Topic: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I just reached a point in the game (about ten hours in) where the game begins to open up and you can tackle quests in an whatever order you'd like. This game is fantastic. I think the writing and characters are top notch, and the gameplay is unbelievably satisfying. The quests have been fun too. One thing I saw people complain about in reviews, and rightfully so, are how some of the choices you make don't have lingering consequences. Some do, but not all. For me personally, I'm okay with that. I don't need my actions to make a massive difference in the end; it's all about the moment itself. What choice am I going to choose in that specific moment? Those are what I like, and those are decisions that I dwell on. I get the appeal for why people want to see the choices play out in a deeper concept, but I'm fine with it not.

Also, on a side note, can we talk about how good the skill tree is? I'm quite impressed. It's rare when a skill tree has me pausing to decide what I want to choose to unlock because everything is beneficial.

Is there a general consensus of the most fun class with the current gameplay as it is? Does it suit a Mage, Rogue or Warrior type most? It's mostly an action game, am I right? So what feels good so far, explosive spells, crunching swordplay or sneaky/agile stabby stabs?

Also, does it have anything similar to Dragon's Dogma where you can climb up bigger foes?

The only thing I have heard is that Mage can be frustrating to play at times because your companions don't draw aggro. I dunno if that is something you can tweak in the settings or in their build. Everything gunning for you as a warrior like I am playing isn't a problem because I want stuff in my face so I can parry. I suppose that can also be applied to if you are wanting to play as a ranged archer rogue.

@Ravix I'm playing as a rogue. There isn't much sneaking around or anything, so the combat isn't really designed around that. It's more up close and personal with daggers/short swords, and a bow and arrow. The abilities you unlock for this class are quite awesome and fun to experiment around with. As for Dragon's Dogma 2---there isn't an option to climb enemies. Maybe that changes further down the road, but I would guess no. What I can say is that playing as a rogue feels great, and yes, it's more an action game, but you can also bring up a character wheel and have your teammates perform various abilities and even combos.

Okay the time had come to post my first impressions after the first 8 hours (2 hours of them in Character Creation xD)

Overall I really like the game so far. I started with a Shadow Dragon mage and it took me some time to decide as I was really thinking of choosing a rogue since I really liked it from what I've seen so far.

• The game opening maybe the best in the series and I like the new missions structure although sometime I feel it's a bit rushed and you're being pushed forward. Jumping from a mission to another and the story develops pretty well.
• The world is stunning and ngl it took sometime for me to get used to the characters art style but it grew in me pretty well. The voice acting is great and the sound track is a top notch.
• Not sure if it's my bad memory or what but it took me sometime to get used to the combat and how to use it effectively but once I got used to it. I guess it's the best combat I've seen from a BioWare game so far.
• Before playing the game I was decided that I'll have a romance with Bellara but after the first few hours I'm really confused which one I should go with. Harding, Neve and Bellara are all appealing for me so I guess it'll take me sometime to decide.
• Glad that the game kept the dark aspects of it (D'menta Crossing for whoever played the game).

Finally, it's not the normal Dragon Age experience that we used to have (no open world - no fetch side quests so far - no tactical gameplay) but it's definitely a BioWare game.

@Ravix You can't design but you can choose the armor style of any armor you picked up and use it as a cosmetic. So for example you can wear the best armor you've for the stats but use the style of another one that you like to appear in the game.
And yes I really hope that DA gets the same Remaster/ Remake treatment that Mass Effect got

@Pizzamorg Yeah good point about the difficulty. I felt it's a bit easy on Adventurer and had to raise it to Underdog difficulty.

@Kraven 100% agree with that. Like I don't want every single decision or conversation choice I choose like the world depends on it. That being said there are still minor changes happening based on your choice here and there.

@Pizzamorg @Kraven @Khwarezm89

Thank you, all. It does sound like a good chunk of fun, whatever you choose, and I'll probably end up buying it to try it out when I work out whether it's best to finish off a couple of games I've started, or just throw myself into another big game with careless abandon asap 😅

I don't really have great knowledge of DA and it's classes and systems, so any tips on what type of things to look out for when planning a character would be appreciated. I know there's a choice of three, but they branch off a fair bit, right? Although, if it is more of an action game I'm sure I'll get by just by following my gut on a mostly sword based build and see what fits as I go.

I know my Inquisitor was a mage that turned into the... ghost sword mage (forgot what it's called) like a spellblade, but the spells are the blades rather than casting spells whilst also holding a blade. But I'm not sure I loved that ghost blade thing tbh.

Is there any class where you can hit some spells but carry a weapon for getting stuck in to combat? That'd probably suit me most as it is my most common play style, ala The Witcher, Elden Ring's Sword and Seal, Clive in FF16 etc, even my Bard in BG3 was an all action Bard, as I don't like to hang back too much 😅

Speaking for warrior only @Ravix as it is all I have tested, it works quite differently to previous DA games, previous DA games the Warrior abilities were usually fairly grounded, just like a bit hit or whatever. Veilguard has definitely gone a lot more super power with it (in a good way in my opinion). So you can play a close quarters warrior and still like summon spectral weapons, fire projectiles, apply CCs and all the kind of cool stuff that used to be exclusive to the other classes. They seem to have really done a lot of work to make Warrior not boring this time around, which is something the first three games didn't really do a great job of to be honest.

In terms of builds etc, again use the caveat above as I dunno what the other classes are like, but the warrior skill tree is very well designed in the sense that it'll carefully funnel you into playstyles as you work through it so there isn't necessarily the need to step back with an excel spreadsheet to plot it all out. You decide whether you want to focus on tossing your shield, using your heavy whatever it is, and then as you pick options in that direction, more options will open that feed into that, you keep picking choices for stuff you like and it will come together pretty naturally and you can't really go wrong.

@Pizzamorg that sounds like a good step for them to make. No point being in a high fantasy setting and not allowing a little fun along with your swordplay. I guess in previous ones it's because it was designed to tank and taunt to get aggro most of all, and now that has been freed up where the main character is the main focus regardless of class so the warrior needs to be more interesting to play as, and the other roles are probably less fragile, I imagine, too.

An excellent observation @Ravix I hadn't thought about until you said and yeah that really clicks for me. In previous games which were more tactical and party based, characters weren't really designed to stand as individuals but instead to function as part of a unit. This meant you could give classes niche rolls like a tanky, taunting, warrior that isn't doing a lot else. But that just couldn't work here, because it is very much more a solo game and your two companions are basically just like two extra ability sticks. This really forced them to redesign the Warrior to be able to stand on its own and not function as just a mobile piece of cover for the other DPS units on the team. You are the DPS now and that has had to be reflected in the design of the class.

Reporting in after 20 hours and still in Act 1 and didn't recruit the whole crew yet:

I have to say it but the World Design of this game is one of the best I've ever seen. The first time I travelled to Treviso in Antiva I was like my god it's like I jumped in the Arabian Nights world and it looks awesome. I don't think something will beat this beauty but then I went to Dock Town and it has its kind of beauty too.

It's by far the best looking Dragon Age world for me.

The gameplay is getting better and better along the way and I really enjoy it. I like how the side quests are designed this time compared to Dragon Age Inquisition. Bellara is my favorite companion so far.

Can't wait to try the game tomorrow on the PS5 Pro and see the difference

@Khwarezm89 Nice to hear a measured/grounded 'real review' of this game!

I've played a bit at a friend's place, and on the surface it seems a genuinely solid 7/10 or 8/10 Action game with some lite-RPG elements. The dialogue is pretty shocking at times, but generally speaking the game itself is a fun time. The opening bar fight was a big highlight. The animation style is a bit Disney for me... and I found myself yearning for the game to take itself ever so slightly more seriously.

But in fairness, we live in a post-BG3 world... and that is one hell of a measuring stick to put DAV up against. I myself am guilty of this, and I wonder how DAV would have landed if it was released a couple of years back? (preBG3..)

Glad you're enjoying it though - and don't forget to do your pushups the next time youj accidently misgender someone (!) I jest, the dialogue is mostly fine... but that example is almost so bad its good

For me this is my game of the year so far after 40ish hours and dabbling across two different playthroughs trying different classes and choices. There are arguably other games which are stronger in other areas, games like Metaphor spring to mind, but I also at times absolutely dreaded playing Metaphor because it can be brutally hard at times. With Veilguard, I go to bed thinking about when I can play it again. I wake up and the first thing I want to do is play Veilguard. I spend all day thinking about Veilguard. I squeeze out a quest on my lunch rather than eating sometimes (don't advise that). I haven't been grabbed by a game like this in ages.

It is absolutely not a perfect game. But it fills a hole in my heart basically nothing has since Mass Effect. People can say they want more DA Origins, we want more BG3. Literally jump over to Steam now and there are a thousand dark, gritty, fantasy CRPGs in Early Access with excellent reviews. You know how many there are of BioWare Cinematic RPGs in the style of Mass Effect? Zero.

You are welcome to be unhappy with the direction the series is going in, heaven knows I wasn't happy with where Inquisition took this franchise, but I think people need to stop acting like this is Veilguard's problem to solve. BioWare has clearly not shown interest in Origins since it came out. They moved on. It is time for others to do the same I think.

@CJD87 I didn't reach that point of story yet you mentioned so let's see. But overall the game is great and as a fan of the series I really like it.

@Pizzamorg Thank you for the updated impressions. I mostly agree with your opinion especially the part of comparing the game to BG3 or DA Origins. BioWare is moving towards more Action-RPG and I'm fine with that.

Quick update from my side: After around 30 hours of the game, The game is getting better and better. I like how they didn't through all the companions in my face at the beginning of the game so it feels well paced now. So far I only recruited 4 companions. The only issue I've is the facial expression of my character in some conversations. Overall the facial expressions are good but sometimes it just feels weird. Like I guess in some cases my character should be angry but I feel like he's smiling and so on.

That being said I guess this game might be my GOTY this year till I play Metaphor maybe?

I did a couple of marathon sessions over the weekend and while I am not souring on the game, its length is starting to wear one me a little like many longer games do. My main complaints are as follows:

99 percent of the game is way too easy, but turn the difficulty up and you'll eventually run into a difficulty spike. This isn't because the game gets harder, but a lot of bosses will have a bonus mechanic that is usually really annoying. Like an unbreakable shield, that is powered by something nearby and you have to break those things to do damage to the boss, all the while the game drowns you in ads who spawn faster than you can clear them. It kinda forces you to run around like a headless chicken taking a lot of unnecessary damage to focus on getting the shield down, as fighting the ads is sorta pointless. Just don't find this kind of design fun.

Much like with Inquisition, the skill tree and number of skills is still not enough for the length of the game. It seems they did learn some things from Inquisition and tried to address this through itemisation and respec. And while thos does go some way, it doesn't go as far as simply making the tree bigger.

I think part of the problem here is not only is the skill tree about half the size it needed to be for the length of the game, I just don't think the tree is well designed at all. For a tree this small, it's wild how much padding it has and I don't like that I have to to waste skill points on all this stuff I don't care about to get to the node I actually want.

While I think the Pixar criticisms are mostly nonsense, and think this is a gorgeous game with an excellent sense of style, I will agree that rather than creating a world that feels diverse, it all just feels a little disjointed. Locations seem to exist in completely different universes and times, and it creates a lot of clashing elements.

I also think the armour design is pretty horrible throughout a lot of it doesn't seem rigged properly and is way too big for the character. A lot of it is just oddly designed and so even if it fit it would still be weird. The best stuff is usually the most boring stuff cause of the contrast to how weird it gets otherwise. But even the boring stuff usually has some sort of odd choice, like how many of the armours are covered in pouches like a 90s comic book or are just full of odd colour choices. The disjointed world design plays into this as well, as one faction can have you dressing like a medieval knight, while another a 00s goth and then another like a bejazzled pirate, it just doesn't anchor me into feeling like I am in a real place.

I also really don't like modern AC chest design thing. I hate how sometimes a chest is right in front you and you just cannot work out how to access it. You eventually give up and Google it only to find out that room unlocks hours later on a different quest. I just think this design is horrible. I wonder how many hours of my platime are made up of me running around in circles trying to solve a puzzle that has no solution beyond 'wait for a quest in 12 hours that will open this door for you'.

Another criticism for me. I went for Erika Isshii's Rook, so I dunno if this is unique to her performance or an issue across the game, but I never once felt like she was in the same room as the people she was speaking to. Her tone, delivery, even the quality and volume of the audio was so jarringly different to whoever she was speaking to, it just pulled me out every time. And I'm not saying her performance is bad in isolation, I just don't think they blended her into the conversations well. And I also recognise that actors are rarely in the same room when recording these things, but this is the first game where I really noticed that the dialogue was recorded individually and slotted around one another, rather than being a naturally flowing conversation.

@Pizzamorg While it will probably be years before I actually play this as I plan on replaying the whole series again beforehand, I did read your impressions and I do have to agree about the chests thing being annoying. While I liked Assassin's Creed Valhalla more than some give it credit for, that is one element I found to be quite annoying. It's not the only game to have that design, but it is obviously what comes to mind first. I ended up spending 150 hours in my initial playthrough of the game (before DLC), and I'm sure there were more hours than I'd like to admit spent just trying to access chests that weren't accessible yet without any warning from the game.

Otherwise it does seem like The Veilguard turned out to be a lot better than people expected it to for the most part, which is nice to see. At least for most people.

Open Google. Type the name of this game. Click on “News” and see them there — the same names, big publishers all lined up like a parade. They’re doling out praise as if they’ve struck gold, selling this game to you like it’s Skyrim or Elden Ring, like it’s made of the same stuff as the classics, the ones that broke ground and still hold their place.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Even the good games don’t get this sort of relentless, syrupy praise. It’s sad, almost tragic. Push Square, once a place for honest talk, put out a review that’s as polished as the rest and then, to top it off, they went ahead and edited it down, trimming it into something nice and neat, a version that’s swallowed the rough edges that first made me join Push Square in the first place.

This game is a joke, and to say it “saved BioWare” — well, that’s a lie. That’s wishful thinking in print. If publishers want to rig the game with these editorial cheat codes, fine. But there’s a cost to playing fast and loose with honesty. In the end, it’s hollow, leaves a bad taste. And if they moderate this, well, it wouldn’t be the first time my words were cut to fit.

I know I literally said on Sunday I wasn't souring on this game. Well actually... maybe I kinda am? But not really for the reasons people are crying about on Twitter.

"Woke stuff" I couldn't care less about. I think criticisms around things like the art style and the general tone have been ludicrously exaggerated to give you completely the wrong impression as to what this game really is. I think the story has some serious pacing issues absolutely, but I've actually enjoyed the story a lot overall. Maybe cause I was set up incorrectly to expect a big dumbdumb baby game this absolutely isn't. For the most part I've really enjoyed spending time with the companions too, and exploring their companion quests.

No, the problem for me is the underlying game underneath all of this. And it's again a modern game that probably should have been like half the length it was, and so I went from like really loving this and thinking it might be my GOTY to just feeling like I am really ready for this to just drive to the end now, and it isn't and so you are just leaving me to sit and think about it's various systems and realising a lot of them just aren't very good.

Like the combat is arguably the best Dragon Age has ever had, but you've basically seen everything it has to offer about a quarter of the way through. This is because once again the skill tree is way too small, and padded with way too much filler. You'll extend some playtime because it's made respeccing easier than ever so you'll have some fun resetting the tree and dipping into different specialisations but even that only lasts so long.

The game is so damn easy, too. I'm apparently not even at the end of Act 2 yet and already for about ten plus hours I've felt so absurdly powerful, I just stopped spending skill points or even looking at the tree because I didn't need any more power and whatever I could unlock in the tree beyond what I had was just kinda boring anyway.

So then you say, what about itemisation? This is also probably the best itemisation Dragon Age has had too right? With a focus on making a proper build for your character? And like... yeah? Kind of? But again, it just doesn't last the length of the experience. The game is too easy so a cohesive build is not needed, firstly. But secondly, for anyone who has played any ARPG before, you'll see just how basic the itemisation is here. Lots of vague, minor, buffs to niche stats. If you're hoping later on you'll find gear which really offers a transformation to the way you play, this just never comes.

And I'm sure you're thinking "oh well I don't play BioWare for the combat" and it's like... Well bad news because 99 percent of this is combat. There's so much damn combat. Endlessly respawning enemies in hostile hub areas. Basically every side quest is just talk to this person and kill enemies where the X is on the map. Do that 10 times to clear your side quest log and now you can do the next story mission.

And while side content isn't quite so strictly linked into main campaign progression like it was in Inquisition, this is still a reactionary choices matter RPG. So if you skip side content, hours later that can have unfavourable repercussions in a main story mission and you'll have wished you hadn't skipped the side content then.

Like I'm coming close to 60 hours. Just slogging my way through Act 2. I hear Act 3 is some of BioWare's best so I want to get to it and experience it. But I'm getting less and less motivated to log back in. I have really limited time to game in the week cause I work full time and I just feel Act 3 getting further and further away from me. Like I've been ready to wrap this up for like 20 hours already and I'm just kinda feeling really worn down by the sheer volume of this.