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

Isn't it always? That's been a point of frustration for me with Bioware, consistently, for these last 10+ years playing these games. "Hey, we're allies! We see and hear you, female players out there, yada yada..." - and then, it's just always the same. Dudes get the spotlight. Distinctly masculine animations, armors, bad hairstyles, dialogue... everything, a female protagonist is the afterthought. Femshep took three games to get a superior sculpted head of her own. Sara Ryder's was a mess, buggy as hell - when she was promised to be "the face" of MEA, like Sheploo was Shepard's. It took a lot of noise and begging on SM to get Sara's trailer for MEA, and we had to wait for International Women's Day. Inferior romance scenes, while the romance options for a straight male are polished to perfection. "We are against objectification" - which only means women get masculine, ill-fitting crap - while the female companions walk around in like catsuits, cleavage for days and high heels - you know, for the bois. I could go on... and this post would take an entire page.

It's BS and I'm sick of it (while there has been small progress). But I've already spotted some of the examples cited above in Veilguard. I don't care who likes it or doesn't, that's been my experience and observation over the years. And I find it very disappointing. Especially in this world of games, I think, stuff like that is (sadly) kind of expected, we get the crumbs and should be thanking our lucky stars for them. The BS of it, the PR talking the talk (and not walking the walk) is also expected, but particularly heartbreaking when it's a company (and their games) that you like so much. Now, when that changes, I'll gladly eat crow. Until then...

Let them have more.
Corinne basically says Inky shows up have a talk with Rook and can explain how complicated the relationship is/was. Then Corinne says she cried at the end of Trespasser. 
For me, it means you got you got dumped in Trespasser and Inky will reflect on that. You already got the highlight of the relationship, like all the other LI it got solve at the end of Trespasser.
I expect in a Solas romanced state, we'll get somehow a line how he still love Vhenan. 

Looking at Veilguard, we have an old dude who gives me necrophiliac sugar daddy vibes, an elf who doesn't seem to have much personality from what I've seen and a serial killer who sounds like puss in boots. None of those are particularly attractive to me

Yeah, I was being a bit superficial...judging looks.  Personality-wise none of the companions are coming across as particular interesting...hopefully I'm wrong.  Personality and depth can counter bland looks.

Still alive, just not as vocal.

As a dude who likes characters like Aveline, Cassandra and Vivienne - Cassandra's romance was really bad. Everything about Cassandra's character we can infer from DA2, her banter and her non romance character writing in Inquisition paints a very specific picture of who Cassandra is, and the way her romance is handled --- I really didn't like it. Tbh, the idea of Cassandra and Hawke is more interesting to me than Cassandra and the Inquisitor.





It's bizarre how thoroughly femshep was screwed over romance wise. 
Jacob's entire character in 3. Thane dies to the very definition of a villain sue. James Vega stonewalls you hard. Javik is completely uninterested in romance. The Krogan are bizarrely not romanceable in any capacity to male or female characters. Kaiden is a quantum character isn't available for a significant part of the game.

Traynor was serviceable and better written than Steve's romance (not a high bar, but still)  but aside from that and Garrus that's pretty much it. I don't know what dev thought the disparity in choices was a good idea

You could only romance Garrus in ME3 if you romanced him in ME2 first. Yeah, ME3 was pretty bad for Femshep romances.

They were always a passionate bunch but I would assume the actor's behavior soured not a small number of their passion. Also, Cullen got his send off and closure, makes sense for them to not be as vocal anymore since that romance's end had a pretty nice bow on it, something that the Solasmancers didn't get. The end of DAI may have been enough for some of them, had it been left there, but Trespasser came in with a full wine bottle and said "nah we gonna do the on again off again toxic longing". Solas allegedly stalking Lavellan in dreams is peak "not over it" drama.

I'm still so pissed how they handles Thane, forever pissed! Whatever there was was rubbish and in the end didn't even count as a romance.

Regarding Solas, not sure I even want to bring my Lavellan into the game. 

Well it's called virtue signalling for a reason. They use the likeness of women, gays, and black people to prop up and sell their product. And talk about how inclusive they are. While not actually caring about those same groups. And people continue to fall for it, and eat it up. 

Liara, Benezia, ME3 Ashley, Miranda, Samara, Jack, Cora. Morrigan, Leliana, Bethany, Isabela, Vivienne, Neve’s casual outfit…

And listen, I really don’t care, good character design is good character design, I don’t question it. I love the great majority of the ladies above. I’m pointing out the double standard when a female protagonist is not given the same options because of objectification or whatever. Strikes me as disingenuous and hypocritical.