Dragon Age: The Veilguard

A first-timer's take on Dragon Age

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Title: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Release: October 31, 2024

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox X|S

Developer: BioWare

Publisher: Electronic Arts Inc

Genre: RPG

ESRB: M

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 43 Hours

Intro:

Solas, also known as the Dreadwolf, has decided to try and fix a major issue he caused in the past, but in doing so would cause a new major issue. You, playing as Rook, are part of a team that are going to stop Solas before he succeeds and causes worldwide destruction. Your party makes it to the scene just as Solas is about to complete his ritual and put a stop to it, but not without mistakes and the release of a couple of dastardly gods, determined to rule the world by any means necessary. Now with a new quest at hand you will need to find more friends to help take down the evil gods.

If the kids wanted to hang out while you play the game, most of the time it’s full of dialogue and the destruction of deathspawn. Some of the enemies could be frightful, but the almost cartoonish graphics make them less creepy. There were a few parts involving a lot of blood, people trapped in spiky tendrils slowly awaiting death, and one scene that could be completely ignored, but still heard, where a cute looking deer thing gets demolished with magic.

To start your game, you will need to customize your very own Rook, the main character of the story. There were plenty of customization options between everything, but it didn’t seem like you could go overboard and make anything ridiculously disproportionate. Along with character looks you would need to pick a faction to be a part of and a preferred class.

The faction choices will increase damage against certain enemies and give you a special buff, like health increase or an extra potion. Your choice will also come with a short back story laying the scene on why you ended up where you are. Other benefits also include gaining a faster reputation gain with that faction, and some special dialogue options throughout the game.

As you go through the game you will come across all six factions eventually, each with a store that you can upgrade after you have enough materials and reputation for that faction. The stores offer some excellent gear at higher levels, well worth the effort to max out.

The different classes you could choose from were Warrior, mage, and rogue, each with their own skill trees and sets of gear to look out for. An interesting mechanic in this game was how the management of loot worked. Everything you found was for your class, from heavy armor to light. The first time you find a piece of gear the rarity was common, with all of its special benefits locked. In order to upgrade rarity and unlock those buffs, you would need to find the gear again, for every repeat piece you found or purchased the usefulness of that piece would increase. The same rules applied to the gear your companions wore. There were also some pieces of gear with a unique rarity, you wouldn’t be able to upgrade them, but the benefits could drastically change how you play in a battle.

The skill trees started in the middle requiring you to work your way out as you added skills and increased your stats. Every level would reward you with a new point to place. On the outside edges of the trees were specialties you could take, increasing your damage output immensely. However, you could only pick one specialty, and they were level-locked. If at any point you were not happy with your point allocation, you could refund the points and put them somewhere else, at any time for no cost. Giving you the freedom to try everything available for that class at any point in time.

Every time you explored the lands outside you could take two companions with you. The first portion of the game was spent filling out the ranks of your small party, totaling seven companions to select from. Each coming with their own gear and skills you could adjust, and a lengthy personal story involving multiple quests and choices to make. Even going as far as romancing one of them for your unique story.

Some areas in the world would be blocked off, keeping you from treasure chests and other useful collectibles, until you helped a companion through a quest in the area, so it was useful in that aspect to go through their stories. Or it was blocked off by the story, in that case, you would just have to keep playing before you could explore more.

There were so many conversations in the game, and everyone required you to decide on how to react. It didn’t seem like any of the responses ever moved in a bad direction, so there wasn’t an evil playthrough. When all was said and done there were very few decisions that affected the overall story. No matter how you played it, you were a good guy on a mission.

There were a lot of notes to collect in the game, some needed to finish a quest while others were there for world-building. Besides those the only other collectibles were useful to the character. Copious amounts of gear that could change your overall build and various altars. The altars you could discover required a little work to finish, but the rewards were well worth your time. Evanuris altars would spit out spinning devices for you to find and shoot down, giving you an extra 100 hitpoints, while Fen’Harel altars would point in a direction you would need to go in and find a small wolf statue, rewarding a whole skill point to spend.

While looking at the world map you could see how many chests and altars were available throughout Thedas, when focusing on a specific area you could see what was left there, making it a little easier to hunt down and complete every area.

Outro:

I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have about the game or my review, so leave me a message in the comments below. While you do that, let’s move on to my final thoughts and ratings.

This was my first Dragon Age experience, while I streamed the game there were hours spent filling me on the lore up to this point, and I’m sure I don’t even know the half of it. From what I’ve heard this isn’t the same experience OG players have come to know and love, however, from my perspective this was still a good game. I have the luxury of not having other Dragon Age games to compare it to.

Given the mature settings and darkness in the game, the visuals couldn’t quite do it justice. Everything looked almost cartoonish, it looked good for what it was but I didn’t like it, not gritty enough. There was an option to transmogrify all of my characters gear, as well as the companions, but I had a very tough time trying to find an outfit that fit my tastes. The best one I could find was some raggedy leathers I started the game with, everything else seemed too shiny and tight for a rogue battling waves of enemies through mud and blood.

There were so many stories written for this game, a main story encompassing everything, with countless side stories between the companions and other characters met along the way. A lot of the stories were great, and some I didn’t care for but you can’t expect perfection. With that there was a little something for everyone. I didn’t like how forceful the game was in telling me to make sure everyone was happy and taken care of. I don’t mind going through a couple of my favorite companions questlines and seeing what their all about, but I didn’t care about a lot of them. I still finished the game without going through every possible scenario, and I enjoyed the experience. I may go through in the future to try out different builds and possibly check out the other characters, but I don’t appreciate a game telling me how to play it.

The gameplay was easy to understand, once I started to get comfortable with the setup I had going for my character. New abilities were unlocked and explained at a comfortable pace. The companions with me on quests didn’t feel like they assisted a whole lot in combat. The only thing I used them for were emergency heals and adding afflictions onto my enemies. But they never did it on their own, I had to command them in the middle of combat whenever their cooldowns were up. There was a handy wheel I could bring up that would freeze combat to give me a chance to breathe and deal out moves, or I could hit hotkeys attached to specific skills.

This was a long game, but I ended up really enjoying myself. In between stream nights, I was thinking about the game and what I wanted to accomplish. I really liked having the option to swap my skill points around at any time, working out what would be the best for me and my playstyle. The equipment upgrade system was very cool at first, but it started to get frustrating near the end of the game while I had a ring I wanted maxed out, but the only gear I could find was pieces I didn’t care to wear. So I never got to experience the legendary gear I was wearing at the end. However, that probably could have been resolved if I explored everything and opened every single chest.

And now, I feel it’s about time we get these ratings done

The visuals were all right, they looked good but a little to cartoonish for the settings, it’s getting a 3

The plethora of stories written for the game consisted of all sorts of emotions and situations. Some were amazing while others were dull, but between all of them, I’m handing out a 5.

The gameplay had it’s ups and downs, companions could have felt more useful in combat, but it all worked out, I’m giving it another 3

There is a good replayability value for the game, it was full of choices, however, very few felt like they mattered, the main reason I would replay would be to try different classes, or perhaps romances, that’s another 3

I had a lot of fun playing the game, the only thing I’d dock it on was the aggressive way it told me to take care of my companions and not finding my favorite gear. I’ll give that a 4

Earning a total of 3.6 out of 5 for Dragon Age Veilguard, placing it on the top shelf. This was an excellent rpg that I had hours of fun getting through. I can’t tell you how I would feel if I’d played the previous Dragon Ages, but I’d still recommend this game. Going into this game you’re going to find what you are looking for, if you want a poor time and hate it, that’s what you’ll see, the opposite is true as well.