Dragon Age™: The Veilguard

I am making this review this late because I wanted to give it time to minimize my irrational thoughts of how poorly the game was for me; when I originally heard about this game, I was absolutely elated after many years of having finished Inquisition to have more of the franchise to play and explore the next story of. I waited for it the be available to pre-order, ordered it, and installed and played it day 1. Ever since I finished dragon age: inquisition, I was already HEAVILY anticipating the next installment of the franchise and was extremely disappointed. I don't have a lot of hours on record because I, ironically, played this game immediately after a long stint of Hogwarts: Legacy, and it just felt like the exact same copy paste game. I missed the team composition, the strategy rpg style of which both Origins and Inquisition did both very well in their own way, leveling up each character together making the game feel bigger and more than just me playing alone in my room. Instead, it just turned from tactical rpg complex combat, to beat-em up style gameplay with little brain power and skill behind it. I genuinely turned my difficulty up to max, after I explored 1 whole area, as I had quadroupled my hp and stats and I was still out performing every boss I encountered thereafter. The previous installments of the franchise I anticipated both the combat and the rpg style dialogues that actually felt like my choices mattered and made a difference in my path to the end of the games, however in Veilguard it felt as if anything I chose the characters would barely bat an eye; no heavy loss of favor, no lashback in dialogues, and I think the only good dialogue was the complexity of each character's emotions. It hurt me to go from playing and replaying something I thoroughly enjoyed, mixing up builds and finding new ways to play the games, different synergies with other character classes/subclasses, to only having a few optional build paths and synergies in Veilguard, along with being forced to spam my own abilities as well as my "other characters" to properly play and combat enemies. 1. If you have never played any bioware game, or others, where choices matter, 2. You enjoyed Hogwarts: Legacy, and 3. Want a game that is very similar and just as simple and non-complex, then this would be a game to try because you might actually enjoy it. Otherwise, everyone else in the review section who aligns with having played and enjoyed previous installments of Bioware games, or others where choices matter, then you will not. Comparing Dragon Age: Veilguard to other similar beat-em up style rpg's, like Fable and The Witcher, both games of which out perform veilguard in everyway, games that came also out 10+ years ago, have both similar combat styles, but also real choices that matter for decisions to be made, Veilguard is still behind. They leaned way too heavily into something close to Hogwarts: Legacy style and catering to that same new player base to maybe gather a few more fans, in turn, destroying and ruining the series for every recurring fan already playing their games. When checking reviews in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Inquisition, the hours played for almost every review is minimum tenfold compared to Dragon Age: Veilguard. Even for players who leave good reviews, and have not played the 2 former, their hours played are drastically smaller. I want to say I that I anticipate the next installment of the series as well, to hopefully redeem this one, but I literally can't because if this is the direction that Bioware is heading with the franchise, I am not for it.

Really great game! Highly recommend!

What a disappointment!!! After waiting so long for this it turns out to be utterly stupid. It's pretty, but that's the only good thing I can say about it.

Having just completed this game to 100% achievements, I figured now was as good a time as any to make a review. I played this game primarily on my desktop PC, but also played probably a good 20-30% on the Steam Deck LCD. I had absolutely no issues running the game on either platform. In fact, it runs very well on the deck and I didn't notice any latency, graphical issues, etc. there where often games like this can falter. I feel that I should preface what I'm about to say with this: I have never been a HUGE DA fan, so I can't give perspective on this as an entry within that series. This is the only game of the franchise I have played to the end. With that said, I have played a lot of other fantasy/RPG games in my 40+ years, and this one was a lot of fun when stacked up against any of those. I feel this game has gotten a lot of unnecessary hate for trying to be inclusive. Most of the folks who are saying there is an agenda tend to be on the "if there's something I don't like it's an agenda" crowd. I'd say you can ignore them wholly. There are LGBTQ+ themes, especially with one of the companion characters who is struggling with their identity on literally every level (gender, culture, tribe, family, etc.). However, you aren't forced to placate/accept this character or their leanings. You can make decisions that don't excuse or condone their thoughts and align more with typical binary norms. You can romance this character regardless of what gender your player is, etc. - meaning you can put them in a straight binary relationship, or a gay one, or anything in-between. I didn't personally do those things, but my point is that you CAN... There are options here. Nothing is forced. That said, I actually applaud Bioware for approaching this topic the way they did. There were some of those cinematics that just weren't written great, and I can get where some of the criticism about it feeling "forced" comes from based on the way it was written - but it's still worth giving kudos to the company for even daring to engage in this conversation at all. Like all of these games, I understand relationships are a big part of them. I will say that one of the low parts of this game for me was when it started feeling like a dating SIM. Even for characters I wasn't intent on romancing. There's a bunch of different quest types, including conversational ones and outings. You can control the flow of conversations to choose any of them as a romantic partner to yourself, and you can even help a few of them pair up aside from you if that's your thing. Romance in games with these high "end of the world" stakes always feels silly to me, but I digress... I went through these conversations as intentionally as I could, and by the end of my playtime I had a strong team who were woven on various levels of comradery and romantic intent. My issue with it was that it started to feel like every time I would get back to my main base I was just going to have to run around and run errands touching base with every member of the team, making them feel valued, etc. and while that is a mechanic of the game it felt like there were stages of the game where this was the majority of the gameplay. I think most gamers are more into this type of thing than I am, though... so your mileage may vary from mine when it comes to this. I don't want to spoil anything but there are only a few instances during the endgame stage of the game where you can have companions make the "ultimate sacrifice". (You basically plot out who will be part of what party and depending on your rapport with that faction, and if your companion assignee has maxed out to achieve "hero of the veilguard" status or not, it changes the way the following action and cinematics play out.) I bring this up because it didn't seem like I could do anything wrong up to that point that would cause anyone not to be at max rapport by the end game. There's one or two decisions earlier in the game that impact areas and morale but nothing feels truly reversible. The actual gameplay is fun and engaging. It's pretty simple combat, and you can choose your difficulty at the start. You also basically never go into combat alone. As soon as you are able you'll be entering missions with two companions, and you can direct them to certain enemies and command their spells and attacks as well as your own. The way this mechanic works was a little odd at first but it becomes second nature pretty quickly. Player customization is also pretty nice, though some of the outfit skins feel repetitive. IDK what else to say. TLDR: This game is worth the money if it's on sale for $20 or less. Don't believe the haters.

Honestamente não é um jogo ruim... mas também não é um jogo bom. Ao meu ver os pontos positivos acabam sendo cancelados pelos negativos. Por um lado a gameplay é muito divertida, joguei como um mago e como ladino e com ambos me senti invencível com as builds que fiz, além disso, alguns dos mapas são bem bonitos e existem alguns personagens (Solas, Emmerich, Davrin) e momentos da história que são interessantes. Por outro lado é meio difícil de engolir que esse jogo se passa no universo de dragon age, principalmente para mim que joguei todos os jogos anteriores. Muitas das coisas que acontecem na história não fazem sentido, as escolhas feitas não tem peso (e as escolhas dos jogos anteriores são desconsideradas ou não tem impacto nenhum na narrativa), muitos plots e lore do jogos anteriores são descartados ou não são mencionados, além disso, alguns dos companions são insuportáveis (sendo o Lucanis o pior, porque nada na caracterização ou história dele faz sentido). Na minha opinião, não vale a pena gastar o preço completo para jogar esse jogo, mas se ele tiver com alguma grande promoção ou se você tiver o EA play pode valer a pena para experimentar.

Looks beautiful but my god is it janky and dull combat/objective wise. Thank goodness for Steam‘s refund policy.

Mit beiden Augen zu gibt es einen Daumen hoch. Eigentlich wäre es ein Daumen runter, aber ich glaube an BioWare. Dragon Age: The Veilguard macht vieles richtig — und scheitert trotzdem an den wichtigsten Dingen. Das Kampfsystem ist richtig gut. Schnell, taktisch und befriedigend, mit einem Team-System das stark an Mass Effect erinnert. Auch das Leveln der Charaktere und Gegenstände ist gelungen, und die Herausforderungen motivieren. Vom reinen Gameplay her macht das Spiel Spaß. Aber dann die Story. Am Anfang noch interessant, wird sie zunehmend übererzählt und verliert sich in immer abstrakteren Handlungssträngen — spätestens beim Elfen im Limbo fragt man sich, wohin das alles führen soll. Die Welt fühlt sich nicht wie eine zusammenhängende große Welt an, sondern wie Stückwerk — einzelne Gebiete, die irgendwie zusammengefügt wurden. Das ständige Springen zwischen den Welten verstärkt dieses Gefühl nur. Das größte Problem sind die Charaktere. Sie bleiben blass und langweilig, was dafür sorgt, dass die Geschichte nie wirklich treibend wird. Die Dialoge sind banal und ohne emotionale Tiefe — runtergerzählt statt erzählt. Das ganze Spiel fühlt sich dadurch leidenschaftslos an, als würde es nur eine Checkliste abarbeiten. Schade, denn der Grafikstil ist zeitlos schön, die Teams mit den Skill und dem Aufleveln stimmt, und das Kampfsystem macht wahnsinnig Spaß und fühlt sich wuchtig an. Aber ohne überzeugendes Worldbuilding, starke Charaktere und gute Dialoge bleibt es leider nur halb so gut wie es sein könnte. Wer reines Gameplay sucht, wird Spaß haben. Wer eine Geschichte mit Herz erwartet, wird enttäuscht.

Story and characters just feel a bit hollow. The graphics did look nice though but no motivation to finishing after playing it for some time.