@@Aerobane Man you are insane. DA and ME had great writing. Now you cant compare it to a great book like Lord of the Rings cuz those are masterfuly made books, but for games they had incredible storys. Like in the first ME where you can literaly make the main boss kills himself just talking to him.
ME 1-2 had good/decent writing, DA 1 had good/decent writing. Dunno what are you smoking but past those 3 games BioWare never made good written anything.
@@diamondhamster4320 The writing of Veilguard is on par with Inquisition. People are on a hate train for this game, and go through everything with a fine comb and make mountains out of molehils. The Writing is fine. Not stellar, not great, but just fine. Just like Inquisition and Dragon Age 2. Origins had some decent writing, but there where parts that really fell flat on the face. The same goes for the Mass Effect series. Bioware never had stellar writing, but it was fine and entertaining.
Ill stand by its also a marketing fail. Id be far more forgiving if theyd severed the plot, ended off with inquisition, kinda didnt hype this as a sequel (which given solas that becomes hard) cause its been TEN YEARS. We dont need baby's first DA level speak or tutorials or kindness. If youd hyped it as a game to target and welcome a new wave of players, the next gen of gamers into the DA world, id be much more forgiving. Cause then id get it. Id understand. But that isnt what they did.@@diamondhamster4320
Also his response is "and Davrin's self-righteous and judgmental" - like, how is being self-righteous even a comparable sin to murdering people for money? I'd be self-righteous too if my boss wanted me to team up with a serial killer.
the other thing is that your character has zero agency. You can just say yes, yes (funny), yes (annoyed). That's it.Why even make me click a dialogue option at that point?
Even as a developer it is SUCH a stupid thing to do - you're literally paying your voice actors (four of them in total for the protagonist) by the word count to deliver 3 generic versions of the same thing over and over and over. Colossal waste of the actor's time/talent/range, a waste of your budget, and a missed opportunity to ACTUALLY be a roleplaying game.
@@gsimon123 Look at it another way: they create the illusion of choice, making the game feel more marketable to RPG players. At the same time, they save on development costs by ensuring that all choices lead to the same outcome, cutting out any branching paths. Unfortunately for them, players aren’t stupid and can easily see through it, lol.
It's crazy - Bethesda, who is famous for this being what happened in FO4, started to step away from that in Far Harbour, and mostly got rid of it for Starfield - and yet the latest Dragon Age game from Bioware/"Bioware" is what FO4 is. Like - what kind of timeline is this?
This. It made me so sad, because I've always looked forward to a good zinger with the funny options, and in Veilguard all you get is just regular sentences. Exactly as yawnworthy as the other two "options"
@@bwhere45 to be fair there are games where shooting is terrible, but other aspects of the game carry it. like the first Deus Ex, the game was jank to play even for the time. if you are in it just for the overarching story and the gameplay, then you will probably like the game.
Feels like a weak non-stance. Set up a whole safety net to land in at the start too. I mean no DA fan is happy with this, no need to come up with “if you dont care about the franchise you’ll be happy :) “. Just say its the worst entry in the series so far, EA marketing connections giving promo opportunities be damned. 😮💨
in the DA:V discussions, people are treating the writing/narrative as the same as another element (along with combat, environment, etc) but that's not the right way to look at it. Every game has these elements but the weight of them is not the same. Like street fighter MUST have a good gameplay system, the story can be shit and it will still be a street fighter game. DA on the other hand needs to have good writing, that is the draw that brings people to bioware. Having bad writing in DA is NOT the same as having bad writing in street fighter. The fact that the writing is bad is a huge hit against this game.
Exactly, this reminds me of a Chinese Light Novels I read, the lore is good, world setting and everything is good, even background character is good, but the one thing that matter the most is the intelligent of the surrounding characters, it was so bad. If it's just normal get stronger and such, it's fine. However, the story is heavy focus on interaction and building the land, only MC is smart and it's like reading interaction between MC which an adult while others are like children...
yeah, exactly how I feel. When a game have the developer of Bioware behind it - a studio mainly known for good writing and narrative, and it doesn't deliver on that expectation, then it is totally fair for people to be up in arms about it and disliking the direction of the game.
Before release i saw people saying "i don't care about the gameplay as long as the writing is good." Now it feels like those same people have the opposite opinion where the combat is fun so they put up with the writing. Although it is good to hear that Cohh likes the main story. The main story has looked interesting from trailers so i will 100% put up with mixed side quest writing if the main story is solid.
@@Cyber1zed Yeah he typed "a leading point" as in one of many. Read things before you get all pissy in future, will you. go do some pushups as penance.
@@WarLasso and DA:V is pretty buggy, corrupted saves, reseted character appearance, i got all of this in starting few hours. Was absolute quit moment for me how it seemed to have no QA before release.
Honestly. This is the kind of game I play for story and dialogue. Immersion etc. In short. The writing. Being the writing bad makes me uninterested in this.
It's so unfortunate. I Had a lot of fun with DA: I and was looking forward to Veilguard. But the more I learned about it, the less interested I became in it.
@@Shimonotoki I feel the same way. It's quite a shame really, if EA let Bioware make the game on the original concept then I think it would be like Inquisition part 2 and the game would have released in like 2017 - 2019 back when some OG Bioware devs still worked there.
I remember Cohh saying this about another game. The fact it feels that the characters seem to be talking to the player instead of talking to our character is a huge downside for any rpg’s that wants to be immersive.
He is full of shit. He said he liked it on stream when the game landed. Later when he saw that player base hated the game he "changed" his mind. Dude is just swinging as the wind blows.
"Not an immersive dialogue" is such a turn off for a ROLE PLAYING Genre. No amount of great gameplay can save that. Without that, its just going to be the same as all those action hack and slash gacha games(even some of them have better writings)
@@verde5738 Nier Automata has a lot going for itself, but you do need some heavy Anime-BS tolerance to get into it. I can easily imagine the style being a turnoff to a lot of people.
Character design is uncanny but hey the background are beautiful, also the game is not completely riddled with bugs and manages to run at 60fps, so that is like atleast a 7/10 am I right guys?
@@inyobase127 Running really well means it runs better than the standard. Otherwise it would just be running like standard. Whether this game actually does that or not, no clue.
My biggest problems with the game is: 1. The previous games basically dont matter at all (in a gameseries that was build on meaningfull choices that influences the next game) 2. I feel insulted by the "Problem Solving" like both Markers as well as companions constantly say what i need to do. Like i dont have to think about any progression. 3. I feel like we have 0 real choice in builden diffrent Rooks. No matter what Dialogue you choose its basically the same Conversation, Nice, Funny-Nice and Direct/To the Point-Nice. (Like comoare that to older Bioware games and how evil/mean you were able to be)
the whole thing with choices from the older games coming back up is kind of tricky because the amount of extra work needed to put into all that and you also have to think about people who are starting with this game and never played the older games
1. There are 3 choices that matter, so your point is false. It might be fewer options that you wanted, but those choices matter. 2. The beginning of the game is overly hand-holdy. This stops pretty much right after the intro quest. You can turn markers off in the interface menu.
@@iRavenTM Or just someone that isnt deep-throating the "ermagurd woke" bullshit you braindead fucknuts continue to spew everywhere without any critical thought. Just a simple brush with reality makes your points dissolve.
One of the first things you learn about writing is to describe as events unfold instead of explicitely naming them (part of the famous "show, don't tell" paradigm). Instead of saying "John had murderous thoughts about Jane" you describe it as "John didn't utter a word, just watched Jane with an intent gaze, running his fingers across the bump of the switchblade hidden in his pocket". Why do this? Because people like to work for the conclusion. This bare minimum effort makes the journey more fun for reader / viewer / player. This decision about making the writing simpler and more straightforward isn't a result of an agenda (neither political, nor financial), it's not risk mitigation, but simple, sheer incompetence. No writer worth their salt would WANT to write watered down content like this, it's just straight bad without excuse.
Characters constantly repeat what their mission is, sometimes to people they just met. Like they meet some people and just say " we released elven gods and now they are going to destroy the world". Like, why would you be so open with everyone? They think audience is stupid and can't follow basic storylines
What? I left the Mayor to die, I told Bellara to stop being so whiny. I told Taash to stop being so fucked up and confront their issues. I destroyed a city and now one of my companions romances is utterly locked out and I cant use half their skills because of it, and they no longer trust me in the future. You clearly havent played the game.
@@dean9118 So surface level shit that makes no difference? Sounds like OP's point stands, and i certainly dont need to play this slop to see it for what it is, SLOP. Now i get it sloppy little piggys like you exist and love to roll around in the slop and tell everyone else how its actually not slop. But anyone with a room temp IQ can see you and it for what it is.
@@sebastianaraneda7063 why do you want to be trans? Its quite a hardship considering all the braindead fucks who harp on about it all the time. Do you have a trans kink or something?
Who's "they"? As I recall the people who were saying that were indie devs who don't want their little RPGs made on a shoe string budget in comparison and not asking for full $60-$70+ compared to BG3.
Cohh is one of the nicest people on Twitch/UA-cam.. and when he says something is grating on him, it's REAL bad for everyone else not on his level of niceness.
He also is just open on having this opinion which I 100% disagree with. It's not about niceness, he's just kind in a way he expresses his ideas. But he doesn't fake it or hide it if he doesn't enjoy it. Many people found Last of Us Part 2 great while he completely hated the writing and was frustrated with it.
@@pawe1721 Yea, I know I don't mean nice, like gullible nice, but he is nice and civil about his critique. But that is because I am used to the standart of internet and that is... ehm... kinda low. Like Mariana Trench deep. I am used to people saying horrible words about at worst mildly irritable things. I have just discovered the man. So I am kinda... interested in his opinions right now. They seem valid to me, even if I don't agree with everything he says, like DA:V graphics or combat system. I live in Czech Republic, for me 60USD 1350CZK which is a lot for a game. So I look up recensions if it is worth buying for full price or should I wait for a year or two for a nice, fat discount.
@@dakiesalamander5221 On most stores it's in € so more like 1500 CZK. Also if you want to try it you can buy EA Play Pro subscription (17€) or wait 9-12 months then it's available in the cheaper version.
I think BG3 is a great game to compare to because it had to deal with the same risks that Dragon Age has. You have a very obscure environment, most people outside of DnD circles don't know anything about the lore of the world Baldurs Gate exists in. You have mechanics based on a very obscure ruleset that most players wouldn't understand (unless they're familiar with DnD as I said). I think the place where Larian excelled was finding a way to make these systems palatable to a wider audience without losing the charm of why the original audience likes these things. So whereas Larian refined their technique with the previous iterations (Divinity 1 & 2) and retained the people who helped make those games great, BioWare did almost the exact opposite.
Tbf, the crowd they created this game for aren't the brightest. Most would get lost if there wasn't constant exposition. To put it another way, I bet the cross section of a Venn diagram of people who liked BG3 and people who liked DAV is extremely small (if it exists at all)
Honestly not the worst move, from what i've seen online gamers aren't the brightest specimens, at least the loudest ones, parroting anything they hear on YT 😹
Origins was incredibly camp and it had bad dialogue. Every instalment had cringe dialogue. The main reason this is being hated on is the non binary/trans characters let’s be honest. There’s been cringe dialogue, same sex relationships, church bashing, soap opera “ships” and racial stuff in every Dragon Age game. It’s just the trans stuff that puts white straight guys over the edge because they feel they should be the target audience for every game that comes out.
In this game, calling the writing 'fine' would be incredibly high praise. I hope it's fun, but I think it's absurd to describe the writing quality as merely 'fine' if it's actually poor.😂
It's not only that to be fair, Dragon Age is set in a very interesting world even if it have been portrayed in varied quality over the years. When it came to Veilguard, my desire to know what would happen mitigated a lot of my sighs and cringe. Inquisition wasn't exactly peak either, but i found the story to be intriguing enough to pretty much 100% that game and complete most of the possible world states... however i will probably not do so for this game, so in a sense I'm relieved there's a severe lack of world state interactions.
I don't understand how people adore the combat so much, even if you're not looking for Baldurs Gate/Origins combat, if you're looking for an action game, Bayonetta, FF7R or Devil May Cry etc we have infinite stamina, we're spamming dodge/parry constantly, we have 3 abilities and our companions have zero health, zero difference and even on the hardest difficulty you're basically just using the same primer/detinator on cooldown constantly, I'd rather the NPC's just auto cast it themselves on my target rather than stopping combat every 24 seconds
yep. unless every youtuber i have seen play the game has been insanely bad at it; there is nothing here besides the most basic of basic real time combat systems. pretty sure i've seen more complex combat in character platformers from the 90s and 2000s.
@ I played rogue on the highest difficulty and I was just spamming square, holding triangle the entire game At one point I visually changed my ultimate to do the same amount of damage
@@ChichiNaka That's still honestly better than what I can say for Remake. I just can't sanction it or its sequel in the same tier as a DMC5 or a Bayonetta when it's either mash square to unlock a decent move (where the combat looks far too weightless) or hold square to do the same thing, with the triangle button just being a gimmick either way. At the bare minimum DATV looks to at least have good impact, and the flashier stuff is stylish enough.
@@iisanulquiorrahara8 You won't get a defence of FF7r from me, sorry if it came off that way I literally don't think FF7r should exist as more than one game, stretching a 30 hour 1997 RPG out across 3 games and 2 consoles with some of the most boring characters in video games is offensive, Dragon Quest clears FF every single time, I would have said FF7 original is better than DQ7 but even DQ7, the worst in the franchise IMO outsold FF7
@@theobell2002 Elden ring may not focus much on dialogue or "active" narrative, but the dialogue that is there is very well written and even more well delivered by the voice cast.
@@theobell2002 not an RPG. a JRPG is fundamentally different from RPGs, and kinda missed the biggest point (player agency is decision making) of the thing they were emulating to begin with (TTRPGs) imo, but whatever they are still fun and capture other elements well.
Cohn explained how I feel about the dialogues in Veilguard very well. It's feels so patronizing to players. To keep being told the repeating exposition.
Why are so many reviewers being so over-the-top apologetic about the game? Every time they drop a negative they feel the need to reiterate all the stuff they feel it does well.
My best guess is that they don't want to upset Big Brother Devs, *or* they don't want to upset the little gremlin Alphabet Army following Big Brother Devs.
@@TheBLT883 Now you're just exaggerating for the sake of it. Reviews aren't anywhere near as uniform as you're claiming they are. How many reviews have you seen in your life?
I agreee on writing being bad, but also the gameplay Is bad and dull. Enemies have no variety and the harder difficulties make them just more sponge. You can't use your companions and they can't even die they are just additional skills. Puzzles are also ridiculously stupid to the point of insulting the intelligence of the players.
Exactly as you said. Harder difficulties just adds more stats to mobs and nothing else. Not new skills or anything. Your companions can not even die. Like really?
@@Toom316 No one likes NPCs wasting player resources, but I feel like ME3 already figured out the solution for that by having free health regen and NPCs auto-reviving outside of combat. So whenever they inevitably walked into a line of fire and went down, it was just a temporary shutdown that you could optionally counteract with your limited resources (or, you know, good positioning orders). Removing that just simplifies the game further.
I think part of the issue is "more of an action-adventure game, less RPG". Like that Guardians of the Galaxy game(similar combat structure with main guy and side-kicks with special abilities). That is fine if that is what you aim for(as was the case for Guardians), but Dragon Age is supposed to be an RPG. If you on top of that does not make the adventuring and puzzles interesting, you are not even succeeding in the new direction that was taken.
@@Alblaka A large part of a party-based RPG system, is party management. Both in and out of combat. DA:O was very tactical(it gave you a lot of control) and there were ingame scripts you could create to automate certain things("heal when below 30% health", "Use ability x when target is above 90% health", etc.). This was reduced, but still present in DA:Inquisition. You could move individual characters, but also give them basic scripts for automation. By reducing the party to side-kicks, they have reduced the feeling of being a coherent team that works together, which should put more emphasis on the main character. But then the dialogue does the opposite by also downgrading the main character to a child that needs everything explaoned and is talked down to. The result is that it feels more like playing a child that have babysitters running after them, than a party of heroes.
@@TheNightman. Not really, it just follows bioware canon for the events of the previous games, like the novels or the comics. Essentially Bioware's narrative is the one that matters not the player's, hence why you're restricted to mostly irrelevant choices to bring from inquisition only.
Imagine trying to immerse yourself in a world of sword, sorcery and dragons but then you hear the words "non" and "binary". It would be like joining Gandalf on a quest but you have to stop every now and then for him to set up solar panels so you could charge his Tesla. Absolutely degenerate.
they didnt even bother to keep epilogue after you beat the game based on final outcome. it goes straight to tiles and end back to menu screen. its crazy
@@aule10there are much older games that have great and better lip sync, or at least momential hiding it to not be too noticeable. And that's not so much the issue as much as these older games being of the same developer!!
It wasn't until around 4min that you made me realize what it reminded me of. Andromeda, they pulled the same thing with how Ryder was treated. It was like a toddler being handheld, just they cranked it up to 11 for Veilguard. These days we have extremes of Elden Ring where they slam the door and say have fun kiddo and then games like this where they hold your hand the whole way. Overall I'm with you, I love the series too much as a whole to give up on it but it doesn't blunt the disappointment I feel.
Two different audiences, I'd presume. One audience wants to relish in the challenge of honing their skills, crafting their builds, and overcoming the obstacles the devs place in front of them out of adaptability and willpower. The other audience just wants an immersive movie where they are the glorious protagonist. I don't think either preference is inherently wrong, but I don't think games should try to cover both of these audiences at once, because as it stands big studios struggle to satisfy either audience, and should probably focus on improving one side before even considering to go for the other.
I compare Andromeda to Inquisition more. Like what Inquisition is worth without the Tresspasser. Still more than what Andromeda was, but could end up in the same league. I see it so unfinished, that 2 dlcs could be a gamechanger. And I am still furious about cutting out the quarian arc and then dropping everything after bad release.
In Andromeda at least you kind of are a toddler. Other characters make you very aware of the fact that you aren't qualified to be pathfinder and only have the position as a mistake, it's part of the story.
What we were hoping to get was a deep, CRPG with high quality writing. What we got was a fun, ARPG with YA novel writing. It's technically sound and looks great but it fell short of expectations set by previous games. It's not a bad game, but it's not what people wanted.
The saddest part is the missed potential though. All the great work and hours spent in the Hinterlands to set up Solas as a deep and thought provoking villain, only to throw it away for 2 comically evil faceless big bads
You know if this game was named anything but dragon age and didn't have the stupid pushup scene (because god forbid a fantasy race called the qunari act like qunari and not a LGBT college student) this game would've gone from mid to great Not saying LGBT elements can't be in the game bioware was always like that but it's never good to be obnoxious about it because while you please one group (which are a minority) you risk alienating other people. An rpg game should be enjoyable for rpg fans not based on ideology or agenda. Bulder's gate 3 was "woke" but handled it so naturally that many people didn't mind it
If you really hoped for deep CRPG after Dragon Age progression into action then the blame is on you. You are entitled to hope for what you want but you should've been more realistic about it. I wish Bethesda made more cinematic games but I don't expect it lol
Did you know that the elven gods have returned from the fade? You mean our gods? Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain? Yes, they escaped not long ago from the fade I hear Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain bought the milk back from the fade to the elven people at long last truly the gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain have returned.
@@jonathandear4914 But we expected it to be Ghilan'nain of the elven gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain. It was, in fact, Elgar'nan and not Ghilan'nain of the elven gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain who have escaped Fen'Harel's prison not long ago. dialogue option: Who are you?
@@Illusive1313 Blighted elven gods Elgharnan and ghilanain, of course, carriers of the blight championing their godliness those two, elgharnan and ghilanain
Meanwhile the dialogue in BG3: [Astarion] "Bhaal himself has sentenced you to an eternity of madness, to be consumed by your Urge. You'll never be free, will you? He's going to take over... I've had periods where I was so hungry, I was all but robbed of speech and reason. If you become as I fear... feral, scrabbling, all but a carrion-creature... I don't think I'll be able to look at you. It will remind me too much of my worst self. If that is to be your fate, I will enjoy our time together while it lasts. But soon enough we'll have to say our goodbyes." [Tav response.] "In a thousand years, when I’ve all but forgotten how to love yet again, you’ll flit back into my heart, and I’ll weep wondering what happened to my mad love."
I've never seen or heard this dialogue, but the writing alone made me gasp.. Could you tell me where and under what conditions it happens? My guess is the middle of Act 2 of near the end of Act 3 when (and if) you embrace Bhaal.
The state of culture where this is considered profound. It's just as workman-like, it simply uses more purple prose. They're just telling you their emotions. Get some better standards.
@@MollyGermek No, they're expressing their emotions. Telling you their emotions would be more like; Astarion: I am sad that you are going to turn into an insane murderer. If that happens, I will leave you because you will remind me of who I used to be and make me even more sad. Durge: I will never forget you. Which is far less impactful and memorable. I agree that calling it profound is a bit of a stretch, but just calling the writing a bunch of purple prose is being disimgenuous.
@@Birthday888 Alright, they're just _expressing_ their emotions, exactly as they are felt, and informing us of their exact motivations in the scene. Workmanlike.
Being a good looking game should be a standard at this point and not complement worthy. Game engine and computer hardware have advanced so far that DA:V graphics should be considered mid. I mean, we just played BMW and that game is what good looking looks like in 2024 standards.
0:45 “X game is fine” is the ultimate death kiss for me. Fine is what I use to describe off brand cereals. You can just feel the mediocrity from the game
The entire game holds your hand and reinsures insecurities. It also insults the players intelligence while managing to blast you with what the writers consider right and wrong and gives you no say. Some of the lines feel like they are written by someone that wanted to spill their private life to their dad but couldn't so they forced into the game onto us.
For an RPG, if it was the first in a series, it'd still be annoying, but I'd accept the dialogue much easier. This is the 4th game in the series though, and for an RPG especially, this is pretty awful. It's one of the main components to an RPG, and they bombed it.
the points here are valid but too soft spoken. this game lost EVERYTHING what made me love, enjoy and respect origins. its basically is a worse version of inquisition and we all thought back then it can't get worse than inquisition (which made up with its dlc but still weaker than origins) instead of being proud of origins, valueing it and evolving on its strenghts, they try so hard to get away from everything which is retarded and rediculous - and also sad if you waited 10 years for a new DA game and 15 years for a DAO successor (which hilariously BG3 is) - didn't we all hoped that in 2020 and beyond Dragon Age would look and play like how the old cinematic trailers for origins were? no? yes? well i did.
Pixar character art design. Pixar facial animation from 15 years ago. Pixar dialogue characterization. Rook has to talk to the compaions like they are children becaus they act and react like children. The Companions speek to Rook like he is a child in return. This is game made for 10 year olds. The same is true for menus, combat, visual particle effects during combat, the loot system, crafting, skill progression, puzzels, mini-games, and dialogue choices. If I was 10 I would think this is cool. Since I am not 10 I feel like I am being constantly patronized by someone who thinks I am brain damaged. On the up side, the enviornments are gorgeous.
A Dragon Age RPG with little, if any, meaningful decision-making, very limited roleplaying, and poorly written dialogue is just not a good RPG. If they had made and marketed this as a light-hearted action game set in the Dragon Age universe, it would have been a different story. Bioware should have realised early on that writing has become a weakpoint for its studio, and changed the direction and genre of it to compensate. That could have lead them to a much better game.
Dragon Age The Vailguard's writing isn't bad in comparison to BG3 or Cyperpunk 2077 or Dora the Explorer, it's bad in a vacuum too. They wrote such slop like, a dalish elf that knows nothing of their gods(rook as an elf), a qunari without the knowledge of the qu'n. They've made a tabula rasa character that others can exposit onto.
I found it interesting that in the Dragon Age AMA on Reddit, both Trick Welles, John Epler and Game Lead Corinne Bushe never really addressed why the game has such amateur and soft writting in comparison to past games, which really shows how they knew that a lot of people would hate the game's lighter, softer and inclusive tone made to accomodate a new audience at the expense of old fans. I believe that the game's softer tone and Taash's LGBTQ storyline came because the new younger writters really wanted an fun and inclusive storyline first and foremost, not caring about past games and their fans. Corinne Bushe and John Epler even said that the next Dragon Age game would be darker and bring back past choices, meaning that they knew The Veilguard was not made for older fans.
I'm assuming this is a new officially endorsed channel for Cohh. Whoever is doing the editing, is doing a fantastic job at it! It takes parts of Cohh's thoughts videos and parts from streams and seamlessly puts them together into a much higher quality video experience than his main channel (I mean this in the best way possible, hopefully it comes across that way)
@@derekg.6611 it isn't. The video cohh uploaded is just him talking directly to us. This one cuts to moments from his stream and gameplay to exemplify what he is talking about, as well as diff musical tracks and transitions added in
I tried to play for the sake of the combat system. After about fifteen hours, it strongly begins to resemble an entire shift at the factory. You'll understand soon enough.
It wouldn't be, at least not standard HR policies. The scene where there is an apology over misgendering is directly against HR policy. You are supposed to apologize and IMMEDIATELY move on using the correct pronoun. Like a normal person would in real life. "Hey have you seen Sam? I haven't seen him." "Sam's a girl, and no" "My bad, haven't seen her." "Hey thays a cute dog, how old is she?" "He's 8" "Neat, he's a good boy." That is how normal life works. Meanwhile this game makes the mistake of EXPLAINING the apology and also doing push-ups as a form of apology. This makes the interaction extend longer, and makes everything about the apology rather than the original conversation. So no, they failed to meet proper HR standards when dealing with Trans Identities. They really should take a sensitivity training course on how to properly treat Trans people like regular humans.
I don't know about the voice acting, especially for the main characters such as Neve. In dangerous situations their delivery couldn't be more monotone and devoid of emotion, like it's a minor inconvenience. It doesn't change depending on the importance of the event. And Bellara's California voice acting doesn't belong in the game.
It's weird that a game can be classified as fine if the main part in an RPG, the dialogs are basically reading off Wikipedia articles. Its also weird saying "there are some very good parts and some not so good" - that seems very heavy leaning just on the positive things instead of in reality stating. "The game is neither good or bad."
Isn't that what he said tho? "Fine" is pretty close to the neutral line. If I ask somebody whether they enjoyed X, and the response is "It was fine." that means it wasn't outright bad, but also clearly not positive enough to be 'good' (and 'It was good' is still a pretty tame rating, if you consider that anything truly positive would likely prompt immediate praise and a lengthy explanation as to what was so great about it). Like, the next level below 'fine' would probably be 'meh', which already carries a negative leaning (and mostly implicates that something was boring). But, as Cohh explains, he clearly isn't bored by the game, because the main story line and the gameplay seem to keep him interested. So, to him, the game definitely sounds like it's at least 'fine'.
remember when cohh just stopped playing watchdogs II because it was jarring, he dropped a sponsored stream mainly because of the dialog/story and the monotonous combat, the two major halves of most RPG veilguard is easily a worst version of watchdogs II writing, at least WD have the right settings for the language choice and dialogs meanwhile veilguards dialogs mainly revolves around modern language in a magicpunk medieval and renaissance mixed era, the worst of all it is a railroad and it barely pretends to be a forked path ea. yes!, a nodding approval, and ......yes? Rook: nice hair NPC: the tomato is red Rook: i want cookies NPC: drink milk Rook: i'll eat the grass NPC: good!! we bang Dialog Railroad: (yes!) (a nodding approval) (......yes?) Rook: ...... are they conversing in a 6D chess mores code??? and how does modern gender orientation issues even exist in the setting when people in one way or another have access to polymorph, magic themselves as, ask a shady mage (obviously not a blood mage), ask a tower mage, artifacts, pack with a spirit/demon etc.. as for the combat it is a facelift from modern AC, heck i think AC even have better skill trees, and as the game scales up the enemies just becomes numbers sponge, it is colorful and fun at the start, gets old at the middle, and at the climax stale combat wise veilguard is ahead of watchdogs at the start and just as monotonous at the middle and end, a part that veildguard should easily take a lap over WDII VG have magic, ancient horrors, gods and dragons, meanwhile WD have bad guys, tech and guns, tech and guns tend to only be fun at the extremes, either a full stop drop 500 ton democracy on the targets four limbs and where is my titan, or going silent full tactical low chaos high violence of which WD wasn't able to land either
The writing is the reason I am refusing to play Dragon Age. I loved the storytelling in the previous games. Even Inquisition was alright, despite having worse writing than the previous titles. I want the dark and gritty Dragon Age back. I want a world with slavery, crime, and terrible things happening. Adversity creates growth in a story and it's characters. Allowing a player to revel in that chaos or to save the world is important.
"It's totally valid to not like this game". This is absolutely true because it's true of every game, every piece of entertainment of any kind. Whether you like something or not is a matter of taste. I tried both of the games that Cohh lists as better alternatives, and disliked both of them. Cyberpunk ran like crap, and Baldur's Gate 3 I just couldn't connect to. This is because, like the quote above, liking or not liking a game is a statement about the individual playing it; it says little to nothing about the game itself. "It's also not valid to say the game is complete garbage" Absolutely right because this, unlike the above statement, is a statement about the quality of the game itself, and there are good things about the game. This is not a fine distinction, and it's frustrating that so many people can't make such a basic distinction: How I feel about something and the objective qualities of that thing are two separate things. One is about me, the other is about the thing. I didn't like Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, every Fromsoftware game I've ever tried. But I won't say that these are bad games because, as someone who's never finished any of them, I'm not qualified to judge.
The handholding is just so frustrating, it makes me see everything else in a much worse light. Like Varrick gives you a whole TED talk about being a leader, just so you can go out into the world and be told what to do by your companions. "Let's go check out that door!" "We should go do this thing!" "We need to XYZ!". And then they have the gall to give you a lil' "Good job, Rook, look at you doing a good job!". The game itself is condescending and I can't help but take it as an insult.
I soon as a sniff just a little bit of focus testing and dumbing down to a wider audience I'm out. Like this trend of removing any friction and thinking is so bad for gaming as a whole. And you don't really see it in other media either. It's not like Fantasy books are dumber now than 20 years ago, and games like Elden Ring and BG3 were super successful despite not doing this, so I don't even get it tbh
Maybe a nitpick, but the dialogue also feels strangely edited... like the intervals between replies and the transitions from cut-scenes into dialogue are often stilted or sudden. There are so many phenomenal writers on display across countless indie games, telling stories touching on all manner of subjects and genres. Wild that a presumably well-funded studio can't get a solid narrative team together.
unfortunately, good writing is the most important part of dragon age to me. that's why I adored DA2, even though the gameplay and design kind of sucked. A pretty game with good mechanics and bad writing is not a dragon age game I really want to play.
I agree 100%. Only Sola's is somewhat spared, mostly because he brings things from the previous game but they try to assassinate his character as well.
dragon age VG writing is for milktoast people, people who get offended easily or can't handle certain situations even if its in a game. the gameplay is shallow despite its decently sized skill tree (its big but most of the things there do little not nothing to change up the gameplay), the characters are one of the worst I've seen in any game, especialy Taash who is coddled like she is a 10 year old. the bharv scene is one of the worst I've ever seen. if their goal was to make non binary people look worse, well, congrats, you've done it, Bioware! the environments althought pretty (artstyle is horrendous), are desgined like hallways with some exploration (which is also minimal), the difficulty options are bethesda levels of lazy, the boss designs (mechanics, attacks etc.) are terrible. I wouldn't be surprised when Bioware shuts down after this mess. as the young people say these days: "never cook again, Bioware!".
I agree with him tbh. While the casting for certain characters is a little hot and cold, the performances themselves are great. The outlier I'd throw in would be Neve, her actress is evidently capable of particularly emotive performance but sometimes she comes off so muted. Feel like that's on the director tbh.
I've only really seen Taash's scenes. The VA can do pretty good with the more emotional parts, but you can clearly hear the difference in the DEI sections where she doesn't even try and it feels like she's just doing it for the paycheck.
I cannot believe how much the Veilturd treats you like a child whilst preaching gender politics. Absolute garbage, not one single likeable character in the game including Me, awful story, awful pacing, awful character design, awful mechanics awful gameplay, awful dialogue. How can someone fuck up every single aspect of a game so badly and not manage to hit the mark once
The combat is engaging??? its super boring, easy, flashy and repetitive. Sound design is pretty good? Do you hear to the non stop talking companions that wont shut up while you are walkinga round the world? They sound like they are in a metal cage.
@@Leohlyon that doesnt change the reality that the combat is dull and boring my bro i played it on nightmare and tried on underdog also. Boring as hell. M1 m1 m1 m1 space space space Tab m1 m1 m1 space space m1 m1 m1 ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
yea, I don't know where Cohh gets off calling this combat engaging. Its like...mobile game combat. And this dudes played ER, DD2, GoW...you're gonna tell me those games with objectively engaging combat are on the same level as THIS? Nah...he's being too nice, is all. But thats what Cohh does. He's kind of a fence rider. Which is fine, i'm just sayin.
Sorry but the main draw for a Bioware game has always been story and choices, so if the writing is dog shit, then the game is dog shit. It doesnt matter if it "runs well" or has good visuals if its main purpose is garbage.
Reminder: Disco Elysium exists. And the final cut version adds voice acting to an incredible writing, and the game gives you options to actually role play as you like.
Let’s be honest, shoehorning modern politics into a fantasy setting is extremely jarring and even if you don’t have a problem with it, it takes you out of the game so quickly. By aware has proven with this release that they are nowhere near what they used to be.
If you really want to feel bad, here are some writing examples from Bioware's first RPG, Baldur's Gate, more than 25 years ago. Just compare this to Veilguard: 1 "There are two reasons I pound this pick against these rocks. Do you wish to hear them?" "Yes. I would." "First because I imagine this rock to be my captor's skull. Second, because the meager spark that leaps from my attempt is all the light I'll ever know again. If you be a new slave like I once was, you shall learn these simple truths soon enough." 2 "I can teach you how to use your wrath. You can control the taint, direct it, summon it at will. You can become the Slayer at will and become the weapon of murder that you were meant to be! So think of me. Think of how I destroyed your precious Gorion, how I plundered the lives of your Candlekeep. Summon your rage, stir the depths of your black heart! Summon wrath. Summon wrath and become it, for if you cannot, then you are not worthy of Bhaal's blood. It should have been I. It should have been I! ATTACK ME, WORM, IF YOU DARE!!!" 3 "Greetings. I am Edwin Odesseiron. You simians may merely refer to me as 'Sir,' if you prefer a less... syllable-intensive workout." 4 "I would suggest that you get moving and decide on a plan. And never again say something like 'don't rightly know.' You sound like you were dropped as a child. Or kicked." 5 “Ok, I've just about had my FILL of riddle asking, quest assigning, insult throwing, pun hurling, hostage taking, iron mongering, smart arsed fools, freaks, and felons that continually test my will, mettle, strength, intelligence, and most of all, patience! If you've got a straight answer ANYWHERE in that bent little head of yours, I want to hear it pretty damn quick or I'm going to take a large blunt object roughly the size of Elminster AND his hat, and stuff it lengthwise into a crevice of your being so seldom seen that even the denizens of the nine hells themselves wouldn't touch it with a twenty-foot rusty halberd! Have I MADE myself CLEAR?!"
"It is not BG3, it is not cyberpunk" Dude .. it is not even dragon age. You can't even compare it to the 15 year old game from the same company. It has insanely worse writing, nonsensical and flat out boring dialogs, immersion breaking modern politics talk. Combat is plane and basic even for 2010 standards. I often get the feeling of playing one of the Chinese mobile rpg games. "Puzzles" in this game are some most cringe inducing laughable things I've saw in any game so far. Characters I loved in previous DA games exist only by name here .. I do not recognize them. I could only make "Fine" verdict if this game was created by some unknown game studio. For BioWare standards this game is trash. Best thing anyone can say about this game is it runs well. That should tell you all you need to know whether this game is good or not. I played Cyberpunk 2077 at the time the bugs and instability of the game made people go crazy, and yet the worst of Cyberpunk is still better than the best of DA: The Veilguard. So Cohh, I do not agree with you. this game is not "fine", this game is hot garbage.
@@zuriyel5368 It is not even about score, they are not afraid for no reason. The problem with access media is the "access" part, and this game pointed it out perfectly. Every game critic/journalist that had even slightest reservations about DA: The Veilguard did NOT receive review codes so they could play the game and write review before launch. If you are one of lucky ones that had enough wisdom to kiss 4$$ in exchange for review code you definitely don't want to get in temptation to give game a low score deserving or not. If you do so you may find yourself permanently removed from having access to any future content from this and many other developers. You said it right .. they are afraid but it is not baseless fear, it is rooted in shameless blackmail that gaming developers exert on access media "journalists".
ITS FINE? Someone wants to keep their access for an awful company. The combat is dull. The animations are horrible. "Difficulty" is how much an enemy sponges. The Voice acting has some questionable direction for a lot of the characters. No one acts as if the world is coming to an end. 2 elder gods are threatening to ruin the world, yet, we better chat about coffee. You cannot be rude to people. You cannot insult. This game trashes the games that come before it.
A good story and fun character interactions is the reason I got into and enjoyed other Dragon Age games. To me doesn't matter how good the gameplay is if I don't get sucked into the story and the characters and if the dialog doesn't keep me there that's just not gonna do it for me. Also idk if it's just me but all the characters just look off and the art direction for Veilguard all looks real weird to me, like the characters look off, and what have they done to Qunari!
He had to talk down to twitter karens, so they can understand that this is a terrible game and hating it is 100% legit reaction. No wonder these humans had to be told what a dock is for.
I love the extra editing on this video. I like the thoughts videos, but this is the next level of those video formats. I would love to see more of these types of edits.
It isn't just the writing though, and why so many reviewers were hated for the GAME OF THE YEAR, when clearly it isn't. Here's my thoughts after playing and refunding PROS The scenery is stunning and can be really taken in at times Graphics are very decent overall and you can see a lot of love has gone into the game in that aspect The music/soundtrack is another big plus point Lots of graphical options including DLSS/FG The combat is fun (when you can see what is going on) Weapons , armor and spells look great CONS Terrible dialogue/writing across the board with character narration being sub par. I mean seriously, you can just tell they are reading from a bad script rather than pulling you into character development and feeling for the character you are talking to. Awful character facial animation at times, with mouth movement not fitting the voices. The choices you make have no impact and don't fit the decision you make when responding or questioning anyone. For example if I called someone a right ***, your character would say something like " I don't agree with you ". THAT IS NOT WHAT I JUST SAID!
I remember playing mass effect and accidentally picking dialogue that would come off as way more aggressive than i intended. Now we have the opposite and somehow *worse* problem
inquisition has more depth in combat. you can actually move where you want each of your part members to go, they can use their own skills or you can set their skill usage frequency or none at all. the combat is far more rewarding and has better itemization with crafting your own custom-made gear and it doesn't have an obnoxious two-dimensional writing. people and characters in inquisition feels like actual people from a proper medieval dark fantasy.
Poor writing kills Bioware games. I've been playing their games since KOTOR 1 and it's absolutely tragic what has happened to this studio. I'm glad you're enjoying it though
"if you like button smashing action game, you might like this but if you're hoping to get an RPG (Role Playing) experience where choice matter and depth story, then you might get disappointed." there i fixed cohn TLDR, he's too kind to give a negative conclusion
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Without great writing, ME and DA both would never have been a thing.
And now they are no longer a thing going forward. They can’t ride on those coattails forever.
No DA game had good writing and only one ME did. You should read some actual books instead of just video game scripts.
@@Aerobane Man you are insane. DA and ME had great writing. Now you cant compare it to a great book like Lord of the Rings cuz those are masterfuly made books, but for games they had incredible storys. Like in the first ME where you can literaly make the main boss kills himself just talking to him.
ME 1-2 had good/decent writing, DA 1 had good/decent writing. Dunno what are you smoking but past those 3 games BioWare never made good written anything.
@@diamondhamster4320 The writing of Veilguard is on par with Inquisition. People are on a hate train for this game, and go through everything with a fine comb and make mountains out of molehils. The Writing is fine. Not stellar, not great, but just fine. Just like Inquisition and Dragon Age 2. Origins had some decent writing, but there where parts that really fell flat on the face. The same goes for the Mass Effect series. Bioware never had stellar writing, but it was fine and entertaining.
"He is an assassin. He kills people for money"
The game treats you as if you were a child with cognitive problems.
They People who made it are that and have that.
Most people playing dragon age games are children with cognitive problems so.....
No. Just regular Zoomer-speak/MCU level of dialogue that is hip with the kids.
Ill stand by its also a marketing fail. Id be far more forgiving if theyd severed the plot, ended off with inquisition, kinda didnt hype this as a sequel (which given solas that becomes hard) cause its been TEN YEARS. We dont need baby's first DA level speak or tutorials or kindness. If youd hyped it as a game to target and welcome a new wave of players, the next gen of gamers into the DA world, id be much more forgiving. Cause then id get it. Id understand.
But that isnt what they did.@@diamondhamster4320
Also his response is "and Davrin's self-righteous and judgmental" - like, how is being self-righteous even a comparable sin to murdering people for money? I'd be self-righteous too if my boss wanted me to team up with a serial killer.
the other thing is that your character has zero agency. You can just say yes, yes (funny), yes (annoyed). That's it.Why even make me click a dialogue option at that point?
I noticed this and was surprised how little people call it out.
Even as a developer it is SUCH a stupid thing to do - you're literally paying your voice actors (four of them in total for the protagonist) by the word count to deliver 3 generic versions of the same thing over and over and over. Colossal waste of the actor's time/talent/range, a waste of your budget, and a missed opportunity to ACTUALLY be a roleplaying game.
@@gsimon123 Look at it another way: they create the illusion of choice, making the game feel more marketable to RPG players. At the same time, they save on development costs by ensuring that all choices lead to the same outcome, cutting out any branching paths. Unfortunately for them, players aren’t stupid and can easily see through it, lol.
It's crazy - Bethesda, who is famous for this being what happened in FO4, started to step away from that in Far Harbour, and mostly got rid of it for Starfield - and yet the latest Dragon Age game from Bioware/"Bioware" is what FO4 is. Like - what kind of timeline is this?
This. It made me so sad, because I've always looked forward to a good zinger with the funny options, and in Veilguard all you get is just regular sentences. Exactly as yawnworthy as the other two "options"
He says it's one part that is bad, but it is also the most important part for this genre.
It's like an FPS where the aiming feels terrible no matter the setting.
Yea it’s hella weird of him to defend this slop
@@bwhere45 to be fair there are games where shooting is terrible, but other aspects of the game carry it. like the first Deus Ex, the game was jank to play even for the time. if you are in it just for the overarching story and the gameplay, then you will probably like the game.
He had a lot of EA sponsors in the past @@justin9744
Feels like a weak non-stance. Set up a whole safety net to land in at the start too. I mean no DA fan is happy with this, no need to come up with “if you dont care about the franchise you’ll be happy :) “.
Just say its the worst entry in the series so far, EA marketing connections giving promo opportunities be damned. 😮💨
in the DA:V discussions, people are treating the writing/narrative as the same as another element (along with combat, environment, etc) but that's not the right way to look at it. Every game has these elements but the weight of them is not the same. Like street fighter MUST have a good gameplay system, the story can be shit and it will still be a street fighter game. DA on the other hand needs to have good writing, that is the draw that brings people to bioware. Having bad writing in DA is NOT the same as having bad writing in street fighter. The fact that the writing is bad is a huge hit against this game.
Exactly, this reminds me of a Chinese Light Novels I read, the lore is good, world setting and everything is good, even background character is good, but the one thing that matter the most is the intelligent of the surrounding characters, it was so bad.
If it's just normal get stronger and such, it's fine. However, the story is heavy focus on interaction and building the land, only MC is smart and it's like reading interaction between MC which an adult while others are like children...
yeah, exactly how I feel. When a game have the developer of Bioware behind it - a studio mainly known for good writing and narrative, and it doesn't deliver on that expectation, then it is totally fair for people to be up in arms about it and disliking the direction of the game.
The problem is that the combat is also really bad.
Overall the gameplay is bad.
Before release i saw people saying "i don't care about the gameplay as long as the writing is good." Now it feels like those same people have the opposite opinion where the combat is fun so they put up with the writing.
Although it is good to hear that Cohh likes the main story. The main story has looked interesting from trailers so i will 100% put up with mixed side quest writing if the main story is solid.
@@Murbz the gameplay and the writing are bad
"It runs well" being a leading point says so much about the lack of substance already.
It wasn't "the leading point" it was one of several points, at least 5 or 6. We both watched the same video how is it that you're peddling lies?
@ if you read again you might find I said “a leading point”, not “the leading point”
@@Cyber1zed Yeah he typed "a leading point" as in one of many.
Read things before you get all pissy in future, will you.
go do some pushups as penance.
Yeah and about the state of this industry nowadays, where releasing buggy, unstable, unoptimized, unpolished or even unplayable games is normal.
@@WarLasso and DA:V is pretty buggy, corrupted saves, reseted character appearance, i got all of this in starting few hours. Was absolute quit moment for me how it seemed to have no QA before release.
Honestly. This is the kind of game I play for story and dialogue. Immersion etc. In short. The writing. Being the writing bad makes me uninterested in this.
Me too
It's so unfortunate. I Had a lot of fun with DA: I and was looking forward to Veilguard. But the more I learned about it, the less interested I became in it.
Story and dialogue is killing this game for me.
@@Shimonotoki I feel the same way. It's quite a shame really, if EA let Bioware make the game on the original concept then I think it would be like Inquisition part 2 and the game would have released in like 2017 - 2019 back when some OG Bioware devs still worked there.
Story is good, it’s the dialogue at times being off.
I remember Cohh saying this about another game. The fact it feels that the characters seem to be talking to the player instead of talking to our character is a huge downside for any rpg’s that wants to be immersive.
He is full of shit. He said he liked it on stream when the game landed. Later when he saw that player base hated the game he "changed" his mind. Dude is just swinging as the wind blows.
@@sasagrcevic7048 Yes, he is a coward. These streamers are completely empty in the head.
"Not an immersive dialogue" is such a turn off for a ROLE PLAYING Genre. No amount of great gameplay can save that. Without that, its just going to be the same as all those action hack and slash gacha games(even some of them have better writings)
Nier Automata demolishes this game in terms of writing.
@@verde5738 a piece of cardboard has better world-building than veilguard, even.
The gameplay sucks too though, it's just that the dialogue is worse. The biggest plus anyone should be giving this game is it looks and runs well.
@@verde5738 Nier Automata has a lot going for itself, but you do need some heavy Anime-BS tolerance to get into it.
I can easily imagine the style being a turnoff to a lot of people.
If your main complement for a game is "it's beautiful, it runs really well" then it's not a good game. Period.
Runs really well should be the standard not something that is praised.
Character design is uncanny but hey the background are beautiful, also the game is not completely riddled with bugs and manages to run at 60fps, so that is like atleast a 7/10 am I right guys?
Yeah. And doesn't Cohh usually qualify the "runs well" by saying that his PC was made from alien technology at Area 51?
Then it's a good thing one of the complement is not his main complement
@@inyobase127 Running really well means it runs better than the standard. Otherwise it would just be running like standard. Whether this game actually does that or not, no clue.
My biggest problems with the game is:
1. The previous games basically dont matter at all (in a gameseries that was build on meaningfull choices that influences the next game)
2. I feel insulted by the "Problem Solving" like both Markers as well as companions constantly say what i need to do. Like i dont have to think about any progression.
3. I feel like we have 0 real choice in builden diffrent Rooks. No matter what Dialogue you choose its basically the same Conversation, Nice, Funny-Nice and Direct/To the Point-Nice. (Like comoare that to older Bioware games and how evil/mean you were able to be)
Your first point kinda makes me worried about ME4, are they just going to choose an ending and disregard all previous choices?
the whole thing with choices from the older games coming back up is kind of tricky because the amount of extra work needed to put into all that and you also have to think about people who are starting with this game and never played the older games
1. There are 3 choices that matter, so your point is false. It might be fewer options that you wanted, but those choices matter.
2. The beginning of the game is overly hand-holdy. This stops pretty much right after the intro quest. You can turn markers off in the interface menu.
@@dean9118 Developer spotted.
@@iRavenTM Or just someone that isnt deep-throating the "ermagurd woke" bullshit you braindead fucknuts continue to spew everywhere without any critical thought. Just a simple brush with reality makes your points dissolve.
One of the first things you learn about writing is to describe as events unfold instead of explicitely naming them (part of the famous "show, don't tell" paradigm). Instead of saying "John had murderous thoughts about Jane" you describe it as "John didn't utter a word, just watched Jane with an intent gaze, running his fingers across the bump of the switchblade hidden in his pocket". Why do this? Because people like to work for the conclusion. This bare minimum effort makes the journey more fun for reader / viewer / player.
This decision about making the writing simpler and more straightforward isn't a result of an agenda (neither political, nor financial), it's not risk mitigation, but simple, sheer incompetence. No writer worth their salt would WANT to write watered down content like this, it's just straight bad without excuse.
Characters constantly repeat what their mission is, sometimes to people they just met. Like they meet some people and just say " we released elven gods and now they are going to destroy the world". Like, why would you be so open with everyone? They think audience is stupid and can't follow basic storylines
NO you cannot misbehave, NO you cannot choose to be rude or insult someone. You will play as the pixar hero we want you to be.
What?
I left the Mayor to die, I told Bellara to stop being so whiny. I told Taash to stop being so fucked up and confront their issues. I destroyed a city and now one of my companions romances is utterly locked out and I cant use half their skills because of it, and they no longer trust me in the future.
You clearly havent played the game.
I love how this comment has nothing to do with the point this video is making. It's parroting some other video.
Hey ... but you can be TRANS!
@@dean9118 So surface level shit that makes no difference? Sounds like OP's point stands, and i certainly dont need to play this slop to see it for what it is, SLOP. Now i get it sloppy little piggys like you exist and love to roll around in the slop and tell everyone else how its actually not slop. But anyone with a room temp IQ can see you and it for what it is.
@@sebastianaraneda7063 why do you want to be trans? Its quite a hardship considering all the braindead fucks who harp on about it all the time. Do you have a trans kink or something?
also, don't forget they told us to not use BG3 as the standard, remember that?
Yes becasue they will never be that good.
You don't have to. This is just poor quality for any triple A studio.
Who's "they"? As I recall the people who were saying that were indie devs who don't want their little RPGs made on a shoe string budget in comparison and not asking for full $60-$70+ compared to BG3.
I think it's pretty sad we're using BG3 as an example of good writing tbh.
@isodoubIet Yeah people quoting bg3 in the good writing or woke arguments didn’t play BG3.
Cohh is one of the nicest people on Twitch/UA-cam.. and when he says something is grating on him, it's REAL bad for everyone else not on his level of niceness.
He also is just open on having this opinion which I 100% disagree with. It's not about niceness, he's just kind in a way he expresses his ideas. But he doesn't fake it or hide it if he doesn't enjoy it. Many people found Last of Us Part 2 great while he completely hated the writing and was frustrated with it.
@@pawe1721 Yea, I know I don't mean nice, like gullible nice, but he is nice and civil about his critique. But that is because I am used to the standart of internet and that is... ehm... kinda low. Like Mariana Trench deep. I am used to people saying horrible words about at worst mildly irritable things.
I have just discovered the man. So I am kinda... interested in his opinions right now. They seem valid to me, even if I don't agree with everything he says, like DA:V graphics or combat system.
I live in Czech Republic, for me 60USD 1350CZK which is a lot for a game. So I look up recensions if it is worth buying for full price or should I wait for a year or two for a nice, fat discount.
@@pawe1721 many also found it to be some of the worst.
@@dakiesalamander5221 On most stores it's in € so more like 1500 CZK. Also if you want to try it you can buy EA Play Pro subscription (17€) or wait 9-12 months then it's available in the cheaper version.
huh
I think BG3 is a great game to compare to because it had to deal with the same risks that Dragon Age has. You have a very obscure environment, most people outside of DnD circles don't know anything about the lore of the world Baldurs Gate exists in. You have mechanics based on a very obscure ruleset that most players wouldn't understand (unless they're familiar with DnD as I said). I think the place where Larian excelled was finding a way to make these systems palatable to a wider audience without losing the charm of why the original audience likes these things.
So whereas Larian refined their technique with the previous iterations (Divinity 1 & 2) and retained the people who helped make those games great, BioWare did almost the exact opposite.
Larian is also a private studio whilst BioWare is ultimately reporting to their EA overlords.
Netflix school of writing where they expect people to only half pay attention.
I wish I'd never heard the term "second screen content"; so fucking depressing.
Netflix > this writing
Tbf, the crowd they created this game for aren't the brightest. Most would get lost if there wasn't constant exposition. To put it another way, I bet the cross section of a Venn diagram of people who liked BG3 and people who liked DAV is extremely small (if it exists at all)
Honestly not the worst move, from what i've seen online gamers aren't the brightest specimens, at least the loudest ones, parroting anything they hear on YT 😹
If the Writing in a Bioware game is bad that game is a failure in my eyes
Dragon Age is a franchise that exists solely because of the fantastic writing in Origins. "Fine" is not good enough.
Origins was incredibly camp and it had bad dialogue. Every instalment had cringe dialogue. The main reason this is being hated on is the non binary/trans characters let’s be honest. There’s been cringe dialogue, same sex relationships, church bashing, soap opera “ships” and racial stuff in every Dragon Age game. It’s just the trans stuff that puts white straight guys over the edge because they feel they should be the target audience for every game that comes out.
In this game, calling the writing 'fine' would be incredibly high praise. I hope it's fun, but I think it's absurd to describe the writing quality as merely 'fine' if it's actually poor.😂
It's not only that to be fair, Dragon Age is set in a very interesting world even if it have been portrayed in varied quality over the years. When it came to Veilguard, my desire to know what would happen mitigated a lot of my sighs and cringe. Inquisition wasn't exactly peak either, but i found the story to be intriguing enough to pretty much 100% that game and complete most of the possible world states... however i will probably not do so for this game, so in a sense I'm relieved there's a severe lack of world state interactions.
It's why 2 despite the repeat dungeons is my favorite. It has my favorite characters in the franchise.
I don't understand how people adore the combat so much, even if you're not looking for Baldurs Gate/Origins combat, if you're looking for an action game, Bayonetta, FF7R or Devil May Cry etc we have infinite stamina, we're spamming dodge/parry constantly, we have 3 abilities and our companions have zero health, zero difference and even on the hardest difficulty you're basically just using the same primer/detinator on cooldown constantly, I'd rather the NPC's just auto cast it themselves on my target rather than stopping combat every 24 seconds
yep. unless every youtuber i have seen play the game has been insanely bad at it; there is nothing here besides the most basic of basic real time combat systems. pretty sure i've seen more complex combat in character platformers from the 90s and 2000s.
On visuals of the Rogue build, alone, this combat completely outmatches FF7R's wet-towel combat.
@ I played rogue on the highest difficulty and I was just spamming square, holding triangle the entire game
At one point I visually changed my ultimate to do the same amount of damage
@@ChichiNaka That's still honestly better than what I can say for Remake. I just can't sanction it or its sequel in the same tier as a DMC5 or a Bayonetta when it's either mash square to unlock a decent move (where the combat looks far too weightless) or hold square to do the same thing, with the triangle button just being a gimmick either way.
At the bare minimum DATV looks to at least have good impact, and the flashier stuff is stylish enough.
@@iisanulquiorrahara8 You won't get a defence of FF7r from me, sorry if it came off that way
I literally don't think FF7r should exist as more than one game, stretching a 30 hour 1997 RPG out across 3 games and 2 consoles with some of the most boring characters in video games is offensive, Dragon Quest clears FF every single time, I would have said FF7 original is better than DQ7 but even DQ7, the worst in the franchise IMO outsold FF7
BOY is he going to fucking HATE the ending.
He better not get that secret ending after the credits
My exact thoughts ahahaha
He's coping so hard because the game's title has Dragon Age in it, he'll think it's "fine."
He wont see it, you need to do a lot of side stuff to get that.
Lmao you already beat the game. Hated it so much you spammed it with no food and water.
So the worst thing about it is its writing, the thing that made Dragon Age so well-known and beloved by fans in the first place.
If the dialogue in an RPG is below average, then the entire game is below average. No matter what other factors may apply.
So by your standards, Elden Ring is "below average".
@@theobell2002elden ring is a souls like not really an RPG in the traditional sense.
@@theobell2002 Elden ring may not focus much on dialogue or "active" narrative, but the dialogue that is there is very well written and even more well delivered by the voice cast.
@@theobell2002 not an RPG. a JRPG is fundamentally different from RPGs, and kinda missed the biggest point (player agency is decision making) of the thing they were emulating to begin with (TTRPGs) imo, but whatever they are still fun and capture other elements well.
@@theobell2002 low IQ take
This is NOT the writers not willing to take risks. This is the talent level of this writing team.
This
What talent?
Yes, its their best and they pet themselves on the back for it.
This garbage shouldn't be tolerated.
I'm sure in their fuckedup minds they were feeling "brave and daring"
Yeah? Are you like totally sure about that, genius?
Cohn explained how I feel about the dialogues in Veilguard very well. It's feels so patronizing to players. To keep being told the repeating exposition.
As a game, it's a 5/10. As a Dragon Age game, it's a 0/10.
Yes, it’s bad writing
Why are so many reviewers being so over-the-top apologetic about the game? Every time they drop a negative they feel the need to reiterate all the stuff they feel it does well.
My best guess is that they don't want to upset Big Brother Devs, *or* they don't want to upset the little gremlin Alphabet Army following Big Brother Devs.
because that’s how reviews usually are?
@@TheBLT883 I wouldn't have mentioned it if I felt like it was common practice.
@@allnamestakenlolit is common practice every review literally does this lol
@@TheBLT883 Now you're just exaggerating for the sake of it. Reviews aren't anywhere near as uniform as you're claiming they are. How many reviews have you seen in your life?
I agreee on writing being bad, but also the gameplay Is bad and dull. Enemies have no variety and the harder difficulties make them just more sponge. You can't use your companions and they can't even die they are just additional skills. Puzzles are also
ridiculously stupid to the point of insulting the intelligence of the players.
Exactly as you said. Harder difficulties just adds more stats to mobs and nothing else. Not new skills or anything. Your companions can not even die. Like really?
@@Toom316 No one likes NPCs wasting player resources, but I feel like ME3 already figured out the solution for that by having free health regen and NPCs auto-reviving outside of combat. So whenever they inevitably walked into a line of fire and went down, it was just a temporary shutdown that you could optionally counteract with your limited resources (or, you know, good positioning orders).
Removing that just simplifies the game further.
I think part of the issue is "more of an action-adventure game, less RPG". Like that Guardians of the Galaxy game(similar combat structure with main guy and side-kicks with special abilities). That is fine if that is what you aim for(as was the case for Guardians), but Dragon Age is supposed to be an RPG.
If you on top of that does not make the adventuring and puzzles interesting, you are not even succeeding in the new direction that was taken.
@@Alblaka A large part of a party-based RPG system, is party management. Both in and out of combat.
DA:O was very tactical(it gave you a lot of control) and there were ingame scripts you could create to automate certain things("heal when below 30% health", "Use ability x when target is above 90% health", etc.). This was reduced, but still present in DA:Inquisition. You could move individual characters, but also give them basic scripts for automation.
By reducing the party to side-kicks, they have reduced the feeling of being a coherent team that works together, which should put more emphasis on the main character. But then the dialogue does the opposite by also downgrading the main character to a child that needs everything explaoned and is talked down to.
The result is that it feels more like playing a child that have babysitters running after them, than a party of heroes.
Cohh just trying not to burn bridges for future sponsorships. Or that his standards are incredibly low.
nothing was more telling than being an elf and having other elves telling me everything I would already know being an elf.
Bad writing? Nah, abysmal writing. The main story is also an absolute joke, plus it retcons all major events that have happened before Veilguard.
I wouldn't say it does. It keeps things ambiguous, i quite like the main story so far, but the pacing is ODD
@@rings2085 it removes the major events and makes shit up
@@TheNightman. Not really, it just follows bioware canon for the events of the previous games, like the novels or the comics. Essentially Bioware's narrative is the one that matters not the player's, hence why you're restricted to mostly irrelevant choices to bring from inquisition only.
@@orthodox-mp6hv I guess you haven't heard of the secret ending.
Whenever he replays Origins, he's going to remember how good DA used to be and realize how shit this is.
Imagine trying to immerse yourself in a world of sword, sorcery and dragons but then you hear the words "non" and "binary".
It would be like joining Gandalf on a quest but you have to stop every now and then for him to set up solar panels so you could charge his Tesla.
Absolutely degenerate.
they didnt even bother to keep epilogue after you beat the game based on final outcome. it goes straight to tiles and end back to menu screen. its crazy
Mass Effect 3 vibes.
Especially since BioWare were some of the first developers to do epilogues when it came to RPGs.
the prologue is as bad, what a joke...
this review smacks of "don't come after me please, I said it's fine"
Literally lol
How is nobody talking about the awful lip sync.
we are too used to it. most games has horrible lip sync.
@@aule10there are much older games that have great and better lip sync, or at least momential hiding it to not be too noticeable.
And that's not so much the issue as much as these older games being of the same developer!!
or facial animation in general
@@Hriskataaa Sure just not in a bioware game :D
@@aule10 oh cmon, one of the highlights of the original ME trilogy + DA origins were the conversations / facial style
It wasn't until around 4min that you made me realize what it reminded me of. Andromeda, they pulled the same thing with how Ryder was treated. It was like a toddler being handheld, just they cranked it up to 11 for Veilguard. These days we have extremes of Elden Ring where they slam the door and say have fun kiddo and then games like this where they hold your hand the whole way. Overall I'm with you, I love the series too much as a whole to give up on it but it doesn't blunt the disappointment I feel.
Two different audiences, I'd presume. One audience wants to relish in the challenge of honing their skills, crafting their builds, and overcoming the obstacles the devs place in front of them out of adaptability and willpower. The other audience just wants an immersive movie where they are the glorious protagonist. I don't think either preference is inherently wrong, but I don't think games should try to cover both of these audiences at once, because as it stands big studios struggle to satisfy either audience, and should probably focus on improving one side before even considering to go for the other.
@@AlblakaThis game doesn't even satisfy the "Movie Gamer" audience though. The poor writing makes them not even want to progress through the plot.
I compare Andromeda to Inquisition more. Like what Inquisition is worth without the Tresspasser. Still more than what Andromeda was, but could end up in the same league.
I see it so unfinished, that 2 dlcs could be a gamechanger. And I am still furious about cutting out the quarian arc and then dropping everything after bad release.
In Andromeda at least you kind of are a toddler. Other characters make you very aware of the fact that you aren't qualified to be pathfinder and only have the position as a mistake, it's part of the story.
It's shit.... AND YOU KNOW IT.. you are the one being safe and not being honest at all.
yup thats Cohh a$$ licker for you. There is a reason he chose Twitch and not YT as streaming platform.
Cohn: Don't let anybody tell you how to think.
Me: Okay.
What we were hoping to get was a deep, CRPG with high quality writing. What we got was a fun, ARPG with YA novel writing. It's technically sound and looks great but it fell short of expectations set by previous games. It's not a bad game, but it's not what people wanted.
The saddest part is the missed potential though. All the great work and hours spent in the Hinterlands to set up Solas as a deep and thought provoking villain, only to throw it away for 2 comically evil faceless big bads
You know if this game was named anything but dragon age and didn't have the stupid pushup scene (because god forbid a fantasy race called the qunari act like qunari and not a LGBT college student) this game would've gone from mid to great
Not saying LGBT elements can't be in the game bioware was always like that but it's never good to be obnoxious about it because while you please one group (which are a minority) you risk alienating other people. An rpg game should be enjoyable for rpg fans not based on ideology or agenda. Bulder's gate 3 was "woke" but handled it so naturally that many people didn't mind it
The sound of dialogue is really bad too tho.
Companions sound like they are inside a metal cage
@@angryvaultguy I think what you're getting at is the difference between pandering and inclusion. Which I agree is out of balance in this game
If you really hoped for deep CRPG after Dragon Age progression into action then the blame is on you. You are entitled to hope for what you want but you should've been more realistic about it. I wish Bethesda made more cinematic games but I don't expect it lol
*Don't let this distract you from the fact that the elven gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain have escaped Fen'Harel's prison.*
Did you know that the elven gods have returned from the fade?
You mean our gods? Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain?
Yes, they escaped not long ago from the fade
I hear Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain bought the milk back from the fade to the elven people at long last
truly the gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain have returned.
@@jonathandear4914 But we expected it to be Ghilan'nain of the elven gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain. It was, in fact, Elgar'nan and not Ghilan'nain of the elven gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain who have escaped Fen'Harel's prison not long ago.
dialogue option: Who are you?
@@Illusive1313 Blighted elven gods Elgharnan and ghilanain, of course, carriers of the blight championing their godliness those two, elgharnan and ghilanain
Meanwhile the dialogue in BG3:
[Astarion] "Bhaal himself has sentenced you to an eternity of madness, to be consumed by your Urge. You'll never be free, will you? He's going to take over... I've had periods where I was so hungry, I was all but robbed of speech and reason. If you become as I fear... feral, scrabbling, all but a carrion-creature... I don't think I'll be able to look at you. It will remind me too much of my worst self. If that is to be your fate, I will enjoy our time together while it lasts. But soon enough we'll have to say our goodbyes."
[Tav response.] "In a thousand years, when I’ve all but forgotten how to love yet again, you’ll flit back into my heart, and I’ll weep wondering what happened to my mad love."
I've never seen or heard this dialogue, but the writing alone made me gasp..
Could you tell me where and under what conditions it happens? My guess is the middle of Act 2 of near the end of Act 3 when (and if) you embrace Bhaal.
The state of culture where this is considered profound. It's just as workman-like, it simply uses more purple prose. They're just telling you their emotions. Get some better standards.
@@MollyGermek No, they're expressing their emotions. Telling you their emotions would be more like;
Astarion: I am sad that you are going to turn into an insane murderer. If that happens, I will leave you because you will remind me of who I used to be and make me even more sad.
Durge: I will never forget you.
Which is far less impactful and memorable. I agree that calling it profound is a bit of a stretch, but just calling the writing a bunch of purple prose is being disimgenuous.
@@Birthday888 Alright, they're just _expressing_ their emotions, exactly as they are felt, and informing us of their exact motivations in the scene. Workmanlike.
I'm around 70% done
The serious situations are not at all serious coz how the writing and the dialogue options are....was quite disappointing honestly
Bad writing will always be bad writing.
Being a good looking game should be a standard at this point and not complement worthy. Game engine and computer hardware have advanced so far that DA:V graphics should be considered mid. I mean, we just played BMW and that game is what good looking looks like in 2024 standards.
0:45 “X game is fine” is the ultimate death kiss for me. Fine is what I use to describe off brand cereals. You can just feel the mediocrity from the game
To be fair to Skill UP, he did say about 17 times in his review that it was his opinion and you should do your own research
Well, it's not an opinion that the writing is bad. That's just a fact.
People used to be intrinsically aware that a review was just an opinion. Maybe there's a reason Dragon Age dialogue is made for dumb children
Option 1:Yes.😀
Option 2:Yes.🤪
Option 3:Yes.😠
The entire game holds your hand and reinsures insecurities. It also insults the players intelligence while managing to blast you with what the writers consider right and wrong and gives you no say.
Some of the lines feel like they are written by someone that wanted to spill their private life to their dad but couldn't so they forced into the game onto us.
For an RPG, if it was the first in a series, it'd still be annoying, but I'd accept the dialogue much easier. This is the 4th game in the series though, and for an RPG especially, this is pretty awful. It's one of the main components to an RPG, and they bombed it.
the points here are valid but too soft spoken. this game lost EVERYTHING what made me love, enjoy and respect origins. its basically is a worse version of inquisition and we all thought back then it can't get worse than inquisition (which made up with its dlc but still weaker than origins) instead of being proud of origins, valueing it and evolving on its strenghts, they try so hard to get away from everything which is retarded and rediculous - and also sad if you waited 10 years for a new DA game and 15 years for a DAO successor (which hilariously BG3 is) - didn't we all hoped that in 2020 and beyond Dragon Age would look and play like how the old cinematic trailers for origins were? no? yes? well i did.
Pixar character art design. Pixar facial animation from 15 years ago. Pixar dialogue characterization. Rook has to talk to the compaions like they are children becaus they act and react like children. The Companions speek to Rook like he is a child in return. This is game made for 10 year olds. The same is true for menus, combat, visual particle effects during combat, the loot system, crafting, skill progression, puzzels, mini-games, and dialogue choices. If I was 10 I would think this is cool. Since I am not 10 I feel like I am being constantly patronized by someone who thinks I am brain damaged.
On the up side, the enviornments are gorgeous.
A Dragon Age RPG with little, if any, meaningful decision-making, very limited roleplaying, and poorly written dialogue is just not a good RPG. If they had made and marketed this as a light-hearted action game set in the Dragon Age universe, it would have been a different story. Bioware should have realised early on that writing has become a weakpoint for its studio, and changed the direction and genre of it to compensate. That could have lead them to a much better game.
Dragon Age The Vailguard's writing isn't bad in comparison to BG3 or Cyperpunk 2077 or Dora the Explorer, it's bad in a vacuum too.
They wrote such slop like, a dalish elf that knows nothing of their gods(rook as an elf), a qunari without the knowledge of the qu'n. They've made a tabula rasa character that others can exposit onto.
I found it interesting that in the Dragon Age AMA on Reddit, both Trick Welles, John Epler and Game Lead Corinne Bushe never really addressed why the game has such amateur and soft writting in comparison to past games, which really shows how they knew that a lot of people would hate the game's lighter, softer and inclusive tone made to accomodate a new audience at the expense of old fans.
I believe that the game's softer tone and Taash's LGBTQ storyline came because the new younger writters really wanted an fun and inclusive storyline first and foremost, not caring about past games and their fans.
Corinne Bushe and John Epler even said that the next Dragon Age game would be darker and bring back past choices, meaning that they knew The Veilguard was not made for older fans.
I'm assuming this is a new officially endorsed channel for Cohh. Whoever is doing the editing, is doing a fantastic job at it! It takes parts of Cohh's thoughts videos and parts from streams and seamlessly puts them together into a much higher quality video experience than his main channel (I mean this in the best way possible, hopefully it comes across that way)
No, this is literally the same video Cohh uploaded
@@derekg.6611 it isn't. The video cohh uploaded is just him talking directly to us. This one cuts to moments from his stream and gameplay to exemplify what he is talking about, as well as diff musical tracks and transitions added in
Cohh hired these editors to help turn his normal content into UA-cam friendly content. So you are not insulting the regular UA-cam team at all.
I tried to play for the sake of the combat system. After about fifteen hours, it strongly begins to resemble an entire shift at the factory. You'll understand soon enough.
I don't know which one playing it safer, DA or this video.
How so?
spot on my man, Cohh a$$ licker at your service.
The writing seems like it's games journo safe, HR approved.
It wouldn't be, at least not standard HR policies.
The scene where there is an apology over misgendering is directly against HR policy. You are supposed to apologize and IMMEDIATELY move on using the correct pronoun. Like a normal person would in real life.
"Hey have you seen Sam? I haven't seen him."
"Sam's a girl, and no"
"My bad, haven't seen her."
"Hey thays a cute dog, how old is she?"
"He's 8"
"Neat, he's a good boy."
That is how normal life works.
Meanwhile this game makes the mistake of EXPLAINING the apology and also doing push-ups as a form of apology. This makes the interaction extend longer, and makes everything about the apology rather than the original conversation.
So no, they failed to meet proper HR standards when dealing with Trans Identities. They really should take a sensitivity training course on how to properly treat Trans people like regular humans.
I don't know about the voice acting, especially for the main characters such as Neve. In dangerous situations their delivery couldn't be more monotone and devoid of emotion, like it's a minor inconvenience. It doesn't change depending on the importance of the event. And Bellara's California voice acting doesn't belong in the game.
It's weird that a game can be classified as fine if the main part in an RPG, the dialogs are basically reading off Wikipedia articles. Its also weird saying "there are some very good parts and some not so good" - that seems very heavy leaning just on the positive things instead of in reality stating. "The game is neither good or bad."
I don't think it's weird at all. I like many things in this game, and some not so much...but overall I'm having fun.
@@AshOck667well then you're not playing DA then. you're enjoying a completely different game. good for you but as a DA game this sucks major balls.
Isn't that what he said tho? "Fine" is pretty close to the neutral line. If I ask somebody whether they enjoyed X, and the response is "It was fine." that means it wasn't outright bad, but also clearly not positive enough to be 'good' (and 'It was good' is still a pretty tame rating, if you consider that anything truly positive would likely prompt immediate praise and a lengthy explanation as to what was so great about it).
Like, the next level below 'fine' would probably be 'meh', which already carries a negative leaning (and mostly implicates that something was boring). But, as Cohh explains, he clearly isn't bored by the game, because the main story line and the gameplay seem to keep him interested. So, to him, the game definitely sounds like it's at least 'fine'.
There are many RPG games with very little dialogue or main characters that straight up don't say anything. What are you talking about?
remember when cohh just stopped playing watchdogs II because it was jarring, he dropped a sponsored stream mainly because of the dialog/story and the monotonous combat, the two major halves of most RPG
veilguard is easily a worst version of watchdogs II writing, at least WD have the right settings for the language choice and dialogs meanwhile veilguards dialogs mainly revolves around modern language in a magicpunk medieval and renaissance mixed era, the worst of all it is a railroad and it barely pretends to be a forked path ea. yes!, a nodding approval, and ......yes?
Rook: nice hair
NPC: the tomato is red
Rook: i want cookies
NPC: drink milk
Rook: i'll eat the grass
NPC: good!! we bang
Dialog Railroad: (yes!) (a nodding approval) (......yes?)
Rook: ......
are they conversing in a 6D chess mores code???
and how does modern gender orientation issues even exist in the setting when people in one way or another have access to polymorph, magic themselves as, ask a shady mage (obviously not a blood mage), ask a tower mage, artifacts, pack with a spirit/demon etc..
as for the combat it is a facelift from modern AC, heck i think AC even have better skill trees, and as the game scales up the enemies just becomes numbers sponge, it is colorful and fun at the start, gets old at the middle, and at the climax stale
combat wise veilguard is ahead of watchdogs at the start and just as monotonous at the middle and end, a part that veildguard should easily take a lap over WDII
VG have magic, ancient horrors, gods and dragons, meanwhile WD have bad guys, tech and guns, tech and guns tend to only be fun at the extremes, either a full stop drop 500 ton democracy on the targets four limbs and where is my titan, or going silent full tactical low chaos high violence of which WD wasn't able to land either
Part of what makes an RPG so loved is the immersive dialog, banter, and true narrative of a story.
The writing is the reason I am refusing to play Dragon Age. I loved the storytelling in the previous games. Even Inquisition was alright, despite having worse writing than the previous titles. I want the dark and gritty Dragon Age back. I want a world with slavery, crime, and terrible things happening. Adversity creates growth in a story and it's characters. Allowing a player to revel in that chaos or to save the world is important.
"It's totally valid to not like this game".
This is absolutely true because it's true of every game, every piece of entertainment of any kind. Whether you like something or not is a matter of taste. I tried both of the games that Cohh lists as better alternatives, and disliked both of them. Cyberpunk ran like crap, and Baldur's Gate 3 I just couldn't connect to. This is because, like the quote above, liking or not liking a game is a statement about the individual playing it; it says little to nothing about the game itself.
"It's also not valid to say the game is complete garbage"
Absolutely right because this, unlike the above statement, is a statement about the quality of the game itself, and there are good things about the game.
This is not a fine distinction, and it's frustrating that so many people can't make such a basic distinction: How I feel about something and the objective qualities of that thing are two separate things. One is about me, the other is about the thing.
I didn't like Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, every Fromsoftware game I've ever tried. But I won't say that these are bad games because, as someone who's never finished any of them, I'm not qualified to judge.
The handholding is just so frustrating, it makes me see everything else in a much worse light. Like Varrick gives you a whole TED talk about being a leader, just so you can go out into the world and be told what to do by your companions. "Let's go check out that door!" "We should go do this thing!" "We need to XYZ!". And then they have the gall to give you a lil' "Good job, Rook, look at you doing a good job!". The game itself is condescending and I can't help but take it as an insult.
I soon as a sniff just a little bit of focus testing and dumbing down to a wider audience I'm out. Like this trend of removing any friction and thinking is so bad for gaming as a whole. And you don't really see it in other media either. It's not like Fantasy books are dumber now than 20 years ago, and games like Elden Ring and BG3 were super successful despite not doing this, so I don't even get it tbh
Maybe a nitpick, but the dialogue also feels strangely edited... like the intervals between replies and the transitions from cut-scenes into dialogue are often stilted or sudden.
There are so many phenomenal writers on display across countless indie games, telling stories touching on all manner of subjects and genres. Wild that a presumably well-funded studio can't get a solid narrative team together.
unfortunately, good writing is the most important part of dragon age to me. that's why I adored DA2, even though the gameplay and design kind of sucked. A pretty game with good mechanics and bad writing is not a dragon age game I really want to play.
4:43 Serious case of too much text right there. "This isn't right." would have said more than those two lines.
Or "Where are all the people?"
I agree 100%. Only Sola's is somewhat spared, mostly because he brings things from the previous game but they try to assassinate his character as well.
Waited for 10 years and all I got was this Traash
Bioware died when the writers left after being made the enemies in the studio.
dragon age VG writing is for milktoast people, people who get offended easily or can't handle certain situations even if its in a game. the gameplay is shallow despite its decently sized skill tree (its big but most of the things there do little not nothing to change up the gameplay), the characters are one of the worst I've seen in any game, especialy Taash who is coddled like she is a 10 year old. the bharv scene is one of the worst I've ever seen. if their goal was to make non binary people look worse, well, congrats, you've done it, Bioware! the environments althought pretty (artstyle is horrendous), are desgined like hallways with some exploration (which is also minimal), the difficulty options are bethesda levels of lazy, the boss designs (mechanics, attacks etc.) are terrible.
I wouldn't be surprised when Bioware shuts down after this mess.
as the young people say these days: "never cook again, Bioware!".
Voice acting great? jesus
I agree with him tbh. While the casting for certain characters is a little hot and cold, the performances themselves are great.
The outlier I'd throw in would be Neve, her actress is evidently capable of particularly emotive performance but sometimes she comes off so muted. Feel like that's on the director tbh.
the problem is with the voice directing not the acting, even Morrigan feels off and we know she can sound great.
I've only really seen Taash's scenes. The VA can do pretty good with the more emotional parts, but you can clearly hear the difference in the DEI sections where she doesn't even try and it feels like she's just doing it for the paycheck.
Neve is the only one I have a problem with.
@@liblinhas I think Claudia Black said she wanted out, that could be why?
I cannot believe how much the Veilturd treats you like a child whilst preaching gender politics. Absolute garbage, not one single likeable character in the game including Me, awful story, awful pacing, awful character design, awful mechanics awful gameplay, awful dialogue. How can someone fuck up every single aspect of a game so badly and not manage to hit the mark once
The only thing I like about this dumpster is that it got people playing the first one. Origins is fantastic.
The combat is engaging??? its super boring, easy, flashy and repetitive.
Sound design is pretty good? Do you hear to the non stop talking companions that wont shut up while you are walkinga round the world? They sound like they are in a metal cage.
What difficulty did you play it on?
@@Leohlyon that doesnt change the reality that the combat is dull and boring my bro
i played it on nightmare and tried on underdog also.
Boring as hell.
M1 m1 m1 m1 space space space
Tab
m1 m1 m1 space space
m1 m1 m1
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
@ out of curiosity, what’s a game that has good combat?
yea, I don't know where Cohh gets off calling this combat engaging. Its like...mobile game combat. And this dudes played ER, DD2, GoW...you're gonna tell me those games with objectively engaging combat are on the same level as THIS? Nah...he's being too nice, is all. But thats what Cohh does. He's kind of a fence rider. Which is fine, i'm just sayin.
yeah the combat has ZERO depth. the skill-line is just bloated for the sake of being bloated. Mages got streamlined AGAIN
Why are the Elves Asian now?
Sorry but the main draw for a Bioware game has always been story and choices, so if the writing is dog shit, then the game is dog shit. It doesnt matter if it "runs well" or has good visuals if its main purpose is garbage.
Reminder: Disco Elysium exists.
And the final cut version adds voice acting to an incredible writing, and the game gives you options to actually role play as you like.
Disco Elysium is sooooo unique and sooo good its honestly amazing. Some of the best writing i have ever seen.
Let’s be honest, shoehorning modern politics into a fantasy setting is extremely jarring and even if you don’t have a problem with it, it takes you out of the game so quickly. By aware has proven with this release that they are nowhere near what they used to be.
If you really want to feel bad, here are some writing examples from Bioware's first RPG, Baldur's Gate, more than 25 years ago. Just compare this to Veilguard:
1 "There are two reasons I pound this pick against these rocks. Do you wish to hear them?"
"Yes. I would."
"First because I imagine this rock to be my captor's skull. Second, because the meager spark that leaps from my attempt is all the light I'll ever know again. If you be a new slave like I once was, you shall learn these simple truths soon enough."
2 "I can teach you how to use your wrath. You can control the taint, direct it, summon it at will. You can become the Slayer at will and become the weapon of murder that you were meant to be! So think of me. Think of how I destroyed your precious Gorion, how I plundered the lives of your Candlekeep. Summon your rage, stir the depths of your black heart! Summon wrath. Summon wrath and become it, for if you cannot, then you are not worthy of Bhaal's blood. It should have been I. It should have been I! ATTACK ME, WORM, IF YOU DARE!!!"
3 "Greetings. I am Edwin Odesseiron. You simians may merely refer to me as 'Sir,' if you prefer a less... syllable-intensive workout."
4 "I would suggest that you get moving and decide on a plan. And never again say something like 'don't rightly know.' You sound like you were dropped as a child. Or kicked."
5 “Ok, I've just about had my FILL of riddle asking, quest assigning, insult throwing, pun hurling, hostage taking, iron mongering, smart arsed fools, freaks, and felons that continually test my will, mettle, strength, intelligence, and most of all, patience! If you've got a straight answer ANYWHERE in that bent little head of yours, I want to hear it pretty damn quick or I'm going to take a large blunt object roughly the size of Elminster AND his hat, and stuff it lengthwise into a crevice of your being so seldom seen that even the denizens of the nine hells themselves wouldn't touch it with a twenty-foot rusty halberd! Have I MADE myself CLEAR?!"
"it's fine" is not exactly what you want to hear about a game.
Sometimes a mindless 6/10 game that scratches a primitive part of your brain is exactly what you need after a 12 hour shift.
She...oh sorry they.
- 10 repentance push ups -
1 dialogue later: writers forgot about the message.
"It is not BG3, it is not cyberpunk"
Dude .. it is not even dragon age. You can't even compare it to the 15 year old game from the same company.
It has insanely worse writing, nonsensical and flat out boring dialogs, immersion breaking modern politics talk.
Combat is plane and basic even for 2010 standards. I often get the feeling of playing one of the Chinese mobile rpg games.
"Puzzles" in this game are some most cringe inducing laughable things I've saw in any game so far.
Characters I loved in previous DA games exist only by name here .. I do not recognize them.
I could only make "Fine" verdict if this game was created by some unknown game studio. For BioWare standards this game is trash.
Best thing anyone can say about this game is it runs well. That should tell you all you need to know whether this game is good or not.
I played Cyberpunk 2077 at the time the bugs and instability of the game made people go crazy, and yet the worst of Cyberpunk is still better than the best of DA: The Veilguard.
So Cohh, I do not agree with you. this game is not "fine", this game is hot garbage.
Yeah... too many are afraid to give a below 5/10 score nowadays.
@@zuriyel5368 It is not even about score, they are not afraid for no reason.
The problem with access media is the "access" part, and this game pointed it out perfectly.
Every game critic/journalist that had even slightest reservations about DA: The Veilguard did NOT receive review codes so they could play the game and write review before launch.
If you are one of lucky ones that had enough wisdom to kiss 4$$ in exchange for review code you definitely don't want to get in temptation to give game a low score deserving or not. If you do so you may find yourself permanently removed from having access to any future content from this and many other developers.
You said it right .. they are afraid but it is not baseless fear, it is rooted in shameless blackmail that gaming developers exert on access media "journalists".
This kind of writing style is designed for children. "Bob took something that didn't belong to him. Bob did a bad thing."
It is not Baldur's Gate 3, it's not Cyberpunk 2077, it's not Dragon Age.
Thank fuck its not bullshit gate 3
I respectfully disagree. I'm glad you had fun, unfortunately it wasn't my cup of tea and I wasn't interested to drink it.
ITS FINE? Someone wants to keep their access for an awful company.
The combat is dull. The animations are horrible. "Difficulty" is how much an enemy sponges.
The Voice acting has some questionable direction for a lot of the characters.
No one acts as if the world is coming to an end. 2 elder gods are threatening to ruin the world, yet, we better chat about coffee.
You cannot be rude to people. You cannot insult.
This game trashes the games that come before it.
A good story and fun character interactions is the reason I got into and enjoyed other Dragon Age games. To me doesn't matter how good the gameplay is if I don't get sucked into the story and the characters and if the dialog doesn't keep me there that's just not gonna do it for me. Also idk if it's just me but all the characters just look off and the art direction for Veilguard all looks real weird to me, like the characters look off, and what have they done to Qunari!
I bet ChatGPT was used to make this dialogue lol
He had to talk down to twitter karens, so they can understand that this is a terrible game and hating it is 100% legit reaction.
No wonder these humans had to be told what a dock is for.
"Not a bad game, just a bad RPG"...Sir, this is supposed to be an RPG...if the RPG parts suck, then the game sucks.
It's an action RPG. It's really really good at one half of that description.
I love the extra editing on this video. I like the thoughts videos, but this is the next level of those video formats. I would love to see more of these types of edits.
It isn't just the writing though, and why so many reviewers were hated for the GAME OF THE YEAR, when clearly it isn't. Here's my thoughts after playing and refunding
PROS
The scenery is stunning and can be really taken in at times
Graphics are very decent overall and you can see a lot of love has gone into the game in that aspect
The music/soundtrack is another big plus point
Lots of graphical options including DLSS/FG
The combat is fun (when you can see what is going on)
Weapons , armor and spells look great
CONS
Terrible dialogue/writing across the board with character narration being sub par. I mean seriously, you can just tell they are reading from a bad script rather than pulling you into character development and feeling for the character you are talking to.
Awful character facial animation at times, with mouth movement not fitting the voices.
The choices you make have no impact and don't fit the decision you make when responding or questioning anyone. For example if I called someone a right ***, your character would say something like " I don't agree with you ". THAT IS NOT WHAT I JUST SAID!
I remember playing mass effect and accidentally picking dialogue that would come off as way more aggressive than i intended. Now we have the opposite and somehow *worse* problem
inquisition has more depth in combat. you can actually move where you want each of your part members to go, they can use their own skills or you can set their skill usage frequency or none at all. the combat is far more rewarding and has better itemization with crafting your own custom-made gear and it doesn't have an obnoxious two-dimensional writing. people and characters in inquisition feels like actual people from a proper medieval dark fantasy.
Thanks for giving us the good AND the not so good perspective in equal amounts and in equal enthusiasm.
"You can't hate on someone for not liking this game.." Wow! Really? So this also applies the other way around?
Poor writing kills Bioware games. I've been playing their games since KOTOR 1 and it's absolutely tragic what has happened to this studio. I'm glad you're enjoying it though
"if you like button smashing action game, you might like this
but if you're hoping to get an RPG (Role Playing) experience where choice matter and depth story, then you might get disappointed."
there i fixed cohn TLDR,
he's too kind to give a negative conclusion
Gen Z writing. Even AI does way way better writing when you give it a role and make it act in it.