Dragon Age: The Veilguard

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

New Dragon Age! Been 10 years. Thought it was nice to hear that a few months ago, although the first trailer is bad. (for me, because of the writing - I liked or didn't mind the art style) I've basically only increased in hype; it seems more what I want out of Dragon Age in 2024 than what I don't. (eg, closer to Mass Effect) It looks fun, previews abound on youtube rn. Latest news regards what will (spoilers) come over from earlier games. I don't really remember what I chose for two of those choices and don't care about any of them. That's fine by me. Lots of people are really upset that the designers aren't porting over choices from 15 year old games but I just don't think they should. I do think earlier game designers probably shouldn't left have quite so many tantalizing (to some) cliffhangers but what can you do about that now? It's fine to either ignore them, pick a canon, or just assume that things are very different, trust me, no really, very different, what's happening offscreen is quite different because of Your Choices.

Concerns for me include the characters seeming a bit edgeless and the fact that I am not 21 years old anymore so there are limits to how much I will enjoy this. Also I think it might have too many levels, so to speak. Skill tree looks a little busy. But I really have no idea.

Anyway, October 31st! Looking forward to this!

 

[Adrenaline]

I still need to play Dragon Age 2

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

It’s certainly my favorite. I’d welcome a barebones “remaster” so I could play it on consoles again but I don’t know there’s a market for it.

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

Pretty fun so far but I’m still early in the game. Needs a quick save feature unless I’m missing that and I have no interest in manually naming saves so I really wish wish that extra confirmation step just didn’t exist.

Some of the reaction to this game is just kind of baffling and disheartening. Nothing I can really do about it.

 

[Classic]

Tried to get it for the wife to play on the steamdeck instead of buying an xbox for one game.

It crashed on trying to load the aspirational armors for her class and now she's bought a new xbox.

 

[R.R. Bigman]

Some of the reaction to this game is just kind of baffling and disheartening. Nothing I can really do about it.

From what I’ve seen of the game it looks too…soft. The only Dragon Age I played was Origins, which I enjoyed well enough, but that game was bordering on grimdark. Blood and gore, scary monsters, fantasy racism! Veilguard does not seem to have the same design ethos.

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

It does not. I think a lot of things about Origins are better left in 2009. But really the only one of these games I unreservedly love is II.

Anyway, it was a lie that this is a “mission-based game” apparently. I am losing my mind with all these dull time-wasting jump puzzles in the various hub areas. I was also promised by complaints that companions would not shut the fuck up about puzzle solutions but that is also not true they are silent and I have to google.

 

[chud_666]

I just beat this last night, after a lengthy replay of the series leading up to this. I am exceedingly satisfied.

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

I’ve beaten it twice since my last post, haha. I was being a bit whiny… Also enjoyed it quite a bit though I am cranky about some things due mostly to my not being 20 years old anymore.

 

[chud_666]

What builds did you do?

I did the trap heavy rogue. I love throwing bs down and picking off stragglers.

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

That’s actually the build I’d want to try next!

First I did the reaper warrior and I spent most of the game flinging shields until the end game when I used my abilities more often. I do think it was more op than my second build - I consistently hit the damage cap early on just with the shield or whatever and never had any idea what people were talking about when they said enemies were damage sponges. Second playthrough was dagger/orb spellblade. It was fun but definitely not as powerful. Mostly played on Underdog but occasionally bumped the difficulty down especially when I did not want to come back to fight a dragon later or whatever. Not sure I want to try Nightmare yet, especially if I’m playing a rogue next.

Also first playthrough I was an elf mourn watcher. Pretty good and I was satisfied with the extra content for both bits. Second playthrough I was a qunari shadow dragon and I noticed too many points where my character’s dialogue didn’t make sense.

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

I think the worst thing really is all the sort of obscure secret chests I am wasting time during intense moments looking for, even on the second playthrough where I mostly remember where they are. Weisshaupt maybe the worst offender. Some of them you can only get the second time you come to a place when you don’t know you’ll be able to do that and in other cases would miss them forever. (Emmrich’s quests have one of these) Not a big deal, but pretty stupid. Like I am just ignoring this NPC’s explanation of Kal-Sharok or whatever to track some mementos.

 

[chud_666]

I found it funny I was still picking up imperial weave and Heartwood in the final mission.

 

[Neo Skimbleshanks]

You have the ability to upgrade at the very end, if you really need to, which you do not. Also I’m pretty sure you can spend money/resources on outright useless upgrades at the final… shop? (Like upgrading companion accessions from legendary to epic or whatever with no change in stats) But yeah, both times I was like, why am I doing this? while I was hoovering up garbage in the last act. Normally I did find like one cool upgrade for my build but I really should’ve just charged through.

 

[chud_666]

I'm going to write about my series playthrough soon. But I recently read this article about the big choice at the first part of the final mission. They said they wanted it impactful as opposed to the Stroud vs Hawke choice in Inquisition. But I didn't have Stroud, I had MVP Loghain, and I left Hawke in the fade. Why wasn't he at Weisshaubt? Lol

 

[Oathbreaker]

Veilguard is soft-rebooting the setting so it doesn't have to keep track of eight different variations of what usually ends up being minor referential dialogue for a hundred different subjects, and to force some new ideas to fit where they otherwise wouldn't. The Hero of Ferelden and Champion of Kirkwall are basically just faceless references now with no granular detail to speak of beyond saved Ferelden/Kirkwall. That they do ANYTHING with the Inquisitor is certainly out of necessity because of how strongly connected they are to Solas but even then the background choices they give you with one exception are all exceptionally minor to the point a friend of mine never even had some of it come up. It's also why no one talks about the Crows being slavers, or the leader of the Lords of Fortune being a thieving pirate. It's why the Magisters of Tevinter are now a cult trying to seize power instead of having been the well-established de facto rulers for centuries, why the Dalish are suddenly extremely enlightened about their gods somehow?! and have a whole group dedicated to heavily researching magic in spite of their attitudes in Origins and DA2, and so on. Part of it is also definitely some remnant of early intent for the game to be live-service, so at least major bullet dodged where it mattered most.

Anyway I expect most people in the DA Keep system didn't have Loghain alive in their world states so the overwhelming sentiment in Inquisition was "why is this even a choice, I played as Hawke so he's staying alive." And of those that kept him alive what I've heard sounds like almost everyone agreed with his own words in that scene. So in a sense they succeeded in delivering greater impact than that. I don't think they did it as well as any given major decision in Origins though. The personal stakes of the party are a LITTLE higher but only choosing between two to take the primary risk completely takes me out of it.


All that said the weirdest thing for me is just how laid back the majority of the game is about everything. It's GREAT to see Bioware finally going with a mostly chill tone for a game's duration instead of constantly escalating how dire everything is. BUT IT WAS A VERY WEIRD CHOICE OF GAME TO DO THAT IN. Hopefully it happens again for the next Mass Effect because holy crap that setting needs an entire game to be lower stakes with this kind of chill.