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.

Took my time to complete it for the best ending.
It's safe to say I'm going to come back to try the other classes, specs, romances and endings too.
Good game!

As a massive Dragon Age fan (especially of the first game, Origins) I was eagerly waiting the release of this game. Knowing that in today's day and age, where game delays and massive flops are becoming a standard, I was still naive enough to have faith in Bioware and pre-order the game. I must say, they did not disappoint. And I'm glad that I ignored all the negative criticism the game received from the early reviews. It doesn't mean the game is without flaws, but more on that later.

Even though the franchise departed long ago from its Origins, one thing remained: The world of Dragon Age. Despite the devs failed to incorporate any choices or decisions you made in previous games, I quite enjoyed how they expanded and filled in the blanks of the story they established throughout the past 15 years. I felt invested during the entire 70 hours I spent with my first playthrough, and I can't wait to jump back and start all over again with a different Rook.

Of course, the game has it's flaws too. Sometimes my team felt like I'm managing a group of teenagers who can't deal with their own emotions, or things got way too corny after you saved a situation yet again with a few cheering words, sparkles, and happiness.

The gameplay itself was alright, I played on the lowest difficulty so I didn't give much thought to combat, my go-to was simply shooting standard arrows and everything died. I rarely used any of the abilites Rook or my allies had. Getting around was easy thanks to the fast travel nodes. However I didn't like the "jump down from anywhere and get teleported back to the top" mechanic. Sometimes I landed safely but things still turned to black and put me back to where I was, forcing me to take a detour for no reason.

The environments you explore are amazing, both the cities and rural areas felt distinct and carefully crafted. The level designers did very well, though a few more elaborate puzzles would've been appreciated. The clever ones can also be solved easily with dumb luck. There's only so many ways you can turn those damn statues. I really enjoyed the game's music too, but you wouldn't expect anything less with Hans Zimmer around.

All in all I can only recommend this game, I had a great time. Can't wait for some proper DLCs to be released for this.