Dragon Age™: The Veilguard

Veilguard is fun. Understand that it is a Mass Effect game in combat and structure set in the Dragon Age universe, and you'll be less likely to be disappointed. I mean, you basically aren't a major software developer at this point if you don't alienate half of your fanbase by releasing an entry in your beloved RPG franchise to middling reviews because you decided that turning it into an action game would have broader appeal, right? I know that you have to justify costs and all, but I watched through the credits at 16 times speed and they still took a couple of minutes to complete, so what on earth are you even doing here? Maybe just focus on making good games that don't try to be Marvel movies and you'll be just fine. But yeah, the story is solid and connects to a bunch of the prior games in the series, even if the antagonists are basically cartoonish. The faction and party member quests and regular interaction are all done well, even if everything ends up a bit too drawn out. Skill upgrades are interesting and the combat is fine, even if it gets repetitive. Exploration is a lot of fun and breaks up the story and combat well, even if it mostly just gets you far too much equipment that you can't feasibly use. It's not the best BioWare game out there, but it's perfectly solid.

As a fan of the franchise and has just managed to get through half of Act 2 of this game: Shout out to the writer responsible for Emmrich, he is my favorite character from all within Dragon Age series. Emmrich is the only thing that keeps me playing, and intend to finish this game. The environment in this game is gorgeous, so shout out to the team responsible for the assets as well. I also heard that the final mission, which was directed and crafted by the team responsible for Mass Effect, was peak, so I'll keep grinding. This game has cheesy writing and did a poor job for most of its characters. Only Solas, Varric, Dorian, and Emmrich stayed on track with their writing standard. The fetching missions and poor puzzles almost made me quit the game too many time. For the story, the conclusion we got for Thedas is...disappointing. The rich lore and the potential for the cameos to come back, because the world is ending YET none of the powerful factors in Thedas that is not the Veilguard group did anything. The powerful beings in Necropolis, Lich, did absolutely nothing despite their power. The reused assets that are intended for online game are very noticable and breaks immersion. I hope people who work on this game reflected on this, especially the directors and heads who oversee this project. This franchise had build so much reputation from its past work. This franchise didn't deserve the woke hunting that went around the past year or two, the issue is not LGBTQ+ element in the game, it's the many issues that piled up.

Overall the game is solid, liked the upgrade system, combat and gameplay in general. Never had any game-breaking bugs and I believe it's optimized well considering it's a 2024 game. A lot of comments made it sound like this game is just about LGBTQ+ and it's too disrupting, but that is really just one character built around it and that's it, you can always skip the dialogues if it bothers you too much. Some dialogs and characters could have been written better, some lines are sloppy, but if you like Dragon Age saga, I believe you will enjoy Veilguard as well

My starting point to this series was Dragon Age Inquisition, I did not play 1 and 2. Therefore, the first time I played this game with an EA store subscription, I lacked a lot of context for the history of the game. The first time I played the game, I played it donning figurative eyewear made of extreme criticism as I expected a lot from this game, fair to say I did not like it and had to stop halfway into it. Then I bought it on steam for a discounted price and watched some history into the world since the other entries were fairly outdated. The game offers 3 starting classes, a sword and board knight, a rogue and a mage. It is really important that you actually like the class you play, for me it got really boring playing a knight. Second time around, a rogue worked for me. There are 3 specializations within the classes too and they are quite varied, allowing you access to a decently sized skill tree. The graphics and the artwork are significantly different from the previous entries, it appears less mature and the it fails to capture the great evils that plague this world, it feels like they aimed in the middle of something safe and then also gruesome, which looked like a little weird mix. That said, the visuals are great, the game is really smooth and I did not come across any bugs in my playthrough. Though, it failed to deliver on the ambience I expected, it is decent enough. The character customization was excellent. Although, the basic character presets might look cartoonish without any customization, you can give your character a grim and mature look through adjusting the various sliders quite a bit. The story lacks a bit in the early stages of the game. Character interactions seems a bit forced and your decisions will feel like they lack certain impact. However, as the game carries forward, they correct this part by introducing impactful consequences to your actions. They are not many but it is significant enough to let you know that your decision does carry weight and they will weigh on you. It doesn't do a great job of tying past game content or the history of the world, it could have been better but I still liked the amount of history that it does introduce and the amount of stuff you can read on the codex. If you stick with it, it gets better in the last half of the game and it becomes a great ride with your companions. Most of the companions in this game is quite new to you and there is no prior history of them. Therefore, it gets a bit difficult to relate with them, feel compassion for them or even deal with them. The only familiar face is Harding and it was only because I played DAI. The best part of the game was the combat and how smooth it was. Throughout the game, it didn't feel repetitive or feel frustrating (if you play on the hardest difficulty enemies do feel like sponges especially if you are under leveled for fights). You can make builds around different items you come across and combat is kept fresh that way. TLDR: Not a GOTY contender but definitely recommended to get on sale!

This game appears ashamed that it is a Dragon Age game. It has decently engaging play, but it's a huge departure from how the previous games were played. Some aspects are fine, and honestly are improvements, but it feels like timing and strategy are much less of a component than just leveling up and obtaining items. It has an fine plot on the surface, but it contradicts lore and characterizations from previous installments. When it engages parts of the lore, it avoids going into the darkest and more interesting concepts that were drivers in previous games. So the result is a writing mess that would be midling to ok for a standalone game but in the end is an insult to anyone who liked any other games in the series. The best I can say is the writing is shallow. There are surface concepts, but it avoids engaging any deeper. It'll skirt the topics but avoid their conclusions. It relies a lot on "tell" and doesn't not have much "show." What's even more infuriating is the bones of good ideas and writing are there. But any build up or bite was sanded off. Choices rarely have consequences beyond the cosmetic. Or, if they do, the right choices are blaringly obvious. Many factions or characters are unrecognizable or odd, softer versions of how they were. Things that were interesting even when they were clunkily done in previous installments (different approaches to gender between nations, sexualities, tensions between races) are again, sanded down. For example, I AM mad about [spoiler] Taash's [/spoiler] story because of how black and white it is instead of embracing previously established lore [spoiler] about gender in the two cultures they are associated with. And that's not even getting into the weirdly racist idea that you have to choose one culture or the other entirely as an immigrant. [/spoiler] It's like a bunch of stockholders were allowed in all the meetings and went "hey so we want money from a Dragon Age game but we don't want a Dragon Age game because it's embarrassing." And the result is, ironically, an embarrassment to the franchise. If you don't know the series, are ok at turning off your brain, or you're interested in how much of a trainwreck of a franchise installment it is, the game can be fun. It just isn't fun if you played the games that came before it.

No geral, o jogo é ruim. Não por conta de pautas identitárias, políticas woke, etc. Os desenvolvedores forçaram a barra? Sim, parece que é uma forma lúdica que um RH criou de educar seus funcionários para aprender sobre gêneros, pronomes neutros e lugares de fala. Mas sinceramente, isso pode ser facilmente ignorado porque basta você não recrutar os companions que foram colocados para esse propósito específico, e o jogo permite que você ignore essa parte pois são side quests opcionais. Dito isso, o que me incomodou no jogo é que ele é extremamente genérico, mal escrito, com personagens chatos e previsíveis. É um jogo feito para adolescentes, e adolescentes ESPECÍFICOS da geração Z. A história sai da dinâmica de DA para girar única e específicamente em torno de personagens chatos, infantilizados demais e altamente previsíveis. Adultos não tem paciência para esse jogo. O jogo é extremamente raso, o seu personagem é obrigatoriamente politicamente correto, limpinho, sem profundidade humana, que só tem respostas legais e certinhas, que não desagradariam nenhum adolescente moderno e que seria muito bem quisto no recreio do ensino médio de escolas particulares. A BioWare deu o golpe muito bem dado, comprou a mídia especializada e trouxas como eu compraram achando que seria um RPG denso, bem elaborado e profundo, mas foi esse seriado de verão infanto juvenil. Sobre a mecanica, o jogo só erra mesmo no combate, que é muito desorganizado e não tem opção de fixação, então direto você estará dando sequência de golpes no ar. Porém os gráficos são muito legais, o jogo tem uma dinâmica mecânica tipo god of war, Prince of Pérsia, etc, sendo que não tem falhas ou bugs de cenário que mataram certos jogos desse tipo. O mundo não é aberto e o estilo é aquele estilo linear e preso, ou seja, você sente que você está o tempo todo progredindo e caminhando pra algum lugar dentro do jogo, então isso é positivo por um lado. Por outro lado, o jogo é simplificado ao extremo e o cenário (que é muito bem feito e bonito), acaba ficando sem sentido em algumas partes, pois você simplesmente não vai interagir com nada, nem ninguém. Enfim, se eu pudesse devolver, eu devolveria. Não gostei. Mas como paguei caro no jogo, vou pelo menos zerar de forma standart. Minha nota pra esse jogo é 3 de 10, e única e específicamente pelo visual e desempenho. História, desenvolvimento, personagens, combate, ação, estrutura de desenvolvimento na história e no jogo, estilo (de enredo, que deveria ser mágico/fantasia), tudo zero. O jogo é chato para adultos e cansa muito rápido. Até a escolha das respostas que você vai dar são chatas, porque são previsíveis demais, não fazem diferença no desenrolar dos eventos e o Rook foi escrito pra ser aquilo ali (chato). Jogo fraco, 100 gbs de espaço desperdiçados.

Hat Spaß gemacht und war die ganze Zeit motivierend. Leider keine open world. Ach ja, die Quests zur Personenfindung bei Taash war gut. Sie ist jetzt binär, aber das gendern war unerträglich. Macht die Sprache kaputt. Zerstört mit seinen hen's, Behütere und anderen Wortfindungen die Immersion.

Another great series absolutely ruined by DEI hires.

As a fan of Dragon Age: Origins, I really enjoyed Dragon Age: The Veilguard. 1. The story was excellent and kept me engaged throughout the game. 2. The companions were interesting, but the interactions with them didn't fully work for me. The game doesn't really allow the player to be harsh or confrontational. If I want to tell someone off, the game should let me do that instead of constantly softening the dialogue. Dragon Age: Origins is a great example of this, where you could argue with companions and even dislike them, which made the world and characters feel more alive. I would also remove the dialogue hint icons and let players interpret their choices on their own. 3. I liked the level design, but I wasn't a fan of the overall visual style. The game looked too bright, friendly, and somewhat cartoonish. Dragon Age is a dark fantasy setting, and I think the visuals should reflect that more consistently. 4. I really enjoyed the combat, especially playing as a mage. However, I would redesign the progression system by focusing more on active abilities and fewer passive bonuses. I would also increase the number of abilities available during combat. Instead of being limited to only a few skills, I would prefer having access to more abilities through hotkeys, similar to older RPGs. 5. Solas was one of the highlights of the game for me. Learning about his past, his motivations, his struggles, and the consequences of his actions was genuinely fascinating. 6. The game's performance was excellent. I experienced no noticeable technical issues or slowdowns while playing on an NVIDIA RTX 3060. I honestly don't understand all the hate this game receives. In my opinion, it's a very good game and far more enjoyable than Dragon Age II and Inquisition. If the developers had embraced a darker visual style, it would have been even better. That said, when compared to Dragon Age: Origins, most of the companions in Veilguard fall short in terms of depth, complexity, and overall memorability. I would definitely recommend the game. I spent 52 hours with it and don't regret a single one. If Dragon Age 5 ever happens, I hope it embraces a darker tone in its visuals, dialogue, and player choices.

The game feels disconnected from the rest of the series, the only connections being Solas and Varric but even they feel like they could have been replaced by any new characters and the story would have been about the same. Replayed the game twice to complete all the variables and achievements then uninstalled. Overall very disappointing.