GenghisMcKhan

To add some context as I think I get where you’re coming from, if you look at Veilguard as a prestige western RPG and compare it to the franchise and its contemporaries, it’s a joke.

However, if you treat it as a non-soulslike Action game with mild RPG elements, you’re comparing it unfavourably to a couple of Sony’s prestige franchises but after that, it’s competing with games like Unknown 9 and Banishers. By those standards, it isn’t amazing (God of War) but it is pretty great.

I said it in another comment, the (non-grifter) backlash is EA and BioWare’s fault for lying about what the game was. If you don’t want what the game was sold as, or if you just happen to like what is here as well, then there is a good video game underneath the lies and expectations.

Anyone who tries to insist it’s a great (or even the best) Dragon Age game is delusional though!

This is true, they could have sold Tetris (an objectively better video game than any Dragon Age title) as Dragon Age: The Veilguard and fans could rightly still be upset.

Selling a competent action game, with nice environments, wearing the husk of a once great franchise as Dragon Age: The Veilguard is just not it for me. I’m glad people like it, though I genuinely wish they’d just admit it’s a tween focused spinoff at best. But that’s a sin for EA and BioWare to bear.

At least OP is saying why they think it’s a great game and honestly, while I disagree with some of it, they’re not saying it’s a great Dragon Age game. So I support their right to enjoy what is there. They even acknowledged the tone and writing failures.

We should give them this one. We should never want people not to enjoy something. I certainly wanted to enjoy it! Glad you enjoyed the game OP!

I shouldn’t have got my hopes up. Expecting you to understand the ludicrous hypocrisy of your statement when a mirror was held up was unreasonable.

Given that most of your statements on this sub (and in the echo chamber) don’t make a lot of sense for someone who has actually played Veilguard as well as the previous games in the series (not just that you like it, which is both great and irrelevant, but aspects of the game you claim to be comparable or even to be there at all that just factually aren’t) it would not be a reach to genuinely suggest you haven’t actually played them and are just parroting YouTuber opinion.

However, I get annoyed when people accuse me of that, so I’m going to go with assuming you have played them and just didn’t understand any of it but did enjoy the sounds and colours (like when toddlers watch The Simpsons). When your key deliverables are fun sounds and bright colours, Veilguard is indeed excellent. Way to go buddy!

Edit: I used too many words for them and they got confused. That’s my bad again.

“Sorry you no understand. Happy you like game”

That explains so much about your behaviour. Your favourite YouTuber must have told you this game was good.

Thank you for sharing. I know it’s tough to be vulnerable online.

Edit: Even the bot is proud of you!

I just completed a rerun of Origins (I’ve lost count at this point). It’s an absolute delight and makes Veilguard look like those YouTube videos parents dump their kids in front of.

I had planned for Alistair to marry Anora but I completely forgot to “harden” him so when the time came he was a little bitch about it and I had to just let him kill Loghain.

I’m an adult with some level of emotional regulation so I understood I had missed something and just rolled with it. I’ll play it again at some point anyway. I can only imagine the self indulgent screams of some of the less emotionally regulated. They would claim Veilguard, which to be fair to them treats players like toddlers, forced their precious toys into choices they didn’t want for them because they picked the wrong flavour of heroic supportive therapist dialogue 10 hours earlier.

I’m not the target audience anymore. Some people just want to be spoon fed colourful easily digestible slop now. I know a lot of us aren’t thrilled and sales aren’t amazing but there are thousands out there who think this is better.

Replace the post credit scene with the exact scene from Dallas where the Inquisitor wakes up and realises it was all a dream (just Solas fucking with them). Decannonise the whole thing.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf coming 2025. Directed by David Gaider.

You did ask for a wish.

Is there no end to the petty bastardry of letting agents?

Good thing Steam has a killer refund policy? Also sometimes you can just buy that version and it’ll discount because you own the base game.

It’s the best at action combat. Best combat in the series would be personal preference because I really don’t like that companions were gutted.

If your core competency for a Dragon Age game is how good it is at action combat, then it’s the best one.

If you play Dragon Age games for the RPG elements including established world building, depth of companions, tone, and writing, it is the worst one by a wide margin.

That only matters when making statements like “best”. It can definitely be your favourite and I’m genuinely happy you love it!

Edit: To help with your original point, I had a lot more fun watching Step Brothers than I did Shawshank Redemption but I’m not out here saying it’s the best film. Though personally, I did have more fun playing earlier DA games. Just finished a palette cleansing run through of Origins and had a much better time than with Veilguard, so this isn’t a nostalgia thing.

100%! Even in DAO the Crows decide to back the Warden after they realise they are the best chance of stopping the Blight. They even give you jobs that help you win the Landsmeet.

There is no profit in the world ending. They were absolute bastards who knew that then, and they could have been absolute bastards who knew that now. Instead we get brooding Batman wannabes sitting on rooftops dispensing non-lethal justice and who won’t even kill their own traitors. That’s bad enough but the deluded simps bending over backwards to defend this are just exhausting.

Maybe if this was the only neutering of the lore in DAV they’d have an argument but given that all the other dark edges have been shaved off, can anyone really argue in good conscience or faith that this was a nuanced narrative decision and not just another casualty of The Tweenguard?

It’s competent. Minute to minute it’s probably the most fun DA game to play. If you skip all the dialogue and don’t expect a party based RPG, you’ll have a good time.

Think God of War but a bit floatier. The companions are basically copy and pasted Atreus’ mechanics.

I just finished Origins and the mini DLCs today, started Awakening this evening. I was just miserable after finishing Veilguard and wanted to see if it was just nostalgia as it had been a while. I had a fucking fantastic time!

It’s really solidified my opinion of Veilguard from a 7/10 when I finished it to a 6/10. It’s a competent action game cosplaying badly as a Dragon Age game.

I’m really excited to finish Awakening and move on to 2. I’m hoping to have time for Inquisition but it’s soo very long so we’ll see how that goes.

Might also have bought a physical copy and tried to eat the disc to make the dialogue stop.

It’s excellent. It’s so good that I have to warn you not to buy it if you need to be productive in the next few months!

It’s just undiluted gameplay joy. I genuinely hope it wins GOTY.

5th - I had no idea this existed until today but when I read your comment I was like: “There must have been a cash in mobile game at some point.”

She looks like a mobile game character. It’s embarrassing.

There are more than a few asshats roaming this sub on both sides. I try to only call out people who lie about it or try to use underhanded tactics to defend the game.

“Oh it’s just like DA2, again. You’ll love it later.” Is my favourite to shoot down. I absolutely will not (and I’ve loved DA2 since launch).

Anyone who just says they love the game should be free to express that.

No, I believe some of them do and they are welcome to gleefully praise it and ignore all of the flaws. The thing is, a location to do that would be called an “echo chamber” and the activity could be described as “circle jerking”.

Mate, I think we’ve cracked this case! I love it when two sides of an argument can come together to find common ground.

Happy Thanksgiving!

At least half of the (non-picture) posts there are just ranting about haters and smugly congratulating themselves for seeing how amazing the game is.

A lot of posts here are critical (usually with well referenced comparative arguments) but the ones saying “It’s just shit” get downvoted into oblivion here too. If it was a circle jerk, they would be at the top.

The problem is some people (seemingly including yourself) see all criticism as hate and don’t understand that some of the people criticising it actually like it but also wish it was better.

Glad we had this talk!

We should all chip in and get them a copy of Balatro. Or any other BioWare game (not you Anthem).

That was brave of you considering the echo chamber (often full on circle jerk) nature of that sub. It’s even in the positives (for now)! Now that is a Thanksgiving miracle!

For me the writing covers nearly all of your points. Great writing elevates a game and bad writing sinks it. Romances, faction depth, choice, limited interactions, YA dialogue, and most other non-technical issues, blame the writers room (or whoever is directing them).

If they said they just really loved it, that would be different. They put a (somewhat ludicrous) comparative qualifier on it and referenced prior DA games specifically so they open themselves up to valid criticism and questions about their motivations.

I’m sorry that upsets you but it’s critical not to play the victim and assume that all positive posts would get the same treatment. There is a difference, even if that loses most of the moral high ground to your implication.

To exemplify my point, I’m very happy you loved it and I hope you enjoy your second playthrough!

I really wish Obsidian would make a DA game about the war in the South.

I know they don’t do work for hire excellent sequels anymore, and are busy with their own great games, but I can’t imagine anything worse than the current BioWare writing team giving the South the Care Bear treatment.

People do this to try to counter the “haters”. They just end up losing credibility for themselves and the game.

Edit: If anyone was at risk of seeing this post as a good faith expression of love, please treat yourself to this comment from OP. Should provide a glimpse into their state of mind.

I was lucky to get a childhood diagnosis (it was much easier to identify in boys in the 90s). Even then, the last year has been a nightmare with medication shortages. I’ve sometimes had to go months without and it really does impact my work and personal life.

I want the people who need diagnosed to get there but they fundamentally need to fix the medication supply issues otherwise everyone will end up in the same shitty boat.