To preface, I played this game start to finish. ALL the way through. I did ALL the background quests, side quests, faction quests, companion quests, and damn near 100% of the map-based content. I didn't skip cutscenes and dialogues because I wanted to feel like a part of the story.

Do I recommend it as a sequel to the Dragon Age series? No.
Do I recommend this as a standalone game? Also, no.
Do I recommend this game period? Not really.


Let's start with the good:
- Combat is visceral, entertaining, and powerful. By far the best in the franchise and the big reason why I finished it out.
- Leveling mechanics are solid and reminiscent of Path of Exiles with available skill trees for each of the 3 classes.
- Items improve, meaning you can keep good stuff and tailor your kit to your specific playstyle.
- Companions, mechanically, and their abilities help to carry fights on and allow for powerful combination moves.
- Character generator is pretty great. Armours, while overdone at times, are cool.

And now, the bad:
- Armours are a bit over the top.
- I wish I could change colour sets for my gear myself, rather than having the same six faction-based colour schemes.
- The rest of the game. The writing, the dialog, the story, all of it.
- No, seriously, that's it.

To preface, none of my critiques stem from the buzzword hot topics like "Character Sexuality," "IRL Political Messages," etc. I genuinely don't care about those. My issues come from how awful the game was in every other regard.


The story plays out with no serious input from the player aside from what brand of good guy they want to play: Positive, Snarky, or Gruff, with occasional opportunities to delve into Whiny, Angsty, and Angry. The companions aren't believable and their storylines are "Rook! I need your help to kill XXX bad guy from my off-screen past that way I can succeed at saving the world!" While the main storyline suffers from being boring, horribly predictable, and untrue to the lore built up throughout the franchise.

The writing is an insult to the players, as though the writers are afraid the audience won't understand the "careful nuances" of the story unless they spell it out and say it out loud a dozen or more times. The issue is, there is NO nuance. It boils down to "Good Guys Good, Bad Guys Bad. Good Guys Stop Bad Guys." All of this leads to the same three-option ending from Mass Effect 3. I felt like I was being coddled and spoon-fed the plot lines every single time.

"Oh no! There's a traitor among our ranks! Who could it POSSIBLY be?! Is it: A) Your Trusted Companion Who Can Do No Wrong, B) Generic Faction NPC #35, or C) Stabby McBackStabber the Unscrupulous? Hmmmmmm, time to spend three hours doing side quests along seven parts of the story to find out who! *GASP!* It was Stabby McBackStabber the Unscrupulous the WHOLE TIME! How could we have POSSIBLY seen this coming?!"
The worst part is, that's not just *one* storyline, that's about half a dozen. For those going, "Oh yeah? Name them!"
1) Mayor of D'Mata's Crossing turns out to be the bad guy and, if you choose to release him, goes to the Venatori (unless you're a Warden)
2) The Crows Part One: Illario is a Stinker.
3) The Crows Part Two: Governor Ivenci is a Stinker.
4) Knight Commander Lenos is in league with the Venatori. More news at 11.
5) Gloom Howler turns out to be a Warden. Shocker.
6) Solas is a Stinker (option dependent)

Moreover, they sanitize *everything* from its moral greyness. In DA:O you link up with, among many other characters, a blatant human supremacist, an assassin with no moral scruples, a witch who killed men in the swamps, a Qunaari who confesses to having murdered an entire family because the Qun demanded, and a dwarf who... I mean. He's a Dwarf. My point is, there's plenty of "We have to put the differences aside here to fight the greater foe."

In Veilguard, none of that is true.

- The Necromancers (Mourn Watch) EXCLUSIVELY use willing spirits to ONLY reanimate the corpses of WILLING dead folks.
- The Crows perform absolutely NO murders during the story that are dubious, and don't seem to ever do it for money on-screen; in fact, the ONLY mention about their murder-for-hire business is a single sidebar dialog in the Lighthouse between Davrin and Lucanis, where Davrin brings it up and Lucanis finds an easy explanation for why it's OK.
- The Ancient Relic Thieves (Veiljumpers) aren't really "thieves," they're just there to protect the woods and LEARN from the archives. All that previous story stuff about Dalish Elves murdering Humans in the Arlathan Forest in order to protect themselves due to fears of the Trail of Tea-- Sorry, the Long March? Yeahhhh, we're gonna conveniently pretend that never happened.
- The "Ruthless Mercenary Treasurehunters" aren't so ruthless, for some reason. In fact, they explicitly hire a Dalish Chieftain to sort through the relics they find so they can "rightly return them" to the Dalish Elves instead of... Y'know, selling them for fat stacks like actual ruthless mercenaries would do.
- The Dwarves that we meet don't believe in losing caste, or if they do then it isn't religiously enforced and they couldn't really care less.
- Every paperboy and passerby in Minrathous knows where the Shadow Dragons' Headquarters is because they are THE worst "underground spy network" to EVER exist, but nothing bad ever comes of this (also Neve is awful and I wish she died from the Blight)


In closing, nothing about the writing, dialogue, or options therein make me feel invested into the story. It's cookie-cutter generic, it's dull, it isn't remotely thought provoking, and it's sloppily executed. But the combat is fun as hell, so I'll probably play again just for that reason.

P.S.: We stan Shield Toss, Ride or Die for Davrin & Assan.

I've never felt so conflicted over a single entry into a series as I do over this one. I only selected the thumbs up recommend option over the thumbs down option because I feel like Dragon Age The Veilguard is a good game overall... just not a good Dragon Age game.

Pros:
*Beautiful and detailed environments.
*Engaging maps that are interesting to traverse.
*Game rewards player for exploration with meaningful rewards (ex: equipment upgrades, interesting codex entries that expand upon the world).
*Action combat is fun and didn't get boring for me (I completed game on nightmare setting).
*Third Act of the game is great - high action, tight high stakes story-telling, appropriate tone of dialogue for what was happening around the characters.

Cons:
*Dialogue is cringe worthy, shallow, and sets a tone that is in direct opposition to the game world's reality for MOST of the game's duration.
*Companions are OK, not memorable enough to be placed among the echelon of great companions from previous titles.
*Romance in this game is...there? I guess? I wouldn't consider any interaction with your companions REMOTELY romantic...but they give you "heart" options in the dialogue wheel if that is your thing...but I have feeling it won't be.
*The conclusion of selected companion romanced felt shallow and unearned. Romance between companions outside of the player character felt more meaningful as they had much more banter that helped "grow" the blossoming relationship. I found myself more interested in helping my companions romance each other than I did in chasing my own romantic interests.
*Almost a complete disregard to the events that occurred in the previous 3 entries in this series. It cheapened the experience overall as player choice was a staple for the Dragon Age games as was bringing in the player's world states from the other titles. I think because this feature was lacking, I felt quite the disconnect from the events unfolding in this game, especially when the Inquisitor shows up.
*Lineage/Race has very shallow reactivity in the game. I played as an Elf and a Qunari. As an elf, other elves continued to over explain elf things to me, even after briefly acknowledging my elfdom. As a Qunari, being in Tevinter especially, I was hoping for more push back from citizens but there was nothing. I guess in the last 10 years between Inquisition and Veilguard, Thedas removed all of its racism. Yay.


Overall Thoughts:
6/10 for me. This is an action game, not a true role playing game. The only role you get to play is the hero. This plays in a style reminiscent of Mass Effect 2 with a Dragon Age skin but worse dialogue/writing. It is still an enjoyable game but I think people who loved Origins and DA:I, will have a hard time with this one.

Never in my life I had been so disappointed with a game. Before anyone tries to pull the card that I am blinded by the nostalgia of the previous games, I had finished only Inquisition and only a few months ago. There is no nostalgia influencing my disappointment over the game — it's the game itself that is as bad as it was possible.

10 years of development and nothing had been done right; graphics, sure, this game is incredibly aesthetically pleasing, the most beautiful I've seen so far. Combat was entertaining. And that's where the positives end.

This game is a disgrace to the fans, to the lore, and to previous creators of the Dragon Age. There is no logic in their actions, rejecting their own lore and creating something new that has no roots, no connection to anything. The childish behaviour of the main characters — I'm speaking of Neve and Lucanis — throwing a fuss over Rook not going to save their city; i ask how one person is supposed to change anything, if whole team couldn't. The fact that support had been turned off after hardening gives me off the vibes of "You didn't play like I wanted you to do it, so no matter if we're fighting against the Evanuris that can destroy the world, I'll not heal you in the battle, go die for all I care". The reactions are childish and plain stupid. Not to mention apparently Minrathus relies only on Shadow Dragons? Where are the rest that were helping in previous games? Are they all not there, when it's needed? It's unlogical and ridiculous.

Companion's depth of character matches the lid of the pot. They are boring, unmemorable and sometimes even irritating in their lack of rationality. Taash is a crime against non-binary people, and I'm saying it as non-binary person themselves — this had potential, yet they had messed up so badly I only cringe when i see Taash. That growling made me physically sick. Bellara is irritating for most of the part, I had to skip her dialogue to not get headache. Neve is even more infuriating, I can't stand her. Lucanis is a huge disappointment after the hype he had received, I feel like he's a poor copy of Zevran. Emmrich, Davrin and Harding are so far the best of the main companions, I enjoyed their quests and never skipped anything. Still, the most interesting characters remain (to me): Myrna, Vorgoth, Viper, Viago and Thea. Give me more of them, and I'll be happy.

Romance. Hm, non-existent is the best word when I have to speak of Lucanis' one. Spite is cool, I like him, overall romance is buggy, boring and basically have no cutsecens. Merely one kiss and that's it. He was supposed to be steamy and awkward, the only steam that was there was mine caused by the headache I had when I realized how scammed we had been.

Characters are crystal clear, all have such good hearts, all wants to be saviours and all are oh so kissy. There's no morally grey characters here, there's no realizing. It's all sweet and fluffy that mere thought is making me feel sick. I never thought I'd miss my most hated characters in the Inquisition, but Sera and Vivienne at least had personality and stood up by their believes — no matter how it irritated me to be in the same room with them. They felt real. No one in Veilguard feels real — more like being taken straight from the fairytale for the children.

The fact we are to choose between Davrin or Harding and we cannot save them is ridiculous. Harding quite literally is has power of Titans, yet she used arrows against Ghilan'nain — the most irrational decision, the developers just wanted to kill someone off no matter how ridiculous it'd be. They nerfed Harding and her power. Did I mention before they go against their own lore?

Inquisitor. Solas. I was so excited to see them, and i saw them for exactly 3 minutes and 23 seconds. I believe that's the count. Was it touching? A little, because I was rooting for them. But there's not enough, it was hyped and again — fans were scammed. I read fanfics longer than that and made chats in Character.ai with better storyline for them than Bioware did. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this point. Solas was amazing, as he always is, even if he had fallen to Disney-like vibes slightly as well.

Characters creator would be good if women were allowed to look like women. No breasts, build like a brick. My mother said they look Neanderthal. And she's correct about that one. Is being femme a crime to Bioware? Does the woman need to look and walk like a man so that she can be powerful? This game was supposed to be inclusive, why were women who are more curvy excluded from it? Is Bioware considering their bodies too sexual? Well, oversexualizing them is their problem. Those people deserve representation as well, especially since the company wants to be oh so open to everyone.

Endgame is good. I enjoyed it. Not as thrilling as I expected, with only one twist that I should've expected and the fact I didn't only shows how impatient I was to finish this damned game and uninstall it.

Overall, I cannot recommend this game to anyone. Maybe new fan that doesn't know the lore and won't have to be disappointed at every minute spent in this game. Literal children could play it, there's nothing they haven't seen already considering nowadays medias. And it feel like they were the target group of this — not adults, considering how naive that game is. I enjoyed first 20h of the game, the rest of it was a struggle to push through and I had to force myself. The happiness I felt when I could finally uninstall this game is unmeasurable.

5/10 for me.

I'm going back to the Inquisition to enjoy some real gaming and writing.