Dragon Age: the Veilguard — First Impressions / Refuting the Naysayers

I'm sorry! I must halt my Sandrock playthrough! DRAGON AGE VEILGUARD IS HERE!

Last year I played through Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Inquisition, and wrote up the entire story for you all to peruse whilst I played. Welcome to the next instalment of Dragon Age Related Babbling. 😁

I don't give a shit about all the woke backlash this game has received all over the early reviews, game-magazine youtubes, social media, whatever. You could be gay in Origins. You could be gay in #2. A companion was gay and another trans in Inquisition. I don't caaaare.

You know what pissed me off in Inquisition? The fact that the side-quest NPCs had no personality. The fact that my protagonist sounded like she was reading her script direct from a piece of paper. The fact that conversations only sounded conversationy in proper cinematic cutscenes.

The dialogue was such a step back when compared to the first two games.

It did mildly irk me that Sten in Origins explicitly tells you that Qunari know their roles. Why would a woman want to be a soldier when her role is in the laundromat? Then LO, in Inquisition, there are plenty of female Qun soldiers.

But.

ANYWAY.

This is my Rook in the character creator. Grey Warden Mage. Iselia. She is beautiful. I LOVE the character creator. Yes, there is an option for hurrrrrr durrrrrr 'top scars' but who gives a shit? My lady mage has bewbz. AND THEY'RE BOOBALICIOUS.

This is my Rook in several in-game cinematics.

"HUUURRRR DURRRRRR. YOU CAN'T MAKE A GOOD-LOOKING CHARACTER IN THIS GAME. YOU CAN ONLY BE UGLY LGBQWTF TRANNIE HE-LADIES."

I think my lovely Iselia here has refuted that statement.

What else was there?

Oh, yeah. "THEY'RE SHOVING THE WOKE AGENDA IN OUR FACES."

I hate the 'woke agenda' as much as the next sweaty basement dweller. There's nothing worse than enjoying my movie, book, videogame, whatever, then having a "ohhhh by the waaaaay I used to be a man. Accept it or else." thrust in my face.

I've played for five hours — admittedly, I spend A LOT of time in the photo mode — and no one has yelled at me for not using their correct pronouns... yet?

What else was there?

Oh yeah.

"THIS ISN'T DARK AND GRITTY LIKE DRAGON AGE IS SUPPOSED TO BE. WAAAAAAAH."

One of the first places you go is absolutely corrupted by the blight. There are corpses strewn about everywhere. There are bodies hanging by the neck from trees.

And want to know the first decision my Rook has made?

Killing a greedy bastard, letting him live, or sending him to the Grey Wardens to kill Darkspawn for the rest of his days - a small penance considering the depths of his crime.

I feel that so far it's pretty dark.

What was another oft-repeated false criticism I saw?

Oh. Yeah.

"THIS LOOKS LIKE A MOBILE GAME. IT'S BASICALLY FORTNITE. IT'S ALL CARTOONY AND SHIT."

The graphics are hardly what I'd describe as cartoony. To be honest, I feel as though these graphics could just be the best in any of the games so far. It's atmospheric. Has a good blend of semi-realism. And does not resemble anything Fortnite.

Admittedly one of the first 'reveal' trailers was goddamned awful. But the game is not like that.

Another one that I've seen crop up in recent days as early reviews were coming in:

"UGH. THE WRITING IS AWFUL. IT'S BASICALLY AI GENERATED."

Nah.

So far I think the dialogue is quite good. The voice acting seems pretty good so far. I like my Rook's voice. I like being able to choose ye olde Dragon Age 2 "humourous" dialogue options.

I haven't gotten thattttt far into it yet to make a proper judgement, but from these early moments... it's fine. 🤷‍♀

Yet another repeated criticism I saw was how there wasn't going to be a tactical camera and it was just going to be yet another hack-and-slash game, or it was going to be too souls-like, or whatever.

I find the combat quite good!

It took a few minutes to get used to, but for the most part it's pretty smooth and you can pause often to select how your companions are going to help out.

It's not the same type of tactics that is in previous titles, but it's still fairly tactical. Especially being able to combine abilities with your teammates and prime and detonate abilities.

All I can really say is that I'm enjoying it at the moment and all the naysayers are hyperbolic idiots.

I mean, of course I haven't met the qunari chick yet, so who knows, maybe I'll be forced to do a thousand pushups because I dared call it a her instead of a them, or whatever. But that hasn't happened yet.

We'll see what the future holds. I'll be playing this alllllllllllll night. XD

 

Until next time!! ⚔️🔥🐲

 

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_{All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game: Dragon Age - the Veilguard.}