#shutupbibs

I truly think that Veilguard is a bad Dragon Age game.

I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but I really hate that people feel like this is a good Dragon Age game. I hate that people use the excuse that Dragon Age reinvents itself every game in its defense. I hate that people think that this is what a Dragon Age game is. And I’ve been hearing that this is “still a Dragon Age game” even from some critical reviews.

My rebuttal, if I was being flippant, is that the vibe is simply off. It doesn’t feel right.

If I have to put my disappointment and anger into words, I would say:

No, the heart of the games has never changed. The idea that your worldview is shaped by your past and that you can be a hero or a villain depending on who tells the story has never changed. Navigating complex and sometimes race/class-based politics has never changed. The ability for you to earn approval and disapproval based on personality-defining dialogue choices and/or meaningful choices hadn’t changed. Being able to go up and talk to characters (companions most of all) to learn about who they are and how Thedas has shaped them has never changed. Companions not solely based on tropes and nebulous ideas of what makes a cute relationship used to exist. Lore reveals were handled with care and sprinkled throughout the game rather than thrown at you one after the other. Gameplay never used to insult your intelligence by handing you an explanation to everything within seconds of being presented with a problem. This series of roleplaying games used to let you roleplay even if it was just respecting what tone you wanted to use.

Or, something like that.

When people tell me that this is a good Dragon Age game, it feels like they’re comparing this legacy of games to one of those Marvel movies or remakes that doesn’t need to exist, but does because it has a built in audience and will make them money. It feels devoid of what made the old games special to me. I know that the other games aren’t perfect. Not even in all of the respects I mentioned earlier, but I felt like BioWare gave a shit? Even Dragon Age: II with all of its flaws has this beautiful cast of characters and (narratively) fleshed out city and Dragon Age: Inquisition with all of its fetch quests had some of the most complex characters, interesting quest mechanics, and this highly ambitious (if flawed) setting design. This game is so half-baked that I barely understand what it’s about or who it’s really for.

In fact, after I finished the game, it took me a few days to get over feeling negatively about the entire series. I was terrified that Veilguard had ruined this series that I’d loved for half my life for me. I felt stupid. I hate that I care so much when I’m not certain that they do. Or, being more charitable, I’m not certain that BioWare is capable of making a product with care under EA.

Last Song: The Old Religion by Florence + The Machine has been on repeat for the last couple of days!

Last Book: Beartown by Fredrik Backman. Before this, I'd only ever read Anxious People by him (which I really enjoyed) and was a little scared that his work was overhyped, but I ended up loving this. I thought it was one of the best depictions of humanity (the good and the bad) that I've ever read. He also just wrote this in a really clever way, I think.

Last Movie: In theaters, I think that the last movie I saw was Weapons. I don't watch movies in theaters often and I was a little disappointed with this. It was a good enough time with a good concept, but fell a little flat in its execution for me.

Last Show: The show I watched was The Mighty Nein. It and Vox Machina are so fun. I wish there was more fantasy television and adult animation.

Favorite color: Green... and it's so painfully obvious that people often ask me if it's my favorite color. Green bag, green iPad case, green clothes, green bag, green sneakers. I always joke that I want to be the next green lady from Brooklyn.

Spicy or savory?: Spicy! But the answer is really both because I am not a sweets person and I actually can't handle sweet and spicy flavors.

Current obsession: Trying to find the next fantasy series that I'm going to obsess over.

Last search: "Can you perm curly hair to larger curls?" My curls are limp, even when they are taken care of meticulously and don't curl until my hair reaches my chin and I don't care for it. Debating on whether I should get my hair chemically straightened... but I'm too lazy (and currently too poor) for the upkeep.

Looking forward to: Graduating from my physiotherapy program!

Tagging: @rosieofcorona @darkspawntaxcollectors @eggmacguffin @imageofvoid @songsaboutsleep @kneelb4kesha @coppercranberry @vaguelyparanormal @vikingpoteto @globugie

Before I started the game, looking at the character creator was so exciting! There are so many options, so many people you can be! They could be a human mage in the Veiljumpers or a elven rogue in the Antivan Crows. In previous games, these were narrative choices. When I choose to play an elf or a mage or an elven mage in Origins and Inquisition, I do so with the knowledge that it will impact my gameplay. It flavors my gameplay in a significant way and gives a uniqueness to the character built. Naively and too optimistically, I thought this was a return to Origins where the backstory of your character would be impactful.

Instead, there’s little reactivity. As a long time fan, it is confusing to be an elf and have that remarked on so infrequently—especially in Northern Thedas. I think a lot of players love playing as elves because there is something about their plight that connects with us. I imagine that much of the fanbase feels protective of elves because of how terrible they were treated. If you’ve never played the female city elf origin Dragon Age: Origins, it requires a trigger warning for SA, but it was extremely good at establishing the plight of elves in Thedas. I think about that origin every time I play an elven character and there is elf-specific dialogue.

Except that the game rarely ever addresses my character as an elf and, as previous world-building would suggest, that should have been a key part of my character. And, worse, this was the game to have race-specific dialogue! Yet, we only get a few, insignificant dialogue options about being an elf or even about your faction.

Even with dialogue options, there is only a narrow range of replies that you can give and, no matter what you choose, it comes off as diplomatic and/or flippant even when its inappropriate in context. It is structured like the “blue,” “purple,” and “red” options we got in Dragon Age: II, but nothing like it in execution. Rook only gets to be one type of character. Three options that lead to the same response only creates dissonance between who we believe them to be and how they act.

I'm just thinking about Lavellan trying to determine the most appropriate time to ask Solas all of the questions she has about the Evanuris and elvhenan post-Veilguard in the Fade.

It wouldn’t be immediately, of course. A certain amount of healing and distance from the Veilguard events have to come first. But after...?

Especially if she was the First to her clan's Keeper? She has an eternity ahead of her to ask so many questions. An eternity to treat her immortal elf husband like a primary-source fact checker.

I could imagine that he’d initially have some fun with this as he gets to share what he knows and how he feels about everything as he truly is… Until the questions are strange, paint him in a Not Great light ("So... did you really do that?"/"I suppose you could interpret it that way."/"...?"/"... Yes."), or he simply doesn't remember the answer ("Are you sure you don't remember?"/"Yes, vhenan, please. It has been thousands of years.")

“I mean, I’ll probably be going on my Calling in twenty or so odd years, so it’s not like we’ll have very different lifespans. I might even die first.”

I do not want to see them in game ever again. They can give me some vague codex entries and references, but the narrative does not need them involved.

I do not trust them not to fuck with them.

Especially because I'm choosing to believe that Lavellan doesn't age in the Fade.

(And I do believe that because my delusional, Watsonian explanation is that Solas wouldn't let her come if she would age and die in less than a century. If he started his atonement, took years to heal, and experienced some level of happiness with Lavellan for her to die in what would feel like minutes of his lifespan...? I think that the Veil is coming down from within.)

Thinking about how Solas would give her the most chaste, little kiss on the lips.