A Defense Of Dragon Age The Veilguard

Dragon Age The Veilguard is not only my favorite Bioware game, it’s my favorite Fantasy RPG full stop (though I still haven’t gotten around to Baldur’s Gate 3 as I’m waiting on crossplay to go through it with a friend). At first I thought it might be recency bias, or just the joy of being presented with a pleasant surprise. But with every hour I spent playing Veilguard my fondness and appreciation for it grew deeper. And by the time I had finished my 90 hour playthrough, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this is the best game Bioware has ever made. Let me be clear that what follows isn’t really a proper critique or review of Veilguard, but rather me glazing the hell out of it, and giving a bit of a rebuttal or defense against some of the frankly half-assed criticism I’ve seen thrown its way. Starting with -

“It’s not really an RPG”

Let me make this perfectly clear. Dragon Age The Veilguard is without question an RPG. Now I’m not gonna make a whole video on what makes an RPG because frankly it’s not that complicated. Role Play in games is fundamentally about player choice. Does the player get to frequently make meaningful choices that affect the narrative or gameplay? Yes? It’s an RPG. Whether it’s making dialogue choices, selecting your party members, or picking which class to play, if the choices you’re encouraged to make have a substantial impact on your experience with the game then that game is an RPG. Is there some room for disagreement over which games qualify, sure. But does that apply to Veilguard? Not even a little bit. Because if this game in which player choice is at the center of the entire game doesn’t count as an RPG, then nothing does. I’ve also seen arguments suggesting that the combat is too action-oriented to make it an RPG, and by that logic, Cyberpunk, The Witcher 3, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Mass Effect, and Dark Souls aren’t RPGs either. And since we’re already on the topic, let’s talk about -

Player Choice

I’d argue that Rook has more room to be your own character than the protagonist in any other modern Bioware title. Your choice of race, class, & origin each feel more relevant to the storytelling and more integrated into the game than in their other titles. I frequently had access to unique dialogue options specifically related to the fact that I was from the Mournwatch and chose to play as a mage. Emmrich and Rook even had a conversation mentioning how rare it was to be a Qunari watcher, & Rook’s assumed understanding of magic added to conversation about different magic-related inquiries rather frequently. For an example outside of my own, my buddy KG played as a Dwarf and fumbled a conversation with huge consequences because he chose a particularly antagonistic dialogue option unique to being a dwarf. 

On the combat side of player choice: the class, skills, and specialization you choose dramatically change how it feels to play the game. Between the allocation of skill points and the gear you collect, the game offers an incredible sense of progression throughout. At one point I was playing as a close range spellblade that felt more like a teleporting lightning assassin. I later pivoted to playing as a Deathcaller focused on applying as many damage over time effects as possible like an affliction Warlock in World of Warcraft. And over 50 hours into the game I unlocked a unique staff that I had been working towards since the very beginning which basically transformed my character into an unkillable bloodmage. This completely changed my build as I was now using health instead of mana to power my spells. I spent the rest of my playthrough spamming spells and abusing the i-frames as I took a previously challenging game & turned it into a leisurely stroll all the way through the final boss. KG was watching my fight with the final boss in disbelief at how trivial my build made a fight that he had to learn Sekiro-level parry timings for. I was shocked that the game let me do this, but at the same time it felt like a reward for developing a complete understanding of how the combat and build-crafting work. It was in my not so humble opinion, a perfect representation of just how much freedom the player has been given in this game and how much your choices are respected. 

Combat

While we’re on the topic of combat I do want to address one specific complaint I saw from Skill Up’s video that I know a lot of people have used as the basis for their own bad-faith criticisms. And that’s the idea that the enemies are so spongey it’s in the players best interest to lower the difficulty just to make combat less of a slog. I’ve tried to find a more nuanced way to address this criticism, but I just keep coming back to the same point. Skill Issue. But let me elaborate. There are 2 primary ways to adjust the enemy difficulty. The developers can either make the enemies do more damage and harder to avoid thereby reducing the number of mistakes a player can make in the encounter, or they can make the enemies tougher to kill in order to extend how long the player must avoid making mistakes. The player can in turn respond to these factors by prioritizing survival or prioritizing damage output. This creates the basic risk/reward economy of most action combat, especially for games that have deeper RPG systems wherein the player can make choices. But those choices are only meaningful if they are consequential, or in other words. Freedom of choice means giving players the freedom to choose wrong. If enemies are taking so long to kill that you find the combat tedious and boring, then newsflash, it’s because you’re bad. It sounds so stupid, because it is. Enemies have more health? Do more damage. If you can’t, that’s a skill issue. It’s like people think the only way to measure challenge in action combat is by how hard it is to stay alive. I blame the Souls games. Now there are certainly games that swing too far in this direction and end up with actually spongey enemies, but even on the hardest difficulty, Veilguard just isn’t one of them. I think I’ve made my point so moving on, let's talk about the most widely-criticized aspect of the game-

The Writing

I really think that the way Veilguard has been treated by some critics & reviewers is proof that some of them are simply not qualified to comment on the quality of a game's writing. And by some critics, I mean most of them. There are so many layers to the writing which have to be peeled back & only become apparent as you get deeper into the game. It's genuinely one of the best written RPGs I've ever played, and criticisms directed at it aren't a matter of taste. You either have the capacity to recognize something is well written or you don't. I genuinely believe most reviewers are simply too stunted in their understanding of writing to actually offer meaningful feedback or commentary. For starters I should note that I’ve heard a lot of people say the writing in this game is too quippy, or mcu-ish, or disneyfied or whatever the fuck you wanna call it. Those people are wrong and stupid. But I don’t think it’s entirely their fault for being wrong and stupid. A lot of fantasy is written in a more dramatic and theatrical way that for some people has become normal. This is fine on its own, but the downside is that it’s also given a lot of people the idea that there’s only one way to write fantasy. Just because Lord of The Rings is the base inspiration for much of modern fantasy doesn’t mean fantasy has to be presented as though it were written by an old man with a fetish for linguistics or likewise published 70 years ago. Anyway, my point is that the characters in Veilguard, including and especially Rook, are written to sound like actual people. That’s not to say they use modern slang or sound out of place in a fantasy setting. They’ve just been injected with a much more modern interpretation of how one would expect regular people to talk about fantasy in a world where it’s their idea of normal. 

I think this is most apparent with Rook because in accordance with presenting a more realistic character, they’ve reigned in the dialogue options a bit compared to previous games. This is to say that rather than offer the dramatically different attitudes presented by the paragon & renegade system in Mass Effect, the writers at bioware have chosen to present the player character as more akin to a customizable Geralt. Much like Geralt, Rook has a mostly pre-defined personality but is portrayed as a competent and charismatic leader rather than a wise and brooding outcast. Within that framework there’s definitely a lot of room to influence the attitude Rook puts forth, but I do recognize how that more focused character may alienate people who want to roleplay to their heart’s content. In fact, I consider myself among those who would prefer more influence over how Rook behaves. I just feel that as a critic it’s my responsibility to measure a game by the quality of what it’s trying to be, not how much it aligns with what I’d want it to be. So having said that, I believe that Rook is well written and succeeds at being a more pre-determined but still deeply customizable protagonist. However, I do think it’s dumb when the character doesn’t say exactly what is shown in the dialogue wheel. And in a game this big, it’s only natural that the delivery of some lines lands better than others. I don’t wanna harp on about it though because there are so many factors to consider in the production of a game with this much writing and voice acting that it just feels pointless to nitpick. Speaking of pointless nitpicks, now it’s time to talk about the game’s -

Tone

A chief complaint I’ve heard tossed around is that the game has discarded the more dark and mature tone of the series. I think this stems in large part from the fact that the art style has an incredibly vibrant and stylized look that actually gives this game an identity which stands out amongst the relentless tide of self-serious dark fantasy that’s become so common these days. But beyond that I really think claims that the game is too whimsical and lighthearted are coming from people who don’t really understand how storytelling works or what contrast is. The game does admittedly start with a lighter tone as you are first assembling your team and visiting different parts of the world. However it’s a very long game, and these early hours are about getting to know your companions and the places they’re from. Even then the backdrop and context for much of what you’re doing and many of the enemies you're fighting are both rather grim. But my point is, that even though the game starts off with a lighter tone, this is done with the obvious goal of creating contrast. As the story ramps up, it consistently grows darker and more serious, you get to see how the state of the world degrading affects the people and places you know. And by the end you’ve had so much time to spend with these characters and in these places, that every loss hits harder than it would have otherwise.

Now I haven’t played Dragon Age Origins in a very long time, so I’m going to refer to someone who’s played it rather recently to see if what I just said aligns with what I keep hearing about how these 2 games differ.

From Josh Strife Hayes’ Video,  “Was it Good? - Dragon Age Origins” -

“The overall humanity of this world is lovely. Like overhearing conversations between students & teachers. They’re funny, emotional, they feel real. And that’s something Dragon Age does really well. It has human reactions to otherworldly situations. When people try and write dark stories, they make the world & the characters dark, brooding, serious. But that’s not always what happens. Gallows humor, the act of laughing at or finding fun in really dark & upsetting stuff is something humans are really good at. And when faced with something incredibly scary or dark, finding comedy in it is the human thing to do. If the overall world is dark, the characters can be the glimmer of light. But the real nuance is in how you write this. It’s not a quippy one-liner or Marvel-ified aloofness. It's not wise cracks, one dimensional, or the writer trying to show how funny they are line by line in a vacuum. It’s the character using situation specific humor as a coping mechanism. And the true test of that comes when you see the character’s emotional defense break. The humor stop, the darkness swallow the laughter. The characters in Ferelden aren’t funny because they don’t care, they’re funny because they do. They joke in spite of the darkness, and the saddest emotional breaks are when we see the darkness win. And we do see it win.”

Huh, that sounds remarkably similar to what I had to say about the characters and world in Veilguard…

Conclusion

I’m not under the impression that Dragon Age The Veilguard is by any means a perfect game. And it goes without saying that there are elements of even the best games which could be improved upon. My motivation for writing this isn’t to say that if you don’t like Veilguard that your opinion is invalid. I don’t take issue with the fact that for many people, no amount of understanding a game can make you enjoy it. There are plenty of great games that simply aren’t for me, that I don’t enjoy despite being able to recognize that they are undeniably great. But I do take issue with the fact that the inherent subjectivity of critique is constantly used to defend or distract from many critics’ failure to meet a game on its own terms. Like at the very least, if you’re going to claim that the combat in a game is bad and lacking in depth or variety, then you damn well better be capable of demonstrating a comprehensive understanding and mastery of how it actually works. There’s nothing wrong with having strong opinions or bouncing off of a game, but if you’re going to be a critic you should have the expertise to back it up. And if I’ve learned anything from playing Dragon Age The Veilguard it’s that most people just don’t. Skill Up? More like Skill Issue amiright- (credit for that cringe joke goes to Lemon)