Dragon Age™: The Veilguard

I don't really understand the negative reviews on this game but that's okay. I'm really enjoying it. I love the character creator and the combat is fun. This is my first Dragon Age game and I'm a fan. I will definitely go back and play the others as I do have them too.

beautiful game but whoever wrote the dialog and story needs to be fired completely. would be a decent game but its not a dragon age game

7/10, decent game held back by horrendous dialogues. If you're a person who likes skipping stories in game, this is a good RPG to pick up. If you're a Dragon Age fan, it's still a good pick up on sales. The main story is genuinely not bad, the 3-hour ending sequence alone is well worth the slog through the rest of the game. But the yapping, oh my god the yapping. Characters repeat themselves constantly. The banters misses a lot more than they hit. The expository writing is so egregious you'd want to ban commas forever. This game does have the best hair physics I have ever seen in my entire life and Lace Harding is hot.

I preordered this game. Wasted money. Absolutely awful.

Les personnages sont beaucoup trop caricaturaux pour que l'histoire soit intéressante.

Worse than any form of torture possibly conceived in this world. There aren't enough words in the dictionary to describe how awful this game is.

TLDR: They painted a smiley face on the Mona Lisa. Dragon Age has been one of the greatest choice driven game franchises ever. I'd place it above the Elder Scrolls any day. But Veilguard? I wouldn't even feed something as bad as Veilguard to my dog. After 17.5 hours (probably more like 10 after taking into account character creation), I am so beyond disappointed. I don't even know exactly where to begin. The first three games made me care about the character immediately. Even Origins, which had to introduce multiple backstories differently, artfully and skillfully made me care with each playthrough about this human/elf/dwarf torn from their home to face a dangerous threat. The following games' had considerably less diversity in who your character was before the conflict began, but I still wanted to know why I was being hunted and chained. Rook? Couldn't care less. Sure, a great and memorable companion recruited her, but why should I care? What was Rook's stake in the fight? They had such a brilliant twist at the end of Inquisition and they threw it away. What's more terrifying than ONE blighted creature trying to claim godhood? Why, TWO blighted creatures trying to claim godhood, of course. Every character and choice felt sanitized. No moral dilemma, no possibility of conflict between the team. One of the things that made Dragon Age so compelling was the varied group of individuals fighting alongside your character. They all had their own reasons, their own set of morals. Sometimes you didn't agree with them, but they were still powerful allies and you needed each other. That was what made the game feel real. That was where the roleplaying of RPG came in. Characters in previous installments had distinct personalities and opinions that you sometimes needed to fight to get through to. Veilguard took every hard edge and sent it through a rock tumbler till everyone was shiny and smooth. And some of them are downright unlikable. I have 0 interest in the telanovella storyline and acting of Lucanos. Taash is an immature brat. Bellara is a discount World of Warcraft gnome. Oh, and don't get me started on the steampunk paint they splashed all over the dark and vibrant tapestry of Thedas' culture. Turning magic into mechanical and scientific nerd-talk made me so disconnected from my mage character. Having the Antaam and Venitori scream dictator-inspired jargon through a magical megaphone throughout the streets jarred me out of the fantasy world. I won't finish this story. Not out of nostalgia, not to honor the decades I've put into the DA games. Continuing just feels like I'm ruining the stories that I loved from the previous games. (oh yeah, there were also SO many other issues that made the game unplayable. Audio issues and crackling. Uncanny valley animations cause they spent so much time on hair but not enough time on face mapping. Dungeons I had to go back through because it didn't trigger the next section properly and wouldn't spawn enemies.) It wasn't even a well drawn smiley face.

Excellent addition to the series. I enjoyed this title thoroughly, as it expanded on the same kind of story telling we experienced in DA:2. It clearly took much of it's inspiration from DA:2's structure and focus on the characters in the story. I very much subscribe to the fan theory that Varric is narrating another one of his fiction novels based on real events. That being said, the impact of dialogue choices are not as obvious as in previous games- leading to one of the common criticisms. Choices in this game do matter, but they are not the simple "this person will or will not die by your hand" choices people appear to expect. Perhaps there is a bit of nostalgia goggles and intentionally cherry picked moments being referred to by critics? The combat is a departure from the micro managing style of the older games, which is somewhat disappointing, however the gameplay itself plays like a significantly advanced Batman Arkham game. Leveling feels rewarding, and the skill tree is interesting to build out for your own playstyle. I feel skills are paced out just right to give the player time to feel for themselves how their build works. Additionally, the player is never locked into one build. You are able to undo your skills and make a new build freely. Generally, fighting in this game feels excellent and the difficulty levels do more than simply turn everything into a bullet sponge. I honestly feel like this game spoils its players with incredible combat feel. Gear progression is somewhat lack-luster, however much of the gear is exciting and fun to play with. From my experience playing through as a Warrior, each unique item felt impactful to my build and kept the gameplay fresh. Graphically the game is astonishingly beautiful. Every location is unique and evolves along with the story. You get a genuine sense that the world is responding to the events as you progress. The game ran perfectly on my system, which is admittedly high end. I have had limited experience playing on the Steam Deck, but was not left with any complaints. Finally, a criticism about the reception. If you dig through the culture war ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and if you have actually played the previous titles in the series, you will know that the Dragon Age games have always made commentary which todays morons deem "woke". They always warn against dogma, it's like, the moral of the story, yo. Perhaps literacy really is dead?