Dragon Age: The Veilguard

[Maf]

Beat a level 50 optional dragon yesterday and judging by what the characters said, and hopefully because of how many dragons I’ve killed, that’s the last one in side quests. 
 

A big problem with this game is how repetitive the bosses are. Dragons all largely have the same move set and behaviour, as well as some other bosses might have a different model/look but after one attack it’s like oh, it’s one of these enemies. 
 

I don’t remember the story of the development of this game. Did they have to restart it multiple times or something? I don’t mean to be an asshole, because despite how it sounds I like this game and enjoy playing it, but not sure why it took 10 years to make. It feels like a Bioware game from 15 years ago, made with PS4 era gameplay trends

 

If there’s any game it’s most similar to it’s actually Dragon Age 2. You really do just visit the same locations over and over, fighting the same enemies over and over, with characters and a story that are quite typical and pedestrian (Even Solas and Varric are the main continuing characters from previous games, who first appeared in DA2)

What makes the game good is the fighting is really fun, the loot system is really smart, it looks pretty nice, and it’s got a bit of that open world/check list compelling gameplay without being overburdening. For a AAA, EA, mainstream-esq game it’s remarkably restrained in lots of ways with a bit of bloat, but not offensively so like an Assassin’s Creed, pretty much the same way Mass Effect 2 and 3 had side quest stuff.

 

So there are good things about it and I do like it (repeating that because I know how it reads) but am also wondering why this game took 10 years. It’s neither especially innovative or unique or special or brilliant. It’s just quite good. So the 10 year time gap makes me wonder how the development on this game was 

[Maryokutai]

It didn't take ten years, they made Anthem in between – and to an extent Andromeda, even though I think that was mostly a different team. Reportedly the first concept for this was a multiplayer game, or did at least have multiplayer elements in it, so that was one thing they scrapped, but who knows how much they could salvage for this version or if they actually restarted from scratch. But with Anthem coming out in 2019 and this five years later, you get your standard triple-A development cycle. Despite internal troubles and layoffs.

 

I find it hard to look at the RPG genre and really recall any trends, because the big budget variant of that genre is pretty much non-existent. They had to pick a direction they felt was going to be appealing for this generation. The only really big RPG hit in the last ten years was Witcher 3 and BioWare would never emulate that concept, or get the necessary budget from EA for that matter. In a pre-BG3 world, during which this game was conceptualised and designed, I can totally see why they took this angle and this approach. It's a streamlined, comparatively safe design with the potential for mass appeal, but just enough depth and interesting lore expansion to lure in some old fans. Even though it doesn't seem to have paid off, if early sales numbers are to be believed.

 

Edit: this sounds very defense force-ish, I do think the game has issues, but I also see a game that has learned from some of the mistakes made in Inquisition and Andromeda, so I do want to give them credit where credit is due. They're moving in the right direction.

[Maryokutai]

Completed this today, took me quite a while longer than I was expecting at 75 hours. I don't think it necessarily needed this runtime, as it doesn't quite have the gameplay depth for it nor an interesting enough narrative arc. It's an issue BioWare has been struggling with since Inquisition, as both it and Andromeda also felt needlessly long, though I will say I did not not enjoy it, I just think a shorter experience would have been better, especially as it almost drowns you in companion quests so numerous that you might forget there's even a main quest at all.

 

I did quite enjoy the finale though, it's very basic in terms of its narrative premise, but in an odd inversion of the Mass Effect template, it's the one part of the game that makes you feel like you did somehow shape the story based on your decisions, even if most of them boil down to whether or not you achieved maximum 'loyalty' from your party members. In terms of production values it's quite the blockbuster towards the end though, giving it a nicely spectacular finale. There's some strong character moments towards the end as well, though nothing on the level of wat they achieved with, say, the ME trilogy. But a certain character's fate didn't leave me indifferent, just to be a bit vague about it.

 

Despite its flaws quite happy with it I'll say, and like mentioned before I think it's a step in the right direction. It teases a sequel at the end, but whether we see that in 10 years' time or never, who knows. The epilogue transitions smoothly, and tactfully, into a short list of four people that passed away during the production, which was a rather sombre reminder as to how long these games take to make nowadays. It also simultaneously made me rather angry as it reminded me of the online discourse about it – imagine working on a troubled project for such a long time, losing coworkers in the process, coming out at the end with a game that defied all odds by being quite solid, and all you see is assholes going on a crusade because they dislike the pronouns of one party members. In a meta context, the credits for this were almost the most emotional aspect of it.

 

Anyway – not sure if people here would like it. Maybe Blakey, but he seems to be terminally offline, the lucky guy. Don't know if @Maf is done yet, would like to hear your thoughts considering you talked about moving away from it around the midgame portion already.

[Maf]

I’m still plugging away at it a couple side quests at a time. It’s become quite the grind for me though and I find myself playing it for shorter and shorter durations each go

 

If this game was 30-40hours it would be much better 

[shinymcshine]

So if my ranking was:

 

DA:O loved it, played through many times (inc Awakenings & DLC)

 

DA2 liked it, played it through a couple of times, characterisation was good, but combat & character/inventory management felt dumbed down

 

DA:I had some high points, but disliked just  holding down single button for most combat, way too much focus on collectibles in large area, quite liked the war table, but only played through once

 

Would Veilguard be for me ?

[Maryokutai]

It's a game that fixes some, but not all, of Inquisition's design flaws but you still sense the DNA of the 'new' BioWare in it. Outside of some interesting lore expansions there's not too much connecting tissue between this and the first two games I think. 

 

If replayability is an important factor for you then this won't fulfil that wish. There's one major and a few minor decisions to make, but they don't really alter proceedings in a meaningful way. Dialogue also mostly flows in a pre-determined direction, except for a couple of exceptions that are directly woven into the narrative. Based on some of the feedback I've read, there's also not that much difference between classes in a gameplay level (combat), but I only know the mage experience so I can't comment on that.

 

I dunno, it's quite a lot better than Inquisition and if you found the motivation to go through that, I'd argue you might find enough enjoyment here as well. But you should simultaneously approach it as something very different to the old games, Origins specifically. Veilguard won't scratch the RPG itch in the same way that game did. I'm really struggling to put together a cohesive 'does this thing better/worse than...' list for this as the series has sort of reinvented itself with every entry. 

[Nag]

Maybe my impressions will change over time but why oh why have I held off playing this?... well this topsy-turvy thread didn't help but I won't hold it against anyone. 😉

 

Anyway I'm very early on but I'm really impressed so far... after spending way too long in character creation (and attempting to make Jill Valentine again) it plays nothing like what I thought it would.

 

 

Admittedly I've only played one of these games (on 360) before so I'm not sure what I was expecting but it probably wasn't Mass Effect with swords.

 

 

It looks really good to me, performance seems solid and the characters have a nice feel of weight and inertia to them in combat. We'll have to see how I get on with the story itself as, like I said, these characters and events mean nothing to me.

 

 

Looking forward to getting stuck in to this though.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Maryokutai]

Oddly enough the only somewhat important piece of prior knowledge you 'need' for this is the DLC for Inquisition, Trespasser. But I also never played that and the game fills the gap with certain dialogues and codex entries so it's not that big of a deal. There's an interesting revelation later on that harks back all the way to DA1 but I've also read from people that are super into its lore that it's also kind of contradictory. Anyway, tl;dr, this is basically a sequel to Inquisition but it also tells you what you need to know (thankfully, because Inquisition is a boring slog).

 

Also I think the first 15 and the last 15 hours of this are the best, the 50 or so in the middle are stretched by a lot of companion quest padding. But I guess you'll see when you get there. I never felt bored by it, but it could have been tightened a bit.

[shinymcshine]

2 hours ago, Nag said:

Admittedly I've only played one of these games (on 360) before so I'm not sure what I was expecting but it probably wasn't Mass Effect with swords.

 

I'm pretty sure that's either a whimsical tease, or outright wind-up.......

[Nag]

Not sure I follow...

[shinymcshine]

Well it was if you'd played one before (on 360) then DA pretty much had always been a bit 'Mass Effect with swords' hasn't it....?

[Nag]

That's kind've the point... I can't remember the game at all.