#even if ALL they amounted to was some codex entries

[drakorn]

Rewriting Veilguard Part 1 - The World State

Disclaimer: I don't hate the game, I actually think it's quite great given the development hell Bioware went through in those 10 years. This is more of a hypothetical universe where there was less of that behind the scenes drama. Just a fun writing exercise.

Expanding Veilguard's World State Editor

Like many of us, I was disappointed with the total amount of choices carrying over from past games being only three, one of which dealt with romance, two with decisions made in the Trespasser DLC, and all of them being from Inquisition. This already set the precedent that we shouldn’t really be expecting the game to be as connected to our unique Thedas as we have come to be used to from previous titles—no more uniquely flavoured codex entries, no more small but sweet cameos here and there that make the world itself feel like a larger place that we had helped shape.

Given The Veilguard’s very troubled production history of multiple delays, staff layoffs, and all-around restarts of the entire project, it is honestly a surprise that we even got three choices, so credit where credit is due. They made with what they had. But what if The Veilguard had this vision from the start? What if there wasn’t any of this meddling? What if Bioware simply had more time and control? What if they could truly let us import the World State this game deserved?

Now, for this hypothetical rewritten playthrough, I’m going off from the fact that the Dragon Age Keep will not be used; I actually found it a neat idea to tick my three choices in the character creator, and it would have probably been better had Inquisition done something similar. Why do I think that? Because it means we are not running into any dangers of servers potentially shutting down, leaving us trapped in the canon we happened to have imported last. Converting the Keep into an offline editor was a good idea, but unfortunately not executed nearly enough as, let’s face it, we all expected. So we’re gonna have some fun for Veilguard.

Disclaimer: I’m going to refer to the game’s title as Veilguard from now on, not “the” Veilguard. I really don’t like the change of having a “the” in a series of otherwise one-word, or one-number, titles.

Of course, we have to be realistic about this. It is virtually impossible to implement every single decision from across all three games, and those that can be implanted can’t alter the main plot too much. Certainly, we like to imagine and picture things, but let’s approach this from an actually doable point of view.

Right, so imagine you just finalised your Rook, and then get a screen titled “Past Adventures”. Not just “The Inquisition”. And it would take up the entire screen instead of being shoved somewhere in the corner of the final CC page, which many people missed. I could have missed it too, had I not known beforehand that it was going to be there!

It would say something akin to “You can customise the protagonists and several events from the games Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. These choices will have both major and minor effects on the plot of Veilguard. If this is your first Dragon Age title, you would be advised to skip this section for now, as you may otherwise risk getting overwhelmed. A default World State has been pre-generated for the game.”

Why did I add this disclaimer? Because it would show us, right from the get-go, that we respect both new and old players. If you’re a new player, feel free to skip this part as it won’t matter to you anyway and, quite frankly, you wouldn’t want to spend an eternity in the character creator doing things you might not even be familiar with. But if you’re a returning player or someone who has read up on recaps and watched countless lore videos, come on right in, we’ve got you covered, don’t worry! We know how much time you spent meticulously crafting your World State for Inquisition, so join us and customise to your heart’s content.

If you choose to not skip ahead (honestly the only time I would click “skip” on that shit is if I was a new player), you will be presented with three tarot cards, one shows the griffon, the Grey Warden symbol, one shows Kirkwall’s heraldry, and one shows the Inquisition’s banner. Here’s your previous three games. And now we get to customise them a little. The little gremlin in me would be quite gleefully rubbing his hands at this prospect.

Past Adventures: The Blight

We open the first slide and are immediately hit with a crimson screen and an ambient reprise of several of Inon Zur’s themes from DAO. I loved this part in the game, when you click to customise your Inquisitor and are immediately hit with “Calling the Inquisition”. Really great stuff for early emotions. Now let’s actually customise things.

The Hero of Ferelden

I do not expect us to actually be able to recreate the Warden in the flesh, but I believe they should be at least brought up in conversation or mentioned in codex entries and letters. Here are the things we get to customise about them specifically:

The Hero: Here, we get to tick the race, gender, class, and background for our Warden. Again, no character creator, just fancy tarot cards. But guess what? That would already be more than enough for what we can do. At least we know the game acknowledges their continued existence.

The Warden’s fate: Did the Hero of Ferelden perform the ultimate sacrifice?

Romance: Who did your Warden romance, if at all?

The Companions

Now that our Warden is set, we jump over to DAO’s companions. Each companion has their own little mini-section. The first few questions will always be “Did you even recruit them? And if so, did they survive? If so, were you on good terms or not?” These questions, depending on the answers, will immediately lock or open the more specific ones. Which are, as follows:

Did the Warden have Morrigan perform the Dark Ritual?

What is Alistair’s ultimate fate?

Was Sten reunited with his sword?

What happened to Loghain?

What happened to Marjorlaine?

The Battle of Ostagar

What happened to the prisoner at Ostagar?

The Arl of Redcliffe

What is Connor’s fate?

Is Isolde alive?

Did you help Bevin and return his sword?

The Urn of Sacred Ashes

What happened to the Urn?

The Nature of the Beast

How was the situation between the Dalish and the werewolves resolved?

A Paragon of Her Kind

What happened to the Anvil of the Void?

Who rules Orzammar?

Did the Warden help Brother Burkel create a Chantry in Orzammar?

Did the Warden prove the Legion of the Dead was connected to a noble house?

Did Orta join the Assembly?

Warden’s Keep

What happened to Sophia and Avernus?

Denerim

Did the Warden complete Slim Couldry’s crime wave?

Who rules Ferelden?

Who killed Urthemiel?

Awakening

What happened to Nathaniel?

What happened to the Architect?

What happened to Vigil’s Keep and Amaranthine?

As you can see, I have not included all the choices, just the ones I think can be carried over in both realistic and interesting manners. Not all of them will heavily feature in the game; in fact, many of them are for flavour and codex entries only, but there is still merit in those. We know there is a whole lot of stuff happening in the South thanks to the letters the Inquisitor regales us with. So let’s put some world-state uniqueness to those letters. But in this rewrite, some of these choices will, in fact, feature in a more substantial manner.

And that’s Dragon Age: Origins done! Moving on to the next one!

Past Adventures: The Tale of the Champion

When we enter this screen, the CC assumes Kirkwall’s orangey-yellow tone and we get a reprisal of the key DA2 themes by Inon Zur, the most prominent one being, of course, Hawke’s family theme. This one is not going to be as big as DAO, but there are a few important factors nevertheless, especially concerning possible deaths and survivals.

The Champion of Kirkwall

Unlike the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke will actually be customisable in this one. Because no matter whether or not they were sent to the Fade or Weisshaupt, there is always the potential for them to still be alive. So, here are the choices regarding Hawke:

The Champion: Here you can customise Hawke’s gender, class, and personality.

Who did Hawke romance, if at all?

The Party

Pretty much every companion’s card, aside from a few, will have the questions “Did you recruit them?”, “Are they still alive?”, and “Were they friend or rival to Hawke?” at the forefront. Most of it is gonna be flavour, but it’s still my flavour, dammit!

What happened to Bethany or Carver?

What happened to Isabela and the Tome of Koslun?

What happened to Fenris and Danarius?

What happened to Merrill, her eluvian, and Clan Sabrae?

What happened to Bartrand?

What happened to Anders when the Chantry exploded?

Did Hawke approve of Ander’s actions?

Did Aveline marry Donnic?

The Tale of the Champion

Did Hawke protect the Bone Pit from all its dangers?

What happened to Feynriel?

Did Hawke let Zevran go?

Did Nathaniel survive?

Did Hawke side with the mages or the templars?

Fewer choices are carrying over here compared to DAO, but many of the events that occurred in DA2 are only relevant to Kirkwall’s immediate fate, which is already resolved by the time of DAI. Many of these will be flavour again, but some of them, I’m not going to say which, will definitely have a bigger impact.

Right, we’re done with DA2, let’s move on to the last one!

Past Adventures: The Inquisition

And here we get to the big one, the game that most directly impacts much of DAV’s story. We click on the last page and get the green shades and DAI’s ambience themes, a beautiful reprisal of Trevor Morris’ great hits. I would like to once again reiterate how emotional the CC music made me feel here when I was playing the game. Let us now customise our choices.

The Inquisitor

While the Hero of Ferelden will be a background figure in letters and codex entries, and Hawke more of a minor character with a significant role, the Inquisitor will have a much larger presence. Just how large, you’ll find out soon. But for now, let’s customise them:

The Inquisitor: Here you can customise your Inquisitor’s race, gender, class, and specialisation. Their personality as well, for while it wasn’t as apparent as with Hawke, the Inquisitor does still have a distinct range of dialogue choices. You can still be diplomatic, lighthearted, or even rough.

Who did the Inquisitor romance, if at all?

The Inner Circle

As with the other companion sections, pretty much all slides here will feature the “Did you actually recruit them?”, “Are they still around?”, and “Are you friends or not?” questions. Alongside a few specific ones that will definitely have more of an impact here.

Did Dorian resolve the issue with his father?

What happened to Blackwall?

Did the Iron Bull remain loyal to the Qun?

Did Cassandra rebuild the Seekers of Truth?

Did Cassandra discover the book of secrets and what did she do with it?

What happened to Harmond?

Which path did Cole choose?

What happened to Solas’ friend?

Did Varric track down the red lyrium source?

Did the Inquisitor give Vivienne the heart of a snow wyvern?

How was Cullen’s lyrium dilemma resolved?

How did the Inquisitor help Josephine resolve her family’s fortunes?

Was Leliana hardened or softened?

The Path of the Inquisitor

Did the Inquisitor embrace or denounce their title of Herald of Andraste?

Did the Inquisition side with the mages or the templars?

What was the general principle upon which the Inquisition was founded?

Who rules Orlais?

Who stayed behind in the Fade?

What happened to the Grey Wardens after Adamant Fortress?

What happened to Samson or Calpernia?

Who drank from the Well of Sorrows?

Did the Inquisitor respect the rituals at the Temple of Mythal?

Who became Divine Victoria?

The Inquisition’s Influence

Did the Inquisitor ally with the Hinterland cultists?

Was the rift in Crestwood closed?

Was Caer Bronach captured?

Did the Inquisitor make a deal with Imshael?

Was Suledin Keep captured?

Was Griffon Wing Keep captured?

Was Sutherland’s company formed?

What tone did the Inquisitor’s judgments take?

Jaws of Hakkon

Did the Inquisitor learn Ameridan’s fate?

Was Hakkon slain?

Did the Inquisitor share the truth about Ameridan?

The Descent

Did the Inquisitor stop the earthquakes from destroying the Deep Roads?

Trespasser

What is the ultimate fate of the Inquisition?

What is the Inquisitor’s final goal regarding Solas?

Again, this looks like a lot, and it is, but bear in mind that a lot of these will only have minor impacts on the story in the form of cameos and codex entries. However, there are several major DAI choices that will have significant impact.

For our hypothetical rewrite, I shall not list every single choice I made for my imaginary playthrough. Instead, I shall reveal them as we go along so as not to clutter the space too much. And it’s a bit more fun this way.

And that’s the World State editor finally done! I believe all of these choices are able to feature in some capacity, be it big or small. But no matter if it’s a big world-changing consequence or simple flavour texts and cameos, it will still be our Thedas, our own unique version of it that we helped shape.

Now that the past is dealt with, let’s look at the present. Next time we’ll talk about Rook, the six factions, and why a DAO-style origin story selection would have not only been beneficial but very doable.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Here's mine!

Rook: Juniper Aldwir, a dalish elf mage, I mostly went for the direct/aggressive dialogue options with a few of the more positive/nicer or joke-y options in companion convos. I went with the spellblade specialization and ended up loving it after a rough mage start. I also played arcane warrior/knight enchanter my first DAO and DAI runs though so. lmao. i have a type.

Faction: Veil jumpers! How could I not go with the scientific study of weird magic group... I've decided she's more on the geography and cartography side of the profession rather than mechanics/tinkering like Bellara, which is why she's not the one fixing the broken objects you encounter herself. I imagine she's the one drawing maps of all the places you go, making notes of interesting landmarks/items, etc. the crossroads drives her insane (bc it drives ME insane) because of the weird half reality half fade logic to the locations, travel, etc.

Companions/NPCs: My go to companion squad was Lucanis and Davrin or Taash for the best combos/fighting, and Emmrich because I enjoyed his comments/character a lot too. NPC wise, of course finally seeing FELASSAN!!! was great and he got so much more content and dialogue than I expected. was cheering every time i found another codex entry from him, and the Betrayal fight ruled. otherwise, like most everyone else i LOOOOVEEEE Teai & Viagos Divorced Energy... i'm obsessed. And then Antoine & Evka for actually wholesome, and Vorgoth bc idk wtf is up there but its sexy. but also THE CARETAKER what IS it... i have so many questions... that i will be filling in with weird headcanons probably. I also liked listening in on the two fledgling crows on the balcony who have a ton of unique banters, and a couple other npc banter points idk how to describe lmao. Some of the spirit ones in the crossroads I wish we got more of.

Romance: Lucanis my BELOVED obviously i am doing... an insane amount of lucanisposting lately... yeah I've got the full brainworms. even though the game itself was lacking in content my neurons are instead working overtime to try to fill in everything the game left out

Major decisions: I saved Treviso because Minrathous JUST had its turn being saved, shouldn't they like??? be mobilizing the ARMY they actually have over there by now??? they should have been better prepared idk what else to say. insane it got hit a 3rd time at the end anyway so i stand by my choice in picking Antiva. As for the companion endings, I felt most didn't really make a difference to me, with the exception of Emmrich. I kept manfred on this run becuase I was NOT ready to say goodbye to my gentle skeleton son 😭 next game i will romance Emmrich and make him a lich tho. As for the ending... I sent Harding to lead the second squad and Neve was the one who got mirror-kidnapped. Whcih did leave for an absolutely devastating post-Nightmare-In-Dreamland fade sequence where Rook suddenly had NONE of the companions she started the game with. Getting hit with losing Harding, losing Neve, and then the realization that Varric had been dead the whole time definitely makes for some angsty roleplay opportunity, though I do wanna replay it with Bellara in the final position just so I can watch her stand up to the gods, because i think that'd be pretty great. Ending-wise: I'm a Solavellan fool who's been pining for a real life decade now almost so I of course went for that lmao. I will play through all the other options just for the drama of it all, and probably come up with some adjusted exact sequence for how things go as a headcanon, but yeah.

again pls feel free to reblog & add yours, i've really liked reading about the couple who've answered so far :))))

ok i know ive been doing a lot of bitching about the game etc but putting that aside for a moment. Now that more people have finished Veilguard, I'm curious about people's first playthroughs!

What kind of Rook did you make (lineage, class, dialogue personality options, etc)?

What faction did you play as?

Fave companions and npc's?

Who did you romance?

The major choices--what'd you do? (which city, saved, notable companion routes you strongly prefer, what went down in act 3 and endgame...)

Any particular missions/lore you were excited about?

you don't have to be a mutual to reply to/reblog this! im just curious what we all veered to for the first run. i'm doing a second one now making different choices but it's interesting to compare people's first instincts.

[knife-eared-jan]

I wanna get over it but I'm actually getting more and more upset the more time passes? I honestly don't want to be, but I feel like I'm grieving for the characters and the world I put my time and love into on most days of a decade now. Like, I really mean daily even if it's not been on Tumblr for the entire time.

For many of us, these characters found us during a really dark time and we don't call them our emotional support characters for nothing. And to have all that history so dismissively handwaved by the devs in their social media posts is actually hurtful as hell on a personal level...

(I get that 117 choices is insane and would take up an unreasonable amount of resources and limit storytelling. But I did expect 8 or 10, even if half of them just lead to codex entries. That would have been fine! I mostly expected that there wouldn't be choices from DAO and DA2 as well, but Inquisition?

How will they even give a throwaway mention to the Inquisitor's romance like they did for Hawke in dialogue in DAI, if you can't even select that Cass is Divine or Bull, Blackwall or Cullen are dead? You can't even say oh they're at home doing this and that. At best romances like Dorian or Josephine will get some content while others get none. At worst the romance choice input is actually just there to ask if you romanced Solas. Yes, I'm hella upset at that even as I am currently obsessed with Solavellan.)

Because most importantly this just makes the whole world of Thedas feel.. idk cold? Knowing that there is nothing to make it feel like we affected anything in the world so far and that so many of the characters we love will never appear again because they once gave us a choice involving them. Like, do I now need to hope I don't get any major choices for the new characters I fall in love with because that means they'll never bring them back again?? Better not get attached?? Is that really what you want to teach your players?

I don't have any hope that they are self-reflecting enough or care enough to do this, but maybe if the backlash is bad enough they'll start working on a patch that at least contains some codex entries and ambient voice lines? That's like my one piece of copium I can try to actually suspend disbelief for rn. Apparently I've entered the bargaining stage..

I've been hardcore hyping about Veilguard since 11 June (which happens to have been my birthday and like that was the best part of it for me) and I really don't want to feel this way, but I do and I don't know how to describe it other than I'm grieving.

This line currently feels immeasurably ironic...

[kingdoms-and-empires]

Kingdoms and Empires Wiki Drop!

Sup guys, im releasing what i have done in the wiki today! In this post im only going to talk about the Wiki because I dont want to create an even more massive wall of text here than it already is. Please see the entire post on the forums thread!!! I solidified the lore (which means no more massive changes), set the foundations to the story (so i dont end up writing a shit ton and having to fucking rewrite everything anymore), and pretty much rewrote the canon lore until i reached a point where i literally cannot share it because itd be spoilers without the future rewrite (regarding the worldbuilding, all introduced characters and such are still the same, some just had minor tweeks, so nothing crazy like changing our old bodyguard Mary:

and turning her into our childhood friend lmao So the plan now is current wiki drop. A good amount of it will be hidden since alot of it is spoilers, so you get 39,174 thousand words of unlocked content out of about 50k words in the wiki. And that's without me transferring 90% of the Codex ingame to the wiki, so its ALL (okay like 85%) new words of content and lore! Dont worry, im dropping literally all extra work and focusing purely on playable updates now until i regain your guy's trust in me after being so radio silent.

I also know and recognize that this has gotta be annoying asf since what you guys really want is updates but after what happened with the Total War franchise (my beloved) and their lightning fast content pipeline and lack of upgrading their engine ended up destroying the health of the company and ruining fans trust in em, id rather invest on the long term than short term unlike them (meaning id rather have a set story, narrative line complete, and research resources so that i can use that to run wild in writing).

I made a history of the world as known to them, so much of it is subject to embellishment, lies, and "the victor writes history" trope.

Historia Mundis

If you'd rather just have the list of articles that can be found within the timeline though, here it is: The Great Disturbances, Wars of Unification, and the Longwei Empire

Reign of the Daishu Dynasty

Ecumenical Dominion and the Flight of the Belthean People.

Belthean Migrations

Reign of Emperor Garland

Reign of Emperor Daerin I

Reign of Emperor Valerion

Reign of Emperor Elric I

Reign of Emperor Cenric

Reign of Emperor Saldwin

Reign of Emperor Elric II

Reign of Emperor Daerin II

The Interactive Outdated Map Yeahhh almost as soon as i published the map for the patreons it became outdated lmaoooo Nareth is much bigger than originally imagined, Argent is surrounded by mountain and forest tribes (think Hispania’s Lusitanian Wars or the Germanic Tribes type of vibe). The empire (being Imperial Chinese and Persian Empire inspired) also is surrounded by the these tribes, and the Imperial Province of Lymark is now the “Protectorate of the Western Regions” which basically means theyre the watchdogs of Western Nareth. Its funny because theyre also across the St. Hytera River, which is much like the Danube River, and will inevitably face the same issues Rome did with Dacia when they had a presence that extended the natural borders.

Master List of Articles

The Evolution of Belthean Civilization

Veldora Duchy I may have gone too far here. I regret nothing and learning about agriculture and stuff was awesome.

Silverhill Duchy Mining is alot more complicated than I thought, though Engineering MC is gonna have equally alot to improve!

Imperial Ranks The ranks will have importance. I know that sounds weird, but I did not spend an afternoon writing this just for the lulz.

Emperor/Empress

Imperial Crown Heir

Imperial Prince and Princess

Imperial Duke/Duchess

Imperial Count/Countess

The Imperial Landed Knight

The Belthean Empire The biggest entry from the ingame Codex that I transferred over and polished. This should give you a hint of how ill do the other kingdoms in the future for their article.

Kin of Arava I experimented here and instead of making an actual article, made it a class lecture of a series of days focusing on the Kin with a racist professor lmao

Zera Arava So i had to do this in intervals as I was writing and plotting out his side stories. Honestly hope i did the homie justice, he's a fav of mine, though i think each of the ROs will be favs as I write more and more about them.

Sacred Dance I assure you the Sacred Dance isnt what you think it is.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Patreons, you guys already read the below list. However ive cleaned the articles up and polished them! The Genesis of the Belthean Empire: From Invasion to Unification

Voryn Resdayn I wanted to see how i could make a character entry. It looks awesome, but holy fuck do they take time to create lmaooo, ill make the rest of them in the future.

Kin of Arava

Eastern Kin The descendants of Kin and Beltheans who mixed, that are settled within the empire.

House Resdayn Wanted to see how I could do the houses, still unsure (okay i dont like it) of how it came out. Hence why I started with a minor house that one of the RO's belonged to.

The Astute Emperor and the Imperial Provincial Rule: A Revolutionary Shift in Governance

Master-Scholars of Jelaytha The Jelaythan organization of scholars that Master Feren is from.

Post-Unification Transformations in the Belthean Empire: Trade, Economy, Industry, and Immigration in the Wake of Conquest

Imperial Historians Obviously the imperial faction that wants to get their hands on tutoring you lmao.

Universitas Magistrorum et Scholarium The Jelaythan/Imperial organization at the forefront of the intellectual international community.

Tripartite Alliance Read what the empire is teaching their citizens about how they conquered the alliance.

The Satrap System and Imperial Provincial Rule

The Great Racist of the Academy: Imperial Historian Acillus Cinna

The Sword Saint

Master-Scholar Kaleb

The Gleaming Horizon: Silverhill's Maritime Supremacy The book of a writer who we'll meet ingame. Youll decide whether or not to bully him as a 12 year old lmao.

Baniel Worthton The author of above said book. He even wrote about himself. Yes, it's supposed to be an ick.

The Ulrich Cothon The second book of his that'll feature in the game.

So…I guess in basketball or futbol terms… rebuilding phase is over, and i got all the players i need for a championship run!

It was an almost year long rebuilding phase, true, but omg it was so needed.

Plus I also learned alot of fucking coding at the same time lmao. Basically a lot of tweaking around with Choicescript and knowing how to code some actions. Also there's CoG implementing a new checkpoint system so thank fuck for that because this game's gonna be huge and id hate to play it without a save system.

[veilkeeper]

okay minor DA:V spoilers regarding that one passive on the skill tree

....

but i think the mortalitasi passive that is literally just blood magic is actually a really interesting look at how the chantry has to make exceptions to their own ideology in order to maintain its hegemony. like i know some people are upset about it because it's just blood magic under another name, but let's play in this space for a second.

in orlais, ferelden, even the free marches, all blood magic is a hard no. using your own blood to power spells is the territory of maleficars, if you get caught you're fucked. but in nevarra, where the mortalitasi and the associated funeral rites are very important culturally, exceptions are made. so even though it is in direct conflict with some really important ideas about acceptable magical practices and the nature of spirits, the chantry sort of has to strategically loosen the reins in order to maintain some amount of power and presence in nevarra.

they do a similar thing with the seers in rivain, too, where people are allowed to practice "hedge magic" (and even let spirits possess them, as is indicated by some codex entries), because they know that trying to stamp out those cultural practices will just lead to stronger opposition to the chantry overall.

it's sort of interesting to see where the chantry forces assimilation and where they take a backseat and let some things go. it's especially interesting to see where that intersects with cultural ideas around magic and spirits.

[sasquatchsightings]

Adding my two cents:

On the one hand, I get that they need to make the game approachable for new people. You don’t want characters spouting off proper nouns all over the place without proper context. And with it being a decade later, there are some choices that can be negated or left out as not being important. I’m not denying that. (I will set aside how many people I’ve seen streaming the series on Twitch and posting vids of their first playthrough on Twitter, due to comparisons to BG3, but I feel like there are plenty of newbies who are CURRENTLY in the process of becoming fans who are going to be very salty when they get their shiny new copy of DATV.)

Plus I feel they want to create as much of a clean cut as they can from the original trilogy to avoid what I’m calling the Pokemon Problem. Pokémon’s issue with its premise is that if each game is in a new area and new areas necessitate new characters (ie the Pokemon) to interact with as the main gameplay mechanic, then they can either make each region totally separate or constantly add about 100 new ‘mons to the roster every generation and have to juggle an exponentially growing number of possible team combinations. Dragon Age logistically can’t keep giving us ever more complicated branching paths for an ever increasing number of blorbos without spending a huge amount of dev time trying to write just those paths and how to give players an update on all those quantum characters.

But to give us so little to tie over when responsiveness to player choice has always been a key aspect of the series is bonkers. The excuse I keep seeing is “it’s 10 years later and we’re in the North, so nothing we did matters.” Excuse me, but the Waking Sea isn’t a fucking Iron Curtain. Orlais is a political powerhouse who trades with literally everyone, and the legacy of Queen Asha of Antiva ensures that all the ruling families are both connected by politics and by blood.

And to say those choices don’t matter means we won’t so much as get a Codex entry or an NPC conversion about what happened in regards to our choices without it being written in the most neutral, passive language. Like, if we’re in Nevarra, it would be pretty conspicuous for no one anywhere to comment on their neighboring country if a war hawk is on the throne or if they’ve radically changed their stance on elves.

Not to mention that “the North” isn’t just Tevinter. Antiva, Nevarra, and allegedly Rivain are all part of the SOUTHERN Chantry, so who is Divine still applies. You can’t tell me that a softened Leliana reacted to the invasion of Qunari in Antiva and responded in the exact same way as she would have had she been hardened, and in the same way as Cassandra AND Vivienne. And you can’t tell we spent all that time getting her elected only for her to abdicate the throne in under 10 years. 

The Morrigan thing, I can see how they can bend the lore to make the Well not matter, if maybe the effect was temporary due to Flemmeth dying, but it still would beg the question how Morrigan gained all her knowledge. If she doesn’t drink from the Well, she never becomes fluent in elvish. If she does, that is what gives her the ability to turn into a dragon, so if she does that in a world where she didn’t drink, that will be odd. And many people have brought up how she is going to be “surprisingly involved” in the story, so that also begs the question of where is Kieren.

And another thing! One of the choices is who you romanced, but there isn’t anything about their fate. This is probably fine for a few of the romance options, but several of them have the chance to end in tragedy, especially Bull, Cullen, and Blackwall. Plus Cassandra can be a romance option AND the Divine. If we meet the Inquisitor and they talk about loving Cassandra, is no one going to bring up that “Hey, Cassandra Pentaghast? Isn’t that Divine Victoria’s proper name?” To me, the only way of squaring this is that the romance option question is stealthily just asking “did you romance Solas: yes or no?” And I get that he’s popular in the fandom, but people who haven’t been rabidly talking about the egg for the past decade probably just remember him as the nerdy elf who turns out to be the guy who started all the bad stuff in DAI, because his romance is locked behind a subset of a subset of a subset of the players. So making two of the three choices exclusive to his story is…a choice.

Folks, I gotta be real with you: Yes I too am disappointed that there aren't more choices carrying over in The Veilguard from the last three games, but I think the current fandom rage is a little over the top. It's not the end of the world. Can we just take a breath for a second and remember that this new game is set in Northern Thedas, where 99% of decisions made in Southern Thedas ten or more more years ago of course aren't going to matter, if you think about it? And on a meta level, I imagine the goal is to make this game as friendly as possible to brand new players, not out of spite towards existing fans.

[explodingchantry]

In hushed whispers is dead ass such a beacon of everything wrong with dai's writing. Because it should be a very, very terrifying quest. It literally shows you what will happen if you don't succeed. It should put so much pressure on you.

But it doesn't.

I think it's interesting especially because they nailed the looming ever-present threat so well in dao. The blight IS scary. You see first hand how it can absolutely decimate an entire army. You realize one day - even if it's long after you've finished dao - that Loghain... Was right. The flank wouldn't have mattered. They would've all died. He did save the men he pulled back from the front. And you feel the heaviness of that throughout the game. You watched more skilled, more numerous warriors die facing a terrifying amount of darkspawn. Saw the person meant to be your mentor die to darkspawn. You're alone, two new Grey wardens against a world ending catastrophe you know barely anything about, tasked to stop it.

And there's this sense of constant despair all throughout the game. I think, especially, what it does well is the random encounters that are so annoying, when you travel the map. Because at first you get a few straggling darkspawn. But then they grow in number, in power, in threat. As you advance through the main quest, the threat grows, so that it's always scarier than you. Even the last quest, what should be a triumphant conquest of the darkspawn, it's got this foreboding element. You're hyperaware of all the death they've wrought. Of your potential fate as you see a more senior warden so easily killed by the archdemon. But you try, because it's the only thing you can do. It's a masterful way to escalate a game-long threat

And inquisition... Tries... To do that. And fails every single time. Because you're always triumphant with very little losses. Even when you lose haven later, you end up gaining a beautiful imprenable ancient fortress. You literally never lose. And the very mission ABOUT losing, in hushed whispers... Doesn't get anywhere. Because you don't truly SEE the results of your loss.

You pick up your companions and sure they've got that spooky red lyrium effect on them and some may vaguely hint that things suck but... That's it. Most just spring back up and join to help. A year they spent, likely tortured, likely seeing hundreds die, maddened by the red lyrium around them, and.. Nothing. Not really. You get three lines of dialogue, maybe a couple quips from them as you move around. But that's it. The quest is meant to build up on the red lyrium threat, show it growing everywhere like a disease. And it supposedly does something. But... Does it?

Does it do anything? Aside from make your companions glow a little and have slightly spooky voices?

Dragon age 2 has a small shard of red lyrium alter varric's personality so suddenly it's genuinely worrying - but dai has him next to a giant pillar of red lyrium for a year and he just springs back up, jokes with you and just... Joins you with no other.... Consequence... ?

Sure redcliffe castle is fucked up looking, but you don't see what it used to look like in dai before the quest. You can imagine it didn't use to look like this but it still stands that its ruin won't hit you as hard as if you'd seen it lively and animated. "but you see it in Dao" you try to defend - and I'll come back to that. In a moment.

There's some ominous codex entries you can find around but let's be real, only a small portion of die hard fans actually read those. They don't get the point across and furthermore, it makes the narrative fall into telling us how bad things are rather than SHOWING us.

There's extra rifts in the castle. Okay? So? At this point you mightve closed a dozen rifts, and the little time magic circles around them barely do anything. The demons are exactly the same as everywhere else. Oh, and there's like 30 venatoris total you face. Cool. What else?

The one thing that DOES actually drive the attempted point across is Leliana. She looks dreadful. She's cold. She's bitter. She actually acts like someone whose been thoroughly tortured and lost everything. Too bad she's the only one. Too bad her main scene ends abruptly. Too bad she then only has a couple quips. Too bad no one else matches her tone.

We don't see outside redcliffe castle. We don't actually know how bad the world is. How far the red lyrium has spread. "the breach is everywhere now" and sure enough the sky is scary. But that's. It. Where are the large demons, the raw magic of the fade seeping through and making things float and distort, making time and space melt? Where are the victims? We do find ONE tortured chantry woman in the dungeons early on. The sounds coming from the room are scary. But the mage we kill inside is normal. The corpse isn't mangled. There's not even proper environmental story telling. Just the sound telling us "we swear something cool happened!! Its super scary!!" and begging us to believe it.

The magic side of things is also.. Silly, I'm sorry. They excuse the shockingly strong magic that literally can alter TIME by saying the magister (I already forgot his name even though I just replayed the quest, he's that remarkable.) used the raw magic pouring out of the rift but then this is never repeated or built on throughout the whole game. Just dropped there and then never spoken about again, it's implications just forgotten. What do you mean the fade holds magic so powerful it can alter TIME? why does no one make a bigger deal of it? Why wouldn't Solas use it, now, on trespasser, in veilguard, or at the time of elvhenan?

Not to mention that time travel itself will always break any canon it's introduced to, but anyway. I won't even dwell on that because the game sure doesn't.

This part of the game somewhat holds more weight to dragon age veterans because we do have attachment to ferelden and redcliffe and some of the characters present (varric if you take him along, and leliana) but dai markets itself as friendly to people who've never played dragon age. So imagine yourself playing a new game, you know nothing about it, and a few hours into it (and it can be very early depending on your priorities) you're thrown into this worst case scenario with characters you basically know nothing about. It's a great hook - the whole game is a great hook, its characters are great hooks, the game is full of fucking hooks. But just like every other hook in the game, there's no line, no sinker. It just falls flat as hell.

The last scene, of your two other companions sacrificing themselves, of leliana sacrificing herself - of a grand total of 5 demons and 10 venatoris attacking her... It falls flat. It just does. The only power it holds is if some of the faces attached are familiar because you're a sucker whose played all the games, as well as a single line from leliana (when she says this timeline, her present, isn't real for you, but she suffered it and as did everyone else and you preventing it won't change that). You're going back so their deaths don't have to be real to you but they're real to them. But this can only carry you so far.

Also that boss fight against mr time magister is shit, it's got no stakes and no panache. And then you come back to the present and he just gives up, as if he was aware of the future you defeated him in? Of the future in which Felix is still dying? Did he really not have anything else up his sleeve? No other spell? He's desperate enough to plunge the world in chaos but he can't even do some blood magic to escape you and keep trying to save his son? His son dying a preventable way by just idk making him a warden? (granted Felix could very well die in the joining and being a warden rly is more a way to slow one's taint progressing but it's better than nothing innit). Or trying some fancy blood magic ritual since it's in the blood?? No ?? Nothing?

And don't even get me started on the political talk from your advisors and everyone involved re: choosing the mages and then allowing them to join the inquisition as people rather than slaves prisoners. Jesus fucking Christ.

Idk this post is a mess of jumbled thoughts but my GOD I forgot how pointless dai's writing was. Because in hushed whispers tries to replicate what Dao did - make the threat you face feel hopeless and terrifying - but it falls so flat and every other main quest after it only gets worse from there. Because you never lose. You always just gain double what you ever do lose. It's just... Empty. Idk.

[sotc]

Post Veilguard high thoughts

Firstly, I LOVED LUCANIS. Despite my grievances below I can't help but love the game, and I'm high on copium on what potential future DA games could look like if they actually focused more on the fffff FUCKING ROLEPLAYING!!!!!!!! aspect of this game than an action adventure!!! UGH lol. I LOVED playing Armas so much tho and ultimately my affection for this game ties into that. I know I'm wearing red-tinted glasses. I know I am cringe but... I am free. I LOVED LUCANIS. Playing a Rook who was more stern towards people really helped balance the overall 'uwu live laugh love' tone the game was forcing. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I selected the 'nice' options in this game. You can't be an evil dickhead or anything but it helped and made it far more tolerable and enjoyable. Slap in 'a Crow has to be a little unhinged since they murder for a living' headcanon and I came up with a recipe that tied together nicely. I truly don't think I can play a nice character in this game bc I'd kms sorry LMAO (but maybe that's also just me because I like playing bastards) And did I mention I loved Lucanis?

If you want to read a bit more detailed opinions it's below:

1) I loved the gameplay! The animations and detail to the animations were STELLAR. I feel like they really nailed the gameplay aspect in this game. I loved the level exploration, the specializations/talent system, the companion leveling, and the combat was amazing. I liked a lot of the OST. I really loved playing a rogue SO much I'm really excited to see how warrior feels. I really loved seeing the little codex entries with Dorian, seeing the Inquisitor again, and even Solas 💗 I think the major story missions like Weisshaupt, some companion quests and the last 3 hours of the game with its suicide mission was SO fun. HOWEVER.....

2) A lot of my frustrations with the writing largely comes from lack of nuance and deeper exploration. There is no mature explorations of these stories and topics because it all feels sanitized. There are dark portions to this game (the Blight especially, loved all that) but a large portion of story beats that try to explore its depths simply fall flat on its face because it all comes down to "every bad or evil thing is because of the evil gods and cultists." For example, racism, classism, slavery etc etc is shown to be enforced only by the Venatori and not the oppressive ruling class of mages or even other citizens in Minrathous is my biggest gripe. We walk into a literal police state in the first 10mins of the game where you see a giant beam shining down on a citizen being arrested and none of that oppression truly gets explored afterwards. I digress lol. 2-a) I think this also comes down to the scope of the story getting so large and ahead of itself there was never really a chance to let it breathe. It doesn't ground you or your character to the world where your Rook reacts to these situations more personally. Environmental storytelling is done well for the most part but the game really needed to dig deeper in a more personal roleplaying experience explored in side quests.

2-b) Character dialogue was WAY too modernized, there are few opportunities to talk to them, and conflict with them was absolutely nonexistent or minimal. MY team of people trying to save Thedas would never know what positive affirmation, mental health and group therapy is!! sorry but god dammit what da hell is this!!! Still, I did love all the companions though overall.

3) I expected more out of the lore. Even without worldstates no longer really being relevant (which I am willing to let go of). Like, we had heard so much about Tevinter and Antiva but we never got to really sink our teeth into their societies at all. There is so much rich lore there to explore that gets glossed over. Which again just goes back to 2-a lol.

4) Lucanis romance was SO lovely but suffered from lack of content that left much to be desired. His romance feels unfinished, which makes sense given he suffered from multiple rewrites and his writer was also let go in the middle of production. I have heard a lot of the romances suffer from feeling incomplete or lackluster too.

[chronurgy]

Under a cut for discussion of the inquisition choice imports in the dav character creator and some negativity. If it matters, this is a leaked screenshot

So this image comes from this reddit thread. It shows what appears to be the summary slide of your inquisition choice inputs (given the finalize button in the corner).

I'm hopeful that this is just a summary slide and you can set things in more detail than is shown. I'm really hoping that. Because, uh, they don't seem to be asking about a lot here.

Who drank from the well and what happened to the wardens seem particularly relevant! I'd also love to see a codex entry on the divine! It wouldn't be a lot of impact on the story and it would help the it feel like your choices mattered to the world - especially because at least some of the areas we'll be visiting do acknowledge the southern chantry. No codex entries on Orlais either, since they don't ask who became empress/emperor. I guess what bothers me the most here is that codex entries with swappable paragraphs are so easy to include and would make so many older fans happy but they couldn't even bother? (My suspicion is that we'll find out some time after release that the team was under an immense amount of pressure to turn this game out quickly.)

I've seen several people claim that they've seen the "Friendship and Romance" tab in some preview and all it contains is an option to pick your romance or lack of romance, nothing further. I haven't confirmed this myself but damn that's disappointing. It's really disappointing! I assume it means no cameos and even no references to any inquisition characters. Can't reference Iron Bull, he might be dead and the game has no way to know. Can't reference Cole, we have no idea if he's more spirit or human.

And the inquisitor - no class, no personality choices, oh boy. I don't think this cameo is going to go well. Take every problem the Hawke cameo had and multiply it by three.

It seems like we've reached the point where your choices just don't matter at all. Not even the well, which I was so sure would come up given the subject of the game! They want us to care about the world, but now there is no worldstate. None of the choices we make show up, let alone matter.

[bedabug]

Thoughts on Dragon Age: The Veilguard now that I've finished it. This will have spoilers in it that I'll put under a cut but the spoiler free short of it is this:

Final act is incredible. From the "point of no return" onward the game is phenomenal. Probably one of the best final sections of any game I've played. Downsides were some lore sanded down. Companions don't talk to you enough, can't really get to know them outside of their quest lines. Romances were remarkably lackluster in more than just amount of content. Rook dialogue choices are limited.

Overall I liked the game, final act really was so good I forgave pretty much all my other issues.

Now for the pretty spoiler filled version with details (warning this is massively long):

We're gonna do this by category, and I'm gonna save stuff I liked for the end so that this post on the whole feels slightly compliment sandwich-y. I am gonna talk with a lot of depth about the stuff I don't like because there's a lot of reasons and information to it BUT I want to stress again I liked the game on the whole.

First up is how the game disappoints on player choice at a lot of points, starting with the obvious of crafting your own Rook. You spend however long in the character creator, you read all the faction notes, you are given exactly one small piece of character background (why you joined or were loaned out to Varric) and there is no other character information given to you which is GREAT! Until Rook suddenly starts dropping background information to Solas (or to Taash in one of their early missions if I remember correctly). An elf Rook with a Lords of Fortune background suddenly drops the information that they were a Tevinter Galley Slave for example which is a huge piece of background to just throw on the player with no warning, potentially undoing a lot of their own character building. This wouldn't be a problem if it was stated anywhere in the character creator instead of sprung on you well after the tutorial section is done.

And that kind of thing doesn't even begin to address the negated player choice from other games. Did you give Isabela over to the Qunari? Too bad she's here anyway with no mention of it. Did you have Hawke romance Isabela? Also not mentioned, nor whether or not Hawke is alive. Who is the Divine for anyone outside of Tevinter? Never comes up. What happened with circle mages? Who can say. You can import the fact that the Inquisitor romanced Iron Bull but not if he turned against you in Tresspasser and sided with the antaam. Did the Inquisitor bathe in Mythal's well or did Morrigan? What about Morrigan's child, does he even exist? Some player choices (who rules Ferelden or Orzammar for example) are fine to not include because why would they come up when you're so far north of those areas. But not including others while including the characters they are directly about, like Isabela or Morrigan is frustrating. I would rather not have those characters then have them waltzing in with no regard for the choices made about them previously. Doesn't have to be a big thing but a throw away line about the choice or just an entry in the codex would go a long way.

Rook's dialogue options are also frustrating. I don't mind the option to be the world's most supportive team therapist, but I'd have loved it to be more of a choice. Aggressive or mean options felt few and far between which made being able to disagree with your team difficult. Rook should be able to disagree with them! The player should be able to argue and convince or be convinced! One of the most fun playthroughs I did of DA:I was one where I made the Inquisitor a hardline religious zealot who strongly believed they were the herald of Andraste. I terrorized my team and it was fun seeing that version of the game after seeing the version where they all trusted and cared for the Inquisitor. That kind of variety is really lacking in Veilguard.

While we're on lacking dialogue and choices, Faction and lineage dialogue seems to be a crap shoot. Wardens have quite a bit, Lords of Fortune might as well have none. It's a really wild disparity but also not there in places where you feel it really should be there. Like if you're an elf and Emmrich asks you about your funeral plans you might not be able to respond with the Dalish tradition of planting a tree over the grave, even if you mention that same tradition to Bellara during the funeral sequence in her quest line. The majority of Elf related dialogue I got was being able to apologize to Harding for what the ancient elven gods did to the Titans which feels not great.

Speaking of factions! This is where I'm gonna talk about the sanding down/dulling the edges of the more unsavory elements in the Dragon Age lore, presumably done so that the game can treat the player with kid gloves. The game feels afraid to embrace the parts of Thedas that don't meet real world standards of morality. Which not only is a remarkably boring story choice, it undercuts a lot of the important things you're fighting against/working towards fixing as a player in the world. Take the Antivan Crows for example. We know from Zevran, among other resources from previous games, that the Crows have no issue with purchasing or stealing orphans to raise them as assassins. Zevran talks about the torturous lessons and treatment he received as one such orphan. Part of this is handwave forgivable because much of your interactions with the Crows in Veilguard is through their leadership. Neither the talons nor the grandsons of the first talon are going to openly share the most unsavory elements of their organization. But there was depth to be mined there from the idea that this organization with dubious morals beyond just killers for hire (which is oddly not portrayed as morally grey as I think it should be) when faced with an occupation and a risk of Antiva pull together to be more than they are, but alas that is left widely not discussed. But again the Crow situation is more forgivable than the Tevinter problem.

Tevinter has long been described as a country that relies heavily on slave labor. You see (and can help or not) elves being kidnapped in DA:O from the alienage, you know and can help escaped tevinter slaves in DA2 (or even turn them back in which is wild), and you can argue the morality of slavery with Dorian in DA:I (something Veilguard directly implies helped change his mind on the issue!!). Despite this you don't see a single slave in Minrathous by my recollection. You see blood magic in some quest lines as you would expect, but you never really see slaves or slavery. The only slave I remember seeing in the entire game is the one that is abandoned by the Venatori in Nevarra. The only slave I remember in the entire game is the one found not in Tevinter and explicitly owned by the bad guy cult. It would have been so much more impactful to see every day regular Minrathous citizens with their slaves. The banality of evil, the evidence of it as a systemic problem. The Shadow Dragon faction is EXPLICITLY working towards changing Tevinter for the better and lists ending slavery as one of their goals but you don't ever see one there. They try to get around it by having the part of Minrathous you spend time in be a poorer area but the player should still see slavery and the ramifications of it. It feels remarkably like the player is being treated with kid gloves and protected from things unpleasant, but that massively undercuts the Shadow Dragons' own goals because they become something you basically never really encounter outside of the Venatori. It takes the Shadow Dragons from being an underground resistance group with revolutionary ideals to a group just fighting against one (admittedly powerful) evil cult, instead of a systemic problem in the country's very foundation. Yes there are codex entries mentioning Dorian trying to disband slavery via law changes and yes if you save Minrathous the discussion of who to put in charge mentions ending slavery as a key priority, but these all feel so empty without anything to ground them. This was the time to show both the power and the dark side of the Tevinter Empire and instead we don't see any of it.

My assumption is that because you can be part of these factions and go to these places and have to care about saving these people (they want the player to agonize over the decision to save Minrathous or Treviso) and maybe you'd care less about one if one was visibly full of slavers (even tho it'd be also full of slaves that ostensibly a player would want to save). But I think the game had also shown the dark elements of the Crows alongside that it makes the choice just as hard. And I think treating the player like they can't handle being part of a group in a fictional world that has some problems or darker elements to it is frustrating. Especially when getting to play a morally grey character is frequently a large appeal of video games. And if you're a Shadow Dragon then it should be more than just lip service to be part of group vying to free the country they call home from systemic oppression.

The way the Qun is talked about in Veilguard also falls under this umbrella. A seer in the Lords of Fortune base says that the Qun doesn't actually hate mages or torture them or sew their mouths shut that was just the Antaam. This is in direct conflict with literal other moments in the game when talking about how Taash's mom feels about mages and magic (she had begrudginly come to accept it thanks to help from a Rivaini seer but the undertone is folks from the Qun do not like mages nor are they used to them). Additionally Taash says the Qun isn't a prison and folks can leave any time, which is ALSO in direct conflict with Taash's own lived experiences as their mom had to flee the Qun to protect them. It's in conflict with the assassins sent after Bull when he left the Qun. It just feels like a needlessly "actually they're not bad its just the enemy faction that is bad" which I feel like takes away a lot of interesting depth to the Qun for the sake of making it more palatable but I also feel like a story could have sold me on why people actually like living under it and even prefer it without being like "oh actually all of the bad things were just the military" even though the military was part of the Qun until the DLC for DAI. Handwaving it away while also directly going against other things listed in the game is frustrating. If this is a legitimate change the writers wanted to make it's implemented poorly especially given the disconnect between what Taash tells us about the Qun vs what they tell us about their mom leaving it.

In keeping with the "kid gloves on" problem, your lineage is never an issue in the game. You can't to my knowledge even ask anyone if it could be a problem the way you can ask if being anything but human is going to be a problem as leader of the Inquisition. An Elf or Qunari Rook can walk around Minrathous with not even a second glance. This is in specific conflict with a conversation we can overhear between Lorelei and Bren in the Shadow Dragons shop where she asks him if he had any trouble at the market and he says wearing a hood helps, with the implication being that he has to hide his Qunari horns. I know it's weird to subject the player to racism but also the prejudices based on lineage is a key part of certain areas in Thedas and to discount them entirely feels weird. It should be a little bit risky to be an Elf of Qunari walking through Minrathous even if that's just the various NPCs on the street are less nice to you. There's a weird feeling of this world's problems are all specific Evil People doing Specific Evil Things instead of the fallibility of people and institutions and system problems which makes it amount to a much more bland version of Thedas then as we've previously seen it.

Tying in to things being more bland, it's time to cover the companions' relationship to Rook both romantic and platonic. I'll start with platonic because I actually feel like it's the bigger offender though I've seen a lot of complaints about the romances that I agree with. I feel like I can't get to know the companions properly and they can't get to know me. Sure Rook goes along and helps them on whatever therapy and quest line they need, but outside of that? I cannot start a conversation with them and ask them what they think about different topics while answering questions back. I covered previously that the dialogue options are limited but this is more that the amount of conversations outside of ones directly relating to quest lines is nearly non existent. I knew so much about my companions and their outlooks and motivators from information outside of their quest lines in previous games because you got to really talk to them through branching dialogue trees and occasionally you got to respond in kind. You don't get that kind of friendship depth with the companions in Veilguard because you don't get to have many conversations with them and the ones you do are usually just Rook asking "are you ok" or offering to help. Not getting to know them.

Sure there's a lot of little lore and backstory you can pick up from party banter or codex entries but those things don't feel like they deepen the bond with Rook. Bellara refers to Neve as the sister she never had at one point while I love that and think it's truly charming, it made me realize that Rook didn't feel particularly close to any companion, not even the one they romanced.

Which brings me to romances. This game took the worst element of Mass Effect romances and brought them to Dragon Age. For years I've complained that I wished Mass Effect romances were more like Dragon Ages and we almost kinda got there in Andromeda, but the finger on the monkey paw did curl and instead of Mass Effect romances getting better, Dragon Age ones got worse.

I have romanced Davrin, Bellara, and Emmrich at this point (and watched videos of the others to compare). Emmrich's is easily the best in terms of content given but even still they are all remarkably chaste. A bunch of almost kisses interrupted and you can barely properly lock in before basically the point of no return? You don't even get more than a kiss in the romance until AFTER the point of no return?? In DAI once locked in you could go up to your romantic partner for almost any of the romances and have a cute little moment together. In Veilguard you're lucky if it ever comes up outside of your specific romance scenes. I had one companion mention my romance with Davrin and with Bellara, and Harding's commentary about age was all I got for Emmrichs. Neve's romance with Lucanis (which I love!!) feels like it has more depth and love than either the Neve or Lucanis romance for Rook. Additionally the overall amount of time the romance content has is significantly less. Video compilation of all Bellara or all Emmrich romance scenes are both around 18min, in DAI for Dorian or for Bull it's over 30min each, same for Cassandra. Several of the romances in previous Dragon Age games have been some of my favorite video game romances in any series and all the ones in Veilguard feel so remarkably lacking. Outside of the specific romance scenes you might as well not be together at all which is such a bummer. Mass Effect 2 also does the limited chaste romance until the point of no return thing but at least it felt like the connection was there outside of those scenes because you also had the platonic bond underneath the romance that Veilguard does not really manage to accomplish.

Also side note: What the fuck was the nudity toggle even for because like I was expecting at least DA:I levels of nudity minimum if you have a toggle like that (with optimistically ME: Andromeda levels or more) and there was none of that. Why does that toggle even exist? To lie to me?

BioWare said this was the most "companion heavy" game and sure if your metric is exclusively what percentage of quests are companion quests then that is true. But if you're counting by any other metric I think it's actually one of the most companion-light games of the series. Which is a huge bummer as the companions and the player character's relationship to them has always been a massive appeal for me and many other DA fans. The characters in Veilguard are great and I do love them but I don't feel like Rook gets to bond with them in any way that matters and I think that's almost exclusively down to the missing big dialogue tree conversations.

Additionally on the companion note I don't love that seemingly no matter how you choose to end their personal quest lines the companions are absolutely 100% okay with Rook's decision. Some of them that makes sense for and some it felt weird. Taash's especially felt off because it definitely seemed like a balance between Qunari and Rivaini culture should have been struck there but instead it was a binary choice and they have no strong opinions either way on what you encourage them to do.

And finally the writing. I don't actually have too many complaints on this on the whole. I think some of the companion quest lines have not the greatest writing at moments. Harding and Taash are the bigger offenders here but Taashs sticks the landing better than Hardings in my opinion. Taash ends up so very minor or barely not minor coded because of their quest line and I just think there must have been a better way to do a coming out/finding yourself quest line without me feeling like I'm taking care of an angry 16 year old. But the ending mission of Taash's quest is pretty decent where as I feel Harding having an evil shade encapsulating all her negative feelings about what happened to the Titans was the most boring way to end what otherwise could have been a really interesting quest line lore wise. I do think some dialogue feels clunky. It reminds me of Jenny Nicholson's comment on how you can spot a Paid Disney Influencer because they always use attractions/parks full Disney names (Star Wars Galaxy's Edge as opposed to Star Wars Land for example) because everything is Proper Names in dialogue. Always calling it "gingerwort truffle" in full in every Davrin scene never shorthanding it to either gingerwort or just truffle and letting us understand from context so that the characters speak as any person would in real life. It ends up feeling awkward and stilted because of it, but thats a minor writing compaint.

Act 1's pacing is also very sluggish, but honestly that's a pretty forgivable problem for me considering the final act is as well done as it is. There are definitely occasionally moments where I wasn't impressed by the writing but they're all almost entirely early game problems so you kinda forget them by the end of the game.

I wish the crossroads market area was utilized better. I was about to finish Act 2 before I realized the vendor there replaced the vendor I lost from the unsaved city choice and many of my friends had not realized it themselves at all. I also feel like it would have been very cool if refugees from the not saved city had been evacuated either there or to the lighthouse in some capacity. Grey Wardens could have come through there after Weisshaupt fell and used it as a base to send people out to effectively fight the blight wherever was needed at the time. The lighthouse being such a cut off and private base was a little underwhelming and empty feeling and I think having faction presence there or in the crossroads market (more than just one occasional NPC) would have been a way to improve that. Also why is there not a Rivaini/Lords Of Fortune furniture set for the Lighthouse? Literally every other faction got one even dwarves which is isn't even a group you have to worry about reputation with!

I don't love the implication of the after credit scene that some secret big bad has been manipulating everyone into doing bad things this whole time because I think that as a plot concept usually undercuts more interesting narratives but I am willing to see where it goes. Mark me down as wary.

Slipping in here out of place because it goes with nothing is a minor complaint about the combat. No longer being able to control your companions sucks. That for me was always a really fun way to try out another class and see if I would want to do a full run as that class. But additionally they did not compensate for enemy targeting properly. Because your companions can't die and can't be controlled the enemy AI basically does not target them at all meaning if you're playing a Rook who is better at range (like say a mage) it becomes very dodge heavy in a way I find more annoying then challenging. It's not harder its more tedious and dull. I always liked that Dragon Age had a distinct combat style from Mass Effect and I do think transferring over to the Mass Effect combat style was not the best choice.

Final for complaints, I do feel like the save Minrathous or save Treviso choice is entirely undercut by the final part of act 3 happening in and basically destroying Minrathous. Hard to justify saving Minrathous earlier when you know it'll go through that, especially with the idea that you can minimize the spread of damage by saving Treviso because then at least it's just one city that is wrecked. But this is mostly a replay related complaint, I don't like when something undercuts a choice on replay but it is hardly a deal breaker or a big problem which is why it is the last thing mentioned in this section.

Finally for the things I liked:

I called the Varric twist from moment one when after the tutorial Harding doesn't address him at all in the infirmary and was only more convinced when Harding had to psyche herself up to go back to the Ritual Site. I was so worried that knowing he was dead was going to make the reveal less impactful or that I would feel like I didn't have time to properly mourn a character that is in my top three favorite Dragon Age characters.

I was very very wrong.

The reveal to Rook that Varric has been dead the whole time is masterfully done. I genuinely sobbed for a moment there. It was such a beautiful wrap up and send off for perhaps the series' most iconic character. It felt like saying goodbye to a best friend and hurt just as much without feeling cheap or manipulative (outside of like actually being manipulated by Solas as a plot point I mean.)

Act 3 in general just goes hard. From the point of no return til the end I was completely engrossed in the game and the story. I held my breath when side characters who weren't even companions looked like they were in trouble and cheered when I saw they lived. Beat for beat Act 3 is great. Doing basically the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission twice in different ways, having a guaranteed loss that is crushing but feels appropriate and not just for shock value. The writing in that section is tight and well done, the pacing is great, and the story beats all feel like they pay off in satisfying ways and the companion interaction in that sequence is the best it is in the entire game. Morrigan's inclusion in talking Solas down is fantastic, being able to talk Solas and convince him to keep the veil willingly also feels really rewarding.

On the topic of Solas, Gareth David-Lloyd puts in an absolutely phenomenal performance. He sells every double cross, every lie, every hint of foreshadowing, and every emotional beat. I can only think of a single line that felt awkwardly stated which is huge given the amount of story carrying dialogue he had.

I really like the games through line of Rook & Co basically becoming the new dreadwolf rebellion. Using his base, fighting the same gods, it's a nice parallel without being overwhelming in your face about it. Balanced and well done.

Hezenkoss was a hysterically fun villain in a delightfully well done mission and having her skull stay after in Emmrich's room as something you and your companions can talk to is excellent. The perfect amount of hammy villainy needed for a bit of levity without feeling so goofy that its off putting. I believe she was voiced by Juliet Landau who does a great job, just fun to listen to.

Manfred is also one of the most entertaining side characters. Goes from haha funny skeleton butler to basically Emmrich's son that is a crucial member of the group that you care for and I love that.

As a small final compliment THE HAIR!! Never did I dream hair in Dragon Age would ever look like anything other than molded clay on top of a characters head (unless you have mods). But the hair in Veilguard looks touchably soft and bouncy and for the most part moves in all the right ways and shines in the light well. As a console player it was nice to finally have good hair.

[dors-ee]

I just got the idea to write the fanfic of what I wish had happened with the game story, like the blight and titan thing.

But also I don't think I have the brain for it, like to make it good but also just to... make it. I know I want something with the titan and blight and songs but ...how? I don't know.

So I guess I'll stew in my bitterness. I also have the itch to write for solavellan, like expand in game, cause I really found it a little bit abrupt, for Solas at the end -when picking redemption-. Why not one more discussion about the inquisitor or idk what? The one we got was very good, like real good. The writing for him is great, I just wanted a bit more of it into the game, is what I am trying to say. To get a better build up. I get that with Rook it would have been hard, to implement Solas's doubts, etc. but it was lacking for me in game. One codex entry of an unsent letter wasn't enough, as well as the letter was done. And they have a lot of trauma to unpack together.

which tbh... as much as I liked them together, the idea of a woman sacrificing it all to help a man deal with his trauma... woth her love kindness and compassion... Not a fan, thematically speaking. But well. Can still work with that.

But not sure I can do it eirher, good trauma stories for my personal standards are relatively long, with a good progression, and idk if my adhd will allow me to spend so long on it. I have tried for other fandoms already, the amount of work needed to make a good deal with trauma story... eh. It's a lot. Or you need to be really good at showing, and showing little details, that you introduce masterfully in a text, to give little hints of some of the progresses, motifs that come back.

I mean there are ways to make it, and not make it too long. But I have tried and either I show healing and it's too long or I try to make it shorter but falls into tell and it's very frustrating and not enjoyable to write even for me.

Could still try. I don't want to give up Solavellan just yet.

(those are my opinions, about the writing of trauma stories, my personal tastes only :) ).

[thessalian]

Thess vs Firegleam

So I spent awhile backtracking just for kicks. Some of it was worth it. Some of it ... not so much.

There is supposed to be a big chunk of green shiny out by Sylens' lab but I cannot get up there to find out. I will look later when I don't have so much firegleam to ignite. But lemme see what's over actually behind that firegleam deposit in Sylens' 'lab space', for lack of a better word.

Well, mildly underwhelming, but hey. Lemme just grab a campfire in the area and...

Oh. That's a noise. Talanah! And Longlegs! Friend and needed parts! Okay, the firegleam can wait!

Ah. Another Carja trying to find friends, family, or Other Important Person in the West. Cool, we can deal with that. A little bit out of my way, but what're friends for?

...I am missing out on so much hunting, Talanah...

A ... Shellsnapper. That's new. Okay, you brought me Longlegs and a whole new unfeasibly big thing to kill. All is forgiven. Now, lemme see ... scanned, logged, and that's a vulnerable bit but lemme hunker because that thing can probably take a huge amount of--

.........Did ... did I just one-shot Robo-Atuin?

Apparently, yes I did. I guess I worried for nothing.

Ah. Now there is a mountain in the way and not even I can feasibly climb it. I guess we find a way around or through. Yeah, yeah, we'll probably meet again when circumstances demand. For now, though ... I should be saving the world but apparently that will wait for me to ignite a lot of firegleam.

Right. Start from the Daunt, work my way down. This one at this old dig site might be worth looking at.

...Vendor trash. Okay. Fine. Next!

Huh. This lets me into that tower I couldn't get into. Now, what wonders will we find within?

...A ... codex entry and more vendor trash. Okay. Fine. Next!

............Dude, HOW ARE YOU STILL PULLING ON THAT POOR DEAD OSERAM?!? There really should be a function whereby, if you complete a quest, the quest giver can ... like, go away, do something else? Something other than pulling on the ankle on the same Oseram corpse for, like, three in-game days?

Please let this climb and ridiculousness be worth it...

Moooooooore vendor trash. Okay. Fine. Someone's going to love me when I finally get back to Plainsong for the main quest because I'm going to have so much vendor trash...

(Wow. Really glad I'm not playing BG3 like this. Imagine encumberance rules in this game...)

Right. Okay. How about this one just by Barren Light, at the edge of No Man's Land. That's got to have something worthwhile ... right?

GREEN SHINY! ...And nothing to spend it on so far. Ah well.

Okay. This is in an Old World ruin. This has to be something worthwhile.

This ... is a lateral thinking jumping puzzle. Right. Okay. Hoboy.

So ... I have a battery I can't jump with, a body of water I can't cross, and over there, a crate. Hrm.

So the only way over there is gliding. I think I see why they mapped everything to space bar, now. Guess I'm going to have to rebind some keys here or I won't time it right.

Okay, so ... can't jump on the crate while holding battery. So how... Wait. Can we use the pullcaster on this thing?

.........Oh. Ooooooooh. You sneaky bastards.

No, the ramps won't do it because it'll just slide off when the crate's at an angle. And that's where the nearly perfect dock comes in.

BATTERY FERRIED. Now, up. More crate-dragging. Wheee!

So ... that's another toucan ball. And this one's ... oh, those weren't clovers on the first ones - they were clubs, like the card suit. Because this one's giving off spades. Huh. The Old World was weird.

On that note, I should probably consider something that resembles food. Today's probably going to be a bit of a Forbidden West binge. The Saturday Shenanigans group is on a two-week hiatus between mini-campaigns - this week because I wanted a break, next week because @hyperewok1 is away and we don't have enough players on a Saturday to play when we're a person short. Plus, I really could use a little bit more of a break too. I mean, that'll mean that I have a whole weekend next weekend, just for me! (Not that I don't love my every-other-Sunday D&D group - I really seriously do. Just a whole weekend with nothing to plan for or set up for people feels ... decadent and lovely, somehow.)

Anyway, then I have to decide between going for that drone near Plainsong (which means dealing with Blight, yay), or dealing with the Rebel outposting also near Plainsong. Either way, going to stick around Plainsong at least a bit. But all of that will be easier on a full stomach. So ... food.

[scripted-pleasures]

Fourth Wing Review

1.5-2/5 stars

I would like to thank everything for giving me the strength to finish this book. It took less than a week and 14.5 pages of notes but we're done! To put it bluntly, this book was bad. Like, garbage. After talking about it for a while I get so angry that I lose the ability to form rational thought anymore. Anyways, I hope this is entertaining and/or informative! This will be hidden cuz it's a long one!

I would like to start off by saying that even though I don’t agree with the general rating of the book, I can say that I see how people enjoy this book. If this is a first fantasy book for someone, it makes an ok low barrier to entry for the genre. I think this would be mid-fantasy? I will say I wasn’t a fan of the romance, even if Yarros took her time and saved the Big Bang for way too late in the book to try to ‘flesh out’ the connection. (Spoiler alert: it was wack). For better or worse, I’m a lore person so in terms of a meaningful story with solid characters, plot, and setting, it’s no more than a 2. I do have to give credit where it’s due, and there were some parts that I enjoyed (mainly Tairn) and if I wasn’t going into this so critically, I’d give this a solid 3. The story is fine, though it is full of contradictions and weird sentences that are hard to ignore even if I was reading for fun. Violet was more interesting at the beginning of the book and things got kind of jumbled together toward the middle whenever the focus wasn’t on how horny Violet was for Xaden. The flying scenes were fun when they were actually written out. As for characters, Tarin is the best by far, no competition. I know that was bland but that’s how I felt if you wanted a short review if I was reading for fun. Honestly, this book is nothing to write home about.

 Though, I am home, and I will be writing about it, so here’s the full 2 star (more like 1.5) review:

A major non-in universe problem with this book is the use of Scottish Gaelic words/names that are being bastardized. The name of the college, dragons, and some characters’ last names use Scottish Gaelic that, as confirmed by Yarros, are not pronounced properly and are instead pronounced however she finds easiest. There are wonderful creators on TikTok that have read the book and know of/speak Scottish Gaelic that air their own grievance on her use of the language and are a wonderful source of how to properly pronounce the names/words in the book. I urge all who read this to check them out.

Anyways.

I absolutely love the fact that Yarros is actively not following the rules that she set up! 

The earliest show of this is on page 21 where there’s a quote from ‘Major Afrenda’s Guide to the Riders Quadrant’ that says “there’s a misconception that it’s kill or be killed in the Quadrant unless there’s a dragon shortage or a cadet is a liability”. A similar rule is found on page 27 where the Codex states that ‘it’s unlawful for a rider to cause another harm.’ Both of these rules are broken literally on the Parapet where Jack, an antagonist, throws someone into the ravine below and suffered no consequences. Jack also killed someone in training for funsies and nothing came of that either. Most importantly, there isn’t a shortage of dragons, there’s too many riders. The school says rider candidates volunteer yet make no moves to control the amount of applicants when they know the amount of dragons willing to bond in advance.

There was the rule that states cadets with rebel relics can’t be in groups of 3 or more, otherwise it’ll be seen as a capital offense (pg 77) though Xaden tells the group to travel in 3s

On pages 159, Violet was surprised that Jack knew information about feathertails and wondered where he got the information despite spewing the same information earlier in the book

Violet wanted to get Jack angry so that he makes mistakes in the match (pg 293) despite this plan backfiring on her against Imogen earlier in the book

On page 356, Violet is given her saddle and says “When did I ever give you the impression that I give a fuck what people think of me?” even though the page before she was bemoaning how people are going to know that she can’t keep her seat (despite her falling a dozen times every lesson)

Minor thing, but on page 475 Violet is trying to keep Liam on Taiwan’s back even though her shoulder got messed up earlier in the fight though that wasn’t brought up again

Okay, this isn’t a specific pinpoint but it looks like Bás Giath is the military, college, the national archives, and also the church….? That’s not very clear which is a problem

Other than the inconsistencies, Yarros has a bad habit of telling, not showing and even not writing or acknowledging whole scenes. This is shown on page 310 where Sgaeyl, Tairn, and Andarna are supposed to train together with Violet and Xaden. At this point we had seen Tairn and Xaden interact, Violet/Tairn/Andarna, and a wee bit of Xaden and Sgaeyl but not Violet and Sgaeyl or Xaden and Andarna, let alone all of them together. This lost scene along with the majority of the Squad Battle on the next page, mind you misses an incredible amount of character interaction and growth that this book desperately needs. This story also lacks depth in any place outside of Bás Giath/Violet which can be seen in the beginning and toward the end. The furthest back this story goes is 5 years when the Sorrengails moved to Bás Giath and there’s no mention of their life before that. Like, even a little bit. Toward the end when Mira, Violet, and Rhinonnan go to Rhi’s village, the interaction with the family is completely cut out, focusing only on a conversation between the Sorrengails. We do get to see that Rhinonnan has a nephew and that’s as far as the meeting of the main character’s ‘best friend’s’ family goes before they run into Xaden as soon as they step outside. Fantasy really isn’t the type of genre where things are secular if there’s no good reason for it for which this story has none. Quite literally nothing happens in this book and I have no idea how this story will stretch across 5 books. I had a Science Fair project once where the project was to watch paint dry in various conditions and that was somehow more interesting and full of substance than this book.

Extra tidbit: The fact that she wrote white guilt into this story, was willfully ignorant of the idea that an oppressed people would want to revolt and side with the ‘enemy’ (aka. The only people who are willing to stand up against their oppressors), and thinking that any sort of militaristic choices are made ‘for the good of the people’ while War College actively tries to kill the students fills me with so much rage. This book is huge on social media, meaning tons of people are being exposed to these views where the book says these are the morals of the characters you’re supposed to root for. Dangerous and irresponsible. There’s also the fact that Xaden and Rhinannon, both of whom are noted as darker/dark-skinned the whole book are hyper-sexualized, feeding into stereotypes, shows that Yarros and her editing team (if she has one), have never met anyone darker than a cafe-au-lait and it shows.

All in all, I rate this a 1.5-2 out of 5 stars. The only reason why I don’t rate this lower is because there were moments where I did have fun and there were flashes of what this could be. Had I not been reading this as critically as I was or read only fantasy/sci-fi books, I could see the appeal for this. Unfortunately, Yarros might give new readers the impression this is how fantasy, beginner or not, is supposed to be and that’s a disservice to the genre. I’m almost 100% sure Yarros has no plans for this story/universe because Fourth Wing can’t stand on its own, answers no questions, and brings no inquiries. I’m happy for the people who like this book, really, but this isn’t the best it can be and I hope you find actual literature after this.

[wiz-writes]

Codex #1 - Magic

I said I would post stuff about the world, so here it is - the first entry in the Aesemyr lore corner! If there's anything you'd like to know more about next, let me know :)

Magic has been a part of the world since its inception - ley-lines criss-crossing the lands, somewhere denser in quantity, somewhere almost non-existent. This shifting web of energy has been dubbed "the Flow" by those who are able to channel and utilise its power, the mages.

Mages are not very common and different parts of the world consider being born as one as either a blessing or a curse. In current-day Lyyra, mages are highly valued and often attain high positions in return for service to the kingdom. However, that wasn't always the case. Over a hundred years ago, magic was seen as an ill omen and thus, had been outlawed for centuries. Practitioners of magic were killed on sight or hunted down by families specialised in eliminating mages. Only with the discovery of Ruun and a change in leadership, have the anti-magic sentiments eventually been suppressed. Some of the mage-hunting families have prevailed until now, instead pursuing dangerous criminals and fugitives.

Mages can be divided into three groups. The first one is those who are able to sense the ley-lines and magic in general, however, that is the extent of their powers. Every mage is born like this, but if one's magic doesn't manifest in their youth, it never will. Despite their lack of the ability to channel, these people are still well-regarded and oftentimes find employ as researchers.

The second group is the actual mages who can access the Flow and draw power from it. Depending on their training and talent, they can manipulate the energy that surrounds them to take on various forms; be it the elements, pure force or an uncanny influence over one's mind. They are equally respected as they are feared, and rightfully so. A mage can be a deadly weapon.

The last group of mages is quite rare and what sets them apart from the others is their ability to see and directly control the ley-lines. In Lyyra, these mages are called "Menders", because they also tend to Ruun stones located in a number of towns. Some Menders never fully grow as they are driven mad by what no one else can see.

Of course, being a mage has its own limits and drawbacks as well. Firstly, if one cannot manage the amount of energy they draw in, they can meet a very painful end. Magic is extremely volatile and can easily backfire on its user. Secondly, even the smallest flame requires a person's full focus. Great feats of magic need time and commitment, as one cannot run before one can walk. Lastly and most importantly, all power comes at a price, and magic is no different. Given its unstable nature, it progressively corrupts the body until one is nothing but a shadow of their former self. This is called "magical necrosis" and it is the main reason why few mages live past the age of fifty.

[remidyal]

Dragon Age: Veilguard quasi-review and thoughts like ten hours in

This game is going to draw a billion comparisons to Baldur's Gate 3 for what amounts to the reason of Dragon Age Origins having been something that was meant to call back to Baldur's Gate, but in truth this series hasn't really been that sort of isometric RPG since Origins and they're just very different games. This doesn't even hurt that much now, as a fan of those games, since unlike when Dragon Age 2 or Inquisition was releasing there's been a major boom in that subgenre, with literally a dozen or more truly GREAT games in the last decade I could point you to - Rogue Trader, BG3, both Pillars games, both Pathfinder games, and on and on. In truth this game is in many ways probably a closer relative to one of the modern God of War games or Jedi Survivor or something than it is to the CRPGs of old. Some spoilers below, but TLDR: It's thoroughly a pretty okay game, but with some of the worst dialogue this side of Destiny 2's original release story.

There's something really extra obnoxious about the right-wing outrage grifter crowd targeting the newest Dragon Age, and that's that it makes it really hard to discuss that it's (so far, at least, and I really don't know that anything in it is likely to change my mind) thoroughly an alright, 7.5 out of 10 kinda game and that the writing - mostly the dialogue writing - is pretty bad. This isn't on the voice acting, which is largely somewhere between good and at least inoffensive - it's specifically the script, which in many places feels like it's gone through seventeen cycles back and forth in various committees and meetings. The grifter crowd is using this to attack that all of the various gender stuff in the game is hamfisted. On the face of it, this isn't even incorrect, because it is hamfisted, because everything in the dialogue in this game is hamfisted, stilted, or both. The game has the subtlety of a brick in a sock about EVERYTHING.

Like, early on there's a very common RPG sort of setup - there's a village where some people with a faction you're dealing with have been sent and have run into trouble, and everyone's very aware the village has come under some kind of attack. Except they're shocked, shocked when they get there and the village isn't experiencing business as usual! So shocked that they repeat comments about the absence of people like ten times in the space of about two minutes, but never quite manage to put two and two together until you barge into the village proper and deal with the blight situation that was obviously there all along (like, literally, you can see it from where they were standing making those comments...). It's the kind of writing that clearly isn't within the universe; it's made to make certain that if you're not paying attention at all you still get the point, and then some. It's not a dealbreaker, it's not the end of the world - but it's also just not great, and a lot of games in recent years have been great on these fronts while this is a distinct step down from Inquistion's dialogue quality which already wasn't stellar.

Or, for another example, the power of teamwork and friendship speech. I'm generally a sucker for these; I've played a lot of Persona games over the years, or even FF14, or honestly most jrpgs at some point. BUT. Dragon Age: Veilguard decides it wants to do one of these with characters who literally met like two scenes prior and have been established as not knowing each other, and makes a pretty big deal of it, and it is not in any way earned. It feels like - though I trust that it wasn't - a scene that was generated by chatGPT, it's so out of place for the timing.

The most irritating part of this is that there IS good writing present in the game - the codex entries I've gotten so far are largely well written and much more natural feeling than any of the dialogue. That's the opposite of how it should be! And, in truth, I suspect that the codex entries simply got passed through less hands than the dialogue script, because everything I'm talking about above screams of too many cooks syndrome.

That said, I'm still okay with the game as I said. Combat is simplistic, but fun enough; the talent tree is if anything overstuffed with choices, and the environments and look of the game so far are gorgeous. I actually think the character creator itself is quite well done, though I've never been one to spend hours crafting the perfect character - I usually just hit random until someone who looks nice enough hits my screen and then maybe tweak a couple details.

The game seems to be a hit, regardless of any of this, and I'm fine with that - I certainly WANT to see more options and inclusivity in games, which means I am somehow placed in a position where I need to want a fucking middling quality EA title to do well enough that the people pushing bullshit have to go away (though they'll of course just move to the next thing they can sell their audience on.) It's a mediocre game, but good news - it's a mediocre that invites everyone to participate.

[wispythreads]

Final Thoughts Replaying Mass Effect 2

There are a lot of mechanical improvements and some graphical upgrades, some nice new stuff added with Shepard's personal room, the alternate outfits, the paragon and renegade interrupts, the terminal of messages you can get from the npcs you interacted with, everyone having a loyalty mission, the Drell are a neat new addition to the mix of Citadel space and I adore the Vorcha an inordinate amount, I wish there was more in game for them beyond just being a bunch of enemies to shoot at. I'm just constantly rotating the codex entry about the group that were raised by Asari. Protheans being reintroduced through the Collector's was pretty neat too! I think this game has more random npcs that I just really liked for no particularly reason, even if they were just static and hanging around one area.

There is some broken consistency at points in the story that is a bit frustrating for me but in a "ok, fine, I guess this is what we're working with now" kind of hand-wavey way for most of it.

Mass Effect 1 is pretty certain that the Reapers are fully mechanical and beyond human comprehension, Mass Effect 2 says "actually no they are inorganic AND organic, here's an explanation for why they've been destroying whole galactic communities every so often as a cyclical nature =)" Think it might've been better if we were never given a why. It being a kind of reproductive cycle really undercuts all the build up of not having the capability to understand their reasons in the first game.

Mass Effect 1 has the Council finally recognize, very blatantly, that Shepard has been telling the truth this entire time and not just a warped personal perception of what they believe to be the truth. Mass Effect 2 has them backtrack and say there is no evidence of Reapers, no way to verify that this is what Sovereign was beyond being Saren's ship. It feels like a plot point that makes sense as a repercussion for not saving the original council and having to deal with their successors, but having it applied to the original council as well is just. Augh. "We've dismissed those claims." Although Sparatus's air quotes are cute. Who taught him that?

Mass Effect 1 has Cerberus very clearly painted as a secret ops of the Alliance that has fully gone rogue and is doing absolutely heinous, evil shit. Mass Effect 2 (unsuccessfully) does everything it can to try to paint them in a more sympathetic light, especially with Miranda being it's personal cheerleader always coming up with a (very unsatisfying) explanation as to why they are not the bad guys. I will grant it points for at least allowing Shepard to have full autonomy and still, at every turn, disagree with the notion that they are with Cerberus or support Cerberus in any way.

Mass Effect 1 has AI as illegal. Full stop. It is a very, very big deal and a very, very dangerous crime. As already mentioned previously, this is really just kind of brushed over in Mass Effect 2? Joker is annoyed and doesn't trust EDI for most of the game but that's a pretty mild negative reaction compared to how everyone should be feeling about her, and the fact that so much of the crew are just kind of nonchalant about learning she exists is so jarring and perplexing for me.

Aside from that the game just feels. More like a game? Less like an immersive story. The level designs for fire fights are more obvious, the worlds are more tight and restrictive with paths that clearly are funneling you in a very specific direction and have no capability for you to come back later, as there's no reason to come back later. Mass Effect 1 really sold me on the idea that these were places that people lived and worked and survived as best as they could. I don't really get that with 2, now it's just a place to plow through enemies in order to get through my objective. I want more from this world than that, I think it deserves more than that.