Veilguard Gameplay June 11th

Solas: I love it when a plan comes together! (sees statue falling towards him). Oh, shit here I go again!

I didn't pay attention or it wasn't mentioned, is this console or PC footage?
I too noticed a kind of micro stuttering, character movements, facial expressions. I'm a little surprised tbh. I assumed it would be butter smooth in 2024. This sure wasn't. Obviously not a big deal but quite noticeable.

so, bioware thinks i don't have any braincells and can't use more than 2 or 3 buttons, nice. yeah, seems like it was made for a smartphone interface.

can't control companions, city looks like gotham, medieval edition.

overall, pretty generic stuff, (specially the art style and it's direction) and i'm really trying my hardest to see if something stands out, but doesn't seem so.

i didn't expect much, but i really was of the mind of, welp, let's at least try to end my tenure with this franchise not with a bang (that's impossible with current bioware) but at least with an instant gratification similar to fast food, but doesn't seem like it will be even that.

okay i guess.

I have mixed emotions after seeing this trailer.

The visual design is in the mode of Fortnite, Fable, and myriad mobile games. I really don't like it for Dragon Age, but it won't put me off of playing.

The combat is hard to judge with these level-1 characters. I'm sure the protagonist will have cool, badass abilities. My real questions concern the companions. What do they do? Once we escape the tutorial, do we still control them in combat? Is it MET style? Is is MEA style? They were autonomous background mooks in this trailer.

Game design takes ages and involves risk. It's kind of a bummer that BioWare decided that the Action RPG route was preferable. I love ARPGs, but maybe not particularly in this style. More importantly, BG3 just showed the wider gaming audience how awesome a serious, tactical RPG can be. This would've been a great time for another such game in the form of DA:V. Instead, we got an ARPG with a very unserious visual design. We fans expect that this game will have a rich, serious story, but I don't think their design choices convey that to the uninitiated. If I weren't already a fan, I'd just see fantasy Fortnite. Sigh. I want this game to succeed, and assume that BioWare's continued existence depends upon it. I'm concerned.

All that stuff out of the way, I am excited to see this story concluded. (It had better be concluded in this game.) Seeing Solas, Varric, and (cheesy looking) demons made me excited to play Dragon Age again.

Well that's ironic since that is pretty much about the amount of sleep I got. I wanted to get a good night sleep for reasons...but then I couldn't quite GET to sleep. Ugh. 

But anyways HOLY CRAP. I am low key in love:



The good: 
THE DA 2 DIALOGUE WHEEL IS BACK THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Not only is the dialogue wheel back but its kind of the DA 2/ MEA style...at least so far. Bit worried that we aren't getting enough RP options but at least its the wheel we know and love. 

On that note-Approval Systems. This game does seem to be very much an R PG, tentative based on how many options we actually get. 

Seems like unique dialogue might be a thing. Varric referenced both Neve and us working for the Shadow Dragons which was referenced on the splash card for ROok's character. 

The game for the most part * also looks really good in terms of animation and overall graphics and art style. 

Similarly the voice acting is good. Can't wait to get a voice cast reveal (unless its happened already). 

The big one...the combat. I am a bit surprised by how much God of War they made it, the health pots limited in the corner, limited and yet rechargable arrows (how will that work for mage combat I wonder?) But so far huge fan. Because seems fluid switching between melee and ranged combat is a thing again, at least for Rogues. And I think levelling will be a big part of adding more health pots and arrows. Also the combat animations were amazing. Which then does make me wonder how much of that will be dictated by class and whether or not warriors will be more block focus, mages could have shields, where clearly rogues are more about dodging and avoiding damage entirely. I do like the possibilities especially given how different the animations do look so far and just wonder how much variation we could have. The big difference between this and GoW that i have noticed and many ARPGs...I didn't notice any 'things that change different colors if you want to block or dodge'. Other then the mages seemed to be set up like a shooter sniper with a 'tracking laser', but otherwise all the melee characters didn't have any input on 'hey should I block, hey should I dodge'. Which is another very interesting choice and one that from a realism perspective is certainly legit, afterall games like Rebirth and the Witcher proved its possible...but it still might make me want to gyrate around the battlefield again.

The odd: 
-OK there were a couple of times the animation did seem off. Particularly when Solas was speaking and his eyes did that dramatic and unsubtle shift between emotions...but now I think about it maybe that was intentional? 

The enemy design was kind of...interesting. Apparently this game is rated M so we don't have to worry about it being 'kidified' (though they haven't actually put that out there which is...ODD.) I can definitley get used to it but its...interesting. Its not something I can't say I can't get used to I don't think just the enemy stuff is certainly a choice, going for more etheral at least in the case of demons, random mooks in the case of the Venatori. 

The Bad:
No release date. Struggling to come up with anything worse then that so...ugh. 

Edit: Oh there is actually one legitimate bad that they included in here which is interesting again...despite the no spoiler policy might've included too much. I have been doing a lot of dartboarding over the last ten years or what not so I was bound to be right but at least one of my theories looks like it was right. Also interesting place to start the game in general and not sure I am liking Solas's characterization here fully and am a bit worried on that front as well but also for the brief time we saw him its not horrible and still hope...gotta wonder if we will get an instance of 'ok well you guys screwed up my plan, I hate you, you hate me, but now you idiots just released monsters on the world...so lets work together eh?'

I don't really see where do you guys see a problem with the graphical style, to me it looks like an evolved DAI style. It's the same engine and everything. I personally love how the game looks.

I saw that we will get 60 fps on consoles so that is neat.


Gameplay and story wise I would say it is too early to tell but I liked how Solas was presented, very cinematic.

Doesn't mention what it's played and recorded on. Just that the software is in development so maybe the jankyness of some of the animations is something that's still being worked on.

Yeah the note on the dialogue should be interesting to see how it all turns out as well....but even in that brief section we got its already more dialogue options then basically all of Forbidden West so its not going to be too bad I trust.

Believe me I know.  

But its still an RPG so the comparisons are still fair game. And I have had perhaps four dialogue options through HFW so far and we saw at least three in this game. Its concerning I guess...

In general though the ceiling of this game, for me, RP wise is going to be MEA/ DA 2. The Floor is probably going to be ME 3 based purely on us not getting enough of them. 

Yeah to me it looked highly consistent and continuous with the style/aesthetics of DAI, only with better graphics. The visuals are definitely a big selling point- the character models look great, the combat looks great, the environments look fantastic. 

It looks fine but god do those demon redesigns suck. Even worse than DA2's dark spawn redesign.