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."
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."
