tinkaton | 066 ☆

I've done it.....63 hours and 158 screenshots later.....I've beaten Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

The non-spoilery tl;dr: I liked it! Maybe it was the high of playing a new Dragon Age game for the first time in ten years, but I had a lot of fun with it. The combat is snappy, the characters are charming, the sidequests aren't all tedious time wasters. I think a lot of the complaints online are bad faith arguments or personal preferences. (Not that the game is perfect or there aren't valid critiques, just that you can tell who's like, mad about DA being ""woke"" now or whatever lmao.)

So yeah, I'd recommend it, and I think people who haven't played any DA games could still have a good time too. There's callbacks and stuff that wouldn't really mean anything to newbies, and obviously there's spoilers for Inquisition (but I feel that particular cat is out of the bag anyway), but overall I think new players could definitely just jump in and have fun without having played the previous games. (But you still should play the previous games because they're great. DA2 is still my fave. Sorry Veilguard, you could not dethrone the king.)

Please look at some pictures of my beautiful Rook before I continue on with my very spoilery commentary below.

Ethari Laidir, the ultimate baby boy.....I took so many screenshots of him for no reason sjdfhskhdfs. I feel like one of those moms who posts too many photos of their new baby on Facebook. They made the character creator TOO good, they shouldn't have let me make my Rook so hot.

I think in terms of Rook's characterization, I didn't mind having something that was a little more set in stone. I feel like in Inquisition, my guy was constantly struggling against what the narrative wanted him to do. With Rook, it was easier to craft a character who like, ultimately did want to be there lmao. However it did feel a little like many of the dialogue choices were more or less the same sentiment, just said in different tones, which might make replaying with a different Rook a little too same-y? I guess I'll see once I get around to another playthrough, it's not like I didn't enjoy playing DA2 multiple times which had a similar dialogue setup haha.

Anyway yeah, I loved my Rook and I loved the characters, I thought they were all so cute and I loved everyone's interactions both with Rook and the rest of the team. People complaining that everyone was too nice--first of all everyone in the world isn't going to be Anders and Fenris lmao. Secondly they did not all start out nice with each other?? Davrin and Lucanis, Neve and Lucanis, Taash and Emmrich... (Taash calling Emmrich a skullfucker was the funniest line in the whole game I think. Second funniest was Spite wanting to eat candles.) Call me boring I guess but I liked that everyone on the team liked each other/worked out their problems!

Character Rambling:

Lucanis: The one and only...my man... I love him so much. His first quest being a shopping trip where he gets presents for everyone just about killed me. I wish there had been more to the romance because what we got was so good!! There just wasn't enough?? Multiple times I expected something to happen and got nothing... (When you finish his last companion quest and you leave the Crow party and he's like there's something I'd rather do at home...and that something was DRINKING COFFEE ALONE I was like am I going insane!!!!) Like I get the slowburn romance with him as a character, I think it fits him, but after a certain point it was like hello??? Can we at least kiss?? Rook is fucking dying here. I was VERY glad we didn't get rid of Spite though, I was worried about that lmao. However it's a CRIME the opportunity for Rook/Lucanis/Spite shenanigans was wasted!!

Bellara: She was so cute, I really enjoyed her! I could immediately tell some people were going to find her annoying lmao but I love a quirky awkward weird girl. I'm curious what her romance is like, I don't think anyone I know romanced her. :( She and Rook were elf besties, I had her keep the Nadas Dirthalen because 1) that's his history too and 2) he's a Lord of Fortune so he's very into lost artifacts and things.

Davrin: Ouuugh Davrin ♥ He had me tempted to abandon ship but I stayed strong sjhdfksjfs. Solid character, very cute. I love him and Assan, and I thought the Warden quests were really interesting. I went with Rook releasing the griffons into Arlathan Forest, though it's like, why does Rook get to decide that, he's not a Warden lol.

Emmrich: He won me over so fast I think my next playthrough is going to be an Emmrich romance lmao. Which, with the tough competition of Davrin, Bellara, or Neve, is quite the honor!! But yeah he's just a fun character, he's so polite and charming and funny, and I loved the Necropolis and the Mourn Watch characters. I loved that he could become a lich??? I didn't go for it this time round, because Manfred :( but I'd definitely lich-ify him at some point.

Harding: I know the whole DA fandom loves Harding, but she's probably my least favorite of the main squad. I like her fine, and her interactions with the rest of the team are very cute, but I don't know, there's nothing particularly exciting about her imo. The worst part about picking her to die was that it made Taash sad. 😔

Neve: I gave Neve a real hard time by choosing to save Treviso and then letting her get kidnapped and blighted sjdfhskfd but I really liked her! I love that they actually let her be the noir detective trope, and I think having her be hardened added to that really well. I'm curious what will be different when I choose to save Minrathous instead, with her and with the Shadow Dragon quests.

Taash: I wasn't sure what to make of them in their recruitment quest, but Taash very quickly grew on me after that. They're probably the funniest companion, their interactions with everyone and their codex entries are sooo good lmao. Both them and Rook being Lords of Fortune was fun, Rook encouraging them to embrace being Rivaini was the easy choice there. I did think some of the writing about the nonbinary stuff was a little "gender 101" but I guess that's to be expected in a mainstream game haha.

Solas: This game actually accomplished the impossible and made me kind of like Solas. He's so much better as an antagonist, tbh. I loved his stupid sad backstory and learning more about the rebellion, I loved everyone sitting around watching his worst memories and then roasting him for them afterwards, I loved getting to be a bitch at him, I loved him betraying us and then Rook getting to trick him back at the end with the fake knife. Whatever the fuck Rook and Solas had going on was infinitely more interesting to me than a real Solas/Inquisitor romance jshdfksjs. I'm so glad we got to see him with hair. Also I was into whatever the hell he and Felassan had going on. I think I should be allowed to sue Bioware for damages for making me have a Solas ship.

Antoine & Evka: I just want to shout out to them because I love them. The heteros won me over, can you believe it. They were so cute. I've only had [Antoine & Evka] for a day and a half, but if anything happened to them, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself, etc. etc.

Vorgoth & Myrna: I saw someone on Tumblr photoshop pics of them like they were on The Office and that's absolutely what talking to them felt like, I love them so much. I need to make a Mourn Watch Rook next time.

Ghilan'nain: She was so much cooler than Elgar'nan, who only did one cool thing the whole time and that was move the moon. Ghilan'nain had such a cool design and I loved her fucked up evil scientist ways.

Dorian and the Inquisitor: THEY WERE IN A SCENE TOGETHER true love is real!!! We got tossed a single bone and I jumped on it like a starving dog. I did think the love letter you get from your DAI love interest in the codex was very sweet, I read everyone's online afterwards haha. Dorian's was sooo good, I am headcanoning that now that all this BS with Solas is over, Aimeric can finally fucking settle down and be with his man!!!

Gameplay & Plot Rambling:

The Weisshaupt siege and the final battle in Minrathous were so cool. I loved seeing everyone together at the end doing random cool things lmao. And the Weisshaupt battle had a good sense of scale and tension. Solas turning into a giant wolf creature was pretty dope too, I liked running around while he and the dragon were crashing around fighting.

The combat was fun, I liked playing as a mage! I went the dagger and orb route with a focus on electricity + fire attacks and liked it a lot. I think though once I hit level 50 I was a little TOO strong lol but I was also playing on Keeper/easy mode, so maybe next time I'll play on normal and see how it goes.

I feel like Elgar'nan was kind of a lame villain. Like we didn't really need him here, he didn't do anything special. By the time I fought him I was so strong his battle was a piece of cake. Especially next to Ghilan'nain he felt way more boring.

In terms of overall plot, looking back afterwards it's like, it doesn't feel like there was very much? I enjoyed the faction quests and how a lot of them tied into the main plot in some way, but outside that, I don't know, it feels like there could have been more. Or maybe it just needed the opportunity to chew over all the new lore more thoroughly? idk.

I had everything collected for the "secret" ending where I could convince Solas to go into the Fade prison willingly, but I was like fuck that sjdhfkjshdfs My Rook was not very sympathetic to him at all so I absolutely went with the "trick him with the fake knife" option and it was great.

My friend mentioned it seemed like the Lords of Fortune stuff seemed almost tacked on as an afterthought, and I have to agree? They don't have any faction quests like the others get, you really only need to go to Rivain for Taash quests, the arena fights just have those 10 rounds and that's it? Such a bummer because I really liked the concept of the Lords, I loved seeing Isabela again (even though what the hell is she wearing 😑), and I wanted to see more of Rivain!

I'm so glad it didn't take 50 years between banters to get more party comments. *stares at DAI*

I loved the codex and I read most of the entries in this game *coughs* unlike previous games. There's sooo many funny ones. Taash's dragon notes, the book club minutes, Lucanis' logbook that Spite writes in, etc. Even the more plot-related or serious ones were interesting to read.

Randomly just thought, we spend so much time in the Fade in this game, where's Hawke or whoever you left in the Fade in DAI sjhfksdjs. Imagine if they just showed up like hey guys. I'm still alive here. What's everyone been up to.

I almost completely forgot about Varric sjdfhksjhfds I'm sorry Varric. I'm in the same boat with him as with Harding; I enjoy him a lot and I love him best in DA2 with the rest of those freaks, but I don't seem to like him quite as much as the rest of the fandom lmao. So going into this game I was like "oh he's gonna die for sure" and I was surprised when he recovered after being stabbed in the beginning.... THOSE TRICKY BASTARDS. I accidentally spoiled myself before the reveal in game and was like well that explains the weirdness of him still being injured the whole time and literally only Rook ever talking to him. Did any of the team ever notice?? Were they like let's just leave it alone, Rook's having a rough time. It's sad but also kind of funny. Anyway, just another reason my Rook got royally pissed at Solas.

I feel like I could probably go on forever about random stuff as I think about it. This post has already taken two days of poking at it on and off and is way too long so I should probably just wrap it up. If you read all this you should probably get an award or something. I don't even want to re-read it to proofread lol.

But I would love to hear other people's thoughts on the game, good or bad! I have to catch up on the reading list so if you already posted your thoughts I am on my way 👀

066 ☆

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