Dragon Age: The Veilguard - A woke disaster? Yep!

[The best and greatest]

To be honest - and I love Origins, it's one of my favorite video games - the setting never quite did it for me. Not so much in terms of lore, cutthroat Dwarven politics, gypsy elves and mages being potential WMDs were genuinely good and fresh ideas, and so were stuff like the Fade or the Maker. What I never got into was the tone. I'm not sure I can explain it very well, but the dark stuff like all the gore never felt genuine to me. Like the setting tried way too hard to be dark and edgy. Now, that doesn't really bother me, but I did always notice it.

In that regard, I actually didn’t mind that stuff being toned down in DA:I. I know that's probably weird.

Edit to avoid double posting: Reading this thread, I feel like I really need to replay Inquisition again because I seem to have forgotten most of it.

I see what you're saying in that the game at times felt like it was trying too hard. I think the average darkspawn enemy is guilty of this with their ghoulish features just being TOO ghoulish and not human enough. It misses the uncanny valley to the point of not being unnerving at all. Then you have that opening battle in the swamp where everything goes tits up and they all start mugging it for the camera in a comical fashion..Yeah I can see what you mean

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

I've said it before, I think and I'll say it again: check out Greedfall. It has BioWare-ian choices and genuine consequences, although it also has the Mass Effect 3-ish ending that hits a very sore spot with many as everything you do leads to a final choice... of picking 1 of 2 decisions, one of which really makes zero sense but at the same time, it sort of do if you think about how messed up the whole setting is all this while.

The main reason I would hesitate to recommend this to Dragon Age fans is that the combat system is kinda jank. It will shock people more used to the sedate press one button, mouse the character around combat style of Dragon Age, as it requires pressing this button and that button and all the muscle memory that comes with it, but my personal annoyance is the camera angle. For me, often I found myself stuck in a corner, attacked by a boss or a bunch of enemies, and the camera automatically moves to a degree that I can't see what is happening and I can't adjust the angle.

Oh, and the romance isn't much, but this also means there are fewer creepy fans in the genre too... unless you count the Constantine-Your Character shippers.

 

[Miller]

Grim.

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Zippertits with ray tracing, yay

 

[Brap God]

She also has a line during the Orlesian Ball where she lists off a bunch of flaws with various attendees, including something along the lines of "And 'she' is actually a he."

This line gets cited a lot when people are complaining about how "problematic" Sera is, along with the "victim blaming" and "racial fetishization", to the point that (of course) there are mods that axe that line entirely. Coincidentally, I can't bring myself to hate Sera, even if her wacky randum XDDDDD "humor" is grating.

Yeah, I expected to absolutely despise Sara given that she's a terrible looking dyke but she wasn't half bad. From the scenes I've seen on youtube before playing the game, I recall her being only intollerable if you try to romance her as a dalish elf with the constant elf squabbling. It seems to be the most accurate representation of lesbian relationships, at least.

 

[Weltraumfürst]

I see what you're saying in that the game at times felt like it was trying too hard.

I believe that's because dark and gritty never really was BioWare's wheelhouse, so they didn't really know how to approach it and ended up overcompensating in a few places.

 

[Male Idiot]

Robert E.Howard's Conan adventures

Conan needs stronk chicks to make even stronger mini-Conans!

 

[Brap God]

Conan needs stronk chicks to make even stronger mini-Conans!

He'd also probably snap an anorexic chick in half trying to fuck her.

 

[strawberry15]

You know what would be interesting? If we coud have seen some young NPC's in the 4th game (a proper one not this wokeguard.)
-the boy in the red cliff who looked for his fathers sword would be in his late 20's
-Kaidan would be in his early 20's or late teens.
-The boy fell down to earth (superman homage) would be very interesting to see.
we had interesting npc's in da2 ike the mage kid who was nearly posessed etc. some of them i argue would have make very interesting companions. Our previous heroes in one way or the other touched them. the boy in redcliff could have been a companion and his specs or even class might have changed depends on how we do the quest etc. I know that is too much work but i believe not as hard as changing every mechanic, lore, design choices and could have been pulled of to great success.

 

[SIMIΔN]

Just wait until the sequel shows up, done by another studio perhaps, and the cat ladies and trannies will soon run the show as well.

I really doubt I'll buy Baldur's Gate 4. Hasbro are lazy money grubbing wokescolds and Larian, the studio that actually made the game worth playing want nothing else to do with them.

They already do considering all the faggot characters, the pronouns and letting you be a man with a pussy and a woman with a cock.

Other than that one angel and her squeeze, all the other gay characters were racist terrorists or friends of racist terrorists.
There were no he/shes in the game, the closest we got was a bearded female dwarf hireling (not bad, as I hate it when games make fantasy races too human looking) and the option for others to create freaks in the single player game's character creator..
Playsexual isn't gay, it's just a shortcut.

nothing worse then a game forcing you to constantly backtrack and respawning the enemies you already killed, it's just the game saying "fuck you, nothing you do matters"

This, wrecked Farcry 2 for me.

To be honest - and I love Origins, it's one of my favorite video games - the setting never quite did it for me. Not so much in terms of lore, cutthroat Dwarven politics, gypsy elves and mages being potential WMDs were genuinely good and fresh ideas, and so were stuff like the Fade or the Maker. What I never got into was the tone. I'm not sure I can explain it very well, but the dark stuff like all the gore never felt genuine to me. Like the setting tried way too hard to be dark and edgy. Now, that doesn't really bother me, but I did always notice it.

40k firsttimegallowsmeme.jpg
I didn't find DA:0 that grimdark, every historical blight was defeated, and there were moments of joy to be found even in the darkest of times.

Finishing up Inquisition after 10 years had made me appreciate that it isn't nearly as bad as I remembered,

DA:I is great 15 hour game suffocating under 45 hours of repetitive padding.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

This line gets cited a lot when people are complaining about how "problematic" Sera is, along with the "victim blaming" and "racial fetishization", to the point that (of course) there are mods that axe that line entirely. Coincidentally, I can't bring myself to hate Sera, even if her wacky randum XDDDDD "humor" is grating.

I like to think that Sera is a playful jab at the average BioWare autist that thinks they will be so awesome if they get isekai'ed into the game. The "LOL look at my awesum RANDOM humor LOLOLOL", the hyper-autist pick me antics... and the fact that she is terrified shitless when she finally is confronted by magic and realizes oh shit, this is not all fun and games.

Of course, I'm probably giving those BioWare guys way too much credit in assuming this.

 

[SpellforceFan]

She also has a line during the Orlesian Ball where she lists off a bunch of flaws with various attendees, including something along the lines of "And 'she' is actually a he."

This line gets cited a lot when people are complaining about how "problematic" Sera is, along with the "victim blaming" and "racial fetishization", to the point that (of course) there are mods that axe that line entirely. Coincidentally, I can't bring myself to hate Sera, even if her wacky randum XDDDDD "humor" is grating.

She's still an annoying, vaguely britbong sounding, dumpy, potato faced, unsympathetic dyke, but the most damning part of her that always makes me kill her off as soon as I can is that she's running the same build and specialization I like to play as, and there's no place for doubles in my team.

 

[LazyLizard]

the only good thing about sera is that when you talk to her the option to tell her to fuck off is always available, that and the sera song the bard sings is actually pretty good

 

[mindlessobserver]

This may very well be the gayest RPG evar. I sure cannot wait to play as a demi sexual qunari twink. Finally, a game made by faggots for the sexual gratification of faggots. We sure haven't seen this before in the current year!

 

[Megatardingo]

This may very well be the gayest RPG evar. I sure cannot wait to play as a demi sexual qunari twink. Finally, a game made by faggots for the sexual gratification of faggots. We sure haven't seen this before in the current year!

After cisquisition I wasn't expecting anything good, that game was ass.

 

[Weltraumfürst]

I didn't find DA:0 that grimdark, every historical blight was defeated, and there were moments of joy to be found even in the darkest of times.

My point exactly. It was dark in style, but not really in substance.

 

[Brap God]

My point exactly. It was dark in style, but not really in substance.

I don't think they were ever going for gritty darkness, more like LotR type vibe where the bads are very spooky but ultimately surmountable.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

They were more influenced by GRR Martin, I believe. At that time, fantasy was going all edgy as a reactionary movement against the cheesy, unapologetic sword and sorcery tropes of the previous few decades, so lots of rape, violence, and other fun stuff for no reason other than because.

It's mostly performative, as most of these people never really embrace the darkness, just the edge. That or maybe they were on lots of coke - the same excuse Stephen King and his fans used to wave away the kiddie gang bang in IT.

 

[Brap God]

They were more influenced by GRR Martin, I believe. At that time, fantasy was going all edgy as a reactionary movement against the cheesy, unapologetic sword and sorcery tropes of the previous few decades, so lots of rape, violence, and other fun stuff for no reason other than because.

Well they might've looked at GoT and thought to themselves "yeah, let's be edgy" but DA;O definitely shares more tropes with LotR than GoT, at least I think it does.

 

[Gorton Colu]

You guys are over thinking it. Dragon Age Origins is just Dark Fantasy. All Dark Fantasy like GoT, Warhammer, Black Cauldron, The Witcher, The Dark Tower, etc... are going to have many elements in common as they are all in the same subgenre.

 

[Mola Ram]

Well they might've looked at GoT and thought to themselves "yeah, let's be edgy" but DA;O definitely shares more tropes with LotR than GoT, at least I think it does.

Only on the most surface level does Dragon Age resemble Middle-earth: elves which bear no resemblance to Tolkien elves, and dwarves who live in underground mountain strongholds. I suppose the talking trees might count, but Ents are decidedly not normal trees possessed by spirits. In terms of theme and mythology, there are vanishingly few parallels to be found. Dragon Age is more inspired by D&D knockoffs of certain Tolkien elements than Tolkien himself, something that is true of many fantasy settings, both in games and literature.

The Song of Ice & Fire parallels are clearer, particularly the Grey Wardens / Night's Watch and Alistair being a more affable and less angsty Jon Snow; and the whole "fiddling with temporal politics while ancient evils gather to destroy everything" storyline