Dragon Age Veilguard

Overly Dramatic Review in One Sentence

A thinly veiled agenda/profit push game at the cost of a good story and half-way decent dialogue.

The Actual Review

Game time:

PC: 41.7 Hours

Gameplay

The fighting in this game is probably the most fun I've had in a Dragon Age game, but it very quickly becomes repetitive. Not so much that you stop enjoying it, but it can be during the middle of the game.

My chief complaint about the gameplay is the quest structure, specifically with the companion quest. I don't know why I have to go talk to them for them to tell me "I am thinking about going to see X, want to come?" to then travel to X, "Start a conversation" and then that conversation to end up being to going back to where we started to start a quest. Just let the initial conversation lead to a quest and auto travel me there. Combine this with the romance story line and the companion quest become almost unbearable. Typically, in games that have a romance option, you are on a forced pace. What I mean by that is when you decide you like a character, the time you spend with them and then the forced engagement of conversation, i.e., walking up and talking to them outside a mission, allows you to learn more about them. Depending on your conversation selections, they warm up to you. Veilguard never allowed you to strike up a conversation and forced you to go back to the base after each mission to have a controlled conversation where you might have 2 options and then that was it. What this does is that it takes almost the entire storyline to start a relationship and the next quest is the final quest and that person that you start a relationship tells you that they love you. It is too fast for a relationship that has been flirting at best until 5 minutes ago.

Before anyone wonders why I spend the time to romance a character or do the companion quest, it is pretty simple really. One, you typically get additional skills or traits out of the characters if they like you. As for the entire romance option, you get an achievement.

The inventory system, if you can call it that is atrocious. You can get new armor, but it just sits in your bag. You can't sell it, you can upgrade the traits, but that isn't as good as finding an upgrade version. Why not just let me upgrade the version? Why is part of the factions you run into and their liking of you tied to how much you sell them? You pick up so much crap for no reason. It isn't used for crafting, it isn't used for anything but to sell for gold and faction points. I am not sure if you actually need to sell them anything to get full standing so you could just run around the world and not loot for the most part other than big chest.

Graphics and Sound

The sound in the game is nice. It honestly is a well-thought-out continuation of the sound from the first game. Granted I did move straight from Dragon Age Origins to this for the upcoming podcast, but it is still an enjoyable evolution.

The graphics is another place that I just have a hard time getting behind. All the character models have this very masculine feature set. After playing the game, you can tell the difference, but I very quickly saw the intention to make everyone kind of look the same. I'll talk more about this in the Story and Character section below. I also didn't like the map or the world that was designed as I couldn't get a real grasp on how it was all connected. Was it one land mass? 10? 3? I have no idea and I think that goes into the idea of how they were attempting to make the game more fluid, but at the same time just kind of killed that presentation. That is where I think it failed. The overall graphics are bright when needed and dark when surround by the blight. It felt natural to the world that you are playing in.

Story and Characters

Lets kick this off by saying the dialogue is beyond terrible. There is a concern/rumor/assumption that the conversations were built via AI and I see it. They are one dimensional, basic, and very tonal for each character. Combine this with the companion quest line and it just becomes absolute drivel very quickly.

Most of the characters I am fine with, they are neither good nor bad. There are some points that I think were stupid by the developers and other that point toward the agenda rather than a story that makes sense. Nitpicking a little-bit first, there is a character named Emmrich. One of my favorite characters and I made choice in his story line that made him, half-skeleton. However, after that decision is made, he only shows up that way in some cutscenes and none of the gameplay. I understand why, it would have added additional load to the game, but I wanted to see it. It was part of the reason I chose that. Plus it wasn't every cutscene, which doesn't make sense. Moving on to the character whose city you do not select to defend, just constantly is a bitch afterward. You are forced to pick between two cities. One city will always lose and they "Say" they understand, but their conversational tone doesn't prove that. This continues the entire game even when you complete their companion quest, they are just hostile and rude the rest of the game. My last major complain I'll talk about after I talk about the story.

The story is great overall, ending with bravado and if you select the secret ending, some serious heartfelt moments. Basically, the overall story is that characters from [[Dragon Age Inquisition]] decided to split the veil which is this magical barrier that keeps demons from the characters' world. When attempting to stop him, you accidentally let two Elven Gods out that were previously imprisoned in the veil. These two gods then do what vengeful gods do and wreak havoc on the world and get people to work for them. This causes some major cities and areas to be invaded by demons, the blight, and these rouge factions. With all of this going on, that is why thy ending is really well done to the point that I kind of enjoy the major ending of this over some of the previous games.

What this game does well is ties the companion quest to the main story, with the major exception of Taash. Her companion question line, with everything going on, is a distraction at best, complete nonsense most accurately. So her companion quest line basically is her working through becoming non-binary. She is a dragon humanoid. She can breathe fire. Their gender shouldn't matter to their people, in fact their mom even says so later in the game. They can be whatever they want to be, but it honestly should be put on hold while fighting gods. Otherwise, it is narcissistic that your personal problems come before the rest of the worlds. Yes, you kill the "Dragon King" and are forced to tell him that "Dragon's don't have kings, they only have queens" which Taash is(?), but the group he leads doesn't get any weaker nor does their mission change. So the entire quest line is so heavy on her coming out to mom that the rest is just a walking simulator. They are a Dragon that can breathe fire. Just tell people what you are and they are not going to question it. If it is meant to be a lesson to people about how everyone has issues, I don't think anyone is going to relate to a Dragonoid. Does this entire thing hurt the story? No. However, it feels like a waste of time when you add it to the fact that the complaint I had about mission structure is so heavily an issue in their quest line.

My Rating

I spent 40 hours playing this game. As it went on, I enjoyed it more. I found myself picking up loot items out of habit, even though I had something like 30k gold and was maxed out on faction points. The overall story is what kept me involved even though I was so frustrated with how each mission worked. It was just such a waste of time. I think if they had streamlined the quest structure, it would have saved 10 hours. I am not kidding. Between, load times, running from fast travel points, to where you needed to go, to the back and forth nature of it, there was a lot of wasted time. The ending was well done though, I have to admit that I was happy with it. Granted I did everything I could, missing only 3 or 4 achievements and one of them is an alternate ending which I won't go back for. In the end, it is "Worth a Play through." These games still tell a good story, but you can see the agenda of selling a game with probably AI conversations and politics playing a huge part in this game. It could have been a lot better and this game is probably the last one from Bioware until Mass Effect 4 so that is concerning.

Parental Rating

The blood is a lot better as far as graphics, no more covered in Ketchup look. However, because of that, the violence and gore is a bit heavier. The new art style does help tone it done and make it more cartoony, but it is still evident as to what it is attempting to be. There is nudity in the character creation screen and maybe in others, but that was the only place I saw it and there wasn't an option to be prepared for that or to disable it. The language is limited. Overall, if my parents where to watch me play this game, they would be "concerned." It deals with heavy themes and has gore so if I were a kid, they wouldn't buy it for me.

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