@justcast1429 I haven't seen any Star Wars since Revenge of the Sith. When Lucas began de-canonizing himself by adding a main character that was non-existent nor needed in the original Clone Wars I was already out. Never bothered with Disney except for the awesome material they've spawned, from David's great "Plot has become irrelevant" to Reaper's anger-filled review of Assoka. If Andor is half as good as some people say it was a mistake, obviously; second season will set things straight and have them drive shiny Vespas too or something.
You can’t even roleplay in Dragon Age anymore. You’re stuck as the most affable, banal, and inoffensive good guy who fights bad guys who want to rule the world for no other reason than they’re evil. Sure, you have a dialogue wheel to choose your character’s tone but all the choices generally boil down to yes anyway. What’s the freaking point?
I don't think I've ever played an RPG before Veilguard where I ended up hating the character I was playing. By the time Veilguard was over, I came to the conclusion that Rook was an insipid doofus who would never have the toughness to actually lead a war against diabolical gods, nor would most of the emotionally overwrought companions be much use in a fight (Davrin aside). And why is Rook in charge of anything anyway? Why does anyone look to him/her as a leader? They're just some random who's fuck up caused the whole mess in the first place.
@@Icipher353I hated Hawke. For all claims each game would have a different MC, Hawke felt a totally failed attempt at having Shepard for DA setting. And the character was shilled in and out of universe as someone who shaped the world, yet all we saw was skill at killing and not dying, while having 2 from the party clearly hiding things under Hawke's nose. It's a deconstruction of the world changing character that isn't aware it's a deconstruction. I think V should have had the Inquisitor, but that s/he's not there it's for the better.
DA2's biggest problem is that they rushed it out and was only 2/3rds done when they needed to publish, so they cut too many corners. But at least it still feels like a Dragon Age property. DA1 is a skinsuit at best.
@ the point is that they make it bland to appeal to the wider audience-normies. Rock and roll wasn’t a problem, metal wasn’t. What people liked would have continued if the husks in suits had not been involved.
Inquisition was the first game I distinctly remember not finishing. I never gave up on games like that. I think it was a sign of what was to become of modern games. Slop.
I was baffled that it won a game of the year. I guess the frostbite engine had shiny graphics at the time. Gameplay was awful, story was just boring slop with ugly characters.
@@DVSPress 2014 was a slow year in gaming. There were just so few quality products, especially in the AAA market, that everyone was ready to celebrate something that was merely mediocre.
100% agree. I'm also totally baffled by people who seem to be super fans of inquisition. Especially those who thought Solas was interesting at all when he was easily the most boring forgettable character in the whole thing.
Hey David! I found your channel due to the Last Jedi backlash and loved how you deconstructed the ‘themes’ of that movie. And I got recommended this due to the Dragon Age drama.
I remember the romance option became progressively more unequal in the Dragon Age games went on. Women always had at least one british-accented aryan chad available, while men were stuck choosing between ugly or a bodycount higher than mount everest.
Cassandra was an okay romance in inquisition. Basically getting to the soft side a hardnosed woman. It made her quite dynamic. She was a girl boss, but there was substance behind the girl bossiness.
DA Origins is my favorite video game of all time, and Thedas is my 2nd favorite fantasy setting after Tolkien's Middle Earth. It's been heartbreaking to see this series go downhill. While there were many gameplay and story elements in DA2 and Inquisition that were sorely lacking, I think the worldbuilding and character writing were compelling enough to keep me engaged with the series... until Veilguard landed and just blew a lot of it up (almost literally; read the in-game missives about what happened to southern Thedas during the events of Veilguard). I'm glad I just watched Veilguard gameplay and cutscene videos and didn't waste my money buying this piece of work. I am apathetic about the DA IP going forward, and I doubt we'll see anything more of it anyway if rumors about sales figures are correct.
It's 100% over for any future Dragon Age games, at least from Bioware. Maybe another dev buys the IP and tries to go back to the roots, its possible but not under EA in this day. The question is probably more if Bioware is allowed to make another Mass Effect game, if anyone cares about that lol (it will not be good).
I didn't play Veilguard and had no interest after Inquisition. The worldbuilding and character writing of DAI was such a downward trend from Origins that I basically gave up the series. DA2 was very flawed and an unworthy successor; DAI was insultingly bad (especially in terms of the characters; just so much less interesting or fully irritating in a bad way).
DA Origins is in my top 5 fav games forever. That game is just the perfect blend of everything I like in a RPG and a story. DA 2's biggest flaw was the forced streamlining due to development time: the repeat maps, being locked into being human, and just overall quality; but I wouldn't call it a bad game. I think DA 2is more of "a life in Thedas" sort of story, not really going into big plots or wtv, even though the last DLC has some major lore stuff. DAI was kinda boring and the story eventually pays off in the end(again in the last DLC), but the journey to that end is painfully long and not much happens. Also the rehashed villain from DA 2's Legacy DLC didn't do it any favors. Corypheus is a lot better in that DLC in my opinion, and like Architect he works best as a morally grey, mysterious abomination-wizard character. DA Wokeguard is just neo-marxist garbage like a lot of today's media. Not much point going deeper into it 'casue that's all the depth it has, really. They even put a "secret ending" after the credits where it's revealed that all this time there was this mysterious force pulling the strings from the shadows since game 1 lol To me that's a dead-on sign that the writer behind it had no talent whatsoever. Unearned, cheap and lazy. But yeah, all this to say that DA was a good IP (even despite DA 2's flaws and DAI's blandness) until Biowoke decided it needed pronouns.
DA Origins is my favorite game of all time, and it is for me the closest to a perfect game I will ever get (for me personally, not necessarily objectively if that even exist in art). It was in the perfect sweetspot between old shool and modern (at the time modern) gameplay. With DA:2 they completely changed everything about the game, it didn't even feel like Dragon Age anymore. It wasn't a bad game though, but I kinda lost interest in the series after that honestly. The new game I never cared for, and I honestly even find it amusing to observe the drama, despite it being part of my favorite series ever, but I don't even considered it to be in the same series or universe anyway.
Vailguard made me feel like Gears 5 made me feel in 2019 - just done with the franchise altogether. Another lesson that you shouldn't get too attached to a corporate's product.
I have not bought Veilguard. Then again, I never got into Dragon Age games. I did, however, pay enough attention to the promo material BioWare put out to see that they really wanted us to know that you could put top surgery scars in the character creator. In a high fantasy game. With magic. That was enough for me to put popcorn in the microwave and wait for the disaster show.
Let's leave aside all the top surgery scars or gender lectures. The biggest problem is that they destroy pretty much everything we loved about the previous settings with a lore dump. Not only that but they do it in the stupidest way: another blight. So they ruin southern Thedas with the darkspawn after the Grey Wardens in Ferelden are stronger than ever. You don't even get to experience it.
I think the other games do not deserve all the hate tho The writing never disappointed me, specially when you look at the big picture, the problem is how they articulated the story in the game format in DA2 and Inquisition (yep, they are not RPG as Origins was) But Veilguard... Is something else
I agree about the first being the strongest in the series, but the second and third definitely have a story to them Dragon Age 2's story was about Hawk's rise to Champion status in Kirkwall, and the Templars vs Mages conflict I just started Inquisition, and so far it's about tears in the fabric of reality that the MC needs to close with their hand scar thing, while bringing everyone together And I'm not even going to touch Veilguard with a 30-and-a-half foot pole.
@@SabiJD Taash is just a badly written character. How they went from Krem and Hollix to them is beyond me. Then there is also the badly written dialogue, not enough Solas content, next to no roleplaying opportunities, horrible main villains, flat companions and the erasure of pretty much any controversial topics such as slavery, racism and sexism. Overall the game is, at best, a 5/10. It’s kind of sad really. DA was my favourite franchise and I loved all previous titles, but Veilguard was such a disappointment that I’ve lost all interest and hope they won’t make another DA game.
I like Dragon Age as a series but knew the franchise was destined for immolation even back in DA2 when the series began to gravitate to a cheesy/lighthearted anime art style forgoing the gritty/realistic medieval setting and design. Veilguard is simply the tombstone for the series
DA2 was way rushed in every way. Inquisition was somewhat challenging on nightmare, but the story was considerably lacking apart from a couple companions which is what these games were all about
I'm sorry to hear this, David. I can't say I can relate exactly as Inquisition was my first Dragon Age game. But I'll always be grateful that the world building it had made me interested enough to go back and buy Origins and 2.
Origins was excellent but had way too much combat padding, the deep roads was awful. 2 was decent overall but crippled by the development problems, a big letdown compared to Origins in nearly every way - only the characters carried the game and I remember it fondly despite the flaws. Inquisition was unplayable, I hated all the changes to the combat and stopped barely into the first zone. I was baffled by how popular it was. By the time Veilguard came out I was just laughing at Bioware's downfall. I don't touch AAA games these days, all the good stuff is from indie and midrange studios.
I do not agree that origins had too much combat padding; I think it just started to feel that way after the first couple playthroughs once you got good at the combat mechanics. Once you got too good at them the combat sort of turned into something you just wanted to get through. The first couple playthroughs though the combat was pretty compelling.
The best part about DA:O is the class specializations. You can have more than one and get creative with it. DA:2's only best are the companions. For DA:I, it's the exploration and unique combat. What they all have in common are the playable companions. Unlike DA:V. Admittedly, the sequels (DA2 and Inquisition) to the DA:O didn’t feel the same as the first, but they are good enough to play. I've stopped being a fan because of Veilguard.
I think there's a ton of us that feel the exact same way. I played through Origins 3 times, but I didn't even make it an hour into DA:2 or DA:I, and I bought them both on deep discounts. I won't touch Veilguard with a ten foot pole.
Origins was peak i remember when i first played it in 2014 i was hooked inplayed on my brothers pc for like 80 hours it in just over a month. That was peak tactics rpgs i am glad bg3 came out because man DAO was so good
Mass Effect and Dragon Age started the RPG trend of advertising sex with all your companions as a main feature/requirement, to the point where Baldurs Gate 3 felt they had to up the ante and introduce bestiality. I think Inquisition has gay sex with a minotaur. It brought a lot more disgusting freaks to the genre. If I remember right the ad campaign for DA2 was literally just flashing the words SEX and VIOLENCE. That's often the consequence of these "dark and grittty" settings, they forget the storytelling, exaggerate all the evil and depravity, and become sources of spiritual sickness in real life.
I was a super fan of the original, I really liked the sequel's more adult lower stakes political story, then by the time I got around to the third one I realized I had forgotten all of the story and lore and didn't care to go back and read about it, so i dropped it. It didn't help that inquisition's gameplay is busywork simulator. Veilguard, well... I think enough has been said about that game that I do not need to comment.
Origins was great. I liked DA2 too for some of the characters, even though it was a very different game. I wasn't a fan of the "open world" in Inquisition. And the characters weren't interesting either. But I still finished it. However, Veilguard felt like a parody of Dragon Age. Hated all of the characters. Including the player character. Didn't care for the story. The world felt totally shallow. The art style doesn't fit at all. The dialogue is a joke. Suffice to say, I didn't finish it. I heard you can kill your entire team in the final mission. That is my head canon ending.
I built a whole new computer just to play Dragon Age Inquisition or Andromeda. I would have paid everything for old Bioware games. Not anymore. The tone, character designs, moral story, and many little questionable issues started popping up in most recent Bioware games since 2014. And whenever we critique it, we were being banned, silenced, insulted, or called names immediately by the moderators for at least a decade now like we are are some kind of foreign agents. But i realized that it's not specific to Bioware because similar issues were prevalent in many other entertainment and fandoms everywhere. Today, i am totally spiteful of those activists who ruined my favourite franchice and escapism.
I have to think this through, but I think you got me on the path of understanding, why I don't like how 'grimdark' is being used today. I think it only works in the good vs. evil context, much less in the 'morally grey' style of storytelling so prevalent today.
I think RPGs have actually influenced grimdark in a negative way. Author's often end up telling stories that are the equivalent of recalling a tabletop adventure through a setting - with a dark setting dictating that everybody is just bad and gross.
I played through Origins with every single possible start combination, I played DA2 twice I think... and I stopped in the middle of Inquisition because I just didn't want to continue. Go figure! Dragon Age was an absolute license to print money, but they managed to mess it up.
With Veilguard something came into sharp focus for me. The same spirit that drives explicitly Christian film studios has become the norm within mainstream media companies. A major criticism of those films are how clumsily the message is implemented into the wider work and the associated feeling of being preached at. That sentiment has become the norm and the social media presence of people involved within the creative industries echo the type of evangelism and moral policing that characterize Conservative Christianity.
It's absolutely a religious sentiment as I've talked about on the channel many times. This is especially true of trans ideology as it relies entirely on unverifiable internal gnosis.
It's funny that the Qunari in DA:O was sort of based on a type of islamic culture and ended up with a trans they/them thing. Sten would not approve, like always.
1:14 Easy answer, name is David Silverman, he was the Marketing Director during DA2 and the one that pushed for the "Awesome Button" stuff that plagued Dragon Age.
I got fairly apathetic halfway through inquisition. I loved origins, but veilguard needed to return to party based strategy with meaningful character development. I found it disappointing the removal of stuff like stealth from inquisition to explore an area and set yourself up for a better quest outcome etc.
I liked Inquisition more than you did. I liked how Cassandra projected an image of toughness, but was utterly addicted to Varrick's romance novels, and you get to embarrass her and make her happy at the same time by having him bring her the next (unpublished) entry. I liked how Josephine had a clear understanding of politics and diplomacy. I didn't like what they did with Leliana. I felt she wouldn't have lost her idealism that quickly, especially after she romanced the Hero of Ferelden. The main problem with Inquisition was that it tried to be "open world" without actually being open world, like Skyrim, Oblivion or FO4 were. I think that's why you might not like it. Open world games tend to have LESS plot, so you can go do whatever you want, and that's OK. Inquisition only made vague hand-waving gestures towards being open-world, but instead created lots of MMO fetch quests instead. But when you chose to engage the plot and ignore the fetch quests, Inquisition feels closer to Dragon Age Origins than Dragon Age 2 did.
Id love to see bioware go back to something more strategic in gameplay, and they also seem to have forgotten how to handle a DA story. The bulk of the game should be about an epic war...or two, with the larger mythological elements mostly ignored by everyone except the player and party members until the 11th hour. Thats how you make it feel grounded.
I was replying to another poster here and something dawned on my about the plot of DA2. The entire game comes across as a long version of one of DAO's origin stories plus the Ostagar part of the game (in DAO the origins story plus Ostagar set up the conflict and main plot). This is very similar to how the conflict of the mages and the templars blows up (literally) in the last part of DA2. Most of DA2 is about Hawke and him building him and his family up in Kirkwall; but doesn't really have an over arching plot or direction. The 'real' conflict of the story doesn't really start to form until the 3rd act and then the last battle serves similar function as the battle of Ostagar where at the end of the battles the conflict and plot are clearly defined and in DAO you have your primary quest but DA2 the game just suddenly ends. This is what really makes the game feel directionless and pointless; as well as why David is correct that DA2 just feels like it is about Hawke wondering around on random quests until the game ends. Because the main conflict is being set up the entire game but then ends once the clear plot and conflict break open*.
Pretty much nailed my thoughts exactly. This stuff was always in the series since the beginning. But it was far from the focus. You wouldn’t even know these characters were gay unless you took the time to get to know them. And yeah when you did find out it was just like “oh interesting you’re gay”, not LOOK AT ME IM GAY RESPECT MY PRONOUNS BIGOT the series died for me at 2. Inquisition was my last chance for them, it was just such a shallow soulless experience. I couldn’t even finish it. As such I will never touch another thing from the dragon age franchise. Hell doubt I’ll ever touch a BioWare product again. They’re dead to me. Those who have replaced them, such as larian or cd projekt are far better than BioWare ever was. So I will not miss them. I’m looking forward to the future of RPGs from studios like these.
I could only ever get into Dragon Age: Origins. I skipped Dragon Age 2 after hearing about the rushed development, and I tried Inquisition years later on a steep discount... but I just couldn't get past the first area after the prologue. It felt like playing an MMORPG where I was the only player-and that’s not exactly a great vibe. Even when it first came out, I remember listening to Totalbiscuit and his crew on their podcast. They actually liked the game, but even they described it as a single-player MMO, which made me raise an eyebrow at the time. That’s why I skipped it initially. Meanwhile, I’ve replayed Origins so many times. The way your race and background shape the experience is just amazing-like city elf vs. Dalish elf, noble dwarf vs. casteless dwarf, and especially being a mage. I’ll never forget how different it felt playing as a mage, I was so surprised how different that was. The quality of the PC background writing and how it affected the rest of the game really added this extra layer of immersion and so much replay value. It's not just Bioware, nobody really makes games like that anymore.
I never considered buying DAV since the first close up of the MC in the trailer. He looked like they fed a bunch of faces into Gen AI and said "generalize". So that was a no. And then I saw the rest of the characters. And that was a hell no. Especially the fem gnome and the elf artisan chick. I don't like playing with ugly characters. I can forgive bad storytelling (to a degree), but if the characters are deliberately unappealing it distracts me and ruins the immersion. Because guess what - most people - and I really mean it as 99.99% of people - are NOT ugly or unappealing. Everyone is different sure, but visually unappealing to a point where you want to avoid them isn't really something that I encountered even after living in 4 countries. And here we have a whole cast that is visually revolting. When I see a bad corporate product I always get curious how the meetings went. What everyone said when they presented the character models. 😂😂😂
The conflict in 2 was that of the mages vs. the city's templars. Your character entered the city as a refugee who was just trying to scrape by financially. To improve your situation and that of your family you decide to go into the deep roads. You accidentally make things worse for everyone involved in the mage vs templar dispute because you unknowingly helped find a red lyrium idol. At the end of the game, you have to choose to side with the mages or templars. You are meant to attempt to acknowledge your part re the red lyrium idol and and to make things better, but you notice that the overall problem is much bigger than you are. You might be able to make things better where you are, but, all over Thedas, mages and templars are going to fight. Origins had a much better story and was superior in a lot of ways. It was much more interesting to see what is going to happen re the dark spawn and decide to take a stand/have a clear objective than to have things happen as a result of your actions and then later choose your stance. Honestly, I think the story in 2 would have been better if Varric's brother hadn't found/taken the idol. I think it would have been more interesting if your character had chosen to take it with them and sell it, so that you felt significantly more responsible. Yes, your actions would have been forced, but, since the idol was probably the most interesting thing you found in the Deep Roads, it would make a lot of sense for someone desperate like you to take it if they didn't know what it was and thought it was valuable. After you took it, Varric's brother should have unknowingly kept have and you should have been able to see what it did to him/what it might do to others while you searched for it.
After Origins and Awakening, it felt more and more like a dating simulator to me. There are parts of DA 2 and Inquisition I liked a lot and I love Dragonage lore, but they didn't quite hit the same. As for Veilguard...I tried to watch a playthrough and lost interest pretty fast. It felt like fanfiction for nine year olds.
4:37 I'm more curious whether you sided with Caradin or Branka... Also, I still have beef with Inquisition for not including Bohdan and Sandal. Man, I loved Sandal
I think you hit the nail on the head with Inquisition. I never played origins or da2, but I had hope for veilguard because it looked so different. I'm almost 100 hours in...and if I had to guess...pretty close to the end. The biggest issue for me is how uninterested in the companions I am, and that's part of why my gameplay hours are so high. It's just one companion quest after another, and because I'm a completionist, I'm trying to do it all. But overall I don't think the game deserves AS MUCH flak as it's gotten. If they made the companions more heroic and less woke check boxes to fill, I think I would have given the game a solid 9 out of 10 so far. Davrin is really the only good companion, the others are either "ok" or just awful (Taash and Neve). If you ever played Mass effect Andromeda, you can tell they came right off the heels of that game into this one, with its overall group tone. It's almost like, if the Inquisitor was Commander Shepherd, Rook is this world's Pathfinder/Ryder.
5:57 I don't wanna be _that_ guy, but maybe being forgiving and keep buying the thing probably gave the developers the wrong idea. The lesson they learned was: the audience loved the woke stuff, let's focus on that, the gameplay be darned...
My thoughts are that I wish I could have written it instead. I’m a writer fighting to get an agent and I see all these subpar stories coming out and it drives me insane knowing I could do better.
Hey new friend. If your profile pic is actually you, and you legitimately want to be traditionally published, I recommend you adopt a persona that's higher on the progressive stack. At the very least, you should find a clever way to say that you're gay in every query letter. Pretending to be a black female will give you the best odds of landing an agent and then getting published. You can easily use an AI to generate fake author photos of yourself and pitch all of your books as tangentially related to the woke agenda. This is not a joke. The publishing industry is possibly the most heavily converged industry in the world, and that especially includes the gatekeepers.
100% agreement. On a sidenote, there are people who don't mind any of that and just want to bash things. They say that DA1 was great, 2 and 3 didn't know what they wanted, and finally 4 transformed into something completely else (pure action) which has nothing to do with 1 - and they are completely OK with it, they love the gameplay of 4, and they don't care about its story because all they want is to shut their brains off.
Agree with your views. Dragon age 2 and inquisition lost me. I completed both games and was disappointed. Inquisition made me me angry for some reason and so veilgard never interested me. I often go and replay origins
I gave up on most of these sequels years ago. I never played Inquisition, life had just gotten busy. But I’ve been watching gaming- specifically franchises bought by large studios progressively get buggier, less creative, more “woke” and overall just less fun. Until Cyberpunk, Elden Ring and Baldurs Gate 3, I genuinely just thought I was outgrowing games. But really I’m just more selective of the ways in which I want to use my time. The worse these franchises become there will be others to take their place. Just don’t get too invested and enjoy the good games. Hopefully eventually gaming will return to its roots and these corporations will go under.
Inquisition won game of the year after being out for less than a month. I don't think it was out long enough for people to beat it before the awards ceremony! (I dropped the game, it was boring)
The elves vs werewolves did matter. In the last quest as you're fighting through Denerim to get to the arch demon you'll have a werewolf reinforcements instead of elf archers.
@DVSPress it can if you're playing on harder difficulties or just arent very good at the game. The templars and werewolves don't synergise well because they don't have any ranged attacks, while the elves and mages have the opposite problem in having no melee attacks.
The only sane opinion. DA2 and Inquisition fans confuse me. Especially if you've played Origins at all. However, I was expecting Veilguard to continue that downward slope, what I didn't expect was how catastrophic the situation actually turned out to be.
Here's a Inquisition: * I was initially drawn to Inquisition by the voice acting, particularly Freddy Prince Jr.'s performance as Iron Bull. * The game's world-building and character interactions are enjoyable, and the Dragon Age Keep integration adds a nice touch of nostalgia. * The mage class is particularly fun to play, with the ability to zip around the battlefield using Fade Step. Veilguard: * The user interface is visually unappealing. * The combat system is frustrating and unsatisfying. * Companion interactions often feel forced and superficial. * The game's linear structure and lack of meaningful choices are disappointing. * The removal of the Dragon Age Keep was a major misstep. Overall, while Inquisition has its flaws, it offers an enjoyable experience. Veilguard, however, falls short in many areas, leaving fans of the series feeling disappointed.
Dragon Age: Origins was an instant classic for fans of the genre. It was "bringing Baldur's Gate into modern gaming" and it felt like it... even if the team was limited to 4 people and the system was less complex. But hey, when ranking against AD&D, being less complex might actually be a benefit. Great world-building that went so far beyond Ferelden where the game takes place added to the climate of this new fantasy setting. And the approach to elves was pretty refreshing too [to anyone who wasn't familiar with Sapkowski's work - but it was 2009, you'd have to be Slavic to be familiar with it at that time]. Dragon Age 2. I want to say that I know what they were going for with DA2... but the game was released 18 months before they got there. After Origins, DA2 felt like a slice-of-life sidestory with an interesting concept of time-skips. It felt somewhat Star Warsy with time passing between each Act. Ultimately, however, the way the story was told lacked focus and while the desire to get money isn't the worst motivation in the world, I get that plotline in real life every day - if I wanted it to be my goal in spare time, I'd play Sims. Combat was repetitive and boring and somehow got WORSE on higher difficulty levels. The way enemies spawned was annoying as hell. That game needed so much more time in the oven... Lastly, if you're going to limit our game to one city, you must take under consideration that our brains are conditioned to get excited about visiting new places and locations and have visually distinct experiences - you can't move us back and forward across same-looking streets for 10 years with very little new visual stimulae, c'mon! If every location in Eastern Kingdoms looked like Elwynn Forest and every location in Kalimdor looked like Barrens we'd be puking out of our eyes before level 40. Dragon Age Inquisition. Fun fact: If you happen to reside in one of those Early-Sapkowski-Enabled Slavic countries I mentioned before, your copy of Dragon Age Inquisition bought on Origin store would most likely be language region-locked. What does that mean? The game would be in Polish, Czech or Russian. No option to fully switch it to English. [voices were in English, in "cinematic mode", but UI would remain localized no matter what.] I was utterly confused and disconnected from the experience by that fact alone. That was strike one. Strike two was the elimination of the dedicated healing spells. I get it, not everybody likes to be an HP battery sitting at the back casting "Flash of Light" and you shouldn't be forced to take upon yourself that role. But it should be an option. And I happen to I love it. Fuck you Bioware for taking it away from me. If I want to play Dark Souls, I will play Dark Souls. Strike three - while Dragon Age 2 flirted with an action-RPG combat style, Inquisition fully embraced console-oriented playstyle. I'm not saying console-friendly combat style is bad or worse - it can be very engaging, but its not for everyone, and it wasn't for me. It contributed to the concept of alienation in the 3rd game of the series. Never got anywhere close to finishing it and probably never will. Veilguard Hard pass. As the game continues going in the same direction in the combat style and approach to complex mechanics, I am not going to pick it up even from the Bargain Bin. Sorry, not sorry. It has nothing to do with inclusion, LGBTQ+ content or anything. I can always chain-skip the talking bit, but the gameplay-wise the series goes downhill from Origins and the world building fails to engage my imagination. It feels like Bioware is very busy chasing popular themes in their games. And while its okay to include best ideas from other titles into your product, if said ideas go against the previously established world, mechanics and storytelling-- it will disconnect a portion of the old fans even without heavy-handed social messages.
i agree that Origins story is best by far but i still managed to find good things about the DA2 and DAI, 2 is a personal story of Hawk and in terms of characters it still had some good ones (like Varrik is fun, and Merril had interesting quest)and Legacy dlc had interesting lore, DAI had interesting parts (with unrealized potential) but most of the interesting parts were Solas and his dlc
I agree and add the instant hero games like to do. In third, I got whiplash on becoming the leader. So what I can close the gates, doesn't automatically make me the leader of the inquisition. Fallout 4 gives you power armor and killing a death claw 2 minutes in. Journalists are lazy and want to feel special without earning it.
I always thought DA:O was over-rated. It did go downhill from there, though, and after Inquisition, which was a horrible offline MMO with garbage companions and an uninspired story-line, I decided to never buy another one. The DA2 conflict was to rebuild the family estate, get married, have kids, continue the family line. Sadly, the game quests largely ignored that entire goal and devolved to the civil war between the mages and the whatever they were called.
"The DA2 conflict was to rebuild the family estate, get married, have kids, continue the family line. Sadly, the game quests largely ignored that entire goal and devolved to the civil war between the mages and the whatever they were called." Yes that is part of the problem; the main conflict of the game is the growing tension between mages and templars and the breakdown of established order; but that doesn't even become a relevant focus point until the 2nd half of the game (maybe even the 3rd act). The majority of the game is about Hawke's personal and family goals as well as companion quests but it lacks an over arching plot and since the 'real' plot sort of overtakes Hawke's personal goals in the 2nd half of the game; it sort of pivots the plot and drops off the entire 1st half of the game. That lack of a true overarching goal throughout the game really ended up making a majority of the quests feel meaningless. As David says; Hawke just kind of wonders around the map and the city until the game ends (right when the real conflict breaks wide open with the mages and templars; but we never actually get to engage in that conflict). honestly; the entire game actually felt like a super long version of DAO's origin stories/ostagar. It is like it is only the first part of a game/story that sets up the conflict but then the game ends.
I stopped being a fan of Dragon Age after playing the demo of DA2. Maker's breath, it was awful in terms of writing, dialogue, graphics, art direction, voice acting, and combat design. I had no idea how anyone could find anything enjoyable in it. I knew it wasn't going to be something I would enjoy 40 hours of, and it was clear this series was only going to get worse from here. Sometime later, I played The Witcher, a game I neglected for years, and realized all along that was what Dragon Age was trying to be and failing horribly.
Im only a fan of Dragon Age Origins. It was all downhill since Dragon Age 2 for me. I checked out way back then so this one is nothing new. I expect nothing from the developers who made Mass Effect Andromeda
I don't completely agree regarding DA2; on the gameplay, yeah it was routinely repetitive and boring and that was a major mark against it. But as for the conflict, it was keeping the peace between various factions which were increasingly at each others' throats - in particular the rising tension between the Mages and the Templars. It didn't stick the landing in the last battle, and they certainly could have done better with Lyrium Idol, but overall I enjoyed the story. I liked what it had set up and was interested in seeing where it was going. Alas, I never got to see that. Inquisition was largely terrible. It had some interesting ideas and cool moments in there, but overall it sucked. I did run the female Mage to put her with Cullen because he was about the only character I really liked. Cool Templar is cool. That was also the game where they turned the preachy intrusive nonsense corner, like with the Qunari lecture and some other unwelcome insertions. But yeah, Origins was the best game and it's been a downhill trend since. Since ME3 I've regarded the era of ME1, ME2, DA:O, and DA2 as Bioware's Golden Age, which ended with the release of ME3 and Inquisition.
I think the criticism is that conflict between mages and templars and "keeping the peace" as the plot is not really clear until the 3rd act. for the majority of the game it seems you just an adventurer going on random quests, some related to your family, some related to your companions, some given by the city population. But there is not a real clear indication of an overarching plot until at least the 2nd half of the game. Which can really make the 1st half seem directionless. I really didn't like this plot style on my first playthrough but a couple years ago I gave the game a 2nd chance (I mean I own it might as well play it) and I hated it a lot less and the plot style did not bother as much. Still no where near as good as Origins but it is okay. but that is sort of the downside; the series went from 1 of the greatest RPGs and gaming experiences of all time to just an 'okay' sequel; and then just disastrous after.
@@SabiJD well obviously "disastorous" is hyperbole. It was not intended to be anything else, or a quick 'shorthand' for the obvious decrease in quality of writing and gameplay. With Veilguard though in terms of sales and 'number of online players' dipping it actually is a technical disaster. but whatever, I hated Inquisition so I had no interest in continuing the series. In terms of the dip in quality; DA2 had a lack of a clear meaningful plot, and ended up feeling like a series of side quests that lead nowhere plus repetitive gameplay and areas made it a tedious experience with a few okay pieces; the characters were also not as well developed as they were in Origins and the lack of 'origins' stories making each playthrough feel different seriously diminished replay value. These are facts, not opinions. If Veilguard is a spiritual successor to Fable II they made it for the wrong franchise. I am not talking about the combat mechanics of DAV because I did not play it; but I didn't hate the combat mechanics of DAI; I just hated how it became button mashing in big empty boring 'open world' areas that lack anything meaningful. Plus the characters were boring compared to even DA2. DAV from what I have seen completely loses the dark gritty fantasy and is too colorful; which is sort of how DAI looked but this is even more. The dialogue from what I have seen in youtube is laughably bad. the lack of meaningful dialogue choices is serious decrease in quality. plus the lip sync is during cutscenes and dialogue is hilariously bad. "I personally disagree that the arc wasn't especially clear. I got the vibe the story was really of Kirkwall, with Hawke being a way to navigate that story, quite early on. " Well that is a problem then too; you may be write to view the story as being about Kirkwall; but that makes our protagonist a boring character designed as a mechanic to take you through a city and not an actual character themselves. which can add to the feeling of meaninglessness in the quests. "The Templar and mage dynamics are pretty overt even in act 1. And at that point, the overall focus on Hawke preparing for the expedition is a clear, and to me interesting, goal." I am not saying elements of the coming conflict are not touched on in the first act; but they clearly do not take any kind of center stage or 'main quest' plot structure until the 3rd act, and the conflict does not actually fully start until the game ends. I am not saying that the individual goals Hawke had are completely uninteresting, I never made that argument. I said they do not connect with any over arching plot (for the most part) which can make them feel disconnected and meaningless to the 'bigger' picture. and that is also a fact not opinion. Now this may not have bothered you because you were interested enough in Hawke, Kirkwall and the side quests that the lack of an overarching goal didn't really bother you. But it bothered people like David and me because it made the game feel more MMO like were most of the questing is mindless experience gathering with no real meaningful story payoff. "I really enjoyed the use of time skips in that, too. I kinda wish more such games used that narrative device." I did not like it at all; it made it feel much less like an RPG and more like a narrative that is being told "about your character" rather then you role playing the character and the story out. I am not saying that gimmick is bad on its own; and I don't see a problem with it for other games or maybe DLC/expansions. But I did not like the narrative format of DA2.
@@SabiJD "you can't really give an opinion on character development, and then say these are "facts"..." I was referring to the lack of origins story making the protagonist less developed. hawke is not a blank slate in the same way meaning there is less to develop. That is a fact. "As for replays; yes, but I still played it many times over the years, for different classes, different romance options, and certain choices." are completely dwarfed by Origins. DA2 has a serious lack of replay value and options compared to Origins. Have you even played Origins? I get the impression you started with DA2 and don't have as much investment in Origins; which means your opinions are fairly worthless. "I disagree DAV's writing is "laughably bad". If all you've seen is cherry-picked lines and scenes by culture-warriors or outrage tourists, then sure, you'll get the wors" I watched live streams playing the entire first 5 to 10 hours of the game. The writing and dialogue are god awful. and the dialogue wheel might as well not even exist given that all the "options" are always the same with maybe a slight tone difference. given the way you are dismissing this, I think you are shill and like my last comment, I am finding your opinion more and more worthless. "No, but that's not the same as being "laughably bad"." No, it is laughably bad. You are downplaying just how bad it is, especialy by comparison to origins (which I stand by my assumption you never played or never had real investment it). I am almost entirely convinced this is the case because you never refer to it for comparison and only compare DA2, DAI and DAV and never mention origins at all. Which is the only game that was truly great in the series. "And yes, judged as a DA, Veilguard's combat is unwanted. But judged on its own game design merits, it's good" what an utterly ridiculous comment. It is the forth game in the FRANCHISE! why would you possibly judge it on its own? it is not its own unique game it is a sequel. If they wanted to develop an entirely new gameplay; rather than build on the gameplay of the series; why not come up with a new franchise? You comment here is asinine. I am starting to get frustrated with you. "I just hope BioWare listen to the sensible, non-histrionic criticisms for the next one, and ditch the overly modern writing tone, and shift the artstyle back to being in line with the trilogy" They didn't listen to the criticisms of DAI (or ME Andromeda for that matter) and in fact doubled down and made it even worse. there is no reason to think they will ever produce anything of quality ever again. "Because of how DAV ends, it mostly feels like the end of an era, so they have every opportunity to hit the reset button on the main issues with it." I would say that is wishful thinking; but really at this point it is delusional.
DAO is probably my favorite game all time. I played every character origin and saw all the different character interactions based on your origins. The illusion of choice and consequence was very well crafted so the fact it didn’t matter much in the end didn’t matter. There was a dark gritty atmosphere but interesting colorful Characters, companions and villains. And the tactical combat was fun to figure out but once you got really good at it the game was far less challenging and the combat kind of turned into something to just get through, but that was after 5 or so play throughs. DA 2 was a remarkable step down in quality. I really hated it the first time I played it but after many years went back and gave it a 2nd chance. I was less annoyed at it the 2nd play through. But like David, I didn’t like the combat, the repetitive gameplay, lack of clear plot direction and less interesting characters. DAI was a whole other level of bad, if the maps on da2 were step down in size and scale; dai was monstrous size of boring empty maps that had almost nothing interesting going on. And if the characters in da2 were a step down, dai was falling off a cliff. I played it 2 times. I actually had the opposite response I had with da2; where on 2nd playthrough i hated it less with dai on the 2nd playthrough I hated it far more.
The conflict of DA2 is introduced in Act 2 and is resolved in act 2. Then 3 has to pull a rabbit out of its hat to keep the dumb story going. Total bag fumble 😂😂
The Chantry wasnt Christianity, it didnt beat anyone over the head becauss it didnt have real world hangups about sexuality- which goes both ways. It didnt have time to. The problem was the insertion of realworld hangups when it didnt exist before Pozzware mucked it up.
Regarding Inquisition. I do think it is a heroic story, it's just shoddily executed. The main villain in that game is awful and he is effectively defeated the moment he shows up. Looking back at DA2. It is humorous how that game pulled the "subverting your expectations" way before Last Jedi. The game and the marketing teased you with promises that Hawke was this Carlylian great man of history and that we would learn how he was the center player in whatever event that had just happened. Only for it to be revealed that Hawke was not this great man of action and just somebody who stumbled into all the important events and failed to make much of a difference.
Hawke is one of the worst RPG protagonists in history, if not THE worst. He is freaking useless! He sits on his ass all the time, acts only after it's too late, and fails at every task he does. And there's no reason at all for this. Hawke has wealth, influence, and connections with the most powerful people in Kirkwall; he spends the game with more resources at hand than the Hero of Fereldan. He's the guy who should have his thumb on every major conflict in the city, and have the power to take action in whatever way the player deems appropriate. And yet he doesn't. Why? Because the writers wanted to be "subversive." And by "subversive," they just mean forcing the story to go only in the direction THEY want it to go, even though it's supposed to be a FREAKING RPG, a genre that ideally is driven by the player's decisions.
The marketing materials called him "The most important character in Dragon Age." Haven't heard of him since. There were characters with goals in the game, but he was not one of them.
@@InvertedWIng I find DA2 difficult to discuss because I wonder how much of my distaste of the final product is a result of its incredibly rushed nature and how much of it is me disagreeing with the basic premise of the game. People can say that Veilguard is the most subversive because of its pandering to all the social justice madness. But in a way DA2 is far more subversive than any other fantasy RPG I have played. DA2 fundamentally disagrees with the idea of the heroic in history and believes that it is all social trends and factors that determine the outcome and that any man who we do believe to be important was in reality as trapped and controlled as anyone else. And yet I cannot help but wonder how the game and story would have been received had it not been rushed. If Bioware had been given more time to smooth out the plot. Could they have told the story they wanted to tell without making Hawke an incompetent buffoon as you explained? And would I still hate it?
@@DVSPress Lmao, you're right, I remember that now. But Hawke did have a goal in act 1. He wanted to get rich and reclaim his family estate. After that? He just stumbled his way through the plot and was completely ineffectual at achieving anything.
The other thing that Veilguard lacked that completely lobotomized the roleplaying was how you couldn't do anything "bad" or "mean". Every choice kinda just amounted to "I agree!", "I agree.", or "Um... Okay, I agree..." The previous games established its roleplay potential with how they allowed you to be a complete and utter @$$hole from start to finish. There were multiple points at which you could straight up kill people you just met, even potential companions.
Dragon Age Origins is a game I loved. I still like to watch videos about the banter, it still makes me laugh. I remember downloading every mod i could find on Nexus (armor, new quests, new areas, new companions) and that did crash my game Dragon Age 2 was ok but not nearly as good as Origins (running through the same areas was very annoying) I haven't Played Dragon Age Inquisition but maybe i will give it a go I will most likely not touch Fable Age Veilguard unless a ton of mods make this game more bearable (i doubt it). I heard you can let all companions die if you don't do their quests. Seems like this is the most fun you can have in this game
Waiting 10 years for a game that can be described as underwhelming only if you're being exceptionally charitable? Yeah, I can't say I'm a fan anymore either. Then again, I think inquisition was a step in the wrong direction even back then.
DA2 was faster but still had that tactical combat, DAO tactical pause, not what i would call turn paste like BG3 (if it were turn paste i wouldn't have played it, i find BG3 combat boring cause its turned paste), maybe semi-turn paste, DA2 was same just leaned more in to action element 3th game DAI returns little bit to the roots (combat wise), u can check game play videos, not same as DAO but more tactical then DA2 about sequels being less dark, what u expect, that blight was over it was calm before the storm ppl recovering and being hopeful (also purpose was to interduce new char and also progress plot with mages), and to build up to next game, 3th game starts with meeting of races and faction to discuss how recover from all this completely, and it was interrupted by villain who was same as architect from DAO DLC, but unlike him the villain seeks to open the rift to enter makes domain to become a god, so big bang and world turn to sh again like in DAO only more demons and fewer darkspawn ur 50% right and 50% lack of understanding, when it comes to combat, if ur not fan of DA2 and DA3 combat i get that, its ur taste, but on other stuff as i said 50%
I liked the first game well enough, but never got around to playing any sequels. Part of that had to do with being really disappointed by Mass Effect 2 and not liking the vibe I got from the previews. I'm really glad I never got invested because this new game looks like absolute hot garbage.
Inquisition's open world aspects were just boring bloat. I ended up just watching the cutscenes on youtube. Gave it another try years later and trudged through it. I really enjoyed Trespasser though.
I love and still replay dao from time to time. I dont really like the direction they went in 2 then inquisition. I think da2 is bad in alot of ways, but i think its a far better game then inquisition, so i think the general hate is inverted. I kindve hate inquisition and thats why i also wasnt interested in this game from the beginning. Honestly, when the same people that called inquisition goty, were rightly calling out andromeda for uglified women, cringe dialogue and bad writing, it made me wonder if anyone actually played inquisition. It was a pioneer in woke stuff and bad writing and bad game mechanics.
That didn't make sense. Eg. Star Wars Fans --> even though the bad movies came out - NOBODY who's not a Tourist still loves or still a fan of Star Wars. etc. OR I did not understand this video lol.
Despite the dragging story of DAI, I honestly think Dorian is a good character. He is a somewhat stereotypical foreigner. Different religion, culture, education, and even sexual preference. He has his complaints on how people would treat him differently, but he won't force any of his ideology upon you. You may not even notice that he is a gay if you are not interested in finding out. Nowadays some characters just can't wait to broadcast their craps at the player...
I never played any dragon age. I haven't been into games since the ps3 and xbox 1 released. I really didn't like the post ps2 and xbox era of video games at all. I enjoyed dozens of ps1 and 2 games, but I can only think of about 4 ps3 games I enjoyed. And nothing on ps 4 really caught my interest.
![Dragon Age - A Story of the Beginning [Spoilers]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pOKHTnSObbU/mqdefault.jpg)
![KRK - ชนิสรา Ft.WanMai , N/A [Official MV] Prod. By Sakarin](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/C-WMwwYobcU/mqdefault.jpg)
I feel bad for Dragon Age fans. Well, fans of any major franchise nowadays. Nothing is being done justice.
Being a serious fan of anything is such a struggle these days.
As a Star Wars fan Andor was breath of fresh air compared to the dumbed down slop they’ve been releasing
@justcast1429 I haven't seen any Star Wars since Revenge of the Sith. When Lucas began de-canonizing himself by adding a main character that was non-existent nor needed in the original Clone Wars I was already out. Never bothered with Disney except for the awesome material they've spawned, from David's great "Plot has become irrelevant" to Reaper's anger-filled review of Assoka. If Andor is half as good as some people say it was a mistake, obviously; second season will set things straight and have them drive shiny Vespas too or something.
You can’t even roleplay in Dragon Age anymore. You’re stuck as the most affable, banal, and inoffensive good guy who fights bad guys who want to rule the world for no other reason than they’re evil. Sure, you have a dialogue wheel to choose your character’s tone but all the choices generally boil down to yes anyway. What’s the freaking point?
I don't think I've ever played an RPG before Veilguard where I ended up hating the character I was playing. By the time Veilguard was over, I came to the conclusion that Rook was an insipid doofus who would never have the toughness to actually lead a war against diabolical gods, nor would most of the emotionally overwrought companions be much use in a fight (Davrin aside). And why is Rook in charge of anything anyway? Why does anyone look to him/her as a leader? They're just some random who's fuck up caused the whole mess in the first place.
@@Icipher353I hated Hawke. For all claims each game would have a different MC, Hawke felt a totally failed attempt at having Shepard for DA setting. And the character was shilled in and out of universe as someone who shaped the world, yet all we saw was skill at killing and not dying, while having 2 from the party clearly hiding things under Hawke's nose. It's a deconstruction of the world changing character that isn't aware it's a deconstruction.
I think V should have had the Inquisitor, but that s/he's not there it's for the better.
DA2's biggest problem is that they rushed it out and was only 2/3rds done when they needed to publish, so they cut too many corners. But at least it still feels like a Dragon Age property. DA1 is a skinsuit at best.
I look at everything now and I remember a quote of Michael Moorcock: "the rock and roll dies."
Rock and roll has to die. It's promise was never real, it was never going to give freedom, it was always the bait on the end of a hook.
@ the point is that they make it bland to appeal to the wider audience-normies. Rock and roll wasn’t a problem, metal wasn’t. What people liked would have continued if the husks in suits had not been involved.
@nathansteinfromarkham7109 it was never about the music. It was always about getting you to see other people as the problem.
@@marvalice3455 and I do. It’s people with taste against people so tasteless you’d think they had the beer bug.
@nathansteinfromarkham7109 which is why it died.
They didn't have to give you the music anymore. It's purpose is fulfilled.
Inquisition was the first game I distinctly remember not finishing. I never gave up on games like that. I think it was a sign of what was to become of modern games. Slop.
I was baffled that it won a game of the year. I guess the frostbite engine had shiny graphics at the time. Gameplay was awful, story was just boring slop with ugly characters.
That's how I felt. I had never played a _Dragon Age_ game until a couple months ago with _Inquisition._ I picked it up for $10, but now wish I hadn't.
@@DVSPress The story with specifically Solas was pretty awesome tho ngl. But that was literally the ONLY awesome part.
@@DVSPress 2014 was a slow year in gaming. There were just so few quality products, especially in the AAA market, that everyone was ready to celebrate something that was merely mediocre.
100% agree. I'm also totally baffled by people who seem to be super fans of inquisition. Especially those who thought Solas was interesting at all when he was easily the most boring forgettable character in the whole thing.
So, I'm non-binary.
lol
So what?
you misspelled non-buynari
@Ashes-and-Shards it's a reference to a line of dialogue in the new dragon age
Next Dragon Age: "So, I'm an animal-attracted person"
Hey David! I found your channel due to the Last Jedi backlash and loved how you deconstructed the ‘themes’ of that movie. And I got recommended this due to the Dragon Age drama.
I remember the romance option became progressively more unequal in the Dragon Age games went on. Women always had at least one british-accented aryan chad available, while men were stuck choosing between ugly or a bodycount higher than mount everest.
I didn't romance anyone in Inquisition. I think that was the one with the really ugly elf.
...Who was also ugly.
The slippery slope was always real, and the wokeness was already there in Origins...
Cassandra was an okay romance in inquisition. Basically getting to the soft side a hardnosed woman. It made her quite dynamic. She was a girl boss, but there was substance behind the girl bossiness.
She was interestimg butbwhy the hell did they uglify her so much?
DA Origins is my favorite video game of all time, and Thedas is my 2nd favorite fantasy setting after Tolkien's Middle Earth. It's been heartbreaking to see this series go downhill.
While there were many gameplay and story elements in DA2 and Inquisition that were sorely lacking, I think the worldbuilding and character writing were compelling enough to keep me engaged with the series... until Veilguard landed and just blew a lot of it up (almost literally; read the in-game missives about what happened to southern Thedas during the events of Veilguard).
I'm glad I just watched Veilguard gameplay and cutscene videos and didn't waste my money buying this piece of work.
I am apathetic about the DA IP going forward, and I doubt we'll see anything more of it anyway if rumors about sales figures are correct.
It's 100% over for any future Dragon Age games, at least from Bioware. Maybe another dev buys the IP and tries to go back to the roots, its possible but not under EA in this day. The question is probably more if Bioware is allowed to make another Mass Effect game, if anyone cares about that lol (it will not be good).
Bioware saw how successful BG3's tactical, classic RPG combat was and thought to themselves "Yes, we will make it a braindead action game."
I didn't play Veilguard and had no interest after Inquisition. The worldbuilding and character writing of DAI was such a downward trend from Origins that I basically gave up the series. DA2 was very flawed and an unworthy successor; DAI was insultingly bad (especially in terms of the characters; just so much less interesting or fully irritating in a bad way).
DA Origins is in my top 5 fav games forever. That game is just the perfect blend of everything I like in a RPG and a story. DA 2's biggest flaw was the forced streamlining due to development time: the repeat maps, being locked into being human, and just overall quality; but I wouldn't call it a bad game. I think DA 2is more of "a life in Thedas" sort of story, not really going into big plots or wtv, even though the last DLC has some major lore stuff. DAI was kinda boring and the story eventually pays off in the end(again in the last DLC), but the journey to that end is painfully long and not much happens. Also the rehashed villain from DA 2's Legacy DLC didn't do it any favors. Corypheus is a lot better in that DLC in my opinion, and like Architect he works best as a morally grey, mysterious abomination-wizard character.
DA Wokeguard is just neo-marxist garbage like a lot of today's media. Not much point going deeper into it 'casue that's all the depth it has, really. They even put a "secret ending" after the credits where it's revealed that all this time there was this mysterious force pulling the strings from the shadows since game 1 lol To me that's a dead-on sign that the writer behind it had no talent whatsoever. Unearned, cheap and lazy.
But yeah, all this to say that DA was a good IP (even despite DA 2's flaws and DAI's blandness) until Biowoke decided it needed pronouns.
But isn’t it shocking how gaming got utterly infested by all these talentless people who only care about putting their personal beliefs into the game.
DA Origins is my favorite game of all time, and it is for me the closest to a perfect game I will ever get (for me personally, not necessarily objectively if that even exist in art). It was in the perfect sweetspot between old shool and modern (at the time modern) gameplay. With DA:2 they completely changed everything about the game, it didn't even feel like Dragon Age anymore. It wasn't a bad game though, but I kinda lost interest in the series after that honestly. The new game I never cared for, and I honestly even find it amusing to observe the drama, despite it being part of my favorite series ever, but I don't even considered it to be in the same series or universe anyway.
Vailguard made me feel like Gears 5 made me feel in 2019 - just done with the franchise altogether. Another lesson that you shouldn't get too attached to a corporate's product.
DA:O: We need to save Ferelden and defeat the Blight.
DA2:We need to get the fuck out of Ferelden and get rich quick.
I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Origin, a shame what it became and yes Dragon Age: Inquisition was also awful.
I’ve seen people say ‘Dragon Age: Origins is the only Dragon Age game.’ And I agree.
Inquisition was good but not as great as Origins
I have not bought Veilguard. Then again, I never got into Dragon Age games. I did, however, pay enough attention to the promo material BioWare put out to see that they really wanted us to know that you could put top surgery scars in the character creator. In a high fantasy game. With magic. That was enough for me to put popcorn in the microwave and wait for the disaster show.
Let's leave aside all the top surgery scars or gender lectures. The biggest problem is that they destroy pretty much everything we loved about the previous settings with a lore dump. Not only that but they do it in the stupidest way: another blight. So they ruin southern Thedas with the darkspawn after the Grey Wardens in Ferelden are stronger than ever. You don't even get to experience it.
I think the other games do not deserve all the hate tho
The writing never disappointed me, specially when you look at the big picture, the problem is how they articulated the story in the game format in DA2 and Inquisition (yep, they are not RPG as Origins was)
But Veilguard... Is something else
I agree about the first being the strongest in the series, but the second and third definitely have a story to them
Dragon Age 2's story was about Hawk's rise to Champion status in Kirkwall, and the Templars vs Mages conflict
I just started Inquisition, and so far it's about tears in the fabric of reality that the MC needs to close with their hand scar thing, while bringing everyone together
And I'm not even going to touch Veilguard with a 30-and-a-half foot pole.
Dragon Age embracing gender ideology is it just admitting that it has nothing to offer anyone anymore.
@@SabiJD Taash is just a badly written character. How they went from Krem and Hollix to them is beyond me.
Then there is also the badly written dialogue, not enough Solas content, next to no roleplaying opportunities, horrible main villains, flat companions and the erasure of pretty much any controversial topics such as slavery, racism and sexism.
Overall the game is, at best, a 5/10. It’s kind of sad really. DA was my favourite franchise and I loved all previous titles, but Veilguard was such a disappointment that I’ve lost all interest and hope they won’t make another DA game.
I like Dragon Age as a series but knew the franchise was destined for immolation even back in DA2 when the series began to gravitate to a cheesy/lighthearted anime art style forgoing the gritty/realistic medieval setting and design.
Veilguard is simply the tombstone for the series
DA2 was way rushed in every way. Inquisition was somewhat challenging on nightmare, but the story was considerably lacking apart from a couple companions which is what these games were all about
I'm sorry to hear this, David.
I can't say I can relate exactly as Inquisition was my first Dragon Age game. But I'll always be grateful that the world building it had made me interested enough to go back and buy Origins and 2.
I was never a fan but after seeing that video where they just sit to talk about gender and DEI, I'm glad I wasn't
Origins was excellent but had way too much combat padding, the deep roads was awful. 2 was decent overall but crippled by the development problems, a big letdown compared to Origins in nearly every way - only the characters carried the game and I remember it fondly despite the flaws. Inquisition was unplayable, I hated all the changes to the combat and stopped barely into the first zone. I was baffled by how popular it was.
By the time Veilguard came out I was just laughing at Bioware's downfall. I don't touch AAA games these days, all the good stuff is from indie and midrange studios.
I do not agree that origins had too much combat padding; I think it just started to feel that way after the first couple playthroughs once you got good at the combat mechanics. Once you got too good at them the combat sort of turned into something you just wanted to get through. The first couple playthroughs though the combat was pretty compelling.
What did people even expect when half of the original bioware team left mid project?
The best part about DA:O is the class specializations. You can have more than one and get creative with it. DA:2's only best are the companions. For DA:I, it's the exploration and unique combat. What they all have in common are the playable companions. Unlike DA:V.
Admittedly, the sequels (DA2 and Inquisition) to the DA:O didn’t feel the same as the first, but they are good enough to play. I've stopped being a fan because of Veilguard.
I think there's a ton of us that feel the exact same way. I played through Origins 3 times, but I didn't even make it an hour into DA:2 or DA:I, and I bought them both on deep discounts. I won't touch Veilguard with a ten foot pole.
Origins was peak i remember when i first played it in 2014 i was hooked inplayed on my brothers pc for like 80 hours it in just over a month. That was peak tactics rpgs i am glad bg3 came out because man DAO was so good
Mass Effect and Dragon Age started the RPG trend of advertising sex with all your companions as a main feature/requirement, to the point where Baldurs Gate 3 felt they had to up the ante and introduce bestiality. I think Inquisition has gay sex with a minotaur. It brought a lot more disgusting freaks to the genre. If I remember right the ad campaign for DA2 was literally just flashing the words SEX and VIOLENCE. That's often the consequence of these "dark and grittty" settings, they forget the storytelling, exaggerate all the evil and depravity, and become sources of spiritual sickness in real life.
Yup. Where's the heroism?
I was a super fan of the original, I really liked the sequel's more adult lower stakes political story, then by the time I got around to the third one I realized I had forgotten all of the story and lore and didn't care to go back and read about it, so i dropped it. It didn't help that inquisition's gameplay is busywork simulator. Veilguard, well... I think enough has been said about that game that I do not need to comment.
Origins was great. I liked DA2 too for some of the characters, even though it was a very different game.
I wasn't a fan of the "open world" in Inquisition. And the characters weren't interesting either. But I still finished it.
However, Veilguard felt like a parody of Dragon Age. Hated all of the characters. Including the player character. Didn't care for the story. The world felt totally shallow. The art style doesn't fit at all. The dialogue is a joke. Suffice to say, I didn't finish it. I heard you can kill your entire team in the final mission. That is my head canon ending.
I built a whole new computer just to play Dragon Age Inquisition or Andromeda. I would have paid everything for old Bioware games. Not anymore. The tone, character designs, moral story, and many little questionable issues started popping up in most recent Bioware games since 2014. And whenever we critique it, we were being banned, silenced, insulted, or called names immediately by the moderators for at least a decade now like we are are some kind of foreign agents. But i realized that it's not specific to Bioware because similar issues were prevalent in many other entertainment and fandoms everywhere. Today, i am totally spiteful of those activists who ruined my favourite franchice and escapism.
I have to think this through, but I think you got me on the path of understanding, why I don't like how 'grimdark' is being used today. I think it only works in the good vs. evil context, much less in the 'morally grey' style of storytelling so prevalent today.
I think RPGs have actually influenced grimdark in a negative way. Author's often end up telling stories that are the equivalent of recalling a tabletop adventure through a setting - with a dark setting dictating that everybody is just bad and gross.
since Origins was made before EA i think thats why we got one really great game
I played through Origins with every single possible start combination, I played DA2 twice I think... and I stopped in the middle of Inquisition because I just didn't want to continue. Go figure!
Dragon Age was an absolute license to print money, but they managed to mess it up.
Dei ruined the fourth dragon age and overall killed dragon age, my favorite story. I want vengeance!
With Veilguard something came into sharp focus for me. The same spirit that drives explicitly Christian film studios has become the norm within mainstream media companies. A major criticism of those films are how clumsily the message is implemented into the wider work and the associated feeling of being preached at. That sentiment has become the norm and the social media presence of people involved within the creative industries echo the type of evangelism and moral policing that characterize Conservative Christianity.
It's absolutely a religious sentiment as I've talked about on the channel many times. This is especially true of trans ideology as it relies entirely on unverifiable internal gnosis.
It's funny that the Qunari in DA:O was sort of based on a type of islamic culture and ended up with a trans they/them thing.
Sten would not approve, like always.
I did like that moment in dragon Age 2 where you release the Qunari mage and he's straight up kills himself.
1:14 Easy answer, name is David Silverman, he was the Marketing Director during DA2 and the one that pushed for the "Awesome Button" stuff that plagued Dragon Age.
5:20 "Well, the gay stuff was always there from the beginning,"
"Yes. But you were much better writers."
I got fairly apathetic halfway through inquisition. I loved origins, but veilguard needed to return to party based strategy with meaningful character development. I found it disappointing the removal of stuff like stealth from inquisition to explore an area and set yourself up for a better quest outcome etc.
I liked Inquisition more than you did. I liked how Cassandra projected an image of toughness, but was utterly addicted to Varrick's romance novels, and you get to embarrass her and make her happy at the same time by having him bring her the next (unpublished) entry. I liked how Josephine had a clear understanding of politics and diplomacy. I didn't like what they did with Leliana. I felt she wouldn't have lost her idealism that quickly, especially after she romanced the Hero of Ferelden. The main problem with Inquisition was that it tried to be "open world" without actually being open world, like Skyrim, Oblivion or FO4 were. I think that's why you might not like it. Open world games tend to have LESS plot, so you can go do whatever you want, and that's OK. Inquisition only made vague hand-waving gestures towards being open-world, but instead created lots of MMO fetch quests instead. But when you chose to engage the plot and ignore the fetch quests, Inquisition feels closer to Dragon Age Origins than Dragon Age 2 did.
100% agree on everything said
Id love to see bioware go back to something more strategic in gameplay, and they also seem to have forgotten how to handle a DA story. The bulk of the game should be about an epic war...or two, with the larger mythological elements mostly ignored by everyone except the player and party members until the 11th hour. Thats how you make it feel grounded.
Dragon origins was the good game in the franchise. Such a shame I love origins dark fantasy
I was replying to another poster here and something dawned on my about the plot of DA2. The entire game comes across as a long version of one of DAO's origin stories plus the Ostagar part of the game (in DAO the origins story plus Ostagar set up the conflict and main plot). This is very similar to how the conflict of the mages and the templars blows up (literally) in the last part of DA2. Most of DA2 is about Hawke and him building him and his family up in Kirkwall; but doesn't really have an over arching plot or direction. The 'real' conflict of the story doesn't really start to form until the 3rd act and then the last battle serves similar function as the battle of Ostagar where at the end of the battles the conflict and plot are clearly defined and in DAO you have your primary quest but DA2 the game just suddenly ends. This is what really makes the game feel directionless and pointless; as well as why David is correct that DA2 just feels like it is about Hawke wondering around on random quests until the game ends. Because the main conflict is being set up the entire game but then ends once the clear plot and conflict break open*.
Pretty much nailed my thoughts exactly. This stuff was always in the series since the beginning. But it was far from the focus. You wouldn’t even know these characters were gay unless you took the time to get to know them. And yeah when you did find out it was just like “oh interesting you’re gay”, not LOOK AT ME IM GAY RESPECT MY PRONOUNS BIGOT the series died for me at 2. Inquisition was my last chance for them, it was just such a shallow soulless experience. I couldn’t even finish it. As such I will never touch another thing from the dragon age franchise. Hell doubt I’ll ever touch a BioWare product again. They’re dead to me. Those who have replaced them, such as larian or cd projekt are far better than BioWare ever was. So I will not miss them. I’m looking forward to the future of RPGs from studios like these.
Always starting out with the “Heyyyy Folks!” 😊
Always
All the release did was make me go and play origins again.
I could only ever get into Dragon Age: Origins. I skipped Dragon Age 2 after hearing about the rushed development, and I tried Inquisition years later on a steep discount... but I just couldn't get past the first area after the prologue. It felt like playing an MMORPG where I was the only player-and that’s not exactly a great vibe.
Even when it first came out, I remember listening to Totalbiscuit and his crew on their podcast. They actually liked the game, but even they described it as a single-player MMO, which made me raise an eyebrow at the time. That’s why I skipped it initially.
Meanwhile, I’ve replayed Origins so many times. The way your race and background shape the experience is just amazing-like city elf vs. Dalish elf, noble dwarf vs. casteless dwarf, and especially being a mage. I’ll never forget how different it felt playing as a mage, I was so surprised how different that was. The quality of the PC background writing and how it affected the rest of the game really added this extra layer of immersion and so much replay value. It's not just Bioware, nobody really makes games like that anymore.
I never considered buying DAV since the first close up of the MC in the trailer. He looked like they fed a bunch of faces into Gen AI and said "generalize". So that was a no. And then I saw the rest of the characters. And that was a hell no. Especially the fem gnome and the elf artisan chick. I don't like playing with ugly characters. I can forgive bad storytelling (to a degree), but if the characters are deliberately unappealing it distracts me and ruins the immersion. Because guess what - most people - and I really mean it as 99.99% of people - are NOT ugly or unappealing. Everyone is different sure, but visually unappealing to a point where you want to avoid them isn't really something that I encountered even after living in 4 countries. And here we have a whole cast that is visually revolting. When I see a bad corporate product I always get curious how the meetings went. What everyone said when they presented the character models. 😂😂😂
The conflict in 2 was that of the mages vs. the city's templars. Your character entered the city as a refugee who was just trying to scrape by financially. To improve your situation and that of your family you decide to go into the deep roads. You accidentally make things worse for everyone involved in the mage vs templar dispute because you unknowingly helped find a red lyrium idol. At the end of the game, you have to choose to side with the mages or templars. You are meant to attempt to acknowledge your part re the red lyrium idol and and to make things better, but you notice that the overall problem is much bigger than you are. You might be able to make things better where you are, but, all over Thedas, mages and templars are going to fight. Origins had a much better story and was superior in a lot of ways. It was much more interesting to see what is going to happen re the dark spawn and decide to take a stand/have a clear objective than to have things happen as a result of your actions and then later choose your stance. Honestly, I think the story in 2 would have been better if Varric's brother hadn't found/taken the idol. I think it would have been more interesting if your character had chosen to take it with them and sell it, so that you felt significantly more responsible. Yes, your actions would have been forced, but, since the idol was probably the most interesting thing you found in the Deep Roads, it would make a lot of sense for someone desperate like you to take it if they didn't know what it was and thought it was valuable. After you took it, Varric's brother should have unknowingly kept have and you should have been able to see what it did to him/what it might do to others while you searched for it.
I have never seen a franchise wasted/mishandled like Dragon Age.
Sonic the hedgehog?
@DVSPress At least Sonic got some movies.
Yeah, now. Maybe you weren't around for sonic between about 1996 and... somewhere in the 2010s.
@DVSPress No, I wasn't, I guess that's how bad it was😅
After Origins and Awakening, it felt more and more like a dating simulator to me. There are parts of DA 2 and Inquisition I liked a lot and I love Dragonage lore, but they didn't quite hit the same.
As for Veilguard...I tried to watch a playthrough and lost interest pretty fast. It felt like fanfiction for nine year olds.
4:37 I'm more curious whether you sided with Caradin or Branka... Also, I still have beef with Inquisition for not including Bohdan and Sandal. Man, I loved Sandal
I think you hit the nail on the head with Inquisition. I never played origins or da2, but I had hope for veilguard because it looked so different. I'm almost 100 hours in...and if I had to guess...pretty close to the end. The biggest issue for me is how uninterested in the companions I am, and that's part of why my gameplay hours are so high. It's just one companion quest after another, and because I'm a completionist, I'm trying to do it all. But overall I don't think the game deserves AS MUCH flak as it's gotten. If they made the companions more heroic and less woke check boxes to fill, I think I would have given the game a solid 9 out of 10 so far. Davrin is really the only good companion, the others are either "ok" or just awful (Taash and Neve). If you ever played Mass effect Andromeda, you can tell they came right off the heels of that game into this one, with its overall group tone. It's almost like, if the Inquisitor was Commander Shepherd, Rook is this world's Pathfinder/Ryder.
5:57 I don't wanna be _that_ guy, but maybe being forgiving and keep buying the thing probably gave the developers the wrong idea. The lesson they learned was: the audience loved the woke stuff, let's focus on that, the gameplay be darned...
My thoughts are that I wish I could have written it instead. I’m a writer fighting to get an agent and I see all these subpar stories coming out and it drives me insane knowing I could do better.
Hey new friend.
If your profile pic is actually you, and you legitimately want to be traditionally published, I recommend you adopt a persona that's higher on the progressive stack. At the very least, you should find a clever way to say that you're gay in every query letter. Pretending to be a black female will give you the best odds of landing an agent and then getting published. You can easily use an AI to generate fake author photos of yourself and pitch all of your books as tangentially related to the woke agenda.
This is not a joke. The publishing industry is possibly the most heavily converged industry in the world, and that especially includes the gatekeepers.
Finally someone acknowledges that DA inquisition was already pretty bad RPG game. I just couldn't get myself to finish it.
I have met one person in real life who liked it. Everyone else it was a DNF game. The entire gaming press was praising it!
I remember Razorfist liking it, but that's it.
When that game won GOTY I lost all faith in these awards.
Couldn't agree more. Started losing me at two and after three i just didn't care about the series anymore.
It's interesting to see the reviews for the new game and people acting like veilgaurd has all these problems that I already had with 2 and Inquisition
Yup
100% agreement.
On a sidenote, there are people who don't mind any of that and just want to bash things. They say that DA1 was great, 2 and 3 didn't know what they wanted, and finally 4 transformed into something completely else (pure action) which has nothing to do with 1 - and they are completely OK with it, they love the gameplay of 4, and they don't care about its story because all they want is to shut their brains off.
I'm glad they have a game to play I guess.
its too bad man I'm an old fan too.
Agree with your views. Dragon age 2 and inquisition lost me. I completed both games and was disappointed. Inquisition made me me angry for some reason and so veilgard never interested me. I often go and replay origins
I gave up on most of these sequels years ago. I never played Inquisition, life had just gotten busy. But I’ve been watching gaming- specifically franchises bought by large studios progressively get buggier, less creative, more “woke” and overall just less fun. Until Cyberpunk, Elden Ring and Baldurs Gate 3, I genuinely just thought I was outgrowing games. But really I’m just more selective of the ways in which I want to use my time. The worse these franchises become there will be others to take their place. Just don’t get too invested and enjoy the good games. Hopefully eventually gaming will return to its roots and these corporations will go under.
Inquisition won game of the year after being out for less than a month. I don't think it was out long enough for people to beat it before the awards ceremony! (I dropped the game, it was boring)
The elves vs werewolves did matter. In the last quest as you're fighting through Denerim to get to the arch demon you'll have a werewolf reinforcements instead of elf archers.
Yeah, but that doesn't matter.
@DVSPress it can if you're playing on harder difficulties or just arent very good at the game. The templars and werewolves don't synergise well because they don't have any ranged attacks, while the elves and mages have the opposite problem in having no melee attacks.
I don't remember the reinforcements mattering in the last level at all, I guess. It's just cool to see werewolves (done it both ways).
The only sane opinion. DA2 and Inquisition fans confuse me. Especially if you've played Origins at all.
However, I was expecting Veilguard to continue that downward slope, what I didn't expect was how catastrophic the situation actually turned out to be.
Here's a
Inquisition:
* I was initially drawn to Inquisition by the voice acting, particularly Freddy Prince Jr.'s performance as Iron Bull.
* The game's world-building and character interactions are enjoyable, and the Dragon Age Keep integration adds a nice touch of nostalgia.
* The mage class is particularly fun to play, with the ability to zip around the battlefield using Fade Step.
Veilguard:
* The user interface is visually unappealing.
* The combat system is frustrating and unsatisfying.
* Companion interactions often feel forced and superficial.
* The game's linear structure and lack of meaningful choices are disappointing.
* The removal of the Dragon Age Keep was a major misstep.
Overall, while Inquisition has its flaws, it offers an enjoyable experience. Veilguard, however, falls short in many areas, leaving fans of the series feeling disappointed.
Dragon Age: Origins was an instant classic for fans of the genre. It was "bringing Baldur's Gate into modern gaming" and it felt like it... even if the team was limited to 4 people and the system was less complex. But hey, when ranking against AD&D, being less complex might actually be a benefit.
Great world-building that went so far beyond Ferelden where the game takes place added to the climate of this new fantasy setting. And the approach to elves was pretty refreshing too [to anyone who wasn't familiar with Sapkowski's work - but it was 2009, you'd have to be Slavic to be familiar with it at that time].
Dragon Age 2.
I want to say that I know what they were going for with DA2... but the game was released 18 months before they got there.
After Origins, DA2 felt like a slice-of-life sidestory with an interesting concept of time-skips. It felt somewhat Star Warsy with time passing between each Act. Ultimately, however, the way the story was told lacked focus and while the desire to get money isn't the worst motivation in the world, I get that plotline in real life every day - if I wanted it to be my goal in spare time, I'd play Sims.
Combat was repetitive and boring and somehow got WORSE on higher difficulty levels. The way enemies spawned was annoying as hell.
That game needed so much more time in the oven...
Lastly, if you're going to limit our game to one city, you must take under consideration that our brains are conditioned to get excited about visiting new places and locations and have visually distinct experiences - you can't move us back and forward across same-looking streets for 10 years with very little new visual stimulae, c'mon!
If every location in Eastern Kingdoms looked like Elwynn Forest and every location in Kalimdor looked like Barrens we'd be puking out of our eyes before level 40.
Dragon Age Inquisition.
Fun fact: If you happen to reside in one of those Early-Sapkowski-Enabled Slavic countries I mentioned before, your copy of Dragon Age Inquisition bought on Origin store would most likely be language region-locked. What does that mean?
The game would be in Polish, Czech or Russian.
No option to fully switch it to English. [voices were in English, in "cinematic mode", but UI would remain localized no matter what.]
I was utterly confused and disconnected from the experience by that fact alone.
That was strike one.
Strike two was the elimination of the dedicated healing spells. I get it, not everybody likes to be an HP battery sitting at the back casting "Flash of Light" and you shouldn't be forced to take upon yourself that role. But it should be an option. And I happen to I love it. Fuck you Bioware for taking it away from me.
If I want to play Dark Souls, I will play Dark Souls.
Strike three - while Dragon Age 2 flirted with an action-RPG combat style, Inquisition fully embraced console-oriented playstyle. I'm not saying console-friendly combat style is bad or worse - it can be very engaging, but its not for everyone, and it wasn't for me. It contributed to the concept of alienation in the 3rd game of the series.
Never got anywhere close to finishing it and probably never will.
Veilguard
Hard pass. As the game continues going in the same direction in the combat style and approach to complex mechanics, I am not going to pick it up even from the Bargain Bin. Sorry, not sorry.
It has nothing to do with inclusion, LGBTQ+ content or anything. I can always chain-skip the talking bit, but the gameplay-wise the series goes downhill from Origins and the world building fails to engage my imagination.
It feels like Bioware is very busy chasing popular themes in their games. And while its okay to include best ideas from other titles into your product, if said ideas go against the previously established world, mechanics and storytelling-- it will disconnect a portion of the old fans even without heavy-handed social messages.
i agree that Origins story is best by far but i still managed to find good things about the DA2 and DAI, 2 is a personal story of Hawk and in terms of characters it still had some good ones (like Varrik is fun, and Merril had interesting quest)and Legacy dlc had interesting lore, DAI had interesting parts (with unrealized potential) but most of the interesting parts were Solas and his dlc
I agree and add the instant hero games like to do. In third, I got whiplash on becoming the leader. So what I can close the gates, doesn't automatically make me the leader of the inquisition. Fallout 4 gives you power armor and killing a death claw 2 minutes in. Journalists are lazy and want to feel special without earning it.
That thumbnail is something....
I always thought DA:O was over-rated. It did go downhill from there, though, and after Inquisition, which was a horrible offline MMO with garbage companions and an uninspired story-line, I decided to never buy another one.
The DA2 conflict was to rebuild the family estate, get married, have kids, continue the family line. Sadly, the game quests largely ignored that entire goal and devolved to the civil war between the mages and the whatever they were called.
"The DA2 conflict was to rebuild the family estate, get married, have kids, continue the family line. Sadly, the game quests largely ignored that entire goal and devolved to the civil war between the mages and the whatever they were called."
Yes that is part of the problem; the main conflict of the game is the growing tension between mages and templars and the breakdown of established order; but that doesn't even become a relevant focus point until the 2nd half of the game (maybe even the 3rd act). The majority of the game is about Hawke's personal and family goals as well as companion quests but it lacks an over arching plot and since the 'real' plot sort of overtakes Hawke's personal goals in the 2nd half of the game; it sort of pivots the plot and drops off the entire 1st half of the game. That lack of a true overarching goal throughout the game really ended up making a majority of the quests feel meaningless. As David says; Hawke just kind of wonders around the map and the city until the game ends (right when the real conflict breaks wide open with the mages and templars; but we never actually get to engage in that conflict).
honestly; the entire game actually felt like a super long version of DAO's origin stories/ostagar. It is like it is only the first part of a game/story that sets up the conflict but then the game ends.
I stopped being a fan of Dragon Age after playing the demo of DA2. Maker's breath, it was awful in terms of writing, dialogue, graphics, art direction, voice acting, and combat design. I had no idea how anyone could find anything enjoyable in it. I knew it wasn't going to be something I would enjoy 40 hours of, and it was clear this series was only going to get worse from here.
Sometime later, I played The Witcher, a game I neglected for years, and realized all along that was what Dragon Age was trying to be and failing horribly.
Witcher 1 is still dripping with atmosphere and good story bits, even with the rough graphics (and you should have seen the OG version!)
only char that rubbed me the wrong way in DAI was Viviane, she 2ambisious and sees circle as means to power, like tevinter magister
Play RuneScape 3 with me, bro. Join my Group Ironman.
Im only a fan of Dragon Age Origins.
It was all downhill since Dragon Age 2 for me. I checked out way back then so this one is nothing new.
I expect nothing from the developers who made Mass Effect Andromeda
I don't completely agree regarding DA2; on the gameplay, yeah it was routinely repetitive and boring and that was a major mark against it. But as for the conflict, it was keeping the peace between various factions which were increasingly at each others' throats - in particular the rising tension between the Mages and the Templars. It didn't stick the landing in the last battle, and they certainly could have done better with Lyrium Idol, but overall I enjoyed the story. I liked what it had set up and was interested in seeing where it was going.
Alas, I never got to see that. Inquisition was largely terrible. It had some interesting ideas and cool moments in there, but overall it sucked. I did run the female Mage to put her with Cullen because he was about the only character I really liked. Cool Templar is cool. That was also the game where they turned the preachy intrusive nonsense corner, like with the Qunari lecture and some other unwelcome insertions.
But yeah, Origins was the best game and it's been a downhill trend since. Since ME3 I've regarded the era of ME1, ME2, DA:O, and DA2 as Bioware's Golden Age, which ended with the release of ME3 and Inquisition.
Dragon Age 2 only dips into a broader story but for the most part it's Hawke's story and Kirkwall's to a lesser degree.
I think the criticism is that conflict between mages and templars and "keeping the peace" as the plot is not really clear until the 3rd act. for the majority of the game it seems you just an adventurer going on random quests, some related to your family, some related to your companions, some given by the city population. But there is not a real clear indication of an overarching plot until at least the 2nd half of the game. Which can really make the 1st half seem directionless. I really didn't like this plot style on my first playthrough but a couple years ago I gave the game a 2nd chance (I mean I own it might as well play it) and I hated it a lot less and the plot style did not bother as much. Still no where near as good as Origins but it is okay. but that is sort of the downside; the series went from 1 of the greatest RPGs and gaming experiences of all time to just an 'okay' sequel; and then just disastrous after.
@@SabiJD well obviously "disastorous" is hyperbole. It was not intended to be anything else, or a quick 'shorthand' for the obvious decrease in quality of writing and gameplay. With Veilguard though in terms of sales and 'number of online players' dipping it actually is a technical disaster. but whatever, I hated Inquisition so I had no interest in continuing the series.
In terms of the dip in quality; DA2 had a lack of a clear meaningful plot, and ended up feeling like a series of side quests that lead nowhere plus repetitive gameplay and areas made it a tedious experience with a few okay pieces; the characters were also not as well developed as they were in Origins and the lack of 'origins' stories making each playthrough feel different seriously diminished replay value. These are facts, not opinions.
If Veilguard is a spiritual successor to Fable II they made it for the wrong franchise. I am not talking about the combat mechanics of DAV because I did not play it; but I didn't hate the combat mechanics of DAI; I just hated how it became button mashing in big empty boring 'open world' areas that lack anything meaningful. Plus the characters were boring compared to even DA2. DAV from what I have seen completely loses the dark gritty fantasy and is too colorful; which is sort of how DAI looked but this is even more. The dialogue from what I have seen in youtube is laughably bad. the lack of meaningful dialogue choices is serious decrease in quality. plus the lip sync is during cutscenes and dialogue is hilariously bad.
"I personally disagree that the arc wasn't especially clear. I got the vibe the story was really of Kirkwall, with Hawke being a way to navigate that story, quite early on. "
Well that is a problem then too; you may be write to view the story as being about Kirkwall; but that makes our protagonist a boring character designed as a mechanic to take you through a city and not an actual character themselves. which can add to the feeling of meaninglessness in the quests.
"The Templar and mage dynamics are pretty overt even in act 1. And at that point, the overall focus on Hawke preparing for the expedition is a clear, and to me interesting, goal."
I am not saying elements of the coming conflict are not touched on in the first act; but they clearly do not take any kind of center stage or 'main quest' plot structure until the 3rd act, and the conflict does not actually fully start until the game ends. I am not saying that the individual goals Hawke had are completely uninteresting, I never made that argument. I said they do not connect with any over arching plot (for the most part) which can make them feel disconnected and meaningless to the 'bigger' picture. and that is also a fact not opinion. Now this may not have bothered you because you were interested enough in Hawke, Kirkwall and the side quests that the lack of an overarching goal didn't really bother you. But it bothered people like David and me because it made the game feel more MMO like were most of the questing is mindless experience gathering with no real meaningful story payoff.
"I really enjoyed the use of time skips in that, too. I kinda wish more such games used that narrative device."
I did not like it at all; it made it feel much less like an RPG and more like a narrative that is being told "about your character" rather then you role playing the character and the story out. I am not saying that gimmick is bad on its own; and I don't see a problem with it for other games or maybe DLC/expansions. But I did not like the narrative format of DA2.
@@SabiJD "you can't really give an opinion on character development, and then say these are "facts"..."
I was referring to the lack of origins story making the protagonist less developed. hawke is not a blank slate in the same way meaning there is less to develop. That is a fact.
"As for replays; yes, but I still played it many times over the years, for different classes, different romance options, and certain choices."
are completely dwarfed by Origins. DA2 has a serious lack of replay value and options compared to Origins. Have you even played Origins? I get the impression you started with DA2 and don't have as much investment in Origins; which means your opinions are fairly worthless.
"I disagree DAV's writing is "laughably bad". If all you've seen is cherry-picked lines and scenes by culture-warriors or outrage tourists, then sure, you'll get the wors"
I watched live streams playing the entire first 5 to 10 hours of the game. The writing and dialogue are god awful. and the dialogue wheel might as well not even exist given that all the "options" are always the same with maybe a slight tone difference. given the way you are dismissing this, I think you are shill and like my last comment, I am finding your opinion more and more worthless.
"No, but that's not the same as being "laughably bad"."
No, it is laughably bad. You are downplaying just how bad it is, especialy by comparison to origins (which I stand by my assumption you never played or never had real investment it). I am almost entirely convinced this is the case because you never refer to it for comparison and only compare DA2, DAI and DAV and never mention origins at all. Which is the only game that was truly great in the series.
"And yes, judged as a DA, Veilguard's combat is unwanted. But judged on its own game design merits, it's good"
what an utterly ridiculous comment. It is the forth game in the FRANCHISE! why would you possibly judge it on its own? it is not its own unique game it is a sequel. If they wanted to develop an entirely new gameplay; rather than build on the gameplay of the series; why not come up with a new franchise? You comment here is asinine. I am starting to get frustrated with you.
"I just hope BioWare listen to the sensible, non-histrionic criticisms for the next one, and ditch the overly modern writing tone, and shift the artstyle back to being in line with the trilogy"
They didn't listen to the criticisms of DAI (or ME Andromeda for that matter) and in fact doubled down and made it even worse. there is no reason to think they will ever produce anything of quality ever again.
"Because of how DAV ends, it mostly feels like the end of an era, so they have every opportunity to hit the reset button on the main issues with it."
I would say that is wishful thinking; but really at this point it is delusional.
You and millions of others stopped being DA fans this past decade
Oof
Terrible terrible writing. They did Solas dirty. And now I must look to fanfic for some actual substance.
DAO is probably my favorite game all time. I played every character origin and saw all the different character interactions based on your origins. The illusion of choice and consequence was very well crafted so the fact it didn’t matter much in the end didn’t matter. There was a dark gritty atmosphere but interesting colorful Characters, companions and villains. And the tactical combat was fun to figure out but once you got really good at it the game was far less challenging and the combat kind of turned into something to just get through, but that was after 5 or so play throughs.
DA 2 was a remarkable step down in quality. I really hated it the first time I played it but after many years went back and gave it a 2nd chance. I was less annoyed at it the 2nd play through. But like David, I didn’t like the combat, the repetitive gameplay, lack of clear plot direction and less interesting characters.
DAI was a whole other level of bad, if the maps on da2 were step down in size and scale; dai was monstrous size of boring empty maps that had almost nothing interesting going on. And if the characters in da2 were a step down, dai was falling off a cliff. I played it 2 times. I actually had the opposite response I had with da2; where on 2nd playthrough i hated it less with dai on the 2nd playthrough I hated it far more.
The conflict of DA2 is introduced in Act 2 and is resolved in act 2. Then 3 has to pull a rabbit out of its hat to keep the dumb story going. Total bag fumble 😂😂
The Chantry wasnt Christianity, it didnt beat anyone over the head becauss it didnt have real world hangups about sexuality- which goes both ways. It didnt have time to.
The problem was the insertion of realworld hangups when it didnt exist before Pozzware mucked it up.
Regarding Inquisition. I do think it is a heroic story, it's just shoddily executed. The main villain in that game is awful and he is effectively defeated the moment he shows up.
Looking back at DA2. It is humorous how that game pulled the "subverting your expectations" way before Last Jedi. The game and the marketing teased you with promises that Hawke was this Carlylian great man of history and that we would learn how he was the center player in whatever event that had just happened. Only for it to be revealed that Hawke was not this great man of action and just somebody who stumbled into all the important events and failed to make much of a difference.
Hawke is one of the worst RPG protagonists in history, if not THE worst. He is freaking useless! He sits on his ass all the time, acts only after it's too late, and fails at every task he does. And there's no reason at all for this. Hawke has wealth, influence, and connections with the most powerful people in Kirkwall; he spends the game with more resources at hand than the Hero of Fereldan. He's the guy who should have his thumb on every major conflict in the city, and have the power to take action in whatever way the player deems appropriate. And yet he doesn't. Why? Because the writers wanted to be "subversive." And by "subversive," they just mean forcing the story to go only in the direction THEY want it to go, even though it's supposed to be a FREAKING RPG, a genre that ideally is driven by the player's decisions.
The marketing materials called him "The most important character in Dragon Age."
Haven't heard of him since. There were characters with goals in the game, but he was not one of them.
@@InvertedWIng I find DA2 difficult to discuss because I wonder how much of my distaste of the final product is a result of its incredibly rushed nature and how much of it is me disagreeing with the basic premise of the game.
People can say that Veilguard is the most subversive because of its pandering to all the social justice madness. But in a way DA2 is far more subversive than any other fantasy RPG I have played. DA2 fundamentally disagrees with the idea of the heroic in history and believes that it is all social trends and factors that determine the outcome and that any man who we do believe to be important was in reality as trapped and controlled as anyone else.
And yet I cannot help but wonder how the game and story would have been received had it not been rushed. If Bioware had been given more time to smooth out the plot. Could they have told the story they wanted to tell without making Hawke an incompetent buffoon as you explained? And would I still hate it?
@@DVSPress Lmao, you're right, I remember that now.
But Hawke did have a goal in act 1. He wanted to get rich and reclaim his family estate. After that? He just stumbled his way through the plot and was completely ineffectual at achieving anything.
The other thing that Veilguard lacked that completely lobotomized the roleplaying was how you couldn't do anything "bad" or "mean". Every choice kinda just amounted to "I agree!", "I agree.", or "Um... Okay, I agree..."
The previous games established its roleplay potential with how they allowed you to be a complete and utter @$$hole from start to finish. There were multiple points at which you could straight up kill people you just met, even potential companions.
Dragon Age Origins is a game I loved. I still like to watch videos about the banter, it still makes me laugh. I remember downloading every mod i could find on Nexus (armor, new quests, new areas, new companions) and that did crash my game
Dragon Age 2 was ok but not nearly as good as Origins (running through the same areas was very annoying)
I haven't Played Dragon Age Inquisition but maybe i will give it a go
I will most likely not touch Fable Age Veilguard unless a ton of mods make this game more bearable (i doubt it). I heard you can let all companions die if you don't do their quests. Seems like this is the most fun you can have in this game
Waiting 10 years for a game that can be described as underwhelming only if you're being exceptionally charitable? Yeah, I can't say I'm a fan anymore either. Then again, I think inquisition was a step in the wrong direction even back then.
DA2 was faster but still had that tactical combat, DAO tactical pause, not what i would call turn paste like BG3 (if it were turn paste i wouldn't have played it, i find BG3 combat boring cause its turned paste), maybe semi-turn paste, DA2 was same just leaned more in to action element 3th game DAI returns little bit to the roots (combat wise), u can check game play videos, not same as DAO but more tactical then DA2
about sequels being less dark, what u expect, that blight was over it was calm before the storm ppl recovering and being hopeful (also purpose was to interduce new char and also progress plot with mages), and to build up to next game, 3th game starts with meeting of races and faction to discuss how recover from all this completely, and it was interrupted by villain who was same as architect from DAO DLC, but unlike him the villain seeks to open the rift to enter makes domain to become a god, so big bang and world turn to sh again like in DAO only more demons and fewer darkspawn
ur 50% right and 50% lack of understanding, when it comes to combat, if ur not fan of DA2 and DA3 combat i get that, its ur taste, but on other stuff as i said 50%
I liked the first game well enough, but never got around to playing any sequels. Part of that had to do with being really disappointed by Mass Effect 2 and not liking the vibe I got from the previews. I'm really glad I never got invested because this new game looks like absolute hot garbage.
what exactly is the name Structania and why does it looks like a Tolkien map?
@@DVSPress you drew it? that's impressive
It is a map I drew for Needle Ash, one of my fantasy books. That's one of the countries in that region.
I have a few videos on how I do it.
@@DVSPress I'll have to check them out. At first I thought it was a Tolkien map I hadnt seen before
you will instantly lose all your street cred as a writer or even a content creator if you actually say Veilguard made you stop being a fan.
Sir, saying there is no good characters in 2 and 3 is salacious. Varric exists and is the peak homie
Inquisition's open world aspects were just boring bloat. I ended up just watching the cutscenes on youtube. Gave it another try years later and trudged through it. I really enjoyed Trespasser though.
I love and still replay dao from time to time. I dont really like the direction they went in 2 then inquisition. I think da2 is bad in alot of ways, but i think its a far better game then inquisition, so i think the general hate is inverted. I kindve hate inquisition and thats why i also wasnt interested in this game from the beginning.
Honestly, when the same people that called inquisition goty, were rightly calling out andromeda for uglified women, cringe dialogue and bad writing, it made me wonder if anyone actually played inquisition. It was a pioneer in woke stuff and bad writing and bad game mechanics.
My guess is at the frostbite engine created some pretty environments when it came out. The press is generally obsessed with fidelity.
I wore out two discs playing origins. I also bought the RPG. Not a fan of BiAware's new stuff. Failhard.
My Ratting
1. DAO 9/10
2. DAI 8/10
2. DA2 7/10
That didn't make sense. Eg. Star Wars Fans --> even though the bad movies came out - NOBODY who's not a Tourist still loves or still a fan of Star Wars. etc. OR I did not understand this video lol.
Despite the dragging story of DAI, I honestly think Dorian is a good character. He is a somewhat stereotypical foreigner. Different religion, culture, education, and even sexual preference. He has his complaints on how people would treat him differently, but he won't force any of his ideology upon you. You may not even notice that he is a gay if you are not interested in finding out.
Nowadays some characters just can't wait to broadcast their craps at the player...
I never had any interest in Dragon Age. That whole Templars vs. Mages shit just felt really fucking old to me.
I never played any dragon age. I haven't been into games since the ps3 and xbox 1 released. I really didn't like the post ps2 and xbox era of video games at all. I enjoyed dozens of ps1 and 2 games, but I can only think of about 4 ps3 games I enjoyed. And nothing on ps 4 really caught my interest.