DATV negative under the cut. Shouldn't need to be said but all very much my opinion and tastes, etc etc etc
At the end of the day, my biggest problem with Veilguard is that it lacks real replayability for me. But Claire, you might say, you've played four Rooks. And, fair, but that has been putting it on the easiest difficulty (which is turn off your brain easy) and skipping at least 75% of the dialogue each replay.
But that actually brings me back to my main complaint. I might have made four Rooks but it feels, at best, like two and only with very heavy headcanon at that. I made the opposite choices my second playthrough for everything, big and small. On paper, those two characters should have felt significantly different. One was a snarky human mage from Tevinter and the other was a straight forward, serious elven warrior. But, aside from different faction flavor dialogue and other minor changes (a bit of mage stuff for one and elven for the other), they fundamentally felt like the same person. There are a few reasons for that.
Each prior game gave ways to make the protagonist feel like an individual each time. The origins in Origin have a strong staying place to conceptualize who your Warden would be. Although the game was, imo, not terribly reactive to that after, you at least had lots of personal dialogue choices and you could make very different choices through the story. Then, in DA2, you were always Hawke but who Hawke was could feel substantially different. The game had a still unmatched personality system that would even change your ambient dialogue based on that personality. As such, a red Hawke spoke and reacted very differently from a purple Hawke and you even had different opportunities to get through some quests depending on that. Then in DAI, your background opened up different dialogue choices and the world would react to you in different ways. A non mage human noble would have a much easier time in the Winter Palace than, say, a mage qunari.
The second point, which is true for every prior game, is that your relationships with your companions could be very different. On DAO you could kill your companions or they could try to kill you if they disagreed strongly enough. I personally don't like the option to kill companions for various reasons but my point is that your relationship could range from besties/lovers to outright murderous contempt. DA2 has the friendship/rivalry system which, while it had its flaws, resulted in very different paths with companions. The companions also started to ask after you more and you might even be integrated into some banter. DAI was less extreme than the prior two but you could still get different paths with companions based on how much they liked you. Cassandra might get drunk after you're named Inquisitor, you could punch Solas and Dorian, and so on. The companions also reacted a lot to things you went through in the story and even to your specialization.
Finally, every class feels kind of the same. They're all relatively enjoyable but it doesn't really feel substantially different to play a mage, rogue, or warrior. Each class has very limited amount of abilities and they've all been made to feel a bit magical. This isn't quite as big from an RP standpoint (though it is still a thing for me) but it does hurt replay since a fair part of the game is fighting.
How much any of these things worked for players sort of boiled down to personal preferences but they were at least there. Romances wouldn't trigger or might even be broken under certain circumstances in other games, while the only thing that matters in DATV is that you flirt with them. Approval is meaningless. The only major difference in how you interact with them is pretty much just whether or not you talk to them at all/do their side quests. Otherwise you're always on good terms with them and they with you. Also, aside from the choice between Minrathous and Treviso, there simply aren't big choices that can be played differently and the small choices don't much matter. Most of the companion choices have superficial changes at best for them, with the exception of Emmrich.
What was the only thing that made the game feel different? Very, very thorough headcanon. Playing as Kieran felt different not because of anything the game did but because of work I put into it. Which, if that's all you ever want, that's fine. For me, the only thing that kept me making other Rooks was a desire to see certain romances. When I replayed the other games, I never skipped dialogue but this time it all feels so samey that it feels like there's no point in playing through it.
At the end of the day, I feel like Veilguard works best if you're a one PC kind of person. I've liked all my Rooks but that's bc I like the general person Rook is. I like the character creator, which is also enough to get me making new characters. I still don't think it's a bad game but it found new ways to disappoint me in ways I didn't expect for a BW game. I very much understand there are reasons it is the way it is but it's still a bummer when it's very, very likely there will never be another DA game.
