I am yet to see the elitism the community claims Origins fanboys have because I only encountered hate towards them, but I am lowkey on their side almost always (currently playing DAO for first time.)
Bruh Harding was barely a character in Inquisition. A last minute tacked on personality in DLC doesn't count. The awkwardness fits her considering her farm girl origin.
@@Drums_of_Liberation "Last minute tacked on personality?" I'm replaying Inquisition now and her personality is obvious if you actually choose to talk to her in her scenes, as well as at Skyhold.
Exactly. I am a gameplay first person but the way they made the world and the stories made me love BioWare even more. They made worlds that pulled you in and made you care about the characters.
@@Icipher353 Yep, I mean, I know I’m just dying to play a Bioware game where all the characters talk in quippy Guardians of the Galaxy cringe, like millennials at a BBQ. And where the characters just straight tell you what you’re supposed to think.
@@sub-jec-tivRook was such a boring character. I actually hated the character that is supposed to be ME in the game. But no, boring, always agreeing and really bad dialogue options...but we had no real agency so it might as well have been another NPC and we were just witnessing the story, not really participating.
Actually the design isn't good either. Let's take Nevarra for example. Yes, here we have the Grand Necropolis which is full of skulls, skeletons and the Pentaghast coat of arms. All right, it works. But then we go to a manor owned by a local noble family. And it has exactly the same design as the Necropolis - skulls, skeletons and the Pentaghast coat of arms. But why?! Is Nevarra just about skulls and death now? How do these people suppose to live there? Even their bed has a giant skull. Imagine if the Cousland manor in Origins had mabaris everywhere. Why a Nevarran companion from the previous game was a better representation for her country with her hairstyle, accent and stories than the actual country itself in this game? None of the Nevarrans in Veilguard have Cassandra's accent or crown braid, I purposely examined every NPC in the Necropolis. Not to mention that Emmrich's parents' tombs have the Pentaghast coat of arms but they were commoners as he confesses in a banter with Harding. It is evident that the designers didn't have any idea about the lore... It's just so lazy and lame.
I’m not saying you don’t have good points, but you’re letting your anger cloud your memory about Cassandra and her character. Inquisition goes out of its way MULTIPLE times to drive the fact that Cassandra DOES NOT like or represent her homeland home. That all she even really cared about in Navarra was her brother, and after his death she didn’t care about ANYTHING that had to do with her past anymore. Cassandra showed this same trait when she left the Chantry to form the Inquisition. When she makes up her mind. She commits 100%. Anything that happened before no longer matters. The expert Mortalitasi brought in from Navarra to guide a mage inquisitor is quite a bit more like Emmrich and the Mourne Watch we meet in Veilguard.
When you brought up Harding, I was reminded of something. I remember her being a little awkward but I also remember her mentioning her job as a scout was essentially her first job outside her home town. So of course she was going to be. However, it's been ten years as you said. And somehow she ends up acting more like Dagna than she did like a professional version of her younger self. It's a bit jarring and can't help but wonder if the writers got some wires crossed when writing her.
@@Berendir In agreement there. Story felt tailor made for Dagna. The Dwarf who wanted to study magic suddenly able to use it? Seems like natural character progression for her.
I honestly think the writers/devs mixed up Dagna with Harding. Thought that on day 1. The personality of this character is totally wrong for Harding. She was socially inexperienced, not a totally naive child. She was trained by Leliana FFS, there's no WAY she's as clueless as she is in Veilguard..
There was also lore implication in the secret ending that kinda just took away all the character agencies of everyone from back in Origins, DA2, and inquisition. It feels a little disrespectful for the new writers to interfere with the canon of the older writers like that.
It does not remove agency if i punch square in the face. And you learn it was bill's idea am i absolved? Its cheesy to just drop that with much context but it doesnt remove agency. It also make them look kinda silly the ancient elves could have ended the world 😅😅
It reminds me of the similar situation with lore regarding World of Warcraft in the Shadowlands expansion. New writers come and say "Our generic cosmic threat guy was miles ahead with his 200IQ moves. It was him all along!"
I remembered that during my playthrough, I was being so forgiving at every weird decision, hopefull that it would lead to a deeper conclusion, a more meaningful message. But no. At the end of my first 80h playthrough, after having read all codex entries, having done all companion and side missions, I felt so incredibly empty. Like, "is that it? This is the story I've been waiting for for 10 years?" And now, a couple of weeks removed from that first playthrough, I'm just so incredibly frustrated and disappointed. There is so much potential for good storytelling and writing in the settings, the characters, with what happens in the game. But that potential is never met. Everything is only as deep as a puddle. I definitely feel the absence of the original creators. And I deeply grieve the fact that, if not for a complete miracle, we will never truly get a satisfying conclusion to this world that we've come to love.
Yeah, I had the same experience, the second play-through was honestly so boring and felt so meaningless, if I wasn’t doing a review I wouldn’t have done it, which is really sad because I loved the replay ability of these games so much.
Just curious, was either of you a solas lavellan romance player? I have noticed this dragon age fanship is more forgiving of VG cause we kinda got the ending we were waiting for after inquisition.
@@hanli5416 I am a solavellan shipper, and even with their fairly sweet ending leaning heavy into the mythology angle, the game just felt empty. it's too sanitized, there's nothing to get genuinely passionate about. even companions who should have been even middlingly controversial were just.. . . Fine. it was all Fine.
@@Drums_of_Liberation Lucanis is both heir to the seat of the First Talon of the Crows, and an abomination. Bellara has spent years dedicating her life to learning and using dangerous ancient magicks. Davrin is a Warden in a post- mass demon summoning world. Neve is a Tevinter mage. It's not hard to see how most if not all the companions could be written to be controversial in their own ways, there's just nothing interesting to play with.
My Hawke romanced Isabella in Dragon Age 2 and is alive after Inquisition because I couldn't leave her in the Fade. Seeing Isabella not even acknowledge her mage pirate wife broke me.
That's how I felt playing Inquisitions. Listening to Morrigan and everyone else not once acknowledge that her son is the bastard and only son of the Prince-Consort of Fereldan was numbing.
I think my biggest wrinkle with Taash is, on top of the fact that they are a character who is just dreadfully written and unfun to be around, but I would have been way more marginally interested if they were a Tal-Vashoth, or that the game explored any of the implications of her non-binary gender choice in relation to the Qun outside of just that cliched "My mom doesn't understand me" trope. From what we know of the Qun, they are a deeply gendered society - a really significant interaction that shows this is in DAO when if you play as a female Grey Warden warrior, Sten will comment on that fact and make reference to the fact that you must not be a woman if you are a warrior. And it's not something that he says to be purposefully demeaning to you: he says it because he's legitimately confused, because his society has taught him that being a warrior is a trait that is intrinsic, almost biologically linked, to men, so when he sees a woman being a warrior, he is actually confused at if you are a man or not. Taash existing outside of that dynamic, literally rejecting the notion of being both a male and a female to the Qun and being branded a Tal-Vashoth, could have made for a super compelling companion. I mean, come on, there has been an apostate mage party member for literally every game, we had the opportunity for a Tal-Vashoth Qunari companion and the devs just took the easy, lazy way out.
Iron Bull can become Tal Vashoth so it's not like we never had one. My problem with this Taash storyline is that under the Qun Taash would just be a man. They don't got anything going for them that doesn't fit the Qunari male gender role. Maybe if they actually had some parts of their personality that would fit within the female gender roles this story could've happened. It actually makes no sense to me why the mom even fled the Qun to protect Taash from being made a warrior when they ended up a warrior anyway?? To me it seems like if they had never gone to Rivain they would've been very happy to just be an antaam or Ben hassrath or whatever under the Qun
I feel the biggest problem with all the companions is that you learned so much about them way to fast. Also the fact that they immediately trust you with these very personal problems and pretty much make everything Rooks decision despite knowing them for like 10 minutes. It feels like there’s no depth to any of them since you don’t have to actively learn anything about them and they just shove it in your face.
@@Berendir sorry for ranting btw. I just feel so disappointed and I’m not even a long term fan of the franchise. I can’t imagine what diehard fans of the game feel rn Wonderful video as well, keep it up 👍
@@Berendir Fr I understand why they got rid of the question wheel from inquisition but in the end it made the companions feel more real in the sense that you had to ask them yourself to learn about them. It also made it so there was more to them outside of their quests. For a companion based game they really dropped the ball. The only reason I think I’ll ever replay is for the character creator and the cutscenes bc those were the best parts (and the fights even if they were sorta repetitive)
I never felt like Rook was included in the group relationship within the lighthouse setting. Mine just walked up on people talking at times and got glared at until they walked off after “their” discussion! No Hi Rook, how are you doing?
Bold to make this and 90+ minute video instead of the more strategic move of milking it over several videos to gain traction. I can tell their was burning passion behind the making of this video.
Haha thanks! Even though this particular game was a disappointment I love the series and my critiques came from a place of love. Hope you enjoyed the video!
Ah, I've seen a few smaller channels get a lot of new subscribers from making videos on this and I can't get too mad about it. I got to see a few videos from a trans perspective on the whole thing and that was really eye-opening. I'm glad they're capitalising on it, I guess
@@mikeydflyingtoaster pertaining to the whole “woke” discourse around the game I’m indifferent. It was more how cringe they made taash’s story I think if they had a much more interesting character with a more nuanced discussion around being nonbinary I would have enjoyed seeing how that played out.
@@Berendirthinking about how they could have tied Taash feelings to the qun was a huge missed opportunity. Why have your own fantasy setting if you are going to bluntly inject a social issue like it’s happening in contemporary life. Iron bull said there were no women who fought, except the ones they decided to treat like men. They executed it in the most boring way possible
@@Berendir Agreed, Taash's gender had nothing to do with that. Just their personality was very offputting and did not actuzally humor their story for me. I was many times annoyed at them for rude remarks towards my character or the others even late game.
They made an offhand comment in the artbook about how EA forced them to use this art style because it is way less cost-intensive, and management simply liked it more (which just means they have terrible taste). They said that the comic style essentially removed up to 2 years of development time because it is just way easier to implement than the pseudo-realism of Inquisition or the stylized fantasy painting vibe from Origins and 2
Yeah some of the things I’ve seen in the art book were actually really cool. Some of the detained things that were going to make it in the game that didn’t were also really promising. Makes me wonder if we will ever get good games from these massive producers who buy studios again.
@@BerendirI don't need to wonder. Nothing new. Either EA has them well grabbed or BW leadership is spineless, but they fell into this design pattern after Origins. DA2 had several issues out of trend chasing design. Inquisition largely uninteresting large world chased Skyrim. DAV is DA2 tenfold in this regard. Only DA I can say has its own vision is Origins. Regarding writing... it's sad that after seeing that visuals and combat were going for what someone thought was the most popular, so many believed writing wouldn't be affected. Come on. How many times do people need to get burned before they stop jumping into what's clearly fire?
@@r.kolemaistos7788 I have no idea thats what they said. My guess is that aniamtion is really hard to do in that style given that Origins basically has no facial movement/ really bad movement animations.
@1:02:25 The thing that bugged me the most about the storytelling is that they never trust the player to figure anything out. I love seeing "...[character name] will remember this..." popups that tell you to watch for repercussions without explicitly telling you what those repercussions are. I hated seeing the popups in this game that spell everything out.
this and also to a lesser extent the little cutscenes after *every single story quest* saying that my actions have consequences. I love Varric's narration, don't get me wrong, but ffs let me learn these things organically instead of ruining any suspense or tension by telling me that something is going to happen!
i feel the same with the lore. so many ambiguous and nuanced concepts about spirits, gods, factions, cultures, religions, magic etc etc now everything is just out there. used to love not knowing everything and being ‘wrong’, having history be the unreliable narrator was sooo unique, but for the first time ever i have exactly 0 questions after playing a dragon age game
And there's this Inquisitor letter or codex entry that mention that the whole of South Thedas has been blighted to destruction except Redcliff which feels like all the things you've done from the past 3 games meant little and left a bad taste imo
Two more thoughts: can you imagine the drama and conflict if morrigan, who has for her whole life been terrified of being consumed by another soul, realizes her son has within him the soul of another being? And re: the ending, what I don't understand is WHY they had every ending holding up the veil. The veil coming down has been foreshadowed for multiple games, and it being in place is the cause of like. All of the mage conflict, which caused a civil war basically. They obviously wanted a clean slate for the next game, but instead of having a big worldchange with the veil coming down, they decided to....... just torch every land that had been explored in previous games. Insane to me. Anyway, fantastic video, I loved this breakdown a lot!
Thanks for the nice comment! Glad you enjoyed it, and yeah the ending was an absolute bummer. If they wanted a fresh start at least let us decide to destroy the veil or not and then just make a canon choice for the next games.
Problem though, Morrigan would know her son has the soul of another that was literally the whole point of the dark ritual in Origins so there would be no drama unless the boy showed signs that the old god soul was taking over his body.
@@Drums_of_Liberation I mean, that's what I'm saying? People can know something without realizing the full implications until later on. It would have been an interesting character moment. But unfortunately when they tried to input Morrigan's previous characterization into this game, they got a 404 error
14:35 as a colorblind person, I HATE the way support is implemented in this game. They just put a blanket color filter on the screen, which completely fucks the game experience. I do NOT want all the red lights to appear blue, I just want the UI to be readable so I can interact with the game. I turned it off after seeing that Treviso is neon green with my colorblindness settings turned on. This is an extremely bad and lazy way to include colorblind people.
The ending mission is essentially a direct copy of Mass Effect 2's final suicide mission, but that mission was so good unlike here. The whole ordeal with the story reminds me more of WoW Shadowlands' storytelling, where everything is revealed to be part of a grand plan by a cosmic villain who somehow knows everything that has happened and will happen. I suppose one could argue that this was also inspired by Marvel's storytelling. 1:35:14 wtf I thought we were gonna play it together! D:
Yeah in ME2 they didnt tell you you had to do the mission or companions would die there was also ways to not meet the requirements and ways to fail companion missions. Veilguard made a shit tier imitation. Not to mention ME2 had likable and interesting characters where there are none in Veilguard.
@@BodaciousDerb My favorite was, towards the end when you have to assign a bunch of your party members, you have to pick someone to fight the war mage in the city. And Lucanis comments about how they should probably send someone, and then it pops up with the decision and says something like "you should probably send someone who is sneaky, good at ambushes or good at killing mages, hint hint." Gosh, I wonder who the game is trying to signal for me to pick.
I highly disagree with you on the music here. Its not phenomenal at all. Its sounds very generic and most of the time the music doesnt even fit the scenes its playing in. I'm on my third playthrough now, and I still dont remember a single song except the one that plays in the main menu. The music is just that unimpactful and basic/generic. Trevor Morris did a much better job with Inquisition. So many memorable songs. Like Journey to Skyhold, and epic song to an epic ending of the first chapter. The title song of course. The exploration music (especially in the Emerald Graves/Mythals temple). The song that played when the Inky gets their memories back in the fade. Those are even in the Inquisition customization screen in Veilguard. Then the bard songs. The Trespasser soundtrack, omg. Sorry, but Veilguard cant compete with that. Not in the slightest. Its obvious hans Zimmer didnt work on this game, only on the main theme at best. The rest was probs done by his trainees, lol. At least thats what it sounds like.
I do have to admit the only songs that did stand out to me were the ones that dipped into melodies from the older games. I guess I didn’t really sit down and think about the fact that those were the only memorable songs to me. Thanks for that, it’s actually a really good insight I didn’t see myself.
I was so disappointed with the music dear god; the song that plays for the prologue, as Rook scrambles through the ritual site was just. . . bad? The tone didn't fit, it felt like a hopeful song in the middle of 'this is the antagonist doing the worst thing we can conceive of' set dressing.
Yup music was poor - I appreciate getting Zimmer would have felt like a win, but it's clear that him and his team had never worked on a game before. Very disappointing especially when compared to the heights of inquisition score
Lucianis' intro scene with him sprouting wings and being an assassin with dark hair.... someone on bioware team watched Critical role or the legend of vox machina and decided they wanted Vax'ildan in the roster didn't they...?
@@Berendir It goes even further than that to be honest, the demon inside him could also be a reference to illidan, another character Liam o'brian plays in warcraft. XD Evil cannot create as the saying goes
The Veilguard design didn't grow on you, your brain just got used to how ugly it looks. It's like how people who work around garbage all day eventually become numb to the smell so much so that it doesn't bother them anymore. Initially, Veilguard's design seems awkward and dumb. But after looking at these awkward and dumb characters for 40 hours, your brain is no longer disgusted by it. It doesn't change the fact that the character design is horrendous, especially since the original concept art was just leaked and we can see the characters originally looked more in line with the traditional Dragon Age style.
Yeah the artbook had some really cool character designs in it. I heard it was cheaper and easier to to produce this art style and that’s why they made the switch. I don’t know how reliable that info is, but it is a bummer.
@@Berendir I think it's accurate to an extent, but there's also a content creator (Look up: Dragon Age 4 Veilguard: Turn OFF That Cartoon Effect - Graphics and Performance Comparison) who jury rigged a way to remove all the bloom and most of the ray tracing. It's bizarre how much difference it made, even to how palatable the character designs are. The game is MUCH darker, the wet/slimy areas in the game stand out AS wet and slimy instead of just shiny, and the character models look MUCH less... smooth. Without all that glow bouncing around from every angle the shadows get a chance to highlight shapes and add depth. It LOOKS much more like a DA game. Doesn't help the utterly cringy writing, but it at least looks the part without all the light pollution.
I am surprised at how few people comment on what you said about how everything lore related was so "neatly" wrapped up, leaving essentially nothing for the future except for the new big bad from the secret ending (I hated that to be honest, its like Jailor from wow seemingly, anyone who read the Origins books, or even just paid attention in the game would know that its complete bs), but it makes sense that they wanted to wrap everything up (and part of me is glad even if its not all to my satisfaction) because of how much this game wipes the slate clean. Essentially all of our decisions from previous games and all the places we knew were wiped off the face of Thedas, its as world reset as they come in Fantasy settings :X Even beyond it being poorly done and unnecessary, I just dont believe that anything this new Bioware will put out to replace what they destroyed will be remotely as good. Needless to say I quite midway through my second playthrough of Veilguard, I just wasnt interested and I did most of what I wanted to do at that point anyway, the game only has enough content for two playthroughs anyway imo, and immidiately went to DA 2 which I considered, untill now, the worst of DA games (tho only mildly worse than Inquisition as a whole for me, I always liked it, it just wasnt as good). First I wanted to confirm that it indeed is much better than Veilguard and to find out if its just me that changed and not the series, my memories served me well and DA 2 is indeed miles ahead of Veilguard, at least in the aspects I care about (to say nothing of Origins) but I also still really enjoyed it and went on to rediscover how much fun the various different conversations are depending on whether you have friendship or rivalry with the characters, or even how different Hawke sounds and how he/she reacts depending on your prevailing personality etc., it was a game with many great ideas that was simply pushed out too fast, it is still timeless (again, to say nothing of Origins), whereas Veilguard is just product of its time. In the attempt at making this the grandest stage with the biggest stake yet, they completely forgot and forgone what made even the smaller stakes and personal stories meaningful and interesting to us... that or they just lost the ability.
First off, thank you for giving us a thorough, thoughtful breakdown and analysis on the game. It is difficult to judge the quality of the game when so many other content creators are concerned with commentary on the identity politics of the game. I've played Origins and DA media since it came out in '09, and I gotta say - I can't bring myself to pay this much for something this awful. You said it perfectly: this isn't an RPG, this is an action game with RPG elements. And the writing is atrocious - it really feels like everything was recorded in a kindergarten managed by Joss Whedon. I'm also so dismayed that the villains have been boiled down to 'evil because evil' in a franchise that gave us Teyrn Loghain. It's so disheartening to see this when there's modern examples like General Ketheric Thorm to draw from and learn from. It's unacceptable in an era that gave us the Witcher 3, Cyberpunk, and Baldur's Gate 3 for a AAA studio to perform this poorly in terms of a written narrative imo. Hell, even Diablo 2 seems to have better writing, and the main character never speaks! It saddens me to see one of my favorite franchises that I've followed since I was a teen morph into another corporate Marvel fingerpainting, but there it is. I grieve with you, my brother. In death, sacrifice.
Dont forget DA2 villains. They were great. And they were not evil. Meredith, Anders, The Arishok and Orsino. None of them were evil, they were the products of each other and did what they deemed was the right thing to do for the greater good. Da2 had a lot of problems, but the story and writing was not one of them
@@simonjohansson7529Meredith absolutely was evil or Kirkwall's Templars wouldn't have been as corrupt as they were. And that's before the red lyrium idol.
@Drums_of_Liberation i disagree. She was hard as shit and used alot of excessive force. Was it bc she was a sadist or bc she had seen a ton of mages going bonkers killing and sacrificing a shit ton of innocents during her life?
While there's a big issue with game design here, I do feel like many of the (bad) choices come down to the weird development cycle, where the old writers started work on a direct sequel, then it flipped to live service, then they resurrected the game. Basically they cobbled together the bits they had from each dev cycle in the easiest way possible, which left a linear mess. For example, there are plenty of analyses which show only 10%-20% of gamers actually like "playing evil." As a result, putting a lot of effort into constructing genuinely bad moral choices means you're creating content most players will never see. From a cost-benefit analysis (the way a corporation thinks) this isn't profitable, especially when you've been in development hell for six years. I think the lack of any consequences from previous player actions is also because of this - it would take more coding, more voice acting, more everything if they provided a less linear experience. The weird tonal whiplash is also I think a result of this. It seems like a lot of the game's lore was built out prior to Gaider & Laidlaw leaving. I think there are even some assets which survived from that era still in the game. They then built out a lot of the bigger maps and basic game mechanics during the "live service" era (companions are likely underwhelming, for example, because the game was meant to be co-op). The underwhelming mid-game "filler" (and probably a lot of the dialogue) were shunted into the game last. TBH, the issues of The Veilguard are to some extent not that different than Dragon Age 2, which was greeted very negatively due to a plot that railroaded you heavily at the end, action-style combat which was boring with limited enemy design, etc. The main difference is that game was also slagged by the cheap reuse of small, ugly levels, where here, I think they had the big maps like Minrathous finished years ago, so the rush was just to fill the areas with more story content - which was largely done by shunting the personal quests of the companions into the maps.
Yeah the hellos development cycle of this game was a large contributor. Honestly I think Anthem was almost as bad for Dragon Age as it was on its own. This game is a story of extremely poor studio management more than anything, which is becoming quite a trend in recent years.
I totally agree: eating the last breadstick is way worse than misgendering someone. You can easily correct someone for not realizing you have non-standard pronouns, but the breadsticks are gone for good.
Yea... as a trans guy, misgendering being treated like it was really irks me. They complain about people making a big deal, while making a big deal?! That's not the message I want people to have, just correct yourself and move along, no need for that whole conversation.. People are scared to interact with us cause they're scared of being yelled at for making mistakes.
58:53 "I don't really do that in games" - implying that you only romance men in real life. ;) Jokes aside, great review. But as an old Thedosian I won't play it after seeing all my worst fears materialise. It might be petty, but at some point us fans have to vote with our wallets, otherwise we will never be taken seriously by the corporate suits.
I gotta say, I think the game would've benefitted from making the companion quests more tied to the main plot a LOT. Imagine Davrin's quest as a monster hunter leading you to memories in the Fade of Ghilan'nain first creating the halla and griffons and slowly becoming obsessed with creating monster, like the ones he hunts. Or Bellara being an agent of Fen'harel, having conflicting emotions upon learning of his mistakes but ultimately deciding he's better than the other gods because he does care about his people (saving the Dalish for example) and how that plays into saving her brother who is so loyal to a god who'd kill him with no hesitation. Or Harding getting a quest figuring things about the Blight because of the connection to the Titans and finding information the Hero of Ferelden left behind. I'm sure I could make an essay about how every companion could be connected in some manner with their factions AND the main plot, and it would've helped make them feel more fleshed out, by having them rralize things slowly and having thw whole game to come to twrms with everything they learn and maybe even clash at times. Ultimately I agree with you, I don't play BioWare games for their gameplay but it's obvious that's the sirection they've been trying to go in for a long time, at least since Mass Effect 2, to appeal to a broader audience. And it saddens me because the writers back then and up until now have made comments about how they're left aside by the company (Trick Weekes and others made a few comments in bluesky that hint to this frustation which Gaider voiced back in 2016). So for me, I played this game one to get the closure, it wasn't nearly as good as I hope because I saw the bones of a great game in the story and codex entries. Instead it left me sad and disappointed for all the nuance that was lost (what happened to Solas changing his mind about the worth of this world and realising the elves can carve their own future that Felassan hinted at in Masked Empire for example?). I am left sad and disappointed and, above all, heartbroken because now I know I'll never buy another BioWare game again if this is how they'll treat their writing aspect.
I really feel like Veilguard just took all the amazing lore setup from the previous games and rushed unsatisfying conclusions to all of it, just for the sake of resetting the series and doing their own thing.
Thanks for the great video, I enjoyed it a lot! The greatest crime of Veilguard writing is the abandonment of themes. The dialog, boring questing and almost every other problem from my perspective stems from it. We learn more about slavery in Tevinter from DA2, then from Veilguard - the game set in Tevinter. We have no dailish culture in the game where two of the dailish gods return to Thedas. We have close to none information about the Qunari, despite one of our companions being a cossith and having Antaam as antagonists. Antivan Crows suddenly become freedom fighters and protectors of Antiva - because apparently killing for money can sustain the whole wide syndicate targeting only "bad" people. Etc. World of Origins and DA2 was full of systemic injustice, systemic cruelty and corruption. It was the failure of those systems that provided antagonists for those games, that empowered them. Even in the Inquisition there was some of it, despite the main antagonist being "Evil pseudo-god with a dragon". But Veilguard just put a whole ton of bleach over all of this, said "you are all the cookie-cutter good guys, and you are fighting the Bad, Blighted guys, have fun!" and proceeded to make smug faces at the previous games with it "reveals" how everything before was actually the work of some secret evil people. Don't get me wrong, not every story has to be about society failures (for example, I love BG3, which antagonists can also be simplified down to 'bad guys serving bad gods craving for power'; although it has some interesting, more personal themes of it's own). But if you're making a Dragon Age game, this refusal to touch any non-PG13 rated subjects with a ten-foot poll will be your ruin. Also bad dialogue. It feels so sterile, you could've preformed surgeries with it, were it not so dull.
1:07:33 - The crazy thing is that Taash was written by Trick (formerly Patrick) Weekes. The same writer who wrote both Mordin and Solas. I’m baffled by the disparity in writing quality considering what they’ve done before.
Yeah I wish I had actually looked at who wrote taash but I have to confess it was so hard to keep track of every aspect I was talking about that the writers of the characters kinda slipped through the cracks. When I found out it was Weekes I was actually stunned.
This is easily the best review out there. Totally broke down everything in such a clear way, really nailing all the good and bad points with the game. And as what one of the other posters said, you clearly show how knowledgeable and passionate you are about the franchise. Fantastic work!
Thank you! It's been so hard to have a genuine conversation without the culture war warriors. The narrative and characters are indeed very bad but not because of who they are or the subject they discussed. The execution is just awful, with no nuance or depth, and that's a flaw in media, no matter what side of the aisle it falls on.
I don't think I agree to be honest. I think the subject matter and its execution often go hand-in-hand. I guess it depends on what someone defines as 'woke'. For me, wokeness is not synonymous with diversity or LGBT themes or narratives. It really annoys me when any plotline including a gay person is scoffed at
This has been my biggest issue. The Acolyte was in the exact same situation. It was a very poor show to me overall, but the culture warriors made it about the little weak shit. Not the bad writing choices.
Can we stop pretending like the two things aren't connected DEI hiring practices are the complete opposite of merit based hiring and is a direct result of this far left ideology. Even if you removed the overt political propaganda you still have a story that doesn't understand the fundamentals of writing because the people working on them have no idea what they're doing. To ignore the culture war is to ignore the real reason media is declining.
Good title, you caught my attention well beyond all the clickbait-y ones that I've been auto-rejecting in the YT algorithm. I came for an in-depth analysis, and I sure did get it. I did not pre-order or purchase Veilguard at launch, I waited and watched real players not under NDA's playing before deciding. And as an og DA fan seeing what happened to the writing, plot, characterization, dialogue, choices, I was increasingly sick at heart. But my god, the reconned lore! A single slide of innuendo that up-ended an entire franchise. Now I understand why so many of my og tribe have said that they immediately started up a new play of Origins: it's their balm and palate cleanser. The red flags for this game were there all along, too bad so many of us ignored them to live on our hopes. Bioware did not spend 10 years developing Veilguard. They pissed away 6 of them starting and tossing out (classic Bioware development, btw), including unloading senior people who used to have a hand on the brakes of the creative. Then came the market speak: 'curated experience'. And that trailer. And the travesty of the 'Early Reviews'. In the end, old fans got exactly what was advertised and nothing but delusions of what could have been. For those who have hung in there for over a decade, we've been made to feel stupid for investing our energy and precious entertainment hours in a franchise that does not give a shit about us or their own legacy. I love Marvel when it's doing Marvel, not when it's being shoehorned as the new blueprint for Dragon Age. I love Disney/Pixar when it's not the new art style for Dragon Age characters, especially returning legacy characters. And I especially do not love lazy writing in a dark fantasy franchise that was once held up as a beacon for being unafraid to 'go there' with dark themes. Your vid was thoughtful, measured, you showed your work and backed your arguments. To quote Admiral David Anderson to Cmd. Shepard: "You did good, son." Here's my sub, please do keep at it.
Old veterans having hope felt so weird to me. I've observed very much rose tinted glasses regarding DA2 lately, especially writing wise (no, it isn't good), but that game having been one of my greatest burns ever, I learned to look for the warning signs, and DAV had most of the same, tenfold, and some new ones.
@@StNerevar76 so much this. People praising DA2 and DA:I as great Dragon Age games just leaves me baffled. Like people praising DA2's combat evenso that game killed all tactics by having enemies spawn all around your party in waves killing tactical positioning which is a core feature of tactics in general. Stuff like that is the reason why DAV has damage immune companions and forced game design to make rogues and mages tanky since your player is the only one who can take damage.
I think the adjective you were searching for at various points in your review is "adorkable". These writers really seemed to go for a young millennial "How I Met Your Mother", ukulele solo, "adorably dorky and awkward" vibe: Adorkable.
I am just half way through your review and you are one of the few who is neither overhyping the game (or leave out the unpleasant parts) or doom gloom it. You speak from my heart with most of your opinions, thank you so much.
@@Berendir After watching the further part though I want to ask you to please use the right prononce for Taash. Otherwise people will take that as a disrespect for non binarity. But don't get me wrong I also hate them... thought Oghren would be my forever worst companion followed by Anders, Vivienne and Sera but here we are.
Seeing now the end I have to say tho the other DA games also lead to the same conclution. You stop the blight in DAO, Anders blows up the chantry in DA2 and Corypheus gets killed in DAI. The secret ending was also something I was very mad at. One of the devs made clear though that these characters still had agency.
This. This right here. I was so convinced that an intern wrote Taash, and that they should never work in the industry again, then I looked it up and my jaw hit the floor. How can this person who gave us so many amazing Bioware moments drop this absolute turd in the punch bowl? It just felt like the whole storyline was meant to be a supportive after-school TV special, just dropped into Thedas without any connective tissue tying it to the story. Dorian's story was a thousand times better.
@@SpaalKodaav Saying as a trans guy, it /is/ realistic portrayal of some of us sheltered trans folk -- I see reflections in my own self in it and other people, but not ones I'm happy to see. It's not a portrayal I want to see in such a game or for such an world, where life is more dangerous, where stakes are higher. It's too... spoiled. They santizied away the bad parts of people, so they santized away real struggle, leaving this.
The game was super mid and forgettable for me, but my RUclips feed have recently been filling up with those angry videos about the latest AAA game being DESTROYED, ABANDONDED, BILLIONS LOST, NO PLAYERS etc, I don't know which side I hate more. Why can't people just chill the fuck out, be honest and sincere?
Actually a large contributing factor as to why I started my channel: I made a whole video about how Starfield was just mid and that’s ok haha. I couldn’t bear to listen to the discourse around it anymore.
Although the dialogue is awful, I have to give credit to Elgar'nan's voice actor. His performance reminds me of Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2. So much wasted potential.
Calming voice, considered perspective, balanced analysis. Love this. The game was a disappointment for me. I was highly hopeful despite initial reviews. Unfortunately, the writing had me confused in the opening, while Neve’s voice acting and all characters’ facial stagnation (weirdly placed smiles) were both immediately apparent/off-putting. What really ruined it for me was the TONE of romance dialogue: so strange, awkward, and infantile. I romanced Davrin - cringed so much. Oh and Taash: love trans and NB folks, hate how they were represented as rude, egocentric, and emotionally immature (community deserves better). Everyone was painfully unidimensional, including Rook.
I also played the game on Nightmare on my first playthrough (as a mage) and ended up making an ice magic build that just on it's own completely broke the game and trivialized the rest of the game once I got my equipment tiered up enough to really get it running. Which thank god because by the time I put Elgar'nan down I was more than over the gameplay lol.
I really hated that they got rid of the Andrastian faith and that Andraste was just a vessel of Mythal. The maker and the elven “Gods” could exist at the same time - as the elven gods were just spirits. And the maker could have been the one to make those spirits Without making the lore they created in Veilguard incorrect/world breaking. Especially because it is canon that Humans - like Qunari - are from somewhere else originally and colonized previously elven territories after the elven empire collapsed/the veil was raised. Also if they would have let you keep Keiran - you could have taken the old elven gods soul and used it to continue powering the veil Instead of giving up Solas - who is an incredible wealth of knowledge and could even share old elven knowledge that might make rebuilding easier. This game was really depressing after waiting 10 years.
Woah the Kieran idea is great, imagine people who had Kieran through the dark ritual and romanced Solas having to decide which one to hold up the veil. Ugh such a bummer to think of everything that could have been. I didn’t even go super in depth on the lack of the chantry in the game simply because I figured they either 1. Thought it too closely mirrored Christianity and wanted to take a step back from that or 2. Figured the entire previous game was centered around it and didn’t want to beat a “dead horse”. Either way kinda disappointing.
@faberofwillandmight8758 Indeed. Inquisition got me into Dragon Age, I played it for 2k hours and it is still by far my favourite of the series even though I recognise its flaws and why OG fans may not like it. Veilguard, as both a direct sequel to Inquisition and fourth installment of this franchise, fails in every sense of the word.
I'm a player who has never played a DA game until Veilguard and had no concept of the lore of the world. Also had very little exposure to DAV marketing ahead of launch. I just finished playing it, and I had a good time. I really liked the character creator and combat system, but the writing definitely felt childish, and the tone of the writing is an abysmal match for the heavy themes and stakes attached to the villains. I called this a "junk food" game, because if you can just turn your brain off to the cringe and enjoy the button mash fighting, you'll have fun. And since I had no idea what previous titles were like, I didn't experience the whiplash many longtime fans have been discussing
Athem, for all it's faults - sold like 5-6 million copies, the reputation of the company still carried alot of weight back then. I don't think it does it anymore. That's why "Return to form" message was extremely important for them to spread
Interesting video. Here are my 50 cents. Spoiler warning!! - Bloom bothered me so much that i followed the advice from the internet and set it to 0 in the ProfileOptions_Profile settings so that it was actually turned off. - Combat sounds were ok, although i found the sounds lacked a bit more impact. - The German and French versions only have one voice per gender for Rook for some reason. - The music wasn't to my taste. If it says Hans Zimmer, i expect more. - The hair doesn't have enough weight and this causes the hair to stand up when you go down in the elevator. I also complained about the short hairstyles. - Lore or not, "Dark"spawn can't even plan an ambush anymore because you can see them glowing 10km away. - I don't like the art design of Veilguard. It often broke the immersion. - the locations and environments in general werent particularly appealing. There was nothing new and it seems very generic to me. - I would have liked a setting that prevented companions from telling me how to "solve puzzles". - It's also not great that you had to wait until the third patch, which came out 5 days ago, to finally be able to bind the arrow keys. - The combat is boring and i would have liked an option to switch between simplified combat and tactical combat. - I always imagine that when the veil was torn in Inquisition and many demons came out of the fade, the two gods were lying on a beach somewhere and didn't notice anything. - When i helped Treviso in the first playthrough, i naively thought, "Okay, if Ghilan'nain is here, then Elgar'nan is in the other city." but when i helped the other city in the second playthrough, i just thought, "Wow. That's the laziest thing I've ever seen." - I also wonder why Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain aren't nearly as brutal and terrifying as Solas described them. I mean, even if they're not at full power or whatever, they should be a threat, but after the blight is released, there's not much new happening. The dragons are nothing new, you've seen all the enemies pretty quickly, and Elgar'nan ends up looking like he's from a Marvel movie. its a shame.
I love listening to video game essays while falling asleep (or trying to...). Your content is perfect for that! I especially loved your Kingdom Come Video as I'm currently playing it and having a blast. Due to the many flaws, I won't be playing Dragon Age. The Veilguard but I'm curiously following the many discussions around it. Therefore, I'm intrigued what you will have to say in this video. Here is to many more videos and a flourishing channel :)
The writing decisions are directly related to Patrick Weekes having a transition and wanting to make his author's pet character, you know the one, go through her own little transition story. That she's also the most obnoxious and downright rude and meanspirited, is a bit of a Freudian slip of the writer himself.
@@PatheticApatheticTrick Weekes is one thing but Traash doesn't deserve to have HER pronouns respected. Why should HER pronouns be respected when SHE acts like a child and has tantrums? I respect Trick Weekes because of their past work but they really fumbled with Traash. Traash and her personal quest could have been one of the most compelling stories in the game but instead she set back acceptance for non binary people and their struggle by a good few decades by acting like a Twitter/Tumblr stereotype.
I think the thing people on both sides of the woke argument don’t understand or refuse to accept is that nobody gives a shit if woke is in the game if it’s done well. If you complained about the woke in BG3 the issue is with you. I can see the complaints here.
I absolutely hate Rook as the protagonist, He/She just doesn't fit the role at all, I believe that the Inquisitor should've been the protagonist once again because at least the Inquisitor has a connection Solas.
What i find funny, is that Bioware missing an interesting opportunity to add to the world of Thedas; the humans on Thedas haven't been on the continent long enough to cause any genetic "locks" (and unlike our own world's Indo Europeans, that despite all having the same orgin people, Icelandic people look very different from the Urdu peoples, which was caused by local interbreeding.) So they could have made the Veil to act like radiation, and is causing a massive increase to mutation and causing an actual dilemma for the game
Like you, I'm a massive fan of DA, i've been playing the games since DAO, which is to my mind one of the best games ever put together. I didnt enjoy DA2 on release but went back to it after DAI which helped me to appreciate the story, but I had issues with the repeated environments and liked but didn't love the characters. DAI was fine on my first playthrough but it was each subsequent playththrough that made me fall in love with it, and I loved played as the inquisitor and am a huge fan of every character in the game. DATV feels to me, like a more polished DA2. Average characters, repeated but beautiful environments, with an okay story (although execution is poor). My main issue with DATV is Rook: I feel that im watching Rooks story rather than role playing as Rook so there's this massive disconnect between me as the player and the character. I don't understand why Varric is narrating the game like he knows what happens. Best characters by miles are Davrin and Emrich (which i think could be because of Assan and Manfred!). I think the troubled development in the focus of the game shows, and because so many of the experienced writers left or were fired from bioware, there wasn't enough experience to be able to produce a well told story in the time available. With Taash their writer Patrick Weekes also identifies as non-binary, and while everyone was excited after they were promoted to lead writer after Gaider left (as they were responsible for some amazing bioware characters in the past), it feels that their own experience as coming out as non-binary really was their focus rather than making sure that actual story tied together. I do think the team thought this was gojng to be their last dragon age game, so tried to tie up all loose ends, but in the process forgot about what had made the games great which was role playing. Im half way through my second playthrough and doubt there will be a third.
And that's the sad part. Taash and their struggle could have given us one of the most compelling characters since Loghain, but instead we got a Twitter non binary stereotype that's probably going to set back acceptance of non binary by several years. How do you go from writing the very model of a scientist salarian to doing barvs and very awkward dinners that end with temper tantrums?
The way I decided to enjoy this game was to roleplay as my origins character to add some depth to the main character, you can't really talk about your past much, so if you were the hero of Fereldan, nobody mentions it anyway and my antagonistic relationship with the 1st Warden makes more sense if I had to beat a blight on my own and I'm here trying to stop another one while he continues to ignore it just like the last. So much of the game feels like they put a lot of time and effort and creative freedom to most of the artists and designers, but then hired some fresh out of high school writers who would listen to everything the corporate overlords said for their writing direction.
I hate how all of Southern Thedas, specifically areas we've experienced and potentially cared for, are hand wiped away with a few text by the inquisitor. Ferelden, Orlais, Kirkwall and the Free Marches are royally screwed by the new blight. Hell, the off screen hand waved blight of The Veilguard apparently did more damage to Ferelden than the blight of Origins. Like, seriously??
The Disneyfication of this game is next level. I'm not the biggest fan of action combat, and if it's in a game I prefer it like Skyrim. Everything in this game retcons the lore and the combat is no exception. It's "fun" for the first hour or two, but it's just so lazy and out of place in a DA game. It erases spell casting, spirit healing, blood magic, and even LYRIUM use from the world entirely, making blood magic not a thing learned by info passed down by practitioners and learned from spirits, but twisted Ancient Elven Gods Elgar'nan and Ghilin'nain (tm). And don't get me started on the ENDLESS repetition as if we're all late stage dementia patients! Even just watching footage of the first few hours... There are videos on RUclips that count how many times they say "Ritual", "Artifact" and "Ancient Elven Gods - Elgar'nan and Ghilin'nain". It's... a lot. 🤦🤦🤣🤣 Belara is basically a Disney Princess. Even her music is Disney-esque. Harding is not much better. I mean she even sticks her damn foot in the air when she kisses. It's humiliating to even watch it. Taash is a pet peeve for me. I've had several conversations with other queer DA players, and we all agree with you. It feels like Taash's writer was actually transphobic. Seriously, the character is such a bucket list of negative stereotypes for the trans community, it's almost custom made to fuel hate for the people it's pretending to represent. I identify as nonbinary. I rarely mention it in day-to-day life. I don't ask people to use my preferred pronouns, I have it on my work email sig because it's company policy that EVERYONE notes their pronouns, but I get misgendered a dozen times a day. I categorically do NOT pull people up on it. I don't expect apologies. I don't get angry about it, I get a quiet sense of happiness when that one rare person notices and uses the correct pronouns but that's it. I absolutely, under no circumstances EVER, want someone to "pull a Bharv". Never. Again, it's humiliating just watching it. Not one single queer person I've discussed this with would EVER want that kind of spectacle, including a colleague who is also nonbinary who (and if there was ever a reason to pull a bharv this would be it!!) I regularly misgender because I'm a forgetful muppet!! They LAUGH when I do it, because they know I don't do it with malice, I'm just not perfect. I make mistakes. They don't get angry or throw a tantrum, they just chuckle at me and move on. I don't give drawn out apologies because I know that just MAKES it uncomfortable. I just facepalm, correct myself quietly and move on. That's all we ever want, nobody wants a fucking "Bharv", or any other kind of self-humiliation ritual. Ugh, it seriously feels like a deliberate attempt to fuel hatred, which to be honest is exactly what their whole "fucking tourists" marketing campaign on socials felt like. Nobody who wants to HELP marginalised communities behaves like that. The whole game is really disheartening, and it's unfortunately tainted the whole BioWare catalogue for me. I tried to replay Origins and also tried to log into SWTOR to see what's changed since the new studio took over. I just don't have the heart for it. The DA that I love is dead, I know this becuase it's written in the actual lore objects in Veilguard. They literally scorched the earth of the original three games and their expansions. It's all gone. I can't bring myself to play any of them anymore. Hard reset successful. I'm so sad. THere are ways to reboot a series without alienating your loyal player base, but this was categorically not it.
I've got a few notes. 1) I was playing Monster Hunter: World when the video came on, not doing dishes. 2) I wouldn't call HeelsVsBabyface (Az, the Pronouns Guy) a grifter. I believe he sincerely believes the things he says. He might be performative, but I wouldn't say insincere. And, to his credit, if pronouns don't matter and aren't a big deal, Nexus bans any mods that would remove it. If it's not a big deal why can't we turn it off; not for everyone, just ourselves? 3) Yeah, the mechanical review sounded like what it looks like from all I've seen. It's just not the RPG that I would go to Dragon Age for. I've wanted them to walk back changes to be more like DA:O since DA2 and I'm more disappointed the farther away it gets. Good or bad, it isn't what I want. 4) You don't bend your knees for push ups, you straighten your back out.
Heels wasn’t the grifter I was mentioning I just liked using his pronouns clip it’s kinda an inside joke I have with a friend and I promised I’d use the clip haha. I was talking about ENDYMION who has in the last 3 weeks made over 15 videos talking about this game and it being woke and sweet baby inc and all the classic grifting talking points. Credit to him though he’s taking in the cash, doing it.
I don't understand how people can gaslight themselves into saying DA2 and Inquisition have different art styles. Inquisition just continued the same art style space that DA2 established. "More"/"improvement" ≠ "different" Meanwhile Veilguard... Now that's a change in art style.
I like Origins ALOT and DESPISE Veilguard but… it seems odd to me everyone comparing it to Origins more than Inquisition which is the much more recent and relevant title both narratively and technologically (time between titles and hardware changes). That said it fails just as bad that comparison.
Sadly, I think the next Dragon Age game will be rated T. That's what the sanitization and art style seem to be moving towards. I can just picture what the executives behind this game were thinking, "Ok, so Mass Effect is for our older audience and Dragon Age is for the younger audience." Mass Effect will be their M rated franchise and Dragon Age will be their T rated franchise. I hope I'm wrong though.
Taash feels like either someone from 4chan snuck into the writing room OR they were written by someone self-inserting who lacks basic levels of self-awareness. The latter is far more likely considering how the lead of this game presents himself.
You know what I always kept thinking about? What about the original Darkspawn Magisters like the Architect. The central conflict about Awakening was so good... that was bioware building on in advancing the original content and going forward. What if Darkspawn start to build their own society? How do we deal with that? I feel like after that it was downhilll (not like Veilguard downhill, but still...) but I feel like something started there.
The architect was so good, and it not being introduced or discussed in inquisition with Corypheas was a massive fumble. Even if you killed it in awakening it could just do the whole move to another darkspawn and be reborn thing.
You could actually try Elden Ring as the build variety is comically large, you can make the game as easy or hard as you want it to be. The open world gives you the opportunity to build craft without fighting anything, of course you'd have to use a guide for that which would spoil the exploration experience. So you could make a point of just exploring, including running away from encounters, have the "what is that, can I go there?" that is so fascinating and when you feel you can't get anywhere else without fighting something big you could consult a build guide. Just a suggestion, it is a rather intoxicating experience I would encourage everyone to seek. Of course the story is like a D&D session where the DM decided to only speak in riddles and leaves you to talk to sketchy NPCs who spout mostly non-sense when you don't already know what's going on so you have to scrounge for story and lore in every item description, sometimes the most unassuming looking flower holds key information. But that's also half the fun 🙂
Haha I played elden ring a lot on release, I haven’t picked up shadow of the erd tree yet but I might, I think it was my favorite souls experience so far, but I just don’t absolutely love that type of game the way the fans of them do.
@@Berendir completely understandable, it's certainly an acquired taste even though you could almost call Elden Ring inviting were it not for the horrendous UI you basically need a live chat to explain to you to fully understand
Music was not good. Inquisition ost was much better. I mean just Solas theme alone is iconic. They should have continued with the Inquisition. That story was obviously not finished just based on dlc. I do not get this new player thing. Bro just finish the story
Amazing critique, dissecting the actual issues with this game and how it reflects in the modern gaming market, and a call out of Endymion in the first ten minutes, I'm completely here for this guy! Love this content.
Dorian called my romanced Inky "Amatus" once in the final mission and I reloaded just to hear it again. Bro, I was that desperate to feel SOMETHING for this world again after Veilguard's 50hr slog and a decade of waiting. Davrin's romance is bland too, btw.
Just like you, I'm a long-time fan of DA and I love this lore... and honestly, I'd rather see "Bioware" 💀💀 than continue to harm this world, and I'll pretend this game doesn't exist :)
The game feels incredibly uneven... My entire time getting through my first playthrough, i couldn't stop thinking how it was so weird that a game that overall looks so incredibly stunning (minus the stupid looking Darkspawn...), could be both so stupidly written and boring to play! It felt like the game had its entire development budget distributed at complete random when the Veilguard project started on becoming the product we got, with the world designers and technical crew getting by far the biggest cut, but the writing staff clearly got the least amount of the budget... If i were to quantify it, it felt to me like the people who designed the world itself got 70% of the entire budget, the music department got 20%, and the rest was for literally everything else...
Dragon Age: The Vailguard taught me that misgendering and eating the last breadstick is equally bad and according to this misgendering is fine, because eating the last f*cking breadstick is no big deal. /s
When a criticism uses "X is not useful" instead of "I dont know the use for X", it is when it loses the productive aspect of it. The thing about this game is that you can be dull and bland in combat, and do all the work, and it will allow you doing that, and you can actually make use of companions and it will work as well. If you dont know how to use them, that is perfectly fine, but dont pretend you are some sort of "oh God, I only play max difficult" as if it was "accomplishing something". Someone who considers "being good" as winning or losing, is not all that big deal. Big deal is when you know you win, it is just about how well you look doing it. Most of the criticism in this video goes about how the host plays the game, and not about the game itself.
Hard disagree, the companions are good for buffing and healing you or the primer and detonator system. The warriors taunts don’t function very well and in nightmare difficulty the detonations do less damage than a well built character, I played the entire game front to back twice before even starting on the critique, and synergetic companions in fully upgraded and enchanted gear are still next to useless, even considering the weaknesses and resistances of the enemies you are fighting and the type of damage your companion does, they still do probably 20 percent of the overall damage output and its is probably overall a net damage loss to be wasting time using the companions abilities for anything other than healing you. Looking cool in combat in this game is largely not what the fan base of this series would care about considering the combat from the first 3 games had nothing to do with the action oriented style that this game brought to the series and they focused more on the strategic and positioning aspect that more closely relates to CRPG’s. Seeing as the entire point of the critique was critiquing how the game was not made for fans of the series and it isn’t what the majority of us wanted I think it is a completely valid critique of the combat mechanics. I also don’t play on the hardest difficulties of games to stroke my ego, it’s a single player video game and there is no reward for completing it on nightmare, I do it because in my experience the hardest difficulties of RPG’s is what forces the player to engage with all of the systems to be able to gain that minuscule advantage that may be required to finish a part of the game, a perfect example of this is actually Inquisition, as nightmare makes you consider your build much more carefully and the synergy between the equipment you have with the build you have gone for. Even then I still found myself not really interacting with the alchemy system as it wasn’t really needed of me to be able to easily complete the content. Circling back to the original point, if the developers had intended for the companions to be a viable mechanic to leverage in the game outside of the detonation system they wouldn’t have made them invulnerable, as that would be completely broken.
I personally felt very disconnected from the world and the people in it. There are no interactions with NPCs other than your companions. Also, there was bad character building, you don’t really get to talk to your companions and get to know them like in origins.
My Gf loves Dragon Age. Played Inquisition over 50 times (complete playthroughs), Origins and 2 about 6 times each, but she couldn't force herself through this game
I think the worst thing they did with this game are two things, the fact that most of Thedas, like Kirkwall, Ferelden and other cities are destroyed by the blight flood in this game and everything past protagonist in previous DA games did is just worthless now, and they address this in a freaking codex, the second is that end credit scene, that scene is just beyond stupid and is just shitting on fans of the DA series everything about that end credit scene is just wrong, so wrong man.
I romanced Lucanis, Davrin and Emmrich. Lucanis and Davrin were disappointing, all three felt felt very awkward and sudden with no build up but Lucanis especially. Then Emmrich, who I assumed would be better because the voice was written less modern compared to other companions, was super disappointing. Emmrich's fear of dying is never approached and when you romance him, there is never a conversation of what immortality means to their relationship. There is never an added good-bye before the ritual to become a Lich, which its mentions the ritual can permanently kill Emmrich, and there are copy-paste arguments that last less than 30 seconds whether Emmrich is undying or not before the final battle. When a Lich, Emmrich will suggest Rook doesn't join the huge fight because Rook can die while he cannot. Instead of writing some moving dialogue, Rook about says 'you can just say you're in love with me'. Final thought, because there are more, whether or not you made your Rook to look old or young, Emmrich will always say he is older than Rook and for me kept referring to Rook as a 'young woman' or 'young adventurer', etc. The game is an HR friendship simulator.
Such a bummer for a large part of the community who love the romances. It was never the biggest deal to me but I enjoyed them. Harding, Neve and bellara are similarly disappointing.
Dragon Age was marketed as the spiritual successor to BioWare’s first masterpiece of the medium: Baldur’s Gate. Which also was the very first retail PC game to sell 1 million units. Seeing Dragon Age implode like this with Veilguard is sickening to my stomach. #WhaHappun
I'm sorry but i have to say, when bring up characters in conflict with each other how did none of the kirkwall crew even get a mention like, one of fenris and anders's chats they can have is literally asking if the other thought about not aliving (idk youtube's censor here)themselves. Yeah Morrigan and Alistair were an absolute mess though, not denying that. Besides that I think bioware pulled a huge writing issue with all the lore drops and explaining the world, but thats just me. I think that when you reveal so many worldbuilding aspects especially that of the different religons, especially how veilguard did it, it takes out the magic. There is no mystery left to theorize or no major one at least, that always seems to kill the hype around some stories, especially if they just brush it off as all connecting to this one thing. Doing that just feels like its making the worldbuilding smaller, idk that could just be me. I just think its a shame when a story shows their cards to the player. That and how bioware said oh yeah all of your previous actions dont matter with the keep and going scorched earth on fereldan.
Honestly it was just me trying to keep the video under 2 hours. But you are right the Kirkwall gang has done of the best interpersonal conflict in the series. Also you’re exactly right and I made the point that it felt like they were just moving down a checklist of unanswered questions so for whatever game that dimes next they can have a fresh start.
You mentioned that you'd think the writer behind Taash is a red pill chad... Unfortunately no. It was Trick Weekes, a BioWare writer, identifying as pansexual and non-binary. So, unfortunately, this is a bit of an own goal for the people promoting this ideology. But this tidbit aside - I have enjoyed watching/listening to your video essay here. I've been watching Veilguard reviews for a while and yours is the most in-depth one so far. Harsh, but fair, I'd say. You clearly have the knowledge and love for the franchise. Kudos to you, and a shame that this franchise-killer had to be inflicted upon people such as yourself. All the best!
Yeah that was my bad not actually looking into who it was who wrote Taash, kinda a bummer because Trick has written some fantastic characters. Thanks for the nice comment! Just trying to make better content with every release!
Hey man I found your videos last night and watched all of them. I really enjoy your perspective, You seem open minded and show a lot of compassion. You give direct criticism and do not hate just to hate. I feel your passion and love for video games and it is beautiful ! Keep it up brotha
"The game isn't bad because of woke" "This game is full of woke" "Only anti-woke grifters thinks this game is bad because of woke" "This woke stuff is written so poorly you would think a redpill, anti-woke wrote it" Great review, lines up with almost everything I felt while playing it. For me, the graphics were much worse, probably because I didn't have raytracing on, the lights in your footage look fucking beautiful, while for me they are just meh. I played as a mage and having Lucanis and Drayden was a godsent, they are far better at drawing agro than anybody else. Also, you are coping hard.
My strategy on Nightmare ended up just being bringing two mages and upgrading their heal ability to give 20% ult and just spamming it so I could easily spam my ult lol
The funny thing is in the Bharv scene Taash doesn't even speak up about being misgendered, they just make a sad face. They are actually more upset about the cheese stick, than Isabella accidentally saying the wrong pronoun.
@@r.kolemaistos7788 Being banned or blocked from BIoWare forums is practically a real world achievement unlock these days. I've been banned from SO many. The funny thing is, they're almost all run by influencers from the "Community Panel", so they either forget to remove the 'temporary' ban or they forget who they banned a few months in. Every now and then I pop back in to see how the groups and forums are doing and it's the same hot mess of com panel influencers for each game, just holding court like they have been for the last decade and a half, as if they're the queens of lore and we're all to dumb to do our own research. It's kind of sad.
So the issue I think a lot of people have with the art design is that it is an objective step away from the more gritty dark fantasy roots of the series. I think if this was the first entry in a new fantasy franchise that such a choice would be objectively neutral, but any tonal changes in an established franchise that change it's identity are to some extent by definition already at least partially negative. Heck the change could even be awesome in their own right in which case few people would complain, but it would still be a strike against it. Honestly I feel a bit the same about the change in the Qunari, though if Sten' had showed up and was still just a big ass elf and then Sten'' showed up I would have been unbothered because we already knew the Qunari was a social group that included multiple species in their homeland.
I’ve been a fan of this series for a while, and I had really high hopes for veilguard. I think that it’s unfortunate how the game turned out, even though it does have things that I enjoy. I would have really liked more of our past choices to have mattered, honestly I think more people would be a lot more forgiving if that was the case.
Im glad to have found your channel and i mean it when i say it, this is the best video ive watched on the game and ive been watching a lot of them. This is very good, and im genuinly excited to see your other videos and any more you make. As for the video itself the thing that stuck with me that you said about replaying the series every year, i do the same thing. Every November 7th i replay the Mass Effect trilogy. And as soon as i finish Mass Effect i replay Dragon Age all the way through. Every year for the last 15 years. Bioware games mean a lot to me. The characters, the world, the lore, everything they made for all 25 years of my life have literally shaped my taste in media forever. When i say this game broke my heart far worse than even Andromeda did on launch, i mean it. I wanted this to be the finale of the series i loved, send it out with a bang and sing its praise in the stars forever. And instead, we got the equivalent to a shit sandwich. Might have turkey, lettuce, cheese and mayo, but there's a hunk of shit in it, and it doesnt matter if the other ingredients are there in peak form, the shits still there ruining everything.
The paradox at the heart of Bioware is that their parent company EA wants the reputation of their early titles, but their corporate cultures are diametrically opposed to making these types of games.
tbh, I give no f's about pronouns in my games or not - the gripe I have with the game is the introduction to modern words and phrases without trying to make it into a part of the game. It to me just seemed to out of place... And not to mention the lore and how Bioware just took everything that people - like me - did to make different world states to import in and shred it to pieces before they set it on fire. That is my gripe with the game... And the bad writing... and some other small things... But alas, mostly it is just the lore shit that bothers me so much
Recently Game Lead Corinne Burshe and writer John Epler essentially told fans to "please don't leave us! The next Dragon Age game will be darker and past player choices will return!". This is an admission that The Veilguard was made for people in their late-10s to early-20s that are/were fans of things like Critical Role and play causal D&D, not the fans of the old games, even Inquisition fans.
THANK YOU I’ve been trying to find a video highlighting the actual issues of the game and not ‘woke’ bullshit and every point you raise is spot on ESPECIALLY the comments on the development causing issues. I enjoyed my first playthrough because I happened to play rook as a kind and humorous character, but trying a second playthrough and attempting to make a polar opposite personality only to find that the game pretty much forces you to be funny and supportive absolutely ruined the replayability for me. I did make a different character who would also play to the kind and funny personality just to try out some of the other choices and see a different romance but by the end it just felt tedious because I was more or less playing the same character twice. I can’t consider this an rpg for that reason.
Appreciate the quality of the video despite being a small channel. Some ignore things like audio clarity and are hard to listen to, which is not the case here.
Why would the new lore interest you if the creators of Thedas aren't writing it? I wouldn't care if any new lore is developed for LOTR, as J.R.R and Christopher Tolkien are dead. The Star Wars sequels are another prime example.
Ok but most of SWs lore wasn’t written by Lucas even before Disney. The sequels being shit doesn’t mean they had to be. Outcome is outcome, success is success, pretty much all of CDPR for example output is lore written by them in someone else’s world. If the writing was good it would stand up regardless of author change.
![A Thorough Look at Dragon Age [Revised/Expanded/HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vrd6GpZXvdk/mqdefault.jpg)
"Origins fanboy screams at sky for an hour 40" was another working title.
That one speaks deeply to my soul.
Okay, that one feels a little close to home.
Yeah :( in some veilguard critiques, they play DAO intro music (the haunting vocal solo) for a bit and it always makes my heart just yearn...
I am yet to see the elitism the community claims Origins fanboys have because I only encountered hate towards them, but I am lowkey on their side almost always (currently playing DAO for first time.)
@@kurodo9926 oh man, i hope you enjoy!!! i still remember my first DAO playthrough and it was 14 years ago!
The fact that they took the confident, capable, flirtatious Harding and turned her into an awkward people-pleaser is infuriating to me
Eeh we didnt see much of her in DAI, but this is 10 years after so i imagine she should be more confident
Bruh Harding was barely a character in Inquisition. A last minute tacked on personality in DLC doesn't count. The awkwardness fits her considering her farm girl origin.
@@CyrusIsnt She works for fkin Leliana. If she isn't confident and capable, she'd be dead already
@Drums_of_Liberation what does that mean "her awkwardness fits her considering her farm girl origin"???
@@Drums_of_Liberation "Last minute tacked on personality?" I'm replaying Inquisition now and her personality is obvious if you actually choose to talk to her in her scenes, as well as at Skyhold.
Devaluing their writing staff was the worst possible decision they made. BioWare WAS the story, WAS the lore.
Yeah it really sucks.
Exactly. I am a gameplay first person but the way they made the world and the stories made me love BioWare even more. They made worlds that pulled you in and made you care about the characters.
No one ever played a BioWare game for the gameplay. Their games were always about the stories and characters.
@@Icipher353 Yep, I mean, I know I’m just dying to play a Bioware game where all the characters talk in quippy Guardians of the Galaxy cringe, like millennials at a BBQ. And where the characters just straight tell you what you’re supposed to think.
@@sub-jec-tivRook was such a boring character. I actually hated the character that is supposed to be ME in the game. But no, boring, always agreeing and really bad dialogue options...but we had no real agency so it might as well have been another NPC and we were just witnessing the story, not really participating.
Actually the design isn't good either. Let's take Nevarra for example. Yes, here we have the Grand Necropolis which is full of skulls, skeletons and the Pentaghast coat of arms. All right, it works. But then we go to a manor owned by a local noble family. And it has exactly the same design as the Necropolis - skulls, skeletons and the Pentaghast coat of arms. But why?! Is Nevarra just about skulls and death now? How do these people suppose to live there? Even their bed has a giant skull. Imagine if the Cousland manor in Origins had mabaris everywhere.
Why a Nevarran companion from the previous game was a better representation for her country with her hairstyle, accent and stories than the actual country itself in this game? None of the Nevarrans in Veilguard have Cassandra's accent or crown braid, I purposely examined every NPC in the Necropolis.
Not to mention that Emmrich's parents' tombs have the Pentaghast coat of arms but they were commoners as he confesses in a banter with Harding. It is evident that the designers didn't have any idea about the lore...
It's just so lazy and lame.
I’m not saying you don’t have good points, but you’re letting your anger cloud your memory about Cassandra and her character.
Inquisition goes out of its way MULTIPLE times to drive the fact that Cassandra DOES NOT like or represent her homeland home. That all she even really cared about in Navarra was her brother, and after his death she didn’t care about ANYTHING that had to do with her past anymore.
Cassandra showed this same trait when she left the Chantry to form the Inquisition.
When she makes up her mind. She commits 100%. Anything that happened before no longer matters.
The expert Mortalitasi brought in from Navarra to guide a mage inquisitor is quite a bit more like Emmrich and the Mourne Watch we meet in Veilguard.
When you brought up Harding, I was reminded of something. I remember her being a little awkward but I also remember her mentioning her job as a scout was essentially her first job outside her home town. So of course she was going to be. However, it's been ten years as you said. And somehow she ends up acting more like Dagna than she did like a professional version of her younger self. It's a bit jarring and can't help but wonder if the writers got some wires crossed when writing her.
Yeah would have been much better if it was Dagna and not Harding actually. If the writing was kept the same.
@@Berendir In agreement there. Story felt tailor made for Dagna. The Dwarf who wanted to study magic suddenly able to use it? Seems like natural character progression for her.
I honestly think the writers/devs mixed up Dagna with Harding. Thought that on day 1. The personality of this character is totally wrong for Harding. She was socially inexperienced, not a totally naive child. She was trained by Leliana FFS, there's no WAY she's as clueless as she is in Veilguard..
There was also lore implication in the secret ending that kinda just took away all the character agencies of everyone from back in Origins, DA2, and inquisition. It feels a little disrespectful for the new writers to interfere with the canon of the older writers like that.
Felt like a slap in the face to all the fans if the older games.
Iirc DA2 was also about how there isn't an overall group conspiring and pulling the strings of everything in the background.
It does not remove agency if i punch square in the face. And you learn it was bill's idea am i absolved?
Its cheesy to just drop that with much context but it doesnt remove agency.
It also make them look kinda silly the ancient elves could have ended the world 😅😅
It reminds me of the similar situation with lore regarding World of Warcraft in the Shadowlands expansion. New writers come and say "Our generic cosmic threat guy was miles ahead with his 200IQ moves. It was him all along!"
I’m choosing to completely ignore that ending cause it’s the stupidest removal of agency I’ve ever seen.
I remembered that during my playthrough, I was being so forgiving at every weird decision, hopefull that it would lead to a deeper conclusion, a more meaningful message. But no. At the end of my first 80h playthrough, after having read all codex entries, having done all companion and side missions, I felt so incredibly empty. Like, "is that it? This is the story I've been waiting for for 10 years?"
And now, a couple of weeks removed from that first playthrough, I'm just so incredibly frustrated and disappointed. There is so much potential for good storytelling and writing in the settings, the characters, with what happens in the game. But that potential is never met. Everything is only as deep as a puddle.
I definitely feel the absence of the original creators. And I deeply grieve the fact that, if not for a complete miracle, we will never truly get a satisfying conclusion to this world that we've come to love.
Yeah, I had the same experience, the second play-through was honestly so boring and felt so meaningless, if I wasn’t doing a review I wouldn’t have done it, which is really sad because I loved the replay ability of these games so much.
Just curious, was either of you a solas lavellan romance player? I have noticed this dragon age fanship is more forgiving of VG cause we kinda got the ending we were waiting for after inquisition.
@@hanli5416 I am a solavellan shipper, and even with their fairly sweet ending leaning heavy into the mythology angle, the game just felt empty. it's too sanitized, there's nothing to get genuinely passionate about. even companions who should have been even middlingly controversial were just.. . . Fine. it was all Fine.
@@MsIvalanewait what companions other than Traash would be controversial?
@@Drums_of_Liberation Lucanis is both heir to the seat of the First Talon of the Crows, and an abomination. Bellara has spent years dedicating her life to learning and using dangerous ancient magicks. Davrin is a Warden in a post- mass demon summoning world. Neve is a Tevinter mage.
It's not hard to see how most if not all the companions could be written to be controversial in their own ways, there's just nothing interesting to play with.
My Hawke romanced Isabella in Dragon Age 2 and is alive after Inquisition because I couldn't leave her in the Fade. Seeing Isabella not even acknowledge her mage pirate wife broke me.
Yeah Morrigan not acknowledging my warden who I’ve shipped in my head for 15 years sucked. Felt like she divorced me or something haha.
That's how I felt playing Inquisitions. Listening to Morrigan and everyone else not once acknowledge that her son is the bastard and only son of the Prince-Consort of Fereldan was numbing.
@@Berendirdid Morrigan basically do that once she leaves after you pump her full of Old God baby that goes nowhere?
@@lordfarquaad8601 What game did you play? I'm pretty sure there's an entire dialogue wheel with Allistair where they acknowledge this.
@@mikevalones9977 Didn't see it. I didn't kill Loghain in the first game.
I think my biggest wrinkle with Taash is, on top of the fact that they are a character who is just dreadfully written and unfun to be around, but I would have been way more marginally interested if they were a Tal-Vashoth, or that the game explored any of the implications of her non-binary gender choice in relation to the Qun outside of just that cliched "My mom doesn't understand me" trope. From what we know of the Qun, they are a deeply gendered society - a really significant interaction that shows this is in DAO when if you play as a female Grey Warden warrior, Sten will comment on that fact and make reference to the fact that you must not be a woman if you are a warrior. And it's not something that he says to be purposefully demeaning to you: he says it because he's legitimately confused, because his society has taught him that being a warrior is a trait that is intrinsic, almost biologically linked, to men, so when he sees a woman being a warrior, he is actually confused at if you are a man or not. Taash existing outside of that dynamic, literally rejecting the notion of being both a male and a female to the Qun and being branded a Tal-Vashoth, could have made for a super compelling companion. I mean, come on, there has been an apostate mage party member for literally every game, we had the opportunity for a Tal-Vashoth Qunari companion and the devs just took the easy, lazy way out.
Iron Bull can become Tal Vashoth so it's not like we never had one.
My problem with this Taash storyline is that under the Qun Taash would just be a man. They don't got anything going for them that doesn't fit the Qunari male gender role. Maybe if they actually had some parts of their personality that would fit within the female gender roles this story could've happened. It actually makes no sense to me why the mom even fled the Qun to protect Taash from being made a warrior when they ended up a warrior anyway?? To me it seems like if they had never gone to Rivain they would've been very happy to just be an antaam or Ben hassrath or whatever under the Qun
I feel the biggest problem with all the companions is that you learned so much about them way to fast. Also the fact that they immediately trust you with these very personal problems and pretty much make everything Rooks decision despite knowing them for like 10 minutes. It feels like there’s no depth to any of them since you don’t have to actively learn anything about them and they just shove it in your face.
Yeah there was no reading between the lines with any of them it just made them feel so shallow and boring.
@@Berendir sorry for ranting btw. I just feel so disappointed and I’m not even a long term fan of the franchise. I can’t imagine what diehard fans of the game feel rn Wonderful video as well, keep it up 👍
@@Berendir Fr I understand why they got rid of the question wheel from inquisition but in the end it made the companions feel more real in the sense that you had to ask them yourself to learn about them. It also made it so there was more to them outside of their quests. For a companion based game they really dropped the ball. The only reason I think I’ll ever replay is for the character creator and the cutscenes bc those were the best parts (and the fights even if they were sorta repetitive)
@ haha don’t apologize! The whole point of my channel is this discussion right here!
I never felt like Rook was included in the group relationship within the lighthouse setting. Mine just walked up on people talking at times and got glared at until they walked off after “their” discussion! No Hi Rook, how are you doing?
Bold to make this and 90+ minute video instead of the more strategic move of milking it over several videos to gain traction. I can tell their was burning passion behind the making of this video.
Haha thanks! Even though this particular game was a disappointment I love the series and my critiques came from a place of love. Hope you enjoyed the video!
Ah, I've seen a few smaller channels get a lot of new subscribers from making videos on this and I can't get too mad about it. I got to see a few videos from a trans perspective on the whole thing and that was really eye-opening. I'm glad they're capitalising on it, I guess
@@mikeydflyingtoaster pertaining to the whole “woke” discourse around the game I’m indifferent. It was more how cringe they made taash’s story I think if they had a much more interesting character with a more nuanced discussion around being nonbinary I would have enjoyed seeing how that played out.
@@Berendirthinking about how they could have tied Taash feelings to the qun was a huge missed opportunity. Why have your own fantasy setting if you are going to bluntly inject a social issue like it’s happening in contemporary life. Iron bull said there were no women who fought, except the ones they decided to treat like men. They executed it in the most boring way possible
@@Berendir Agreed, Taash's gender had nothing to do with that. Just their personality was very offputting and did not actuzally humor their story for me. I was many times annoyed at them for rude remarks towards my character or the others even late game.
They made an offhand comment in the artbook about how EA forced them to use this art style because it is way less cost-intensive, and management simply liked it more (which just means they have terrible taste). They said that the comic style essentially removed up to 2 years of development time because it is just way easier to implement than the pseudo-realism of Inquisition or the stylized fantasy painting vibe from Origins and 2
Yeah some of the things I’ve seen in the art book were actually really cool. Some of the detained things that were going to make it in the game that didn’t were also really promising. Makes me wonder if we will ever get good games from these massive producers who buy studios again.
@@BerendirI don't need to wonder.
Nothing new. Either EA has them well grabbed or BW leadership is spineless, but they fell into this design pattern after Origins. DA2 had several issues out of trend chasing design. Inquisition largely uninteresting large world chased Skyrim. DAV is DA2 tenfold in this regard. Only DA I can say has its own vision is Origins.
Regarding writing... it's sad that after seeing that visuals and combat were going for what someone thought was the most popular, so many believed writing wouldn't be affected. Come on.
How many times do people need to get burned before they stop jumping into what's clearly fire?
Inquisition I could understand, but surely the stylised fantasy would be just as easy to render?
@@r.kolemaistos7788 I have no idea thats what they said. My guess is that aniamtion is really hard to do in that style given that Origins basically has no facial movement/ really bad movement animations.
@1:02:25 The thing that bugged me the most about the storytelling is that they never trust the player to figure anything out. I love seeing "...[character name] will remember this..." popups that tell you to watch for repercussions without explicitly telling you what those repercussions are. I hated seeing the popups in this game that spell everything out.
Exactly! The game almost felt like it was calling me dumb at certain points honestly!
this and also to a lesser extent the little cutscenes after *every single story quest* saying that my actions have consequences. I love Varric's narration, don't get me wrong, but ffs let me learn these things organically instead of ruining any suspense or tension by telling me that something is going to happen!
i feel the same with the lore. so many ambiguous and nuanced concepts about spirits, gods, factions, cultures, religions, magic etc etc now everything is just out there. used to love not knowing everything and being ‘wrong’, having history be the unreliable narrator was sooo unique, but for the first time ever i have exactly 0 questions after playing a dragon age game
And there's this Inquisitor letter or codex entry that mention that the whole of South Thedas has been blighted to destruction except Redcliff which feels like all the things you've done from the past 3 games meant little and left a bad taste imo
Yeah I didn’t mention that but it was a massive bummer to hear Orlais and Denerim were basically killed offscreen
And appearently in a later codex entry we find out that even Redcliffe has fallen. And the ferelden survivors are likely going to starve to death
That's what happens when you leave a simpleton like Alistair in charge. 😂
@@laningsmith9163 Yep. They went full Scorched Earth on the maps we loved so much and everyone in them 😢
Every time I got a letter from the Inquisitor I was like "Damn, wish I was playing that game instead."
Two more thoughts: can you imagine the drama and conflict if morrigan, who has for her whole life been terrified of being consumed by another soul, realizes her son has within him the soul of another being? And re: the ending, what I don't understand is WHY they had every ending holding up the veil. The veil coming down has been foreshadowed for multiple games, and it being in place is the cause of like. All of the mage conflict, which caused a civil war basically. They obviously wanted a clean slate for the next game, but instead of having a big worldchange with the veil coming down, they decided to....... just torch every land that had been explored in previous games. Insane to me. Anyway, fantastic video, I loved this breakdown a lot!
Thanks for the nice comment! Glad you enjoyed it, and yeah the ending was an absolute bummer. If they wanted a fresh start at least let us decide to destroy the veil or not and then just make a canon choice for the next games.
They didn't just torch the previous lands, but they undermined every character's decisions as well.
@@Axterix13 i try not to think about it too much ;_;
Problem though, Morrigan would know her son has the soul of another that was literally the whole point of the dark ritual in Origins so there would be no drama unless the boy showed signs that the old god soul was taking over his body.
@@Drums_of_Liberation I mean, that's what I'm saying? People can know something without realizing the full implications until later on. It would have been an interesting character moment. But unfortunately when they tried to input Morrigan's previous characterization into this game, they got a 404 error
14:35 as a colorblind person, I HATE the way support is implemented in this game. They just put a blanket color filter on the screen, which completely fucks the game experience. I do NOT want all the red lights to appear blue, I just want the UI to be readable so I can interact with the game. I turned it off after seeing that Treviso is neon green with my colorblindness settings turned on. This is an extremely bad and lazy way to include colorblind people.
The ending mission is essentially a direct copy of Mass Effect 2's final suicide mission, but that mission was so good unlike here. The whole ordeal with the story reminds me more of WoW Shadowlands' storytelling, where everything is revealed to be part of a grand plan by a cosmic villain who somehow knows everything that has happened and will happen. I suppose one could argue that this was also inspired by Marvel's storytelling.
1:35:14 wtf I thought we were gonna play it together! D:
Let’s not pretend like we will have anytime to play with the fresh classic servers haha.
Yeah in ME2 they didnt tell you you had to do the mission or companions would die there was also ways to not meet the requirements and ways to fail companion missions. Veilguard made a shit tier imitation. Not to mention ME2 had likable and interesting characters where there are none in Veilguard.
@@BodaciousDerb My favorite was, towards the end when you have to assign a bunch of your party members, you have to pick someone to fight the war mage in the city. And Lucanis comments about how they should probably send someone, and then it pops up with the decision and says something like "you should probably send someone who is sneaky, good at ambushes or good at killing mages, hint hint." Gosh, I wonder who the game is trying to signal for me to pick.
I highly disagree with you on the music here. Its not phenomenal at all. Its sounds very generic and most of the time the music doesnt even fit the scenes its playing in. I'm on my third playthrough now, and I still dont remember a single song except the one that plays in the main menu. The music is just that unimpactful and basic/generic. Trevor Morris did a much better job with Inquisition. So many memorable songs. Like Journey to Skyhold, and epic song to an epic ending of the first chapter. The title song of course. The exploration music (especially in the Emerald Graves/Mythals temple). The song that played when the Inky gets their memories back in the fade. Those are even in the Inquisition customization screen in Veilguard. Then the bard songs. The Trespasser soundtrack, omg. Sorry, but Veilguard cant compete with that. Not in the slightest. Its obvious hans Zimmer didnt work on this game, only on the main theme at best. The rest was probs done by his trainees, lol. At least thats what it sounds like.
I do have to admit the only songs that did stand out to me were the ones that dipped into melodies from the older games. I guess I didn’t really sit down and think about the fact that those were the only memorable songs to me. Thanks for that, it’s actually a really good insight I didn’t see myself.
Agree, the music was at times too elctrical. Especially in one of Bellara's quests. It felt like sci fi and not fanatsy.
I was so disappointed with the music dear god; the song that plays for the prologue, as Rook scrambles through the ritual site was just. . . bad? The tone didn't fit, it felt like a hopeful song in the middle of 'this is the antagonist doing the worst thing we can conceive of' set dressing.
@@lisdraconis2212 Yeah, some of those tracks sound like they took them from Blade Runner.
Yup music was poor - I appreciate getting Zimmer would have felt like a win, but it's clear that him and his team had never worked on a game before. Very disappointing especially when compared to the heights of inquisition score
Lucianis' intro scene with him sprouting wings and being an assassin with dark hair.... someone on bioware team watched Critical role or the legend of vox machina and decided they wanted Vax'ildan in the roster didn't they...?
Haha everyone needs an emo companion to swoon over. We could only wish Lucianis was as deep of a character as vax.
@@Berendir It goes even further than that to be honest, the demon inside him could also be a reference to illidan, another character Liam o'brian plays in warcraft. XD
Evil cannot create as the saying goes
The Veilguard design didn't grow on you, your brain just got used to how ugly it looks. It's like how people who work around garbage all day eventually become numb to the smell so much so that it doesn't bother them anymore. Initially, Veilguard's design seems awkward and dumb. But after looking at these awkward and dumb characters for 40 hours, your brain is no longer disgusted by it. It doesn't change the fact that the character design is horrendous, especially since the original concept art was just leaked and we can see the characters originally looked more in line with the traditional Dragon Age style.
Yeah the artbook had some really cool character designs in it. I heard it was cheaper and easier to to produce this art style and that’s why they made the switch. I don’t know how reliable that info is, but it is a bummer.
@@Berendir I think it's accurate to an extent, but there's also a content creator (Look up: Dragon Age 4 Veilguard: Turn OFF That Cartoon Effect - Graphics and Performance Comparison) who jury rigged a way to remove all the bloom and most of the ray tracing. It's bizarre how much difference it made, even to how palatable the character designs are. The game is MUCH darker, the wet/slimy areas in the game stand out AS wet and slimy instead of just shiny, and the character models look MUCH less... smooth. Without all that glow bouncing around from every angle the shadows get a chance to highlight shapes and add depth. It LOOKS much more like a DA game. Doesn't help the utterly cringy writing, but it at least looks the part without all the light pollution.
I am surprised at how few people comment on what you said about how everything lore related was so "neatly" wrapped up, leaving essentially nothing for the future except for the new big bad from the secret ending (I hated that to be honest, its like Jailor from wow seemingly, anyone who read the Origins books, or even just paid attention in the game would know that its complete bs), but it makes sense that they wanted to wrap everything up (and part of me is glad even if its not all to my satisfaction) because of how much this game wipes the slate clean. Essentially all of our decisions from previous games and all the places we knew were wiped off the face of Thedas, its as world reset as they come in Fantasy settings :X
Even beyond it being poorly done and unnecessary, I just dont believe that anything this new Bioware will put out to replace what they destroyed will be remotely as good.
Needless to say I quite midway through my second playthrough of Veilguard, I just wasnt interested and I did most of what I wanted to do at that point anyway, the game only has enough content for two playthroughs anyway imo, and immidiately went to DA 2 which I considered, untill now, the worst of DA games (tho only mildly worse than Inquisition as a whole for me, I always liked it, it just wasnt as good). First I wanted to confirm that it indeed is much better than Veilguard and to find out if its just me that changed and not the series, my memories served me well and DA 2 is indeed miles ahead of Veilguard, at least in the aspects I care about (to say nothing of Origins) but I also still really enjoyed it and went on to rediscover how much fun the various different conversations are depending on whether you have friendship or rivalry with the characters, or even how different Hawke sounds and how he/she reacts depending on your prevailing personality etc., it was a game with many great ideas that was simply pushed out too fast, it is still timeless (again, to say nothing of Origins), whereas Veilguard is just product of its time.
In the attempt at making this the grandest stage with the biggest stake yet, they completely forgot and forgone what made even the smaller stakes and personal stories meaningful and interesting to us... that or they just lost the ability.
First off, thank you for giving us a thorough, thoughtful breakdown and analysis on the game. It is difficult to judge the quality of the game when so many other content creators are concerned with commentary on the identity politics of the game.
I've played Origins and DA media since it came out in '09, and I gotta say - I can't bring myself to pay this much for something this awful. You said it perfectly: this isn't an RPG, this is an action game with RPG elements. And the writing is atrocious - it really feels like everything was recorded in a kindergarten managed by Joss Whedon. I'm also so dismayed that the villains have been boiled down to 'evil because evil' in a franchise that gave us Teyrn Loghain. It's so disheartening to see this when there's modern examples like General Ketheric Thorm to draw from and learn from.
It's unacceptable in an era that gave us the Witcher 3, Cyberpunk, and Baldur's Gate 3 for a AAA studio to perform this poorly in terms of a written narrative imo. Hell, even Diablo 2 seems to have better writing, and the main character never speaks! It saddens me to see one of my favorite franchises that I've followed since I was a teen morph into another corporate Marvel fingerpainting, but there it is. I grieve with you, my brother. In death, sacrifice.
Poor one out for the wardens o7
Dont forget DA2 villains. They were great. And they were not evil. Meredith, Anders, The Arishok and Orsino. None of them were evil, they were the products of each other and did what they deemed was the right thing to do for the greater good. Da2 had a lot of problems, but the story and writing was not one of them
@@simonjohansson7529Meredith absolutely was evil or Kirkwall's Templars wouldn't have been as corrupt as they were. And that's before the red lyrium idol.
@Drums_of_Liberation i disagree. She was hard as shit and used alot of excessive force. Was it bc she was a sadist or bc she had seen a ton of mages going bonkers killing and sacrificing a shit ton of innocents during her life?
While there's a big issue with game design here, I do feel like many of the (bad) choices come down to the weird development cycle, where the old writers started work on a direct sequel, then it flipped to live service, then they resurrected the game. Basically they cobbled together the bits they had from each dev cycle in the easiest way possible, which left a linear mess.
For example, there are plenty of analyses which show only 10%-20% of gamers actually like "playing evil." As a result, putting a lot of effort into constructing genuinely bad moral choices means you're creating content most players will never see. From a cost-benefit analysis (the way a corporation thinks) this isn't profitable, especially when you've been in development hell for six years. I think the lack of any consequences from previous player actions is also because of this - it would take more coding, more voice acting, more everything if they provided a less linear experience.
The weird tonal whiplash is also I think a result of this. It seems like a lot of the game's lore was built out prior to Gaider & Laidlaw leaving. I think there are even some assets which survived from that era still in the game. They then built out a lot of the bigger maps and basic game mechanics during the "live service" era (companions are likely underwhelming, for example, because the game was meant to be co-op). The underwhelming mid-game "filler" (and probably a lot of the dialogue) were shunted into the game last.
TBH, the issues of The Veilguard are to some extent not that different than Dragon Age 2, which was greeted very negatively due to a plot that railroaded you heavily at the end, action-style combat which was boring with limited enemy design, etc. The main difference is that game was also slagged by the cheap reuse of small, ugly levels, where here, I think they had the big maps like Minrathous finished years ago, so the rush was just to fill the areas with more story content - which was largely done by shunting the personal quests of the companions into the maps.
Yeah the hellos development cycle of this game was a large contributor. Honestly I think Anthem was almost as bad for Dragon Age as it was on its own. This game is a story of extremely poor studio management more than anything, which is becoming quite a trend in recent years.
I totally agree: eating the last breadstick is way worse than misgendering someone. You can easily correct someone for not realizing you have non-standard pronouns, but the breadsticks are gone for good.
Damn, you’re cooking rn, never thought of it like that.
Yea... as a trans guy, misgendering being treated like it was really irks me. They complain about people making a big deal, while making a big deal?! That's not the message I want people to have, just correct yourself and move along, no need for that whole conversation.. People are scared to interact with us cause they're scared of being yelled at for making mistakes.
58:53 "I don't really do that in games" - implying that you only romance men in real life. ;) Jokes aside, great review. But as an old Thedosian I won't play it after seeing all my worst fears materialise. It might be petty, but at some point us fans have to vote with our wallets, otherwise we will never be taken seriously by the corporate suits.
Haha don’t tell my wife!
I gotta say, I think the game would've benefitted from making the companion quests more tied to the main plot a LOT. Imagine Davrin's quest as a monster hunter leading you to memories in the Fade of Ghilan'nain first creating the halla and griffons and slowly becoming obsessed with creating monster, like the ones he hunts.
Or Bellara being an agent of Fen'harel, having conflicting emotions upon learning of his mistakes but ultimately deciding he's better than the other gods because he does care about his people (saving the Dalish for example) and how that plays into saving her brother who is so loyal to a god who'd kill him with no hesitation.
Or Harding getting a quest figuring things about the Blight because of the connection to the Titans and finding information the Hero of Ferelden left behind.
I'm sure I could make an essay about how every companion could be connected in some manner with their factions AND the main plot, and it would've helped make them feel more fleshed out, by having them rralize things slowly and having thw whole game to come to twrms with everything they learn and maybe even clash at times.
Ultimately I agree with you, I don't play BioWare games for their gameplay but it's obvious that's the sirection they've been trying to go in for a long time, at least since Mass Effect 2, to appeal to a broader audience. And it saddens me because the writers back then and up until now have made comments about how they're left aside by the company (Trick Weekes and others made a few comments in bluesky that hint to this frustation which Gaider voiced back in 2016).
So for me, I played this game one to get the closure, it wasn't nearly as good as I hope because I saw the bones of a great game in the story and codex entries. Instead it left me sad and disappointed for all the nuance that was lost (what happened to Solas changing his mind about the worth of this world and realising the elves can carve their own future that Felassan hinted at in Masked Empire for example?). I am left sad and disappointed and, above all, heartbroken because now I know I'll never buy another BioWare game again if this is how they'll treat their writing aspect.
I really feel like Veilguard just took all the amazing lore setup from the previous games and rushed unsatisfying conclusions to all of it, just for the sake of resetting the series and doing their own thing.
Thanks for the great video, I enjoyed it a lot!
The greatest crime of Veilguard writing is the abandonment of themes. The dialog, boring questing and almost every other problem from my perspective stems from it.
We learn more about slavery in Tevinter from DA2, then from Veilguard - the game set in Tevinter. We have no dailish culture in the game where two of the dailish gods return to Thedas. We have close to none information about the Qunari, despite one of our companions being a cossith and having Antaam as antagonists. Antivan Crows suddenly become freedom fighters and protectors of Antiva - because apparently killing for money can sustain the whole wide syndicate targeting only "bad" people. Etc.
World of Origins and DA2 was full of systemic injustice, systemic cruelty and corruption. It was the failure of those systems that provided antagonists for those games, that empowered them. Even in the Inquisition there was some of it, despite the main antagonist being "Evil pseudo-god with a dragon".
But Veilguard just put a whole ton of bleach over all of this, said "you are all the cookie-cutter good guys, and you are fighting the Bad, Blighted guys, have fun!" and proceeded to make smug faces at the previous games with it "reveals" how everything before was actually the work of some secret evil people.
Don't get me wrong, not every story has to be about society failures (for example, I love BG3, which antagonists can also be simplified down to 'bad guys serving bad gods craving for power'; although it has some interesting, more personal themes of it's own). But if you're making a Dragon Age game, this refusal to touch any non-PG13 rated subjects with a ten-foot poll will be your ruin.
Also bad dialogue. It feels so sterile, you could've preformed surgeries with it, were it not so dull.
1:07:33 - The crazy thing is that Taash was written by Trick (formerly Patrick) Weekes. The same writer who wrote both Mordin and Solas. I’m baffled by the disparity in writing quality considering what they’ve done before.
Yeah I wish I had actually looked at who wrote taash but I have to confess it was so hard to keep track of every aspect I was talking about that the writers of the characters kinda slipped through the cracks. When I found out it was Weekes I was actually stunned.
This is easily the best review out there. Totally broke down everything in such a clear way, really nailing all the good and bad points with the game. And as what one of the other posters said, you clearly show how knowledgeable and passionate you are about the franchise. Fantastic work!
Thank you! It's been so hard to have a genuine conversation without the culture war warriors. The narrative and characters are indeed very bad but not because of who they are or the subject they discussed. The execution is just awful, with no nuance or depth, and that's a flaw in media, no matter what side of the aisle it falls on.
Precisely. Bad writing is bad writing, doesn’t matter what it’s about.
I don't think I agree to be honest. I think the subject matter and its execution often go hand-in-hand. I guess it depends on what someone defines as 'woke'. For me, wokeness is not synonymous with diversity or LGBT themes or narratives. It really annoys me when any plotline including a gay person is scoffed at
This has been my biggest issue. The Acolyte was in the exact same situation. It was a very poor show to me overall, but the culture warriors made it about the little weak shit. Not the bad writing choices.
Can we stop pretending like the two things aren't connected
DEI hiring practices are the complete opposite of merit based hiring and is a direct result of this far left ideology.
Even if you removed the overt political propaganda you still have a story that doesn't understand the fundamentals of writing because the people working on them have no idea what they're doing.
To ignore the culture war is to ignore the real reason media is declining.
Agreed, its not political for a wide variety of people to exist. It's bad writing for them to be written poorly though
Good title, you caught my attention well beyond all the clickbait-y ones that I've been auto-rejecting in the YT algorithm. I came for an in-depth analysis, and I sure did get it. I did not pre-order or purchase Veilguard at launch, I waited and watched real players not under NDA's playing before deciding. And as an og DA fan seeing what happened to the writing, plot, characterization, dialogue, choices, I was increasingly sick at heart. But my god, the reconned lore! A single slide of innuendo that up-ended an entire franchise. Now I understand why so many of my og tribe have said that they immediately started up a new play of Origins: it's their balm and palate cleanser.
The red flags for this game were there all along, too bad so many of us ignored them to live on our hopes. Bioware did not spend 10 years developing Veilguard. They pissed away 6 of them starting and tossing out (classic Bioware development, btw), including unloading senior people who used to have a hand on the brakes of the creative. Then came the market speak: 'curated experience'. And that trailer. And the travesty of the 'Early Reviews'. In the end, old fans got exactly what was advertised and nothing but delusions of what could have been. For those who have hung in there for over a decade, we've been made to feel stupid for investing our energy and precious entertainment hours in a franchise that does not give a shit about us or their own legacy.
I love Marvel when it's doing Marvel, not when it's being shoehorned as the new blueprint for Dragon Age. I love Disney/Pixar when it's not the new art style for Dragon Age characters, especially returning legacy characters. And I especially do not love lazy writing in a dark fantasy franchise that was once held up as a beacon for being unafraid to 'go there' with dark themes.
Your vid was thoughtful, measured, you showed your work and backed your arguments. To quote Admiral David Anderson to Cmd. Shepard: "You did good, son." Here's my sub, please do keep at it.
Hey thank you for the really nice words! And yeah I agree almost 100 percent with everything you said!
Old veterans having hope felt so weird to me.
I've observed very much rose tinted glasses regarding DA2 lately, especially writing wise (no, it isn't good), but that game having been one of my greatest burns ever, I learned to look for the warning signs, and DAV had most of the same, tenfold, and some new ones.
@@StNerevar76 so much this. People praising DA2 and DA:I as great Dragon Age games just leaves me baffled. Like people praising DA2's combat evenso that game killed all tactics by having enemies spawn all around your party in waves killing tactical positioning which is a core feature of tactics in general. Stuff like that is the reason why DAV has damage immune companions and forced game design to make rogues and mages tanky since your player is the only one who can take damage.
I think the adjective you were searching for at various points in your review is "adorkable".
These writers really seemed to go for a young millennial "How I Met Your Mother", ukulele solo, "adorably dorky and awkward" vibe: Adorkable.
I am just half way through your review and you are one of the few who is neither overhyping the game (or leave out the unpleasant parts) or doom gloom it. You speak from my heart with most of your opinions, thank you so much.
Thank you for the very kind comment!
@@Berendir After watching the further part though I want to ask you to please use the right prononce for Taash. Otherwise people will take that as a disrespect for non binarity.
But don't get me wrong I also hate them... thought Oghren would be my forever worst companion followed by Anders, Vivienne and Sera but here we are.
Seeing now the end I have to say tho the other DA games also lead to the same conclution. You stop the blight in DAO, Anders blows up the chantry in DA2 and Corypheus gets killed in DAI.
The secret ending was also something I was very mad at. One of the devs made clear though that these characters still had agency.
What is so bad about Taash is that Patrick Weekes wrote her! And he was the writer for Solas! Such drastic writing differences!!
This. This right here. I was so convinced that an intern wrote Taash, and that they should never work in the industry again, then I looked it up and my jaw hit the floor. How can this person who gave us so many amazing Bioware moments drop this absolute turd in the punch bowl? It just felt like the whole storyline was meant to be a supportive after-school TV special, just dropped into Thedas without any connective tissue tying it to the story. Dorian's story was a thousand times better.
Because Gaider left and Weekes became lead writer. Clearly Weekes is talented but needs someone else to guide them and they shouldnt be in charge lol
Which further backs up the idea of Taash being a self insert, and an insite into how the writer REALLY thinks.
@@SpaalKodaav Saying as a trans guy, it /is/ realistic portrayal of some of us sheltered trans folk -- I see reflections in my own self in it and other people, but not ones I'm happy to see.
It's not a portrayal I want to see in such a game or for such an world, where life is more dangerous, where stakes are higher. It's too... spoiled. They santizied away the bad parts of people, so they santized away real struggle, leaving this.
The game was super mid and forgettable for me, but my RUclips feed have recently been filling up with those angry videos about the latest AAA game being DESTROYED, ABANDONDED, BILLIONS LOST, NO PLAYERS etc, I don't know which side I hate more.
Why can't people just chill the fuck out, be honest and sincere?
Actually a large contributing factor as to why I started my channel: I made a whole video about how Starfield was just mid and that’s ok haha. I couldn’t bear to listen to the discourse around it anymore.
Just don't click on the videos mate
Idk, game devs can just try to make better games
Although the dialogue is awful, I have to give credit to Elgar'nan's voice actor. His performance reminds me of Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2. So much wasted potential.
Some of the VA’s absolutely crushed their roles for sure.
Calming voice, considered perspective, balanced analysis. Love this. The game was a disappointment for me. I was highly hopeful despite initial reviews. Unfortunately, the writing had me confused in the opening, while Neve’s voice acting and all characters’ facial stagnation (weirdly placed smiles) were both immediately apparent/off-putting. What really ruined it for me was the TONE of romance dialogue: so strange, awkward, and infantile. I romanced Davrin - cringed so much. Oh and Taash: love trans and NB folks, hate how they were represented as rude, egocentric, and emotionally immature (community deserves better). Everyone was painfully unidimensional, including Rook.
I also played the game on Nightmare on my first playthrough (as a mage) and ended up making an ice magic build that just on it's own completely broke the game and trivialized the rest of the game once I got my equipment tiered up enough to really get it running. Which thank god because by the time I put Elgar'nan down I was more than over the gameplay lol.
Just a bit of correction but Laidlaw joined the Origins team late into it's development. He took over as sole lead designer starting with DA2
The phrase: "Hey, who ate the last breaded cheese wand?" will now remain permanently stuck in my head. Thank you.
I really hated that they got rid of the Andrastian faith and that Andraste was just a vessel of Mythal.
The maker and the elven “Gods” could exist at the same time - as the elven gods were just spirits.
And the maker could have been the one to make those spirits
Without making the lore they created in Veilguard incorrect/world breaking.
Especially because it is canon that Humans - like Qunari - are from somewhere else originally and colonized previously elven territories after the elven empire collapsed/the veil was raised.
Also if they would have let you keep Keiran - you could have taken the old elven gods soul and used it to continue powering the veil
Instead of giving up Solas - who is an incredible wealth of knowledge and could even share old elven knowledge that might make rebuilding easier.
This game was really depressing after waiting 10 years.
Woah the Kieran idea is great, imagine people who had Kieran through the dark ritual and romanced Solas having to decide which one to hold up the veil. Ugh such a bummer to think of everything that could have been. I didn’t even go super in depth on the lack of the chantry in the game simply because I figured they either 1. Thought it too closely mirrored Christianity and wanted to take a step back from that or 2. Figured the entire previous game was centered around it and didn’t want to beat a “dead horse”. Either way kinda disappointing.
It's been fun to watch the Inquisition babies call OG Bioware fans "Tourists", coming to their senses just how bad Failguard turned out to be.
Implying Inquisition fans like Veilguard is a huge leap of faith.
@@faberofwillandmight8758 oh they're there. I've seen plenty of Inquisition fans still taking the copium about Veilguard
@faberofwillandmight8758 Indeed. Inquisition got me into Dragon Age, I played it for 2k hours and it is still by far my favourite of the series even though I recognise its flaws and why OG fans may not like it. Veilguard, as both a direct sequel to Inquisition and fourth installment of this franchise, fails in every sense of the word.
I'm a player who has never played a DA game until Veilguard and had no concept of the lore of the world. Also had very little exposure to DAV marketing ahead of launch. I just finished playing it, and I had a good time. I really liked the character creator and combat system, but the writing definitely felt childish, and the tone of the writing is an abysmal match for the heavy themes and stakes attached to the villains. I called this a "junk food" game, because if you can just turn your brain off to the cringe and enjoy the button mash fighting, you'll have fun. And since I had no idea what previous titles were like, I didn't experience the whiplash many longtime fans have been discussing
Athem, for all it's faults - sold like 5-6 million copies, the reputation of the company still carried alot of weight back then. I don't think it does it anymore. That's why "Return to form" message was extremely important for them to spread
Interesting video. Here are my 50 cents. Spoiler warning!!
- Bloom bothered me so much that i followed the advice from the internet and set it to 0 in the ProfileOptions_Profile settings so that it was actually turned off.
- Combat sounds were ok, although i found the sounds lacked a bit more impact.
- The German and French versions only have one voice per gender for Rook for some reason.
- The music wasn't to my taste. If it says Hans Zimmer, i expect more.
- The hair doesn't have enough weight and this causes the hair to stand up when you go down in the elevator. I also complained about the short hairstyles.
- Lore or not, "Dark"spawn can't even plan an ambush anymore because you can see them glowing 10km away.
- I don't like the art design of Veilguard. It often broke the immersion.
- the locations and environments in general werent particularly appealing. There was nothing new and it seems very generic to me.
- I would have liked a setting that prevented companions from telling me how to "solve puzzles".
- It's also not great that you had to wait until the third patch, which came out 5 days ago, to finally be able to bind the arrow keys.
- The combat is boring and i would have liked an option to switch between simplified combat and tactical combat.
- I always imagine that when the veil was torn in Inquisition and many demons came out of the fade, the two gods were lying on a beach somewhere and didn't notice anything.
- When i helped Treviso in the first playthrough, i naively thought, "Okay, if Ghilan'nain is here, then Elgar'nan is in the other city." but when i helped the other city in the second playthrough, i just thought, "Wow. That's the laziest thing I've ever seen."
- I also wonder why Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain aren't nearly as brutal and terrifying as Solas described them. I mean, even if they're not at full power or whatever, they should be a threat, but after the blight is released, there's not much new happening. The dragons are nothing new, you've seen all the enemies pretty quickly, and Elgar'nan ends up looking like he's from a Marvel movie.
its a shame.
I love listening to video game essays while falling asleep (or trying to...). Your content is perfect for that! I especially loved your Kingdom Come Video as I'm currently playing it and having a blast. Due to the many flaws, I won't be playing Dragon Age. The Veilguard but I'm curiously following the many discussions around it. Therefore, I'm intrigued what you will have to say in this video.
Here is to many more videos and a flourishing channel :)
Thanks you for such a nice comment! Hopefully you enjoyed the video!
The writing decisions are directly related to Patrick Weekes having a transition and wanting to make his author's pet character, you know the one, go through her own little transition story. That she's also the most obnoxious and downright rude and meanspirited, is a bit of a Freudian slip of the writer himself.
Trick Weekes, and “they.”
@@PatheticApathetic
Shut up
@@PatheticApathetic We don't want to roleplay with you.
@ what’s your name?
@@PatheticApatheticTrick Weekes is one thing but Traash doesn't deserve to have HER pronouns respected. Why should HER pronouns be respected when SHE acts like a child and has tantrums? I respect Trick Weekes because of their past work but they really fumbled with Traash. Traash and her personal quest could have been one of the most compelling stories in the game but instead she set back acceptance for non binary people and their struggle by a good few decades by acting like a Twitter/Tumblr stereotype.
I think the thing people on both sides of the woke argument don’t understand or refuse to accept is that nobody gives a shit if woke is in the game if it’s done well. If you complained about the woke in BG3 the issue is with you. I can see the complaints here.
Exactly, bad writing is bad writing, good writing is good writing, it doesn’t matter what the subject matter is.
I absolutely hate Rook as the protagonist, He/She just doesn't fit the role at all, I believe that the Inquisitor should've been the protagonist once again because at least the Inquisitor has a connection Solas.
This game proved Gaider right. Good writers are not valued enough. Good writers are not replaceable with just anyone holding a pen and notebook.
What i find funny, is that Bioware missing an interesting opportunity to add to the world of Thedas; the humans on Thedas haven't been on the continent long enough to cause any genetic "locks" (and unlike our own world's Indo Europeans, that despite all having the same orgin people, Icelandic people look very different from the Urdu peoples, which was caused by local interbreeding.) So they could have made the Veil to act like radiation, and is causing a massive increase to mutation and causing an actual dilemma for the game
Like you, I'm a massive fan of DA, i've been playing the games since DAO, which is to my mind one of the best games ever put together. I didnt enjoy DA2 on release but went back to it after DAI which helped me to appreciate the story, but I had issues with the repeated environments and liked but didn't love the characters. DAI was fine on my first playthrough but it was each subsequent playththrough that made me fall in love with it, and I loved played as the inquisitor and am a huge fan of every character in the game.
DATV feels to me, like a more polished DA2. Average characters, repeated but beautiful environments, with an okay story (although execution is poor). My main issue with DATV is Rook: I feel that im watching Rooks story rather than role playing as Rook so there's this massive disconnect between me as the player and the character. I don't understand why Varric is narrating the game like he knows what happens. Best characters by miles are Davrin and Emrich (which i think could be because of Assan and Manfred!).
I think the troubled development in the focus of the game shows, and because so many of the experienced writers left or were fired from bioware, there wasn't enough experience to be able to produce a well told story in the time available.
With Taash their writer Patrick Weekes also identifies as non-binary, and while everyone was excited after they were promoted to lead writer after Gaider left (as they were responsible for some amazing bioware characters in the past), it feels that their own experience as coming out as non-binary really was their focus rather than making sure that actual story tied together. I do think the team thought this was gojng to be their last dragon age game, so tried to tie up all loose ends, but in the process forgot about what had made the games great which was role playing. Im half way through my second playthrough and doubt there will be a third.
And that's the sad part. Taash and their struggle could have given us one of the most compelling characters since Loghain, but instead we got a Twitter non binary stereotype that's probably going to set back acceptance of non binary by several years. How do you go from writing the very model of a scientist salarian to doing barvs and very awkward dinners that end with temper tantrums?
The way I decided to enjoy this game was to roleplay as my origins character to add some depth to the main character, you can't really talk about your past much, so if you were the hero of Fereldan, nobody mentions it anyway and my antagonistic relationship with the 1st Warden makes more sense if I had to beat a blight on my own and I'm here trying to stop another one while he continues to ignore it just like the last. So much of the game feels like they put a lot of time and effort and creative freedom to most of the artists and designers, but then hired some fresh out of high school writers who would listen to everything the corporate overlords said for their writing direction.
I hate how all of Southern Thedas, specifically areas we've experienced and potentially cared for, are hand wiped away with a few text by the inquisitor. Ferelden, Orlais, Kirkwall and the Free Marches are royally screwed by the new blight. Hell, the off screen hand waved blight of The Veilguard apparently did more damage to Ferelden than the blight of Origins. Like, seriously??
The Disneyfication of this game is next level. I'm not the biggest fan of action combat, and if it's in a game I prefer it like Skyrim. Everything in this game retcons the lore and the combat is no exception. It's "fun" for the first hour or two, but it's just so lazy and out of place in a DA game. It erases spell casting, spirit healing, blood magic, and even LYRIUM use from the world entirely, making blood magic not a thing learned by info passed down by practitioners and learned from spirits, but twisted Ancient Elven Gods Elgar'nan and Ghilin'nain (tm).
And don't get me started on the ENDLESS repetition as if we're all late stage dementia patients! Even just watching footage of the first few hours... There are videos on RUclips that count how many times they say "Ritual", "Artifact" and "Ancient Elven Gods - Elgar'nan and Ghilin'nain". It's... a lot. 🤦🤦🤣🤣
Belara is basically a Disney Princess. Even her music is Disney-esque. Harding is not much better. I mean she even sticks her damn foot in the air when she kisses. It's humiliating to even watch it.
Taash is a pet peeve for me. I've had several conversations with other queer DA players, and we all agree with you. It feels like Taash's writer was actually transphobic. Seriously, the character is such a bucket list of negative stereotypes for the trans community, it's almost custom made to fuel hate for the people it's pretending to represent. I identify as nonbinary. I rarely mention it in day-to-day life. I don't ask people to use my preferred pronouns, I have it on my work email sig because it's company policy that EVERYONE notes their pronouns, but I get misgendered a dozen times a day.
I categorically do NOT pull people up on it. I don't expect apologies. I don't get angry about it, I get a quiet sense of happiness when that one rare person notices and uses the correct pronouns but that's it.
I absolutely, under no circumstances EVER, want someone to "pull a Bharv". Never. Again, it's humiliating just watching it. Not one single queer person I've discussed this with would EVER want that kind of spectacle, including a colleague who is also nonbinary who (and if there was ever a reason to pull a bharv this would be it!!) I regularly misgender because I'm a forgetful muppet!! They LAUGH when I do it, because they know I don't do it with malice, I'm just not perfect. I make mistakes. They don't get angry or throw a tantrum, they just chuckle at me and move on. I don't give drawn out apologies because I know that just MAKES it uncomfortable. I just facepalm, correct myself quietly and move on. That's all we ever want, nobody wants a fucking "Bharv", or any other kind of self-humiliation ritual.
Ugh, it seriously feels like a deliberate attempt to fuel hatred, which to be honest is exactly what their whole "fucking tourists" marketing campaign on socials felt like. Nobody who wants to HELP marginalised communities behaves like that.
The whole game is really disheartening, and it's unfortunately tainted the whole BioWare catalogue for me. I tried to replay Origins and also tried to log into SWTOR to see what's changed since the new studio took over. I just don't have the heart for it. The DA that I love is dead, I know this becuase it's written in the actual lore objects in Veilguard. They literally scorched the earth of the original three games and their expansions. It's all gone. I can't bring myself to play any of them anymore. Hard reset successful. I'm so sad. THere are ways to reboot a series without alienating your loyal player base, but this was categorically not it.
I've got a few notes.
1) I was playing Monster Hunter: World when the video came on, not doing dishes.
2) I wouldn't call HeelsVsBabyface (Az, the Pronouns Guy) a grifter. I believe he sincerely believes the things he says. He might be performative, but I wouldn't say insincere. And, to his credit, if pronouns don't matter and aren't a big deal, Nexus bans any mods that would remove it. If it's not a big deal why can't we turn it off; not for everyone, just ourselves?
3) Yeah, the mechanical review sounded like what it looks like from all I've seen. It's just not the RPG that I would go to Dragon Age for. I've wanted them to walk back changes to be more like DA:O since DA2 and I'm more disappointed the farther away it gets. Good or bad, it isn't what I want.
4) You don't bend your knees for push ups, you straighten your back out.
Heels wasn’t the grifter I was mentioning I just liked using his pronouns clip it’s kinda an inside joke I have with a friend and I promised I’d use the clip haha. I was talking about ENDYMION who has in the last 3 weeks made over 15 videos talking about this game and it being woke and sweet baby inc and all the classic grifting talking points. Credit to him though he’s taking in the cash, doing it.
I don't understand how people can gaslight themselves into saying DA2 and Inquisition have different art styles.
Inquisition just continued the same art style space that DA2 established.
"More"/"improvement" ≠ "different"
Meanwhile Veilguard... Now that's a change in art style.
I like Origins ALOT and DESPISE Veilguard but… it seems odd to me everyone comparing it to Origins more than Inquisition which is the much more recent and relevant title both narratively and technologically (time between titles and hardware changes). That said it fails just as bad that comparison.
Sadly, I think the next Dragon Age game will be rated T. That's what the sanitization and art style seem to be moving towards. I can just picture what the executives behind this game were thinking, "Ok, so Mass Effect is for our older audience and Dragon Age is for the younger audience." Mass Effect will be their M rated franchise and Dragon Age will be their T rated franchise. I hope I'm wrong though.
Taash feels like either someone from 4chan snuck into the writing room OR they were written by someone self-inserting who lacks basic levels of self-awareness. The latter is far more likely considering how the lead of this game presents himself.
You know what I always kept thinking about? What about the original Darkspawn Magisters like the Architect. The central conflict about Awakening was so good... that was bioware building on in advancing the original content and going forward. What if Darkspawn start to build their own society? How do we deal with that?
I feel like after that it was downhilll (not like Veilguard downhill, but still...) but I feel like something started there.
The architect was so good, and it not being introduced or discussed in inquisition with Corypheas was a massive fumble. Even if you killed it in awakening it could just do the whole move to another darkspawn and be reborn thing.
Man the Architect was such a missed opportunity. Over a decade later and we still know nothing about him or what his plans are
You could actually try Elden Ring as the build variety is comically large, you can make the game as easy or hard as you want it to be. The open world gives you the opportunity to build craft without fighting anything, of course you'd have to use a guide for that which would spoil the exploration experience. So you could make a point of just exploring, including running away from encounters, have the "what is that, can I go there?" that is so fascinating and when you feel you can't get anywhere else without fighting something big you could consult a build guide. Just a suggestion, it is a rather intoxicating experience I would encourage everyone to seek.
Of course the story is like a D&D session where the DM decided to only speak in riddles and leaves you to talk to sketchy NPCs who spout mostly non-sense when you don't already know what's going on so you have to scrounge for story and lore in every item description, sometimes the most unassuming looking flower holds key information. But that's also half the fun 🙂
Haha I played elden ring a lot on release, I haven’t picked up shadow of the erd tree yet but I might, I think it was my favorite souls experience so far, but I just don’t absolutely love that type of game the way the fans of them do.
@@Berendir completely understandable, it's certainly an acquired taste even though you could almost call Elden Ring inviting were it not for the horrendous UI you basically need a live chat to explain to you to fully understand
Music was not good. Inquisition ost was much better. I mean just Solas theme alone is iconic. They should have continued with the Inquisition. That story was obviously not finished just based on dlc. I do not get this new player thing. Bro just finish the story
Amazing critique, dissecting the actual issues with this game and how it reflects in the modern gaming market, and a call out of Endymion in the first ten minutes, I'm completely here for this guy! Love this content.
Dragon age: avengers. Said it the minute they released that terrible trailer, turns out I was right. A massive opportunity wasted.
Haha yeah it really was just fantasy avengers. Such a bummer
Dorian called my romanced Inky "Amatus" once in the final mission and I reloaded just to hear it again. Bro, I was that desperate to feel SOMETHING for this world again after Veilguard's 50hr slog and a decade of waiting.
Davrin's romance is bland too, btw.
Just like you, I'm a long-time fan of DA and I love this lore... and honestly, I'd rather see "Bioware" 💀💀 than continue to harm this world, and I'll pretend this game doesn't exist :)
The game feels incredibly uneven... My entire time getting through my first playthrough, i couldn't stop thinking how it was so weird that a game that overall looks so incredibly stunning (minus the stupid looking Darkspawn...), could be both so stupidly written and boring to play!
It felt like the game had its entire development budget distributed at complete random when the Veilguard project started on becoming the product we got, with the world designers and technical crew getting by far the biggest cut, but the writing staff clearly got the least amount of the budget... If i were to quantify it, it felt to me like the people who designed the world itself got 70% of the entire budget, the music department got 20%, and the rest was for literally everything else...
Dragon Age: The Vailguard taught me that misgendering and eating the last breadstick is equally bad and according to this misgendering is fine, because eating the last f*cking breadstick is no big deal. /s
I think I sat there with my mouth wide open in shock when I saw the last part of the scene lol.
When a criticism uses "X is not useful" instead of "I dont know the use for X", it is when it loses the productive aspect of it.
The thing about this game is that you can be dull and bland in combat, and do all the work, and it will allow you doing that, and you can actually make use of companions and it will work as well. If you dont know how to use them, that is perfectly fine, but dont pretend you are some sort of "oh God, I only play max difficult" as if it was "accomplishing something".
Someone who considers "being good" as winning or losing, is not all that big deal. Big deal is when you know you win, it is just about how well you look doing it.
Most of the criticism in this video goes about how the host plays the game, and not about the game itself.
Hard disagree, the companions are good for buffing and healing you or the primer and detonator system. The warriors taunts don’t function very well and in nightmare difficulty the detonations do less damage than a well built character, I played the entire game front to back twice before even starting on the critique, and synergetic companions in fully upgraded and enchanted gear are still next to useless, even considering the weaknesses and resistances of the enemies you are fighting and the type of damage your companion does, they still do probably 20 percent of the overall damage output and its is probably overall a net damage loss to be wasting time using the companions abilities for anything other than healing you. Looking cool in combat in this game is largely not what the fan base of this series would care about considering the combat from the first 3 games had nothing to do with the action oriented style that this game brought to the series and they focused more on the strategic and positioning aspect that more closely relates to CRPG’s. Seeing as the entire point of the critique was critiquing how the game was not made for fans of the series and it isn’t what the majority of us wanted I think it is a completely valid critique of the combat mechanics. I also don’t play on the hardest difficulties of games to stroke my ego, it’s a single player video game and there is no reward for completing it on nightmare, I do it because in my experience the hardest difficulties of RPG’s is what forces the player to engage with all of the systems to be able to gain that minuscule advantage that may be required to finish a part of the game, a perfect example of this is actually Inquisition, as nightmare makes you consider your build much more carefully and the synergy between the equipment you have with the build you have gone for. Even then I still found myself not really interacting with the alchemy system as it wasn’t really needed of me to be able to easily complete the content. Circling back to the original point, if the developers had intended for the companions to be a viable mechanic to leverage in the game outside of the detonation system they wouldn’t have made them invulnerable, as that would be completely broken.
I personally felt very disconnected from the world and the people in it. There are no interactions with NPCs other than your companions. Also, there was bad character building, you don’t really get to talk to your companions and get to know them like in origins.
Yeah they inability to have conversations with companions without it being a cutscene takes a lot away from building a relationship for sure.
My Gf loves Dragon Age. Played Inquisition over 50 times (complete playthroughs), Origins and 2 about 6 times each, but she couldn't force herself through this game
Such a bummer :(
I think the worst thing they did with this game are two things, the fact that most of Thedas, like Kirkwall, Ferelden and other cities are destroyed by the blight flood in this game and everything past protagonist in previous DA games did is just worthless now, and they address this in a freaking codex, the second is that end credit scene, that scene is just beyond stupid and is just shitting on fans of the DA series everything about that end credit scene is just wrong, so wrong man.
I romanced Lucanis, Davrin and Emmrich. Lucanis and Davrin were disappointing, all three felt felt very awkward and sudden with no build up but Lucanis especially. Then Emmrich, who I assumed would be better because the voice was written less modern compared to other companions, was super disappointing. Emmrich's fear of dying is never approached and when you romance him, there is never a conversation of what immortality means to their relationship. There is never an added good-bye before the ritual to become a Lich, which its mentions the ritual can permanently kill Emmrich, and there are copy-paste arguments that last less than 30 seconds whether Emmrich is undying or not before the final battle. When a Lich, Emmrich will suggest Rook doesn't join the huge fight because Rook can die while he cannot. Instead of writing some moving dialogue, Rook about says 'you can just say you're in love with me'. Final thought, because there are more, whether or not you made your Rook to look old or young, Emmrich will always say he is older than Rook and for me kept referring to Rook as a 'young woman' or 'young adventurer', etc. The game is an HR friendship simulator.
Such a bummer for a large part of the community who love the romances. It was never the biggest deal to me but I enjoyed them. Harding, Neve and bellara are similarly disappointing.
Orignal story plan for dreadwolf is so great, Just look at artbook.
Dragon Age was marketed as the spiritual successor to BioWare’s first masterpiece of the medium: Baldur’s Gate. Which also was the very first retail PC game to sell 1 million units. Seeing Dragon Age implode like this with Veilguard is sickening to my stomach. #WhaHappun
DAO = Original SW Trilogy
DA2 = Prequel Trilogy
Inquisition = Clone Wars / EU
Veilguard = The Sequel Trilogy… actually no, Veilguard = The Acolyte
You made a huge mistake. EU should be in the Origins section
@ good point! You’re right 👍
I love when people tell me the video is not for me. It's a long video and my time is precious.
I'm sorry but i have to say, when bring up characters in conflict with each other how did none of the kirkwall crew even get a mention like, one of fenris and anders's chats they can have is literally asking if the other thought about not aliving (idk youtube's censor here)themselves. Yeah Morrigan and Alistair were an absolute mess though, not denying that.
Besides that I think bioware pulled a huge writing issue with all the lore drops and explaining the world, but thats just me. I think that when you reveal so many worldbuilding aspects especially that of the different religons, especially how veilguard did it, it takes out the magic. There is no mystery left to theorize or no major one at least, that always seems to kill the hype around some stories, especially if they just brush it off as all connecting to this one thing. Doing that just feels like its making the worldbuilding smaller, idk that could just be me. I just think its a shame when a story shows their cards to the player. That and how bioware said oh yeah all of your previous actions dont matter with the keep and going scorched earth on fereldan.
Honestly it was just me trying to keep the video under 2 hours. But you are right the Kirkwall gang has done of the best interpersonal conflict in the series. Also you’re exactly right and I made the point that it felt like they were just moving down a checklist of unanswered questions so for whatever game that dimes next they can have a fresh start.
You mentioned that you'd think the writer behind Taash is a red pill chad... Unfortunately no. It was Trick Weekes, a BioWare writer, identifying as pansexual and non-binary. So, unfortunately, this is a bit of an own goal for the people promoting this ideology.
But this tidbit aside - I have enjoyed watching/listening to your video essay here. I've been watching Veilguard reviews for a while and yours is the most in-depth one so far. Harsh, but fair, I'd say. You clearly have the knowledge and love for the franchise. Kudos to you, and a shame that this franchise-killer had to be inflicted upon people such as yourself.
All the best!
Yeah that was my bad not actually looking into who it was who wrote Taash, kinda a bummer because Trick has written some fantastic characters. Thanks for the nice comment! Just trying to make better content with every release!
Hey man
I found your videos last night and watched all of them.
I really enjoy your perspective,
You seem open minded and show a lot of compassion.
You give direct criticism and do not hate just to hate. I feel your passion and love for video games and it is beautiful !
Keep it up brotha
That’s a really kind thing to say thank you! I hope I can keep making content worth the praise you’re giving me :)
"The game isn't bad because of woke" "This game is full of woke" "Only anti-woke grifters thinks this game is bad because of woke" "This woke stuff is written so poorly you would think a redpill, anti-woke wrote it"
Great review, lines up with almost everything I felt while playing it. For me, the graphics were much worse, probably because I didn't have raytracing on, the lights in your footage look fucking beautiful, while for me they are just meh. I played as a mage and having Lucanis and Drayden was a godsent, they are far better at drawing agro than anybody else. Also, you are coping hard.
My strategy on Nightmare ended up just being bringing two mages and upgrading their heal ability to give 20% ult and just spamming it so I could easily spam my ult lol
Haha yeah the mages were super op and it made the rogues and warrior companions completely useless. Literally just there for flavor.
The funny thing is in the Bharv scene Taash doesn't even speak up about being misgendered, they just make a sad face. They are actually more upset about the cheese stick, than Isabella accidentally saying the wrong pronoun.
Hollow world. I didnt play to learn about the characters when i saw how empty the world was, i couldnt continue.
You were supposed to praise failguard. Now they will hate you and ban you from their forums.
I can handle the smoke.
Which forums, they banned us all from them years ago... XD
@@r.kolemaistos7788 Steam Failguard forums.
@@r.kolemaistos7788 Being banned or blocked from BIoWare forums is practically a real world achievement unlock these days. I've been banned from SO many. The funny thing is, they're almost all run by influencers from the "Community Panel", so they either forget to remove the 'temporary' ban or they forget who they banned a few months in. Every now and then I pop back in to see how the groups and forums are doing and it's the same hot mess of com panel influencers for each game, just holding court like they have been for the last decade and a half, as if they're the queens of lore and we're all to dumb to do our own research. It's kind of sad.
So the issue I think a lot of people have with the art design is that it is an objective step away from the more gritty dark fantasy roots of the series. I think if this was the first entry in a new fantasy franchise that such a choice would be objectively neutral, but any tonal changes in an established franchise that change it's identity are to some extent by definition already at least partially negative. Heck the change could even be awesome in their own right in which case few people would complain, but it would still be a strike against it.
Honestly I feel a bit the same about the change in the Qunari, though if Sten' had showed up and was still just a big ass elf and then Sten'' showed up I would have been unbothered because we already knew the Qunari was a social group that included multiple species in their homeland.
I’ve been a fan of this series for a while, and I had really high hopes for veilguard. I think that it’s unfortunate how the game turned out, even though it does have things that I enjoy. I would have really liked more of our past choices to have mattered, honestly I think more people would be a lot more forgiving if that was the case.
Im glad to have found your channel and i mean it when i say it, this is the best video ive watched on the game and ive been watching a lot of them. This is very good, and im genuinly excited to see your other videos and any more you make.
As for the video itself the thing that stuck with me that you said about replaying the series every year, i do the same thing. Every November 7th i replay the Mass Effect trilogy. And as soon as i finish Mass Effect i replay Dragon Age all the way through. Every year for the last 15 years. Bioware games mean a lot to me. The characters, the world, the lore, everything they made for all 25 years of my life have literally shaped my taste in media forever. When i say this game broke my heart far worse than even Andromeda did on launch, i mean it. I wanted this to be the finale of the series i loved, send it out with a bang and sing its praise in the stars forever. And instead, we got the equivalent to a shit sandwich. Might have turkey, lettuce, cheese and mayo, but there's a hunk of shit in it, and it doesnt matter if the other ingredients are there in peak form, the shits still there ruining everything.
The paradox at the heart of Bioware is that their parent company EA wants the reputation of their early titles, but their corporate cultures are diametrically opposed to making these types of games.
tbh, I give no f's about pronouns in my games or not - the gripe I have with the game is the introduction to modern words and phrases without trying to make it into a part of the game. It to me just seemed to out of place... And not to mention the lore and how Bioware just took everything that people - like me - did to make different world states to import in and shred it to pieces before they set it on fire. That is my gripe with the game... And the bad writing... and some other small things... But alas, mostly it is just the lore shit that bothers me so much
Recently Game Lead Corinne Burshe and writer John Epler essentially told fans to "please don't leave us! The next Dragon Age game will be darker and past player choices will return!".
This is an admission that The Veilguard was made for people in their late-10s to early-20s that are/were fans of things like Critical Role and play causal D&D, not the fans of the old games, even Inquisition fans.
"Say you're sorry some more"
"you're, right I am pulling a Barve"
No that's not what I... God help me
You can really tell the writers thought this was hilarious and would turn into a fandom term or something
@@Te3time Biggest face-palm ever. Lol
THANK YOU I’ve been trying to find a video highlighting the actual issues of the game and not ‘woke’ bullshit and every point you raise is spot on ESPECIALLY the comments on the development causing issues. I enjoyed my first playthrough because I happened to play rook as a kind and humorous character, but trying a second playthrough and attempting to make a polar opposite personality only to find that the game pretty much forces you to be funny and supportive absolutely ruined the replayability for me. I did make a different character who would also play to the kind and funny personality just to try out some of the other choices and see a different romance but by the end it just felt tedious because I was more or less playing the same character twice. I can’t consider this an rpg for that reason.
Appreciate the quality of the video despite being a small channel. Some ignore things like audio clarity and are hard to listen to, which is not the case here.
Thanks! I work hard to make it sound ok!
Have you played Disco Elysium? Peak rpg, I think you'd love it
I actually haven’t but it’s on the long list of games I have that I want to play.
Rogue trader is pretty dope too
I second this. I loved all the dragon age games (not counting this one) but Disco Elysium is better.
Dragon Age: Death of a Franchise
Why would the new lore interest you if the creators of Thedas aren't writing it? I wouldn't care if any new lore is developed for LOTR, as J.R.R and Christopher Tolkien are dead. The Star Wars sequels are another prime example.
Ok but most of SWs lore wasn’t written by Lucas even before Disney. The sequels being shit doesn’t mean they had to be. Outcome is outcome, success is success, pretty much all of CDPR for example output is lore written by them in someone else’s world. If the writing was good it would stand up regardless of author change.
Sorry, complaining about a specific brand of politics shoved into a quasi medieval setting where it clearly doesn't belong is not grifting
No but making literally 30 videos in 2 weeks on the same thing is.
Hmmm rare case of giving a thumbs up to both a comment and a counter to that comment.