Dragon Age The Veilguard Criticism Thread (formerly Skepticism Thread) [Spoilers]

To be fair, you don't really want to show too much in a review. If it was a retrospective, then I completely get your argument.

Besides, are you holding the positive reviews to this same standard?

I agree, never in my life have I personally seen a piece of writing so morally vile, except maybe Dustborn. 

It was a rhetorical question

"Shut up, WHore!"

I do, indeed. All the positive reviews that talked about the combat being great I don't agree with (at least on a starting level because, obviously, seeing it is not going to fully translate into actually playing it for myself) but I dislike actiony/twitch combat generally. I dislike that enemies hone in on Rook no matter what. I dislike that companions have no health bars. I dislike that they seemingly do barely any damage outside of combos. I dislike the global cooldown on abilities (I don't even remember how many times I ranted about the global cooldown in MEA  when switching profiles). I don't think the free respeccing is generally good for roleplaying (call me crazy but I loved that DAI actually made your specialization matter to your roleplay and characters referenced it).

The videos from Caitie, Kala, and Ashe that I saw, although they said they're not really reviews, I still wanted them to be a bit more objective about some stuff and give concrete examples instead just talking mostly about feelings. But, at the very least, they were transparent from the start that they were going to talk about subjective feelings. I wanted Kala to give some concrete examples in the story section of her video, I wanted Caitie to exemplify why she said she used to hate Rook during the development of the game but she now likes them a fair bit so I understand where she's coming from, same for Ashe. Granted, this stuff might be spoilery and they may end up talking about it in the future, but I still sustain that if you're going to make a statement, you should be able to hold it up with a few concrete examples, otherwise don't make the statement.

Other than that, I've heard the common threads between both negative and positive reviews that at times the story feels rushed (weird because if there's one thing that should have been nailed down properly despite the past 10 years of rollercoaster rides, it's the story and how it unfolds), that there are parts of the story that you need to read a codex entry for in order to fully understand what's happening (yikes, the Codex is missable and should be for extra context and world building, not mandatory for the story you're actively experiencing), that companions needed at least one more series of scenes to feel fully realized (I'm all for companions having a big presence, I like talking/engaging with them for the most part, despite the few ones I really dislike). Since these points are common between both positive and negative reviews, all I can do is wait and see to what degree this is actually true and how badly it bothers me personally.

I think I'll name my Dark Urge Dark Urges. She's only fucking women though. If only the female Drow courtesan was available without her stupid brother.

This is why BG3 is the new DA: it celebrates honest, well-natured debauchery, not political correctness (which is never fun).

OG Isabela would probably answer: "you use that word like it's a bad thing"

That is a good question and, honestly, it's mostly a matter of time. A few months ago I would have said the combat. After sitting with that thought for a while I told myself that I would find a way to deal with it, turn the difficulty down or look up some very specific OP builds and go for those. Ultimately, why am I playing Dragon Age? For the roleplay and the story. I'll admit, seeing Rook starting to talk unprompted and having a few free exchanges with a companion before getting a dialogue choice bummed me. It's one of the things I disliked about DA2 and ME3. Seeing the paraphrases of that dialogue choice be essentially the same thing twice bummed me more. Seeing another dialogue choice with 3 options being, again, essentially the same thing but worded in 9 different words and not even being labeled with different tone icons (unless the tone icons appear only if you hover over the option) so at least it makes sense why there's 3 options, made me feel just disappointed. I had already decided to not preorder, or buy on launch, or even in the first 2-3 weeks. The reviews didn't really sway me to wait longer or buy sooner. I'll catch some segments from streamers or LPers for further context. I'm good on the gaming front anyway, I'm currently in the middle of my canon BG3 run which is also my first Tactician run, and I don't have any consistent leave from work until after New Year's. BG3 will keep me occupied for at least immediately after New Year's, I guess I'll see if by then enough time will have passed that I'll say "fine, I'll give it a try". But I still think I'll wait for a discount.

I get you. This is part of the reason I typically don't watch reviews. If it's a game I don't know if I'm going to buy, the reviews typically don't make strong enough points to lean me in any direction. Ironically, if they show/tell too much, I stop reading/watching to not be spoiled. My go to now is steam reviews as then I could start finding common threads of pros and cons, then I can evaluate if it's worth a purchase.

Veilguard is a special case as I've dreamed about this game for 10 years. Through the marketing campaign I've been wanting to see at least one thing that can give me some type of confidence in the writing. Yet here we are hours before the release, and I've only seen the opposite.

Badass

Yes.



Beware though. Dantics had a rather interesting theory that those who rushed the game got a very different outcome.
A bit like rushing ahead of the Suicide Mission or rushing galactic readiness.
Dantics noted they apparently got a very different ending to Skill Up. (for example)