Dragon Age™: The Veilguard

pros: lore, graphics , world , factions , cool ending, main story. mixed : combat can be fun but aiming is not polished cons: dialogue is mostly quite bad(the dialogue in the best ending is really good btw), player choises mostly have limited impact fixable: sponge enemies(can be chaged in the settings) Overall I had fun with this game and even might play it a 2nd time with a diffrent class.

I started binging the Dragon Age series because my mental health has been poor and I needed to lose myself in a good fantasy RPG. The first three games excelled at that purpose. Then I got to Veilguard. This game is a bottomless pit of despair. I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about the game being "woke" or whatever the ♥♥♥♥. I think being able to make your character trans if you so please is cool. More choices are good. But this game is straight up ass as a sequel. Gone are three games worth of choices; what few characters from the previous games show up are squandered. The big villain Inquisition's Trespasser DLC was hyping up? Relegated to a footnote after the prologue. The characters are annoying and bubbly - the only one that doesn't grate me so far is Harding, and even she gets tainted by getting a plot infusion of magic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the first few hours. Even just within Veilguard itself, your choices are meaningless - and yes, this was true to some extent of Inquisition, but at least in Inquisition you got to *pretend* to have free will. Most dialogue options consist of different flavors of your character doing whatever the plot needs them to do, and often times you don't even *get* to choose what you say. Several times already my character has enthusiastically agreed to something without any input on my part or expressed sympathy for a character I do not care for. For example, one of the first missions you get allows you to recruit a demon possessed character. An abomination, if you've played previous games. Now, that's... kind of a lot! Ignoring the specialist boy syndrome at play here, surely there should be a moral dilemma as to whether or not you risk inviting a literal abomination (not even a sorta-abomination like Anders from DA2) into your party. But there isn't! Because the game needs you to recruit him. Harding, bless her soul, repeatedly pointed out to me how absurd it was to just take him in, just like that. And I agreed with her! Except I couldn't. Worse still, my character - completely unprompted! - began defending him to her, while I was forced to sit back and watch. And that's one of the big problems with Veilguard. You're not really playing as a character, but you're not playing as a blank slate, either. You're in this weird middle ground where the developers want you to *feel* like you're playing as a blank slate, but actually giving you choices would require EA & Bioware management to not have spent ten years ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this game's development, so instead you get a vague, personality blob that can't ever have solid motivations or a personality of her own but also can't be a conduit for you. So they're just this undefined thing that does whatever the plot needs them to do. And even besides the lack of player freedom and the annoying, bubbly characters, the conversations make no sense! The flow is awkward and stilted - oftentimes you or another character will say something, and then the next line of dialogue seems to have very little to no relation to what was said, presumably existing only to force the conversation back on track. And the quality of the dialogue itself is very poor - there's none of the subtlety of previous games; I've lost track of how many times my characters have just matter-of-factly said things like "the gods are trying to slow us down" or "the gods are behind this" or what have you, and ignoring that it's only partially correct it's just *incredibly* inelegant. Also, why do these characters speak so confidently about these gods and their motivations? The whole game has this YA feel to it which is an incredibly poor choice for a game that centers around the *slavery capital of the world*. There's no sense of human (or otherwise) beings coping with a miserable world, there's just the silly adventures gang going on silly adventures to save the world. And to add to that, the game makes no effort to immerse you in its setting before whipping out the more dramatic concepts. The game *starts* with you in Tevinter, getting blasted at by a giant, floating ring in the sky which looks like something out of Star Wars. Any pretense of groundedness or easing you into the setting's cooler stuff is gone. It's unapologetic high fantasy from the very start. I could not imagine a more disappointing follow up to Inquisition. If you've played the Mass Effect games, imagine that Mass Effect 3 never came out. Imagine that the third game in the trilogy was Andromeda. And then imagine that the Reapers got quickly done away with in the prologue, and you spent the rest of the game dealing with the kett, with all of your favorite characters from ME1 and 2 gone except for Miranda, Kaiden, and some side character you could hook up with. I dunno who Harding would be an analogue for. Let's pretend you could hook up with the chef in ME2. That's your throwback companion. What I will say is that the game is at least a lot more fun than Andromeda was. It's... competently done, aside from the writing. It's gorgeous, and the combat is fun. But the combat being fun means nothing in the context of DA. I just trudged through three games with atrocious combat (DA2 was good, but then got weighed down by every fight being waves of the same enemies) because I loved the characters and stories that were locked behind that atrocious combat. I don't give a damn how good the combat is if the one thing I wanted out of Veilguard is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥! And the worst thing by far? This is it. After Veilguard was released, the entire Dragon Age team was fired. The series is over. There aren't likely to be any sequels, nor any DLC to try and salvage this mess of the game. And even if there *were* sequels... what is there left to follow up on? This game is a travesty. I do not want a sequel to Veilguard. I want the sequel to Inquisition that Trespasser promised us - the game which the Dragon Age team *wanted* to make before EA & Bioware mismanagement ♥♥♥♥♥♥ them over time and again. Why am *I* still playing this? Because the game is also essentially one massive infodump on DA lore, and I'd like to see what the writers had planned for the setting, even if that information is conveyed in this miserable manner. It is arguably worth playing for that purpose alone, although you will spend the entire game thinking to yourself, "man, this would have been really cool to see in a game that didn't suck." I've heard the last ten hours or so pick up fairly well as a conclusion to the series, and if that's true, I'll update this review. If you've never played a Dragon Age game before, you'll probably enjoy this game. It's a fun enough God of War clone. The graphics are pretty and the character creator is cool. Just come in with low expectations and expect bubbly friendslop. If you love Dragon Age and care about its lore, you might still want to see what Veilguard has to say, as it (to my understanding) unravels just about every remaining mystery in the setting. But it will be deeply, deeply painful. Hell, if the game were just a spinoff of no consequence - a bump in the road on the way to the real DA4 - I might be able to enjoy it. I'd still cringe at the writing and wouldn't like most of the characters, but it'd be a fun enough attempt at God of War: Dragon Age edition. But ending the series on this? Following up on the *fantastic* Trespasser DLC with this? Just... why? Personally, once I'm done with my playthrough of Veilguard, I think I'm probably going to replay the trilogy and never touch this deeply disappointing game again. Edit: Also please ignore my high play time, most of my time in Veilguard has been spent alt-tabbed because I'm having so much trouble getting myself to commit to finishing it LMAO

Dragon age origins was one of the greatest RPG's i have ever had the pleasure to play, DA2 was a decent games, Inquisition they made a game worthy of Goty and even though i personally believe that it was no where near Origins level it was still a great game with great companions and one of the best cliffhangers ever. Bioware then decided to make us wait 10 years to demonstrate how to royally butcher every great thing about dragon age like the storytelling, the companions went from being family in origins to being a chore, the writing is some high school musical shi and the joker/comedian dialogue options must have been approved by amy schumer before being placed into the final piece. Then there is the elephant in the room, they made everyone excited to have the first ever female qunari companion and everyone was hyped, from sten in origins who set the tone for the qunari while still being a bro to iron bull who is such a Chad and a great friend who you can even free him away from the Qun along with his crew like genuinely bioware were going on a W run for qunari companions only to vomit on that run with Tash, she genuinely sucks, now lemme specify that i dont care or judge a companion for their sexuality or anything lgbt related. My favourite companions were literally dorian leliana and zevran who are all gay except for dorian who was fully gay, however they reject a compelling story of identity and acceptance similar to dorian and his father to just ramming pronouns and genders down your throat and the writing for it is so ♥♥♥♥ not to mention the hypocrisy of her crying about her pronouns to then calling other companions nicknames that they hate like the lich dude. long story short shes a ♥♥♥♥ character along with the other companions who are just mid but she is genuinely the worst. the gameplay is average and your typical modern day mid tier rpg with flashy combat an unnecessary amount of puzzles and terrible writing that i have previously mentioned not to mention companions giving you advice on how to do the simplest things, the darkspawn in origins were soooo intimidating and threatning and in this game they look like the type of ♥♥♥♥ a kid would draw and call scary. One other thing is that the Armours in this game look so stupid, Heavy armor looks like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ onesie and the weird ass diamonds that poke out on certain armours look so stupid i mean i wasnt a fan of inquisition heavy armours but id take them every day of the week. This game is ♥♥♥♥ and im so concerned for Mass Effect and honestly if you are a fan of Dragon age just keep origins and make sum sort of headcannon of how the game ends and leave it at that. Reject bioware and honestly focus on studios like owlcat games who genuinely make A* RPG's and Larian who are just goated and let this studio die in its cancerous wokeness

利维恩海滩有个任务需要炸梯子。如果无法正常触发，可以试试把窗口模式调成“无边框窗口”或修改一下分辨率。亲测有效。 [hr][/hr] 72h一周目 其实是很好的作品，10分可以给到7分，所以打折的时候很推荐购买。 不扯别的，只谈游戏。优缺点都很明显，供参考。 优点： 1.剧情/叙事相关的部分非常好。主线、支线、故事动机、氛围渲染、选择差分、以及队友npc等各色人物的塑造都是难得一见的好。整个世界非常鲜活。——故事方面真正能称得上史诗；各色人物的情节也牵动心弦，队友都各具特色很有魅力。 2.场景做的很棒，宏大生动美丽。有些地点甚至让我回想起了指环王的部分画面。 3.战斗系统打磨的很好。这一套龙腾世纪独有的半策略半动作体系在本作得到了进一步的完善。动作手感打磨的很棒，甚至好于一些功力不足的纯动作游戏。快捷键的存在使得暂停机制不是必需的，因此即使是不喜欢暂停放技能的玩家也完全没有问题。 缺点： 1.队友人物建模大部分都不太好看——但也没有到丑的程度，有些偏路人脸、有些骨相之类的稍有点奇怪这样。（由于队友塑造真的很好很饱满，这一点其实后面几乎忽略不计了） 2.整体风格偏卡通，不太吃香。包括人物的形象、整体的色调等等。表现力肯定是不如更写实的风格的。以及游戏画面会有点偏紫色——有能力的玩家可以从n网搞一个reshade预设调一下色，色调上会好很多。 3.怪物设计缺乏特色——交互、机制等等。后期堆怪和换皮的情况很常见。也算是类型通病了。 中立： 构筑深度适中，不算丰富但也绝不贫瘠。主要从装备和技能树两方面体现。事实上其实如果能打通战刺法的限制自由加点，游戏深度就会指数级飙升。可惜这一点似乎从前作就一贯如此，大概也是祖宗之法不可变吧（笑 以上，推荐购买。 个人碎碎念：这次真的自己来玩了才发现其实是很好的作品。也不免觉得可惜。游戏以外的因素本不该过多干扰到游戏本身。以及，本作也证明了好的美术风格有多重要——否则无论作品其他方面再出彩，玩家也会缺乏购买兴趣或在游戏早期大量流失。可惜可惜。 There’s a quest in Rivain Beach where you need to blow up a ladder. If it’s not triggering properly, try switching to “Borderless Window” mode or tweaking the resolution. Worked for me. [hr][/hr] 72 hours for one playthrough Honestly, it’s a pretty solid game. I’d give it a 7 out of 10, so definitely worth picking up on sale. No fluff, just the game itself. The good and the bad are both pretty clear. Good: 1.Story/narrative stuff is top-notch. Main quests, side quests, character motivations, atmosphere, choice-and-consequence, plus the NPCs and companions—rarely see this done this well. The whole world feels genuinely alive. The story actually earns the word “epic.” And the character arcs really pull at your heartstrings. Every companion has their own personality and charm. 2.The environments are gorgeous. Grand, vivid, beautiful. Some locations even gave me Lord of the Rings vibes. 3.The combat system is polished. This semi-tactical, semi-action system unique to Dragon Age gets even better here. The action feels great—smoother than some pure action games from less experienced devs. With quick slots, the pause mechanic isn’t necessary, so even if you hate stopping time to cast spells, you’ll be fine. Bad: 1.Most companion models aren’t great-looking. Not exactly ugly—just a bit too plain, or their bone structure looks a little off. But honestly, because the characters themselves are so well-written, you stop noticing pretty quickly. 2.The overall style leans too much into cartoonish vibes, which might turn some people off. That includes character designs, color tones, etc. Definitely not as striking as a more realistic style would be. Also, the game has a slightly purple tint—if you’re on PC, grab a ReShade preset from Nexus; it helps a lot. 3.Enemy design lacks variety—both in interactions and mechanics. Late-game enemy spam and palette swaps are common. Kind of a genre-wide issue at this point. Mixed: Build depth is mid. Not super deep, but far from shallow. Mostly comes down to gear and skill trees. If they actually removed the warrior/mage/rogue class restrictions and let you free-assign points, depth would go through the roof. But looks like they’ve stuck to the same system since earlier games—guess some traditions never change (lol). So yeah, recommended. Personal ramble: Now that I’ve actually played it myself, I realize it’s a genuinely good game. Kind of a shame, really. Things outside the game shouldn’t affect how we judge the game itself this much. Also, this game really proves how vital good art direction is—otherwise, no matter how strong the rest of the game is, players won’t bite, or they’ll drop it early. What a pity.

Gameplay is fun everything else is wack. if it didnt have the "dragon age" name the game would be okay but it does and it ruined the end of a otherwise great series. EA's greed will always win sadly

Gorgeous looking but lacking the expanse DAI/origins had while also lacking quality in every other aspect. Writing for the story and conversation is very fast-paced, abrupt, random. Example with conversations: companion is frustrated and shouting then literally the next sentence is them acting like it never happened and the topic gets changed. There's a lot of conversations starting with serious topics that end with "but friendship will get us through" after ignoring literally everything wrong. Theres *major* new lore for old characters that is supposed to involve in literally everything we know of the world but its completely ruined by literally nothing becoming of it. Their big quest is just chasing a mystery npc through a mostly empty map. What dark/serious moments this game has is completely ruined with pacing and the games own writing. Imma do my best to finish the game but was sorely disappointed in the game since the beginning.

Эльфийский бог [spoiler]Солас (Ужасный Волк)[/spoiler] пытается провести ритуал и сорвать Завесу, разделяющую реальный мир и мир магии, чтобы вернуть эльфам былое величие. Главный герой по прозвищу Рук вместе с гномом Варриком находят [spoiler]Соласа[/spoiler] в Тевинтере и срывают его ритуал. Однако из-за прерванного заклинания в реальный мир случайно вырываются два древних и безумных эльфийских бога (Элгар’нан и Гилан’найн), которые сразу же начинают заражать Тедас Скверной. Veilguard окончательно закрепила переход серии в жанр динамичного экшена. Игра избавилась от многих проблем Inquisition, но приобрела новые особенности: [h2]Плюсы: [/h2] - Лучшая боевая система в серии: Бои стали чистокровным экшеном со своевременными уклонениями, парированиями и комбо-ударами. Сражения ощущаются драйвово, плавно и тактильно приятно. - Отказ от пустого открытого мира: Разработчики услышали критику Inquisition и убрали бесконечный MMO-гринд. Локации стали более линейными, компактными, коридорно-направленными и насыщенными интересными деталями. - Потрясающая оптимизация и визуал: Игра выглядит красиво, некоторые локации достаточно масштабные. При этом проект работает стабильно и показывает высокую производительность даже на средних ПК. - Проработанные фракции: Выбор предыстории героя (например, Серые Стражи, Антиванские Вороны или Теневые Драконы) действительно влияет на диалоги, отношение к вам в мире и стиль прохождения. - Масштабный и эпичный финал: Последние несколько часов игры сделаны великолепно. Финальная цепочка миссий собирает вместе все ваши выборы, задействует фракции и напарников, давая мощный прилив адреналина в духе Mass Effect 2. [h2]Минусы: [/h2] - Смена тона и атмосферы: Мрачное темное фэнтези прошлых частей сменилось ярким, «диснеевским» стилем. Визуальный дизайн некоторых монстров (например, порождений тьмы) стал менее пугающим и более мультяшным. - Упрощенные диалоги и мягкий тон: Из игры практически исчезла жесткость. Спутники неохотно конфликтуют друг с другом, а реплики главного героя часто звучат излишне дружелюбно и вежливо, лишая историю привычной для серии серой морали. - Минимальный тактический элемент: Управление напарниками в бою урезали до предела. Теперь нельзя переключиться на другого персонажа или настроить их детальное поведение — можно лишь отдавать команды на применение способностей через колесо умений. - Слабая привязка к прошлым решениям: Система импорта сохранений или выборов из прошлых частей (Dragon Age Keep) была заменена коротким опросником при создании персонажа. Многие важные решения из Origins, DA2 и Inquisition игра попросту игнорирует. - Упрощенные ролевые элементы: Прокачка и экипировка напарников стали поверхностными. Игра больше фокусируется на экшене и подборе комбинаций стихий, чем на глубоком билдостроении классической RPG. Играть однозначно стоит, если вы хотите узнать финал истории и получить ответы на главные загадки лора Dragon Age (про богов, Завесу и Черный город). Если вы примете тот факт, что The Veilguard — это фэнтезийный экшен-боевик, а не мрачная партийная RPG, то получите массу удовольствия от игрового процесса, боевой системы и красивой картинки.