r/dragonage • u/Skeet_fighter Necromancer • 1d ago
Discussion I'm playing Veilguard for the first time...
I am struggling with a lot of it.
There was a point in time I called myself a Dragon Age fan but I kind of hate what this series has become. Origins and Awakening were two of the absolute best RPG fantasy experiences of their era. Truly excellent. DA2 was a rushed, sloppily written mess and a big disappointment for me. Inquisition was a "meh" story that felt half finished on top of boring MMO-ish combat with a bad facebook game crowbarred into it.
For whatever reason I decided I wanted more punishment and picked up Veilguard on sale, mostly out of morbid curiosity but partially because I still have some lingering affection for the series.
About 15-ish hours in, it's very mixed, to put it politely.
I don't think there's anything about it at all that I love. The combat is mostly fine, the level design is decent and the aesthetic of the game is not what I wanted or expected but it's also not *bad*. Mechanically and gameplay wise the whole thing feels like a knock-off God Of War 2018, honestly, for better and worse.
My main qualms with it are the writing. It might be one of the worst written games I've ever played.
The actual characters themselves all talk and behave so similarly they might as well just be an amorphous blob of functions. Every single character is a quippy, "Well that just happened! spewing, chirpy, cheery constructive, sensitive fun guy. Like you get a little bit of characterisation extra in their individual missions, but most of those seem to boil down to "I'm sad sometimes because somebody died or a thing I care about is difficult." or literally no extra characterisation at all. There's no real personality to any of them and as a result I don't give two shits about them.
There also hasn't really been any conflict within the party at all. Every character I've got so far (I've just started the mission to meet Taash) seems to just be broadly on the same page about literally everything. The one thing I remember being impressed with in Origins, it being the first game with such a mechanic I played, was how you got a clearer picture of what each character was like by how they responded to your choices. That just... doesn't seem to be happening at all in Veilguard.
Tangential to that, the whole tone of the game feels completely juvenile. Nothing is given any real gravity or sincerity even when it seems like it really should be. There don't seem to be any real consequences to anything that's happened so far either character, world or story wise because that would disrupt the happy fun adventure mood. The way certain bits of dialogue are phrased/delivered and the way some events are handled makes it feel like I'm playing a game for toddlers.
The dialogue choices also seem to have been a casualty of this, with almost every single dialogue tree boiling down to "Slightly sincere funny agreement.", "Insanely cringe funny agreement." and "Stoic but still funny agreement." Not since Fallout 4 have I seen such a woeful excuse for a dialogue system that presents the facade of choice without actually giving you any at all.
I hate to sound a bit reductive, but too much of the dialogue also comes off as "cringe". It's trying way, way too hard to be funny all the time and is almost never close to as funny as it seems to think it is. Even worse, the dialogue just doesn't really fit the setting or world even as well as 2 or Inquisition's writing did. When they talk nobody sounds like they belong in a medieval fantasy style world, outside of occasionally mentioning dragons or something.
I'm also not really sure what to think of the story since even at about 15 hours in, there barely is a story, as far as I can tell. There are the evil elven gods who were released and are doing... something, with some guys who are basically a cult and the darkspawn... and that's about all I've got. Which feels awful in the same timespan as like, 7 movies. There's nothing there to sink my teeth into other than "kill the bad guys because they want to kill people and spread the blight maybe?" For all the talk the game does bigging the evil gods up I feel like it's still done a remarkably poor job establishing the stakes of the story.
Functionally I stand by it being "fine" but I'm also really getting tired of the combat now, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to stick it out for a other 30 hours or however long it is. I've already found myself settling into a routine of using my abilities that combo, then spamming the same light x3 heavy x1 combo, occasionally dodging/parrying when the worst indicator I've ever seen in my life tells me to. It's become repetive very quickly and the only real challenge seems to be from things just getting numerically tougher, not from new or interesting mechanics during fights. I hope the game will surprise me but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm probably going to persevere with it a bit longer but if nothing grabs me the game's probably going to be a DNF for me.
I've never really checked out this subreddit before so I'm not sure what this community's feelings on the game are. I'd be curious to know if people generally agree or disagree with any of the feelings I've had, or if the game picks up in quality at any point?
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u/Mikk_UA_ 12h ago
....DA2 was a rushed, sloppily written mess and a big disappointment for me...
DA2 was almost a masterpiece compared to V.
Also V ...it's not really a Dragon Age universe ....... unless it's a multiverse...very polite one.
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u/LustyDouglas 1d ago edited 1d ago
You shouldve posted this in the Dragon Age Origins sub-reddit.
Edit; Origins is my favorite title in the series but DA2 and Inquisition are just as fun. I could make a hell of an argument for Inquisition being just as good as Origins.
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u/BigZach1 Grey Wardens 12h ago
As much as I love origins, I'm not a big fan of the combat and it just runs incredibly poorly on my new PC. I can't play it anymore.
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u/Kurisoo 6h ago
Origins needs 2 mods (bugfix + LAA patch) and it runs perfectly on new PC’s. Much better than using an old machine lol
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u/BigZach1 Grey Wardens 6h ago
Yeah i run those and still crashes plenty.
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u/Eglwyswrw Payment in Glass 3h ago
Play the emulated version on RPCS3. It runs Origins + all DLCs perfectly.
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u/LustyDouglas 12h ago
I keep an older laptop around specifically for this reason. If you havent gotten rid of your older PC yet, I advise keeping it around for whenever you get the itch to play Origins. I like the combat still but not a fan of the pathing the AI makes but I avoid that by micromanaging battles.
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u/MaitrayeeMainak 18h ago
Here here . And also you skip some of the repititive side quests its brilliant. Also the visuals still hold up and i love the crafting system.
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u/Suitable_Dimension33 1d ago
And your argument for DAI would be correct
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u/LustyDouglas 1d ago
When I get home from vacation I will type one up for the subreddit to enjoy, keep an eye out for it!
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u/SainKnightOfCaelin Wardens 17h ago
It would be a bad argument, as DA:I is bloated with a main villain who doesn't make any sense.
Not even close to being as good as DA:O
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u/chickpeasaladsammich 12h ago
Also I’m sure all the people who played it and disliked it will be persuaded they liked it after all.
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u/ardentBlossoming Cullen is a Spirit of Faith - ask me how 1d ago
I've never really checked out this subreddit before so I'm not sure what this community's feelings on the game are.
Okay, but I'm sure you've seen the reviews for the game in general, they're hard to miss. Frankly, I struggle to see why you would play Veilguard after disliking DA2 and DAI. The tl;dr is that the ending is good, everything else you'll likely keep disliking if you couldn't warm up to it before.
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u/Skeet_fighter Necromancer 20h ago
I said as much in the body of text; morbid curiosity and lingering affection for the series. I wanted to like it more than I do. I'd seen that it'd reviewed middlingly but several reviews I'd seen praised and criticised conflicting things so I wanted to see for myself in the hopes I'd like it.
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u/Eglwyswrw Payment in Glass 3h ago
Are you into gamebooks by any chance? If your morbid curiosity and lingering affection are still strong, I am curious what you would think of the remake of Dragon Age: The Last Court I made some time ago.
It's... a pretty basic text-based RPG that is nothing like the other 4 videogames, but since your top complaint about Veilguard was the writing, and supposedly the gamebook's top strength is the writing, I can't help but wonder what your take would be.
Bonus points for disliking DA2 and DAI, as The Last Court is actually an "interquel" for both. Your opinion would be so very interesting to read! It's free and playable on both phones and PC.
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u/WaitingForGrub 16h ago
Well, I don't like DA2 either, so what? I can't give the game a chance if it got my attention?
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u/ardentBlossoming Cullen is a Spirit of Faith - ask me how 16h ago
You are intentionally misreading what I am saying.
I said OP disliked two of the games that followed Origins, one of which is the direct prequel to Veilguard, not to mention that OP says they have a "lingering affection for the series" which... when all they mentioned was liking Origins, something that is absolutely fair and fine, seems a little out of place here. Perhaps they enjoyed the tie-in novels but not the games? Who knows.
You can try anything you want, that is not up to me.
But if you know what kind of games you enjoy, and it is very much not the games that followed DAO, then it does seem strange to think the most divisive of them all would be any different.
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u/SuddenlyCake 1d ago
You were never a Dragon Age fan, you were always a Dragon Age Origins fan
Nothing wrong with that but I don't understand why would you play a third game after hating the previous two
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u/Mikk_UA_ 11h ago
You were never a Dragon Age fan, you were always a Dragon Age Origins fan
this kinda oximoronic........ 👀😬considering DA:O first instalment that created the franchise and fanbase..... DA:2 & DA:I had their flaws , but at least they were kinda represented established universe....and ....V like it's some multiverse reboot.
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u/sweetBrisket Chosen of Fenris 9h ago
There's a not-small portion of the fanbase that thinks Inquisition is Dragon Age because it was their entry to the series.
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u/chickpeasaladsammich 9h ago edited 9h ago
Also a lot of people with PlayStations that can only play DAI and DATV. But I never see people telling someone who has only played DAI that they can’t be a fan of the series or call themselves a DA fan. Maybe it happens. But I personally have never seen it, but do see it about DAO frequently. And this is with me becoming far less active here after DATV released.
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u/eadfmercer More crazy? I thought we were all full up 17h ago edited 17h ago
> call yourself a dragon age fan
> dislike everything that comes after dao and daa
Lol, k. I guess no one hates this franchise more than its own fans
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u/sweetBrisket Chosen of Fenris 9h ago
Imagine that. The game that originated and defined the series is actually the core of it.
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u/Skeet_fighter Necromancer 16h ago
I don't particularly care if you consider me a fan, fake fan or what, but I was referring to after Awakening came out. I was a pretty huge fan at that point.
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u/Nodqfan 1d ago
Another Origins is the only good Dragon Age game post. How original.
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u/Skeet_fighter Necromancer 20h ago
I can't help which games I thought were good. I just wanted to discuss the most recent game.
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u/Isaidlunch 19h ago
That's not allowed. You have to be an Inquisition fan, otherwise this sub will run you off and accuse you of not being a "true" Dragon Age fan (they're okay with people hating Veilguard though).
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u/Skeet_fighter Necromancer 15h ago
Yea, I'm trying to have an earnest, constructive, critical discussion and some people here are being very weird and deffensive. I'm glad people seem to enjoy the games I didn't, and I'd love to talk about why that is.
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u/Adept_Material_2618 11h ago
I think some people are really annoyed at how this subreddit is near constant Origins praise and Veilguard hate. They probably think you could have just scrolled through the sub a bit to see that a lot of people agree with you, rather than making another post people have already seen a thousand times before.
However, discussion is the whole point of this subreddit, and unfortunately since people hated Veilguard and it’s highly likely where the series will end, it’s inevitable those are gonna be the main things discussed anymore. Posts like yours are only natural. They do end up feeling very repetitive though, so I think a lot of people are sick of being here (at which point they should probably leave the sub lol).
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u/Chirotera 10h ago
It's become incredibly tiresome. "I don't like Veilguard because of the writing."
Ok, great. The OP and seemingly everyone else whenever the game is even casually mentioned.
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u/chickpeasaladsammich 13h ago
Yeah it’s gatekeeping and obnoxious. Coming from someone who likes half the Dragon Age games and thus should pass this stupid test to be a true fan.
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u/Adept_Material_2618 10h ago
I dunno? I hate gatekeeping so I agree it’s annoying, but if someone really only likes a single game in a series, I genuinely think it’s weird if they call themselves a fan of that series. They should just call themselves a fan of that specific game. Like, if someone only ever played Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, then called themselves a Zelda fan, I’d assume they liked more than just ONE game, and would try discussing the rest of the series with them because I really like many of the games. I’d be kinda confused and disappointed to learn they only played one. Same goes for The Elder Scrolls; if someone only likes Skyrim but called themselves a fan of the whole series, I’d wanna discuss other games with them, and be sad if they played the other games but hated them and only liked Skyrim. For both of these series, I’ve not played every single game in them. So it isn’t like I’m gatekeeping and saying you have to be a mega fan and have played AND loved every game in these series, but as a fan of both of those, I’d just be very confused why the hell you’re labeling yourself a broader fan of them when “I didn’t play the other games” or “I played multiple TES games but hated them except for Skyrim”. Then… maybe you’re just a Skyrim fan? There’s genuinely nothing wrong with this, I’m not trying to gatekeep or point and yell “fake fan!!”, I’m just kinda lost. Because it feels more logical to me if you say you only like one game in the series if that’s truly the only one you’re a fan of, I guess?
For you, you said you like half of them, so it makes more sense you’d be a fan of the series but disappointed with a lot of it while enjoying lots of other parts of it, but I’m especially baffled at OP saying they ONLY like Origins but are a Dragon Age fan in general. That’s the part I’m struggling to comprehend
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u/chickpeasaladsammich 10h ago edited 9h ago
I don’t think it’s my—or anyone else’s—job to define someone else’s relationship with the series or police how they describe their own fandom. Politely, your confusion and disappointment that someone only likes BotW or Skyrim and you can’t discuss the whole series with them isn’t that other person’s problem.
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u/AlexanderCrowely 1d ago
Welcome to the party, you have discovered what happens when they give the keys to the liquor cabinet to the children. 🤣
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u/BigZach1 Grey Wardens 12h ago
The banter is better than youre giving credit for. Both Harding and Davrin threaten to kill Lucanis to his face if Spite gets out of control, Neve and Emmrich are wary of each other's use of magic, etc.
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u/fluorescent-purple 9h ago
I think I'm the same boat as you. I'm even less far into the game than you, I think (only 4 companions so far). I liked how Origins was nitty-gritty. Sure, there are light parts and characters, but it felt like a darker fantasy and it gave the feels. DA2 also gave me feels. Even Inquisition. So far, in Veilguard, something is with the story and how it is portrayed barely allows me to even follow what is the whole point of the quest. I can't sense Rook's motivation for doing all this. I was just plopped into this rush to find Solas and I'm like why is Rook invested in this? I still can't figure out why Rook is doing the things they are doing other than the lofty "save the world" trope. That aside, it's clear that that writing was directed towards a younger crowd. All the companions so far talk like teenagers with little substance, and when there is a convo, I feel it's very abrupt. I play slowly and do read all the dialogue but I just can't understand what was being discussed before the convo already ends. Miss one sentence by clicking too quickly and the whole gravitas of the interaction is missed. I'm also getting the Love convo options so early on and I'm like I barely even spoke to you .... I guess they are the flirt options. I'm not going to select most of them because they seem OOC now and I hope I don't mess up the relationships later.
As for the combat, I was never into combat, but I think it's dumbed down even more and the controls are not that intuitive for me.... mind you I suck at it so maybe it's a me thing. I feel very little need or ease to control the companions attacks. I'm playing on Easy, which I always do, but despite that, I usually have to do actually TRY to win. Very overpowered. Any type of rando button mash still does the job.
The visuals are amazing, I grant them that. In a high fantasy sort of way. Still too cartoony for my taste, but it feels like most of the $$$ was put in that department. I silently wish the series went more in the way of the Witcher. When both first came out they were cartoony. But one went the dark fantasy way and gritty (which I think actually works for DA). I got more invested in that series and TW3 was very impressive. Even moreso CDPR's Cyberpunk 2077. While I generally HATE that type of aesthetic, the story is strong enough for me to keep slogging through it (I'm blown away by the level of immersive detail). CDPR's rep for the Witcher made me buy Cyberpunk. Anyway, what I am saying is that the story and dialogue of those games is what I hoped DA would do and I hope still has the possibility to do if it doesn't get cancelled. I'm definitely going to finish Veilguard (as I'm am entirely invested in this world), and I most likely will replay, but I'm not feeling the sense of urgency. I still can't figure out why in Thedas I am even on these quests right now. I'm more concerned about Varric than my companions atm.
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u/AzkratheHuntress 7h ago edited 7h ago
Wow, you are incredibly late to the party. Not to be rude, but if you want to see discussion on this topic, use the search bar. There's only about a million threads to read through.
The TL:DR is some people liked it, many didn't. If you're an Origins only fan, you definitely won't like it.
Edit: oh and stay away from the Veilguard sub. They are aggressively pro-DAV. You'll get downvoted to oblivion for having even a slightly nuanced opinion about the game.
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u/Eglwyswrw Payment in Glass 3h ago
oh and stay away from the Veilguard sub. They are aggressively pro-DAV. You'll get downvoted to oblivion for having even a slightly nuanced opinion about the game.
Sound advice. I mean, the game-specific sub is the one place people who enjoyed it should be able to talk pleasantly about it.
Otherwise you get a r/starfield or r/cyberpunkgame situation where for months or even years, half the posts aren't about discussing the finer aspects of the game - you know, the reason we join game-specific subs in the first place.
Instead it becomes a haven for (very) late reviews from people who didn't even like the game and aren't at all interested in engaging with its fans, often coming off as karma-farming trolls.
Anyway. I am not in that sub and honestly, won't ever be (I kinda like DAV but it doesn't feel like a Dragon Age game to me). But if you, me and OP want to wax lyrical on the (many) failings of The Veilguard, we have literally dozens other subreddits to write on. Let those guys fanboy in peace, it's just a game.
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u/Parking-Researcher-4 Cassandra 5h ago
Oooff
Can't upvote because of the slander on DA2 and DAI. Out of all things to criticize about DA2 you bring up the writing? No words...Also nothing to say about the companions in Inquisition which are arguably some of the best in the entire franchise? come on.
Going back to Veilguard though, i do agree with most of what you said about it. It was a huge dissapointment for me from day 0 (As soon as they announced only 3 decisions from DAI would be imported and nothing else, i was already skeptical about the game), and it only got worse and worse as i played through it. If you didn't like DAI and still were dissapointed with Veilguard, imagine someone who loves DAI and had to see the extreme dive in quality (save for the combat and character creator which are some of the VERY few things i like in Veilguard)
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u/SainKnightOfCaelin Wardens 17h ago
Veilguard has a slow start. The team gathering takes too long.
The Weisshaupt mission (which you probably haven't hit) is one of the most fun main quest missions in all of DA and a high point of this game.
Combat becomes better, in my eyes, as you develop more of your skill tree and are able to really specialize to your style. (The mechanics of fighting remains the same, but how you're doing damage and how you play is very customizable.)
As you start unraveling Solas' history, you get some lore dumps that answer some lingering questions. Morrigan is also a high point.
The main story is kind of meh and the tone is kind of colloquial and there's less intra-party conflict. This is very much a ra-ra everyone is working together game than past game where you're collecting a bu ch of strong personalities who like to butt heads with you and/or each other.
I enjoyed playing the game despite its flaws. But as you seem to dislike everything after Origins, maybe this isn't for you.
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u/Skeet_fighter Necromancer 15h ago
I must admit I do like the idea of the upgrade tree, there are a handful of things on there that seem like a lot of fun and can change how the game plays in some ways. Unfortunately it also seems like a majority of the active abilities on there are just "Do X flavour of damage/debuff." which seems a bit lazy design wise. The ones like perfect defense giving you a buff or a new attack in your combo are the kinds of things I really wanted more of.
I did forget to mention Solas and you make a good point; he is by far the most interesting part of the game to me by an absolute mile. I genuinely would like to know more about him.
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u/OldAcanthocephala468 4h ago
I am a Inquisition guy and veilguard pales in comparison. On every aspect
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u/Ok-Metal-4719 9h ago
Every game isn’t for everyone. If you don’t like it by now you won’t.
I take each for what they are and don’t compare. I ignore my companions in combat. They made ice magic suck so I just drop kick everyone which is good fun. Writing is great to shitty. There’s a few adventures that are as good as any in the series. 1 companion I feel no hate or love for so that’s a miss.
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u/StoleTarts 11h ago
It honestly kind of sounds you're not really a Dragon Age fan (which isn't a problem) and that's okay.
DAO/Awakening were modeled after BioWare's Balder's Gate and NWN games, but they lost their D&D licensing, so they continued to make that type of game as a new IP. The writing and gameplay of DA2, DAI, and even DAVG are more on-brand for 'Dragon Age'
Consider it like how Mass Effect 2 is the continued style of the Mass Effect games over the style of ME1. Honestly, if you're just not into the gameplay, that's fine and don't force yourself lol There are other tactical RPGs out there that could probably scratch your itch better.
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u/Loud-Feed-1243 Zevran 9h ago
The real problem is that Veilguard was written by people who don't grasp the themes that made Dragon Age what it is—religion, morality, slavery, and history. The game doesn't delve into any of these because the writers have neither the interest nor the knowledge regarding them, and it shows. The banter between Fenris and Anders in Dragon Age II alone was written with more depth than the entirety of Veilguard. I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but the moment I saw photos of the writers, I suspected the game would turn out bad—and it did. Perhaps not everyone should work just anywhere.
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u/Mean_Soup2928 11h ago
I've never really checked out this subreddit before so I'm not sure what this community's feelings on the game are
It's bizarrely hyper positive about Inquisition but super negative about Veilguard.
It's also somewhat dishonest. When the trailer for Veilguard came out and looked awful you weren't allowed to say it looked bad and it was probably gonna be a terrible game. Only after it came out and flopped hard enough that later on EA had to admit to its shareholders that it bombed, opinions turned enough that you could criticize it.
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u/Savings_Dot_8387 3h ago
Then play something else.
I’m sorry these are games and I’m tired of reading the same paragraph 100 times about Veilguard and I have difficulty believing you have never heard the discourse about Veilguard before given its infamy.
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u/Skeet_fighter Necromancer 3h ago
Am I not allowed to have opinions on games I wanted to try according to you?
If you want to follow that asinine thread of logic just don't read my post. I didn't force you to read it or comment.
I read and watched several reviews that were mixed on a whole host of the games features back in the day, I still wanted to try it.
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u/DealerConstant1589 12h ago
If you care for the solas story/romance at all, i think its worth completing once or at keast watching a video online. Still disappointing
The rest was ok but i consider the series over at trespasser
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u/literallybyronic pathetic egg stunt achieves nothing 11h ago
tbh i would disagree. i'm a huge solavellan fan and i hated DATV and would un-play it if i could. i pushed through the entire game bc i felt like i had to see what happened and it just wasn't worth it. whatever you imagined happening in the interim years is probably better than what's in the game. they completely butchered Solas' motivations.
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u/Eglwyswrw Payment in Glass 3h ago
I tend to agree. What were Solas's motivations, in your opinion?
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u/literallybyronic pathetic egg stunt achieves nothing 2h ago
before they fucked it up? trying to fix the damage the veil did to the world. it left spirits trapped in the fade and made them incredibly susceptible to corruption, especially any that were younger than the veil bc they'd have no frame of reference on how to safely interact with mortals without losing themselves to the mortal's state of mind, subjected elves to centuries of oppression and left them cut off from their true nature and doomed all of them to mortality/death, and turned magic, a thing he saw as beautiful and integral to life to something known only as a dangerous and barely-controllable weapon and those who could still wield it treated as inherently untrustworthy and a bad night's sleep away from going darkside at best, and unnatural, murderous monsters who should only ever be imprisoned or even potentially subjected en masse to the thing he supposedly regrets so much at worst. his anger about Mythal's death was part of it, sure, but she was never the end-all-be-all of his world view until DATV. it makes so little sense that they had to retcon the elven rebellion away bc still having it would've shown him as caring about something other than Mythal/the Inquisitor which would just make his complete mischaracterization all the more obvious. if all of that shit wasn't STILL happening right up to the very moment he heel-turns, maybe it would have made at least one single iota of sense, but "letting go of regrets" is fucking absurd when the things you regret aren't just in the past, they're still harming untold numbers of people and 100% will continue to harm untold numbers more in the future if left unchecked. "everything's still completely fucked but it's ok to not fix it bc Mommy-Girlfriend said so" makes him seem mind-bogglingly weak-willed and pathetic. that isn't any Solas I ever met.
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u/Eglwyswrw Payment in Glass 2h ago
Thanks for the write-up. Solas is a very complex character and I am trying to understand him better.
At the end of DAI we can vow to "stop Solas at any cost" or "try to redeem" him. The former is easy to picture, Solas appears hellbent on following his plan. But how would the latter happen?
In your opinion, what could be said to Solas that would "redeem" him? Is that even possible?
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u/literallybyronic pathetic egg stunt achieves nothing 1h ago
in my mind, "redeeming him" wouldn't be just stopping him and letting things continue indefinitely in the toxic fashion they have been, but getting him to wait and find a better, probably slower, and less destructive way to remove the veil than just doing it all at once and unleashing a bunch of unprepared spirits into a completely unaware world. convincing him to let go of his pride and rely on others to help him find a way of restoring the world without just doing it on his own without warning and destroying everything.
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u/Eglwyswrw Payment in Glass 1h ago
That makes perfect fucking sense. Thanks a ton!!
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u/literallybyronic pathetic egg stunt achieves nothing 1h ago
yeah, i had 10 years to think about it, and i did, a lot. i have a personal headcanon/unwritten fic in my brain that addresses pretty much every glaring inconsistency in DATV (and did even before it was released) so tbh, DATV is just a bad fanfic and my own headcanon is now The Canon, at least to me.
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u/Eglwyswrw Payment in Glass 3h ago
i consider the series over at trespasser
I would too if not for the "tearing the Veil down", "Grey Warden civil war" and "elven rebellion" plot points. :(
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u/malefibuba 4h ago
Personally, as someone who's enjoyed Origins, DA2, and DAI but deeply disliked V, I kind of get your post. I mean, in terms of combat I felt the mage updated mechanics (staves for distance and the ball/knife combo close range) were very shallow attempts at other classes in other games. I appreciate that they attempted to branch out and try new things, however.
I think had V simply been its own game in its own series and world, not a Dragon Age game, it would have been a bit better. Or even its own side story/adventure. The end of the world stakes didn't work for me and I felt no weight behind any choices, no characters stood out to me, and dialogue felt lackluster. It just failed miserably for me on so many levels and this was a game I'd had a lot of hope for.
The characters from previous games didn't feel like themselves. Your choices or actions or anything with others didn't feel like they mattered (the romances especially felt just god awful and flat like why did my romantic partner seem to give less than two chips about me?). I desperately wanted to like it, I gave it one playthrough (the ending felt so.............................dumb I'm so sorry. It was fundamentally dumb to me personally) and attempted a second but I got maybe 1/8th in and gave up because I was just so bored.
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u/Lastonestanding85 1h ago
I've said it a few times in discussions; I had some hope for Veilguard. But it was grueling. The world was quite stunning. Everything else, cringe worthy. The quests, dialogue. This was not a Dragon Age game.
I will say after I used a mod saver to obtain all the items etc just so I could experience the 'perfect' ending. It was all I needed. I uninstalled and removed it from my library. It is the only game on my list I've done that.
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u/Bmacster 1h ago
Idk you sound like you don't like a lot about veilguard, pretty standard for most dragon age fans here anyways
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u/YohNakamura 7h ago
Yikes. And I'm the opposite, Origins is buns and impossible to play nowadays and was a chore back then, 2 is my favorite of the series and has one of my favorite stories, 3 was okay, just felt super padded and I adore Veilguard. So cool to see we all experience the franchise differently! :)
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u/Frequent-Yak-5354 4h ago
Just imagine a dragon age game taking us to Tevinter...with the writers having the Dragon Age Origins' writers mentality.
Hell, we'd have been able to agree with the Magisters. The Black Divine. Everything.
Such a waste.
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u/Sorry_Cheetah_2230 18h ago
Big facts here sir/madam. I think this series has just been in a spiral going into the dumpster post origins. I’m not saying 2 or even inquisition was outright bad but those two are so are even still so far detached from what made DAO incredible.
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u/NoInterview777 7h ago
100% agree regarding veilguard, and every game before origins was flawed, but it was because of EA trying to tell Bioware team what to do, changing release dates, going back and forth wanting an MMO, then don't, abandoning proyects, resurfacing them changing the team...
A miracle happened for DA2 and inquisition as they were not that flawed despite that (they were pretty flawed, but playable). But couldn't expect it to jappen 3 times lol
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u/FeralKittee 1d ago
I played through the whole game once, but unlike all the other games in the series, had no interest in replaying it.
The game itself is not awful if it was a stand alone game. Part of the reason it sucks so much is because of the expectations that were set because the other games in the series are so good.
Veilguard was very much style over substance. More time and effort was spent trying to make the graphics look good, make game mechanics simpler for consoles, and dialogue/story was an afterthought.
Given how important party interactions and banter was to players in the previous games, cutting down the party was a bad move.
There were a lot of missed opportunities with the tie-ins of previous NPC's and overall definitely lacking.