I completed Dragon Age Veilguard back in mid November. Having sat with it, I can express my feelings about the game and how it stacks up to the previous ones.
Roses
- The Character Creator – Mostly I’m talking about the hair and face models. There were so many natural Black hair choices and I wore 2 before finding out the 3rd look was the charm and kept if for the rest of the game.
- Character Design – Dragon Age Inquisition had some beautiful environments. Origins had a gritty macabre appeal, and the DA2 Qunari were sexy as hell … ahem … but Veilguard had actually attractive party members. Lucanis and Davrin could rival the hottest husbandos of anime. Bellara is Disney Princess pretty, and the glow up that Lace Harding experienced between Inquisition and now is one for the ages.
- Banter Continuation – Usually when you play a game, if a fight breaks out while your NPC companions are bantering, it just cuts off, but in Veilguard the person says “As I was saying…” or something of that nature and continues the story. Marvelous!
- Volume of things to do – It took me 107+ hours to finish Veilguard. I appreciate that they realized a 40-hour game after 10 years wasn’t going to cut it.
- Aspects of the plot – I actually like this plot more than what we know of the canceled “Joplin.” I would have grudgingly played the game but being the vanguard of a possible exalted march from the Southern Chantry did not excite me at all. Also my Inquisitor Lavellen would never have morphed into the type of leader that would be in cahoots with anything like that.
- Focus On Solas – I was looking for a fitting end to Inquisition saga even more so than I was looking for another entry into this game series. On the surface level, this game delivered. It was great seeing flashbacks to who Solas was and then having him in the present being the trickster god he was hiding all during Inquisition. Lastly, I like that there is a point where Solas exists in a quantum state where, depending on your character’s final few conversation choices his true nature is determined.
Thorns
- Dialogue and “Choices” – At times Veilguard felt like a really well conceived fanfic what with the cutesy modern language and multiple ways to make the same choice instead of being offered distinctly different choices. I’ve been watching Inquisition banter vids on YouTube from time to time since completing Veilguard, and the language is so lyrical without losing any of the fun and humor when the situation calls for it.
Even a character like Sera who is crude as all get out speaks in an interesting, clever little patois that swung from utter absurdity to poignant observation sometimes in the same sentence! If I had never played the other games, Veilguard’s dialogue may not have bothered me so much. - Environmental Puzzles & Artificially Locked Areas – I thought people were playing around when they complained about the exploration and freedom of Inquisition, literally wining about being “trapped” in the Hinterlands when they could leave at any time. But no, folks were serious. I hated being led around by the nose through a map that was on rails. I have no interest in platforming. And most egregiously I didn’t appreciate areas being cut off until the game decides I should access them. All games are going to feel like games but the rampant artificiality shoved into the design kept me at arm’s length.
- THIS is the fabled and dreaded Tevinter Imperium? Really? – I just knew we’d have to do some infiltration of the Magisterium or the Archon’s Palace. In every other game, the excess of Tevinter was made legend. In this game we stay in an area that looks like a random Ferelden coastal city, nowhere near the power structure that is supporting the gods. I did like the Shadow Dragons as a faction though which is more than I can say for…
- The Lords of Fortune & Rivain– I chose this faction for my Rook because I wanted to be Rivaini and I wanted to enter the story with as little political connection to what’s going on as I could. Ever since DA2 introduced us to this female led spiritual society of Black folks, I wanted to visit in a game but never thought it would happen. All there is of the country is a nearly empty beach and a faction that barely has anything to offer in this fight against the gods.
- Use of Legacy Characters – In order to ignore everything from the previous games, Veilguard allows scant few custom world state choices. This means that all the legacy characters, the Inquisitor, Isabela, and Dorian are flat with none of the spark that made them great characters in their respective games. Boy do I have egg on my face… Sigh.
- Disinterest In Making a Sequel to Dragon Age Inquisition – This is the bottom line. The Veilguard was supposed to be the direct sequel to BioWare’s highest selling game and 2014’s Game of the Year, Dragon Age: Inquisition. In order to do that, they needed to update and utilize their Keep system so that the decisions players made in Inquisition and maybe to a very limited degree DA: O and DA2 could be catalogued and accounted for.
Instead the inheritors of this IP (after the former lead devs were fired or quit) decided they’d take the resources set aside for that endeavor to make their own thing. And by destroying Southern Thedas offscreen in the final moments, they intended for their thing to be the last work standing at the end of this IP’s life. In fact, they made their own game pointless by pulling this because Rook and her merry band of Veilguardians actually caused the same amount or worse damage to Thedas than Solas would have by tearing down the Veil. So there’s that.
Dragon Age: Origins 5/5
Dragon Age 2 4.5/5
Dragon Age: Inquisition 10/5
Dragon Age: The Veilguard 3/5
wordyblerd 
Leave a comment :)