Just because you're more likely to find stones doesn't mean you shouldn't check for diamonds. Every game should be given a fair shot, otherwise true masterpieces could be completely forgotten.
It really does seem like companies are hard bent on ending themselves. Usually when you see a company try something and not just fail, but completely end themselves with that mistake, you'd think any other company would use that as a case study of what to absolutely NOT do.
5:00 You're wrong here :) Since this game was advertised and presented for older fans as a "return to the form" of Dragon Age Origins, and it is also marked for 18 years ;) As a long-time fan of DA, I'd rather see Bioware go bankrupt than continue to harm this series And it's not just the writing, they changed the lore too.. Tevinter was a country where there were a lot of slaves and since when the Antivan Crows are a friendly Disney faction of nice Assassins... do you remember what else Zevran said? because Biowoke probably didn't.. and many other examples that are too much to write about, this game is a failure on every level
The mother literally gives the term of what they call non-binary in the game, but that's not good enough because it's not the exact thing the writers wanted
no, Aqun-Athlok is the term for trans. The mother says "Under the Qun, the term for one whose gender does not match the one given to them at birth was "aqun-athlok". Perhaps you are like that." and the Iron Bull used the same term for Krem "In Qunandar, Krem'd be an Aqun-Athlok. That's what we call someone born one gender but living like another."
No, the term she gave is for transgender, not nonbinary. However, the mother gave it because she was confused and never heard of nonbinary. There is nothing like the term in their vocabulary, and the ass description Taash gives leads their mother to the Quns trans word. Instead of telling her mother there is nothing like it in the Qun language and explaining it to her (like her mother asked, and quite visibly is trying to understand for the sake of their child) Taash blows a gasket.
@@steppin-razor It just shows the extreme lack of understanding. Ironically it comes from themselves too., They refuse to be labeled. While making Labels for themselves and forcing it on others with Labels that Cross over each other and nobody can agree on a self appointed Label yet get angered when you refuse to use it Or don't understand it.
You are wrong about one thing: Dragon Age did not actually build a franchise off of "Dudes" who liked dark and edgy stuff. One of the reasons DA was a success, and something other RPG houses were trying to figure out how to cultivate for ages, is that it's pretty much a 50/50 split between men and women who played Origins. What they did appealed to both equally. And being able to tap into both male and female markets, well that should be a thing you want to replicate. But they didn't.
Yeah, agreed on this. For anyone who has actually read true "dark fantasy," the idea that "Dragon Age: Origins" was "dark and edgy" is laughable. I like the game and it did a good job using fantasy tropes that have been in place largely since the 1950s. Dark Fantasy itself as a concept goes back to "The Citadel of Fear" (1918), "Heads of Cerberus" (1919), and "Claimed" (1920), just to name a very few. The problem is that people use the terms "dark" or "edgy" but without actually defining them. What makes something dark? That someone dies in it? Well, welcome to the original fairy tales, where that happened all the time. "Edgy"? Why? Was there a brutal rape scene? Was there severe depictions of torture? Is that even what we mean by "edgy"? Dragon Age: Origins did one thing very, very well. It had a large amount of discoverable lore and it put you "in media res," as it were, which meant it felt like we were in a lived in world. This was a world that had a history. Players felt part of a lived experience that allowed for the idea of a particular world with a particular culture with a particular religion and a particular set of political allegiances. All stuff done before in fantasy but not always done well in a game context.
@@JeffNyman I will agree that DA:O is not on the extreme edge where things were graphic. However, things that were in DA:O 1) Character r*ped to death in a gang bang (City Elf Origin: Male). 2) People locked up in concentration camps due to their genetics (Mages. Note that concentration camps pre-WWII did exist but were not solely for extermination. The US employed them against Japanese-Americans at the time). 3) the lore of the Broodmothers as well as a confrontation with one of these beasts. 4) Blood magic and the lore about it casually ripping the life out of people for power. It was employed to better effect in DA:II. 5) Slavery of the elves: historical. Slavery of dwarf souls in golems: present and you can continue this practice. 6) Selling people's souls for power (you get two children you can do this to in Origins.) 7) Women selling their bodies for protection/trying to baby trap men (either Dwarf background and doing quests in Orzamar.). Yeah, it's been years, and these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Dragon Age had edge to it. It just wasn't super graphic. It's also a place where DA:V fails, as to me, based on build up, Tevinter should be full of blood magic and slaves, and we see 1 slave in the whole game, and no blood magic, I think.
@@jenniferhanses Picking just one topic, rape, "Phantasmagoria," by Sierra, featured a live action component where there was a rape (albeit incredibly clumsily handled). That was 1995. The game "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" dealt with rape as well as other undesirable topics, like genocide. That was also 1995. "Haunting Ground" (from 2005) has a character who's literal entire narrative arc about raping a particular woman. "Custer's Revenge" from 1982 allowed you, as the player, to rape a Native American woman. In fact, it was part of the goal. There was much more "edge" on just that topic in each of those games, all of which appeared before "Dragon Age: Origins." As another data point, in the 1990 game "KZ Manager" you play the Commandant of a concentration camp where you could work people to death or send to them to gas chambers. But, again, without defining "edge" it really doesn't mean much. I agree with every point you raise about what was in "Dragon Age: Origins." I'm just saying that I can point to many other games that pre-dated DA:O and had some of those topics as well, often much more flagrantly (and thus perhaps with more "edge" or "dark tones" or whatever).
@@jenniferhansesGood list. I will add to this the rendering of mages Tranquil - severing their connection to the source of their magic, which also removes their emotions and will, to the point they won’t even defend themselves if attacked. The abuse of Tranquil by a Templar comes up in DA2.
I hate that rook can’t jump a little further. Having to sit through the “catch the ledge and pull yourself up” animation every single time I had to clear a gap got old quick
All of the races in Veilguard look like humans cosplaying as high fantasy tropes. An Asian lady with fake elf ears and a hair bun. A black dude with fake elf ears. It's all kinda washed out thanks to the bizarre art style in Veilguard. The non-human races in the previous 3 games had a distinctness to them. Their facial structure, their overall build, were all unique. An elf couldn't be mistaken for a human, and the qunari looked so much better compared to the horror of Taash
@@promark5317 I feel you brother lol its comically bad so I have to laugh but on the inside I'm peeved too. I miss the days of Garrus and Ash. She used to say the coldest shit in ME1 and then once she'd explain her line of reasoning I would actually have to think about it. Almost every single line was so pointed, concise, grounded in the world, and in service to the character or story. We'll never get that again from this studio. What a lucky break it was for Larian to make an all-time great BioWare RPG before the actual BioWare released this. It makes it so much easier to put them to rest forever and get hyped for Larian's future.
I got "gifted" this as payment for a commission, and I still feel ripped off. Gave it a chance, and I can say this is just Dragon Age in name, and is not worthy of it's predecessor's pedigree.
wow, I was completely fixed to my screen during the witcher part of the video, it is insane to me just how good the writing was in the witcher, and then you contrast it to veilguard and it's like the twitter armchair writers took over the studio!
What's really bad is all of southern Thedas has been destroyed. All the places players visited in the previous games like Lothering, Denerim and Kirkwall have been consumed by the blight and no longer exist. So BioWare pretty much torched the entire series
Then they completely change the places. Did you know you are in the Tevintar Imperium? A place known for being pretty bad place for anyone who is not A wealthy Mage. Also Elves got it So bad that the Mages have spells specifically made for Ending Elves. Assuming they were not enslavd and tortured first. pretty much All of it was wiped away and instead it's just a Specific "radical" faction that's really small.
Check the reviews since you wrote your script. It ain't 9 out of 10s any more. A lot of the super high early reviews were because of the way they gave out review copies.
35:24 I find it so amazing how the mother says "please just be trans". In that simple dialog she says how there is already knowledge and acceptence for those who feel represented as their opposite gender. Soooo the problem is not that trash identifies does not fit with the assigned gender. is her attitude and their stubbornes to NOT WANTING TO FIT.
the alphabet people injection was the first sign we saw that the game was tainted. For plenty of people it's a reason alone not to get it, the rest of the game being genuinely awful is a typical side effect of hiring activists instead of good writers.
And to think I used to hate Sera, and always kick her out, just for the fun of it....that is until I met Traash...I have gained a deep level of Sera appreciation after this abomination. I will pull a bharv for Sera now...
...34:50...imagine the time saved by parents if they could answer statements like that with a simple, "okay"...lol...when the time comes, that's what I'm gonna do...lol...
10:57 - 11:37 ""This feels more like an indie project made by three dudes in their mothers' garage." :D Apparently it is super repetitive and with recycled game content. I don't buy games that make real life political statements. I do make fun of them and give my money to their competition.
I need clarification because i spot something on this video this game is develope on same motor as dragon age inquisition ? Because when i look the dragon its the same attack than in inquisition.
The Witcher video game has nothing to do with the author of the book. Credit must be given to the writers of Cdprojet for writing a sequel to the book so captivating that the book became even more popular afterward.
Ah The Bloody Baron, a tragic story of a man broken by a broken family and war. The Baron did deserved what he's done to his family, at the same time you can see how broken the family is because of his method of venting himself, drunk until dawn and kept losing his mind every single time. Also his marriage ruined because of his wife dissatisfaction of him while kept cheating so she can feel fulfilled with her life, then the Crone of the Brookbag Bog services to the wife. All of it ruined the life of the Baron's family to the point his fate decided by a gamble of fate with Geralt, either he lives with great guilt and shame or die so he can follow his wife. The point of his tale is, never drinks alcohol excessively, just drink it on moderation.
Wait, the companions can't die? So, any fight is beatable by just kiting the enemy and letting the ai companions hack away? Edit: I love the fact that the Mario & Luigi rpg has more nuanced combat than failguard.
Trust me, you don't wanna do that. If you're not on easy it takes FOREVER and that's with you fighting. Imagine how long it will take if you let the Ai do the work.
Removing Taash completely or totally overhauling her story would make things better already. A strong, sexy, intelligent, badass of a female qunari who chooses to live outwith the highly gendered Qun? Yes please. We did not get that. We got a snivelling, triggered, whiny pest of a character. And pushups for misgendering? Honey, you are not that special. Also, where is the slavery in Minrathous? I see elves owning businesses, walking the streets, running bars, Qunari shop keepers....what is going on? In DA2 and Inquisition, Dorian and Fenris give us two totally different images of Tevinter and neither are good. Where are the brutal slave auctions? Nobody drinks and if they do, we barely see it. Where is the actual sex scenes? Gone, faded to black and nothing. Where are the deep complex companions like Leliana, Zevran. Fenris, Dorian, Bull? Mostly gone. A few of the Veilguard companions have very interesting premises for their quests eg Emmrich and his absolute fear of dying, especially if you romance him. Lucanis and the betrayal from his closest family....Davrin and the role he has been thrust into and Harding with the Titans but it is done in such a safe way. The Crows are meant to be brutal killers who take no prisoners with some of the most heinous initiation rituals. Zevran had to fight and kill many of his fellow initiates and told the Warden that if he did poorly in training, he would have been killed. Instead we have, your friendly neighbourhood Crows....why??? Instead of LGB companions like Zev, Leliana, Fenris, Merrill, Dorian, Sera, Bull etc where their sexuality is just a tiny % of them, we have Taash who in every sentence tells us she is non-binary, which does not exist. And the whole gender thing with Rook? Not needed! Thankfully the rest do not prattle on about their sexuality and wow, a male/female NPC relationship with the companions, Lucanis and Neve. I have enjoyed the very surface level of the game with the end being very well done....but when I start digging and peeling layers, the flaws are bright like gems! I cannot miss them and it is so frustrating as I have been playing Bioware games since 2011. Played all DA and ME games and Jade Empire....Bioware is dead. The fact that none of our choices past did you kiss Solas matetred. Hawke doesn't matter, The Warden doesn't matter, Divine Victoria doesn't matter. Meredith doesn't matter, Mages and Templars do not matter. This game was a massive Solavellan mess and the devs clearly wanted it that way as all I could hear in interviews was 'I am a Solavellan' No, you are a dev, grow up. The female Inquisitor who romances Solas and a female Rook get more dialogue than their male counterparts do....but why am I not surprised that male characters get shafted by Bioware....John and Kaidan in ME3 get half of the romance dialogue in the final romance scene than femshep does so....guess we know where they stand....men don't seem to matter.
Ok hear me out for a sec, Dragon Age The Veilguard reminds me of erectile dysfunction. You fall to the couch for the package thinking its gonna be rock solid and able to penetrate your soul like old times and then, bam! You're suddenly slapped in the face by a floppy disc not capable of its previous forms. After all is said and done it just leaves you feeling sorry for whoever owns the junk.
Yeah dude totally. I am down to clown man I have no issues with no one. Like, Baldur's Gate 3 was "woke" in some ways, they just integrated it all into the story in the proper way. It's not hamfisted, it usually blends with everything else. It sucks cause when you say "woke" people have wild ideas about you when more often than not "woke" is about bad writing than it is whatever identity obsession they think it is.
Look. DAV franchise is supposed to be a choice game. That's the premise of how I see it. Your choices carry over, or supposed to. Then they made it linear. Regardless of your stance or opinion, if you don't have the option to be an asshole this isn't DA and people need to stop trying to tell me it is.
You've already made a GOAT RPG, didn't you take notes on it? If Mass Effect didn't already have it then it's not worth sinking time and money into your next game. It was perfect. The formula doesn't need anything else. Also when will devs understand that damage numbers don't service the combat at all? They just take up space on my small ass monitor.
As a transman i didnt like the character creator. If your gonna insert my identity into the game, let me be hairy. That would be more realistic in game than surgey scars. Even my scars are just something i worked to erase signs of. Elden ring was more inclusive by adding body hair sliders to the CC. Even for the women, they also have body hair. But back to the trans topic. I always play by male character cuz i play games to escape my everyday life. I play as a women character too if certain things in the game is locked by that. (Re2, dai as examples)
Taash: I'm non-binary. Sten: I don't understand. You look like a woman. Insulting thing about this conversation between Taash and her mother is.. they literally have the mother bring up the term Aqun-Athlok, that Bioware themselves used a decade ago in Inquisition for Krem, a trans man character, a term that literally describes in a lore friendly manner someone who is trans or non-binary.... and then insist on modern day real life terminology instead. Like.. you have the literal lore friendly word that means the same thing.. and then insist for virtue signalling/pandering reasons that she *has* to be non-binary. Because obviously someone who isn't a Dragon Age fan isn't going to know what Aqun-Athlok means or implies.
Remember when bioware gave you companions who hated each other. I'm going to disagree about why vailguard has bad righting it's not echo chambers, it's incompetent and therefore cheep writers weekend at burnysing bioware for a bunch of number crunchers who don't game, they've lost all the competent people
The American accents alone would be enough for me to completely consign it to the "will never play" pile. They just don't fit the setting and the game type.
People have to stop asking if game journalists (or anyone) is "right" or "wrong." There's this thing called opinion. It's existed for a very long time, not just in gaming. It doesn't matter at all what someone else thinks about a piece of entertainment. What matters is what each individual person thinks. While certain elements, like game mechanics are objective, many other elements (like dynamics and efficacy of narrative) are going to be subjective. A good example is "poorly written." Entirely subjective. I've read novels that people loved that I felt were quite banal. The opposite has also happened. The same applies in any entertainment where people apply varying value-judgments to something. There are people that absolutely love the "Terrifier" movies for example and I struggle to see why even though I can say I entirely see the production quality going up with each entry in the franchise. There are people that think the "Saw" series is entirely well plotted and I think, taken as a whole, it's riddled with plot inconsistencies. Another good example here is people that think the writing in, say, "Dragon Age: Origins" was so great. I very much liked the game. It's one of my all-time favorites. But writing-wise? It was about as formulaic as you get, using just about every overused fantasy trope that is out there, some going back to the 1950s and the resurgence of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s. That doesn't make it bad. But it certainly doesn't make it some paragon of story-telling that I feel many make it out to be. I agree "Veilguard" has a lot of those weaknesses as well. I just don't find them all that more egregious than those from the original games. I entirely agree that "Veilguard" seemed to play it a bit safe. But that's still a subjective statement. It would be good to contrast that with what "not safe" would have looked like.
Going to disagree. The job of a reviewer is to put forth an opinion that informs the audience of roughly what to expect. Now, you can have a different audience that you target, and that's fine. But if you are a mainstream reviewer, your review should be aimed at the core audience of the game/show/movie/franchise. So when companies like IGN pick a reviewer that doesn't represent the core audience associated with the game, they are failing at their job. Now, that doesn't mean the whatever who wrote the 9/10 review can't have a review somewhere. It could even be on IGN, properly labeled for the niche review it is. But IGN, the website, should not be using a niche reviewer like that for their general purpose review and the official first score they gave. They gave an obviously lackluster game a glowing review. Beyond that, the entire process does need be called out. Specifically, the way EA targeted reviewers who they figured would do puff pieces, while not giving copies to people they figured would rate the game much more even-handedly. And again, IGN and a few of the other bigger review sites are the things that should protect us from that... the main stream, big places that companies have to send copies to, because if they don't, it makes it obvious the thing is bad. But when those sites fail to have journalistic/editorial integrity, that falls apart. And the long term consequences of that are bad both for them and the industry they cover.
@@Axterix13 You said it yourself: put forth an OPINION. Whether said opinion informs someone or not is _not_ entirely up to the reviewer. Some of the impressions that form the opinions may be objective (bugs encountered, performance issues found, how mechanics work) and others will be subjective (how dynamics work, how narrative is handled). You can't talk about a "core audience" any more than you can talk about a "modern audience." The entire history of gaming proves that. (And notice how many people who take exception to "modern audience" don't seem to take exception to "core audience.") Likewise, "mainstream reviewer" means little. It's just another vague term that can mean different things to different people. Just like people talk about "mainstream media" yet seem to fail to realize that social media (previously the alternative) now _is_ arguably the "mainstream." So on that last point, consider this video that we're all responding to. A review is just a set of opinions. When you read from a "game journalist", you are reading someone who got a copy of the game, played it, and is giving their impressions. That's it. You know who else does that? Just about anyone who posts online, whether text or video. If people put extra onus on this because it's IGN or some other outlet, well, that's on them. You're still listening to people with an opinion and nothing more than that. So is something "obviously lackluster"? Well, it depends. Many may agree. Many may disagree. So, in the end, it really doesn't matter. It only matters what each individual person thinks.
The game has plenty of issues, but it also has plenty of strengths but you also got stuff wrong. Taash didn't "know" what non-binary is. There are entire conversations where she doesn't understand how she feels and Neve (and others) talk to her and help her discover what non-binary is. You also kept comparing her and transgenderism, which is unrelated to non-binary. It's not the best way we've seen it done, and the writing across the board is weaker then normal but it's here and it's fine. It almost surprisingly good given how awful it was projected to be, but alas, people who use "woke" unironically may have actually helped this game make more money and the game is decent, so we may yet get another one and hopefully the next one is better. And so far the lore has not been ruined, which is really all that matters.
hey there Atmuz, Remember DEI was involved, and one of those consulates named "Kim belair" said: "because if that's the kind of person that we're always going to cater to you're never going to innovate you're never going to change things you're going to keep feeding the picky baby and we cannot continue to try to create art under a system that is going to bar innovation for fear of a picky baby throwing a tantrum", Playing dragon age, I felt I was treated like a picky baby, Thank you forced Diversity, Forcing out any and all character progress world building and fun.. R.I.P. dark gridy world that was already diverse with LGB relations ships, For a disney world with the LGBTQIA+..
The problem when people try to 'leave the woke out" of the spotlight when criticizing ...is that they are pretty much ignoring the main reason it sucks. Just because some games can kinda offset the woke with some good stuff.. doesn't make it less harmful... especially when it affects the hiring process.
All Veilguard did is drive people back to BG3 and get new players into BG3.
Also back to Origins
back to DAO DA2 AND BG3 heck im even wanting to play DA3 again
That reminds me, I should play another round of BG3. :)
That's exactly what i did, started playing BG3, no regrets, BG3 is magic.
I'm in more scifi mode so I'm replaying Mass Effect. It's good to appreciate how far Bioware has fallen.
Man, this game breaks my heart.
The incredible potential, the payoff that was years in the making.
But this...
I've read better fanfiction
Brother... You don't need to touch the stove to know that it's hot.
Pattern recognition.
Engage it.
Some people just have to check each and every time...
Just because you're more likely to find stones doesn't mean you shouldn't check for diamonds.
Every game should be given a fair shot, otherwise true masterpieces could be completely forgotten.
@@Moxypony Actual drone mentality. "Just consoom product, then get excited for next product."
Total trash fire. How did the adults at EA (assuming there are any) allow the kids at Bioware to waste their money and ruin an IP like this?
It really does seem like companies are hard bent on ending themselves. Usually when you see a company try something and not just fail, but completely end themselves with that mistake, you'd think any other company would use that as a case study of what to absolutely NOT do.
It was the adults at EA that decided this was the best direction. A lot of the head directors came directly from EA itself
Taash fire, amirite?
@@Ravi9A Damnit you said what I planned to. Well done.
5:00 You're wrong here :) Since this game was advertised and presented for older fans as a "return to the form" of Dragon Age Origins, and it is also marked for 18 years ;)
As a long-time fan of DA, I'd rather see Bioware go bankrupt than continue to harm this series
And it's not just the writing, they changed the lore too.. Tevinter was a country where there were a lot of slaves and since when the Antivan Crows are a friendly Disney faction of nice Assassins... do you remember what else Zevran said? because Biowoke probably didn't.. and many other examples that are too much to write about, this game is a failure on every level
The mother literally gives the term of what they call non-binary in the game, but that's not good enough because it's not the exact thing the writers wanted
no, Aqun-Athlok is the term for trans. The mother says "Under the Qun, the term for one whose gender does not match the one given to them at birth was "aqun-athlok". Perhaps you are like that."
and the Iron Bull used the same term for Krem "In Qunandar, Krem'd be an Aqun-Athlok. That's what we call someone born one gender but living like another."
No, the term she gave is for transgender, not nonbinary. However, the mother gave it because she was confused and never heard of nonbinary. There is nothing like the term in their vocabulary, and the ass description Taash gives leads their mother to the Quns trans word.
Instead of telling her mother there is nothing like it in the Qun language and explaining it to her (like her mother asked, and quite visibly is trying to understand for the sake of their child) Taash blows a gasket.
@@RazielTheUnbornnon biney can fall under the trans umbrella
@@steppin-razor It just shows the extreme lack of understanding. Ironically it comes from themselves too.,
They refuse to be labeled. While making Labels for themselves and forcing it on others with Labels that Cross over each other and nobody can agree on a self appointed Label yet get angered when you refuse to use it Or don't understand it.
Does no one else seem to notice the fact that Taash's whole non-binary story shouldn't even exist...since we're in a medieval fantasy setting...
Places like IGN i refuse to use as a base for if a game is good. They suck at reviewing
IGN has an Agenda....
You are wrong about one thing: Dragon Age did not actually build a franchise off of "Dudes" who liked dark and edgy stuff. One of the reasons DA was a success, and something other RPG houses were trying to figure out how to cultivate for ages, is that it's pretty much a 50/50 split between men and women who played Origins. What they did appealed to both equally. And being able to tap into both male and female markets, well that should be a thing you want to replicate.
But they didn't.
It was dark, but not nearly enough to be "edgy" to begin with.
Yeah, agreed on this. For anyone who has actually read true "dark fantasy," the idea that "Dragon Age: Origins" was "dark and edgy" is laughable. I like the game and it did a good job using fantasy tropes that have been in place largely since the 1950s. Dark Fantasy itself as a concept goes back to "The Citadel of Fear" (1918), "Heads of Cerberus" (1919), and "Claimed" (1920), just to name a very few. The problem is that people use the terms "dark" or "edgy" but without actually defining them. What makes something dark? That someone dies in it? Well, welcome to the original fairy tales, where that happened all the time. "Edgy"? Why? Was there a brutal rape scene? Was there severe depictions of torture? Is that even what we mean by "edgy"?
Dragon Age: Origins did one thing very, very well. It had a large amount of discoverable lore and it put you "in media res," as it were, which meant it felt like we were in a lived in world. This was a world that had a history. Players felt part of a lived experience that allowed for the idea of a particular world with a particular culture with a particular religion and a particular set of political allegiances. All stuff done before in fantasy but not always done well in a game context.
@@JeffNyman I will agree that DA:O is not on the extreme edge where things were graphic.
However, things that were in DA:O
1) Character r*ped to death in a gang bang (City Elf Origin: Male).
2) People locked up in concentration camps due to their genetics (Mages. Note that concentration camps pre-WWII did exist but were not solely for extermination. The US employed them against Japanese-Americans at the time).
3) the lore of the Broodmothers as well as a confrontation with one of these beasts.
4) Blood magic and the lore about it casually ripping the life out of people for power. It was employed to better effect in DA:II.
5) Slavery of the elves: historical. Slavery of dwarf souls in golems: present and you can continue this practice.
6) Selling people's souls for power (you get two children you can do this to in Origins.)
7) Women selling their bodies for protection/trying to baby trap men (either Dwarf background and doing quests in Orzamar.).
Yeah, it's been years, and these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Dragon Age had edge to it. It just wasn't super graphic.
It's also a place where DA:V fails, as to me, based on build up, Tevinter should be full of blood magic and slaves, and we see 1 slave in the whole game, and no blood magic, I think.
@@jenniferhanses Picking just one topic, rape, "Phantasmagoria," by Sierra, featured a live action component where there was a rape (albeit incredibly clumsily handled). That was 1995. The game "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" dealt with rape as well as other undesirable topics, like genocide. That was also 1995.
"Haunting Ground" (from 2005) has a character who's literal entire narrative arc about raping a particular woman. "Custer's Revenge" from 1982 allowed you, as the player, to rape a Native American woman. In fact, it was part of the goal.
There was much more "edge" on just that topic in each of those games, all of which appeared before "Dragon Age: Origins." As another data point, in the 1990 game "KZ Manager" you play the Commandant of a concentration camp where you could work people to death or send to them to gas chambers. But, again, without defining "edge" it really doesn't mean much.
I agree with every point you raise about what was in "Dragon Age: Origins." I'm just saying that I can point to many other games that pre-dated DA:O and had some of those topics as well, often much more flagrantly (and thus perhaps with more "edge" or "dark tones" or whatever).
@@jenniferhansesGood list. I will add to this the rendering of mages Tranquil - severing their connection to the source of their magic, which also removes their emotions and will, to the point they won’t even defend themselves if attacked. The abuse of Tranquil by a Templar comes up in DA2.
I hate that rook can’t jump a little further. Having to sit through the “catch the ledge and pull yourself up” animation every single time I had to clear a gap got old quick
All of the races in Veilguard look like humans cosplaying as high fantasy tropes. An Asian lady with fake elf ears and a hair bun. A black dude with fake elf ears. It's all kinda washed out thanks to the bizarre art style in Veilguard.
The non-human races in the previous 3 games had a distinctness to them. Their facial structure, their overall build, were all unique. An elf couldn't be mistaken for a human, and the qunari looked so much better compared to the horror of Taash
"Evataash, shokra toh ebra" is the best part of game so far 😂😂😂
Dude idk know why but the way that line is delivered irritates me so much lol.
@@promark5317 I feel you brother lol its comically bad so I have to laugh but on the inside I'm peeved too. I miss the days of Garrus and Ash. She used to say the coldest shit in ME1 and then once she'd explain her line of reasoning I would actually have to think about it. Almost every single line was so pointed, concise, grounded in the world, and in service to the character or story. We'll never get that again from this studio.
What a lucky break it was for Larian to make an all-time great BioWare RPG before the actual BioWare released this. It makes it so much easier to put them to rest forever and get hyped for Larian's future.
I got "gifted" this as payment for a commission, and I still feel ripped off. Gave it a chance, and I can say this is just Dragon Age in name, and is not worthy of it's predecessor's pedigree.
A thought about combat... I really like the bizarre rock-paper-scissors style you get in games like BG2 (haven't tried 3 yet) or NWN2.
It's time to live bro take the leap see the light find Christ play bg3
@@chomskysfavefive Oh, I'll get there! Just got to pry myself loose from that addictive substance known as EU4...
wow, I was completely fixed to my screen during the witcher part of the video, it is insane to me just how good the writing was in the witcher, and then you contrast it to veilguard and it's like the twitter armchair writers took over the studio!
Every outlet that praised it and called out the haters for being antiphobitism are now turning their backs to the game and eating themselves
What's really bad is all of southern Thedas has been destroyed. All the places players visited in the previous games like Lothering, Denerim and Kirkwall have been consumed by the blight and no longer exist. So BioWare pretty much torched the entire series
Then they completely change the places. Did you know you are in the Tevintar Imperium? A place known for being pretty bad place for anyone who is not A wealthy Mage. Also Elves got it So bad that the Mages have spells specifically made for Ending Elves. Assuming they were not enslavd and tortured first. pretty much All of it was wiped away and instead it's just a Specific "radical" faction that's really small.
Check the reviews since you wrote your script. It ain't 9 out of 10s any more. A lot of the super high early reviews were because of the way they gave out review copies.
35:24 I find it so amazing how the mother says "please just be trans". In that simple dialog she says how there is already knowledge and acceptence for those who feel represented as their opposite gender. Soooo the problem is not that trash identifies does not fit with the assigned gender. is her attitude and their stubbornes to NOT WANTING TO FIT.
The comparison in writing with Witcher 3 was just brutal.
the alphabet people injection was the first sign we saw that the game was tainted. For plenty of people it's a reason alone not to get it, the rest of the game being genuinely awful is a typical side effect of hiring activists instead of good writers.
And to think I used to hate Sera, and always kick her out, just for the fun of it....that is until I met Traash...I have gained a deep level of Sera appreciation after this abomination. I will pull a bharv for Sera now...
The party members are like the ones in ME Andromeda, with little control of them. Same with the detonator shit
...34:50...imagine the time saved by parents if they could answer statements like that with a simple, "okay"...lol...when the time comes, that's what I'm gonna do...lol...
10:57 - 11:37 ""This feels more like an indie project made by three dudes in their mothers' garage."
:D
Apparently it is super repetitive and with recycled game content. I don't buy games that make real life political statements. I do make fun of them and give my money to their competition.
Sorry bro the game is gutter stench
who tf actually likes this yassified artstyle? i originally equated it to fortnite from the trailer, but my god, i dare say fortnite is even better!
Dragon Age Origins is still the best of the series
I need clarification because i spot something on this video this game is develope on same motor as dragon age inquisition ? Because when i look the dragon its the same attack than in inquisition.
remember the witcher 3 writing is the work of a real Writer, a novelist, not CD project they just adapted some of the stories.
The Witcher video game has nothing to do with the author of the book. Credit must be given to the writers of Cdprojet for writing a sequel to the book so captivating that the book became even more popular afterward.
Wtf is up with all the characters standing with their hands on their hips? Jesus christ. Nobody stands like that!
I do
Ah The Bloody Baron, a tragic story of a man broken by a broken family and war. The Baron did deserved what he's done to his family, at the same time you can see how broken the family is because of his method of venting himself, drunk until dawn and kept losing his mind every single time. Also his marriage ruined because of his wife dissatisfaction of him while kept cheating so she can feel fulfilled with her life, then the Crone of the Brookbag Bog services to the wife. All of it ruined the life of the Baron's family to the point his fate decided by a gamble of fate with Geralt, either he lives with great guilt and shame or die so he can follow his wife.
The point of his tale is, never drinks alcohol excessively, just drink it on moderation.
Wait, the companions can't die? So, any fight is beatable by just kiting the enemy and letting the ai companions hack away?
Edit: I love the fact that the Mario & Luigi rpg has more nuanced combat than failguard.
Trust me, you don't wanna do that.
If you're not on easy it takes FOREVER and that's with you fighting. Imagine how long it will take if you let the Ai do the work.
Removing Taash completely or totally overhauling her story would make things better already. A strong, sexy, intelligent, badass of a female qunari who chooses to live outwith the highly gendered Qun? Yes please. We did not get that. We got a snivelling, triggered, whiny pest of a character. And pushups for misgendering? Honey, you are not that special. Also, where is the slavery in Minrathous? I see elves owning businesses, walking the streets, running bars, Qunari shop keepers....what is going on? In DA2 and Inquisition, Dorian and Fenris give us two totally different images of Tevinter and neither are good. Where are the brutal slave auctions? Nobody drinks and if they do, we barely see it. Where is the actual sex scenes? Gone, faded to black and nothing. Where are the deep complex companions like Leliana, Zevran. Fenris, Dorian, Bull? Mostly gone. A few of the Veilguard companions have very interesting premises for their quests eg Emmrich and his absolute fear of dying, especially if you romance him. Lucanis and the betrayal from his closest family....Davrin and the role he has been thrust into and Harding with the Titans but it is done in such a safe way. The Crows are meant to be brutal killers who take no prisoners with some of the most heinous initiation rituals. Zevran had to fight and kill many of his fellow initiates and told the Warden that if he did poorly in training, he would have been killed. Instead we have, your friendly neighbourhood Crows....why??? Instead of LGB companions like Zev, Leliana, Fenris, Merrill, Dorian, Sera, Bull etc where their sexuality is just a tiny % of them, we have Taash who in every sentence tells us she is non-binary, which does not exist. And the whole gender thing with Rook? Not needed! Thankfully the rest do not prattle on about their sexuality and wow, a male/female NPC relationship with the companions, Lucanis and Neve. I have enjoyed the very surface level of the game with the end being very well done....but when I start digging and peeling layers, the flaws are bright like gems! I cannot miss them and it is so frustrating as I have been playing Bioware games since 2011. Played all DA and ME games and Jade Empire....Bioware is dead. The fact that none of our choices past did you kiss Solas matetred. Hawke doesn't matter, The Warden doesn't matter, Divine Victoria doesn't matter. Meredith doesn't matter, Mages and Templars do not matter. This game was a massive Solavellan mess and the devs clearly wanted it that way as all I could hear in interviews was 'I am a Solavellan' No, you are a dev, grow up. The female Inquisitor who romances Solas and a female Rook get more dialogue than their male counterparts do....but why am I not surprised that male characters get shafted by Bioware....John and Kaidan in ME3 get half of the romance dialogue in the final romance scene than femshep does so....guess we know where they stand....men don't seem to matter.
you are right we should all just play witcher 3 again lol
action adventure friendship simulator
Ok hear me out for a sec, Dragon Age The Veilguard reminds me of erectile dysfunction.
You fall to the couch for the package thinking its gonna be rock solid and able to penetrate your soul like old times and then, bam! You're suddenly slapped in the face by a floppy disc not capable of its previous forms. After all is said and done it just leaves you feeling sorry for whoever owns the junk.
Binary Age: the Tumblrguard
When IGN states 9 or 10 then you know it aint gonna be the best of the best.
Cant compare this to a game like Nintendo's Zelda.😂
I expected nothing from this game and it still disappointed me. 🤣
Only the modern day western AAA games industry can achieve that.
Yeah dude totally. I am down to clown man I have no issues with no one. Like, Baldur's Gate 3 was "woke" in some ways, they just integrated it all into the story in the proper way. It's not hamfisted, it usually blends with everything else.
It sucks cause when you say "woke" people have wild ideas about you when more often than not "woke" is about bad writing than it is whatever identity obsession they think it is.
Look. DAV franchise is supposed to be a choice game. That's the premise of how I see it. Your choices carry over, or supposed to. Then they made it linear. Regardless of your stance or opinion, if you don't have the option to be an asshole this isn't DA and people need to stop trying to tell me it is.
You've already made a GOAT RPG, didn't you take notes on it? If Mass Effect didn't already have it then it's not worth sinking time and money into your next game. It was perfect. The formula doesn't need anything else.
Also when will devs understand that damage numbers don't service the combat at all? They just take up space on my small ass monitor.
4:04 🤣
As a transman i didnt like the character creator. If your gonna insert my identity into the game, let me be hairy. That would be more realistic in game than surgey scars. Even my scars are just something i worked to erase signs of. Elden ring was more inclusive by adding body hair sliders to the CC. Even for the women, they also have body hair. But back to the trans topic. I always play by male character cuz i play games to escape my everyday life. I play as a women character too if certain things in the game is locked by that. (Re2, dai as examples)
Taash: I'm non-binary.
Sten: I don't understand. You look like a woman.
Insulting thing about this conversation between Taash and her mother is.. they literally have the mother bring up the term Aqun-Athlok, that Bioware themselves used a decade ago in Inquisition for Krem, a trans man character, a term that literally describes in a lore friendly manner someone who is trans or non-binary.... and then insist on modern day real life terminology instead. Like.. you have the literal lore friendly word that means the same thing.. and then insist for virtue signalling/pandering reasons that she *has* to be non-binary. Because obviously someone who isn't a Dragon Age fan isn't going to know what Aqun-Athlok means or implies.
25:34 and you are a female 😂
What is wrong with their expressions when they are all talking? There are all irrelevant to what they are saying 😅
Remember when bioware gave you companions who hated each other. I'm going to disagree about why vailguard has bad righting it's not echo chambers, it's incompetent and therefore cheep writers weekend at burnysing bioware for a bunch of number crunchers who don't game, they've lost all the competent people
Most of your gameplay problems come from the fact that it was made as a live service game first.
The American accents alone would be enough for me to completely consign it to the "will never play" pile. They just don't fit the setting and the game type.
Failguard 0/10 I would do -10/10 if I could make my own rating.
"Choices that matter". BW has always been overrated on that point. BW always just gave the illusion of choices mattering.
well not quite true for Dragon Age Origins
Worst. Game. Ever.
People have to stop asking if game journalists (or anyone) is "right" or "wrong." There's this thing called opinion. It's existed for a very long time, not just in gaming. It doesn't matter at all what someone else thinks about a piece of entertainment. What matters is what each individual person thinks. While certain elements, like game mechanics are objective, many other elements (like dynamics and efficacy of narrative) are going to be subjective.
A good example is "poorly written." Entirely subjective. I've read novels that people loved that I felt were quite banal. The opposite has also happened. The same applies in any entertainment where people apply varying value-judgments to something. There are people that absolutely love the "Terrifier" movies for example and I struggle to see why even though I can say I entirely see the production quality going up with each entry in the franchise. There are people that think the "Saw" series is entirely well plotted and I think, taken as a whole, it's riddled with plot inconsistencies.
Another good example here is people that think the writing in, say, "Dragon Age: Origins" was so great. I very much liked the game. It's one of my all-time favorites. But writing-wise? It was about as formulaic as you get, using just about every overused fantasy trope that is out there, some going back to the 1950s and the resurgence of fantasy in the 1960s and 1970s. That doesn't make it bad. But it certainly doesn't make it some paragon of story-telling that I feel many make it out to be. I agree "Veilguard" has a lot of those weaknesses as well. I just don't find them all that more egregious than those from the original games. I entirely agree that "Veilguard" seemed to play it a bit safe. But that's still a subjective statement. It would be good to contrast that with what "not safe" would have looked like.
Going to disagree. The job of a reviewer is to put forth an opinion that informs the audience of roughly what to expect. Now, you can have a different audience that you target, and that's fine. But if you are a mainstream reviewer, your review should be aimed at the core audience of the game/show/movie/franchise. So when companies like IGN pick a reviewer that doesn't represent the core audience associated with the game, they are failing at their job.
Now, that doesn't mean the whatever who wrote the 9/10 review can't have a review somewhere. It could even be on IGN, properly labeled for the niche review it is. But IGN, the website, should not be using a niche reviewer like that for their general purpose review and the official first score they gave. They gave an obviously lackluster game a glowing review.
Beyond that, the entire process does need be called out. Specifically, the way EA targeted reviewers who they figured would do puff pieces, while not giving copies to people they figured would rate the game much more even-handedly. And again, IGN and a few of the other bigger review sites are the things that should protect us from that... the main stream, big places that companies have to send copies to, because if they don't, it makes it obvious the thing is bad. But when those sites fail to have journalistic/editorial integrity, that falls apart. And the long term consequences of that are bad both for them and the industry they cover.
@@Axterix13 You said it yourself: put forth an OPINION. Whether said opinion informs someone or not is _not_ entirely up to the reviewer. Some of the impressions that form the opinions may be objective (bugs encountered, performance issues found, how mechanics work) and others will be subjective (how dynamics work, how narrative is handled).
You can't talk about a "core audience" any more than you can talk about a "modern audience." The entire history of gaming proves that. (And notice how many people who take exception to "modern audience" don't seem to take exception to "core audience.")
Likewise, "mainstream reviewer" means little. It's just another vague term that can mean different things to different people. Just like people talk about "mainstream media" yet seem to fail to realize that social media (previously the alternative) now _is_ arguably the "mainstream."
So on that last point, consider this video that we're all responding to. A review is just a set of opinions. When you read from a "game journalist", you are reading someone who got a copy of the game, played it, and is giving their impressions. That's it. You know who else does that? Just about anyone who posts online, whether text or video. If people put extra onus on this because it's IGN or some other outlet, well, that's on them. You're still listening to people with an opinion and nothing more than that.
So is something "obviously lackluster"? Well, it depends. Many may agree. Many may disagree. So, in the end, it really doesn't matter. It only matters what each individual person thinks.
Tried to play the witcher 3 was bored
Hard to get into! Might have needed to play the first two first but they were boring as well.
The game has plenty of issues, but it also has plenty of strengths but you also got stuff wrong. Taash didn't "know" what non-binary is. There are entire conversations where she doesn't understand how she feels and Neve (and others) talk to her and help her discover what non-binary is. You also kept comparing her and transgenderism, which is unrelated to non-binary. It's not the best way we've seen it done, and the writing across the board is weaker then normal but it's here and it's fine.
It almost surprisingly good given how awful it was projected to be, but alas, people who use "woke" unironically may have actually helped this game make more money and the game is decent, so we may yet get another one and hopefully the next one is better. And so far the lore has not been ruined, which is really all that matters.
"The lore has not been ruined" lol. Did you see the secret ending? Its so bad it also ruined previous story.
Nah, they're both gnostic over-emphases on the spiritual without reference to the material. I.e imaginary. So, yeah, they compare fine.
that's alot of lies in a single post
hey there Atmuz, Remember DEI was involved, and one of those consulates named "Kim belair" said: "because if that's the kind of person that we're always going to cater to you're never going to innovate you're never going to change things you're going to keep feeding the picky baby and we cannot continue to try to create art under a system that is going to bar innovation for fear of a picky baby throwing a tantrum", Playing dragon age, I felt I was treated like a picky baby, Thank you forced Diversity, Forcing out any and all character progress world building and fun..
R.I.P. dark gridy world that was already diverse with LGB relations ships, For a disney world with the LGBTQIA+..
The problem when people try to 'leave the woke out" of the spotlight when criticizing ...is that they are pretty much ignoring the main reason it sucks. Just because some games can kinda offset the woke with some good stuff.. doesn't make it less harmful... especially when it affects the hiring process.