Dragon Age™: The Veilguard

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I bought it on steam for a discounted price and watched some history into the world since the other entries were fairly outdated.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!

I loved this franchise since I was a kid, like almost 20 years of dragon age. I loved how the first 2 games had grit and the player is just some person, it feels like the feats are big but after all your work, they are earned. You can be a good person, a bad person, there are real consequences and the companions didn't care if you were strong or a softie, lgbt or not, some will like you, some will hate you. The political mechanisms of this franchise are great, love how easy it is to integrate yourself in the world. This franchise helped lil nerd me come into my queerness. I'm not downvoting cause of the 'wokeness'. Im just really passionate about this franchise and it let me down. My issue with this game is quite a few. Dragon Age Keep is irrelevant. Over 15ish years of story you've built is not important/erased. It felt disrespectful to fans. The scaling of enemies are overblown. In the first game you have to rally armies across the land to take down 1 archdemon and the hordes of darkspawn. It was intense and all was nearly lost, but apparently a ragtag group of 4 can take on 2 archdemons and 2 gods? Nah, these feats are stupid. Rook is just some person and companions aren't exceptional. It doesn't make sense. A big issue is between each major fight, the companions meet up and do a "We can't fight well if we aren't emotionally ready, please take your time to resolve personal matters before we fight a dangerous city destroying enemy thats waiting patiently for us to stop being babies". That is garbage. When versing such horrifically strong enemies, and with so much at stake, why do we get the luxury of emotional stability. These enemies aren't patient when they have the upper hand. They will not wait. Pull on our heartstrings, make things feel dire forever, make us feel the life death struggle. I want companions to feel like they're working things out on the go and not that they've had a lot of time to dilly dally. I miss when Dragonage was political and each choice mattered and consequences felt realistic and intense. The backbone and grit are missing. What made Dragonage great is seeing injustice and standing against it (or with it if you're a meenie). You are so bare bones of a character, railroaded into being a supportive friendly person, when you strip choice, then its not really a roleplaying game. Why aren't there slaves in Tevinter, Where are alienages, Did prejudice just die out completely, What about the mages vs templars, surely theres resentment and fear still among commoners. Where are the Dalish? Surely theyre not all Veiljumpers. Wheres all the consequences of the previous games. What happened to the chantry, Whos the divine? Did we forget the maker? Did we forget the horrible stuff the chantry does? Wheres the Qunari vs Tevinter conflict? Wheres the Chantry vs Qun conflict? Elves vs Shem conflict? Wheres the humans vs everyone conflict? Where are the dwarves, essentially 3 games without much dwarf anything, dwarves become less and less apart of the world with every game. Why does Morrigan and Dorian look so messed up. You'd think with so many lgbt making this, they could slay more with these iconic divas. Theres so much lore to draw from and it feels like this game is a bit hollow. The technology scaling is overblown. We were playing in lowtech fantasy landscape, its what made the game feel harder and made your feats feel more impressive, but now we have veil jumpers and holographic cities. Magic is so commonplace now, but it hasn't been long after the 3rd game, so it feels a bit wild to go from low to hightech and for peoples mindsets to change. Oh the combat is stripped bare, no nuance, no build consideration, so bare bones and not fun. They went downhill in the last game getting rid of entropy and spirit in mage. Just kinda meh by it, just point and click for everything really. Also the constant conversations of transness and Taash's journey feel very performative and cringe. Transness can be fed to us in funnier and nuanced ways. Like its a big deal for Taash, but surely their character is more than that. The whole Isabella scene made my roll eyes and I'm nonbinary myself and Taash was insufferable. Also the romances felt very scripted and effortless. The characters didn't really feel genuine and believable, very vanilla personalities. I will say. Very beautiful character creation, it is a pretty game. I could knitpick further. I'd just recomment playing the first 2 games if you want story and feeling and the last 2 if you want a more visual experience.

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.

I'm not LGBTQ or anything even though everyone seems to hate this title so much this is my first time playing this series and I actually enjoy the campaign and characters to interact with. I never played the first 2 games so I'm new to the series, but I like the action, gameplay and cinematic sequences are well executed here. Its graphically very demanding as you need a high end system to fully run this game , but its well optimized enough for a med to high range gpu if you have that. BioWare is known for creating some of the best RPG games that I have played before in the past. KOTOR, Mass Effect Trilogy and Anthem. Despite BioWare being owned by EA and they have a bad reputation, I hope they are able to stick around long enough to release the much anticipated Mass Effect 4 if it doesn't get cancelled somehow. Even though it seems only long time fans of the other Dragon Age games are bashing this title those new to the series like myself enjoy it so this comes down to an opinion of choice. Furthermore the game was discounted to $20 recently so for a title like this that was a substantial discount.

If I knew what I know now I would not buy this game. The load times are super long. YOu will not be able to switch characters in game. New game creates a new character and when you try to go back to a previous character you have to use new game mode again , finalize the same character and start game. The story stars all over again. The save system needs some cereous repair. It sucks I blew away 70$ for game and add ons. I was so stupid.

Came to the game after hearing a lot of bad things. Turns out gamers are, as usual, dramatic as hell. Dialogues weren't half as cringe as people made it seem, the nonbinary arc was pretty on spot (and relatable as hell, as a transmasculine guy myself). Companions were fun, missions had me invested as hell. Not to mention the art and sound design - just marvelous. Different than origins, for sure, but more similar to inquisition. Loved it.

Stop playing after around the 1hr mark. This has ruined the DA franchise for me

I was a fan of DA: Inquisition, and had (some) hopes for this game. To be honest, it was a MASSIVE let down. I'm a millennial, and I HATE millennials in the video game industry. The writing is among the worst I've ever seen in a game. In dialogue opportunities, there are "gender identity options" where you can discuss your gender identity? And a gender confused sidekick that is struggling with "it's" identity? Bro, what? I play games to escape reality, not be forced into this reality that has become our world. It's just strange. The dialogue is atrocious, and the game looks like a cartoon. By the grace of God, I was able to play this due to an EA Play subscription and didn't have to purchase the game outright. Would've been a complete waste of money. I, in good faith, cannot recommend this game. I wanted to like it, because I was a fan of DA: Inquisition, but I just can't. If this is the direction the series is taking, then I want no part of it. It literally felt like a chore to play. 3.5/10

I understand the critic for the game given its legacy, however leading a very busy life I really enjoyed not having to overthink my choices. Just grab the controller and enjoy some nice action combat.

Ils ont tué la licence c'est le 2 en moins profond déçevant...