#i did taash and davrin on my own but yeah he is like the only one i havent seen at all…. which worries me. not because of the choice but

[postcardsfromheapside]

No. I wasn't missing the point of most criticism. Literally, I saw post after post of people saying they wished the characters could be mean to each other. Some posts were more specific, like "I don't like Taash," (and I'm sure you can imagine what THAT'S about) and some were more ambigious but cited DA2 and how everyone was bitchy toward each other.

I honestly don't care where you work and what you do, because hopefully most of us after the age of 30 have experienced an adult job where we have to be reasonable with our coworkers, even if we strongly disagree, or outright dislike them. I had the suspicion that most people who think that there is "no conflict," or "low conflict" or "bad writing" in this game haven't experienced this kind of setting in any capacity. What I'm now hearing is that you might have, but you didn't absorb any of the dialogue, or switch out your party to listen to banter, which is an essential function for picking up information in any DA game.

I walked around Arlathan with Lucanis and Harding, and they have a whole ongoing conversation in which she threatens him with one of her special arrows. And he agrees that if Spite should take him over, she should do something about it. Harding isn't frightened, because Harding isn't a pushover, but she's not taking any shit either. Did you walk around with just the two of them right after recruiting Lucanis? Did you frequently visit the rest of the companions so that you could see just how much Lucanis and Davrin *didn't* get along? Neve mentions what sounded like a knock-down drag out fight.

**Just because this isn't explicitly mentioned to you doesn't make it bad writing - it means you haven't had the time we had with Inquisition to play the game over and over and switch out your party so you can see everyone's interactions with each other. You will actually have to play the game multiple times and switch your party out a fair amount in order to see these interactions. Or wait for people to post them to tumblr. You can complain about how unfair this is, or remember that Inquisition has 10 years on this game, and it's been out for just shy of a month.**

Why in the absolute fuck would Davrin manufacture conflict between himself and someone he could easily conjecture isn't pro-slavery based on the fact that within five minutes he could find out she's from Dock Town, she's a private investigator working with the Shadow Dragons, and LITERALLY WHEN YOU GET ONTO THE DOCK WITH HIM, her first priority as she's running back to Minrathous is to say "if the dragon wrecks havoc, the Venatori will take over." Davrin isn't an idiot, he could pretty well surmise that she's not "pro slavery" with only the barest of interactions and Rook saying "yeah Neve's cool."

Why would Neve yell at you? Why is it bad writing for the writers to give Neve a personality you don't agree with, because you're uncomfortable with how she reacts? Neve's an adult who is used to working on her own and people not showing up for her - she says this MULTIPLE TIMES - it's actually a large arc of bonding with her, as a friend and a lover. She's not going to scream at you, she's so far past the point of being loud about disappointment, she's on the other side, for one, and for another, she does in fact understand that the entire North of Thedas is on fire and blighting Treviso is pretty fucking bad when it has no major defenses. Rook doesn't endlessly apologize. She came back after a short pause and while I didn't have her healing abilities after that, it didn't take long for me to boost my bond with her back up and feel like we were friends again.

This honestly feels like you're having a personal reaction that you need to examine, and it's not something to do with the writing, since the game mechanics and the dialogue don't actually bear out what you're putting down here.

All of the companions who have conflict initially have to figure out how to trust each other and it sometimes takes most of the game for them to do that. If you didn't spend the time listening to their banter as they work their way through it, that's not Bioware's problem. That's you. And...I don't want to have repeated conversations where I go into Emmrich's (my romance) room and "vent"? I didn't do that with Cullen. I didn't do that with Anders. Why would it suddenly be a thing here? But if you listen in to people's conversations, they do express dismay and doubt and fear about the various quests they've been on. Again, it feels like you didn't spend the time eavesdropping or taking people out and listening to banter.

I have no idea what you're talking about with flirting. I flirted with every companion at first even though I knew I was running for Emmrich, and all of them responded according to their personality. I romanced Cullen in Inquisition, and he was pretty quiet initially, until you get to Skyhold, and similarly, most of the companions here retain a certain reticence until the game progresses. But if you're looking for people who get flustered - Lace and Bellara absolutely do! And Emmrich isn't flustered, but he's taken aback a few times before he collects himself and flirts back - though whether you'd actually recognize it for flirting, I'm starting to wonder. The fact that you can't tell with Neve is actually making me tilt my head at the screen, and I say this as a self-confessed disaster who is very very bad at knowing someone is interested. Even I can tell what's going on in DA romances.

This is probably a lost cause, but I urge you to either spend time playing the game again, or watch someone else who really loves DA (and is Veilguard positive) play so that you can watch without being in the thick of it, and hopefully experience more dialogue and different choices.

No, I'm not done yet, I'm house sitting and she left me snacks and soda and not even god could keep me from venting my spleen at this point.

"I wish the companions were meaner to each other in this game, like in DA2."

While I think there's a larger argument to be made discussing the similarities between DA2 and Veilguard, I need everyone to get so close to me right now about a glaring difference:

DA2 involved a ragtag group of assholes with their own agendas coalescing around Hawke's personality or exchange of favors. There was no larger "goal," except maybe Varric's expedition - everything else is encountered as circumstance. You wend your way through your companions' stories while a city winds ever tighter into itself, a spring about to literally explode.

There's zero reason for these people to be nice to each other. They have no point in being around each other except Hawke. They can bitch at each other all they like.

Rook becomes Varric's second in command (I've seen one post say it's about 6 months before the events of the game) with an explicit purpose: find and stop Solas. Harding and Neve are recruited as experts in their respective fields for this particular goal. When it all goes to shit, Neve recruits another expert, Lucanis, to deal with the fallout, and Harding finds Davrin, *also* an expert in his field (monster hunting). When Rook has to make a particularly consequence heavy decision, two more are added to the crew: Emmrich (Fade expert) and Taash (dragon expert). All of these people are extremely competent, and know from the jump that they have one particular goal in mind.

They join ready to work together on Day 1 because if they don't, there's simply no other alternative. It's lights out. Even when they mistrust each other, the direness of the situation is not lost on them. Infighting serves no purpose. That's why the struggle is directed inward: clean up your own house, so we can move as a single unit.

Honestly the fact that what people took away from this game was "I wish my friends were meaner to each other" and not "wow, I wish we all worked together to keep evil dictators from taking over" is fucking mindblowing when I sit back and reread this.

[bitalis]

i know every companion has like the other outfit for their companion quest but i’ve never seen lucanis’ and now i have to do it .

[lehdenlaulu]

Okay, 40h in, some stray thoughts:

I keep going back and forth between 'oh it's not really that bad after all' and 'ugh why' basically. Every time there's actually a nice bit of writing etc. the frustration at some other aspect soon takes over.

I'm particularly not fond of the random faceless mook hordes that keep respawning in certain locations (seriously, DA2 was bad enough). Or the dumb pointless boss battles you have to do in order to unlock new areas in the Fade where your reward is... another boss battle. And more faceless mooks. And maybe some gear. And maybe more of Solas's tedious sob story if you're lucky. The ghost of the live co-op thing really keeps quite literally haunting the narrative.

Oh, and there's even a fucking gladiator arena. I'm guessing that was originally for PvP. And now it's just there just in case you didn't already get your fill of combat elsewhere. And wanted to ogle Isabela who now inexplicably wears only a bikini and thigh-high boots. Because apparently that's Rivaini cultural outfit now or something? Some pseudo-Aztec thing? Sure. Whatever.

Honestly, just imagine if they'd put as much time and effort into making sure the story is narratively sound and makes any kind of sense as a sequel to its predecessors as they did into crafting the combat system and the needlessly byzantine combat skill tree. *sigh*

I do really like the new exploration mechanics though. I like that I can strafe on narrow ledges and vault over fences and through windows and such. Not super fond that I can magically just use my absent companions' exploration abilities because of my mystical magical all-powerful MacGuffin, though. Guess some people really don't feel like changing their party composition ever. 🙄

And that's another thing. This game coddles the player way too much to the point of treating us like particularly dense toddlers. Not only are there tons of visual options that basically guide you by the hand and point out everything relevant (all of which I obviously immediately turned off) but the dialogue also will very unsubtly tell you what to do at every turn. Like... Taash, babe, we're both Lords of Fortune, I don't think I need to be told to check out if there's something behind the waterfall. And if someone is so new to RPGs to not know something that basic, they need to discover it for themselves, not have it spelled out to them. Honestly, I thought this game's age limit was 18, not 12.

Speaking of Taash and all things unsubtle... I feel like there was a way to introduce their struggle with gender identity in a less... anvilicious way. And maybe come up with some in-universe lore and terminology instead of just defaulting to modern real-world vocabulary. The codex entry in particular frankly felt like breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the player. And I say this as someone whose own gender identity is pretty nebulous.

Frankly, I'm surprised someone hasn't already literally told Bellara she has ADHD. Yet. I'm guessing she and Taash are relatable to some players, but to me they feel... vaguely insulting, honestly, because it really is about as subtle as a brick in the face. I'm also getting the vibe they're both someone's self insert to some degree at least. Which isn't new for DA, but... yeah.

What else... Oh. Yeah. The less said about the main plot the better. Varric, this really is your worst book yet.

Speaking of Varric, it's pretty funny how he keeps telling Rook to please get some sleep. Sure, mate, would love to but a) all I get for a bed is apparently a bare divan in a room with a massive glowing aquarium b) every time I try to sleep some smarmy elf keeps mansplaining at me in my dreams. Which, you know, is something I shouldn't have in the first place as a dwarf. Maybe I should just start chugging coffee with Lucanis. (But honestly, only Taash and Davrin get to have actual beds, everyone else has to make do with cots, bedrolls, divans, and... an embalming slate??)

Oh, and I'll be really surprised if Varric survives this story. I mean, he's barely there in the first place and keeps talking like some ailing relative who secretly has consumption in a Victorian novel. I mean, his writer was laid off after all.

The pacing and structure of this game is extremely weird. The beginning was particularly rough, then it got better, but it's still a bit all over the place.

Oh, right. I'm fairly sure we were promised cool bard songs at some point. I haven't heard a single one yet. Unless that one street performer in Treviso strumming Enchanters counts, which I don't believe does. It was nice to hear it, though, as much as it was a bit contextually odd to choose that song in particular. Ah well, I guess Empress of Fire would have been even odder.

This is also the most forgettable Hans Zimmer soundtrack I have heard in my life. I can't think of a single theme or leitmotif off the top of my head, but the Inquisition theme on the other hand was instantly recognizable. I might say he's just new to writing video game soundtracks, but... dude's famous for his highly catchy, recognizable and evocative themes. Weird.

But hey! As much as I don't like the cartoony character models, the game is actually otherwise really pretty and has some really lovely visual designs in environments and architecture etc. It's also very stable and smooth for a brand-new game, I've only had one crash and two obvious bugs so far. That's always a big win for a studio. Too bad its actual problems are too baked in to be fixable with some patches.

Anyway, that's it for now. Lots of negativity, I know, but I actually do like playing this game for the most part. I just have to... not think of it as a Dragon Age, basically. Because for all the bells and whistles, or maybe because of them, it really doesn't feel like one. There are glimpses here and there of a great DA game it could have been, but unfortunately, the final result is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster of different and largely incompatible concepts hastily sewn together.

[n7punk]

okay i finished da:v here's my full spoilers thoughts but the summary is: good game, recommend if you've liked any of the da or me games

first of all, games ranking because i think that tells you a lot:

without mods: dai > dav > dao > da2

with mods: dai > dao > dav > da2

(closer to 2 decades than not post-release, da:o feels unplayable without the increased walk speed/distance and faster animations/combat mod among over QOL tweaks. oh my god a single backstab takes so fucking long) nostalgia also definitely plays a factor so this might change in a few years or if i replay dao and realize either wow i do love it that much or wow this is Just Unplayable lmao

overall i liked it. gameplay was fun, the story was good, i love the companions, and the only glitches i ever ran into were graphical ones with stuff clipping into cutscenes that wasn't supposed to be there.

i don't like rook as a protagonist as much as i like any of the other bioware protags, but that fully could have been the fault of the way i played them, so when i eventually do a replay (probably after a few weeks/months to see if any dlc releases. and after it gets mods so i can unlock all appearances without needing to recollect them LMAO would new game+ fucking kill you bioware) i'll see if i like them better. it's not that i dislike them there were just multiple times where i was like. why are people looking to this rando to fight a god. like the warden makes sense, they're one of Two grey wardens left in the country. hawke no one looked to until they had stepped up in a lot of small ways. and they were also nobility, and only became the champion of kirkwall after they took it into their own hands to save the city because it's their city too! and the inquisitor people literally believe was appointed by god (and for understandable reasons). rook does have a somewhat heroic backstory written for them but i don't know... it felt like varric would have a thousand better connections that are proven to choose his rook and he chose. this random person who made a hard call once that had relatively small consequences versus. literally he could have chosen hawke like! whatever that's my largest gripe with the game so that shows you how good it is overall lmao

(purple rook does remind me a lot of hawke so im just going to make that my headcanon why varric chose them. hes a sentimental bastard)

also why does he call them rook. i felt like that was never explained. maybe it was a codex i didn't read, because i didnt read most of them lol, but it wasn't even clear to me if that was a nickname they had before or a title he gave them, and it never paid off in any way? like a "checkmate" joke would have been goofy but i don't get the significance of it at all.

i knew 100% going in varric was going to die. as soon as he got stabbed i texted meta like THERE IT IS. and then i woke up and he was there and i was like huh. i guess that was the fake out and itll happen later. well. lol. i didn't clock that exact twist but i kept forgetting he was even in the game and when he did show up i was always like. what is wrong with you. we have magic. you got stabbed by the dagger and now you're wah im not fit to fight after months but harding just Touches it and gets magic powers? what's going on? and then the reveal happened and it was like oh yeah that makes sense lmao. i know something was Wrong. that said im not taking it as rook hallucinating or whatever. they were literally in the fade, i do think his memory was there and it wasn't just solas fucking with their mind and speaking through him. replaying it i'll look for times when companions see rook talk to him. i know apparently a writer was saying stupid shit about rook talking to themself on bluesky but i haven't looked at what it is.

i love harding and taash and bellara so much. and neve and teia too (i fucking love teia). the boys are. there. lmao no i love them too (especially davrin and assan) but i dont LOVE them like i love the others. and evka and antione were cute together. i mean i really like a lot of the characters, it's part of what makes the game strong, because it's a very ME2/ME3 style type game that's about gathering allies versus inquisition where you're directly hunting corypheus yourself and just gathering what you can as you go peripherally, so all those allies NEED to be good to make it work.

i think locking in a companion death after you've done all that work with their factions and personal quests is Stupid but whatever, they're definitely going to come back next game even if i think it's as an enemy. overall the climax quest was cool, i did all the side quests but the fact you get to face off against hezenkoss and aelia and shit if you DONT is cool as hell

oh and i liked the map style. similar to DAO's larger areas, i think, but expanded because we have the tech and resources to do that now and it worked really well. i loved dock town especially. it felt like what da2 COULD have been if it had the development time. a lot of this game did, tbh. i love the story and character potential of da2 but it's at the bottom of my list of games just because it's not really that fun to replay. i've sunk hundreds of hours into dai and dao. i think i've played my canon inquisitor like 4 times with only mild variations in addition to my other inquisitors and half dozen wardens.

the lore drops in this game were GREAT and a couple things came up where i was shocked like oh. oh you PLANNED that huh. there were fucking hints to this 15 years ago. i am so curious at what point they "knew" this stuff. like before this game came out i would have sworn up and down that they had Not come up with the elves becoming mortal due to fen'harel locking the corrupt elven gods behind a veil stuff in DAO and i still think that's likely, but now i would believe otherwise too.

i think they maybe had more big-picture stuff with the elves' war with the titans - because they've been hinting at this titan storyline the whole time - planned, but like, solas certainly didn't exist yet you know lol. idk! maybe.

the elves = spirits reveal went so hard for me, specifically, because ive always been interested in untangling the lore so i Combed over trespasser and there's a codex in there where the inquisitor views a memory of two elven lovers, personified as light, dancing together and intertwining their souls in a dazzling display, and as soon as i heard i was like THATS WHAT THAT FUCKING WAS. they were spirits!! so that's why i say they had to 100% know all of this lore stuff by the time of inquisition and probably knew like half of it in dao.

(side note, if you hang around the shadow dragons merchant long enough, she says she came to tevinter as a slave from denerim. she! was part of that slavery sidequest for the city elves in dao!! that's so fucking cool the continuity in this game goes so hard!!! whatever things they didn't plan, they tied back to get little things like that and it's so cool. versus inquisition which is just like. oh knight enchanters exist. that ancient forgotten arcane warrior skill that only the warden knows and was lost to time? actually the humans in orlais developed something even stronger. fuuuuuu anyway)

i want to know what the fuck is going on with valta. okay here's my thing. i get why harding was upset about the titans because solas essentially stole her peoples ability to dream and do magic which is fucked up. but also. the titans mind-controlled them??? like. solas is anti-slavery honestly in his mind he was probably freeing them. idk having played the descent i was just like the titans are NOT a thing to be mourned but i guess we'll see. i have a feeling harding is also going to be a statue in the next game if she was your sacrifice and im VERY curious if that was something dalta actually chose or if it Happened to her as either a natural evolution (like a blighted creature always turns to a darkspawn) or the titan inflicting that on her as part of its plan/instinct. this game kind of solved all my lore questions about the elves and the blight and so all that's left for me is some aspects of the titans, whatever the fuck the devouring storm is, and maybe more clarity on the real story of andraste but i feel like i have that pretty on lock lmao. she was a human mage in contact with a powerful spirit/one of the evanuris and she died for it. case closed. mythal was up in there somewhere but probably not andraste herself.

the devouring storm tho. ive been wanting more on the qunari than anti-communist propaganda and we're finally starting to get it. the hints towards par vollen next game have me excited. i dont really want rook to be a multi-game protag (as you can probably guess) but i'll just do a second, stronger playthrough if that ends up being true to import the world-state of.

speaking of world states. ok. actually one sec.

i also want to know what's going on in kal-sharok. they say they're like the darkspawn but they can't be blighted/wardens because 1) then davrin or a grey warden rook would be able to sense them and i brought neither of those things to that quest but i feel like i would have seen it mentioned by now and 2) they can't be blighted because there's an expiration date on that (i think it's 20 years) and there are a ton of dwarves way older than 20 in there. it is possible only some of them are blighted or they stopped the practice, like maybe just the rock-knockers still do it, but the joining ceremony is also implied to be blood magic and dwarves cant DO magic anyway and i dont think enough of them would survive the first 20 years to sustain a population so like. i don't think thats the answer i think they would have died out. so what does "like the darkspawn" mean? the darkspawn are normal creatures that get blighted and end up serving it. the blight came from titans. i think kal-sharok is like the darkspawn in that they opened themselves up to their Local Titan and let it lowkey take over them (see: mind control) and it helped them fight off the darkspawn. maybe just by moving rock, maybe with red lyrium even exerting some influence over the blight. maybe just being somewhat connected to the titan let them sense where the darkspawn running around in it were and let them survive. they clearly dont know a lot about the titans but their armor is literally made to make them look like statues carved out of stone and theyre worshipping their oracle statue like COME ON.

anyway, world state

so again, i think another protag would have been stronger, but if they WERE determined to make a new one, i did like what they did with the inquisitor's role. the inquisitor, even post-disbandment, is a powerful figure. having them leading the armies fighting off the blight down south makes a lot of sense. i like that they came back at the end, it felt like they were doing the best they could with making them appropriately present without having them be on screen much to say wildly out of character things for your personal inquisitor lol. the lines they had written for them were perfect for my inquisitor, though.

i do think it's weird the inquisitor even considers talking solas down after they've made the choice to stop solas at any cost?? but whatever, overall i really liked it and seeing anerra again was yes 💖 it'll work well in the next game too because the inquisitor WOULD stay in thedas to help rebuild it post-blight while rook, who at least has proven themselves and is no longer a rando lmao, goes to face the devouring storm. they're getting old now they just want to fix their house so they can sit in it 😂

it did annoy me they had you pick the LI and then their NAME wasn't even spoken. especially since if you romanced certain companions - iron bull, blackwall - they're intimately tied to factions in this fight. im sure if they romanced solas it comes up a lot more but i dont care about that lmao. BUT that goes back to the "this is the inquisitor's fight" thing - i cannot imagine most solavellan inquisitors stepping back and letting someone else go after him.

morrigan is such a babe also i loved her coming back. pretty sure this makes "mythal" the only character who has appeared in every da game. having isabella back was SO GOOD tho she's living the best fucking life. the fact fenris never showed up is such a missed opportunity and im not accepting the "well he had so many possible endings it would be hard to account-" they didn't even let you choose if bull stayed with the inquisitor or left to join the qun they are MAKING decisions on what version of events they want to keep as the canon going forward and they could have - should have - made the call here. and i have no problem with them making those calls! just commit lmao. anyway

one thing this game did great: making your rook matter. the fact i was a shadow dragon and qunari came up a lot. i was able to pull on inside knowledge and translate stuff in qunlot. i like that a lot. it's something they fumbled in inquisition lmao.

one thing it did bad: which companions you pick for quests (aside from the final one) just doesn't matter. they don't even appear in cutscenes (which was weird & jarring), they barely have comments to make throughout or in the overworld, and i dont think it's even possible to gain disapproval outside of amin story quests. like in da2 i would literally plan shit out like okay, im going on quest involving slaves, ill bring fenris to gain approval when i free them. im going on something where i'll probably side with mages, time to bring anders. none of that here. and like im not saying i want there to be more options to lose affection, especially when it felt harder to earn in this game (i did every single quest in the game and only maxed like. two people. everyone else was nine), but i wanted them to have opinions, you know.

bonus: god they fixed companion dialogue in this. now whenever they get interrupted mid-banter they always pick it back up and you get the added banter convos around the lighthouse for pairings you normally wouldn't bring out with you! so that helped flesh the companions out. and god i cannot emphasize enough how much i love some of them. ASSAN. i did not expect it going into this game but every time he was on screen i was just like BABY thats my BABY that's my little BOY

anyway. good game. very interested where they're going with this. felt like a fitting conclusion to that story arc and im very attached to my inquisitor <3

[vibrathor]

i finished datv

its a decent game, just not a decent dragon age.

This was the first game in the series where I felt nothing upon reaching finale, no excitement, no sadness, no epicness, just wanted to get it over with. I still started a new character, mostly to see if I can get more lore tidbits on this particular combo of race/faction (and to unlock the last achievement Im missing from 100%). Its just... shallow. Good for "relax, consume and dont ask", but if you want just a tad bit more, youre in for a bad surprise. Not to mention the constant hand holding, jesus christ, trust your player to have a brain, Bioware.

More under the cut, spoilery

it will be chaotic, but hey ho...

Honestly, I played it for the lore. I knew certain aspects that got confirmed, i was baffled by others, especially contradictory to the previous games... which still would be okay if only it didnt just started snowballing into one big mess.

Old gods lore? Gone. Seems like quickly attached to the elves, which would have been great if it was done better. Much better.

It was elves all along? Spirits into bodies? Expected. Shame they decided to just cut through it with a blaster and infodump en masse on the player, it really took me out.

Blight? See, thats interesting, but we also first learned that red lyrium is blighted lyrium. To have titans infected blood could be interesting, except also red lyrium means angry. What.

Statues of the dread wolf in every single elven place? Yeah why. There was a big point of having his statues in mythals temple in dai, big enough to get its own dialogue, but nope, lets just reuse assets, enviromental storytelling? what is that

Isabela only shared the name with Isabela I knew. Same with Dorian. Morrigan had a few good lines, but it wasnt my Morrigan.

I also like how we dont care about the previous choices and characters, except the ones we need and are as bland as possible, and all have selective amnesia. Either leave the south and the past completely, or import more choices, this is just jarring.

I expected a soft reboot, which we get with letters telling us about the South getting wrecked, and im sort of at peace with that? It stings, but still. The ILLUMINATI reveal at the end tho? I hope they pivot from the implication that ALL of the previous villains/heroes/events were influenced by THE ILLUMINATI, not just observed, DIRECTLY INFLUENCED, cause thats not just shitting on lore, thats shitting on some amazing characters and their agency (LOGHAIN OF ALL), and amazing stories, for the sake of what...? Clearing cut from the past team? I was never a big fan of Trick W, but this is just... ugh. Unless it is a VERY GOOD WRITING, that im not expecting from this team.

Writing is very bland, and mostly bad, way too anachronistic, tonally not even at all, characters are just meh, and the fact you HAVE to be nice to all of them doesnt help. I cant dismiss them, i cant fight with them, i cannot NOT recruit them, the most i can do is not do quests (but loot. and codex entries. and stuff), which is such a regressive decision. POWER OF FRIENDSHIP LESSSGOOO

I think I truly liked only Emmerich and Davrin, even Harding was a shadow of herself. I knew Taash was written by Weekes instantly, same bratiness, same annoyance about them as Sera... whom i actively dont like, but i cared about anyway, and I was prepared and did it for Taash, but certain in your face, including breaking the forth wall, preachy scene made me fucking cringe. Like i literally had to pause cause it was so bad. Taash is kinda too childish as well, not straight to the point like some people claim, just fucking daft. Neve is flat, Bellara is a worse Merrill, Lucanis had a promise, but its like hes written by 2 different people at all times, even Solas contradicts the one I knew before.

Also its so... weird that like Harding gets stuff from her Ma and wants to go camping, but at the same time we know South is barely holding. Antaam is so good theyre every fucking where.

Wardens are great, Id die for Evka. Assan is my boy. Manfred is the greatest wisp that ever was.

What was the most disappointing though, was the zones. What do you mean i FINALLY go to tevinter and see only fucking dock town? Where are my villas? Where are the bad magisters? Wheres the rampant injustice (except in the passing or the codex)? In Treviso, where are the scary Crows, not this anti-hero italian nice mafia? Kal Sharok is just different, but everyones nice and looks normal, but theyre different, lets not get into it though.

Where are dozens of elves following Solas? Whats up with that 6th sense twist that was SO BAD?

Theres probably more stuff that I already forgot about.

I know this games development was hell, the whole process got restarted like 3 times, but the way they sanitised almost everything (shoutout to the Blight cause it has some good moments), and the writing that is even more chaotic than this post, make me feel so... bitter? Disappointed? Disillusioned?

Certainly nothing positive.