Dragon Age Veilguard: A rook can only move horizontally or vertically

[Hawke64]

Well, after finishing the game twice, copying my Steam review:

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It is still Dragon Age, it is still queer as ****, and the controls are still customisable. As with the previous games in the series, the combat system and level design are new - the missions are more linear and the exploration levels are similar to Inquisition with better traversal; the combat is significantly more action-orientated, with a wide variety of builds and equipment. Some things feel more game-like and symbolic, such as the chests exploding with coins and the healing pots being green, but the writing and the dialogues are still strong.

However, there is no extra layer of DRM, but also, unfortunately, very few choices from the previous playthroughs can be configured. The game also would be better with less padding (i.e. 30 hours of a complete playthrough, instead of 70), like it was in Dragon Age II, rather than Inquisition.

The story is focused on a group of friends who oppose an environmental disaster, a pandemic, and several different groups of fascists and religious zealots, demonstrating that the power of the chosen family and community overcomes the "values" that should stay dead. There is less flexibility in roleplay - you cannot be an arsehole, but the range of the meaningful options is adequate and the different backgrounds are acknowledged. The story also reveals a lot about the setting, thus, regardless of the inability to import the world state, it is enlightening to experience.

The system requirements are higher than I'd like, but the hair looks pretty.

@kanisatha If you like the DA lore or the triple-A action-adventure games with RPG and arcade elements, the experience should be enjoyable. Though, I would suggest to customise the settings - disabling the waypoints and setting everything except the enemy health to the highest difficulty worked best for me. Additionally, the Grey Warden elven or dwarven warrior background might provide more options than the other ones (as far as I can tell, the Lords of Fortune have the least faction-specific options; some of them are automatic rather than chosen). There are fewer significant choices (mostly, at the end of Act 1, at the end of companion/important side quest chains, and at the end of the game when everything comes together), but they are present. The "soft" points of no-return are at the Grey Warden companion recruitment and the Fire and Ice quests. The last "hard" point of no-return is clearly marked as such.

Regarding Taash, they are a brilliantly-written young dragon hunter who is also non-binary neurodivergent second generation immigrant (unsurprisingly, you can be all of these things at once). They are interested in and experienced in their field, know when to hunt and when not to hunt dragons, possess academic knowledge of the Qunari and Rivaini history and customs (the country is Rivain, not "Rivia"), empathetic in their own way, while struggling to process the weird and obscure neurotypical social cues, and see their faction in a very positive light. And if anyone sincerely has issues with the word "non-binary", I dread to imagine how these people would react to Alistair.

As mentioned, I like that the party consists of the LGBTQ+ and ND persons (who are deliberately written as such by LGBTQ+ and ND writers) and it is quite immersive for a largely homophobia-free setting.

Regarding the lore, https://www.eurogamer.net/bioware-knew-the-deepest-secrets-of-dragon-age-lore-20-years-ago-and-locked-it-away-in-an-uber-plot-doc .