyle grew on me and the visuals in some of the setpieces kick so much ass that I can almost forgive them making the Qunari so weirdly smooth

Blighted Bellara is the coolest motherfucker I have ever met, both aesthetically and when she's dunking on a god. And if I replay the game, I'm romancing her. AuDHD queen, she deserves the world

Getting to clock the egg right in his dumb backstabbing hypocritical face. I was so pumped in the moment I almost entirely missed it screenshot-wise

CONS:

The game in general just didn't grab me. I found myself pushing through more because I don't like leaving things unfinished, than because I was genuinely invested in seeing where it went.

The Evanuris in general just don't really work for me. The level of power they have requires them to be complete morons for the plot to play out the way it does. They could have destroyed us basically up until the 3rd act.

The Davrin-Harding choice is stupid. I don't think a guaranteed party member loss is inherently bad, but making it specifically 2, and both AFTER you lock into a romance but BEFORE you get any real payoff for doing so, is insane to me. Also, Davrin is the clear correct choice? Because it makes the scene a callback to him and Lucanis failing the first time, vs Harding just kinda. failing to contribute in the finale. Though speaking of failing to contribute.... What the hell was his death??

He waves his sword uselessly a couple times, gets impaled, then falls in a hole and his dog suicide dives after him? It's like they didn't think anyone would care about the indigenous-coded black guy so they gave him a baby griffon for people to go "but the puppy ;-;" about.

And speaking of romances... the flirting is not only the most rizzless thing I have ever seen in my life (seriously, my Rook comes off like a frat fuccboi in almost every flirt option she got), the timing of the options really draws attention to how weird it is you can only talk to companions when its furthering the plot or their personal quest. It leads to you flirting at the most inappropriate times.

But its not just the flirting. As an ace person, it bugs me that games like this always seem to have "bone down" as the end goal for romancing someone. I romanced Emmerich because my MW Rook found a kindred spirit (heh) in him, and I wanted to play things out because he deserves love, and my Rook needed a more thoughtful, restrained perspective to rein in her "punch first, plan later" attitude to problems. So we get through the big 2nd act low point. And I go talk to Emmrich, and he says he wants to go to the Necropolis. And we do. Without me getting a say. Okay... oh! He's making sure im fully free of whatever Solas did to me, and now we're talking about how we love each other and don't want to lose each other? That's really sweet

Wait... why is he making me lay down in a coffin. We're not about to fuck right after one of our friends died, another may be dead, and I just learned a third has been dead for weeks? IN A COFFIN?! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NECROPOLIS??

People also just don't react to anything properly. Bellara, an ELF and VEIL JUMPER, was with me when I recruited Lucanis. And she comments on the demon possessing him, but is then TOTALLY CHILL WITH IT?! Everyone jumps straight to "damn that sucks" and not "are you going to snap and kill us all in our sleep?" People have talked to death about how Rook can't be a jerk, but i think i could count on one hand the amount of times characters got genuinely angry, outside of little arguments about banal things like how many books to bring camping.

Taash and Emmrich's argument. Taash is NB, and should understand the concept of being respectful of people's identity. Yet its established they repeatedly call Emmrich nicknames making fun of him for being a necromancer, even going so far as to almost call him a SKULL FUCKER?! It's so disrespectful to his culture, his beliefs, and his identity. And it makes Taash seem really unpleasant and hypocritical in that moment. Its a black mark against a character I otherwise came to like.

The whole Varric reveal just did not land for me at all. I figured he was dead really early on because people never responded to him except me, and his contributions were always so nothing that Rook moving onto her reply unprompted wasn't weird. But I figured it was a guilt thing, not Solas fucking with us.

Also the whole guilt/regret prison failed to land because my Rook WASN'T guilty about anything. Yes, Davrin dying was sad, but he was a soldier. He knew the risks. As a Warden, he had one purpose, to fight the Blight. Hell, after Weisshaupt, him going down in order to ensure the kill on Ghillie felt like an honorable end. In his own words, "whatever it takes". Bellara, while sad, wasn't remotely my fault. I didn't "choose" for her to get got my Elgar'nan, somehow none of us noticed the conveniently placed Eluvian. She offered to deal with the wards, and argued her case when Neve also offered. The only one that's a maybe is Varric, except i told him not to try and negotiate with Solus, so him getting killed doing so... isnt on her? IDK, I could see it working, but not for my Rook.

---

There's a bunch of other things like how the 3-member party cap limits team variety and locks you into fixed banter chains, the sameyness of some questlines, etc. But I've been negative enough. Games are about having fun, and I try to focus on the fun I had.

All in, sure, it's not a perfect game. And its rough edges really show. I'm in no hurry to replay it... but I don't regret the run I did do. The high points in DATV are on par with the high points of the series as a whole, and I'm glad I experienced them.

I think this is gonna be the last DA release I play, unless a miracle happens and the inevitable next entry is a GOTY contender. Until then, if I find myself longing for the series, I'll do what I always do. Get my dog, my platonic malewife, and a cool priest, and go kick the blight's ass across Ferelden. In the meantime, however...

[carabas]

Dragon Age Veilguard liveblogging, starting the endgame -

One final bit of running around treasure hunting before we go to the point of no return, and I found these guys:

Dungeon Meshi???

The very first view of the ritual site and the first thing we see is Falon'din of all the possible gods looming large beneath the eclipse - which, first of all, Rook's god of choice, also, death; Lucanis was so pessimistic about our odds during that last talk and now Rook's staring his own personal god of death in the face.

The Lighthouse but at the ritual site? Elgar'nan did complain that Solas was copying one of his towers, he was not lying, down to the green streamers.

WHY IS IT ALWAYS NEVE, EVERY TIME THERE'S A DECISION WHERE ONE OF MY COMPANIONS GETS HURT IT ALWAYS WINDS UP BEING NEVE, IN THE PROLOGUE, MINRATHOUS VS TREVISO, NOW SHE'S KIDNAPPED, IF SHE SOMEHOW WINDS UP BETRAYING ME I WILL DESERVE IT

...WELL I GUESS IT'S NOT ONLY NEVE THIS TIME.

WELL. SHIT.

I guess technically one of the companions was keeping secrets. Rook, from himself. I did think it was odd Varric never had conversations with the other companions outside the big group scenes (and I guess he must not have actually interacted with them in those scenes, huh, just talked to Rook), no one ever visited him in the infirmary the way all the other companions visit each other, but I was thinking along the lines of voice actor availability issues or something maybe, because the lines he has with Rook are so limited too, 'when's the last time you slept, remember to take breaks' on endless repeat, and Claudia Black was brought in relatively late and isn't it odd that Morrigan is our go-between with the Inquisitor when that seems like the role Varric should be in... The limited 'get some sleep, take a break' dialogue was because there's only so much advice Rook can fill in for him, huh? His death was speculated about so heavily after the gameplay trailer that this isn't a shock, but I was so relieved when he survived, dangit! Congrats to David Gaider, he finally got his wish.

The trap, the way the whole shape of the story has built up to this - the heavy theme of regret right from the start, Solas's regrets but also Rook continually being put in a position to form some of his own; and then the contrast that our spirit companion who usually embodies the main theme in these games is not Regret, it's Spite, or as the Lords of Fortune call him, Determination; and this whole time I've so very much enjoyed the way Solas was training Rook into something like the Dread Wolf through all their talks... the way all the threads running through the story come together, beautiful. Chef's kiss. And these are all specifically things that I've enthused about in these liveblogs before!! Everything hit exactly as they intended, I'm in pain and they thoroughly laid the groundwork for this pain and it's beautiful.

Rook was trapped by becoming too much like the Dread Wolf, but escaping traps is what the Dread Wolf does. Both of them, now.

Bianca's been sitting in two pieces on Varric's bedside table this whole time, was that real? I turned the game off for the night before writing these last few flailing paragraphs, but I should go check if she's still there when I get back to it.

[damallarky]

Behold! My first Rook, Efa Aldwir Lavellan. I decided to do a playthrough where I go with my gut for all choices before I bring out my "canon" Rook, Renan.

Efa, like Renan, is my Inquisitor's sibling. Efa is the youngest of the seven, and Renan is the oldest.

I also decided to make their surname Aldwir (the Veil Jumper Surname). Basically, that's their family name before (most of) the siblings joined the Lavellan clan.

Canon, for me, is merely a suggestion. Just FYI.

A brief glimpse of The Boy. The Mad Lad. Solas's future Brother-in-Law. I wasn't entirely happy with how he turned out so I will probably remake him once I'm done with Efa's playthrough. He is also going to be the protagonist of the fic I'm planning.

The Aldwir/Lavellans, in order by age from oldest to youngest, if anyone was curious:

Renan ("Canon" Rook), Arin, Aisling ("Canon" Inquisitor), Mara, Orla and Efa.

MORE PICS! SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR VEILGUARD:

MY BABY. MY DARLING DAUGHTER. LOVE OF MY LIFE. AISLING YOU LOOK SO GOOD. SOLAS WON'T KNOW WHAT HIT HIM.

Emmerich and Davrin argue about parenting techniques. It was really cute. I wish I recorded it or something. Basically the gist was protecting the kid (Manfred) vs letting the kid (Manfred) learn from mistakes.

Lucanis is just done with everything and Emmerich doesn't understand why everyone is so freaked out by all of the walking corpses.

Manfred. Son. Boy. Son Boy. Baby Boy. Baby. Stepson.

(ngl, while I find the Matt Mercer Skeleton Noises endearing, I kind of wish he could talk. Cuz, like, it's Matt Mercer! I am maybe 20+ hours into the game, so maybe there's still a chance, but idk).

Anyway. I'll post some of my photo mode pics next.

[dadmilkman]

there's already plenty that other people have said better than me about this game but one thing about veilguard that gets on my nerves the more I play is how Bioware clearly could not decide on whether they wanted this game to cater to new fans, or old ones. in their attempts to cater to new fans they've dumbed down or entirely erased a lot of the existing lore in order to make things more understandable out of the gate but also, they niceified a lot of bad things the universe used to have that new players would not have historical context for and thus maybe dislike (slavery, elven oppression, mages vs Templars, the brutality of the Warden order, not to mention the entire chantry as a concept). in theory you can know nothing about any of these subjects and supposedly walk into this game without having played the previous 3, and understand what this game is about (I'm not sure how true that is because I've played all the games multiple times). they even went so far as to entirely nullify 90% of every choice you've ever made in the last three games. only 3 choices matter in veilguard and they're from inquisition and they matter so little they might as well not exist.

but then at the same time there are SO many references and easter eggs to the other games and concepts thrown around with no context if you don't already know dragon age history i have to wonder if this game wasn't made solely for die hard fans because who the hell else would understand what anyone is talking about? but if this game was for die hard fans then why did they erase so much of their own lore????

anyway all of that aside my original point in making this post was to complain specifically about how varric is (later on anyway) made out to be some hugely influential figure for rook, and show that Rook holds a lot of regret for varrics injury (& death, once he finds out about that). which is all fine. but only someone who has already played da2 and dai would understand who varric is because he's got like 40 minutes of screen time in veilguard MAX and somehow you as the player are supposed to give a fuck about varric and rooks relationship. I personally as a player give a fuck about varric but that's because I know him, but again if you've never played the previous games his existence and his death are probably meaningless to you. and even if you HAVE played all 4 games, rook and varrics relationship is so non-existently developed that it's really hard for me to care about the entire scene in the fade prison where rook mourns varrics death.

so ANYWAY I said ALL in order to say this - if you romance davrin and you make him the second team leader and he gets killed fighting gilhan'nain, the impact of his death specifically considering his relationship to the PC is immediately and totally undercut by the fade prison scene ending up being about varric, a character who Rook was almost never shown interacting with.

I replayed the ending with a romanced davrin just to see the different outcomes and when rook watched him die I was expecting there to be a big difference in how the fade scene played out. boy was I disappointed. sure we got the davrin statues that rook sadly converses with as he explores the fade. but besides that it ultimately feels like there was not a lot of consideration given to rooks reaction towards their romance dying if that's who is killed in the fight.

cuz like, immediately after you get the dagger back - rook turns around suddenly afraid that Lucanis is dead. to me that felt like it came out of nowhere and seemed like a good opportunity to be one of those scenes that was dependant on who you were romancing (like the LI getting kidnapped in da2 or the nightmare demon in dai taunting hawke that his LI would die). I didn't romance lucanis and in my first playthrough davrin lived. so no offense but why would rook be worried about lucanis all the sudden? and then you flip over what you think is lucanis' body and you realize Solas is fucking with you because it turns into varric. someone who i.... also don't give as much of a fuck about? wouldn't it make more sense for the terrifying faux corpse to be your romantic interest?

anyway I'm digressing a bit. back to the fade prison. on my reply with davrin romanced and also dead, the one line conversations with the statues felt so... lack luster. and i understand that the only way rook made it out of the prison was to put aside his 'regret' (which Solas could not do), and on my first playthrough when harding died and rook was friends with her it made more sense that he'd be able to buck up and power through knowing they still had work ahead of them. but it felt really underhanded that when your romance dies, there are almost no extra or frivolous lines about it at all. Rook says a little bit more about davrin than harding (again, because i romanced davrin) but still ultimately winds up saying "Ah well, I'll miss him, but we gotta move on". which is.....not how my rook would have handled that. and if I'm supposed to have agency in this game then give it to me. it's like, why even give me the option to chose HOW rook says what he says when WHAT he says about it is basically unchanged. i WANT the option for rook to be distraught over davrins death because mine WAS. and what made it 10X WORSE was VARRIC immediately going "wow nice you got over davrins sacrifice! hey why don't you acknowledge mine?" HELLO? VARRIC IM MOURNING MY BOYFRIEND THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU. it made me so mad that you had like three times as much shit to say about finding out varric was dead the entire time than you did about your potential romance dying in front of your fucking eyes. it felt so inconsiderate towards a this situation, whether it's harding or davrin either one. like they slapped the permadeath on as an after thought and had to work with what already existed. at this point in the game, I as the player was of course shocked to find out varric was already dead. but the game had given me NO reason for my rook to care as much as he was portrayed doing so. I never got to see rook and varrics relationship develop like we saw hawkes or the inquisitors. that moment was written entirely as fan service and not the good kind. that twist was written entirely for shock value for the player and did not feel like it was written in order to impact the narrative in anyway and it entirely undermines any weight that harding/davrins death would have had, ESPECIALLY if you had romanced them.

I will say, coming back to the lighthouse and everyone giving you well wishes...it hurt. when Lucanis said the line about "joy for a Warden is rare and I'm sure you gave him a lot" I actually cried. but at the same time it felt so hollow. it felt like a patch job for them to include one throwaway line of dialogue about the love interests death. the death of a character i just spent the better part of 80 hours with, gone like that, with hardly a second look back to be sad about it. it made me so mad and I'm really glad my first actual blind playthrough i kept davrin right next to me instead of sending him to lead the second team. And then for half of bellara's entire bit to be about assan too, like it's fine to mourn an animal but a person is dead. that felt so mean. not to mention it already didn't make sense that assan died at the same time. I guess just in an attempt to make it sadder or probably make it an easier mess to clean up if you don't have to worry about davrin being dead but not assan, s if rook wouldn't have taken care of him after davrin was gone.

there's a lot more I could say about lots of different things in the same vein of frustration on this topic (like why was lucanis given the final blow on ghilan'nain and not davrin, a Dalish elf sworn to kill blighted monsters? wouldn't it be more narratively fulfilling for him to kill his own blighted god? I digress). but davrins character really deserved a hundred times better than what he was given.