Dragon Age: The Veilguard

^^ It doesn't have the sense of scale and choices the previous games had but as a standalone game and if you go in without GOTY expectations it's pretty good. It's solid but unremarkable; Eurogamer went way overboard, IMO, with their review but that is balanced out by the reviews which focus on ideology (of which there isn't that much) being amplified over the actual content of the game.

If you're easily offended and are looking to be upset then you should probably pass on it. If you're a normal person it's a fun game.


e: 'yoo' isn't a word, magnolia :( corrected
 
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GTanny said:
Dragon Age Origins is still one of my gaming highlights, I still might give this a go in the future but this thread has been a depressing read.

given the turnaround of games like No Mans Sky and Cyberpunk there's always hope... oh wait DA is owned by EA, maybe not :(
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It's middling at best, and not an RPG by any measure, more of a semi-linear corridor running action game where you don't have much in the way of choices. If it was a new IP I'd probably look at it as a 5-6/10, as a Dragon Age game it's a few points worse depending on what you liked about the earlier games.

- Aesthetically it looks totally different, the art and character/model designs vary from decent to hideous. Some of the enemies look downright ridiculous, the tonality is entirely different and far more cartoonish.
- The story overall is so-so from what I gather, nothing fantastic but serviceable at times. Your mileage with companion quests is going to depend on how much you like said companion, which leads into my next comment.
- The characters are some of the worst to ever be featured in a Bioware game, the stand out in that regard being Tash. It's not even that she's "non-binary", it's that she's utterly insufferable and condescending to everyone despite being a grown woman. She comes across as painfully immature, and frankly enforces every negative stereotype people connect with those within that community. There are some decent characters, but they never really realise their potential and in my opinion it adds to the level of disappointment.
- Lack of meaningful choices, you select a conversation choice out of 3-4 that more or less end up saying the exact same things regardless of what you pick. You can't remove characters from the team either, in older games you could ask them to leave for good or even kill them off. There is a point where two members of your party can potentially die, but that's pretty much it.
- The gameplay is simplistic, it's not terrible but it does become draining the further you get in due to how repetitive it is.

If you have EA Play by all means give it a shot, but I'd certainly not recommend spending £50-60 on it. I think I'm more bothered by the absolute gob-plapping the major review outlets did, extremely high scores where they praise the diversity but admit to the story and writing being the weakest part of the game. Veilgaurd is the newest iteration of (what at least used to be) a story heavy RPG franchise lauded for its characters, if the story is the weakest part how on earth can you claim it's a return to form and one of the best games in the series?
 
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Gray2233 said:
It's middling at best, and not an RPG by any measure, more of a semi-linear corridor running action game where you don't have much in the way of choices. If it was a new IP I'd probably look at it as a 5-6/10, as a Dragon Age game it's a few points worse depending on what you liked about the earlier games.

- Aesthetically it looks totally different, the art and character/model designs vary from decent to hideous. Some of the enemies look downright ridiculous, the tonality is entirely different and far more cartoonish.
- The story overall is so-so from what I gather, nothing fantastic but serviceable at times. Your mileage with companion quests is going to depend on how much you like said companion, which leads into my next comment.
- The characters are some of the worst to ever be featured in a Bioware game, the stand out in that regard being Tash. It's not even that she's "non-binary", it's that she's utterly insufferable and condescending to everyone despite being a grown woman. She comes across as painfully immature, and frankly enforces every negative stereotype people connect with those within that community. There are some decent characters, but they never really realise their potential and in my opinion it adds to the level of disappointment.
- Lack of meaningful choices, you select a conversation choice out of 3-4 that more or less end up saying the exact same things regardless of what you pick. You can't remove characters from the team either, in older games you could ask them to leave for good or even kill them off. There is a point where two members of your party can potentially die, but that's pretty much it.
- The gameplay is simplistic, it's not terrible but it does become draining the further you get in due to how repetitivee it is.

If you have EA Play by all means give it a shot, but I'd certainly not recommend spending £50-60 on it. I think I'm more bothered by the absolute gob-plapping the major review outlets did, extremely high scores where they praise the diversity but admit to the story and writing being the weakest part of the game. Veilgaurd is the newest iteration of (what at least used to be) a story heavy RPG franchise lauded for its characters, if the story is the weakest part how on earth can you claim it's a return to form and one of the best games in the series?
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Ill hold off for a few years by the sounds of it, I don't mind simple games but my free time is limited at the moment so Ill focus on other games, already been disappointed by DA: 2 and DA: Inquisition at launch without adding a third to the list
 
Gray2233 said:
It's middling at best, and not an RPG by any measure, more of a semi-linear corridor running action game where you don't have much in the way of choices. If it was a new IP I'd probably look at it as a 5-6/10, as a Dragon Age game it's a few points worse depending on what you liked about the earlier games.

- Aesthetically it looks totally different, the art and character/model designs vary from decent to hideous. Some of the enemies look downright ridiculous, the tonality is entirely different and far more cartoonish.
- The story overall is so-so from what I gather, nothing fantastic but serviceable at times. Your mileage with companion quests is going to depend on how much you like said companion, which leads into my next comment.
- The characters are some of the worst to ever be featured in a Bioware game, the stand out in that regard being Tash. It's not even that she's "non-binary", it's that she's utterly insufferable and condescending to everyone despite being a grown woman. She comes across as painfully immature, and frankly enforces every negative stereotype people connect with those within that community. There are some decent characters, but they never really realise their potential and in my opinion it adds to the level of disappointment.
- Lack of meaningful choices, you select a conversation choice out of 3-4 that more or less end up saying the exact same things regardless of what you pick. You can't remove characters from the team either, in older games you could ask them to leave for good or even kill them off. There is a point where two members of your party can potentially die, but that's pretty much it.
- The gameplay is simplistic, it's not terrible but it does become draining the further you get in due to how repetitive it is.

If you have EA Play by all means give it a shot, but I'd certainly not recommend spending £50-60 on it. I think I'm more bothered by the absolute gob-plapping the major review outlets did, extremely high scores where they praise the diversity but admit to the story and writing being the weakest part of the game. Veilgaurd is the newest iteration of (what at least used to be) a story heavy RPG franchise lauded for its characters, if the story is the weakest part how on earth can you claim it's a return to form and one of the best games in the series?
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Some of this criticism is fair, (choices, RPG content), some of it is opinion (graphics, story), and some is frankly wrong (although 'gob-plapping' is my new favourite made up word :) )

At least you've played it rather than the youtube warriors so kudos for that.
 
[FnG]magnolia said:
Some of this criticism is fair, (choices, RPG content), some of it is opinion (graphics, story), and some is frankly wrong (although 'gob-plapping' is my new favourite made up word :) )

At least you've played it rather than the youtube warriors so kudos for that.
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Gave it a shot on EA Play, much to my disappointment. To clarify, I've been wanting to play Jedi: Survivor for an age as I very much enjoyed the first title. It's a one and done type of game for me, so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone with a sub, I love the DA franchise and wanted to see first hand.

Obviously, there's a heavy subjective element in relation to art/story/gameplay etc. That said, I absolutely feel it's fair to objectively say that this is a poor Dragon Age game even when compared to 2 and Inquisition. It's tonally different in every single way even outside of the artstyle, I believe it actually started life as a live service multiplayer game that got retconned? If true it shows imo.

I am of course a random pleb on the internet, I don't get paid for my opinion. Those that actually do enjoy a wage packet for doing so very clearly had an agenda in many cases, and don't get me wrong I'm not arguing for political nonsense. If anything I want it miles away from my escapism, there's enough ridiculous stuff going on in the real world.

I would be interested in what you think is wrong, however? I'm not looking for a grand debate, simply interested in where we might differ.
 
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Gray2233 said:
Gave it a shot on EA Play, much to my disappointment.

Obviously, there's a heavy subjective element in relation to art/story/gameplay etc. That said, I absolutely feel it's fair to objectively say that this is a poor Dragon Age game even when compared to 2 and Inquisition. It's tonally different in every single way even outside of the artstyle, I believe it actually started life as a live service multiplayer game that got retconned? If true it shows imo.

I am of course a random pleb on the internet, I don't get paid for my opinion. Those that actually do enjoy a wage packet for doing so very clearly had an agenda in many cases, and don't get me wrong I'm not arguing for political nonsense. If anything I want it miles away from my escapism, there's enough ridiculous stuff going on in the real world.

I would be interested in what you think is wrong, however? I'm not looking for a grand debate, simply interested in where we might differ.
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Hi, no grand debate from me so I think we're agreed on that :)

I'm not sure if it's fair of me to focus on the same thing that you did but ...

you said:
I think I'm more bothered by the absolute gob-plapping the major review outlets did, extremely high scores where they praise the diversity but admit to the story and writing being the weakest part of the game. Veilgaurd is the newest iteration of (what at least used to be) a story heavy RPG franchise lauded for its characters, if the story is the weakest part how on earth can you claim it's a return to form and one of the best games in the series?
Click to expand...
... seems like there are a couple of things going on, one I potentially agree with and one I do not.

Do publishers influence reviews? Well, of course, that's not new or news. Is DA: The Veilguard the first or last to do so? Well, of course not. I agree with you on this. Next.

On to the story and this is where the 'potentially' comes in from my comment above. The story is not strong to begin with, the tonality of the characters - such as they are - is like listening to a Google translate of teens discussing who cares what and who cares why. But when the bar is that low to begin with it does get better and - 35 hours in now - start to make a bit more sense and the characters feel less "stereotype I made in third year English Lit" and a more, well, I don't have a better description but some kind of movement away from that. It's something.

There's also a third thing I was getting grumpy about looking at the 'all comments/no play time' crowd from before but I've said my piece on that already so won't bore you further.
 
[FnG]magnolia said:
Hi, no grand debate from me so I think we're agreed on that :)

I'm not sure if it's fair of me to focus on the same thing that you did but ...

... seems like there are a couple of things going on, one I potentially agree with and one I do not.

Do publishers influence reviews? Well, of course, that's not new or news. Is DA: The Veilguard the first or last to do so? Well, of course not. I agree with you on this. Next.

On to the story and this is where the 'potentially' comes in from my comment above. The story is not strong to begin with, the tonality of the characters - such as they are - is like listening to a Google translate of teens discussing who cares what and who cares why. But when the bar is that low to begin with it does get better and - 35 hours in now - start to make a bit more sense and the characters feel less "stereotype I made in third year English Lit" and a more, well, I don't have a better description but some kind of movement away from that. It's something.

There's also a third thing I was getting grumpy about looking at the 'all comments/no play time' crowd from before but I've said my piece on that already so won't bore you further.
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I appreciate the response.

Honestly, I think we're on the same page and while I've been quite critical of the game even prior to playing it, it was out of a love for the franchise and studio while watching what in my mind is a bit of an abomination for a DA release. I mentioned this earlier, if it had been an entirely new IP I'd simply have shrugged and moved on, I legitimately wouldn't have cared in the least.

The characters are what I find the most offensive, the writing is so bloody childish to the point it gives me third hand embarrassment from witnessing it. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a very low budget CW show at best, especially the character interactions, which were in my mind a strong point of the earlier games.

Publishers absolutely do influence game reviews, probably for more complex reasons than many think. It's a slightly different problem in my mind, I think legacy media is on a massive downturn in general and is scrambling to keep itself afloat more than anything else. You don't want to bite the hand that feeds you, so when a huge company with a massive franchise release approaches you, you salute and gush to make sure you can still pay the proverbial rent. It's a complex issue worth discussing, but I admit I don't like how juvenile any such discourse often becomes. "Media" nonsense merchanting is as old as time itself, so I take anything I see from whatever outlet with a big pinch of salt by default. I do however miss the 90's and 00's style reporting, it was more genuine and gaming focused, of the past few years the big sites feel more like cheap tabloids like The Sun, Daily Star etc.
 
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Gray2233 said:
Gave it a shot on EA Play, much to my disappointment. To clarify, I've been wanting to play Jedi: Survivor for an age as I very much enjoyed the first title. It's a one and done type of game for me, so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone with a sub, I love the DA franchise and wanted to see first hand.

Obviously, there's a heavy subjective element in relation to art/story/gameplay etc. That said, I absolutely feel it's fair to objectively say that this is a poor Dragon Age game even when compared to 2 and Inquisition. It's tonally different in every single way even outside of the artstyle, I believe it actually started life as a live service multiplayer game that got retconned? If true it shows imo.

I am of course a random pleb on the internet, I don't get paid for my opinion. Those that actually do enjoy a wage packet for doing so very clearly had an agenda in many cases, and don't get me wrong I'm not arguing for political nonsense. If anything I want it miles away from my escapism, there's enough ridiculous stuff going on in the real world.

I would be interested in what you think is wrong, however? I'm not looking for a grand debate, simply interested in where we might differ.
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That is correct, Veilguard was called Dreadwolf and it first started as a live service game, before EA flipped it and decided to make it single player. Part of the live service design is still in the game
 
IMO Bioware had the combat close to best it's been in series in DAO for a multi platform experience, they just needed to have expanded that style, modernized it and just added more.

These games are just better when they are built like an RTS in third person. All the infinity engine games BG/IWD/PT games got that formula right full control over companions, tactical, queuing up commands, having a wide spell selection and ability selection and wide array of paths to grow your builds and just have fun experimenting.

This game feels like a button masher, immortal team mates, dodge roll i-frames like a Dark Souls game without the punishment for failing. I personally just don't get it to me its not fun, to others maybe it is.

I envisaged a DA game more in the style of KOTOR1/2 but in the dark and more brutal medieval magical world it was suppose to be, and lets face it was Bioware's take on a Faerun like world without the complicated ruleset and creative control to let them deviate and write their own world.
 
DA:O had quite difficult and tactical combat, similar to KOTOR.

It was closer to BG3 than what we see here, but without being turn based. It started off as part of the D&D franchise afaik. As BG3 is.
 
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Looks like it's been a massive disaster and deserves to be, DA is a fantasy RPG series, not whatever this garbage is. No-one is entertained by pro-nouns and non-binary story-telling. The forced insertion of this rubbish is completely immersion breaking and makes it impossible to take the game seriously.

EA/Bioware have already given up on any DLC so tells you all you need to know about how poor sales have been, this game will be dead as a doornail by the New Year.
 
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Darujhistan said:
Looks like it's been a massive disaster and deserves to be, DA is a fantasy RPG series, not whatever this garbage is. No-one is entertained by pro-nouns and non-binary story-telling. Yawn.

EA/Bioware have already given up on any DLC so tells you all you need to know about how poor sales have been, this game will be dead as a doornail by the New Year.
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The only concern is these cretins that destroyed the Dragon Age series are now working on Mass Effect :mad:
 
Kelt said:
Nobody at EA/Bioware held these anti-white, pro-pronoun, pro-feminist talentless pueriles in check for DA:VG, and there's no indication that will change for ME5.

Rather the opposite, it seems.
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Yup, sales figures don't lie.
God only knows what a cluster **** ME will turn out as, but I'd hazard a guess that it's their last chance and if it bombs, then bye bye
 
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