Complistic
Member
Not worth your time. I've played 60 hours of it. The story and characters simply aren't good enough. The gameplay is fun for about 15 hours though.
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Dragon Age: Veilguard |OT| 'Oof': A non-buynary return to form
- Thread starter cormack12
- Start date
LectureMaster
Gold Member
If you are into the dragon age world and lore, definitely consider playing Origins, it's a classic.Only played Inquisition. That's funny
Ahh was hoping the story was solid as single player story games are my go to games nowadays. Might just replay Witcher 3, cheers though
Feel Like I'm On 42
Member
I would give my left nut to be able to play Origins Remastered on console. I have SX and while the game got FPS Boost but the graphics are atrocious.
Feel Like I'm On 42
Member
I experimented today and agree the game needs a slider as having it totally off isn't ideal at all either ...if I could I'd have it set to like 40% bloom or something
Feel Like I'm On 42
Member
It's very straightforward story so far ...it's not bad but the plot is simple, which isn't bad in itself, the problem for me is the side stories and dialog surrounding the main story are rather dull ...I found Inquisition more engaging story wise. I'm only about a 3rd into the game tho.
graywolf323
Member
picked it up for 40% off on PSN for my PS5 Pro and I’m really enjoying it so far, I figured I would based on what I read and I haven’t met the character most infamous for the woke sensibilities of the writers
Bellara is the best sidekick, my annoyance at the moment is they just dump you into the choice of which city to save straight from a cutscene… I’d like to make a save right before such a major decision
Bellara is the best sidekick, my annoyance at the moment is they just dump you into the choice of which city to save straight from a cutscene… I’d like to make a save right before such a major decision
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Myuni
Neo Member
Bellara is the best sidekick, my annoyance at the moment is they just dump you into the choice of which city to save straight from a cutscene… I’d like to make a save right before such a major decision
Yeah,
the game usually creates a special 'temporary decision save' in such a case (on PC at least). But it does so without the opportunity to go back and do other stuff first before making your decision.
I had to load an ancient manual savegame in order to be able to decently level up to stand a chance against what the game throws at you once you are trapped in the questline of your choice.
nowhat
Member
As a fan of the series, warts and all, I was really looking forward to this (or rather, the next game). Then it was announced it was going to be a live service... but then it was announced that it's not going to be a live service! Then it was radio silence for years, but then we got a trailer. And people saw the trailer... but later first impressions by the media were quite positive! But then the game was actually released and people got to play it...
To say it has been a bumpy ride up to the release would be an understatement, but here we are, the game is out. I said before that I'm still going to pick this off a sale and hate-play it just to bone scout Harding. Which is exactly what I did (on base PS5 FWIW). I didn't do all of the side content because you couldn't even pay me to, but I did all the companion quests and major side quests, so I have a pretty good idea about how the game is. And... before I start ranting, credit where credit is due, the game is quite good on just a pure tech/presentation level. Really not a fan of the art style (more on that later), but the environments/lighting can look really nice and the soundtrack is suitably epic (if not particularly memorable). A special shoutout must be given to the hair, it's pretty great. All in all, FSR issues with transparencies notwithstanding (which really are not a fault of BioWare), tech-wise I have no major complaints.
So, the tech is not the issue, it's everything else. "Feels like written by an AI" gets tossed around often these days, but I think it really applies here. Not because the writing is bad (which it is, but humans are perfectly capable of that by themselves), but because it feels like they took a base GPT model, fed it the content of the Dragon Age Wiki, and used whatever output the language model produced. Yes, there are things that exist within the games/lore, but the tone is completely off. It doesn't feel like Dragon Age. I think this is most evident with the cameos. I may be in the minority, but I never really cared for the cameos in DA, having self-contained games within the same world would have been fine by me. But now it's worse than ever. They look, vaguely, like the characters you remember. The VA is the same. But what they speak is just so completely out of place for the characters it's not uncanny valley, more like uncanny Mariana Trench. Solas is the closest we get to the character we knew, and even he seems like a pussified version of himself.
Not that the new characters fare any better. Just to get this out of the way, I don't mind if a character is trans/non-binary/whathaveyou. It just needs to be handled well. Taash is handled in such a heavy-handed and preachy fashion it would make David Cage blush. But Taash is far from the only offender. I don't think any of the companions are particularly compelling, and the "decisions" one gets to make at the end of each companion arch are meaningless. Yes, there are vibes of ME2 suicide mission in the last few hours of the game (which is arguably the strongest part of the entire experience), but if you don't care about the characters, it's hard to care about who lives or dies. Again we come back to the tone, and it's really wrong here. This is very evident in some of the language used. "Oof", indeed.
The combat is tiresome. The enemies are not nearly varied enough and way too spongy towards the end. And you have only two companions with you at any given time, which you can't control. And they can't die in combat. Maybe in another game the combat could have worked better, but for me this just didn't do it here. The loot/upgrades are uninspired. Sure, I'll switch to something that has larger numbers, but there's no feel of unique gear you'd be excited to find.
The art style, ohmigod. It's one thing having a more stylizised/CGI animation look in general, with the character faces - I don't agree, but if that's what the studio wants to do, go on ahead. But I have a hard time deciding which redesign I hate the most - Qunari, Darkspawn or the demons? Because they all are terrible. You had great designs already, why spoil them? I guess in the end my vote goes to the demons. Like really, the Pride demon. Had a distinct, formidable, design. Now it's... something and missing the bottom half of the body? Who the fuck greenlit that shit?
Oh of course since this is a contemporary AAA game, the playtime must be padded with something. Let's see... ooh, puzzles, that's it! Whoever designed the "puzzles" here must struggle trying to match a round peg with a round hole. If you're going to put a mechanic in a game, at least put some effort into it, otherwise you're just wasting my time, which is exactly what this game does.
I guess if I could judge this game in a vacuum, so to speak, I could maybe think more highly of it. But as a Dragon Age game, this is the most disappointed I've been since... I can't even recall. Maybe I should call HR. I feel violated.
To say it has been a bumpy ride up to the release would be an understatement, but here we are, the game is out. I said before that I'm still going to pick this off a sale and hate-play it just to bone scout Harding. Which is exactly what I did (on base PS5 FWIW). I didn't do all of the side content because you couldn't even pay me to, but I did all the companion quests and major side quests, so I have a pretty good idea about how the game is. And... before I start ranting, credit where credit is due, the game is quite good on just a pure tech/presentation level. Really not a fan of the art style (more on that later), but the environments/lighting can look really nice and the soundtrack is suitably epic (if not particularly memorable). A special shoutout must be given to the hair, it's pretty great. All in all, FSR issues with transparencies notwithstanding (which really are not a fault of BioWare), tech-wise I have no major complaints.
So, the tech is not the issue, it's everything else. "Feels like written by an AI" gets tossed around often these days, but I think it really applies here. Not because the writing is bad (which it is, but humans are perfectly capable of that by themselves), but because it feels like they took a base GPT model, fed it the content of the Dragon Age Wiki, and used whatever output the language model produced. Yes, there are things that exist within the games/lore, but the tone is completely off. It doesn't feel like Dragon Age. I think this is most evident with the cameos. I may be in the minority, but I never really cared for the cameos in DA, having self-contained games within the same world would have been fine by me. But now it's worse than ever. They look, vaguely, like the characters you remember. The VA is the same. But what they speak is just so completely out of place for the characters it's not uncanny valley, more like uncanny Mariana Trench. Solas is the closest we get to the character we knew, and even he seems like a pussified version of himself.
Not that the new characters fare any better. Just to get this out of the way, I don't mind if a character is trans/non-binary/whathaveyou. It just needs to be handled well. Taash is handled in such a heavy-handed and preachy fashion it would make David Cage blush. But Taash is far from the only offender. I don't think any of the companions are particularly compelling, and the "decisions" one gets to make at the end of each companion arch are meaningless. Yes, there are vibes of ME2 suicide mission in the last few hours of the game (which is arguably the strongest part of the entire experience), but if you don't care about the characters, it's hard to care about who lives or dies. Again we come back to the tone, and it's really wrong here. This is very evident in some of the language used. "Oof", indeed.
The combat is tiresome. The enemies are not nearly varied enough and way too spongy towards the end. And you have only two companions with you at any given time, which you can't control. And they can't die in combat. Maybe in another game the combat could have worked better, but for me this just didn't do it here. The loot/upgrades are uninspired. Sure, I'll switch to something that has larger numbers, but there's no feel of unique gear you'd be excited to find.
The art style, ohmigod. It's one thing having a more stylizised/CGI animation look in general, with the character faces - I don't agree, but if that's what the studio wants to do, go on ahead. But I have a hard time deciding which redesign I hate the most - Qunari, Darkspawn or the demons? Because they all are terrible. You had great designs already, why spoil them? I guess in the end my vote goes to the demons. Like really, the Pride demon. Had a distinct, formidable, design. Now it's... something and missing the bottom half of the body? Who the fuck greenlit that shit?
Oh of course since this is a contemporary AAA game, the playtime must be padded with something. Let's see... ooh, puzzles, that's it! Whoever designed the "puzzles" here must struggle trying to match a round peg with a round hole. If you're going to put a mechanic in a game, at least put some effort into it, otherwise you're just wasting my time, which is exactly what this game does.
I guess if I could judge this game in a vacuum, so to speak, I could maybe think more highly of it. But as a Dragon Age game, this is the most disappointed I've been since... I can't even recall. Maybe I should call HR. I feel violated.
Myuni
Neo Member
140 hours of playtime, close to the point of no return, I finally engaged with a character of interest.
It was a brief moment of non-dialog-skipping, which did not last long. It's a shame:
What's even worse: I have fully dedicated myself to a romance with Neve. And all I got so far is this:
If I had played this for the story or characters, I would be quite pissed right now.
It was a brief moment of non-dialog-skipping, which did not last long. It's a shame:
What's even worse: I have fully dedicated myself to a romance with Neve. And all I got so far is this:
If I had played this for the story or characters, I would be quite pissed right now.
Cyberpunkd
Member
What were you expecting? That’s the love life of DA devs.What's even worse: I have fully dedicated myself to a romance with Neve. And all I got so far is this:
If I had played this for the story or characters, I would be quite pissed right now.
Wolves hunt in packs
Member
It doesn't look awful at performance mode on XSX, tried about an hour of the trial, gonna get it when it's 20 bucks.
gow3isben
Member
OK Finished the game at 70 hours
Did all the Quests. Maxed out the factions. Made all companions Heroes of the Veilguard. Got the best ending.
And damn it all. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I played 5-6 hours a day the past week.
The gameplay loop just got me addicted.
Don't get me wrong I agree with the complaints. The characters, especially Rook, are all goody two-shoes and superficial. No major conflict. More than half the characters are LGBTQ just FYI if that is a turn-off. So much preaching. Taash is like a selfish 6 year old brat with a constant resting bitch face. The enemy variety is simply criminal. Even though the dragon fights are wonderful initially once you have done one you have done them all. There are a ton of boring sidequests that needlessly create many hours of bloat. There is no diversity at all in gameplay it is purely run forward fight. Run forward fight.
I still couldn't stop enjoying it.
The production values were great. Graphics are great. The Companion sideqeusts brought us to entirely new areas and had some great payoff and meaningful story. They had multiple arcs that spanned the game. There was weight to some decisions that payed off at the end. The final 4 hour stretch reminded me so much of ME2. The final setpiece leading to the final battle was actually amazing. I played as mage as Spellblade for half the time and evoker half the time and when it finally clicked combat was a symphony of glorious fun. Second hardest difficulty was perfectly balanced. Damn it all I actually really liked the normal characters too like Lucanis, Davrin, Emmerich, Solas, Morrigan, and Neve. Villains were really fun in a cartoonish way.
I enjoyed this way more than very commonly hyped up action RPGs like FF 16, Fallout 4, AC odyssey, and Horizon Forbidden West.
The only other Dragon Age game I played is 2 and this blows that out the water.
Obviously this ain't no Witcher but if you ignore the agenda nonsense and aren't really uptight about how different it is to previous Dragon Age games give it a go.
Metaphor is next.
Did all the Quests. Maxed out the factions. Made all companions Heroes of the Veilguard. Got the best ending.
And damn it all. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I played 5-6 hours a day the past week.
The gameplay loop just got me addicted.
Don't get me wrong I agree with the complaints. The characters, especially Rook, are all goody two-shoes and superficial. No major conflict. More than half the characters are LGBTQ just FYI if that is a turn-off. So much preaching. Taash is like a selfish 6 year old brat with a constant resting bitch face. The enemy variety is simply criminal. Even though the dragon fights are wonderful initially once you have done one you have done them all. There are a ton of boring sidequests that needlessly create many hours of bloat. There is no diversity at all in gameplay it is purely run forward fight. Run forward fight.
I still couldn't stop enjoying it.
The production values were great. Graphics are great. The Companion sideqeusts brought us to entirely new areas and had some great payoff and meaningful story. They had multiple arcs that spanned the game. There was weight to some decisions that payed off at the end. The final 4 hour stretch reminded me so much of ME2. The final setpiece leading to the final battle was actually amazing. I played as mage as Spellblade for half the time and evoker half the time and when it finally clicked combat was a symphony of glorious fun. Second hardest difficulty was perfectly balanced. Damn it all I actually really liked the normal characters too like Lucanis, Davrin, Emmerich, Solas, Morrigan, and Neve. Villains were really fun in a cartoonish way.
I enjoyed this way more than very commonly hyped up action RPGs like FF 16, Fallout 4, AC odyssey, and Horizon Forbidden West.
The only other Dragon Age game I played is 2 and this blows that out the water.
Obviously this ain't no Witcher but if you ignore the agenda nonsense and aren't really uptight about how different it is to previous Dragon Age games give it a go.
Metaphor is next.
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Myuni
Neo Member
me too
It's exceedingly rewarding to start the next mission and burn down all enemies as quickly as possible. Very similar to Destiny 2 somehow.