#i mean ea buying bioware also didn't help

[cybertronian-menace]

Depressed!

Sonic Chronicles ended on a cliff hanger so i looked up the sequel and

There is no sequel

And there's no hope for a sequel

And of fucking course k3n p3nd3rs is ruining something AGAIN i want to hit that man with so many metal pipes

[evillesbianvillain]

The thing with Veilguard, is that a lot of people who didn't like the videogame put all the blame on EA becuase the development was rushed and messy and some idiot had the idea to make it a multiplayer MOBA game or whatever the fuck it was going on and that can excuse some of the stuff going on in Veilguard:

everybody calling you Rook, a nickname a dwarf youve known for a month gave you, instead of your surname, especially ridicolous if you are a Grey Warden, you know, a member of a paramilitary order, and your boss calls you that. How certain factions, especially the Lords of Fortune but also the Mourn Watchers and Veil Jumpers are underdeveloped (but according to John Epler they decided to make less sidequests to focus better on a few of them and they ended up just being fetch quests or "kill these guys" for the most). Why you can't directly talk to your companions and ask them questions but have to stalk them through the lighthouse and hope they reveal something of themselves to your other companions (again, John Epler said this was a purpose choice they made and its a stupid one but I want to break a spear and say that it was probably because they didn't have the time to code or write every direct dialogue with Rook but I don't really know how these things work). Not being able to visit Minrathous.

But so much of it is an issue that started in the writing and developer room.

You cannot roleplay in the role playing game. Scratch the "there are not serious consequences of your action" part, we can file that under rushed development if we want to be nice. But you can only play as a nice, well meaning, always slightly sarcastic heroic Rook and that was a deliberate choice. You're basically only playing as purple Hawke. I don't want to play as purple Hawke. For an instance, I chose - obviously - the Grey Warden backstory (which I hated, all the backstories are the same, heroic Rook winning against a foe but disobeying orders and being punished by the mean higher ups) and when you do the mirror scene I chose the dialogue option that said "I have been impulsive when I saved that village and could've made things worse", but then when I'm talking to the first Warden and he reprimends me I can ONLY defend my actions and not agree with him or apologize for them. I wanted to play as a stern warden, respectful of the order and its authority, but the game doesn't let me do that.

The whitewashing of the narrative. Every faction (except the Grey Wardens) is super duper nice, they are all freedom fighters with XXI century politics. All the leaders of every faction believe you at face values about Super Evil Elven Gods and are willing to give you their help to slay them (except the Grey Wardens). All the factions are stripped of any nuance or of the infamous Bioware's grey morality (except the Grey Wardens, as the game, at any step, wants to reming you how stupidly secretive, kinda cultist-y and fucked up they are and how that is not a Good Thing). Especially annoying with the Crows, the local assassin's group of Antiva that is renowned for buying desinfranchised kids and torture them to make them the perfect assassins, and the Lords of Fortune, who are now the anti Indiana Jones of Thedas (but still tomb jackasses).

The whitewashing, or purposeful ignoring, of social conflict in Thedas. This game is set up partly in Tevinter and specifically in a district of Minrathous, but we not once encounter the slavery that the Imperium is built on, or racism against elves and qunari. And don't tell me "there are no slaves because Dock Town is a poor district of Minrathous", that is not how empires built on slave labour work, especially considering that Tevinter has always been based on the Roman Empire. Who do you think loads and unloads the cargo ships that dock there? You think slaves are only kept in the house and occasionally used for blood magic rituals? Not to mention that the faction for Dock Town is the Shadow Dragons, whos main work is freeing slaves, but not once we do a quest that revolves around that. And it's funny that they abandoned the entire issue with the mages and the Chantry "because we are in North Thedas" when the Chantry is a egemonical religion in Thedas. Zevran tells us that templars in Antiva guard mages like "jealous husbands", the Circle of Mages of Rivain was destroyed because they accused women there or summoning demons and the Anderfells are known for having the most pious followers of the Chantry in Thedas. I understand not making the mage issue a focus like it has been for the past three games, but to just dropt it like that is ridicolous. They didn't even do anything with the Tevinter Chantry and the Black Divine, something, I think, everybody was curious about. Ah but don't worry! We have the main dalish companion apologize 3000 times because the elves are at fault for everything going on in the world.

The characters are all shallow. There are very little important NPCs in this game and you can't directly talk to any of them if not during specific cutscenes during the story. John Epler (it's always him or Weekes lmao) said they wanted to avoid meaningless cameos but then they threw in the game characters from other games like Morrigan, Dorian, Isabela, Maevaris who was actually not from a game, but a comic, so I would've liked to know more about her, and doesn't let you interact in any way with them. Varric, for the love of god, there is no way for someone who is playing Dragon Age for the first time to give a shit about this guy. Who are these people. What do they want. Who are the leaders of these factions. The companions as well. You cannot talk to them but have to hope they will say something about themselves during random party banters in the Lighthouse and then they will have crafted cutscenes for the stupidest shit like Lucanis making Harding drink coffee. You know how some people dislike Varric, Garrus and Liara because the games want you to like them? This is what it feels with all the companions, and the forced found family is so on the nose it becomes unbearing. The romances are underwhelming, or so I am told by everyone. Davrin, who is in my opinion the best character in this game, has most of his character and quest revolving around a fucking rat with wings and all the stuff about his relationship with the dalish or wardens comes up in random party banters, again, instead of him telling me directly about it. The only relationship between companions that I found slightly compelling is between Davrin and Lucanis because they are the ONLY characters with an actual conflict going on, every other conflict is resolved immediately either by Rook stepping up and going "stop fightiiiiing why are you fightiiiiiing" or by the constrast being actually a misunderstanding, hey isn't it nice how every one of our companions are super duper nice guys who can do no wrong (like Bellara and Taash). Do you miss Mordin Solus? I know I do.

Connected to the characters issue, why the hell is the approval/disapproval system even a thing? It's impossible to lose approval from characters in this game, while they'll approve literally you standing in their vicinity. I've never worked SO HARD to try and lose approval with my companions, and it's impossible. Just, throw it away at this point, you have already implemented another system (the bond one) and are trying to work on a mass effect model, so atp just do that.

The villains oh my fucking god. This ties with the whitewashing of every good faction I have to ally with, as all the villains are super evil "bullies" with nothing else going on behind them. Maybe the only villain with something different going on is Isseiya, but all the others are faceless, corrupted evil hordes to be mowed down with Super Duper Evil leaders that have nothing going on if not a desire for Power and Conquest? Do you remember when Gereon Alexius was a desperate father who would've done everything to save his son from the Blight? Do you remember when Calpernia was an ex slave with a dream of revitalizing the Imperium by uplifting the slaves as citizens? Do you remember Meredith and the Arishok? Do you remember Loghain?? And like every side or personal quest villain/antagonist, the Evanuris are ONLY driven by power and power and power and they are so evil because they want power more power still power.

The missing/ignored plot threads. They hinted at us for years about the upcoming Tevinter/Qunari war and that went nowhere. What about the mentioned crisis/internal war/split between the Grey Wardens? Nothing. Where are Fen'hare's agents? Apparently they left Solas' side because he was a meanie and we know that because of a reddit AMA. The awakened darkspawns? Darkspawns now are officially a mindless horde and [insert GRRM piece on orc genocide] so don't worry about it.

They want a new slate in case they ever get to work on another Dragon Age in the future, and that's so obvious from certain narrative choice they made in the game, all happening far far away from us and that we know throw some fucking letters the Inquisitor sends to us and the most glaring one is the complete destruction of Southern Thedas, especially Ferelden.

The combat is... polarizing for me. On one hand, it is a mildly enjoyable action combat, and when you get over the heartbreak of never being able to build a mage like in Origins and having some tactic going on, it is fine, it is flashy enough to be enjoyable at least. But the enemy variety is terrible, the bosses are reused to hell and back and on top of that they are for the most normal enemies that are given a boss health bar (if i think about it, im pretty sure there is only one unique boss ive met so far, the archdemon, and it's such a pathetic boss fight)

The art direction. While I love, and I mean LOVE, the character design for your companions and whenever I look at them I get mad because such good design... wasted for these characters and this game. I do not like the art direction. I hate how everything has been scifi-ed, the eluvians now have rgb lights and they look like twitch streamers PCs or prothean artifacts, Bellara's magical gloves are fucking nanomachines and she literally works her magic like a mechanic. Not to mention the architecture and the neon signs in Dock Town. Most of the armors are ugly as hell and I want to talk with whoever designed the Lords of Fortune armors.

This scifi-cation carries out in the soundtrack as well, with a subpar score from Hans Zimmer.

I understand that it's not possible to work around every single choice made in the past three games, but some stuff is too important to just, leave it alone. Northern Thedas is still in Thedas and it's politically connected to it. Who the Divine is should be important, if my warden has died should matter, if Morrigan had a child should matter. They don't even make her mention the hero of ferelden EVER, whenever people talk about her they say she was a witch of the wilds and then worked with the Inquisition. ISN'T THERE A BIG GAP IN YOUR RESUME, MORRIGAN? Shouldn't a Grey Warden Blackwall be at Weisshaupt/Hossberg? But then, even the choices they have you make at the start regarding your Inquisitor are red herrings, the only thing the game cares about is wether your Lavellan romances Solas or not.

This game thinks we're stupid. I am constantly explained, over and over again what is going on. I am playing this game. I just saw the scene that has been recapped by Varric and then recapped by a text and then recapped by the characters chilling around a table commenting the scene. Not to mention all the time Rook and the companions say "We need to be in our best mind place to win this fight, we need to focus on ourselves, we need to think about ourselves first and then we can focus on the Evil Elven Gods" which is a little less on the nose way to say "do our personal quests". Insanely PG13 game.

Therapy speak.

And I think I'm done, at least for now. I have a lot of other issues but most of them are nitpicky and it's just me being annoying.