Dragonage The Veilguard - Tween RPG

CriticalGaming

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Dragonage has been a rather odd series, specifically from how it's gameplay has been completely different with each game. Origins was a strategy game of sorts, mixing tactical combat together with some general RPGisms. People really liked Origins, as it was a dark RPG unafraid of showcasing brutal harsh themes. Then DA2 came out and played like an action game and pissed everyone off. People felt that DA2 lacked not only tactics but RPG elements as well, along with what was viewed as a weak protagonist at the time. Inquisition then played like a single player hot-button MMO, and while it was weird in the gameplay instance, it was back to being an RPG with a decent cast and went over with fans okay.

Then the series died for like a decade.

But we have a new entry into the series finally and it's.....really fucking dumb.

The Veilguard is what I would imagine a game would be if made by writers of Buffy the Vampire slayer and aimed at Tweens, (aka kids between 12-16). There has been nothing in the first 30% of Veilguard that wouldn't be out of place in a bad MCU movie, every character is trying to be aloof and cocky at the same time with constant quips that don't mean anything. "Oh don't worry, magic is sort of my thing...err, I mean...totally my thing." And it makes my eyes roll back into my head.

The setup to DA:V is Solas from Inquisition is trying to rip open the veil that was sealed in the last game IIRC, not 100% because it's been 10 years since I played it, and your character is already in a team with Varric, and Harding (who I think is a knew character but I don't remember). Anyway you are chasing Solas down as his ritual summons demons to stop you. Immediately I was like, "Oh this is going to be the Mass Effect plot again where Solas is actually a good guy and we fuck this up to release a bigger badder evil that people will later on not believe us about." Aka Shepard learning about the Reapers and everyone going "Pff, yeah right."

Would you believe me if I was 90% correct about this? Because I was. The 10% I got wrong is that everyone believes you immediately. So it doesn't even have that drama going for it. In fact DA:V doesn't waste time building the suspense, pretty much from moment one the elder gods Solas freed on accident because of you start fucking the world pretty badly and it's hard for anyone to not believe you about their threat. Which is sort of a big issue with the game as a whole because it basically has zero ramp up time. Think about most other RPG's, you start on a mundane quest doing casual things for people, killing dangerous wildlife, maybe stop a bandit king or whatever, and things escalate into world ending dangers. There is no ramp up here, the world is ending from the start of the New Game button and it never stops, which doesn't really do anything for the tension. There is no suspense for the player because it's all started at level 100 from the jump, and down time now feels like a huge waste of time.

So the dialog is super cringe, and the story is just sort of built like a bad MCU movie, what about the combat and gameplay? Well that sucks too.

Imagine if God of War 2018 was bad? That's what this is. The animations are really floaty, and there is no weight to the impact of anything. So it doesn't feel visceral at all and there is this weird sort of buffer between button press and action that almost feel like there is a half second of lag when playing constantly. At the core it feels like a bad hack-n-slash game, abilities run of a cooldown that also feels really long but the trade off is that the abilities also feel extremely overpowered in strength so I guess it's okay. The other issue is that there doesn't seem to be any dynamics or strategy when taking down enemies, they come in basic types, tanky, melee, ranged, magic, etc, but none of them require anything different from the player. On higher difficulties they get really spongy and the combat gets real repetitive really fucking fast. So I dropped it to Easy mode to blitz through it as fast as possible because it simply doesn't feel good to play.

The companions work a lot like Mass Effect companions where they'll fight and do pretty well on their own, but you can command them to do their specials anytime they're off cooldown. Companion abilities also have like a set-up and detonate kind of system. Basically one companion can be ordered to make enemies wet, while another can be ordered to zap them with lightning, thus wet enemies getting shocked dealing major damage. However because all abilities share CD per companion, once you have that combo with whatever your favorite companions are, you'll never use anything else and to be honest you'll rarely even bother using their abilities at all because your personal abilities are so much stronger and faster to use.

I think the system could have used some sort of system where you NEED abilites to break shields, or interact with other elements in the battle field. Because like I said the difficulties only really affect HP spongy-ness and the difference between normal and easy HP values is gigantic, where enemies on normal live WAY too long, and on Easy they don't live long enough. Which makes the balancing of the game feel awful.

I mentioned floaty-ness before in the combat but this also applies to what little exploration there is as well. There is no open world here and each level is fairly linear with a few short side paths for quick treasures, but nothing more. I have never found a side path that even had extra enemies to fight. But there are things like jumping gaps and really stupid puzzles. But the jumping has that delay on it so you will fall to your...not death it just resets you instantly, but it's annoying to fail a jump because it doesn't come out when you expect it.

Puzzles are stupid because this is a game made for children apparently. Not only does the game have the problem where a solution to the puzzle is INSTANTLY told to you by your companions, but the solution is "find a keystone to this lock, but the keystone is floating like 10 feet away." There is nothing to solve, it's just a small delay in progress for no reason.

The only explanation I can think of regarding this game's terrible character designs, bad combat, bad writing, bad exploration, is that it was meant for literal children. Except there is swearing, and lots of talk about gender and pronouns.

Maybe this game is just made for idiot journalists who can't beat a Cuphead tutorial and think that a gay character is "stunning and brave."
 

Dreiko

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This isn't a game made for children this is a game made for people with the mentalities of children. I will still play it because the goodwill Origins built in me is still carrying the IP but I've only heard bad stuff about it as of yet, so it's super low priority.


To think they'd be able to make a game worse than DA2.



Oh and KH is a game aimed at tweens and it's fucking great!


Harding was an npc in inquisition you met during Varric's sidequest, she was kind of important but not a major enough char that anyone wanted her to be playable. But I guess now you can't actually play as your party members so nobody needs to be important any longer. Hurray?
 
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Samtemdo8

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I was sold onto Dragon Age Origins because it was a Fantasy Bioware RPG at the time when I was super into them with games like KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect.

And it came at a time I bought into the general hardcore RPG gamer vibe of the time. That new RPGs these days pale in comparison to the RPGs of yore in terms of mechanical depth and narrative writing.

Dragon Age Origins built itself as a successor to games like Baldur's Gate. Narratively and mechanically. A true CRPG.

And to see the game go in such a radical shift in that original vision is just....sad.
 

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Dragon Age Origins built itself as a successor to games like Baldur's Gate. Narratively and mechanically. A true CRPG.

And to see the game go in such a radical shift in that original vision is just....sad.
While sad, at least you got a great BG game called Bauldr's Gate III.
 

Dreiko

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Yeah not all rpgs these days are like this game. BG3 is the obvious example but also Pathfinder 2 was incredible and it came out only a couple years ago. And recently there's been a game by the pathfinder people set in the 40k universe called Rogue Trader, which I also hear great things about, though I've yet to play it myself.


I think the difference is that the devs for all of these games are europeans, so they don't have the american mind virus and just focus on making good games. BG3 is made by austrians I believe, and Owlcat Studios who handle pathfinder and warhammer 40k is Russian.

If you like Origins, any of those rpgs will satisfy for sure.
 

Samtemdo8

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Yeah not all rpgs these days are like this game. BG3 is the obvious example but also Pathfinder 2 was incredible and it came out only a couple years ago. And recently there's been a game by the pathfinder people set in the 40k universe called Rogue Trader, which I also hear great things about, though I've yet to play it myself.


I think the difference is that the devs for all of these games are europeans, so they don't have the american mind virus and just focus on making good games. BG3 is made by austrians I believe, and Owlcat Studios who handle pathfinder and warhammer 40k is Russian.

If you like Origins, any of those rpgs will satisfy for sure.
All that's left is setting though and that's what make it hurt.

Because now I'll never get to see Varric and Morrigan and Flemeth and the world of Thedas in a good game and story ever again if I just move to a similar game.
 

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All that's left is setting though and that's what make it hurt.

Because now I'll never get to see Varric and Morrigan and Flemeth and the world of Thedas in a good game and story ever again if I just move to a similar game.
Right I fully get that. Honestly all this is making me wanna play the old games again more than this thing.

Apparently according to reviews I read this game does something that makes people either forget or disappear into some other universe or something, so there's not much of the old good stuff to find in it either way.
 

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I think the difference is that the devs for all of these games are europeans, so they don't have the american mind virus
Most American developed games don't have the "American Mind Virus". That's just stupid and another variation of "Woke Mind Virus". None of that shit is real. All we have is just another mediocre game shat out by EA and what's left of BioWare. Nothing more; nothing less.
 

CriticalGaming

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So Luke has had quite a history of covering this game so far -
To his credit he hasn't dismissed the game out right. He and Coohcarnage have much the same opinion in that the game is.....fine. the writing sucks but the rest of the game is functional and okay enough.

Though Luke doesn't think it is worth him completing it instead of something like Metaphor.
 

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Playing this game myself, finally.

One quick note: "Veil Jumpers" are clearly supposed to just be Dalish elves, but obviously non-elves cant be Dalish, and your character is supposed to be allowed to be a member of any of the game's factions regardless of race, hence the change.

But "Veil Jumpers" is such a stupid name.
 
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Dreiko

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Most American developed games don't have the "American Mind Virus". That's just stupid and another variation of "Woke Mind Virus". None of that shit is real. All we have is just another mediocre game shat out by EA and what's left of BioWare. Nothing more; nothing less.
This issue is less to do with woke and more to do with the director inserting themselves into the game too much. It just so happens that the manner in which they did it here is with all the pronoun nonsense. But you can see the same phenomenon rear its ugly mop-wearing head with the old western DMC remake too. Basically, the issue is that this is an rpg so it should be the type of game where you most get to express yourself, but instead of that, you are just waterboarded with the director's views and don't even get evil dialogue choices that oppose them. In an rpg of all things. I could see that being how a walking sim works or a game with a set main char who has a default personality like Donte, but this is even more egregious of a case than even DMC.

To give you an example of how to do this right, from this same franchise. You had Dorian with his lame magical gay conversion backstory, which you could actually side with his dad and be an asshole to him. It wasn't very constructive, but the game gave you the option. And there was this one soldier in Iron Bull's retinue who wanted to be treated like a dude (she didn't use any modern day lingo like pronouns or trans or nonbinary or anything), whom you could send in a suicide mission if you wanted. Both are not very nice things to do to your friends, but the Iron Bull one especially was actually like the harsh pragmatic choice that could ensure the qunari fleet's support, and it would shape his identity as returning to his faith.

This game has not the smell of choices in that spectrum.
 
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BrawlMan

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This issue is less to do with woke and more to do with the director inserting themselves into the game too much. It just so happens that the manner in which they did it here is with all the pronoun nonsense. But you can see the same phenomenon rear its ugly mop-wearing head with the old western DMC remake too. Basically, the issue is that this is an rpg so it should be the type of game where you most get to express yourself, but instead of that, you are just waterboarded with the director's views and don't even get evil dialogue choices that oppose them. In an rpg of all things
Less director inserting themselves in Veilguard's case, and more of the design by committee/execs are inserting themselves in the game. Because the game really doesn't feel like it has the Bioware stamp or anything from whoever is directing it.

a default personality like Donte, but this is even more egregious of a case than even DMC.
I doubt that. I've seen some of the cut-scenes and dialogue and they're nowhere near as annoying as the shit that was in DmC 2013, nor as obnoxious and overly "dark and edgy". Dry and safe in many areas, but not DmC 2013 levels of vein popping anger. The only thing DmC has over Veilguard is combat, art, soundtrack, and environmental design.
 
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