#DragonAge
With only 1 month until release, DAV is easily my most hoped game. So, until it releases, I'm going to put out 1 hot take a day on the DA franchise. Feel free to agree, disagree, rant and rave as you see fit!
With only 1 month until release, DAV is easily my most hoped game. So, until it releases, I'm going to put out 1 hot take a day on the DA franchise. Feel free to agree, disagree, rant and rave as you see fit!
Comments
October 31 DA Hot Take
I genuinely think VG has the opportunity to be the best of the series. The culmination of so many major plot points, phenomenal graphics, and engaging, reactive gameplay. I honestly cannot wait until noon, when I can dig in for the first time.
October 30 DA Hot Take
The best "side content" from all 3 of the games is The Still Ruins, from DAI. Unique dungeon layout, a clever hook, worthwhile loot, and a story that unveils itself as you play. Masterclass in dungeon design.
October 29 DA Hot Take
The "hide helmet" option should be the default. DA hats are, across the board, phenomenally ugly. And who doesn't want to see their HoF/Hawke/Inky/Rook's face during cut scenes?
October 28 DA Hot Take
I really like how VG's combat looks. Being able to actively dodge and parry attacks is incredibly welcome and brings echoes of the Arkham series. It feels like this is what DA2 was leaving towards, only done right.
October 27 DA Hot Take
I hope there is no way to *save* Solas.
Note: I hope there is a way to *try* to save Solas, which ultimately ends in failure like with Kirkwall in DA2.
I want to be able to walk through that tragedy, knowing that there's no happy ending.
October 26 DA Hot Take
I'm not *that* upset that only a handful of choices are carrying over into VG. Yes, I'd like to see more, but few of the earlier impacts are even relevant.
I'm more interested in how npcs react and how VG itself progresses through my choices.
October 25 DA Hot Take
Cassandra was the best choice for Divine. The Chantry needs change, but while Leliana is in the right, she'd upend too many things that are working to fix those that aren't.
Vivienne...I love you, girl, but you don't need to be pope.
October 24 DA Hot Take
The keeps in DAI had such promise, and should have utilized the power system from the war table. Clear out enemies automatically, auto-gather crafting mats, unlock hidden dungeons, leaving the war table to focus on special missions. Alas...
October 23 DA Hot Take
The dwarves and titans interest me a ton more than the Evanuris and the elves.
Outside of The Descent, we haven't gotten much dwarf content since Origins. I really hope we end in Kal-Sharok in VG, but the focus seems to be firmly on elven history.
October 22 DA Hot Take
I fail to grok the obsession with Felassan within the fandom. There seems to be this fixation that he's super important and has to be alive and appear in Veilguard.
He's dead. He was a minor character in a novel, and Solas killed him.
Destroy an entire civilization and try to do it twice more? Nbd.
Kill one semi-likeable named NPC who's never appeared in a game? Oh, no, he'd never do that!
October 21 DA Hot Take
The Hissing Wastes, Forbidden Oasis, and Western Approach are too similar to be 3 areas. HW and FO should have been one region, with Solasan Temple in the oasis where you fight the greater wyvern.
HW is beautiful in isolation, but garbage in gameplay.
October 20 DA Hot Take
Vivienne, Sera, and Blackwall got shortchanged in terms of both characterization and in personal quests.
Blackwall especially, as his quest amounts to "collect 8 Warden symbols" and had nothing to do with his true identity.
October 19 DA Hot Take
I don't really care for Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts. There's very little actual political manipulation going on. Florianne is introduced, only to be made a throwaway villain. Here Lies the Abyss is a better questline.
October 18 DA Hot Take
Solas' view of "acceptable losses" should make him among the most loathed villains ever written. He wants to erase millions of people, simply to fit his personal ideal of what civilization should be.
Him being sad about it doesn't make it better.
October 17 DA Hot Take
It's more thematically fitting to leave Hawke in the Fade than any of the 3 Wardens. And Brian Bloom's delivery of "Where's Hawke?" at Adamant afterward is among the best lines in the entire game.
October 16 DA Hot Take
In Hushed Whispers has a better story and characters, but Champions of the Just is a much better section of gameplay. You actually get to fight alongside your new allies, with the battle timer providing constant tension. Plus, envy demon is crazy!
October 15 DA Hot Take
I've sunk about 1300 hours into DAI. There's precisely one quest I refuse to do:
The damn horse races on Dennet's farm. Annoying and pointless. Especially after it came out that the horse moves no faster than the Inquisitor walks.
I'd rather do the Druffalo quest, complete with Forannon Ravine rift, 10 times over before doing those races.
October 14 DA Hot Take
Grand Cleric Elthina bears more blame for the instability in Kirkwall than either Meredith or Orsino.
She's the worst form of fence- sitting moderate, so unwilling to take any sort of stance that she's not even going to sit at the negotiation table.
October 13 DA Hot Take
The Hanged Man is one of the best bars in all of media. A dive in every sense of the word. Whenever I play DA2, I always end up stopping at the bar for a drink when I'm there, so just I can hear the Cheers-esque "Hawke!" when I walk in.
October 12 DA Hot Take
I've never completed the Fenris romance. He comes off as so abrasive, especially towards Merrill (who's among my favorites), that I end up ditching him, usually for Isabela or Merrill. I like him as a character, but not as a partner.
October 11 DA Hot Take
The most fitting, most tragic ending for Hawke in DA2 is to negotiate the peace with the nobility, become inches away from being named Viscount, then have it all ripped away.
Hawke's story is a tragedy and is best when it leans into that fact.
October 10 DA Hot Take
DA2 is infamous for its use of repeated locations, but were the game given a longer dev cycle, I could easily see it working. The key would be seeing those areas change and shift based on Hawke's actions: Bone Pit becomes a thriving mine, etc.
October 9 DA Hot Take
Meredith was right.
Orsino *was* harboring and aiding blood mages in their research... most notably, Quentin, the blood mage serial killer who murders Hawke's mom.
October 8 DA Hot Take
Even as a mage Hawke, I've never let Anders live.
October 7 DA Hot Take
People give Inquisition grief for "filler fetch quests", but those have been an issue in DA since Origins. The Chantry board quests, finding mercenary deserters, Red Jenny tasks--all one step removed from "collect 10 ram meat" in the Hinterlands.
October 6 DA Hot Take
The implications of blood magic are horrifying, but the greater horror comes not from the demons or raw power, but the ability to control others' bodies, reminiscent of Amon, from Legend of Korra. Loss of agency is the most terrifying danger there.
October 5 DA Hot Take
The combat in Origins is nowhere near as tactical as the dudebros claim. The skill system was entirely linear, entire archetypes (like archery) were irrelevant at the end game, and combat devolved into the same few rotations of spells over and over.
October 4 DA Hot Take
Sandal needs to fade away into obscurity. The "idiot savant" stereotype was a poor joke when it was first made, but continuing it only makes it worse. Just let him go by the wayside and move on.
October 3 DA Hot Take:
Origins has some of the best companions... but also some of the worst. Oghren is a drunk dwarf stereotype, Wynne had promise but didn't get beyond camp grandma, and Zevran only shines if romanced. Also, Alistair is overrated. He's good, not great.
Day 2 Hot Take: October 2
Loghain's characterization in Origins is weak and is overly dependent on reading a side novel. Yes, if you read Stolen Throne , he comes off more favorably, but in Origins alone, he's little more than a petty usurper with little redeeming qualitites.
Origins is *bland* and DA has only improved with each game. The graphics were dated when they came out, the gray/brown colors are unpleasant to play in, and combat is tedious. The fact that so many Origins players skip two massive sections demonstrates this tedium.