Recent reviews by n/a

This game is going to sweep game of the year awards and nobody will be surprised by it. The themes and aesthetic, the art direction and presentation and the music are all masterclass. I could tell at every point in this game that the people who worked on Expedition 33 all truly both love and understand art in its many forms.

I do have two minor complaints to note, however. I think the damage scaling throughout the game could use some adjustments. This is solved in Act 3, however it was still awkward at points because there wasn't the best indication of whether an area was level appropriate or if you were severely over-leveled for it. My other complaint would be related to the graphics settings, namely that you couldn't play at native resolution without anti-aliasing and that the depth of field, while truly utilized well most of the time, did seem a bit overzealous at times when I would otherwise want to appreciate the details of the game.

That being said, besides a couple minor nitpicks, I genuinely consider this game to be a masterpiece and I'm excited to see what Sandfall does going forward.

10/10

Veilguard is overall a solid game. I definitely have a couple complaints and some criticisms as well, but they were not disruptive enough to stop me from having completed the game and enjoyed my time doing so.

The graphics and audio are superb. It's truly a beautiful game and optimized well enough (by today's standards) that, on my 7900 XT, I can run it on ultra settings with minimal issues. Those who cannot will still find a good selection of options to optimize it further to their needs and desires. I appreciate the inclusion of many of the different technologies for upscaling, anti-aliasing options, and dynamic resolution. It should also be mentioned that the "Strand Hair" they use in this game is downright the best looking hair in a game I've ever seen.

The overall writing is something I will put into "the good", with the caveat that I have some criticisms. Firstly, no, there is no "woke agenda" or whatever nonsense people were spewing before the game came out. There's a non-binary character and characters who can be in same-sex romances. It's the 21st century, these things exist, and the game has done a decent enough job doing it in a way that is non-obtrusive. That aside, I think some of the companion storylines and writing are really well done, enough to bring up the overall writing of the story, but I found the main story itself to be relatively uninspired. It came across to me similar to writing in TV shows where the show has gone on for many more seasons than the initial writers anticipated. It's not bad, by any means, but beyond being a vehicle to progress the character along, it's not particularly noteworthy.

I'd consider the combat as well as something eking into the realm of "the good", with some major criticisms. The overall combat system is fine. It's more DA: Inquisition than DA: Origins, but this shouldn't surprise anybody at this point. I would've liked to see the companions feel more significant than they did, as far as combat goes, but it's not any worse than any other non-turn based rpg party system. As far as the criticisms, let me segue into


I felt the combat system REALLY wanted me to play a sword and board type of character. This is honestly my biggest complaint with the game. Bear in mind, my opinion is coming from someone who played a rogue character. I went in, intending to play a bow elf, as I am wont to do, but the enemies are designed to utterly and relentlessly ignore your companions and go after the player character. This isn't a huge problem when it's a single enemy, but when there's groups of enemies, this can get down-right annoying. There are "tank" characters that can provoke enemies for you, but it honestly seemed spotty at best anyway. Having picked a rogue, I was basically forced into playing a more melee oriented style as the enemies were just relentlessly in my face during combats.

My other complaint about the combat system was the controls were, again, seemingly designed for controllers first and foremost. I should know better at this point, having been forced to use a controller for From Soft. games and others, but as I mentioned above, I went in intending to play a bow character, so I wanted to use keyboard and mouse to move and aim. There seems to be some sort of snapping or auto-aim (even with options disabled) when aiming/looking around with the mouse that drove me absolutely insane. It was not uncommon to have to fight against the camera during combats to aim and look at what I wanted to.

Other minor complaints I have are the general progression as far as levels and gearing go and some of the dialogue decisions. The skill tree was honestly fine, though didn't really feel significant beyond taking skills or selecting a specialization, but the means of which you obtained and upgraded gear was seemingly arbitrary. The secondary effects on gear were far more significant than whatever the different between 300 and 400 damage might be, other than that knowing bigger number is better. As for the dialogue, there were some very clearly story-important decisions, but most dialogue was the typical 3-choice "nice, mean, or funny" system.

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Overall, I enjoyed the game, and will likely end up playing again eventually (definitely not as a rogue). The game is at least a solid 7/10 and doesn't deserve any of the flak it got (before the damn game came out!). I had hoped for a return to classic Dragon Age, like many others perhaps, but Inquisition and Veilguard have solidified that this is Dragon Age now, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.