Dragon Age: The Veilguard (October 31, 2024)

[Primetime]

That's very interesting. I picked Neve from the get go and ended up thinking the game wanted me to pair up with Bellara instead, as it gave me a bunch of dialogues/1 on 1 conversations were they kinda set me up to pick a romance dialogue option (and I never did, lol). Her story also seemed to me like the game was telling me "she needs/wants a partner" waaay more than Neve, imo. Neve felt like I had to convince her for 95% if of the game that it was ok to fukk and she could do her thing in Docktown and be with me as well

Also, Neve coining "Trouble" as her endeering way of calling me felt corny as shyt

Maaan thing is, Bellara's whole shtick was mypoorbrother babble and mind you part of that plays into what i mentioned about the companions lacking proper depth (compared to other RPGs) as that was basically the extent of her character. No twists or turns, just that.

While the build up with Neve bored the hell outta me, after i chose Bellara there was basically no moments or the same fleeting formulaic stuff. I even looked at the game's reddit page and ppl were saying she got less ish compared to the other female characters.

Meanwhile Neve inviting me to hang out and in other instances telling me how much of an incredible friend i was etc etc and i'm like aren't you fukking that arab guy now tho

 

[Luke Cage]

Ironically i felt like the dwarf lady was the most fun to flirt with, She actually flirted back instead of being coy and unbothered like Neve, or awkward like Bellara

 

[Novembruh]

I've been at what I assume to be the last steps before the finale kicks in for... 2 weeks now.
Every time I turn the game on, it feels... exhausting. Like, I want to just move on through the story, but I know if I don't do all these individual quests for nikkas I don't even like being on my team, something won't go right.

So I'm at an impasse. I have no desire to play this game again so I need to do all the things I can for this run to go how it needs to... but I do. not. want. to.

So I've just been reading books instead tbh.

Think it's time to have the talk that maybe, just maybe, Bioware traded in something intrinsic to their 'magic' for ME2 to hit, because they've been steadily getting worse as a company across the board since that game released.

Them deals with the devil never end how they start

 

[JuvenileHell]

Ironically i felt like the dwarf lady was the most fun to flirt with, She actually flirted back instead of being coy and unbothered like Neve, or awkward like Bellara

Been trying to get in Harding's guts since Inquisition

 

[Jmare007]

Ironically i felt like the dwarf lady was the most fun to flirt with, She actually flirted back instead of being coy and unbothered like Neve, or awkward like Bellara

That makes total sense. Her randomly flirting and thirsting for Taash the couple of quests I choose them as companions was hilarious Harding was openly talking about fantasizing about Taash's legs/ass and shyt

 

[Jmare007]

Neve even hooks up with that spanish dude in the party if you don't romance her.

Wait, there's a party I missed?

 

[Legal]

Wait, there's a party I missed?

I think he meant party as in your group, breh.

 

[Luke Cage]

I think he meant party as in your group, breh.

Yeah

 

[Jmare007]

I think he meant party as in your group, breh.

 

[Jmare007]

Yeah

at the thought of Neve and Italian/Spanish assassin breh leaving me hanging on a big fight because they fukking in a corner somewhere

 

[Luke Cage]

at the thought of Neve and Italian/Spanish assassin breh leaving me hanging on a big fight because they fukking in a corner somewhere

I’ll admit, i stopped including him in my fights because i could see he was plotting on her and i was like nah, you can stay at the lighthouse while me and neve explore dogtown

 

[Primetime]

I’ll say that one nice touch was having your companions change locations around the light tower and interact with each other, as opposed to staying stationed in the same spot/silo’d away in Inquistion. It was cool to walk in on conversations.

However, what hurt Veilguard (specifically the friendship and romance aspect) is not being able to go up and start a conversation with your companions. They took that choice away and masked it as doing us a favor by giving the exclamation point indicators (so we don’t “miss out” on anything) but really it was just a sly/lazy way to reduce and control the total amount of dialogue, probably to save costs on the VAs.

The end result is we didn’t get the steady stream of companion building moments like in BG3 and DA:I. The on-demand leisurely character trees are underrated if not essential.

Also, the approval system didn’t seem fleshed out. No one is leaving the party, so outside of targeting a romance there was seemingly no weight to whether they agreed/disagreed with your dialogue choices. Letting the mayor die, punching the warden, whatever.

 

[duck]

I’ll admit, i stopped including him in my fights because i could see he was plotting on her and i was like nah, you can stay at the lighthouse while me and neve explore dogtown

Right

Its like "stop cockblockin u fukkin terrorist, neve dont want your fukkin coffee"

 

[Primetime]

It's another reason why i thought Neve was the game's intended main female: Bellara treating her like she's Taylor Swift and the Arab/Hispanic mfer was p*ssy-whipped on sight

Plus her whole character motivation while nothing special was better than the others. Protecting your "Gotham" >>> sibling and identity babble.

 

[Primetime]

Just a couple final pet peeves:

(1) Making Emmerich and Lucanis into characters that would feel at home on teen titans go or fairly odd parents was just a tonally missed opportunity imo. If it was BG3, there would've been a whole massive side story about Spite, ending in us either exorcising the mfer or a darker option where he fully possess Lucanis. Emmerich definitely would've been like evil Dr Strange in MCU's What If show. But as is it felt so basic for characters that should've been a bit darker.

(2) I'm on record stating that i don't care about world states and whatnot. Tho as someone who played Inquistion 10 years ago and played the ish outta it again a few months back in preparation of this game, i felt the aspects they did try to "easter egg" in were half-assed.

Spoiler

i.e. Don't have us select who our inquistor romanced yet not have that character pop up. Hell don't have us create an Inquistor but 98% of the interaction is long-winded letters.

If Cole, Leilana, Cass, Jospheine, Cullen, etc are all available in this timeline for Harding and Solas to reminise to Rook about, then cotdman you need to show them muthafukkas otherise don't bother. You literally have Eluvian mirrors to transport Rook anywhere, so going to the "south" to help the Inquistor and meet the old gang (even if it was the developers own generic "world state") would've been a nice touch and means to see everybody. Hell that Dorian that showed up in Trevinter... was that our (pause) Dorian? Because if so, there was no meaningful acknowledgement.

Like i said the other day i was entertained by the main and companion quests but i guess it's kinda like a Marvel movie where it's great microwaved entertainment on first viewing but once you start to reflect you do see they could've tightened it up a lot more.