#i'm very excited for veilguard but i'm also still very much obsessed with da2 and fenders

[okthisway]

Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

fenders gif is from an awesome Anders & Fenris edit by InerjaveikaI

[hellafluff]

@dalishious made a fun fillable chart (blank here) for your DA Faves. Gave my reasoning under the cut bc i love to talk

DAO Companion: Shale of course! If Shale has 1 fan its me and if Shale has 0 fans I'm dead, you know how it goes. Shale is sassy and delightful and I love that they're my nonbinary rep bc I for one LOVE non-human enbies as someone who feels pretty non-human.

DA2 Companion: I'm extremely basic and have been in love with Varric Tetras for years.

DAI Companion: DORIAN!!! His journey through the game and how involved the Quizzy gets feels more personal then any of the other companions and I love the banter the two have together. My Lavellan and him are extremely close.

Excited for Veilguard Companion: Emmrich Volkarin I am Deeply Attracted To You. I have his official art as my phone lockscreen right now. I love necromancers and older men and he's so goddamn cute. Plus, Skeleton friend!!!!!!

Favorite Other Media Character: I've been obsessed with Maevaris Tilani for years and if she isn't in Veilguard I am going to end up on the news. She's a queen and the scene of her and her husband in the fade in the comics makes me so sad.

Favorite NPC: Sandal because I decided to put the Architect in the antagonist slot! I do sincerely love Sandal and I'm excited to see if we get anymore lore on him in DATV. I love the theory that he's a Sha-Brytol.

Favorite PC: Warden-Commander Mirabelle Aeducan, Mira to her friends. I love my get-shit-done exiled princess. She put her brother on the throne but also punched him very hard first chance they were alone. She is still treated as royalty in Orzammar and keeps visiting and making surface trade agreements for them as she searches for a Cure for the Calling. Is she supposed to be doing all that? No but the Wardens sure as shit aren't gonna stop her. She misses Alistair very much but purposefully broke up with him so he could be on the throne. They still keep in contact whenever they can.

Favorite Antagonist: I'm going to kiss The Architect. If we do not see him again in DATV I'm. Well I'm not gonna end up on the news but I will be extremely sad. I want to see the rest of the Ancient Magisters very bad, I think they would make great side DLC content for DATV.

Fave NPC Ship: Wade and Herren are married and I am constantly upset that weren't in Inquisition as like a specialty weapon shop at the very least.

Fave NPC Friends: Blackwall and Sera. The goddamn... Weird Uncle and Weird Niece ass relationship they have. They have some of the best banter in the game. I wasn't a Sera fan for a long time but them together really makes both of their characters shine.

Favorite Romance: I'm extremely basic and want to commit terrorism with and for Anders. Krista Hawke can and will do everything in her power to protect this man.

Favorite Friendship: Dorian again! Seriously, him and my Lavellan are basically in a QPR. He really brings her out of her shell and she matches his energy and wants to help him anyway she can. If she wasn't with Iron Bull by Trespasser she'd probably have gone to Tevinter with him.

Favorite Quest: I like the back half of Paragon of Her Kind a lot, the final confrontation with Branka and Caridin especially. Throw Shale in there for lore and fuck yeah. A lot of it comes down to my Warden being Aeducan and my love of Shale but what can I say, if my Hawke could be a Dwarf she absolutely would have been.

Favorite DLC: I played Jaws of Hakkon as a reluctant mage elf on my last playthrough and fucking sobbed after the Ameridan Meeting. That DLC is absolutely life ruining if you play that kind of Inquisitor, it was all of Adana's deepest fears realized and it shook me how deep in character I got playing it.

Favorite Game: DA2! I love it's jank and story in a story nature and relationship mechanics. I really hope we get a rivalry mechanic in DATV or other games try something like that. I don't want to piss a companion off so much they leave I want them to stay and get bitchy with me in every dialogue! I wanna romance someone who curses my name! Also just has the best story of all the games.

Favorite Other Media: I really enjoyed Absolution! I think some parts of it are under written because of how short it is (Qwydion just being comic relief is the thing that really gets me) but the overall plot and animation is REALLY good! I haven't watched it since it aired tho. I'm hoping it gets another season to cover the Meredith stinger, because I don't know how they'd handle that in DATV.

[thewardenisonthecase]

Finally, some overall thoughts on Veilguard

I want to begin this by saying I only got into DA back in June of this year. I don't have much of a dog in this race as the people who have been here since 2009 or the people who have been waiting 10 years for the conclusion of the narrative set up by the ending of Tresspasser.

But I have been obsessively playing the three past Dragon Age games since June and I was extremely excited for Veilguard, in part because I wanted more and because I needed a new distraction from the world.

All in all, I enjoyed the game way more than I expected. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my expectations were on the floor but who knows. I did like the game a lot but I do have many criticisms for it.

There some things that, at the begging, i didn't like but grew to enjoy. The combat is one of them. At first, when I was still learning, I really hated the combat system, but with time, I got better at it and now I enjoy it quite a lot. I will say, I still prefer the DA2 combater overall, and I miss being able to control my companions. While I prefer a more tactile style, I thought the combos were pretty nice.

Let's talk about characters. I was quite surprised that I ended up enjoying all the companions. Even if there were some I didn't bring out as much, I still liked them, and I enjoyed most of the personal quests, with Emmrich and Bellara's being my favorites. I like that the companions talk amongst themselves and it really seems like a group that is actively living together.

I do wish, however, that there was more...variation? to how some of their personal quests ended. I feel like only Emmrich's quest had a final choice that severly impacted his character, while the others, sure, I can see how internally they can impact them but it didn't feel like either outcome made a lot of difference. Also, Taash's quest of choosing to be more rivaini or qunari sure is...weird, but other users have gone more at lenght at this than me.

Side note, while the Hardened mechanic is really interesting, I was a tad dissapointed it only happened once.

I also really liked Rook, and after struggling to connect with the Inquisitor, Rook was what I needed. I like that for the most part, they're just some guy who has to shoulder all these responsabilities. I like their dynamic with Solas, and especially with Varric.

What I'm not the biggest fan of is the lack of actual roleplay/choice. See, in RPGs, I tend to play the typical good guy because being rewarded for doing good is like a power fantasy to me, so Rook being that was great for me. However, I can totally see why not being able to just be kind of a dick sucks. It takes away some nuances that a player can choose to give to the character, and it can kill replayability if you can only kinda of always play the same personality type.

Also, even thought the diplomatic/sarcastic/aggresive wheel is back, I think it was just for show. In DA2, even if the 3 options led to the same outcome, each response was written in a way that made them unique. A diplomatic Hawke is very different from a Sarcastic or Aggressive one. With Rook, it was remeniscent of DAI, where they don't have a lot of variation (by the way, I mean variation in how they were written, not at how they're acted out). I ended up varying a lot between all three options and never really noticed a lot more difference than an "aggresive" Rook is a little more curt/to the point.

And I must say, while I think most dialogue scenes are pretty good, and some even being amazing in my opinion, there were others that felt very...therapy talk. Lucanis's Inner Demons quest was the one that came off as that the most to me, which broke my heart since I romanced him. It just felt jarring. I think the game could have benefitted of having a quest focused solely on Rook, kinda like how DA2 has the 'All That Remains' so that at least for once, it wasn't Rook having to do therapy talk to all their companions. I also think the beggining of the game should have been Varric recruiting Rook, kinda like in Origins, mostly because I would have personally enjoyed that more than a wall fo text.

When it comes to the overall story. I am of two minds. I think, taking the game for what it is, I like it a lot. The ending made me cry, there are a lot of high points, and I liked the conclusion. However, when you take into consideration the previous three games, that are things that make me pissed.

I always knew that the lack of custom world states would piss me off, but I didn't expect to be so infuriated. There were MANY chances for this game to make references to the Fifth Blight and they don't, and yes, that pissed me off because it would have tied Veilguard with the beggining of the series, which would have felt quite nice. Althought the lore is interesting, I hate that everything is tied to the elves and that the mystery of Andraste, the Maker and the 7 magisters was explained and is now gone. I knew that was the direction of the game was going but personally, as someone who's not that invested in elves to begin with, I was sad that all of the plot points I enjoyed the most were tied back to the Evanuris. But again, that's a personal thing.

The lack of teeth in this game is real but more people have gone in detail about this so I won't go long.

In comparison to the other games, there are not a lot of actual, world impacting choices to be made, but at the very least, the ones that are there are indeed very impactful.

Like I said, I romanced Lucanis and while i LOVE the scenes we have, for a game that was marketed as 'the most romantic', it felt lacking. I think just being able to directly talk to the companions at any time like in DAO and DAI and spam a kiss button would have made it for me.

Even though I have...complex feelings about the Varric reveal, I think the endgame portion of the game is the strongest. I do wish there were actual epilogue flashcards. Also no, i'm not going to talk about the post credit scene, don't remind me of it.

All in all. For what it is, I think it's an amazing game. For a DA game, however, it was lacking. I still enjoy it a lot, and it's better than Inquisition in my opinion (but I just really...really don't like Inquisition).