Review: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

 

Dragon age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the fourth game in the Dragon Age series. It was developed by Bioware and Published by EA. It released on the 31^st of October, 2024 and has received a handful of patches since. There is no DLC or add-ons planned for this game. The game has released amidst quite a bit of controversy and nonsense from the ‘anti-woke’ crowd.

To be clear on my stance on this issue. Transphobia will not be tolerated on my online platforms. Dragon Age has always been ‘woke’ and I don’t understand why this is considered a bad thing. You can’t have opinions on people’s existences. It’s okay to not understand things that don’t directly affect your life but that doesn’t give you the right to vilify people who aren’t like you. 

People's identities should not be political, but people keep making it political. Art of any kind is inherently political. While we're at it, basic biology doesn't exist and the science agrees that gender isn't binary and even biological sex isn't entirely binary. Also the singular use of 'they/them' pronouns has existed longer than singular 'you' and is 100% grammatically correct. These are facts, and not just my opinion. 

You are free to say what you like, but nobody is forced to listen to you or agree with you because you shout the loudest. Trans rights are human rights, gender is a social construct and you don’t get to use your bigoted opinions to harm people. Got it? Good. On with the review.

The Good

·       The story is good: I’ve seen people criticising the game for breaking the lore but I don’t see where that has happened. The story answers questions I’ve had for over 15 years and it all makes sense to me now. I enjoyed the story immensely and the ending was equally heart-breaking and satisfying for me.
·       The protagonist: Rook is great, I love the variety of origins and options available for your Rook. That some parts of the game and cutscenes are different depending on your origin and you can really write your own story with the character.
·       The voice acting is great: the British male voice by Alex Jordan is delightful to listen too. I thoroughly enjoyed my male Antivan Crow Rook and the personality injected by such a talented voice actor.
·       The companions: I actually adore all of the companions. They’re well fleshed out and interesting, if you take the time to get to know them. Lucanis is a delight and his sarcasm and comments during the Weisshaupt mission kills me every time I hear it. Emmrich is lovely and I want to be his friend forever. Neve is great, Harding is adorable, Davrin is a sweetie and Bellara is so much fun. Taash is great, and they are really interesting to get to know.
·       The environments are beautiful. I loved getting to explore a bunch of places I’d only heard about. Treviso is Dragon Age’s Venice with the canals and things. The Necropolis in Nevarra is stunning and spooky. Docktown in Minrathous is fascinating and not what I expected. The designs are brilliant.
·       Returning characters: I love the handful of returning characters from previous games. Isabella is looking fabulous as usual, with her big hat – although every time she appears she is wearing less clothing. Here for it. Dorian is fabulous as always, and I love his small role.
·       The Crows: my favourite faction in the Dragon Age series since I met Zevran Arainai. It was so awesome to see them in a large group and learn about the way it all works. I know some people felt the Crows were too nice but I thought they were good. I adore Teia and Viago, every cutscene with them is amazing. Especially when Viago showed up to help in a big fight. Love it so much.
·       Manfred: I cannot believe that only 31% of players played Rock Paper Scissors with Manfred when Bioware released the stats of player choices in December. Manfred is great, I was so happy for him learning to talk, and gutted when I had to let him die so Emmerich could achieve lichdom.
·       Assan and the Griffons! I am obsessed. Assan is the goodest boy and I love him so much. Again, how is it possible that only 50% of players petted him?! What are you doing with your life? I learned after I completed the game that if I wanted to save Scout Harding, I would lose both Davrin and Assan. I love Harding, but I can’t let Assan die. The griffons are adorable and I’m so glad they exist again. They were discovered during the events of one of the books.
·       Inclusivity. Look, I know some people have big feelings about representation of LGBTQ+ people in popular media. But the queer community exist in real life, and nothing anyone can do or say will erase their existence. Pronouns are just words, they can’t hurt you, and I think Taash’s discovery of their identity and coming out to their mother is pretty realistic. Everyone deserves to be represented in media, and see people like them. Just because you don’t understand it, that doesn’t make it wrong or invalidate their lived experience. Previous titles have had bisexual characters, gay characters and yes even transgender characters. It’s great to see this continue and for diverse people to be celebrated.

The Not So Good

·       Combat is fun but clunky and awkward. It feels like it might be designed more for controllers than keyboard and mouse. It can be hard to see sometimes as the camera does weird things and it can make dodging and blocking difficult when you can’t see anything.
·       Glitches in the environment: I have fallen through the floor outside the Lighthouse a million times because I run through the door and the ground hasn’t loaded in. It happens in Docktown and Treviso a lot as well. Seeing floating torches and invisible walls. I even got stuck underneath a floor with no way out because the wall didn’t load in. Patches haven’t really fixed this problem.
·       Some of the puzzles were awkward, especially the timed ones and really difficult to figure out. I’m all for puzzles but the timed ones were difficult to complete. Especially with the issues I had with the keyboard.
·       Controls freezing: This happened a lot where the game stopped responding to keyboard inputs. Apparently this was caused by having peripherals plugged into USB ports that weren’t being used such as my mic. Really frustrating when you die in a boss fight because your keyboard stopped working for a whole minute. Or when you’re running across the beach in Rivain trying to solve the timed puzzle.
·       A bit tedious at times. I’m a completionist in these games and always try to do all the side quests I can. This game does have a little bit of tedium at times, trying to finish everything off and deal with my companions quests and stuff. It’s not as bad as Inquisition for this, but there’s still a bit of it there.
·    The new enemy designs: I can’t make up my mind about whether I like the new darkspawn or not. The new ogre designs feel a bit cartoony and silly, and the demons from the fade are a bit homogenised and generic. I feel like I prefer the older designs for these things.

My Thoughts

So I enjoyed Veilguard. I was sick of seeing all the talk about it and the review bombing because of the inclusion of a non-binary companion who was discovering their real identity. As well as allowing the player character to be trans if they wanted. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. If it doesn’t apply to you, it’s not for you. Taash is an interesting character, I find them a bit whiny at times but I believe they are still quite young so it makes sense in that regard.

I also disagree that the lore and story has been ruined. As a Fallout fan, I’m more than used to seeing this kind of rhetoric but the people who say it don’t seem to understand the ‘lore’ they are so concerned about. I had always thought that there had to be a connection between the old elvhen gods and the Tevinter gods. The lore is intact, and it’s not unusual to uncover new information that recontextualises what we previously believed to be true.

The game suffered from a lot of review bombing and there are still people spouting nonsense about how terrible this game is on the Steam forums. I’m over it. The game has suffered from changes at Bioware, losing the lead writers such as David Gaider. It’s a shame, because there is room for a lot more in this franchise and I don’t know if we’ll get it. But I’m tired of seeing the same phrases being repeated over and over, when nobody can back it up with anything other than ‘I hate wokeism’ and no clarity on why they have such an issue with it. I don’t see the retcons, I think the hints about the truth was there all along and I will be digging into the lore of Dragon Age in time on my YouTube channel and on this blog.

Overall, I loved this game and while it is flawed, it’s still a good entry into the franchise and I will end up playing through it again for sure. Ignore the trolls, and give the game a fair shot if it sounds like your thing. Four stars. It loses a star because of the glitches and the death of a particular favourite character of mine.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts, but I will be moderating comments carefully. 

Emi the Cat Lady 💜