I think whenever anyone complains about the writing in Veilguard I’m going to ask them if they think the writing in FFXVI is good, as a way to understand their taste level
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I haven’t made it far enough into the game to make up my mind about the writing but I do feel that the voice acting in Veilguard is worse compared to FFXVI. The only standout I’ve seen so far in Veilguard is Solas
Yesterday some guy on Twitter said there wasn’t any “mature conversation” in the game and then I played through a quest where Neve talked to Rook about her struggle to have hope in the right against slavery. I think we just have different definitions of these things!
FFXVI is an okay story carried by a generational performance by Ben Starr. I think my impression of that game would've been much less if it wasn't for him.
I do think when it was dealing with the interpersonal relationships like the brothers the writing was fine, good even. But in terms of saying things yeah it's confused and pulls its punches way too much. I find it hard to dislike though.
Mature conversation is when you go on a sidequest thinking you're looking for a lost pet but whoops actually you were looking for a runaway slave so your character decides to stare directly into the camera and say slavery is bad
That entire area was just straight awful writing. Like comical level writing to tell the player that "no actually, slavery is really bad" as if there is any justification needed for why SLAVERY IS BAD
I mean I never expected much from the Japanese wrt strong politics on slavery given their history of denying any wrongdoing during WW2 but I didn't expect this level of silliness.
The interesting thing I'm finding is I'm hearing *wildly* differing opinions even from critics who I tend to trust. I've seen intensely negative and positive from people who tend to agree. And me, with my terrible centrist opinion of "it's mostly pretty good, except at the start"
yeah like for me the most mature conversation in a game was in the first Syberia there's a phone conversation with the main character's long term boyfriend, where they have a frank discussion about how they have grown apart and then they break up.
I swear these people think "mature conversation" means a very academic and neutral discussion on the merits of debating whether to treat minorities as humans
Like I've had entire convos with multiple party members about their struggles but apparently Neve's struggles with fighting a corrupt police force to get justice for people or Taash's struggles with gender identity arent "mature talks"
very confused at people displeased that a BioWare game is occasionally uncomfortably frothy and/or sassy, the BioWare game zone is Friendship Simulator for People Who Loved a Whedon Property at Some Point (complimentary)
Like... just had two characters have a frank discussion about gender identity and the expectations of parents and who the fuck says any of this is bad writing I'll fucking fight all of them
I bite my tongue around discourse because I dislike rebuttals based on incomplete experience.
But when people complain about sanded down politics + conflict and an hour later I play a whole quest where Neve shows me a day in her life of Tevinter corruption/misinformation, I wanna yell into the void
I've come across the mature discussions, but it's felt very weird playing as a Shadow Dragon elf. Dorian in inquisition made it pretty clear that Tevinter is a slave state run by evil mages, and i can just walk around doing quests?
it still feels relatively early so i'll let it cook but yeah, odd!
I don't know because I think a flaw with this game is that it does a poor job at catching you up at the beginning and my memory of the lore is foggy. But my impression is that the venatori's power at least in Dock town is diminished and they're in some sort of power struggle?
is that it? you could very well be right. my impression was that attitudes about elves was a pretty entrenched cultural attitude and that its source wasn't just the venatori. maybe the shadow dragons are changing hearts and minds, yeah.
Never have played either of them. I had enough to watch Veilguard on twitch to make a conclusion that it is as bad as it is.
Something in my gut tells me that the only person who took their jobs serious are level-designers. Writers do not deserve their bread for writing such a boring narrative.
I’ve never played DA so is Veilguard fine to play as a non-fan? Also how is the gameplay in combat? Is it more action or rpg? The only real time rpg Ive played was FF7R…
Given my other half’s experiences working on the game, I’m just impressed that they released in a functional state and didn’t burn a whole bunch of former leads in the credits.
I don't know how you could go through Bellara's and Neve's quests and just flat out say all of the writing is bad. There's a lot of really great stuff!
A lot of misses, too, but that's kind of every BioWare game.
veilguard writing was seen as bad because people expected good writing (because of, you know, all the competent writing that came before it). at this point any time a final fantasy fan hears a coherent sentence they call it peak fiction.
I haven't played any FF game, but Veilguard is a bit all over the place for me so far, still at the beginning haven't even gotten to Lucanis yet.
It had some good moments, but also specific terms that feel out of place for DA.
Also, even though it's a lotta Elven gods it's missing religion.
Haven't played Veilguard, but i would say ff16 had bad writing, good gameplay though. I also put Nier Automata in that same camp. Very possible to have an interesting theme and mature subject matter and still have every word out of a character be awful
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*games about slavery, racism, systemical struggle*
"games are too political!!!"
But when people complain about sanded down politics + conflict and an hour later I play a whole quest where Neve shows me a day in her life of Tevinter corruption/misinformation, I wanna yell into the void
it still feels relatively early so i'll let it cook but yeah, odd!
Something in my gut tells me that the only person who took their jobs serious are level-designers. Writers do not deserve their bread for writing such a boring narrative.
Cool visuals and yeah that's about it
A lot of misses, too, but that's kind of every BioWare game.
It's fine. Not amazing, just fine. I can't say I'm attached to any character that isn't Lucanis, not enough of them have the... spice I would like.
I thought FFXVI's wasn't well written, and was bad in general
It had some good moments, but also specific terms that feel out of place for DA.
Also, even though it's a lotta Elven gods it's missing religion.
Unfortunately real life obligations means less time to play.