Dragon Age 4 - now The Veilguard

[Remus Lupin]

Honestly, it hasn't grabbed me the way I had hoped. The action is fun and fast moving, but I kind of appreciated the tactical approach of previous games. The real issue though is just that the story and characters aren't grabbing me the way I had hoped. I know they changed the name from Dreadwolf, but I was hoping for much more interaction with Solas (and given where things are up to this point in the game, the name change was probably a good call.

I just don't find the new companions very engaging. And I wish they had done more to bring in more companions from previous games. No offense to Harding, but I would have loved to see Isabella, for example, as a real companion rather than a cameo.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

if you liked being able to choose to be good or bad as if previous entries

I don't recall any DA game allowing you to be bad in the way BG3 does. You could choose to be a nice hero or a not-nice hero is all, or side with a choice of equally ambivalent factions. Same as Mass Effect.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You could not even interact with your companions unless the story told you too and the companions described everything you saw in the game and told you how to solve every puzzle.

This is straightforwardly untrue. I'm not sure why you're claiming something that is easy to prove isn't true.

You say you played 20 hours, but it sounds like you never left the first few tutorial areas - which you could stretch to 20 hours if you insisted on faffing around to a truly bonkers degree and just completely refusing the story. The companions stop telling you how to solve puzzles about 5-8 hours in playing at a normal rate - it's part of the tutorial. They explain the workings of new puzzles that are part of their personal quests that they should know about (i.e. the wisps), but then you're on your own. Sometimes characters, including your own, remark that there's a button or statue or whatever when they come close to one, but after that initial tutorial period they simply don't tell you what to do with them. By about 20 hours at a normal rate in they rarely even remark on stuff. There are even some puzzles that are actually kind of tricky (trickier than anything in BG3 by miles, if puzzles are your measuring stick) later on.

The lack of having the choice to be bad means that you cannot make the choice to be good.

You couldn't choose to be bad in DAI either, by that logic, nor particularly bad in DA2 - mostly you could just be a jerk. Even DAO didn't only offered a couple of true "blood-soaked psychopath" choices in the BG3 style, most of which would have been insane and terrible RP to pick. Most of the other ones were just about favouring one group over another and presented fairly pragmatically.

When you chose Paragon in ME, you are choosing to be good.

Paragon is usually "nice", but it's not always "Good" in a D&D sense, and more importantly, Renegade is quite rarely "Evil" in a D&D sense, or even "bad" in a moral sense. From ME2 onwards particularly, it's more "1980s action hero" for the most part. In ME1 it's often "weird space racist" or "human nationalist" but that doesn't fit well with the other ways it's used so goes away later.

That sounds awful. I will probably wait till it’s on a super cheap sale to get it then so I can experience the story.

To be clear, he's completely and totally misrepresenting the game. Like, not slightly, but massively. That's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of demonstrable fact. He says he played 20 hours, but it sounds like he never left the early story tutorial bits from what he's describing. So take that as you will.

I don't recall any DA game allowing you to be bad in the way BG3 does. You could choose to be a nice hero or a not-nice hero is all, or side with a choice of equally ambivalent factions. Same as Mass Effect.

DAO has a few bits where you can do something truly stupid and perverse, which are about insane/blood-soaked as some BG3 choices, but in general the choices are a lot more sane than some of those offered in BG3. DA2 tones that down a lot, and it's more that Hawke can really sass the hell out of people (Hawke is easily the sassiest BioWare lead), and DAI's Inquisitor can really only be kind of stern/obtuse/somewhat rude/judgemental, not even as sassy as Rook even.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Paragon is usually "nice", but it's not always "Good" in a D&D sense, and more importantly, Renegade is quite rarely "Evil" in a D&D sense, or even "bad" in a moral sense

I tend to think as ME paragon/renegade as Picard/Kirk.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't recall any DA game allowing you to be bad in the way BG3 does. You could choose to be a nice hero or a not-nice hero is all, or side with a choice of equally ambivalent factions. Same as Mass Effect.

You could murder every single companion in Dragon Age: Origins except Morrigan. You could destroy the Holy Grail (sorry, Andraste’s Ashes) for a Dragon Cult, sacrifice a child or their mother just to let you sleep with a demon of lust, use Dwarven souls to create Golems, sell kidnapped people to slavers, massacre an elven tribe, abandon a village to the undead because you’re too lazy to help them, and more. In Dragon Age 2 you could give up Isabela to the Qunari after sleeping with her, sell Fenris to his slave master, use blood magic, massacre another elven tribe, etc. There’s nothing quite as evil as the most evil BG3 endings, but there are definitely evil decisions in the first two Dragon Age games that are on par with a lot of the evil decisions in BG3.

In Mass Effect you can cause the extinction of multiple species (Geth, Krogan, Quarian, Rachni). And kill/cause the deaths of all of your companions.

 

[Belen]

To be clear, he's completely and totally misrepresenting the game. Like, not slightly, but massively. That's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of demonstrable fact. He says he played 20 hours, but it sounds like he never left the early story tutorial bits from what he's describing. So take that as you will.

No, I am not. I am giving people my opinion of the game in response to someone who asked. I never said that those who liked the game have invalid opinions. I, in fact, said that I am quite happy if someone enjoys it and found a game that they love.

I dislike it heavily. I find it boring. I find the combat boring and repetitive. I dislike the companion interaction. I spent a lot of time in Arlathan, The Crossroads, and Treviso exploring and doing side quests because I like to make sure that when I get a quest, the game does not cancel it later due to story events which a friend told me can happen in Veilguard.

None of the quests I completed had any story depth or feeling, mainly because I just did not care about any of the comps or the story itself. There are just no hooks and the writing is bland.

This is my opinion. I have friends who love the game. I have friends who feel the exact same way. My core group of online gaming friends all played the game. We played it when it dropped and none of us have finished the game. There is nothing that has made us want too.

I am very happy you enjoy it. I have not and with any other BioWare game, I felt very invested from early in the game, even Anthem and Andromeda, which are game I ultimately also felt were bad.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I am very happy you enjoy it. I have not and with any other BioWare game, I felt very invested from early in the game, even Anthem and Andromeda, which are game I ultimately also felt were bad.

If you liked Andromeda better than this, I think the issue isn't with DAV, it's with your tastes.

Andromeda had much worse writing, like, hugely so. I played it fairly recently and it was significantly worse than I remembered writing-wise (gameplay-wise it's pretty solid).

And I'm sorry, but yes you are misrepresenting the game when you claim things like "the companions give you all the solutions to the puzzles". That's literally something they only do when the puzzle types are initially introduced, and if you're progressed normally through the game they stop doing it.

Did you even pick up all the companions? It sounds like you Hinterlands'd yourself by insisting on doing every micro-quest for fear of missing out - and not even in the locations where you can miss out (hint: it's the two cities, not the other locations), rather than progressing the actual story.

Any game with a lot of sidequests can bog down and seem bland if you pursue every micro-quest whilst rejecting progressing the story. Even stuff like Witcher 3 can (whilst it has some good sidequests, it also has a lot of very dull and repetitive ones, something people tend to overlook). The only way to avoid it is to not have many sidequests.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You could murder every single companion in Dragon Age: Origins except Morrigan. You could destroy the Holy Grail (sorry, Andraste’s Ashes) for a Dragon Cult, sacrifice a child or their mother just to let you sleep with a demon of lust, use Dwarven souls to create Golems, sell kidnapped people to slavers, massacre an elven tribe, abandon a village to the undead because you’re too lazy to help them, and more.

Not much more - that's almost everything major, and most of it's stupid and selfish rather than an kind of meaningful choice. In many cases it's outright a worse choice, gameplay-wise, than the other choice. So this idea that this is "meaningful choice" is pretty funny. It's not. It's just having a few perverse and destructive options for no particularly good reason.

In Dragon Age 2 you could give up Isabela to the Qunari after sleeping with her, sell Fenris to his slave master, use blood magic, massacre another elven tribe, etc.

And you can see the step away from the demented options in DAO which I mentioned. Using blood magic isn't even necessarily evil, it's just ill-advised/risky. Blood mage is a subclass in the game, for goodness sake, and it's not a secret evil one! Being a Blood mage doesn't have any bad consequences for the ending/Hawke even. So I'm mystified as to how you think that's an "evil" option.

When can you "massacre an elven tribe" btw? I don't remember that at all and I've played through DA2 quite a few times.

There’s nothing quite as evil as the most evil BG3 endings, but there are definitely evil decisions in the first two Dragon Age games that are on par with a lot of the evil decisions in BG3.

Not anywhere near the number nor sheer blood-thirsty-ness of those BG3 offers though. And I don't think DA2 does actually have much that matches even fairly basic evil stuff in BG3. Mostly it's sass.

 

[Remus Lupin]

When can you "massacre an elven tribe" btw? I don't remember that at all and I've played through DA2 quite a few times.

I think I remember this. If you screw up the quest to go up the mountain with Merrill, I think the tribe turns hostile on you and you need to fight your way through them. I think it was connected with Merrill's "forbidden Eluvian" quest. (It's been a while).

 

[Belen]

If you liked Andromeda better than this, I think the issue isn't with DAV, it's with your tastes.

Andromeda had much worse writing, like, hugely so. I played it fairly recently and it was significantly worse than I remembered writing-wise (gameplay-wise it's pretty solid).

And I'm sorry, but yes you are misrepresenting the game when you claim things like "the companions give you all the solutions to the puzzles". That's literally something they only do when the puzzle types are initially introduced, and if you're progressed normally through the game they stop doing it.

Did you even pick up all the companions? It sounds like you Hinterlands'd yourself by insisting on doing every micro-quest for fear of missing out - and not even in the locations where you can miss out (hint: it's the two cities, not the other locations), rather than progressing the actual story.

Any game with a lot of sidequests can bog down and seem bland if you pursue every micro-quest whilst rejecting progressing the story. Even stuff like Witcher 3 can (whilst it has some good sidequests, it also has a lot of very dull and repetitive ones, something people tend to overlook). The only way to avoid it is to not have many sidequests.

No. I disliked Andromeda, which I stated.

I am not going to argue with you about my opinion. The question was asked. I gave my answer. You are free to your opinion. I am not arguing with you or telling you that you are wrong. Feel free to like the game. I am happy you find it good.

My opinion is mine, based on what I played, and I found the game to be boring, poor story, poor companions, boring, repetitive combat, with little of the player agency I loved from KOTOR, Mass Effect, or earlier Dragon Age games.

I do not like the game. I paid full price for 2 copies for my wife and I. It is not worth full price, in my opinion. It may be worth it on a sale.

I am happy you like it. Feel free to state your opinion but I am not going to decide I am wrong because you disagree with me.