This is a tricky one to review. It's not a "bad" game, I do think it's a "good" game, but not a "good" Dragon Age game, in fact I'd argue that if the game didn't constantly remind you it was a Dragon Age game with nostalgia and call backs you wouldn't really recognise it as one in the first place, but let's start with the good. Good: Performance: The performance of the game is great, I beat the game at 68 hours and never experienced any performance issues. World Design: I actually quite like the level design here, with plenty of branching paths that open up later as you re-explore when more quests unlock, beats out Inquisitions Ubisoft checklist style by a landslide. The only negatives to speak of here are the babies first puzzle grade quality of the "puzzles". Music: The music direction is good, weighty when it needs to be, relaxed or sombre when it needs to be with a decent sense of epic scale in the big story moments. Bad: Here's where things start to take a little decline. Dialogue: The dialogue really doesn't feel like dark fantasy or even fantasy at all, All the conversations have this bizarre "I support you you're so cool and awesome" vibe to it like they REALLY don't want to upset each other or be talked bad about in the group chat. the dialogue was just multiple ways to say "Yes you're so cool and I support you". The only exceptions being the two main villains. I'd say the writing here is the weakest of any BioWare title. Story: SPOILERS AHEAD The Qunari: WTF? The race entirely dedicated to a religion and moral doctrine, assigned roles and purpose from birth until the day they die, placing duty above all else, well that race walks away from the Qun and fractures because they want to become pirates and get rich? From what the game told me, the Qunari thought Sten, YES STEN from Origin's, was too soft, and didn't like his approach of not wanting global war to convert the entire world to the Qun, so they said, "Wanna' abandon the thing we are arguing to convert the world to and be pirates instead?"and tried to assassinate him. Seems highly unlikely to me. As if that wasn't nonsensical enough, they eventually abandon that too and throw in with the blight corrupted deity's of the elves because, they're basically just Uruk-hai now who want the world to burn and serve Sauron. You know, the race who's soldiers willingly turn themselves into death if they lose their swords because of honour and roles? they abandon it all TO SERVE THE BLIGHT. Not like they helped with the Blight in Origins and Inquisition with the understanding it needed to be stopped or anything. The Blight: This kinda makes sense in a round a bout way, although a little underwhelming in the end. Essentially the Blight comes from the Elven Gods, once spirits in the fade, who killed the Titans and stole their essence to become corporeal and enter the real world, the blight is this corrupted essence that the gods used to blight and bind high dragons (The Archdemons) and make themselves Immortal, Aswell as creating Darkspawn to be their cannon fodder army. The Blight is just their will leaking through the veil prison Solas made for them, as is the calling for Wardens. We end up killing all the Archdemons in this game, so no more Blights ever in the Dragon Age universe, Yay? (Let's be honest, they're never making another one) The Grey Wardens: More character assassinations here as per usual since Dragon Age: Origins, Between the First Warden being an incompetent hack, the origin of how the Griffon's died out being that the Wardens blighted them all down to the last egg to defeat a blight, then killed them all when they went rabid and dumped their corpses in jars in a dungeon so nobody would ever know the truth, so much for honoured hero's and companions ay? The character assassination aside, the wardens WOULD NOT blight them to extinction, whatever it takes to win doesn't include making your biggest asset as a war force extinct knowing there is future blights to face. Think this whole plot line kinda speaks for itself. Tevinter: Speaking of the Grey Warden character assassination, that is all made much more annoying when you contrast it with the cleansing of Tevinter. Remember how every game and codex talked about Tevinter being a blood magic ruled slave nation cess pool who treats non-mages as DD batteries to be used and discarded? Well not here, here Tevinter is a rebellious nation speaking truth to power, they hate slavery and blood magic, half the imperium has voted against it and there are whole factions trying to change it from the inside out and we have to save them! Wonder how Fenris and the city elves in Denerim (what's left of them) would feel about that. Antiva: Ah Antiva, remember Antiva? The nation that is unconquerable, can't be invaded? needs no standing army because even the Qunari understand you can't wage war there because your generals would be assassinated by the crows before the front lines were set up? Well the Qunari pirates invaded them without any support or supply and conquered them in a night, dividing the city into sections to milk and plunder all the profit from it (because again, Qunari only care about gold and serving the dark lord now) And the crows are betrayed by the two most obvious candidates imaginable which you as the player figure out immediately and are left there waiting for the cast and crew of the game to catch up for 40 hours, So much for cloak and dagger eh? Art Design: This speaks for itself, just look at images. the world is pretty but almost everything character model wise is an abomination, the Darkspawn, Qunari (The Dragon King LMAO) and Ghilan'nain stand out as the biggest offenders. Solas: The game really wants you to like and redeem him, even though he's ended the world three times over and back stabbed everyone he's ever been in contact with. It's written in a way that if you don't "Understand and feel bad" for him, you're playing the game wrong, with every character joining in his pity party and justifying his actions to try to convince you. This is the smallest issue I had with the plot but it does affect the largest stake in the game. Gameplay: Every aspect of an RPG that still remained is gone. The combat is not tactical at all, with only 3 slots to assign abilities to, and a very simplified combo and detonate system pulled from Mass Effect and their other titles. The game is just hack and slash, you dodge, spam attack and dodge until the cooldowns let you get a detonation off, it's more fun than the description would imply but not what I imagine most Dragon Age fans were looking for, myself included. On higher difficulties the enemies just become sponges, not more tactical or aggressive, just 10x health and 10x damage, the laziest way to scale difficulty. Final Rating: For context I'll just rate all the dragon age games in the series in order. Dragon Age: Origin's - 10/10 I think this game is a genuine masterpiece and 1 of 3 games I've ever given a 10 Dragon Age 2: 8/10 - This game is the closest to Origins tone, writing and execution that the franchise has ever been since. Flawed but has aged better with every other release in the series. Dragon Age: Inquisiton: 7/10 - Ubisoft's chore design and the combat changes (Veilguard said hold my beer on that) hurt the game but it's still very much a Dragon Age game in theme, direction and writing, some of the old soul of the series is there. Dragon Age: The Veilguard: 6/10 - The weakest in the series by far in terms of combat, narrative and dialogue for all the reasons stated above. It's worth playing, if you know what you're in for (which is an average, run of the mill action game) and enjoy the style, but if you're looking for a Dragon Age successor or experience, you won't find it here, the heart and soul is gone, and outside of call backs and names/faces attempting to fool you into believing you are still in the Dragon Age world, it's painfully apparent.
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