Holy crap! Why does this game have so many negative reviews? It's fantastic - a worthy entry into the Dragon Age series. It's a shame that EA disparaged it so much as a failure. Maybe that's what caused all the lemming negative reviews.
[h3]What this game did well:[/h3]
The lore: Having never played these games before, my friend and I played all four Dragon Age games in a row, back-to-back, together (completionist with all DLCs). Veilguard's lore holds up very well. The most brilliant connecting lore is the how this game is a direct sequel from "The Tresspasser" DLC in Inquisition. The criticisms of old NPCs like Morrigan being very different from earlier installments are just odd - characters should evolve! Having them remain static would just be poor writing.
The writing and voice talent: I don't get the criticisms of the bad writing either. All the dialog is well-written and sharp. The voice talent is top-notch as well. If you want bad (but also charming) dialog, check out the fantastic Solasta game and note the big difference in style. These are probably some of the best companion stories ever. Yeah, there's one companion who whines and gripes a lot, but the story is solid with a great climax.
The cinematics: Wow - this game has the best cinematics that I've ever seen. So many epic shots. I was in awe of most every big scene from the opening (best opening ever) to Weisshaupt to the ending (great ending, up there with BG3).
The music: This is one of the best, if not the best, game soundtrack I've ever heard. BG3's soundtrack won "best of the year", but clearly rode the coattails of that game. It's nowhere close to Veilguard's soundtrack. The game theme is epic and memorable and the orchestration and instrument choices are fresh and deliver great immersion.
The story: Another fantastic Dragon Age story, with great tie-ins to past lore, especially from Inquisition. I understand the frustration of breaking the continuity of choices from previous games. I'm surprised they didn't offer this - I get not importing old save games since this game appeared like 12-14 years after Inquisition. They could have supported letting us pick choices from Inquisition. Maybe this was dropped because of how much time passed between the two games (who's gonna remember their choices?) But, the only big break in continuity that I noticed was that our Inquisitor wasn't missing a hand in Veilguard, but that's such a small thing for me to overlook.
The choices: A lot of people complained that the choices in this game didn't matter. Veilguard isn't BG3; it's a totally different style of game favoring story and cinematics over abundance of choices. The amount of variability in this game is pretty much on par with other Dragon Age games. It's a different game and I really enjoyed the the ride of Veilguard's great story telling.
The combat and leveling system: Every Dragon Age game revamps combat and leveling. And every time I think, "I wish they wouldn't have changed it." But, as always, it grows on me. I also like how this game treated the companions which is a really big break from the other three games. It gives you the opportunity to focus 100% effort on developing Rook as you want. Combat has just enough variability to be really fun without being too overpowering in options. They clearly spent some time tweaking the system. And, I think it really points to being able to replay it. We played as a Spellblade, which had tons of options and ways to play. I'd love to see what other derivations of the mage branch as well as the rogue and fighter classes have to offer. Our Rook focused on Ultimate generation at the end and was a threshing machine on Underdog!
[h3]What this game did poorly:[/h3]
Wow, that's a hard one. Not much. I really have no complaints. People point to all the resets and troubled development time as a reason for the game being bad. There's really no logic in that, unless we all want to agree that Beethoven's 9th symphony is bad for similar reasons.
[h3]Summary:[/h3]
For me, the series ranks as follows: 1) Origins 2) Veilguard 3) Dragon Age II (I understand these criticisms, but I loved the story) and 4) Inquisition (still a great game, especially the DLCs, but with a below average, [i]for this series[/i], main story).
I hope that we get a Dragon Age 5, but that sounds unlikely any time soon. There's a nice preview at the end of Veilguard's credits of what the story might be if you complete a certain quest in the game. Of course, it sounds great!
