#honestly Veilguard has made me appreciate his character so much more

[rxmanticxsm]

hey y'all! i know pretty much everybody is sharing their thoughts on veilguard, but i wanted to throw mine in too. i'm a long-time dragon age fan; i've been playing the games since i was 16! veilguard was what i have been looking forward to ever since then. in some ways it was amazing. in other ways... a bit of a letdown.

let's start with what i enjoyed! first of all, i really liked our cast of characters. i found them all to be interesting and i enjoyed their unique problems from their past to solve. their designs were awesome too. my favorites are lucanis and davrin ^_^

i also really liked the visuals of the game overall! the worlds were beautiful and the characters were too! i especially appreciated the black hair styles available. super awesome to see my hair in a game for once!

i know not everybody likes the combat (cough cough my younger brother- i think he just wanted the old tactical stuff back). i was fine with it though! though not entirely... i'll get into this later. other than that, i enjoyed the storyline of the game and seeing solas again! getting to really know solas and see his backstory was super cool. i also loved learning more about elven lore as they've always been my favorite in the dragon age series.

with the positives out of the way, let's talk about what wasn't so great (in my opinion).

i think the progression of your relationship with your companions was a flop here. i missed being able to walk up to them and talk to them. this was valuable in getting to know them and creating that feeling that you're building a relationship with them. in the current system.. i don't really feel any closeness to my companions! i don't see why they're sticking around with the team or opening up to my rook in the sparse scenes they do have. it seems more work went towards their interaction with each other than with my rook.

this is sadly a theme with the romance too. there's just.. hardly anything! especially if you're a lucanis romancer. going to the lighthouse and seeing EVERYONE has an interaction but lucanis was honestly a bit irritating? there doesn't even seem to be any reason for rook and lucanis to be together. they just don't talk LOL along with that, having companions flirt with each other in front of rook while trying to lock down a romance with one of them was frustrating! i think this would have been better after rook has committed a romance with someone else. it was only made more annoying with the fact that the companions flirted with each other more than they did with rook lol

regarding combat, the indication that an attack was coming was wayyy too small and hard to see in the fray of battle. i found this feature to be mostly useless as half the time i couldn't see it while i was attacking. i also didn't like the way some enemies would just keep tossing me around! perhaps this was a skill issue on my behalf... but there were times where i would dodge and get thrown right after lol i could not get up!

locations felt a bit empty compared to inquisition. there just wasn't much to do in some of them. rivain got ignored by me entirely because it was too boring imo and there wasn't much for me to engage with there. i also ignored dock town because i didn't really like the area. i was personally hoping for a more illustrious location if we were going to tevinter.

other than that, there's some other smaller things i didn't care for but they're not important enough to address in a paragraph.

as a whole, i enjoyed veilguard! i'd give it a 7.5-8/10. it's good on it own. compared to other dragon age games, not so much. i think companions have always been really crucial to dragon age games and veilguard kinda sold that. that was most of what brought my ranking of it down. that's just my opinion though! it's still good for many other reasons!

[3gremlins]

ahhhh i finished it last saturday night (11/9) (this will post from the q so after other q'd things)! it was really enjoyable tbh, i really liked it. it was good (if we don't get another da game, i am fairly satisfied) not perfect but few things are. def stick with it if you're not sure, there's a LOT at the end

spoilers for the end of veilguard- initial notes after the cut, not particularly organized

not me figuring out the varric reveal like 5 minutes before it was actually revealed tho XD tbh i was expecting him to die from the trailers and then he didn't and i was like "oh perhaps they're doing something else with him?" so they got me with the bait and switch and i was properly horrified. good job, you got me bioware. (as an aside, i still don't think varric was a strong enough choice as solas' friend for the intro section, like you never get the impression they are friends in dai at all. varric was stronger friends with anders than he was with solas, despite weird dai retcon about it. I wish they'd centered the narrative around someone else there- cole would have been a good choice? or cole and varric even since that's the most interesting interaction varric has with solas in dai) i'll def have to watch the cutscenes with him in subsequent pts. I kinda wish they'd done a follow up with him somewhere, maybe like the endings in that one fade book you find in trespasser (like at that fade bar with alistair/the warden/hawke/etc, would have been nice). got some solavellan conclusions, more than i expected and it was pretty good all things considered (i would have loved more, but also this was much more than we've gotten from other cameos of previous protagonists).

(is this the most awkward screenshot ever? possibly XD look she loves him so much, she'll even kiss his blight-y mouth and go live with him in the fade) i do wish they'd figured out a way to keep cole in (esp since spirit cole has that sad line about needing to help solas at the end of trespasser) somewhere. it was still pretty good honestly, i cried (this whole game made me cry at various points tho). I do think it could have resolved with them both living outside the fade and just his life being tied to it but i also get them wanting to literally tie up loose ends with this particular narrative.

it feels very mass effect 2ish (esp the end game section), i think most people will like it but i did find the end game section kinda stressful (where you have to pick the right person for things). Also for a dragon age game, usually by the end you have your team so having to break up the team so they live is not necessarily what i want in a DA game (i can appreciate it narratively while disliking it in practice lol) The format is also very mass effect-y in how it doles out companion stuff (esp romance stuff)- it's paced around the plot which is for the most part a good thing (but it also made it hard to tell where you were with things). I definitely like how they utilized the factions better than DAI or DAO tho- even tho only their rank mattered, having the characters in cut scenes and as npcs you can chat with at the end was really nice. I don't know if it's just lucanis' romance or all of them, but i kept thinking i'd missed something b/c of how long they make you wait for private time alone with your partner (the parts we get are really good, don't get me wrong, it just made me wait FOREVER to smooch him or get more than burning looks lol). 100% worth it tho. will romance many more times probably

(aside: getting to have a rook who's got a body like mine and a flat chest and have another character look at them desirously was just gender euphoria really. like okay actually their chest is nicer than mine -i have to do more pushups- but STILL. THANK YOU BIOWARE FOR INCLUDING NON BINARY PEOPLE SO MUCH IN THIS NARRATIVE and integrating us so deeply in all the bits, not just pronouns and basic shit) Like it wasn't even before the first "final" mission but before teh for realskies final mission ish (and i got more dialogue towards the end too). Real Return of the King BUT WAIT there's more vibes with the end (past the point of no return warning). I wish there was a little bit more romance partner time in act 2 even if it was just vibing? I did get a lot of good companion banter about it which i love (i live for banter and the banter in this was so good) i think my biggest note is i didn't feel the music helped it that much? idk i wish they'd just gone with one of their previous composers so it felt more dragon age-y (the zimmer score felt a little generic except when it did reprises of previous dragon age themes). Sometimes it felt too bombastic and sometimes there was not enough, idk, it just didn't have quite the same feel. i did like that they reused the bard music from DAI in the cities, made me smile hearing the sera song esp. i also wish the approval/tone system was a little more like dragon age 2 where you got unique dialogue choices based on which you chose more. Also sometimes the "sassy" answer wasn't that sassy or felt mean, there felt like a little bit of a disconnect between what i would have expected from the choice and what was said. The approval system was a bit weird too - like there were no approvals early on and then suddenly people reacted to things (but it didn't seem to impact their bonds). It felt like that could have used more tweaking or been more obvious anyway. It also felt like it required your character to code switch when talking to different companions since some of them responded to the different tones differently- which felt really weird and a little clunky. I def wished for more of the DA2 style where your companions just accept that you are a fun or kind or straightforward and you can rp that for the whole game.

i really liked the art direction (tho i did sort of miss the persistent splatter gore) and loved all the companions! the story was overall pretty good tho it suffered from a few pacing issues early on (you could sort of tell it had been reworked a little bit and bits were still a bit weird- but tbh all the games suffer from this a bit).

the combat was fun! i wish the targeting was a little better (as i've mentioned) and toward the end of the game, i got some stuttering when a lot of things were hitting rook at once (so it wouldn't register my dodges correctly). I played as rogue rook and it was super fun, glad i went with my actual fave class on my first pt (i always think i should be a mage and then want to be a rogue so im glad i can finally be like no no, i love knives and arrows!) The optional bosses were the most fun/challenging. Finished the game with the poison squad ofc but most of the companions felt reasonably balanced when I had to use certain parties (i'd say the warriors felt the weakest in their skills, have to see how player warrior feels, rogue rook was awesome). i loved that you could refund your skill tree at any point for no cost and also that it explained the bits of the tree (bursty, control, etc) so you could work out your own build for it. I wish the super special rune you get for beating the optional questline wasn't presented as your last ditch effort thing- i got confused by this dialogue and was a little afraid to use it at first (i thought i'd have to use it at a particular time in a fight, but nah it was just a really good rune with a normal cd) Obviously there's still more questions (the "secret" post credits scene) and i kinda wanted a post credit party scene? Maybe if we're lucky we'll get one like we did for bg3 i'm pretty satisfied, already started some more rooks and ready to make some fan art! [im also pretty sure my first pt had the most bugs since i started it on release date and didn't get the starter quest achievements until my 2nd rook, so we'll see how it plays with war rook and mage rook)

[hmslusitania]

Hey I’m just starting Veilguard (finally!) and I wondered your take (as someone with good taste) on the coolest race/background/romance. Also the ones which impacted the story dialog options most? (I’ve had some mage ones pop up and I’m a shadow dragon which has had some fun dialog with an Neve.) I’d appreciate your thoughts!

(Sorry you sent this days ago and I just now saw it; was out of town for thanksgiving)

Well! I just today started my fifth playthrough because I have done literally nothing else with my free time this month. So far, I've played:

Grey Warden human mage who romanced Bellara

Mourn Watch human mage who romanced Lucanis

Shadow Dragon elf rogue who romanced Neve

Veil Jumper elf mage who romanced Emmrich

current playthrough is Antivan Crow human rogue who's going to romance Taash

aaand this got longer than it needed to so, under a cut!

I had a lot of fun with my Grey Warden and there was a lot of dialogue compared to the other factions I've played so far that was Warden specific because, you know, a lot of the plot of the game itself has to do with Wardens or involves Wardens. An additional fun aside was that when you meet Antoine and Evka as a Warden the pop up notification is that you're already friends with them, and that really comes through in the conversations you can have with them throughout the game, but it did make me sad when the pop up notifications for the other three factions so far was essentially "these are your annoyed-at-you-to-varrying-degrees coworkers."

I also really, really liked Mourn Watch. You get a lot of very entertaining flavour dialogue to go with your background, and you really get to open up your conversations with Emmrich because as a fellow Watcher, he doesn't feel the need to mask or hide his passion for your shared craft and calling, which is fun. I found with Shadow Dragons there was a medium high amount of faction-specific dialogue, but I did stymie myself a little because I was also romancing Neve with my Shadow Dragon and so a lot of the opportunities I might've had for faction-specific dialogue had to give way to romance specific dialogue instead. Veil Jumper has been my least favourite faction so far, which is funny because aside from Mourn Watch it was the one that spoke most to me in the lead up (they're studying history! they're being chaotic in the woods! I'm a historian who enjoys trees!) but one of my (honestly very few) serious critiques of the game is that I don't think they did a particularly good job at developing the Veil Jumpers as a faction considering how important they're supposed to be for the plot. You get a pretty limited amount of Veil Jumper specific dialogue compared to the other factions I've played, and you don't actually get to know any of the NPCs better because you're a Veil Jumper either.

So far of the romances, Emmrich's has had the most actual Romance about it, which is fun! You get a whole extra date with him that you don't with any of the other romances I've played so far. Also he's a very charming man and it was a very sweet romance over all. Of the four I've played all the way through, I've definitely thought all of them were very in character for each of the romanced characters. I did kind of screw my Bellara romance up because there's a crisis point later in the game that I made a questionable decision in, and it meant I didn't get the main major romance scene until after the end credits, but they did actually include it with suitably altered dialogue to track with the new position within the game, so they were clearly prepared for that to be a potential outcome, which I did very much appreciate.

Neve's and Lucanis's were about on par, imo, and I enjoyed them both very much, even if I wish (second actual critique even though this is going to sound silly) there was more opportunity for kissing in this game.

After I play this Crow romancing Taash, I'm going to play a dwarven Lord of Fortune and romance Harding, because I'm hugely curious if there's any substantive dialogue for a dwarf Rook, especially around Harding's personal quest and some of the revelations we get from the Regrets of the Dreadwolf quest, and then I'm going to go back and play my Warden again, except this time I'll have her romance Davrin, which I think will be as close as I can get to a canon playthrough since the game tragically does not allow me to wrangle Neve, Lucanis, and Davrin into one polycule :(

(and then, probably, my Mourn Watcher again except have him seduce the professor)