surprisinglycinical

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Forgiveee meee Niceee 🙈🙈🙈🙈

Because you're my speciaaalll~~~!!!

(please play this audio, you're understand what I mean)

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I find it funny(not really I'm crying) that everyone has so many expectations for Nice but there's only one person that just wants him back.

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The thing I find the most compelling about the Dragon Age as a whole is how much emphasis in it is put on the fact that there's no objective history.

Real people, with all their life's complexities can be turned into the massive religious symbols in a span of just one generation; the story of their life crudely cut and reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle.

People can be written in and out of the history for propaganda reasons; their motives can be twisted to fit the current political climate.

Huge chunks of history can be mythologized; they can be lost to war and famine and the fact that winners love to destroy the archives of the loosers.

People forget and sometimes they lie. They lie because they don't like you and because they do. In fact, one of your best friends can fictionalize your life story just because he finds it amusing.

Holding any position of power in your generation means your story will be butchered, especially if you go against the grain. Trying to gain independence from the Church can result in you being proclaimed a tyrant. Opposing the status quo with force will make you either a saint or a terrorist in the eyes of others.

A war hound that you probably didn't even have will be remembered more than one of your closest friends and allies because of racism.

Even the most private details of your life can be altered. Everyone will know that the first thing you did after a night of passion was ask your partner if he wanted sandwiches, and you can't do anything about it, and this what makes it all good and very realistic.

History is complex and we should treat is as such, yet our inclination to simplify everything always gets the best of us.

And then DAtV comes out and does the "hurr-durr, this is the objective history, this is 100% how it all happened, be happy," and I'll never forgive this game for that.

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I still can't get over how they completely traded the one on one, pretty extensive conversations you could have with your companions- for those moments where you walk in and just see two of them talking about something and can't even interact with them, and random 'events' here and there.

And it just ends up making rook feel so disconnected from everyone. I've genuinely never felt like such an outsider in a group of companions. The fact that you can't talk to them outside of events, but they will talk to each other is wild. Doesn't help that after they are done talking they will just turn and silently stare at rook until they leave😭(didn't expect this game to trigger aspects of social anxiety lmao)

I was honestly absolutely crushed when I found out that you couldn't talk to anyone at the 'home base' outside of events like the prev games and other rpgs. Because these interactions give a lot of extra flavor to the setting (asking Dorian about Tevinter, and Sten and Iron Bull about the Qunari is still one of my favorite little moments in the series), and it obviously allows you to get to know your companion more. Along with the added bonus of being able to build up your own protagonist's personality and feelings towards this particular character on their team, as you can role play how they would respond and react during their interactions.

Look, if I'm playing a game that has interactive companions and characters, I want the yapping levels to be CATASTROPHIC. I want to exhaust all the possible dialogue options. I want to get so immersed in the convo that I forget what I was originally doing. I want to see the difference in their tone and lines depending on their approval/disapproval. I want to go up to whoever I'm romancing and give' em a smooch 💖

I don't need fully animated cutscenes to enjoy speaking to these characters. Clicking through dialogue options and just sitting there watching their idle animations is good enough for me.

(And to be fair da2 also had this problem, as they went the same route by just having little events/cutscenes where you talk to them. But I just feel that da2 did it better, as there were more of these moments if I remember correctly. And also the da2 squad didn’t have the, "you can’t sit with us" vibes that datv has with its companions lol. So it kind of made it up for it? But I was still really hoping that they would never do something similar in future games, but here we are🫠)

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I made a Fraxus (Fairy Tail) animatic bc I've been thinking a lot about them lately :D

(I will also not tolerate any Laxus slander that is my WIFE okayy <33) ((also reblogs appreciated <3))

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If you can not stand canon and don't care about book/game lore at all, you should ask yourself why you are even dwelling in a fantasy world like Dragon Age or others that are not to your taste? Where characters and facts are twisted and don't look like DA anymore, not only by the new Bioware dev team, but within the fandom especially on Tumblr. Create your own fantasy world, instead of soiling good looking and canon book/game content and its lore with degeneration.

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DATV Positive: Just move on if you don’t like it.

Me: No, I was made to wait 10 fucking years for a game that was largely disappointing save for the last 10 minutes where I finally got to run away with my fictional husband. I think I’m gonna spend the next 10 years roasting it, just so it comes full circle.

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You know what would be awesome, if a companion found a certain aspect to your character disconcerting.

Like I would’ve loved if Davrin’s stance on the Crows extended beyond just Lucanis, but to me too. Lucanis is kind of an odd bird, where he seems to be the only assassin with scruples.

My Rook doesn’t have those.

She takes contracts, kills, takes the money. Rinse and repeat.

Sometimes, she’ll just kill someone who pisses her off.

Davrin, why aren’t you judging me?

I’m literally a psychopath.

Nope, nobody cares.

Smashing my face into boxes, destroying people’s property for loot, nothing.

I quite literally blew up a wall and robbed a crypt in the necropolis.

I am a real piece of shit.

I am getting away with so much. How?

Rook is the definition of a menace.

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What I dont understand is how people can claim that any of the writing or characterizations in DAV weren’t polluted by a pretty extreme bias when:

1–Epler openly admitted to hating Solas as character.

2–Epler also openly admitted he didn’t like that people found Solas sympathetic in DAI and Trespasser (which was the point???)

3–Epler ALSO openly admitted to killing off Varric for the express purpose of turning the audience against Solas, hence why both were acting wildly out of character in that scene (and for the rest of the game, honestly)

5–They put several scenes in the game that serve no other purpose than to have the protagonists talk shit at length about Solas.

6–They retconned pretty much all of Solas’ actual motivations (helping the Elves, helping the Spirits, restoring the natural world, preventing an uncontrolled collapse of the Veil, the inevitable escape of the Evanuris, etc etc) and replaced them with man-pain, the limpest of all motives.

6–They changed fundamental aspects of the lore to better accommodate this bias by not bringing up any of the shit that brought grey areas and nuance into the conversation.

7–They deadass retconned one of the most critical scenes from the end of DAI to—again—erase all nuance and make Solas out to be ‘The Bad Guy’ and I guess also so Bellara could bitch at him later despite her thorough lack of understanding on the subject.

8–Made it nearly impossible for the Player Character to interpret things for themselves or form their own opinions, despite it being both promised in the marketing and an overall staple of both the DA franchise and the RPG genre.

I could honestly keep going for a good while but I feel I’ve made my point….Epler had an axe to grind and it poisoned the whole project.

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What actually defines a Dragon Age game and how does Veilguard fail to live up to that?

So this is a bit of a part 2 to this post where I discussed how Rook lacks ownership of their own narrative in Veilguard and how by extension that creates a lack of identity for the game itself amongst the other titles. This time however I wanted to discuss further what defines a Dragon Age game and how Veilguard failed to live up to that overall.

So what defines a Dragon Age game for me is the relationship between your choices as the player, the characters and the world of DA. All three of these need to work together and they cannot be isolated because that dulls the complexity of them. All three of them immerse your character in the world through emotional connection and through making you question your choices and the role you play in the game. These three pillars created the games identity and expecting them to be implemented is natural.

Your Choices

Templars vs mages, who to romance and helping your companions.

Your choices in a Dragon Age game are a foundation of the game that lets you as the player take control of the world and make your character's story unique. These choices range scale from deciding the leader of a dwarven thaig to what class is your character. And there was always a consequence which could be a character death, locking in a story route or losing companion approval points.

Giving players choices in a game gives each a replay value through the ability to interact with the game in a different way through making different choices. Origins is a great example of this with its character origin choices, you have a total of 6 openings to play through that are all unique and tie into a different aspect of the world. Your insight into the world is altered based on the origin you chose and the life they have lived. So there's a lot of incentive here to at the very least play all 6 openings once. In the first 30 minutes of DA2 you are faced with the consequence of choosing your class as you witness a character die. Another incentive to replay the game in order to get to know the character who died. Inquisition has the main quest line choice mage vs templars which locks a completely different subsequent quest mission and antagonist. All three also have relationship choices, did your character become friends with each of the companions, did you recruit each companion, did they stay in your team, did you romance one of them and did you help them with their personal mission. Romance can also be a factor on replaying since each game has multiple love interests.

Another aspect that is not talked about as much when it comes to the choices is the way they inform your character's identity. Who are they? What did they do and why? Why did your Inquisitor drink from the well, why did they send the wardens away, why did your warden choose to keep Loghain alive. Suddenly your character goes from a blank slate to accumulating opinions on the world, on your companions and on the events of the game. And these opinions are prompted as the games wanted you to think about them and decide for yourself what was most important for your character right now. There was an intention that your character should be engaging with the world beyond hitting stuff and pressing the a button to move dialogue along. This feature also adds replay value by allowing you reason to create a new character who is completely different with new opinions.

So how does Veilguard line up to the previous three, anyone who has played the game knows that it is devastatingly abysmal how little choice you are given in VG.

For the numbers here's what I have gathered from an amazingly wonderful dragon age keep notion page created by @/loustica-lucia.bsky.social

Total Choices:

Dragon age Origins: 58

Dragon age Origins dlc: 9

Dragon age 2: 54

Dragon age 2 dlc: 2

Dragon age Inquisition: 55

Dragon age Inquisition dlc: 9

Dragon age Veilguard: 29

Dragon age Veilguard without your Inquisition set up: 25

These are just the main choices, I did not include anything from the war table in Inquisition or the status of companion relationships with the player character. I also wanted to highlight your choices in VG that do not include your Inquisition set up because those aren't new choices, if you played the previous game then you're already set and know everything you're going to choose here.

All of the first three games average at 55 choices per main game, and none of those numbers factor in what choices you made previously. With only 25 choices being actually made for VG that is about half of the choices of the previous titles. 7 of which are just about deciding the outcome of your companion quest lines and 1 of them being about deciding the fate of your previous characters romance plotline (which never should have been a thing). You make 8 choices before finishing the prologue, nearly a third of your choices done and you don't even have free reign of the game yet. Then entirety of act 2 your character does not make a single choice that affects their personal journey.

When it comes to your companions questlines there aren't consequences to your choice rather its cosmetic they receive a new armour set to represent their tough journey. Lets not forget companions used to die if you messed up their personal missions. Regardless not giving us direct important outcomes to these choices actually just makes them useless. It's pandering to us, giving us the illusion of roleplay that is as shallow as a mirage.

And what about our major questline choices, the only one we get that's not in the end game is Treviso vs Minrathous. A choice between two cities that Rook may not even have any connection to depending on your faction. And as a choice it actually does nothing to inform who your character is. Every single discussion on this choice is about which city will end up surviving better because the question isn't about asking us who is Rook and what would they do but inflicting emotional turmoil. The consequences only affect two of your companions and only affect your Rook if they selected the right faction but this isn't a trade off where the other 5 have their own equivalent like in Origins.

Missing 30 choices in comparison to the other games is not only noticeable it makes VG feel hollow because you're expecting way more. If I were to not include any of the Inquisition related choices, the choices you make in the character creator and any of the companion choices Rook is left with 14 choices to their name that they make in the duration of the game. In comparison, Origins had 11 in the Orzammar questline alone, DA2 had 14 in act 1, and Inquisition had 12 just out there in the world to do while you're exploring. As a result a major pillar of the games was wiped out in a role playing game.

The Characters

Next up is the characters, specifically the companions as they are the most fleshed out and the ones you have to interact with most. What made the characters interesting to me was how they existed in the world and bounced off of your choices. That relationship made them complex. Suddenly you weren't just playing with characters who were your yes men, these character's would argue with you and would become more argumentative if you didn't have a positive relationship with them. Positive changes resulting in positive results. Companions who were your friends would refer differently when you approached them, a romanced companion talked to you differently as well to signify your change in relationship. Character's would have hills they would die on, they would leave if you did something wrong or were not up to par with their expectations. And a lot of their opinions were about their experiences, who they are as a person and what they want. Characters would also occasionally inform your choices by telling you what they think before the act. Even down to the way the character's swore told you so much about them from Blackwall's frequent fowl language to Solas's full sentence elvhen cursing to how a Dalish character swore. There were rules, characters weren't allowed to mention god because there was no god in Dragon age there was the Maker. So no goddams, no jeez. Just maker's balls. I could go on and on as representation of how much effort went into making these characters feel real and interesting to engage with.

Veilguard gave us watered down characters that we couldn't even ask questions to, a feature that both informed who these people are and about the world around us. You weren't able to accumulate negative relationship points with them or even romance them on your own schedule. The game made it important for you to know that the characters were waiting for you with something to say, a feature that exists because the game doesn't naturally prompt you to talk to them on your own accord. Why would you, they don't enter a conversation if you go up to them on your own. What they actually do is talk to each other, leaving your character out of the conversation instead. No more going to visit your romanced companion for a kiss at the end of a long play session instead you can get told off for eavesdropping. It almost feels like a punishment for expecting that your character should be able to interact with them at the lighthouse outside of cut scenes when that was the norm. Suddenly the character's story arcs were as grand and exciting as a main story mission but they lacked any depth outside of this because they couldn't meaningfully interact with anything else. And this is what I mean by the three pillars of your choices, the characters and the world can't exist in isolation because that is what actively dulls the companions in Veilguard. There's a very distinct moment where Bellara pauses and says damn. Lazily removing the mention of god from the swear instead of actually using any of the language that was created for this game. The companions don't have a hill they're willing to die on, they won't leave your team if you push them away enough nor can you tell them they're free to go. They're there to fulfil their character events for that checkpoint not for you to roleplay with.

And it's really unfortunate, I was so excited to have two dalish companions after dealing with the vitriol from Solas and Sera in Inquisition as a Dalish inquisitor. This was also the first time in any game that we got a dalish companion at all. And I ended up disliking Bellara a lot not because her character was bad but because I could not stand hearing her repeat to me the status of of her brother in her life. She did not interact with being Dalish in any meaningful way that felt connected to my Mahariel warden or my Lavellan Inquisitor. Instead I had to sit there and watch her exist in a world of privilege that my other characters would have died to live in because the world she lives in vs the one that everyone else lived in is different. Bellara gets to live in their original homeland and look for funky gadgets for the sake of having a cool thing to do. My Inquisitor exists in a game where it tells you that a Dalish Inquisitor taking back the Dales is possible but is ultimately not going fix anything so why try. Mahariel had to fight against a literal archdemon and take down Loghain and she got was some land for her people but she couldn't marry the man she loved cos the humans would never accept her as queen. All my excitement for Bellara was completely dissipated by the fact that she's not dalish as much as she is dressed up to be one because that would require actually writing about the world around them. This game was supposed to be a win for the elves but instead it's a win for the metaphorical elves who exist in a perfect world where their only problem is a bald man who did something 3000 years ago.

The world

For the final aspect we have the worldbuilding of Dragon Age. Getting into the games meant being confronted with a lot of new language and unique relationships between the game and aspects of your character. What is a templar, a chantry, the dalish, or the deep roads? Who is Andraste, the divine, who rules this country or city my character is currently in? Why are the city elves living like that, why am I being treated differently as a mage? What is the blight, the grey wardens? It can be very overwhelming to be confronted with so much new information but as it is an rpg you spend hours upon hours in game immersing yourself that everything becomes understandable. As you start to understand more and more, the world becomes so much more defined.

You learn that the templars are not only a religious organisation, they have a uniform that bears the sword of Hessarian a man revered for his merciful kill of Andraste. Again informing of how this group views themselves as the necessary sword to keep the mages in line and provide "mercy" when they tread out of line. They are defined by their relationship to the world, to the chantry and mages and to their history to inform why they exist, what is their purpose and how can identify them. In veilguard templars just wear a brown suit with no symbols on it and say I'm a templar but I'm one of the good ones. Anything meaningful about their organisation was stripped to a piece of dialogue. This is just about true for every aspect of the the world presented in Veilguard.

We are in Tevinter for the first time, one of the most talked about and unique countries in the entire continent of Thedas. Tevinter the first human empire on Thedas who was responsible for bringing sin into this world. Tevinter who does not follow the Southern Chantry's teachings because they do not wish to punish magic rather they believe its their right to use magic to elevate their existence. Tevinter who raises its people to believe that enslaving elves is as natural as keeping them in slums in the city as servants. And is represented for the first time in a game title by ignoring all of that. Instead we focus on a small town who are the lower class but we never actually talk about the higher class. Our organisation that looks into Tevinter is the Shadow Dragons an anti slavery faction who is run by the privileged. And not a single important member has experienced the actual hardships they're fighting against nor are any of them elves. Moving on to the rest of Docktown, the chantry is bare bones it exists but there's no interaction to be had there except fighting the venatori for whatever reason. We know nothing about the Divine, or the Archon. And we are told not to be curious. Knowing more about Tevinter isn't relevant right now, what's relevant is how our new characters for fighting for injustice off screen and how can't actually do anything meaningful to help. Tevinter was far more developed in codex entries in previous games then the one that is actively showing it to us.

Then we have Arlathan, another big place being visited for the first time. It is the sacred forest of the original Elves empire formed back 6000 years ago. The fall of the elven empire marked the beginning of the elves current relationship with the world as less then. Tevinter enslaved the surviving elves and ever since they have not been allowed to take control over their own land. What defines the elves relationship with the world of Thedas is that they have no home. They are the only race in the entire series that does not have a kingdom or a military. Practicing elven religion is illegal in every country. Elven oppression is rampant and never-ending. Again just a reminder that the devs said Veilguard was going to give the elves a win, so what did they get the veiljumpers. Elves who know their gods are assholes and don't care that the game actively ruins their faith because they already didn't care anymore so why should we? We got elves who have vallaslin not because they're dalish but because its the elfy thing to do. We got elves who act like humans with pointy ears because it was easier to make their culture an aesthetic then it was to actually let us as players acknowledge fantasy racism and classism.

The world of dragon age is not just there are elves, and dwarves and the qunari and humans. It's how they all intersect with each other, often through violence and contempt. It's how they are living in direct result of their history whether they're self aware or not. Characters are a product of their world not of their personal questline. Not only did the original games acknowledge these things but they often went out of their way to make sure you were aware of them.

And there is something to say about whether or not the world created is good or not and there's several critiques to be had. A lot of these being that the fantasy world involves racism and classism quite thoroughly but always avoiding actually treating the plights of people affected by them in the light they deserve. The suffering of those who do not fit the bill of the privileged must simply suffer for our entertainment. Their opinions are rash and they are actually just violent feeding into the propaganda the game pushes. On the flip side being able to have these conversations are interesting especially because it's critiquing the way our biases can affect the stories we tell even if we do not realise it. And we should be critiquing the media we consume, not because we want to put it down but because it helps us understand the story better and holds the devs accountable for things they might not even be realising they are saying in their work.

They obviously weren't going to make everyone happy but there is a middle ground between not knowing your own IP at all and creating a cohesive sequel that still immerses itself within the world.

So what is Dragon Age?

Dragon Age is a series that encapsulate the deep and nuanced relationship between your large collection of character choices, a collection of nuanced characters and the world around them that immerses you into a new world. It is a series that engages you with questions, a game that wants you to be curious and walk away understanding the world they made. It is a game series that makes you want to love its world and characters so much that you would spend a lot of money on books and on extra content to feed into that curiosity.

It is also a game series that wanted you as the player to fall so deeply into the world they created and then punish you with a 4th installment that does want to be a Dragon Age game. A game that was set up by the previous title with so much effort and focus that rewarded you who was waiting for years with so much contempt for its own identity that playing it is like watching your favourite thing die in front of you. Every unique aspect was torn away from the game in favour of trying to reach a wider audience while ignoring the ones who actually are happy to spend money on it already. Veilguard failed as a Dragon Age series because it forgot what Dragon is and punishes us for remembering.

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thinking about that stupid 'the crows will not let the elves be oppressed again' item in vg again. don't make me fucking laugh.

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not putting this on the gifs cos rude, but that lucanis battle animation. perhaps i don't understand video games. certainly i was not the target audience for veilguard. but what is the point? it feels like an abuse of my poor pc tbh - no wonder it kept freezing during fights lmao

also. sorry. it looks goofy af to me. sir you're doing a silly little ballet. what the hell kind of assassin assassinates this way. a show pony assassin. lucanis dellamorte taking home the blue ribbon for most flourishey kill w/o getting blood on his cuffs

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This game made me resent Varric Tethras.

I’m literally being pestered by a phantom for 90% of the game to babysit my companions.

“Go help them, Rook. Solve their problems. It doesn’t matter that you’re having a thousand mental breakdowns. Go cheer on Harding’s earth bending. Carry Lucanis’ groceries. Pick up strangely sci-fi magic crystals for Bellara. Light candles with Emmrich. Pick up nug droppings with Davrin. Feed birds with Taash, and then accidentally trample them cuz input lag’s a bitch.”

…

…

…

Thenks, Varric. I’ll get right on that.

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veilguard isn't about regret, it's about futility.

morrigan fought through the entire trilogy to escape her mother and not get possessed by mythal. she gets possessed by mythal in veilguard.

the hero of ferelden went through all that in order to keep southern thedas from falling to the blight. southern thedas falls to the blight in veilguard.

davrin's development is grounding in him finding a purpose outside of sacrificing himself. he's one of two options you have to sacrifice in veilguard.

dorian struggled under the pressure of his family wanting a pavus to be archon, and later was dedicated to changing tevinter and helping people. tevinter is the same as it ever was and dorian can end up archon in veilguard.

solas sacrificed everything to free his people from oppression and corruption. the veil is still up, elves are still in the same social tier as they've been since the beginning of the series, the dalish are straight up annihilated, the blight is still around, and spirits continue to be corrupted by the living in veilguard.

and then add in the godawful executor mess and it really is just the final kick in the teeth.

nothing anyone has ever done in thedas has ever mattered, veilguard made sure of that.

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This is a fantasy pope—the scene isn't a comment on Catholicism or Christianity generally. But the warning still stands: Beware the wolves (Matthew 7:15-17). As we follow Christ and grow in faith, we'll learn to spot them.

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Look, I like the companions in Veilguard, but I’m literally doing all the work.

No, seriously, I’m actually doing everything.

I don’t even need my companions abilities.

I just throw my stupid magical McGuffin butter knife at the thing and boom, there’s my magical hand bridge.

I mean, Emmrich comes in handy if I want him to talk to bones in a random location in the necropolis.

I’m not fucking sure what purpose that serves.

I don’t even fucking care.

Everyone’s there to look pretty, I guess.



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my favorite response to that datv criticism about rook being weirdly divorced from the rest of the party is the "no one in the prev games ever checked up on you either." um. y. yes they did. they did that a lot in fact.