Dragon Age Veilguard Review

Intro:

I am a big Dragon Age fan and have played all the previous entries, including getting the platinum in Inquisition and all the achievements in Origina and 2. I have always liked the setting and theme for Dragon Age, which is more Grim Dark than Mass Effect, and Mass Effect is my favourite series ever.

The review will be split into sections, and I will go over my experience with the game and how I found each part. My overall reaction to the game is that it is very good. It is not amazing, not great, but very good—similar to Inquisition.

Combat & Gameplay:

I played the game as a Rogue Archer as I'm an archer in real life and I like to test out archery in games whenever I get the chance.

I enjoyed the combat with the rogue archer in my playthrough. It allowed me to play how I wanted and still be a lot of fun. The combat as a whole played more like a Mass effect game than the previous Dragon Age games which I don't mind. What I mean by that is that you can bring up your skill wheel and companion skill wheel, select your target and then select your skills to use. The main reason you will use this is to set up some skill combos with your companions.

In the early parts of the game, you don't have many choices for making combos but when you get all the companions, I found I was using the same characters for missions as they complimented my character skills.

How Do the combos work? Well, you two sides, some skills apply a condition to an enemy and some skills detonate a skill. So if you hit an enemy with a skill that applies Weakened, then hit them with a skill that detonates Weakened. An orange visual effect will play and then explode on that enemy doing big damage and damage to other enemies in the area of effect.

As you get through the game, you will find different combos that work for you. I loved taking Taash and Neve together, or Davrin and Bellara as they worked well together and I got a good rhythm with their skills.

I intend to test out a mage in another playthrough, I won’t play the whole game but up to a point so I can get the last Trophy I need for the platinum.

Another point about your companions in combat, they cannot get hurt. Which I found really weird for an RPG action game. This is unlike every other game Bioware has made before, where you would need to keep an eye out for your companions’ health and heal them if they go down in combat. Having this removed, made the combat feel less impactful as there was no risk to your companions in battle.

Art and level design:

I found the art and level designs to be pretty good and held up well throughout the game. All areas had a very distinct style and colour palette and you could tell where you were without having to think about it much.

I don’t have much more to say about the art design other than the developer did a lot of disservice to the game when they did the first reveal for the game at a conference in June 2024. The art in that trailer made the game look like Fortnite and they got some pretty deserved feedback that it looked shit. Which it did. I am happy to report that the art and designs are pretty solid throughout other than whatever has happened to the Qunari race from Dragon Inquisition. The only other thing that puzzled me throughout the game was that a companion, Lucanis looked like he had a different shading to him than anyone else in the game.

Puzzles:

Puzzles in the game can’t really be called puzzles. A lot of them were the same, move this statue this way and face another statue etc. But I’m not playing this game for puzzles. Other puzzles were, shoot his rest crystal, then this one, then this one and now you can get through the door.

Sidequests:

There are a shit tonne of sidequests in this game and throughout each area of the game there are hundreds of chests to open and get weapons for your character and companions.

I completed all of the side content in the game and I did found that the companion missions to be the better ones. It felt like your companions were real people with their own problems.

If you go off the beaten path and explore you will be rewarded with a chest or gold most of the time. So it is worth it to explore and to see everything.

Party Members:

I’ll start off with the companion that caused so much shit online. Taash. I found this character to be one of the better ones in the game. Once you realise that Taash is a teenager, who is written like a teenager and acts like one. Anyone who really complains about Taash and the way they are written has never had any issues or problems in their life and has been very privileged. I will say that the non-binary stuff in the game could have been handled a bit better than it was. It felt like it was progressing nicely and Taash was seeking advice about her issues in the game from a faction in one of the cities. Then all of a sudden it’s thrown in your face and you have to make a decision about it for the character. That is my issue with it. Not that it’s in the game, but how it was handled. I assume they could not afford to have any more missions or dialogue about it and had to force the issue quickly.

All party members have their own issues through the game and all of them are pretty good. Not Mass Effect good but still good.

I had my favourites throughout the game and I would often take them with me on a mission unless I had to take a certain companion with me.

I ended up romancing Harding, from Dragon Age Inquisition. Not sure how really, I think I missed the note that said you will romance Harding if you select the heart option. But I didn’t mind though.

Neve and Lucanis ended up together in the game, which I don’t think I’ve experienced before where your companions romance each other.

Dialogue:

The dialogue in the game was ok. My main complaint is that Rook (your character) can’t argue with anyone in the game other than Solas. The dialogue with your companions is mostly positive, no matter what the situation is, and it felt like Rook was a therapist for the companions. Some of the responses Rook gives in some situations felt like it was written by someone who has not had a conversation with another human being and has only gotten their dialogue writing from watching Marvel films.

The weird DEI shit that was online:

I’m not really sure why people were complaining about the game. Other than the non-binary issue, I did not experience anything else in the game that warranted DEI. So those cry babies need to grow up.

Tech:

This is the first AAA game on PS5 that I’ve played where I had zero, zero technical issues. The game did not crash once, and did not have any glitching or environment issues. So hats off to Bioware and the tech team for finally getting to grips with the Frostbite engine and making the game awesome to play.

Story:

The main story for the Veilguard, which is a phrase you hear zero times in the game. Is about Solas from Inquisition and his actions.

You start the game by trying to stop Solas from completing a ritual that will tear down the veil.

I liked the story overall and I felt that it had a definite ending to the Dragon Age story from Origins to Veilguard. There is a secret ending you can get that hints at a possible next game, but I don’t think Bioware will get the chance to make it.

I liked the Mass Effect 2 style suicide mission at the end of the game, where you have to split your crew up and get different companions to hold different areas of the battle. That felt really great to get those decisions right and get everyone through without someone dying, that cannot be saved.

One of my main issues with the story is that hardly anyone from the previous games shows up. You have Morrigan, who you cannot talk to at all. But only converse at certain parts of the story. The Inquisitor from Inquisition shows up at points as well, you also see Isabela from Dragon Age 1. But there is no Leliana, no Cassandra, no Iron Bull. You see Dorian from Inquisition right at the end of the game, but that is it really. That part left me a bit disappointed on that front.

I suppose that was a decision that doesn't make newbies to the series feel left out, but this is the 4th game in the series, some people are going to be behind on the characters and lore. And you probably don't want to highlight how great the characters are from the previous games against the new ones. Like I said though, I did like most of the characters in the game. I'm just not gonna remember them once I move onto playing another game.

I’m not gonna spoil story beats, so lets leave that there for now.

Final Score:

If this was not called Dragon Age but a new IP with the same story and characters I believe that the game would have received better online.

My total playtime for the game was 51hrs, and that was completing everything. Like, I said above, I missed one trophy, which I'm currently on my way to getting.

8/10