#i hope veilguard lets us smooch all the companions

[monabee-draws]

Kisses for the Companions💕 Now with rainbow colour-coding!

They all deserve some little smooches (ft. my lovely Rook, Emmaline)

[mollfie]

I took notes while playing and I've tried to edit them into something that makes a shred of sense.

Things I like in Veilguard:

Banter can be interrupted, and they'll continue talking. If you repeatedly interrupt, they'll start over from the beginning later on.

The banter also actually made me laugh, especially with certain companion combos. Not always but more often than not.

The companions aren't stuck in their room. You know when someone wants to talk to you or has a cutscene, but you'll also see them hanging out with other companions or just checking out places around the Lighthouse. Makes them feel like actual people with their own stuff going on outside of Rook. But I do wish you could talk to them more. I like bothering my companions. I'm fine with them repeating themselves. Just let me smooch my love interest or chat with my friends and get random flavour text. Is that so much to ask?

I like the orb and smashing enemies in the face with it. I actually prefer it most of the time to using the staff.

Can wear casual clothes instead of armour with no repercussions. Finally, some cute outfits. But not cute enough. Need more. I also miss dying outfits in different colours and dressing up my team.

It's not my fav but it's fine:

I miss being able to smooch my love interest whenever I wanted to. Let me bother everyone more. The romances are fine but I expected more in comparison to previous games.

Everyone hangs out with each other or all together (eat together, bookclub etc) but is Rook even involved? The camping trip scene was so weird. Ferelden is overrun. Where are you going? Why would these two even want to? I could maybe believe Taash being interested because they're adventurous and might be hoping to see a dragon, but even then it's so weird.

Semi related to Taash's personal storyline, I did not appreciate having words put in my Rook's mouth re: her feelings about her gender and I have seen others saying that when they play as an enby Rook it's very "third gender" rather than having any sort of nuance. This is why I'm always hesitant when companies are so proud of being inclusive, it's often so clumsy.

References:

Mage/Templar war was in the South but no one mentions really mentions much about the South. Varric?? Morrigan?? Inquisitor?? There are some letters and a few lines about what's happening but not much. Who got to be Divine, again more of a Southern issue but you think it would come up when talking to Harding or Varric. Drinking from the Well of Sorrrows. Morrigan's son. King Alistair or Grey Warden. Hawke in the Fade. Varric, my man, are we not friends? Harding, you were there even if you were just a scout! Surely you got the hot goss hanging around outside the tavern at all hours.

Surely even people in Tevinter would be talking about how the Inquisitor's old spymaster became the Divine?? Harding sort of mentions it but no one else. The Inquisitor coming along to be like "oh it's a shitshow in the South right now that's why I'm not helping you or trying to find Solas" is so stupid.

The references you do get are fine but some feel strange because they're specific enough for a fan to get them but vague enough to feel pointless because they abandoned the Keep and tracking everyone's choices. I know it's complicated because we've all played the games in a variety of ways but they started it!

I wish we had seen more of the countries. I liked the places we saw and I really enjoyed exploring them, I would have liked to see more though which is a good thing in a way? I wasn't bored by the places we got, more than they were intriguing and I wished to go further. I would have liked to see more of Minrathos outside of Dock Town, for example.

Cameos:

Re: cameos. Dorian's model looks like he got bad cosmetic surgery and veneers. What did they do to you?? However, I also hate how Alistairs looks in Inquisition so maybe I just don't like when they try to update old characters? Morrigan looks fine, but her outfit is ugly. Isabela is fine. Varric and Harding look good.

Are we unable to have cameos of characters (or references), such as Merrill, because the team are blood magic flip-floppers? She knew so much about Eluvians, blood magic, Dalish nonsense etc. She would have been a fantastic edition to the team in Inquistion and in Veilguard but apparently I can't have anything nice.

Romances:

The romances are good but once I picked my person it was weird seeing how Lucanis switched to Neve almost instantly AND how their chemistry was so much better just through banter and listening to their chats. Almost like that's what the writers intended originally and then made Rook an option later? Davrin has a sweet romance and I have heard good things about Emmerich.

Companions:

Still think I should be able to have three people tag along. Yes, it makes them just talk to each other for banter but I liked having three people.

I wish they would bicker more. Some characters are supposed to not like each other (at least for a while) but they really could have leaned into that more. Be meaner. However, saying that some fans couldn't handle Vivienne...

My main issue with all the companions is that they're really good but don't get the chance to be great. I'm assuming because of development issues. Any decent writer would want to make the most of a character. You can see what they wanted to do and what they managed is good. I feel like the writers pulled their punches too much. They could have really leaned into some ideas and expanded on some aspects so much more but didn't. They all needed an extra ten minutes to fully bake.

Taash's personal stuff is fine. It's a little awkward in places but it's nowhere near as awful as people are making it out to be. It's no worse than anyone else's personal storyline or dialogue. A lot of the criticism is over-dramatic HOWEVER I do feel like their struggles were more with their upbringing as the daughter of a strict mother (who says herself that she was never supposed to have that sort of role within the Qun) in Rivain and those two identities cause conflict, and that was really overshadowed. A lot of Taash's struggles with gender make sense when you consider how gender roles function under the Qun (how their mother would have raised them) versus how they are in Rivaini society (what she was exposed to outside of the home). That's not to say they aren't nonbinary otherwise, just that the conflict could have been woven together better.

I also didn't really like the binary choices you were presented with - why do I, a stranger, get to tell any of these people what to do with their lives? I think Rook can have an opinion but there should be a third option for the character to make their own choice, perhaps based on their approval level with you or something to at least feign free will. This felt particularly insensitive when talking to Taash.

I also think some people are forgetting or deliberately ignoring that Taash is not the only lgbt or nonbinary character in the game or the series as a whole.

But, I do also think there are awkward moments (for all the characters too) where I understand what the team was going for but it doesn't quite land right. I would have actually liked a little more focus on what it's like being a qunari in Rivain etc.

Lucanis is supposed to be a big scary mage-killing demon-possessed assassin but once you recruit him he's practically shuffling about in his fuzzy slippers making coffee at 4am. I really like him but I can't help but wish they hadn't sanded down the edges. Having the Crows fight for the little guys is certainly a choice. I would have preferred them go down more of a "these Crows in this particular family think this way" so as not to undermine everything about Zevran.

Other thoughts:

It feels like the backgrounds don't really matter, they're not referenced much anyway. I was a veil jumper so you'd think Bellara would want to chat to me about that sort of thing more but no, not really. Same with race choices. It does come up but not as much as I had hoped. I also miss the tension between races, backgrounds etc. Why am I, a Dalish elf, wandering around Minrathos unchallenged?

Where's Meredith??? We had that final shot in the animated series but that's it???

What happened to Solas' agents and the uprising? I know years have passed but you'd think there's been more turmoil considering 1. the gods are real and 2. they suck

TL;DR

I had a great time playing, and it was really fun. I actually really enjoyed the finale and the game overall. But, I am concerned that this was essentially a soft reboot and so now what? What about everything we did before? What about all those other characters we cared about?

I also think I got lucky by choosing to have my Solavellan Inquisitor and romancing Davrin, just judging my chatter online.

I think if they didn't want those choices to matter then they should have had this game hav a protagonist who has no connection to Southern Thedas at all. No Varric or Harding. Have them being a literal nobody who doesn't know anything about what's going on outside of what they've directly experienced or it's very vague. They were affected by Solas' actions. They're an elf who was an agent until they realised what he was doing. Something. I just... if you don't want to make a game where choices matter then you shouldn't be working on Dragon Age. You should make something new. This was always Bioware's whole selling point and they've just tossed all that work to one side. Who made that decision?

Imagine if we'd been forced into being a specific character, similar to Hawke in DA2, and had to actually decide whether or not to support Solas as we learned about what he was actually intending to do? Imagine.

Origins still has the strongest writing. DA2 is still my favourite. But I do think Veilguard is a good sequel to Inquisiton. Unfortunately for Bioware, this is the fourth game in a series not the second. As a fourth game, there are some really weird choices. On it's own, it's a really good game. I'm still going to get my partner to play some of it to see what they think as an outsider who only knows about Dragon Age via my chit-chat and reblogging.