Now that I’ve everything mostly lined up for my second full completion of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I wanted to summarize overall impressions of game play, and the overall experience of being a seasoned BioWare RPG fan as I’ve now played (though I never finished Origins) all the BioWare RPGs.

User Interface – 6.5/10

The user interface for Veilguard is obnoxiously purple. I like purple, but it’s too much. A month after release, there are still some very basic bugs: indexes of arrays clearly off so you might have an upgrade notification for Neve when it’s really Bellara’s equipment with the upgrade. Objects the player interacts with glow gold. It seem pretty derivative of Hogwart’s Legacy, with the set number of armors and weapons and the empty slots so you know exactly how many more you have to collect.

There are several options in the UI that appear to be linked to no functionality whatsoever: under advanced combat, the enemy aggression setting appears to have no effect on the game. The nudity witch (toggled on by default) reveals absolutely no nudity in the game. Which, again, is fine. But why have it?

The navigation guides BioWare provides jump ahead way before they should, often leaving the player with the impression they need to somehow go through a solid mountain. BioWare loves to make little mazes out of its DA maps, but why offer crappy navigation guides if you’re going to bother at all?

On the positive side, the workbench in Solas’ lighthouse (as opposed to … Solis’ workbench on the Normandy in ME2… originality much?) offers an easy one-stop upgrade station that is far superior to, say, Inquisition. You still gather some basic mats, but no longer does one have to scour maps for hours to find the right level of upgrade items.

The character creation screens are easy to navigate and provides some great options: like the head “triangle” that allows you to morph your Rook’s head between three different shapes. You can pick which three shapes from all the possible heads by clicking on one and selecting from the list.

Mechanics – 5/10

The combat mechanics are extremely easy to master in Veilguard. Each class has an impressive skill tree… well, more like a skill web. For ease of comprehension, rolling over each section of the tree will tell you what basics you will find in it: what element, whether it contains sustain or burst perks. At first, it was a little confusing to look it but there is plenty of information provided (including a move preview where appropriate), and there is no lack of options.

Employing those various options is easy. Left mouse click for light attack, right for heavy. Skills are accessible with number keys and there are only four: 3 main and 1 “ultimate”.

A big deal in Veilguard is party mechanics and combinations. This is dumbed down a little too much, in my opinion, in that a Rogue will always prime one set of skills and detonate another, as will a warrior or a mage. It feels a lot like rock-paper-scissors and limits party customization in that, if you rely on your combinations (which you really should in Veilguard) then you don’t want to head out with two warriors or two rogues, etc. Rook can only bring two companions, so playing with options here is fairly limited.

That said, firing off combos is very easy. Hit tab (which will pause combat. You can’t scroll around with the camera like you could in previous “tactical screen” modes) to bring up the party window and possible combinations will be highlighted with arrows so you don’t have to remember which skills will detonate which primers.

Most importantly, the combat is very, very fun. It’s a little tricky at first dealing with a directional dodge that works in combination with the WASD (or arrow keys for my fellow lefties) keys. And the sprint capabilities during combat are extremely poor. But after gearing up properly and getting familiar with skills, managing large groups of enemies is very enjoyable.

The enemies tend to be overly aggressive (which is why it’s such a shame the aggression setting for enemies seems to not work at all). But firing off combos and utilizing skills provide some very satisfying combat with great visual effects, and where the rock-paper-scissors mentality of the various class combinations gives you some great high damage bursts.

HOWEVER the aggro in this game is just … stupid. Enemies that jump in half a second across the entire field of battle, AOE targets that drift along the floor as Rook moves, enemies that drift along the floor as Rook moves out of the way, making dodge at times ineffective. Most of the battles are very manageable, but many of them are very poorly thought out and designed, completely destroying the fun. With zero warning that one boss might be 20 levels above everything else in a 90 minute quest (yes… easily), I can’t say enough how disappointed I am in BioWare that the aggro is so poorly considered.

I’ve spent 5 minute skirmishes pinned against a rock wall covered in demons so that I can’t see a thing, the aggro is so bad. That doesn’t mean Rook loses all those battles, it just means you’re spamming buttons without even being able to see a thing. It’s a tedious, tedious experience.

This is a MAJOR failing in this game’s design. Without this aggro problem, I’d give the mechanics an 8 easily. Without a workaround, I would have asked for a refund.

Tip: while changing difficulty levels will have no effect on the occasional overly aggressive boss you don’t want to have to repeat, you can still change it. Which means you can avoid having to do lengthy quests with one boss 15 levels above everything else in the quest over by simply choosing the option to prevent death in storybook mode. It’s… not an elegant solution, but you can still back out to a previous save if you prefer instead.

Story – 7/10

The lore of Veilguard is on point from what I can tell. (I’ve played all the games, but haven’t read any of the books or stories). Veilguard ties in nicely with the ending of Inquisition, especially if you’ve played the Trespasser DLC.

A side note: For some time, BioWare hinted at the demise of DragonAgeKeep.com – the portal through which players could customize a world-state and bring forth the decisions made in a previous Dragon Age game through to the next. This has come to pass. What is lacking is ANY ability to bring decisions forward from previous DA games at all. There’s simply a DAK-ish screen during character creation where one can customize the Inquisitor and choose one or two options from Veilguard. If you played through Inquisition and Trespasser with various Inquisitors thinking that would make a difference to Veilguard, you are in for some disappointment.

I’m not going to offer spoilers here. The story is robust and filled with characters (your companions) that you get to know through side missions and their main quests. All the voice acting is great. The writers opted for more modern speech patterns and a heavy use of colloquialisms that can be jarring to people used to fantasy settings having a certain gravitas. The modern writing style didn’t bother me at all; I actually prefer it.

Where the story suffers to me is a lack of player options, or player “agency” as people have come to call it: that sense that Rook can make decisions that truly alter the story. All the options lead in one direction with various shades of agreement. Unlike previous BioWare RPGs, one can’t even engage companions in random conversation. So no “checking in” with team mates to find out what they think of what’s going on, or to idly try to develop romantic options at your choosing. All dialogue progression is progress-gated, and in terms of romances this makes for a cold dead experience.

But the story itself is solid, and there are some great reveals about the history of the various races in Thedas, and some seriously big reveals about lore that should satisfy those of us who really wanted to know.

Voice Talent – 10/10

Love every character’s voice acting. To be competely truthful, I’ve only played male Rooks, but I can’t imagine the quality of acting provided by the female Rook voices in any lesser than the males. In particular, I loved Rook’s male voices and the voice of Neve Gallus and Davrin. But everyone did a great job. No complaints here!

Artwork – 10/10

I love the art of Veilguard. The characters are beautifully done, even if they don’t all look like a horny net geek’s dream lay. And maybe especially because of that.

The maps are gorgeous. The environmental settings likewise.

Nope. Won’t find me criticizing any of the art in Veilguard. Even if I don’t particularly like all the styles, they were all well-done. And there is enough variation in styles to make customization to suit one’s taste easy.

Originality – 2/10

When you have to start raiding your own source code for ideas, I think it’s time to have a sit-down and maybe consider what you’re trying to accomplish. Solas/Solis, a framework so similar to Mass Effect 2 that I knew as soon as I started playing what I had to do to achieve a perfect end game.

I guess, if you’re going to steal a game’s framework whole, then it’s still completely ethical when you stole it from yourself. Still, Veilguard seems like Mass Effect 2.2: Thedas Boogaloo.

The mechanics are fun, but gimmicky. The inclusion of cats and dogs you can randomly pet, breakables that drop loot scattered everywhere. It seems to me that BioWare in looking where to go next with Dragon Age (since it is clearly a new direction here), looked at the big selling games of previous years: Baldur’s Gate 3 for instance. They may have even looked at popular trends in movies to determine where to go with romances and character development.

I like all the characters, but participating in their stories is really about Rook going along for the ride and offering combat support.

Re-Play Factor – 3/10

Veilguard was released around 8 days before BioWare announced there would be no DLCs forthcoming as the development team turned to work on the next Mass Effect game.

Full disclosure: I love both franchises, but if BioWare is going to can one in favor of the other, I hope Mass Effect lives.

That said, I don’t want Dragon Age to go away. But we’re now looking at 5-6 years per release for the major RPGs like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. ME5 is projected to have a release date sometime around 2028-29 for instance. If BioWare is pulling devs from DA to work on ME, it stands to reason the same will happen in reverse. That means the next Dragon Age game will release (if there is one) at some point around 2033-35.

That’s a long hard wait. Would Mass Effect 3 have been as successful as it was if players had had to wait a decade from the ending of ME2 to find out?

I’m stating this – again – because that announcement took the wind right out of my sails. Between the lack of imported world-state or previous game choices mattering at all, there’s much less of a reason to play through as various Rook’s to achieve various outcomes.

And with a streamlined, much more controlled story-telling format (again just exactly like ME2), playing through to achieve subtle variations in the ending isn’t enough of a draw.

Perhaps because I felt like I was playing Mass Effect 2 again with a Thedas overlay, I’ve grown bored already. The story was great to experience… once. No big reveals or changes the second time around. Certainly no reason to play a third.

End Game – 6/10

The end game design is spectacular in my opinion, but it suffers the same way the rest of Veilguard suffers: consistent laziness in design and execution. I just finished my 2nd full completion. End game alone – from the time one accepts the “point of no return” quest took me six hours. SIX.

And after all that work…. a final battle, a brief conclusion that varies based on choices and then… credits. No wrap-up. No nothing. Escaping out of the credits kicks you out of the game and back to the main menu.

What a frelling disappointment after nine and a half years.

Overall Grade – 6.5/10, BioWare Grade – 4/10

I still very much enjoyed playing Veilguard. I’m sure I’ll play it again someday, but probably not for several years as I have a long wishlist and there won’t be any reason to return to Thedas for the next decade or so.

I loved the story, dealt with the lack of agency, had a great time exploring the nooks and crannies of the absolutely beautiful new maps.

But now I’m done. The romances are paper-thin and actually insulting to players who enjoy that kind of thing (though being able to romance any character as any Rook is a nice change). The story is too guided. I’ve seen all the maps.

I expect more from BioWare RPGs specifically. Veilguard was a really fun standalone game with great Thedan lore. It felt like Dragon Age to me. But it felt like a Dragon Age-themed one-off, not the next chapter in a saga.

And, if BioWare hadn’t had Mass Effect 2 to copy and emulate, I have no idea what they would have done at all.

All in all, from BioWare this seems like an extremely lazy effort to keep Dragon Age relevant in between Mass Effect releases. I think the Dragon Age community deserved better than that, but I also think the game deserved better than it got from the throngs of freaks who spend time trashing games and review bombing just because their little sensibilities are offended.

And honestly, if BioWare gives Mass Effect the same treatment, they’ll have lost at least one very long-time customer. I don’t have time to wait a decade for two week’s of fun.

One has to wonder how much managerial direction came from the parent company, EA.

NOTE: This will likely be my last Veilguard post as I have other games I want to play and there isn’t much more to say. On the off chance someone reads this and wants more (ha ha ha!), let me know what you want to know. Otherwise, I’m packing Thedas back into the bag and trying to pretend I won’t have to wait another five years to find out what happened to the Quarians.