Dragon Age™: The Veilguard

It's really too bad the combat is that of a floaty, splashy action-RPG barely better than an AssCreed, with bolted-on rudimentary party management constantly interrupting what mediocre flow it may muster. The completion of Solas' arc is as fine a piece of mythic storytelling as games have ever seen. The narrative design is structurally quite impressive in how the companions' arcs dovetail with the main storyline — all the more so considering this project's years-long development hell. The Crossroads and Lighthouse are splendid, and the overarching graphical & environmental design makes each region distinct with a deftly artful style. The voice-acting is mostly excellent and the dialogue mostly good, despite the performance capture / lipsync / facial rigging being inferior to the Guerrilla / Insomniac standard. Even the choice & consequence aspect, admittedly threadbare through most of the plot aside from the one big Minrathous / Treviso decision, pays dividends in the endgame as well as any game has ever done. The open-minded characterizations play just fine, tantrums of reactionary chuds notwithstanding. It's a matter of some spiteful vindication on my part that the excuses execs have put forth ad nauseaum over the years for abandoning the crunchy, party-based tactics of Origins — that only by making derivative action-RPGs might they attract a large enough playerbase to justify development costs — were so thoroughly obliterated by the success of Baldur's Gate 3. If they'd had the good sense to commit to BioWare's original vision for Dragon Age's game mechanics, maybe Veilguard would have been a bigger hit. Instead, it's a mechanically second-rate also-ran in an overcrowded subgenre: an ill service to the artistry of its visual, sound, environment, and narrative design. The gryphon Assan is a joyful presence, and my favorite game beast to interact with since Hades' Cerberus. Manfred, too, is a delight: he joins my personal shortlist of best skellingtons, for sure.

I was wrong about this game. This is one of my favorite game franchise but after the disappointing Inquisition I bought this game on sale with absolutely no expectations and was extremely skeptical after all the mixed reviews. And how wrong I was. I just finished the game and it was a wonderful 80+ hours: user-friendly design, a great, engaging storyline, and, as always, interesting characters and their backgrounds. I got the impression that people have forgotten how boring and unplayable Inquisition was (excluding DLC), serving as a springboard for the next game. Yes, in this game, most of your past choices don't count, but in my opinion, past choices are largely unnecessary for this game. Yes, the game's lore has long been rewritten, but it has been rewritten since the second game. The writing isn't as terrible as people say, trust me. Many of the dialogues made me laugh and many touched me. I also changed my mind about the characters I initially disliked as the game progressed and they developed well through their personal quests. Could it have been better? Absolutely, but this game doesn't deserve so much hate. For me, with the deaths of certain characters, the game itself tells you - it's a completely different story. The only other advice I can give is to buy it on sale and think of it more as a spin-off.

With a game (or any piece of media) that has received a lot of negative press, it's difficult to write a review without addressing that context. But in addressing that negativity, the tone of the review must begin amidst that mire, perpetuating a pessimistic impression even if the review is ultimately positive. The choice then is either defensiveness--to combat the bad reviews on all points, whereupon one is in danger of pulling too forcefully against that sucking swamp of dislikes, praising more greatly than the game can stand up to, and overbalancing the whole affair right back into the muck--or resignation to the befoulment, portraying the good as mere silver linings. Dragon Age: The Veilguard deserves no such ill treatment, I contend, and so I shall do neither beyond what is done already; let its detractors come to me if they must. I have found this game to be quite enjoyable and of a worth exceeding its discount price of eighteen dollars. The story is engaging, its central actors likewise. The principal antagonists are devils through and through, making the thrust of the plot morally unambiguous and the pursued conclusion similarly gratifying. Complications arise in decisions along the way, however, with tough calls resulting in innocents' deaths and strife among the titular Veilguard. This interpersonal strife never lasts long, however, which I (in contrast to many reviewers, I hesitate to note) found to be rather realistic. These are intelligent people of disparate backgrounds living and working in concert, tasked with saving the world. They do not squabble unduly, nor do they adopt the shortsighted tactic of ignoring their differences to work together. Rather, they talk with each other. They ask and answer questions honestly. They behave with emotional intelligence and come away with understanding and deeper appreciation of the beauty within each other's lives. imma be honest, this voice was fun but it's exhausting and I've been slowly losing it anyway lol, so I'll be dispensing with it forthwith. The graphics are really pretty! Good visual variety, rarely distracting, clear visual language without smearing yellow paint everywhere. The particle effects can sometimes be overwhelming when everyone casts spells at once, but that's just the chaos of the battlefield and also I could probably turn them down if I wanted. The one actual complaint I have in the visual department is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HATS. Every single hat removes the PC's hair, usually replacing it with a balaclava, on top of the majority of them looking ridiculous and ostentatiously ugly. In a game with this much content, with so much freedom of character customization, I don't understand why they couldn't apportion enough resources to develop hats that work *with* hair. I enjoy the combat. It doesn't have to be particularly complicated but there's plenty of room for optimizing a strategy if you enjoy that sort of thing (I do), and they're very generous with difficulty sliders for enemy health, damage, resistances, and even the size of your parry window. Haven't had any crashes; had exactly one (1) conversation-interfering bug when I was skipping dialogue too fast through a part I was replaying Edit: Forgot about another bug with rebinding controls on keyboard. Found a fix for it in the forums, though Anyway, yeah! idk, the game is fun and I like all the characters on team hero, which is somewhat rare. It's not perfect, but nothing is

As a longtime fan of both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect universes, it was very important for me to play this game and experience it for myself. Let me start with the positives: 1. Mage gameplay I really enjoyed the execution mechanics, charged attacks, and the continuous beam fired from the staff. They look great and feel genuinely satisfying to use. The game gives you a much stronger and more complete feeling of actually playing as a mage. 2. Simplified loot system There is no overcrowded inventory and no headache over deciding what to sell and what to keep. Upgrading equipment is very simple and intuitive, and it is always clear whether an item belongs to the main character or one of the companions. 3. Scenery Many of the environments are genuinely epic. Some of them even reminded me of locations from previous games in the series. 4. Musical themes from Dragon Age: Inquisition Without exaggeration, I would say this was one of the best decisions in the entire game. Whenever I heard music from Inquisition, I genuinely cried from happiness and nostalgia. That is how deeply happy I was to hear those themes again. Now for the negatives: 1. Performance issues As you can see, my hardware significantly exceeds the recommended system requirements. Despite that, I experienced constant stuttering throughout the entire game, with the frame rate dropping from around 100 FPS to 30, as well as severe lag in the main menu. One of the cutscenes during the final battle even turned into a slideshow running at 10 to 14 FPS. It was absolutely terrible. Even years after release, the game still has enormous optimization problems. 2. Romances In every previous Dragon Age and Mass Effect game, I always struggled to decide which character to romance. There were always so many attractive, charming, sweet, well-written, and genuinely desirable characters that I wanted to experience a romance with all of them. This game gave me an experience I had never had before: I did not want to romance a single companion. Every companion feels shallow and unappealing, and the romantic scenes themselves are simply awful. In previous games, these moments were usually filled with fire, passion, love, and sex. They awakened interest, desire, and genuine emotion. You could feel the beauty of the human body, the fire in the characters’ eyes, and the depth of their feelings. Even the dialogue in those scenes could leave a lasting impression. Here, however, it feels as though the people responsible for the romantic scenes actively hated everything that made those moments appealing. I have never seen romance this bland anywhere else. As the saying goes, I kiss my grandmother goodnight with more passion than there is in all the love in this game. 3. Overall atmosphere The world of Dragon Age has always been one of the defining examples of dark fantasy. It is a world filled with blood, death, demons, darkspawn, murder, and destruction on a massive scale. The world is constantly going to hell. All of that was combined with remarkably well-developed characters, excellent dialogue, and memorable interactions between the protagonist and their companions. Plot twists could surprise or shock you, while the dialogue could impress you, make you smile, or even make you laugh. Here, the world feels so heavily filtered that it is almost like being inside a children’s cartoon. Everything feels so safe that it becomes unpleasant. There is no real sense of danger or depth. Everything is so shallow that it feels as though ChatGPT helped write the game. 4. Non-binary representation and inclusivity The sudden and widespread inclusion of Asian, Black, and Indian characters feels strange and out of place after previous games portrayed most of the world as predominantly white. The non-binary content feels even more out of place. Why is it here? This is a game about dragons, death, mages, templars, elves, gods, demons, darkness, and the end of the world. This kind of content would feel much more appropriate in The Sims or Life Is Strange for example, but not here. Overall, I was left with the impression that the people who created this game either knew absolutely nothing about the lore of the previous three games, which would explain why they changed the entire identity and feeling of the series so drastically, or they did know the lore and consciously chose to disregard it, along with the entire legacy of the franchise. They took Dragon Age, one of the most iconic and influential series in its genre, and turned it into Fortnite.

This game is simply unplayable on my gaming laptop with high end specs. Even with all the graphical settings set to the minimum. Somehow it manages to run smoothly on a XBox Ally X limited to 13 Watt....

Mit beiden Augen zu gibt es einen Daumen hoch. Eigentlich wäre es ein Daumen runter, aber ich glaube an BioWare. Dragon Age: The Veilguard macht vieles richtig — und scheitert trotzdem an den wichtigsten Dingen. Das Kampfsystem ist richtig gut. Schnell, taktisch und befriedigend, mit einem Team-System das stark an Mass Effect erinnert. Auch das Leveln der Charaktere und Gegenstände ist gelungen, und die Herausforderungen motivieren. Vom reinen Gameplay her macht das Spiel Spaß. Aber dann die Story. Am Anfang noch interessant, wird sie zunehmend übererzählt und verliert sich in immer abstrakteren Handlungssträngen — spätestens beim Elfen im Limbo fragt man sich, wohin das alles führen soll. Die Welt fühlt sich nicht wie eine zusammenhängende große Welt an, sondern wie Stückwerk — einzelne Gebiete, die irgendwie zusammengefügt wurden. Das ständige Springen zwischen den Welten verstärkt dieses Gefühl nur. Das größte Problem sind die Charaktere. Sie bleiben blass und langweilig, was dafür sorgt, dass die Geschichte nie wirklich treibend wird. Die Dialoge sind banal und ohne emotionale Tiefe — runtergerzählt statt erzählt. Das ganze Spiel fühlt sich dadurch leidenschaftslos an, als würde es nur eine Checkliste abarbeiten. Schade, denn der Grafikstil ist zeitlos schön, die Teams mit den Skill und dem Aufleveln stimmt, und das Kampfsystem macht wahnsinnig Spaß und fühlt sich wuchtig an. Aber ohne überzeugendes Worldbuilding, starke Charaktere und gute Dialoge bleibt es leider nur halb so gut wie es sein könnte. Wer reines Gameplay sucht, wird Spaß haben. Wer eine Geschichte mit Herz erwartet, wird enttäuscht.

Great game, delivers on what it promises, ignore all the easily offended people who cant handle its narrative themes.

What a disappointment!!! After waiting so long for this it turns out to be utterly stupid. It's pretty, but that's the only good thing I can say about it.

its SO DRY