#stygius hater hours

[stygiusfic]

dragon age: the veilguard is like being put into a race car that could break the sound barrier but then they only drive it at a speed appropriate for a school zone

it's like being put on a great sea voyage and told fearsome tales of the kraken and then one day the kraken comes out of the water and it just waves hi at your ship and then leaves

it's chekhov's gun on the wall in act 1 but it's never fired, and since the lack of gunshots does make you lose your fear of the gun, they tell you: but wait!! there's a bigger badder gun out there!! (and that won't be fired either. not in any way that matters. if it's ever fired it will be so late in the story that it's impossible to give a shit anymore)

there is so much wasted potential and so many times they say "no" to the world they're supposedly playing in, it makes me feel insane

[stygiusfic]

in short: the specter of multiplayer haunts the narrative. can't have any nuance or emotional depth that would put a damper on players cracking open a beer with the lads

dragon age: the veilguard is like being put into a race car that could break the sound barrier but then they only drive it at a speed appropriate for a school zone

it's like being put on a great sea voyage and told fearsome tales of the kraken and then one day the kraken comes out of the water and it just waves hi at your ship and then leaves

it's chekhov's gun on the wall in act 1 but it's never fired, and since the lack of gunshots does make you lose your fear of the gun, they tell you: but wait!! there's a bigger badder gun out there!! (and that won't be fired either. not in any way that matters. if it's ever fired it will be so late in the story that it's impossible to give a shit anymore)

there is so much wasted potential and so many times they say "no" to the world they're supposedly playing in, it makes me feel insane

[stygiusfic]

what I mean by 'the specter of multiplayer', in a nutshell:

dialogue lacks subtlety. everything is blunt and artless: "This is who I am and what I want you to do." so you don't need to think too hard or infer anything from context, and can get back to why you're here (combat).

unfortunately this extends even to many companion quests of a reflective nature: everyone knows what their character flaws are, and they WILL tell you outright. this is unrealistic and (worse) very boring

every bit of plot info is recapped a dozen times, sometimes even right after it happens, so you can catch up if you weren't paying attention to the plot scene (because you're here for combat). if you WERE paying attention, this is insufferable. so many scenes feel like a pitch from a writer delivered through a character's mouth

btw there is no action/reaction scene structure, because the "reaction" scenes (sitting with the team in the Lighthouse) are just a recap of what happened, again

the tasty potatos of ye olde Dragon Age lore are mashed into a homogeneous purée that is easily digestible to even the pickiest eaters! here's all you will ever need to know to play through this game: gods scary and Venatori bad, go kill them! (combat. which is what you're here for, remember?)

this makes SO many battles feel meaningless, like they needed to populate the map with combat encounters (since you're here for combat) and for combat they need enemies, and those enemies gotta have models to appear on screen, so... just toss some Antaam brutes or Venatori on there, whatever! they're essentially interchangeable.

related to this: can these enemies please shut the fuck up during combat. can they stop reading their lines from Villainy for Dummies, published and edited by Stereotypes Press

speaking of lore: for a game with so many lore drops and reveals, it's insane how boring it is. it's kind of impressive. the reason, I think, is that nothing is reacted to with the weight it should have.

to clarify: we care about a story only when characters in the story care. when the impact of events is felt in its characters, we feel it too. if a person drops dead on screen, I feel emotion not when I see the body, but when their loved one beside them wails in horror and despair. the elven gods are back and we don't see the elves react: are they horrified that the Creators were not the kindly benefactors they believed? are some of them joining the gods, because at least it's THEIR history and since the world has treated elves like shit, it's time for elves to return the favor? are there schisms happening within the Dalish? we don't see any of that. Davrin says he's concerned the gods' rise will result in racist backlash against the elves, but we never see that either.

because the lore is flattened, and nothing has the weight it should have if lore were followed to its natural conclusion, they constantly have to make up Bigger Problems, in an attempt to make them weighty. But again, because ramifications aren't fully explored, I just can't take those problems seriously as real threats.

it's like when the later seasons of game of thrones were coming out and people complained it was dull because they knew the surviving characters were safe, they couldn't drop dead at any moment like in previous seasons, because the show would end. a threat isn't a threat if I know it'll never be paid off

also? despite the reddit bros' outrage at having a "woke" game, this is probably the bioware game in recent memory that is whitest and least concerned with social justice, just by virtue of how it refuses to engage meaningfully with any of the real life societal issues that dragon age used to honor in its worldbuilding. there is no racism in Ba Sing Se, no slavery (except by the old gods who were naughty) and an armed group couping a civil government is ok if they look hot doing it!

also I should be allowed to turn around and kiss Davrin square on the lips

the more I write the more it feels like I could be here all night, so let's just call it here. goodnight!!

dragon age: the veilguard is like being put into a race car that could break the sound barrier but then they only drive it at a speed appropriate for a school zone

it's like being put on a great sea voyage and told fearsome tales of the kraken and then one day the kraken comes out of the water and it just waves hi at your ship and then leaves

it's chekhov's gun on the wall in act 1 but it's never fired, and since the lack of gunshots does make you lose your fear of the gun, they tell you: but wait!! there's a bigger badder gun out there!! (and that won't be fired either. not in any way that matters. if it's ever fired it will be so late in the story that it's impossible to give a shit anymore)

there is so much wasted potential and so many times they say "no" to the world they're supposedly playing in, it makes me feel insane