What did you do today in Dragon Age The Veilguard [Spoilers]

Khaz is all "Oh hello there, pretty lady"

My boy is already flirting and it was thankfully extremely subtle.

This screenshot is hilarious. she's realy small!

Like, REALLY small!

I like how Khaz walks around looking very displeased with everything. Big mistake agreeing to help, now look at this mess!

So I rewatched the scene with Solas and Rook chatting with one another and well Solas had a rather familiar sounding...uh...guitar rift going off in the background that seemed to sound at least familiar to Rook's theme. But this is when Solas was speaking...now music is not always perfect in its execution and sometimes wires get crossed but implications were certainly interesting.

But then I did get a chance to listen to the sound track and the Dread Wolf theme seemed to confirm it. Which does share some interesting possibilities so far, music is one of the ways to mirror characters and they did say that there was going to be mirroring between the two of them so nice to see that this is coming.

So surprise surprise, bit of a theme here but actually its quite amusing to me how many of the common complaints against this game is just being taken down one after another so early.

But you can be mean and direct to your companions.





And yes I met Bellara. She does seem quite delightful so far.

And we went to the Ruins and met the Nadas Dirthalen so far.

And Darkspawn are a bit on the creepy side in this. Sure they look...weirdly off...but what they are doing is kind of yikes, more on that in a minute.

Bit more like it. And this part of the story, it can be dark, you can do some fairly messed up things.

The transition from Non Blight to Blight in D'Meta's crossing is one of the best moments in the game so far and got a hearty 'whoa' from me. The village does start off fairly creepy but they do a fairly good job establishing it as a mystery. Sure we 'know' what its likely going to happen they still do a fairly good job on the reveal. The camera work here is really excellent as it focuses on Rook as he vaults over the fence so you can't see it but then the camera spins around...nothing but blight. So far its not giving me the same squick factor as the Red Lyrium did in Inquisition but there was a couple of minutes here and there, I felt really icked out when we had to go in the middle of a tight space surrounded by Blight...and of course the villagers were brainwashed.

Meeting the Mayor and the Ghil Dragon, that has some implications, but the Mayor choice is the first 'evil' choice of the game. A bit more of a clear distinction on good/ evil then I can say. IE there is a pretty clear moral distinction that the game sets up for the player and its not really the most practical. Though I do wonder if there will be consequences to leaving him there. Also a bit of an echo to Sahrnia.

Big reveal though back with the Veil Jumpers we met Morrigan and the NEXT bit...I thought everyone told me this game acted like all the other games didn't happen and that all these characters had amnesia. Yet here Morrigan and Harding is making constant references to Inquisition...weird. Continuity. Surprise, this is a sequel. I got a good lol out of me when Morrigan admitted to knowing that Solas was Fen'Harel and why that would've vexe dhim when she tried to explain ancient Elven knowledge to him...course side bar if she has merged with Mythal she is playing it awfully coy.

This quest had the biggest plot twist of the game so far and starting to get more into the teritory where I don't know preciesely will happen is nice.

But we go back to the Ritual Site to hunt down the Lyrium Dagger and discover it has been taken by a 'Lyrium Ghoul.'

After defeating it Harding goes to grab it...and it has a rather wild reaction to her. It seems to be what activates her Titan abilities and then the cutscene here is just plain wild as she rises up in the stone, eyes glowing, talking about 'Isantanol' and everything else.

This does beg the questions was...did the dagger activate her powers or did something else do so and then the dagger just...prompted it? Why didn't it react to Varric when Varric was stabbed?

Then the really chilling bit...this game seems to have story narration by Varric here and there detailing events and what not, but in this case he relayed the story of what was happening with Harding and how good it was...as the camera panned down through some very red looking lyrium veins deep into the earth, with a hand rising up out of lava like its in pain.

The game might be slowly opening up, there is a bit of a nice drip feed on pacing here. Honestly think there has not been that hook yet that has purely invested me in like in DAI, but then this game is also off to a stronger start then DAI for the most part.

But Bellara fiddles with the Eluvian and we had off into the crossroads and meet the Caretaker. It was weird though seems we have access to his shop even before meeting him.

But we get our next big introduction and I feel it might be the time to get some side quests. We get intel from Neve, she is the one who seems to be giving us at least our initial leads, to go to Treviso or Docktown.

I was hella surprised to see the Venatori in the Crossroads and they were already talking about the gods and what not. Gonna be curious when we see what that is all about. Hmm maybe should've gone to Docktown first.

Also stumbled across Solas's memory, it says its a story mission but it also seemed like it could've been missed and nothing prompted me, I just wandered in it. Do worry about the others.

The Darkspawn are now back to being a threat, first time really since Origins or well the Descent I guess that they have felt...this potent and omni present. I am not fully feeling the blight pustule creatures yet but A. there is a lot of them and B. they are a bit tanky...but not TOO unmanegable really. Thing is kind of tempting to actually turn up the difficulty but on the other hand enemies do seem pretty tanky so far...probably not figuring things out yet but I think to at least maintain the fun factor might need to keep it down because again enemies seem to be a bit on the tanky side. Though I do have a hard time getting close to Darkspawn.

The memory itself was interesting. Solas leaves behind an Elven agent who was blighted by Ghil and then...well it basically does confirm my theory about the Evanuris weaponizing the Blight. Not that hard to picture and Solas also basically said the same thing in our Fade chat as well.

Sorry bit all over the place right now and I talked with Solas again. Bit of a small instance but interesting to see Solas remembering how we interacted him in the first instance and made referene to it, does make me wonder where that little update to the BioWare mechanics will go.

But yes, seems Ghil was pretty responsible for creating a lot of the Darkspawn at first and was experimenting on it. Seems that might have been what even led to her elevation in the first place. I did have a bit of a feeling on both issues. The implication is though there could be a lot worse coming if the Evanuris gain full control of the Blight again either in the real world or in the Black City...

Which then Solas referenced trapping the Evanuris in the Black City with the Blight that the Magisters freed...question is why did it then go to the Deep Roads? Seems kind of interesting.