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Anyone here playing this? I was a little skeptical after the development hell this game has been through, and the usual 'go woke go broke' brigade are doing the best they can to tear this down, but I'm a few hours in and I'm loving the game so far. It feels very classic BioWare, in the best way possible. It still feels very much like a Dragon Age game, even without the tactical cam from Inquisition and all the behavior triggers from Origins.

I'm not too keen on the art style. In terms of visual fidelity it looks like it could have been a last-gen title, but it does still have its moments of beauty where I'm panning the camera to soak in the view. If you liked the BioWare RPGs of yesteryear, you'll probably like this a lot too.

Really?! The game supposedly has some really cringy dialogue in parts. From what i've heard the gameplay is the only redeeming feature and it's absolutely nothing like Dragon Age: Origins. I've seen some people playing the game and they said character customization looked kinda more cartoony and it lost a lot of its dark and gloomy world.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Really?! The game supposedly has some really cringy dialogue in parts. From what i've heard the gameplay is the only redeeming feature and it's absolutely nothing like Dragon Age: Origins. I've seen some people playing the game and they said character customization looked kinda more cartoony and it lost a lot of its dark and gloomy world.

Don't worry, it's not "supposedly", it absolutely hamfists cringey modern day politics into its dialogue where it dedicates an entire character's personality to basically being about how they're non-binary. You can see a small excerpt of it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MauLer/comments/1gfuejj/goty_no_argument_game_of_the_century_the_only/

https://www.reddit.com/r/MemeVideos/comments/1ghxcsa/memes_are_getting_better/

The lecturing doesn't stop there btw, but overall it's crazy seeing such amateurish writing, like the characters are speaking to children at all times. It’s boring and reveals so little about them as characters. If my friend was explaining to me—an adult peer—that sometimes people aren’t sincere about their apologies, I would find that demeaning and annoying.

There's also lore stuff that doesn't make any sense within the context of a magical world with established transformation and healing magic, why is having a masectomy scars even an option for character creation? It smacks of it being put in for a very clear reason to pander to a certain audience rather than having any internal world logic as to why that would be something you would go for, not to mention that realistically your character is more often than not going to have that covered up when they wear clothes anyways, so even from an aesthetic POV it's pointless.

This is in addition to just poor voice acting in general, and even worse is that despite being an RPG being about choice...in many cases it goes to Bethesda's FO4 problem of your responses just being slight variations of the same answer and I think the most notable change is that you can't even just be mean in your answer, like in DA: Origins, where you can legitimately piss off the NPC's, you get stuff like this instead:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1gh4gea/the_absolute_state_of_role_playing_in_a_2024/

Somehow we've gone from Mass Effect where you were able to just punch the reporter asking you questions or give her a professional interview to this lol.

I think what best sums up the bad dialogue and poor look of the game is in this picture:

https://imgur.com/6uaVVkN

The irony is that thanks to this game, many people identify now as non-buynary with regards to the game, so they succeeded in that I suppose.

The two things I've heard, and these are not sources that are remotely "anti-woke" type, that have stood out are:

Every conversation feels like HR is in the room.

and

I played the older DA for the story and tolerated the combat but with Veilguard I'm playing for the combat and tolerating the story.

I played all DA:O and DA:I multiple times (DA:2 only once).
I was really excited to see how the lore threads would be resolved in DA:4.
Then I saw the artstyle for VG, which isn't great, but it's not a dealbreaker.

Character customization sucks.
Dalish Elfs apparently don't exist in the game.
Solas' allegedly doesn't have a single Dreadwolf agent running around.
Racism against Elves and Qunari has been removed.
The Crows and Isabella were sanitized.
The PC can't be evil or even really ornery.

I don't know how BG3 came out last year, was a breakout smash hit, and no one on the VG staff thought to maybe course correct away from the Disneyification.

Wow, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some of the "I'm non-buynary" trolls are here on Dakka.

I'm nearly 30 hours in and still haven't gotten a whiff of modern day politics, but if people want to insist the game is lecturing them then that's their prerogative.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Really?! The game supposedly has some really cringy dialogue in parts.

I mean... how many RPGs can you think of that don't have cringe dialogue in parts? I'm not sure I've played any where I've made it to the end without making a face at some of the lines. It's par for the course in RPGs.

From what i've heard the gameplay is the only redeeming feature and it's absolutely nothing like Dragon Age: Origins. I've seen some people playing the game and they said character customization looked kinda more cartoony and it lost a lot of its dark and gloomy world.

The gameplay is IMO its best feature. Playing as a mage, I'm having a lot of fun switching between the staff and the dagger in the middle of combat. I certainly wouldn't say it's nothing like Origins. You might not have triggers to program for all your characters, but you definitely still want to pick companions with complimentary abilities for the combo effect spells, making sure you've got a healer, a tank for soaking aggro - all the things you've always had to do in the previous dragon age games.

As like many people (probably) on this forum I've been a Bioware fan since I chose to upgrade my PC to be able to handle playing the first Baldur's Gate game. I know as well as anyone though that current Bioware isn't even a shadow of its former self.

My plan is to go into this game with an open mind, when I do finally play it. While I'm not expecting something as good as Origins from what I've seen so far I'll probably complete the game, like I did Origins, 2 and Inquisition.

What's stopping me from playing the game so far is the same issue I have with all modern games. I'm waiting for the deluge of DLC to be released before I buy into it.

I haven't liked anything Bioware has done since ME3 in 2012. I'm not convinced that the Bioware of today is capable of telling great stories anymore. I've heard mixed things about this new game. Some folks are apparently enjoying it, but then again some folks did enjoy DA: Inquisition, and I thought that game was incredibly dull.

It’s a whole lot of fun so far, and there is some lore retreading that’s interesting.

I also really like the design of the characters.

As someone who's played all the games many multiple times, i'm enjoying it. The games art style has been changing ever since origins, so i don't care about that.

And any excuse to have the second best character in the series in Varric back (Sten being the first) is always welcome.

Oddly i heard dialogue in this game is awful but the overall story can be alright.

@Ahtman:

The other thing i heard as an example of the game is there's a lot of hand holding and pointing out obvious things to the point of insulting the player's intelligence. As some streamer i watch put it they tell you to go to the fish market for example as a quest and then they say they're standing next to the fish market. Meanwhile said fish market has a giant fish sign above it signifying it is indeed the fish market.  Basically telling you what to do as if you can't figure it out yourself.

Edit: Woah that's weird i just got linked to a video for "insulting in dragon age veilguard vs origins" after saying that. Guess the search pays attention to what i type even on dakka now.

I tapped out after the second Dragon Age.

If memory serves, it went from the first game that was a continent spanning adventure with tons of world building, to a game where you adventured the hell out of like 4 city blocks over and over. I recall enjoying my one playthrough, but it seemed like a downgrade that I never felt the need or want to return to. I don't remember much about it.

I had bought the Inquisition(was that the third or fourth?) game a year or two back on sale, but never got into it. Witcher 3, which I got into well after its final DLC release, ruined every open world fantasy game for me. Nothing compares, but I also never went looking for a replacement to that.

Maybe I'll check this out, but as a franchise it lost me on the second entry. Nothing really hyped me for this game in the build up.

The writing isn’t bad, nether is the delivery done by the voice actors.
Sometimes a bit awkward, but that actually happens so that’s fun itself!

There’s also some darker moments but it think BioWare is moving away from good/evil options as that’s always lead to weird storytelling.

A question for those who already player it regarding the gameplay: can you play a fighter without having the feeling you have shot yourself in the foot for not playing a magic user/thief and without having just one attack you use over and over and over? That's something that made or broke quite some RPGs for me.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
A question for those who already player it regarding the gameplay: can you play a fighter without having the feeling you have shot yourself in the foot for not playing a magic user/thief and without having just one attack you use over and over and over? That's something that made or broke quite some RPGs for me.

I haven’t play the warrior class, but they seem to have try to give them all a mechanical depth that’s similar. They also have a bit more depth to your party mechanics as well that also makes up for a bit. As well as some command abilities.
That’s all i can really say about warrior