"Dragon Age: The Veilguard review – a good RPG, but an underwhelming Dragon Age game" 3/5
edit: some top level paragraph pulls from the article based on the discussions areas in the comments for the other review posted
COMBAT Combat is now entirely real-time. You can still order your companions to use their skills via a ring menu similar to Mass Effect’s, which I sometimes had to do because my companions wouldn’t do useful things such as healing Rook or slowing down time without my say-so. But for the most part, they act autonomously. All I have to do is attack and dodge, pressing the same three buttons over and over again, throwing in the occasional combat skill or finishing move as my companions yell at me to watch out for imminent ranged attacks or explosions. It’s serviceable, but we’ve seen it before in countless other games, and there’s not much room for strategy. Boss battles are quite challenging, however. Dodging is vital, and you won’t get ahead by blindly slashing at your enemies.
DIALOGUE No matter which dialogue option you pick, a lot of it inevitably ends in some sort of joke, and sometimes even mildly embarrassing pop culture references and idioms. (I never want to hear a character say a griffon is “feeling his oats”, please. Please.) Veilguard isn’t the Guardians of the Galaxy-esque jokefest fans feared it might be after its first trailer, but Rook is written less like a person with opinions and more like someone who makes witty observations.
DECISIONS Big decisions that affect the story are few and far between, and the game will tell you exactly what they lead to before you pick. Decisions do, for the most part, carry real consequence, which is nice, but it would have been nicer if the game didn’t tell you that several times before you commit. These choices get rarer as time goes on, almost as if time to implement them ran out later in development.
