Mg13 Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is exactly the game I expected from a developer that has been in some shaky ground the last few years. It shows some very interesting ideas, both in gameplay and story, but the complicated development cycle it has gone through didn't allow them to execute them as well as they could have. Gameplay: Combat is fun, but by the end of the game you have been hitting the same skills over and over again for more than half the game, it stalls after a few hours, which is a shame because when you develop some skills it gets really engaging. Story: The story on the other hand, gives you very interesting answers to the deep lore of the Dragon Age world, but it doesn't give them room to breathe and hit as much as they could have. Its choices along the way are also very scarce, and they don't impact the overall arc so much as I don't feel there are multiple actual 'endings', but one actual ending with different grades of colour. Dialogue: It's not as bad as I expected it to be from some of the other reviews I've read or watched when the game came out, but it clearly could use some improvement. I also noticed how most lines in the dialogue tree barely show any shade of personality, your Rook can be lovingly nice or 'tough love' nice, but it doesn't allow you to be anything beyond that. I constantly found myself choosing the bottom lines almost always (when in previous games I always chose the top ones), and the dialogue never hit as hard as I wanted, since I came in with the desire to play a more hardened character than what the game permited me. Companions: Overall I liked the companions in Veilguard, though I found them sometimes too 'nice' for lack of a better term and too understanding of the choices I made, even when they disagreed with me. Their personal stories showed potential at the start, but like the rest of the game, they were just that, potential, worn down by underdeveloped ideas, interesting, sure, but lackluster. Graphics and Art Direction: The Veilguard is beautiful, graphics are immaculate and it's amazing to see Bioware's improvement since the days of ME: Andromeda. Facial animations could still use some work, as I found my deep-voiced, hardened Rook delivering some tough lines with an expresionless face. In the art department, I honestly never quite have liked what Bioware has offered in terms of gear design, and though some enviroments were beautiful, like Arlathan Forest and the Crossroads, places like Minrathous and Treviso failed to be what I had been picturing in my head since previous games, which is a shame since the world of Thedas has been so well realized throughout previous games. Conclussion: Overall, I think Veilguard is a good game. Not the one we wanted, unfortunately, I think Bioware is still there, somwhere, but I don't think this project had the type of development it needed to become its best possible version, and I'm sure the devs did their best with the tools they were given. I thank them for continuing with a story that I started when I was 13 years old, and even through all the flaws and hardships, still leaving me with wanting more.