98 steam hours logged, 84 game hours logged on final save, (the listing in the game itself) actual gameplay hours (-2 for time in CC) either 96 or 82… depending.
14 hour discrepancy between game logged hours and steam logged hours is likely how much trouble the game gave me in loading, reloading, glitching, and crashing. Do I get to charge Bioware for those lost hours of my life?
Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to skip it if you’ve read it.
Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It’s fantastic. I’m also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.
I’m on media blackout while I play this, so I’m only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.
Though., every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking ‘have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?’ My guess is nope.
Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard and everything else DA, I’m a Lore fiend.
My pithy pre-end sequence commentary.
(Note that these reviews aren’t edited. They’re just my off the cuff writing. I don’t have the time, energy or heart to edit them properly.)
END GAME SPOILERS
End game spoilers for BG3 too.
13 is my lucky number, but even that couldn’t save it. I can’t think of a single thing that can save this disaster of a game. I’ll write a more professional wrap-up review post too, this is my reaction portion.
I’ve finished the final sequence of the game. Sat through the credits of probably a thousand people who worked on this piece of shit and still thought it releasable. AND saw the ‘easter egg/future game possibility scene’. My kid said I got a hint of hope back in my eyes for about 10 seconds when that final scene popped up then the light faded again. Apparently the ‘long slow horrified stare of death’ was all over my face again.
Loading in, I dreaded everything I was about to see. Veilguard had already disappointed me in so many ways. I didn’t have any hope the final sequence would be any better.
It wasn’t as bad as I expected. It was worse. Yes. Honestly.
In all fairness (even if I really don’t want to be fair right now) the last sequence does contain some of the best material in the game. If they’d actually written the rest of it with that kind of passion it probably would’ve been a better game. But that doesn’t actually make it good. And how any average person makes it to the final sequence is beyond me. I’m stuck in bed. I’ve got an excuse.
So. I expected it to be long. That part didn’t bother me that much. Most Dragon Age games have long final sequences.
The positive! Ummmm? Oh! I actually did get an intimate scene with Lucanis. His timing stinks but whatever. I did actually get one. I mean, it was one your aunt who’s a nun probably wouldn’t have found racey, but it exists! Dude. It’s 2024, there’s this cool toggle function you can click off if you don’t want nudity. It’s a Mature rated game and I’m pretty sure most of us know what sex is. Give paying customers what they want!
My least favourite character died.
I called it on Solas killing Varric in the first scene. Interesting twist they did with that, though. Albeit not very well handled. Told y’all. I didn’t want it to happen either, but the writing was on the wall in great big letters in drippy red paint from the second they fired Mary Kirby (Varric’s writer.) In case you want more details than snark on that? Varric did indeed die when Solas stabbed him in the beginning. What you see throughout the game is Solas messing with Rook’s mind because Solas needs Rook to work with him. Varric died before the story actually started. That last line of his ‘take care of the team’ told me. But I got taken in by the twist too. Bet that was a Weekes twist. ‘It’s right in front of you the whole time.’ I was suspicious as fuck and something felt off because no one ever talked to Varric but yeah. The twist mostly got me. Wasn’t even close to a surprise that he was dead though.
Elgar’nan made a WAY better final boss fight than Coryphyfish.
I did legitimately love watching Teia and Viago fight as Crows. That was a really awesome section. (They’re two of my favourite characters from Tevinter Nights.)
The bad.
There is no way for me to list it all. So here’s the highlight reel.
Varric died.
They lifted almost the entire final battle sequence from BG3. The tentacle they have to climb to the fancy building in the sky. People falling and almost dying by tumbling down the tentacle, having to fight through said self-destructing fancy building in the sky… I know you can’t copyright an idea. As an author, I understand and approve of that. But you should at least make the idea a wee bit unrecognizable as to where you lifted it from. Y’know?
Yay! We got to see Solas in wolfie form! He looks like a Chinese hairless crested dog x a hyena on a really bad day. Like… really needs to go to the salon and have a bath day. I really wish I were joking.
Called it on the Solavellan ending. And NO. Trick Weekes. That DOES NOT give a suggestion of a Happy Fucking Ending. Read some fucking Romance. GOOD romance. (They do. And I’m being very mature by not calling out one of the authors they read who was one of the ones who harassed me off of Twitter in a hate fest of well over 100k people. Over lies easily provable as lies because I don’t delete posts. Because I believe in accountability. So yeah… an author Trick reads is high up on the list of people who caused that. Oh. No. Two of them I’ve seen Trick mention as books they’ve read were involved in that. I suppose people can’t know everything. And people can like who they like. But I do have to admit that I’m glad I won’t see their names when Trick talks about them anymore.) I honestly wouldn’t call them good romance authors either. I’ve read them both (did I forget to mention they were both mutuals?) and mediocre at best is my judgment. But they seemed to enjoy the books and like talking to those awful people. Can’t account for what people like I guess. Though if Trick modelled the Solavellan ending off those authors’ writing it would explain how awful it was.
What’s that say about me? I don’t like very many people. I get along with people as best as my autistic/AuDHD ass can but I don’t LIKE very many people at all. Nor do people tend to like me. I have no compunction about calling out bullshit. It makes people cranky, but I’ve had enough bullshit in my life. I try not to do it to people’s faces because shit… life is hard enough. As long as it doesn’t personally affect me… I talk on my feeds and channels in general terms about crap I find annoyingly bullshitfuckery-full. Engage at your own risk. I’m actually a very kind person. I just don’t take lies and bullshit and disrespect laying down. It’s possibly unsurprising how much people hate being called on their shit. So I respect about the same amount of people as I like. If I can’t respect you? I can’t like you. (For anyone who does actually know me… I don’t mean you. If I talk with you privately? Or even if I’m willing to? I both like and respect you. Or I wouldn’t bother talking to you privately. I’ve got far better things to do than talk privately to people I don’t like or respect. Like cleaning the washroom with my tongue. I’m shit at reaching out. But if we’ve talked more than once in any form of privacy? You’ve made the extra select list of my cranky ass.)
Am I a bitch? Probably. Live my life and see if you’d be any different. I do my best to be kind.
No intimate scene for Solas and Inky. After ten years of waiting for Solavellans. After all the shitting on Solas we had to put up with in DAV (and OMFG there was soooo much!!) No actual happy ending. No intimate scene. Oh, but you do get a rather grody kiss between them because he’s just been fighting and has blight all over his face. (Which would’ve blighted them both but I’m beyond calling out the shit in some areas.) But yay? They get to kiss? With absolutely no passion at all. Maybe the passion of a bavarian cream pastry? A rotten one? Ew. And Solas doesn’t even look behind him to see if Inky is coming. (Like a decent love interest would to show her he wants her with him and values her. SHOCK!!! Like… what the actual fuck level of 1950s misogynistic crap is that? And then they both dissolve into fade gook. We aren’t getting into the Uwu-ification of Mythal’s Galadriel wanna be ass. FFS. What happened to ‘my vengeance will shake the very heavens’? (Paraphrased.) We so rarely get evil or vengeance arcs for female characters. I… again… didn’t think they’d do that. It was such an integral part of every single game and soooo much Lore. Like… how? I think I’ll be asking that until my dying day.
The entire time I spent in CC for my Inky to make her look like my player character from DAI? It didn’t show up in the final sequence. And no way was I replaying that hellscape to see if it MIGHT could be coaxed into actually showing her the way I made her. I just got the stock body.
So… y’know the veil? That edge of reality that has been getting more and more holes in it throughout the entire history of the Dragon Age Franchise? The veil that the Lore has been pretty clear about it strangling both the magic and the life out of THEDAS? Not to mention everything the elves lost because of it? That veil?
It’s all better now. Regardless of the Lore. Because Solas bound his life force to it. So instead of a quick bandage being pulled off to get rid of the veil that really does need to go (y’know if Bioware writers actually gave a rat’s ass about the fucking lore of the world they’re writing in)… Now it’s there until Solas dies… which he can’t really do easily being one of the first Elves. Sooooo by the very lore of the world they’ve crafted… THEDAS is now doomed to die. And the plot hole on that is probably as big as Canada. There’s an undetermined amount of time after you kill the final Evanuris bound to the veil (Elgar’nan) and when Solas ‘makes the choice’ (Gags) to bind himself to the thing he’s only spent 12 years or so trying to take down because it’s killing the world. No big. The veil wouldn’t have still been there for Solas to tie himself to. The second Elgy went down it would’ve started peeling away. And it likely would’ve been nigh impossible to stop. Anything we’ve ever seen shows the fade rifts opening and closing fast.
Congrats Bioware. Well done. /s
OH but Solas is now the Maker so I guess that works out. (Had to catch those eyeballs from rolling under the dresser there.)
Oh, but THAT doesn’t matter. Because everything from the very beginning of DAO has been ‘influenced’ by ‘the ones from across the sea’.
Pardon me while I gag.
The entirety of THEDAS and everything that’s ever gone wrong with it is the fault of ‘the foreigners from across the sea who wear clothing that’s kiiiinda a lot like a Burqa.’ Y’know… the black over gowns and veils Afghani women and some other Muslim folks wear?
Cause… uh… yeah. That’s a GREAT idea. I legitimately cannot believe they went there. I just… I can’t. Bioware hasn’t ever really been great on the racism front (I will write in another place about the Dalish treatment.) but I’d hoped they’d gotten at least a little bit better.
Nooooope.
There were a couple of mentions of something like ‘the gathering storm’ in Taash’s quests and how she’s a weapon against them. HUGE spoiler I’m sure, but I’m pretty sure they want to make a game that deals with ‘the foreign invaders who have been subtly influencing everything wearing black burqas and veils’ as the next Dragon Age. Or maybe they’ll call it a spin off since it has to be getting close to the end of the actual Dragon Age in the calendar.
I really hope I’m not the only one who can see the issues there. Not that I expect Bioware to. Honestly? I used to pray that DAV would save Bioware. I’ve liked them as a company for a while, but this is it for me. I’m done. I don’t even care about ME5 anymore. Not even if they bring Shep back. I don’t trust Bioware to write games like the first three ME and the first three DA games anymore. I just don’t. I won’t be buying it full price. And if I ever did buy it? It’d have to be in the $5 range. Because I’m pretty certain that’s about all it’ll be worth.
I might enjoy the first three DA games occasionally if I feel like it. But DAV does not exist for me. Anything they make going forward does not exist for me. That fucking bullshit about no one having had any free choices in the entire history of the games/books/comics etc.? AND the next game’s bad guys looking like they wear burqas? And all the elves being DEAD?
Bioware has made my boycott list. And I honestly hope they sink like the fucking Titanic for the shit they’ve pulled in DAV and that last fucking scene.
With that scene, they not only shit on many cultures who veil, they shit specifically on Afghani people who are required to wear that. Whether they want to or not.
They also, from a writing perspective, removed every single bit of agency from any of their previous characters. And making every player choice up til them completely irrelevant. Making every single game pointless in the history of the world.
I’m just done. My boycott list is pretty long. I have these pesky standards. I’d already compromised them by continuing on with playing Bioware games regardless of their well known issues. But nope. Done. Finite. Time to cut the rope and watch it sink.
I would never, in a million years, recommend this game. On those two reasons alone. But also because it doesn’t do anything a good CRPG (Computer Role Playing Game) is supposed to do very well.
It doesn’t hold up the Dragon Age expectations for anyone who has played the games or enjoyed the lore. They basically shoved all the lore under the proverbial carpet. (Must have made a hell of a lump. That’s a LOT of Lore. Trust me. I know. I’ve marinated myself in it.) On the surface it LOOKS like a CRPG. It has the elements of one… but so few of the elements are carried through that it’s kinda shocking to me that they dared to advertise it as one. (Or even an ARPG) I mean… didn’t someone tell them pissing off people by advertising something they aren’t delivering is a bad idea? Because there is so little role playing ability in that game it’s gagworthy. And dopey ass fucking Rook has to be the most boring pathetic DA Player Character in the history of the games. (Considering Inky much as I love her is… uh… bit bland?) Rook takes the cake and smashes it against the wall while standing with their hands on their hips and a ridiculous goofy expression on their face.
It’s full of easily fixable plot holes. Seriously, they’d be so easy to fix! They just didn’t bother.
Where DAI was an intricately woven adult CRPG masterpiece? DAV is a poorly woven bedsheet with arm sized holes in it and lots and lots of stains. Made for kids.
CRPGs have a long history. Bioware and Dragon Age do too. DAO came out in 2009, Dragon Age 2 released in 2011, both were solid CRPGs. You felt like you were playing a role playing game. Bioware then released DAI in 2014. And in the Dragon Age series, DAI is the crown jewel.
It had everything a CRPG is supposed to have. It wasn’t perfect, no, and it doesn’t have to be everyone’s favourite… but it’s definitely the best of all 4 games for being what it’s supposed to be.
CRPGs generally do not challenge the player as far as manual dexterity or physical response time. That’s for action/fighting games. I’m not a professional level gamer. But gaming is my number one hobby and source of entertainment. I play on hard level for most games I play, if not ultra hard. I struggled with the shitty DAV fighting system. Dear gods, who had the brilliant idea of tying accumulation of skill points to how high your bond is with your companions? That’s just… the kindest thing I can say is poorly thought out. Especially when you can only take two of them with you on missions. My not-a-fucking-rogue should never have had aggro. And they always did. I’m intimately acquainted with the inside the mouth animations on the dragons.
RPGs (C or A) are supposed to have intricate, layered world building, a levelling system that makes your characters grow and develop as they progress through a well developed world, often they have fighting, puzzles, and other mechanics to spice things up. But there’s some very specific things an RPG needs. And DAV has so few of them. They focussed so much on that shitty gods damned fighting system that had my not-a-fucking-rogue always plastered with the ‘come eat me’ aggro flag that they failed to deliver on so much else that an RPG needs to have. Especially a C or even and ARPG. I broke my fucking W key because I had to flip out of the way of enemies so much. Bioware owes me 14 hours of my life and $10 for a new key.
I think I heard someone on the dev team say they were quite happy with how the characters and romances came out and um. Well. Might I politely suggest learning how to write better? Cause they weren’t. From both a professional and consumer level? They just weren’t good.
The characters were dishwater boring with no character development possible. The romances were… not. I’ll just leave it there.
(Edit. Shockingly I actually did play it a second time. I needed to know if it was me or the fighting system. Guess I’m prouder of being a good gamer than I thought. Played a warrior and flew through the game like it was mist. AND I played it on hard/ultrahard. The game was made for tank players. Simple as that. People who like to bash barrels (why the barrels??) and thump enemies with a sword or two handed weapon. And I legitimately suck at playing tanks. My partner laughed his ass off when I asked if I was a better tank player than I thought. DAV was so easy as a tank! And like… I played that last run high as a fucking kite (Weed is legal here) so the horrors wouldn’t get me again. There’s no way I’m anywhere near as good of a gamer when I’m high. I tend to run in circles a lot. (Which I did with DAV playthrough 2.) Emmrich’s romance is wonderful. My opinion hasn’t changed to the positive for anything else.)
But realistically… as far as writing goes those are a few things I KNOW I’m good at. Just because my fans have told me often enough that I’ve almost internalized it by now. What? Characterization, writing intimate scenes, and writing romance. My writing voice is very love/hate like many authors. If you love my voice and read kinky romance, you’d probably like it. If you don’t like my voice? No story I tell will satisfy you. But from an editorial and writing standpoint? The characters and romances in DAV needed so much work. As much as the plot.
I’m no stranger to trauma. And yes. I did it to myself. I needed to play the ending for myself and I wanted to see what the game was like. I feel traumatized. Abso-fucking-lutely traumatized.
If you’re Solavellan and looking for reviews to tell you whether it’s worth buying and playing? It. Is. Not. On any level.
Oh and you know those Steam Achievements you get? At the beginning they were like in the high 90s and 80s percentages. The last two I got were from the end game. 2.2% and 6.8%. Respectively. According to my kid (who usually knows more than I do about things like that) that means people stopped playing before they got there. (Or possibly just haven’t gotten there yet. I did play it reasonably fast because of my current circumstances.)
I really wish I could say better things about this game. I wanted to love it as much as I loved the other three. As much as I’ve loved most Dragon Age material. Something about it just captured me. Until DAV.
More professional review to follow at some point.
If my review series has been helpful… and I really really hate to ask, but if it has been? My work of words is my family’s only income. My partner is still recovering from a broken back, and I’m recovering from a pulmonary embolism. Money is so tight it squeaks. If you’re not gonna buy the game anyway after reading my blather, a tip would surely be appreciated.
All my links are at the bottom of my home page.
My response to breaking media blackout.
Final review and wrap up here.