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.

This game is amazing when you don't have annoying rats in your ear telling you its ♥♥♥♥.