#loooooong rambling veilguard thoughts i dont actually want anyone to read or expect to care about

[iocainesmoothie]

veilguard was incredible, 11/10

I really don't have any interest in nit-picking or criticizing what was missing or done poorly, there was always going to be too much they COULD have crammed in and inevitably so much that didn't make it because at the end of the day it has to be a finished marketable product and must be made with finite resources.

there are always going to be cuts and places that feel lacking, there are always going to be holes, but its important to be appreciative of where they DID decide to spend their resources and I think their team did a fantastic job.

the hair, omg the hair.

the DA2 atmosphere, the ME2 story structure and emphasis on companions, the lore of DAI, like they could not have made a game more tailored to my tastes.

I'm so so so grateful to everyone at bioware who made it happen and that games like this still get made, truly no one does it like they do. BG3 was great but i don't consider them a substitute for the feeling i get from Bioware games. I finished veilguard like 2 days ago and I'm still kinda wondering around in an emotional fog.

I really thought I was going to be disappointed by the romances because nothing was going to compare to the impact and shock reveal and story relevance of solavellan, but omg emmrich!?!

he's so romantic, he's such a lover, he WANTS love so bad, he's so flustered about the age gap! his character arc is ACTUALLY INTERESTING and thematic! there are actually different routes for his romance to go and theyre both HUGELY different AND good!!! AND ALSO relevant to his themes as a character!!! in either route you basically have to chose which one of you is going to (eventually) die first and leave the other one mourning and its like UGH HES SO!!!! UGH ITS SO GOOD!! YOU GET IN A LOVERS SPAT BEFORE A BIG STORY MOMENT!!! THATS WORKING SYNCHRONOUSLY WITH THE GAME PLOT TO ENHANCE THE OVER ALL STORY!! ITS SO GOOOD!!!!

also its SUCH a relief to have an option that wasnt like SUPER young, the age gap is hot as fuck and its part of his story and UGH ITS SO GOOD!!

i also just love the mourn watch as a whole, I feel like some of dragon age magic system gets explained a little too concretely (it feels like everything is either because elves or because spirits or both) and the necropolis vibes are sort of like, no we haven't solved all that there is to be solved about magic and the fade, there are mysteries and cool stuff and wiggle room in the universe for other new stuff to be introduced, like lichs and vampires and supernatural beings that arent just different flavours of spirits.

I do feel bad for the lucanis girlies though. giving players HALF as much romance content as everyone else, and then saying its because of personality reasons? for a character whos personality you wrote yourself? seems mean spirited.

like you didnt have to do that, it was actively making the player experience worse for arguably nothing, if you wanted to convey that lucanis doesn't feel free to want things for himself there were other ways to portray that than an ABSENCE of content. you have a finite word count to bring these characters to life. Wasting it like that for arguably nothing except to make players feel disappointment doesn't seem defensible to me?

not even going into the neve thing. everyone on twitter is doing the usual "boohoo you just hate neve because you hate women" thing.

I LOVE neve, i think that "fantasy-noir" vibe she and varric have is absolute PEAK, I also didnt even romance lucanis, and i think they're perfectly sweet together and i love when companions have lives outside the main character!

but i do think its double shitty to write a character who fully ignores your romance lines (like not even shrugs them off or has an awkward or negative reaction just FULLY does not react as if the game isn't registering the option you chose) but then have them actively pursuing someone else?

what happened to those personality reasons?

lucanis has never had a relationship before but suddenly he's juggling 2 people?

during his quest (his stupid lazy dream sequence quest that has to happen in the middle of another conversation while the two of you stand there awkwardly for some reason) even if you've chosen every heart option he'll still imply in his dream sequence that hes attracted to neve.

YOU get cut off from the romance route if you choose to support minrathous but he's fine with neve?

I'm just saying, if i were writing one of 6 romance routes in the last dragon age game maybe ever made, I would have been more generous. The way it treats the player is almost adversarial?

I know, i know, the opposite side of the spectrum is being TOO fawning about the player till it almost reaches the point of paternalistic condescension, like when every single character adores the mc and never questions or doubts or disagrees with them. that also sucks! that is also a bad writing choice!

i LOVED rook and solas's relationship. I am a hardcore solavellan solas simp and my sole goal was for them to get their happy ever after, solas is my favorite character across all media EVER.

that said, i loved making rook shit talk him, and swear at him and hate him, and i was DELIGHTED every time solas betrayed them, even at the very end when he, the god of lies, swears on everything he holds sacred that he PROMISES he wont try to bring the veil down again after elgernan is dead and you just KNOW hes trying to give you one more stab in the back for the road, i LOVED it. i was DELIGHTED to be trapped in that prison, it was the strongest part of the game and I cried pretty much nonstop from that point to the finale. i dont NEED every character to get along and play nice and love me unquestioningly. i LOVE carver!!! i LOVE the rivalry system!!!

again i havent even played lucanis's route and i probably never will because i'm insane about emmrich (who btw i can romance every play through and pick a different version and get a different but equally devastatingly romantic route AHEM)

also im only criticizing his writing here, at the bottom of a huge rambling text post behind a read more on a dead website at 5:30 am, because mary kirby did get laid off and didn't receive the severance she was owed and regardless of how i feel about her latest work she absolutely deserves the money and new stable employment and picking on the way she wrote her character doesn't seem like the right thing to do anywhere there is even a slim chance someone might see it.

anyway, i just think maybe they were trying to play with structure to convey something and i disagree with the results, but what do i know. I'm protesting more about that because the mechanics of writing game romances, more so than the romance itself, is my obsessive special interest and I'm always thinking of how I would do it, and to see someone get the chance to do it in the big leagues and fumble (according to my tastes) chafes me a little.

that said, iv seen a lot of people who were perfectly happy with what they got from Lucanis so maybe im totally wrong lmao.

Im also just now thinking of all the stuff we'll never get a definitive answer to if this really is the last game, or all the choices that we imported over fifteen years that ended up meaning nothing.

like if only elgernan and ghilly were left, does that mean what the wardens were doing WAS actually killing the gods? and once theyre all dead the veil would come down because it no longer had their life force fuelling it and the mega blight would come out? and THATS why solas was so freaked out by clarel?

what the fuck was the point of playing hot potato with urthemiel's old god soul over the entire franchise? what about the well of sorrows?!! what the fuck is actually going on in kalsharok? theyre just like ALL semi-tainted semi-wardens? WAS andraste a mage? a vessel for mythal? WAS SOLAS SHARTAN????!?! what was yavanna trying to rebuild the dragon population for? WHAT RECKONING WAS MYTHAL PLANNING?!?! what the fuck is the gathering storm? why did the pre-qunari race decide to drink dragon blood to become qunari to get away from them? LIZARD MEN ILLUMINATI FROM THE MOON? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!!

i mean i know obviously the answer is "resource budget and time", and again im just so incredibly grateful the game got made at all, i guess im just left with the same feeling every other dragon age game gave me which is that i desperately want more.