#you're not doing what you think you're doing for fandom health and bioware's not gonna love you back. chill

[rachelamberish]

i see we've reached the toxic positivity stage of the discourse

[kaija-rayne-author]

Review 3 for Dragon Age Veilguard

13 hours in 11 actual playtime

Spoilers for Veilguard

Disclaimer the same as on the others. Skip to the cut if you've already read it.

I'm not an asshole disclaimer (same as the first one, if you read that, you can just skip down to the cut.)

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Review 2 is here.

So I'm waiting for my kids to go to freaking bed. I've gotten a few hours of playing in so far today.

It got a little more interesting after seeing Solas again. (And not just because I'm Solavellan. I honestly hate how he looks.) I mean just in the storyline.

It might almost be feeling like there might be a story somewhere in this mess? Aaaand it still hasn't caught me up. But at least I'm not cussing at it and wanting to rage quit anymore? (not holding my breath that that's gonna last.)

Saw some things I don't want to spoil that I was hoping to see in the game. But dude... did they have to go right along the middle between red and brown hair? Way to completely pander to everyone. Have some courage Bioware.

I used to think of Bioware games as interesting and groundbreaking fun. Starting to think they're going the way of milquetoast. Bland. I'm still holding off my complete opinion. I'll finish it first. But so far? The best parts of this game? Are the sets, environments, and backgrounds. It's about the only thing that feels like Dragon Age.

Did get a chance to meet some of my favourite characters from Tevinter Nights. So there's that at least.

I do love what they did with the characters from my favourite stories in that book. At least the ones we met so far. (And I absolutely called it on TN being a prequel book for this game.) You don't need to read it any more than you need to read any of the other supplementary materials. But those materials do give you a greater depth of enjoyment of these games. Just because you get to see characters you met in different formats in the games. And catch a few jokes you wouldn't otherwise.

Met Lucanis. Reserving judgment. Lolz. Anyone following me for a while will understand why. But as of this moment, I still like Illario better. In case you're curious, here's why.

Oh and I've absolutely decided I hate Lace Harding. This is not the Lace Harding I wanted to romance in DAI. And yeah... it's been eight years game time (Ten if you count Trespasser) and people change. But that much? I doubt it. The way she's depicted in this game is much closer to how the comics depicted her. Judgmental, close-minded, and just... unpleasant. If you're a Solavellan... you may not want to take her to some of the things in the Crossroads. She says things that anyone with freaking eyes could see aren't accurate.

She can just sulk in the Lighthouse for the rest of the game unless I absolutely need her for something.

Review part 3.5 here