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Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Companions Are In Conflict With The Narrative | MMORPG.com
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Companions Are In Conflict With The Narrative | MMORPG.com
Companions in Bioware games always have interesting stories. Yet Ryan feels Dragon Age: The Veilguard's companions feel like they are in conflict with the narrative they are a part of. He explores this in his latest.
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99.9% chance you haven't actually played it.
Sometimes, in making things, you have to kill your darlings.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Agreed! Emmerich is one of my favorite companions in the series, and his side kick Manfred was super cool. I really liked the exploration of a good necromancer/lich.
I also liked Neve. Her companion storyline had some gruesome blood magic use that was surprising to see.
It's unfortunate that the identity politics of Anti-Woke grifters and their acolytes have tainted most of the information surrounding the game. Can't even search online without these rage baiting grifters being at the top of google searches for it.
I enjoyed it so much I ended up getting the Platinum trophy for it on Playstation.
Trick Weekes the lead writer for the game has an incredibly impressive track record writing for Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, they even wrote/co-wrote the Dragon Age novels and worked directly with David Gaider on Mass Effect, and Dragon Age since 2005, which is why they were chosen to be the lead writer for Dragon Age after David Gaider left the company. They were also the lead writer for all of the DA:I DLC.
I think the storyline with Taash being Non-binary wouldn't have even been an issue if they weren't a Qunari, since the Qunari are known for being blunt, and not great at conveying nuance or subtlety, Sten from DA:O comes to mind as evidenced in this dialogue between him and a woman grey warden player character:
There is little in the way of subtlety in the narrative mechanisms used in this conversation, so when Taash had a similar disposition, and bluntness to their speech people claimed it was a poorly written character to fit a political narrative, rather than it just being the way Qunari speak.
If they would've written Taash as an elf or human there would've been more room for subtlety and nuance.
Trick Weekes in interviews while working on Mass Effect, and Dragon Age has talked in depth about writing characters with flaws in order to add depth to them was well received up until this point. They created Solas in Dragon Age, Mordin, Tali, and Samantha Traynor: Characters from the Mass Effect trilogy, all of which were positively received characters with flaws.
It's unfortunate to see so many bad faith arguments being made against DA:VG because it's actually a really good game.
I absolutely did and I refused to pay for it. I made it to the Magic of the Ancients, charged the first crystal and finally gave up. The combat is floaty and silly. Calling in my companions on a timer during dumbed down encounters with it's standard dodge roll and brain dead enemy AI finally caught up to me. Every single battle in this game is overshadowed by just the basic foray into the wilds from the first game. They try to distract you with it's Suicide Squad level of graphical puke from your abilities on screen but it just doesn't work. Moving around the world feels bad and the over used walk, halt, turn mechanic you see in so many 3rd person games is very noticeably jarring in this one. There were pretty much no meaningful choices in the time I played and the fact that I couldn't bring over ALMOST anything from my DA:I playthrough was beyond stupid in it's design choice. There is a reason that even IGN went back and said they screwed up their review. It's a bad game. Not just a bad Dragon Age game but a bad game overall. I'm not going any further than this because if you need a full review then feel free to look up one that didn't get paid by Bioware, like this site, to post nice things.
I don't have to eat ground up worms to know I won't like it. At this point, we've all seen enough videos and commentary on this game to make a somewhat informed opinion on whether it's something we'd enjoy or not. Judging from the sales numbers, most people decided to say "no thanks, this looks like hot garbage".
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
The krogan were sterilized by the Turians. I'd even let Salarian slide... but batarians? My guy (gender nuetral), how long has it been since you've played Mass Effect lol
So another live service multiplayer entry with pay to win micro transactions out the wazoo would've been better? Please elaborate on what you think would've been better about that? Were you a fan of DA:i's multiplayer mode or something?
He unfortunately pre ordered the game, an information I got from him when I sent him Skill Ups review, but he was like "Nah, I'll give it a chance, it can't be that bad" He really wanted to like it.
What followed over the next month were very amusing voice messages on a daily basis that gave me a lot of insight into the game.
Now that he beat the game he agreed that he should've never pre order this trash and that everything Skill Up mentioned in his review is 100% accurate.
He's not even anti-woke at all and still was annoyed af by the in-your-face virtue signalling and joked around sarca´stically about how now, after beating the game, he grew a better person because he learned so much.
But I guess I have to play and complete the game for myself to form an opinion, right?
I fully believe Taash to be the least liked character ever. Yes, she is Qunari and I know all about Sten(he's one of my favorite DA:O characters ; he can't possibly match Oghren, but he's really good). Even for Qunari style of ... raw, Taash is simply too much and feels 1000% like a product of 2020s, not of Thedas. Besides, who is to say that every Qunari acts like Sten lol?
Guys that right there is bad storytelling, the story has a one trick pony called "trauma". Now maybe these were done so well that being a one trick pony did not matter, but from what I have heard about the games story that is unlikely.
"There is a distinct lack of conflict in the companion's relationships. There are characters here that should be diametrically opposed, complete opposites in both beliefs and morality. Yet it feels like the edges have been sanded off in favor of something more palatable in our modern age."
I remarked on this elsewhere, some guy did a video showing companions being called a "mongrel" in the old DA . This one is Care Bear clean, and I should point out I don't want all games to be grim dark or have tons of salty language and too much of that would be overly dramatic for me. But it is a game for adults that has a reading age of pre-teens.
But when it comes to a scale of one to ten I think it is worth remembering that of the two most recently over hyped PC games we have recently had, SW: Outlaws got a 7.0 and DA:VG an 8.2, so it isn't that bad.
But hey I'm glad you liked the companions. . . . . . .
Taash is only disliked because of the anti-woke identity politics being disseminated across the internet.
There is maybe 5-10 minutes out of the whole game that mentions the non-binary element of her character, yet people act like it's the only thing talked about through the whole thing, which simply isn't true.
If you can provide an NPC Qunari that doesn't talk that way, please link to it or let me know where it is. In my experience across the games that's the way Qunari talk.
I have no idea what possessed Bioware to call this game "Dragon Age," expecting the majority of Dragon Age fans to buy into it being an actual game in the series, when they knew very well, they had no intention whatsoever of making. That much seems clear.
DAV goes out of it's way to not only distance itself from the previous titles, but takes every opportunity to disrespect the established lore, while simultaneously gutting practically everything that made Dragon Age, Dragon Age in the first place.
They removed The Keep and attempted to do damage control when it was discovered only 3 choices, mainly from Trespasser, would be used. They made false statements such as "we will respect your choices from previous games," and "your choices from the series matter." They made that statement, then preceded to literally burn down the majority of Southern Thedas, the location of the 3 previous games, rendering all previous events rather pointless. They even made the ridiculous statement: the events in the south don't have much affect on the events in the north and vice versa.
Sure.
Now, in a recent interview, this dev team claims they want to incorporate more choices from The Keep in the "next" game, which they say they have big plans for.
Presumptuous, all things considered, in my opinion.
I won't hold my breath.
Now, onto ME.
What damage will they inflict upon that franchise?
Unless they changed how they do their reviews they have one of a few reviewers make a review. This doesn’t mean that other members of the MMORPG.com staff don’t have their own opinions.
Also, the game is fine and can be fun. Warts and all. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be criticized for its failings.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
No.
That doesn't fly when both individuals work for the same outlet. Whatever gets posted is absolutely considered the overall opinion of the site itself. Two opposing viewpoints from the same outlet sticks out like a sore thumb and is considered a contradiction. You can't give a game a glowing review, then a few weeks later post another article which is far more critical, outlining it's flaws. That is supposed to affect the original review, otherwise, why post it at all?
That's the other thing I don't understand when it comes to those who defend this game. You attempt to give it every plausible and even implausible benefit of the doubt, bend every rule or make 1001 excuses for the sake of this game. Are we now supposed to consider the reviews of every single site online the opinion of the individual reviewer and NOT the company that employs them?
Nonsense!
That is not how reviews work. That is not how reviews have ever worked. The rules don't change for the sake of a single game. The individual who post their review represents not only their opinion, but the company or site they work for, which is the way it has always been.
No. DAV is not so special that the rules don't apply to it.
The game is fine in your opinion, which in and of itself is great. However, the general consensus surrounding the game is anything but fine. DAV never caught on and had no positive word of mouth to propel it beyond the discourse seen practically everywhere the game is mentioned. Obviously, there are reasons for this. Where there is smoke, there is fire. On countless reviews I've seen across the internet, the very same sentiment is echoed:
This is NOT Dragon Age.
I came to the very same conclusion myself when I tried to play the game, only getting about 68% of the way through. While some may enjoy DAV, for me, it has no business calling itself "Dragon Age" when the devs themselves were clearly hellbent on making a very different type of game, only using the DA name for marketing purposes, as it would seem.
This was never going to succeed, and it seems quite clear that it hasn't.
Warts, I can accept, if the overall product shines. In the case of DAV, the very foundation itself is built upon the back of a game that was never going to be Dragon Age in the true sense, which is why it's problems stretch far beyond being just warts or blemishes.
Sites only do one review so it is difficult for any site to have a collective opinion, I can remember a couple of games which had multiple input (maybe the prereview stage?), but I think only one person decided the score.
Games do get follow up articles and I agree that here and elsewhere there has been a pulling back from how good this game is, but not majorly so from this article. I don't see this article talking about the abuse of lore for example. Does overscoring reflect well on a site, of course it does not but you will see posters on here and elsewhere who do not think it was overscored even with the marginal "walking back" which others are seeing as "we hoped it would be better in this bit".
What are they gonna add in the next game? (If it ever sees the light of the day)
Men using the women's bathroom? Men in women's sports? ???
Rules? Are there really rules they must adhere to?
Does it really matter if the reviews are unified with additional articles about a game? You could just as easily assume it’s one person’s opinion because I highly doubt an entire organization, no matter the size, gets together and hammers out one review to rule them all.
You could very well just read the review and determine if what they are saying coincides to what you like. You could also just form your own opinion.
To that point I’m playing it and it’s fine. I have my criticisms but it’s fun where it needs to be and I’m free to roll my eyes at the places I feel are ridiculous.
It’s Dragon Age because they say it’s Dragon Age. That’s like saying Witcher 3 isn’t Witcher because it’s different from the first game or Skyrim isn’t Elder scrolls because it’s not battlespire or Daggerfall.
It might not embrace what made the first game great but somehow we’ll all still be able to sleep at night. I certainly hope
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Maybe, play the game before writing articles about it?