@Pizzamorg sometimes taking a small break can help if you are genuinely burning out on it. Even just a couple of days where you can take in what you've done so far and go back in refreshed.
To me, what you described kind of sounds like how their games are, tbh. Inquisition was definitely nowhere near as good as other games in the genre, but it won Game of the Year. They design combat encounters in much the same way, right? Just endless waves of nonsense monsters, and some crystals to whack, and that's all you get. I can't speak on the other games as I haven't played enough of them.
A weird comparison would be Forspoken. That is a game I thought I was really ready and waiting for, but I knew I'd not like it as soon as I saw the gameplay where you just fight a generic rock monster 6 times in a row, and it probably shares a lot of its DNA with Dragon Age games, tbh.
Good fantasy games are quite rare, and we're lucky to have had a few classics as it is. At least now we have modern benchmarks for games in TW3, BG3, Elden Ring, because maybe Dragon Age coasts a little too much on its nostalgic reputation, and too many other games are inspired by the wrong things.
The next big hope is Crimon Desert, and that is "inspired by"... absolutely everything 😱 which makes it hard to know how it will turn out.
You are probably right that I do just need to take a break to be honest. But I'm just concerned if I don't log in for a couple of days I will never have the motivation to log back in again and finish this 😂 Especially as this has got me itching to replay Mass Effect again.
@Yagami, Origins is absolutely my favourite DA game. I am one of those THOSE Dragon Age fans 😂
@Yagami I did boot it up on game pass last week or so. But I just don't have the drive to commit to a very large and blurry old game rn, even if it is really good 😅 I might chip away at it at some point, but I mostly tried it to see if it made me want to play DA:TV, like I did with DDDA and DD2. But I've gone for Hogwarts instead, now.
When it seems you're out of luck.
There's just one man who gives a f*************ck
⚔️🛡🐎
I actually beat this the other day, but have been struggling to really know how I felt about this. It is one of those ones where it feels like people scoring it a 7 are too low, those scoring it an 8 feels too high and using a .5 seems like fence sitting.
Act 3 is absolutely some of BioWare's best work. An emotional wreckingball leaving me in pieces and realising my emotional anchoring into this series ran deeper than I realised. It is probably my favourite Dragon Age game since Origins. And one I do want to play again, at some point.
Those saying choices don't matter or this isn't an RPG are straight up wrong. This might be the most reactive game since Origins for having choices that reverberate to moments that pop up hours later. I get this is far more Mass Effect in how choices work than Origins, but we haven't had another game like Origins since Origins. The big choices are mostly isolated to the first and final acts, and the choices in between are built on the smaller details changing based on what you have done previously.
And while all of this hopefully sounds positive, I think the underlying game beneath the story, and characters, is pretty weak and even at my on the shorter end playthrough of 60ish hours, the game felt way way too long for me.
You can also tell this game went through absolute hell to get released, and I think it is a problem, that you can always feel it. From the very obvious multiplayer bones this was built out of, to how all over the place the game is tonally, to the point where you can almost feel where one writing team were laid off and another one took over. This feels especially true of the romances, which all seem quite underwritten.
I also never understood why they wanted to both create a direct sequel to Inquisition and an on ramp for a new audience at the same time. Well I do know why, money. But they surely had to understand that these two approaches would inherently contradict one another and its a contradiction they never quite solve.
Solas and the Inquisitor's role in the story is large on paper, but in practice they feel like minor characters for huge portions of this. Despite the Inquisitor's importance to the story, I feel like Hawke did far more in Inquisition than the Inquisitor ever does here. As such the approach basically boils down to awkwardly sidestepping around 90 percent of everything which came before so new people joining wouldn't be lost, but then it seems to overcorrect because rather than throwing long time fans a bone, it instead throws them a pin pulled hand grenade of a canon altering reveals that tie all the way to the first game that will leave existing fans reeling and new people joining utterly lost. Just an odd choice.
I've been silently following this thread @Pizzamorg and your thoughts so it's good to hear a more levelheaded take on things. Glad to hear you enjoyed it overall even if it has some underlying problems due to the development hell it's been through!
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
.
.
.
"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
@Pizzamorg Just wanted to say that I really appreciate your impressions. I'll revisit them once I beat the game.
In the meantime after 55 hours I'm really glad that the game is good. It's one of these games for me where it's well-sized. So it's not a big Open world game where you travel hundreds of Kilometers to reach your point and it's not too linear where you feel you're just being directed to follow a specific path.
Yes, the dialogues are cringey sometimes but for someone who's coming from FFVII Rebirth and LAD: IW, I felt it's pretty normal.
Once I hit level 30 and being able to choose a specialization, the gameplay is way better than before and at some points it reminded me of how Epic God of War combat was (Playing as a Spellblade mage with Orb + Dagger as main).
This is the best looking world I've ever seen and while I saw Pizzamorg critisize it, I didn't feel it's all over the place and each area has its own unique style that represents it. Maybe I'm a little biased here since I saw a lot of representations to the Middle East and North Africa cultures but that made me happy. The highlights for me would be (Treviso - Dock Town and The grand Necropolis).
The companions are really interesting and I enjoy their side conversations either in the Lighthouse or during our travels together however I'm really disappointed with Varric's role in the game and that I can't even have a proper conversations with him.
It's not only Varric but even Morrigan, The Inquisitor and Solas. I hoped I can have more personal conversations with them.
From the technical side the game is really gorgeous and looks even better on PS5 Pro.
On a final note: One of my shots got featured on the official PlayStation Share of the week blog and here it is
Thank you both! I feel like conversations around this game have been really poisoned online and so I tried to stay as far away from those conversations as I could while sharing my thoughts on the game. GG on the shot too @Khwarezm89, it is a beauty.
@Khwarezm89@Pizzamorg
nice little write ups. I do think I will try this game out when I've finished off a few others and i'm waiting for the likes of KCDII and AC Shadows. And having a strong ending is always good. And, as with movies, sometimes it's best to absorb all you've seen and make up your mind after it's long since been processed by the old grey matter.
What is the PS Share of the week, btw? Is it direct from console shares, or social media etc? Cool that you got to feature 😁
@Ravix Thank you for the forum thread . I'll put some shots there.
Re: Share of the week. There's a weekly blog on PS Official blog where they ask the community to share their screenshots for a specific game/ theme using #PSShare #PSBlog and they feature the best shots on the next blog. For example here's this week's theme
THEME: Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Companions
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on November 20, 2024
I've finally beat the game yesterday after 97 hours of gameplay and got the Platinum Trophy on top of it - got it automatically after beating the game -
I've a lot to say but I don't know where to start to be honest. Act 3 - which lasts for around 6 hours - is the best 6 hours I've played in the whole series. It's BioWare and Dragon Age at its peak. Great conclusion for the 15 years of the series and a secret ending to give you some hint where are we heading next?!!!!
I fell in love with the world and it was great to visit some of the locations that I hoped to visit one day in the series. Treviso, Docktown and Necropolis were my favorites and Rivain was the one I mostly hated.
While it was great to see some of the heroes from the previous titles but I hoped that I can interact with them more than what the game offered.
The soundtrack was my favorite alongside the original Dragon Age: Origins. Hans Zimmer did a great job here and some scenes I got goosebumps because of how the soundtrack was done there.
As a fan of Action RPG games compared to CRPG or Tactical (Sorry about that) so the combat for me was a big highlight and I really enjoyed every combat. Sometimes the combat felt easier than expected so I had to finish the game on Underdog difficulty. The boss battles were awesome and dragons fight are good too.
So far so good. Right? Well, I hoped that dialogue were more mature than what I found in the game. Putting Act 3 aside which has some of the best dialogues in the series too. The rest of the game dialogues was a bit streamlined than expected and not having this type of serious tone to it. And yes there are some cringey moments that I didn't like at all.
I didn't feel satisfied with the Romance scenes to be honest. I fell in love with Bellara but I hoped I had more actual time with her than what was offered in the game. I hope they can maybe do like what they've done with Mass Effect 3 director's cut update or something like that to give us better Romance scenes. Not sure about other companions but at least for Bella's was really undercooked.
Overall, I enjoyed the 97 hours I spent in this game but I don't see myself going back to it anytime soon. It's not because something with the game but it's more of the ending and I don't feel like I can go through these emotions again anytime soon.
If I've to give it a score I would give it as Push Square's review: 8/10
Forums
Topic: Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Posts 81 to 91 of 91
Please login or sign up to reply to this topic