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i enjoyed playing the game, but i have zero interest in replaying and it honestly wasnt a satisfying ending at all. There were so many missed opportunities to tie in with previous games. From a gmaeplay perspective i did enjoy the fights, but i really didnt enjoy the artstyle It is honestly a mid tier game as in 5 or 6/10 it served as a distraction but i had no interest in reading the lore or like i said replaying because there was no real point from a story perspective, the only difference was which city and a decision on the final island. Not to mention you couldnt disagree with you companions at all

Also in Inquisition, the leaders of the the Inquisition during the Haven portion show an inability to agree on how to solve even the most minor of problems. You showcase an impressive ability to get people to shut up and listen, able to get them to decide when no one else can, you prove to everyone that you're more than just the rift closer.

*spoliers* As much as the reveal for Varric’s death surprised me on a first play through, on the second I ended up hating that choice. Rook lacked key motivation in the story. Why tf does Rook want to stop Solas? What’s in it for them? If we experienced Varric’s death when it happened, the game could allow the player to feel guilt and responsibility to finish what he started. As it stands though, it just doesn’t flow like that and any time Rook has the rare chance to express guilt, it’s always resolved quickly.

A better question why that Rook have such stupid name?

such, SUCH a good critique, i love this video sm!

The bit about the reason why rook is the protagonist is spot on. Because of the garbage dialog and choices available to me, I felt like rook was a fraud the entire game. Seriously I felt like some hobo that got picked form an alley somewhere to be the cheap "muscle" for mission. The one that's usually left behind to die when things go south. So incredible dumb to not give us a backstory or at least let us create one through relevant dialog choices. I don't get why they didn't get better writers to help refine the entire thing. It's not like EA didn't have the money and there's no way they didn't know the story and writing was shit. I guess the only explanation is that they wanted to make a game for kids and didn't really care all that much. For a 15 year old the experience might be ok. Like those garbage young adult novels

I’ve never heard of people head canoning Sokka as having adhd! I would love a video talking about that

The Inquisitor fits all 3 of these traits for protagonist by the end of DAI. It's part of why it's story works so well compared to Origins or DA2 in my mind, and it's why it was such a letdown we didn't get to continue as our Inquisitor.

I also love dragon age, I've been playing since Origins first came out on ps3. Inquisition is my favorite with Origins being a good second. I've put literally thousands of hours into these games. My favorite bit of writing is in Origins when you find the other player characters as npcs in the world. All of the origins exist simultaneously in your play through, however only your story ends in slaying the archdemon. It's brilliant. Dwarf commoner dies in the cartas prison when you don't play it, the Danish elf dies along with tamlen in the ruin, a human noble dies in the castle with the teryn and the rest of the family save for your older brother making Howe in charge of denerum, city Elves still have a wedding even if you're not getting married. The way the stories intertwined is nothing short of genius. It's peak video game writing, hell even just writing in general. Inquisition does it differently with only one story line but many Origins, which is still fine just less grand. Over a decade later and I STILL cry in certain scenes I've playing scores of times before. The story and characters are very flushed out and make immersion easy. It's not perfect, but it's an amazing game. Even dragon age 2 has some interesting writing even if it's just the meta/fourth wall breaking from Varric. It also perfectly sets up the main conflict in Inquisition. The obvious flaw with the second game is that it's basically on rails, choices are so limited it doesn't make sense sometimes. But it's far above Veilguards poor writing. Some of the characters are amazing and complex. Emmrich, Davrin, Lucanis....all great characters who feel real and their stories are about real struggles and emotions and loss. I want Taash to be written well, the struggle of questioning their identity is so relatable to so many people. It could have been great but Taash fell flat because of confusing and subpar writing. Harding is another one who could have been good but didn't deliver. She was a fan favorite and we were all let down. She's just kind of.....there. Her personal quest should have been so much more interesting with all the deep lore of her people and the titans. But we weren't given satisfying answers which isn't the bad part. There's nothing wrong with leaving some mystery or openness to interpretation. But like.... why is vautla a statue? What happened after she was left in the deep roads? What happened to the titan she served? Why is she so far away from where we last saw her? Is Harding also going to become a statue? What happened to the titan Harding interacted with? Is it still there or did she fully absorb it? These are too many questions to leave unanswered, it just makes everything feel empty and confusing. I'm not even gonna touch on all of the blatant contradictions said by characters. And don't get me started on Rook. You can't be evil or even mean. The aggressive or tough dialogs often come off forced or even as joking. While trying to play an evil character when Rook says we need to help or save someone it really breaks the role playing and demolishes the immersion. Most the past games had a clear origin story that directly lead to being the main character. Granted a lot of it was "right place right time" but that doesn't diminish the story telling. In Veilguard it feels cheap somehow, probably because it's off screen and told through dialog....poorly written and vague dialog. Beyond the bad writing the gameplay is also bad but we'llignore that becauseas you said, this is a writing video not a gameplay video. Veilguard does have redeeming qualities but I feel like overall, as a die hard fan of the series....I'm disappointed. Supposedly the devs were happy with what they put out. I honestly hope that's not true. They scrapped so many ideas and stories over the years that what we got in the end what a decades worth of bad ideas thrown together and slapped into a game. Supposedly it wasn't rushed but damn does it feel rushed. Some things don't tie together nicely, some don't tie together at all. And it's short! I could beat the whole game in a single afternoon, a couple days if doing all the side quests. I have a hope that Veilguard is akin to dragon age 2, it's just a set up for the next game. That's the only way I can forgive this monstrosity.

I didn't romance Solas in Inquisition but picked that choice for Veilguard because I wanted him to have that happy ending. But I was verys disappointed how the Inquisitor still loves Solas while he doesn't really seem to care for her :(

me watching this; "a certain character" me: zuko. it's zuko isn't it. who else would it be, it's zuko. 34:16-ish, about accidental autism coz the writer relates... yeahh.... i didn't know much anything about neurodivergent, somebody mentioned that all my characters were "interesting".... in the same tone that usually gets used for me when i've done something socially ... .awkward. I thought that was odd. then started looking into neurodivergence. found out i'm audhd--double whammy! also have c-ptsd and was born with already fairly severe anxiety... re-read my books and DANG MOST OF MY CAST !? !? .... i dunno how neurotypicals think or function, i ... i thought they were kinda hollow or like bots or something so i never wrote them ! ?!??sdlfkgjhlkfjhdglskjhg oops. the few characters who are neurotypical usually seem to be the outsiders that the autistic/adhd characters are just like "....huh. how odd" and move on obliviously. but it's also... somewhat stated that the neurotypical is common, or more "normal"... and it's just to the autistic/adhd characters that this neurotypical is "odd" to. But yeah i had the same problem; knew autism only by stereotypes and ableist perspectives, so i completely ignored it even when the ADHD didn't make full sense. My psych who assessed me for ADHD mentioned my having wayyyy too many autistic traits for coincidence, and i first told her "no way, i'm high empathic, i use theory of mind for teaching all the time. impossible." she was good though... just went "okay, so you can understand people's thinking, and follow their thoughts, and you feel their feelings really strongly?... do you know what to DO with that information quickly and instinctively?" .... uhhhhh no. it's... i'm thinking. i have to think about it. and.. sometimes i get overwhelmed. and ... no. :| I had a lot to learn. and now it's pretty obvious. told my friend and she works with autistic kids and just looked at me like "ummm yeah it's... pretty obvious..." oops.

Rook’s backstory is explained in character creation with the faction background - where you might lead some sort of conflict, rebellion, and the faction kicks you out. I assumed where when Rook was like “I’ve been naughty”, they meant that. Rook’s backgrounds have them lead. For Harding, if you decide to take her with you, she’s injured in addition to (spoiler - feeling bad). Harding is not a leader personality, and she ends up having shit going on anyways. Personal shit. Harding is a scout. She can lead missions, but she’s not an overarching planner. Neve and Harding disagree on the couch over their approaches, and look to Rook who has experience making larger decisions. I agree Rook could have used a bit more establishment rather than a text box.

The worst thing is, that the game wants me to believe that only Rook can make a diffrence. Like then you choose wich City you save and the other is just completly lost without them. Why?

ATLA have and always will be one of my favourite shows and the case is the same when it comes to the character Zuko. I’ve watched the show so many times I can’t even count it and have never been reflecting much why Zuko is my favourite character. I was diagnosed a little over a year ago with Autism and still didn’t see these signs of that Zuko might be autistic. Probably because the writers intentions was never to make it obvious or make too much of a deal with it. Or maybe didn’t realise it themselves. Thanks to this video I can much more clearly see now why Zuko is one of my favourite characters ever. Thank you!

Dum...

Fantastic exposition, thank you. I really enjoyed it and am now thinking of giving the game a try to make up my own mind on where it sits for me. Have a subscription, look forward to your future content.

The Inquisitor should have been the protagonist imo.

Dang 😭😭 I completely forgot that Rook was the one who freed the gods. The game almost completely ignores that fact. we still blame solas for everything, but it would’ve been very interesting to see how Rook coped with the fact that much of the world gets even more destroyed because they accidentally unleashed Elgar’nan and Ghilan’Nain.

My immediate reaction to meeting the boss of the Grey Wardens in Veilguard (I only watched the full movie... well, 12 of the 15 hours of the full movie xD) and his dismissive attitude was "Finally someone with half a braincell!"

24:13 Reasons why my hair tends to be unkempt (low-masking, late diagnosed): Not closely observing myself in the mirror (eye-contact related?) Not knowing what impression it makes. Not caring what impression it makes. Seeing the suffering that caring about looks causes for those who do care. Seeing the suffering that people who care about looks cause for each other. On account of the previous two factors, having active disdain for people who care about looks (theirs or others). ADHD executive function issues. Autistic executive function issues. Distracted by special interests Some degree of dyspraxia. No sense of what's fashionable, no desire to learn. Mostly autistic social circle, little said about my grooming. Religious objections to caring to much about appearances or about fitting in with the crowd.

I do not believe I am neurodivergent (But my brother has ADHD and my Sister is getting tested for Autism so you never know), BUT here are some things that I have noticed that I do while watching this that are "Autistic" Traits. 1. I stim a lot, Singing, Figeting with my hands, Making random sounds, etc. 2. I have a lot of SPINs, Deltarune, Delicious in dungeon, ULTRAKILL, Sonic, etc. 3. Proprioception: I dance a lot, sit in my chair weird ways, spin, and walk on tiptoes (That's just because I'm awake a 4 AM lmao) 4. I only wear clothes that I don't find itchy, and I ALWAYS remove the tags from my clothes. And GOD I fuckin' hate hugs (Exteroception) Notes: 20:29 I saw H and Blue. I consider myself to have low empathy. And I dislike socializing. ONCE AGAIN, I am not self-diagnosing, I don't think I have Autism, But my brother has ADHD so I probably have that.

I feel like the opening scene from dragon age 5 is going to be varric closing a book and saying “thank god, it was just fiction” then the “dragon age: dreadwolf” pans across the screen and we all collective say “ohhh THIS is the sequel to inquisition”

Your video gives some great food for thought and narrows down one of the reasons why I couldn't connect with my Rook. It took a lot of headcanon and overriding existing dialogues/scenes in the game to somewhat connect with the protagonist. They really did Rook guilty not allowing them to react to the events they put in motion in a deeper, more meaningful way. Their overall writing is so clumsy I just stopped caring which dialogues options I was choosing as there were just a few consequences to those. I'm looking forward to more content from you on the game.

I really appreciate you making this video. The first 2 minutes identified really strongly who I was in my relationship to dragon age and why I spent the first 10 hours of the game narrating out loud to my partner how this was functionally and technically a decent game, but not at all the sort of game that I would have bought if it weren't Dragon Age. They spoon fed us exposition so much that it felt like "Baby's first Dragon Age; Star Wars edition"... Which is to say big-box-bullshit-gloss-over of complex fandom stitc- work that made the whole thing enjoyable to fans who got in when we were starved for things like NWN. While it was a fun game, I had to aggressively wrestle down my expectations for a nuanced and interesting story in order to enjoy a game that does well at being enjoyable from a purely gameplay perspective.

Veilgaurd definitely suffered from development hell. The main Creative Director left Bioware in 2017. The game got switched from Dragon Age Dreadwolf to a live service game and rebranded as Veilguard. Then, they canceled the live service part after fan criticism and had to rush making Veilguard a somewhat functioning RPG. It sucks that this series got the Andromeda treatment.

I feel like the clean slate aspect of rpg player character narrative design could address the "Why is rook here?" part of this video. If the player has a set of characters they normally draw from, particularly if those characters have developed lore pre-existing in the players mind... The writers might have intentionally left that aspect of things ambiguous for the player to imprint their imagination on.

This game is lacking reactivity. Minus a few “large” moments in game-nothing you do feels matters. Which is.. just bonkers considering what the game is about, and the rich lore that’s been provided via years of writing.. I knew it was joever for BioWare after ME: Andromeda released, but I never thought the new Dragon Age would be.. this shallow. All very sad, very sad. There were years of my life spent pondering about Tevinter, the Qun, the Maker… and it’s genuinely a bit sad to me that this is where it’s ended up. What a waste, you know? Anyway, at least the older games will continue on existing. I think DA:V will be left to rot in it’s unvisited grave in a year or so. Cheers x

Love the video, I am pretty sure I'm autistic, I definitely have adhd, and I agree with all but a few takes of yours, so I wanted to voice them with all respect to you. Anyone who "doesn't understand hierarchies" is just better at understanding freedom. Maybe that's just an opinion, but speaking out when things are wrong, especially in the face of authority is so on the other side of all space and time from "not understanding" something

I really didn't understand why I was being treated as the boss when I never made any decisions until the very end. Like I'm not the one deciding who to recruit or how to proceed the plan or anything. Rook is just the person who can talk to Solas for everyone lol

What you described is the Rook and beginning I wish we had.

Thor was the character that got me into the MCU. I watched the first Thor films more than any sane person should between the ages of 11-13. I spent years being a Thor 1 stan and defender before Love & Thunder made people switch up on it. I will say, it's strange being on both sides of loving the Shakespearean tone Kenneth Branagh brought to the start of the series while also loving the comedic kooky tone Taika switched to. I had truly believed he saved the character at the time, the same way Winter Soldier had saved Steve Rogers. Looking back now, although I still love the film deeply, it should've been one and done for Taika and Fiege still should've had someone watching production/filming. I believe that if Dark World and *especially* Thor's presence in Age Of Ultron hadn't been received so poorly by both audiences and Hemsworth himself, Kevin Fiege wouldn't have felt the need to take such a drastic turn for Ragnarok. It worked for a while, but it was a detriment in the long term.

:)

They hate the player so they are denied everything.

While I was playing this game one night my 6 year old saw it and asked "Paw Patrol?" I was dying laughing.......and then I started to cry. Yes my son, this is paw patrol.

So, the impression that I got while playing the game on the "why Rook?" question: Rook felt much more like a Mass Effect protagonist than a Dragon Age protagonist in a way. Shepard was kind of special in that they had terrible knowledge that very few believed, but they didn't have some kind of special powers that made them uniquely capable of fighting the threat. What was special about them was just their tenacity and ability to gain allies, and "a certain set of skills." Kind of a John Connor (Terminator) situation. Rook is more or less the same, just not done as well as Shepard, of course. But the impression still came through for me, muddled as it was.

"Why am I here?" was my mantra for all 38 hours I played it. I finally uninstalled it. Booting it up after work felt like an obligation and a chore. Rook felt like an assistant manager in a startup company. Everyone is here because they need connections and paychecks-- art imitates life something something long enough to become the villain. Missing that $70 rn.

I live the videos that compare this games writing to balders gate 3 it lets you see exactly how important good writing is to any story

Ever wondered if going the character creator route was the wrong choice to begin with? Maybe Rook should've been an established character who had a certain look and feel to them? I know that would've been a departure from the previous DA games but Veilguard already was that, so why not go all in? You've all seen how well it works in the Witcher series, and now that we have a trailer for the fourth game, it's become clear that the devs are doubling down on that model by making Ciri, another established character, the new protagonist instead of letting you create your own witcher.

I was thinking about this before the game came out and concluded that the personal connection would be Rooks guilt over seeing the gods free. I can't believe that they DIDN'T take that route! Why set that up to not follow it through??

loved the video. Game is like a 7.5 out of 10. I genuinely enjoyed the game but I found a lot of the writing to be inconsistent and the tone didnt feel right at times.

awesome video!

I even believe when Rook says "I did bad things, not too terrible" the writers ONLY thought about the shallow "origins" story within one of the factions. Again, mistakes that were made off screen and that we didn't get to see. Why should we feel with Rook if we don't even know exactly what happened? Also, the origins are, as for as I know, literally mentioned once: when you meet your faction. That's so lame, Jesus christ

Rook being so irrelevant to their own game was very... Noticable. I kept asking "why is Rook existing" throughout this game. I was constantly reminded of Corrine Busche's statement about how Veilguard is different from past games because the older ones had companions join in on *your* journey, but "Veilguard is you being on their journey"... And she was right. In a way that I don't think is good, narratively speaking. It also doesn't help things with Rook being so.... Rigidly undefined. Rook has a personality. An unchanging, bland and banal personality. "A hero designed by an HR committee" is what I would describe Rook's personality as.

I felt nothing for Rook and thanks to the “great” character creator this was the first protagonist in the DA series that I didn’t like looking at. So overall Rook felt as empty as the background story for him/her. Would have preferred Inquisitor or almost any other member from the team to be the protagonist.

THIS GAME NEED TO BE NOT CANON OF THE SAGA

I don't agree with some of the points raised here. I think you can make an argument for any of these protagonist traits. a) Rook has been tracking Solas for a year and once Varric gets taken out, why wouldn't they continue the mission? Perhaps they don't demonstrate a lot of guilt or remorse, but that's not the only way to have a stake. b) After the ritual, Rook has a direct connection with Solas, which no one else has. Solas is the best source of information on the Evanuris, so that's an important asset. c) Well, simply, who else is stepping up? The Inquisitor is tied up in the South and no one else seems willing or qualified to lead the charge.

They could have easily put in the backstories as quick origins as a callback to the first game, but no. They want the player to always feel good so Rook must be the big hero who knows best and never be allowed to blame themselves for anything. As if these games didn't fluff the player characters enough already.

This game killed Dragon Age

I find it funny that with the backgrounds you can pick for Rook, you eventually recruit someone else more competent from the same faction... With the exception of maybe Shadow Dragons and I guess Lords of Fortune if you do some mental gymnastics that they work in different departments within their faction. The game never really bothered to justify why Rook deserves the leader spot besides being able to 'solve problems'. I also found some of the moments that the game chooses to highlight Rook's special 'problem solving skills' are kind of lame and awful?? Like trying to trigger a domino effect to disrupt the ritual, which is kind of an insane idea when you factor in that each pillar has a limited probability of knocking into the next pillar thus compounding the failure rate of said plan. And anyway not that the pillar plan mattered anyway because Solas merely swatted it aside and it was Varric that actually succeeded in disrupting the ritual when he pounced on Solas... Or using the ballista bolt to stop Ghilan'nain because everyone else got way too excited over the dragons being defeated and forgot about Ghilan'nain. Is it too much to ask the writers for smarter plans, or even plans that involve clever trickery to draw further delicious comparisons to the 'God of Trickery and Deceit'?? The fact that most of Rook's problem solving ideas are so chaotic and improbable to succeed just makes it even more strange why Rook is the leader. They really have no real way to prove why they deserve the position especially with way that some NPCs can outright blame or dismiss Rook (or even pull a trick that spans like 90% of the game, in one of the more significant cases). As it stands, Rook seem more like Mr Bean in the Mr Bean game rather than a respected, strategic hero trying to prevent a world-ending scenario. I still love the game greatly. I just mourn how much greater it could have been, and how badly it crumbles under closer inspection.

4:28 The funny thing is that the Inquisitor has ALL three characteristics, Rook has none.