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Dragon Age: The Veilguard discussion

Lysrin

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Well I played an 1hr 40min so far (40 min faffing around making my character... I know, but I like that stuff). I won't be refunding it. I think I'll get my monies worth out of it.

If I could set aside all the noise that I've seen leading up to release, and just assess it (as best as I can) based on what I have played so far, I'd say I would have liked it and wanted to play more. Even with all the negativity rolling around in my mind, I still liked it so far and I DO want to play more! And again this is a very initial assessment with no expectations from previous DA experience.

All I've played so far is the tutorial that was all over YouTube, taking you to the part just past where you stop Solas' ritual. I will say it was more epic feeling playing it than watching it on YouTube.

Performance wise running great on my setup on High settings at 4K with HYPR-RX enabled in Adrenaline. Adrenaline is telling me avg of 155.9 FPS over that 100 min session. I will likely try it with HYPR-RX off at some point, maybe, just to see, but I have no complaints with the visuals and gameplay in that configuration.

And the game has a FOV slider!!! :)

Ultra graphics preset in game killed my performance though, so not sure what the difference is between that and High, but something significant. Even caused the cutscenes to chug badly. Could be it turned ray tracing on and my 7900 XT wouldn't have been happy about that.

I'm okay with the characters so far. They aren't as stressed as I think they should be for the situation they are in, but it isn't too happy-go-lucky yet. I know the visual style is polarizing too, but I'm in the camp that likes it. I quite like my Rook I was able to make in the Character creator. Sure, looks like a Disney movie, but I like animation! ;) And the graphic effects are pretty immersive and impressive when you are actually playing yourself. Dialog is acceptable so far and the voice acting is good enough as far as I can tell. I don't think that was a big complaint though.

I do see that annoyance with the dialog options wheel, how the text you are given doesn't match the tone or even the words your character actually ends up saying. That's an odd choice and kind of keeps you off balance in dialog.

I dunno -- even playing only this much I'm not sure why it got quite as much hate as it did. I really think as we've said if you were wanting the next step in the DA games, a game similar to the best in those but just updated graphics, then perhaps this just isn't it.

But I'll comment again once I get farther in.
 
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FreeKnight

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A reddit review I came across basically summed it as
" If a completely new studio and IP had done it, it'd be an 8/10. As a Dragon Age game it's a 6" which I suspect is about how I'll feel if I ever give it a go.

That being said the visual design is awful. Just saw this screenshot of the darkspawn 'Ogre'
no-dav-spoilers-the-ogre-in-this-game-just-looks-stupid-v0-yw4z857xc9yd1.png
 

Arinoth

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A reddit review I came across basically summed it as
" If a completely new studio and IP had done it, it'd be an 8/10. As a Dragon Age game it's a 6" which I suspect is about how I'll feel if I ever give it a go.

That being said the visual design is awful. Just saw this screenshot of the darkspawn 'Ogre'
no-dav-spoilers-the-ogre-in-this-game-just-looks-stupid-v0-yw4z857xc9yd1.png

What in the absolute hells? And this looks to be on PC too!
 

Shadowmeph

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A reddit review I came across basically summed it as
" If a completely new studio and IP had done it, it'd be an 8/10. As a Dragon Age game it's a 6" which I suspect is about how I'll feel if I ever give it a go.

That being said the visual design is awful. Just saw this screenshot of the darkspawn 'Ogre'
no-dav-spoilers-the-ogre-in-this-game-just-looks-stupid-v0-yw4z857xc9yd1.png
that looks like PC graphics from the 1990s doom 2 era
 

Lysrin

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A good review I think.


Doesn't look like a game I'd enjoy much.
I haven't watched his yet but I generally do like Fextralife's content. Thanks! I'm playing it myself at this point but I still am finding the varying opinions fascinating :)
 

Shadowmeph

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I was on youtube yesterday and someone uploaded some game play also putting in his PC specs which was 4080 or a 4080 gpu and a 7800x3d on the title it said Dragonage The Veilguard in 4k and yes sure the recording maybe 4k but that doesn't make the game graphics look any better lol I play Warframe on my system i n4k settings Isee no difference between 4k and 1140p accept for the shape of the screen the graphics are the same in both cases . I think that some people dont understand this they can have the best system in the world that wont make the games graphics look any better in anything it probably would bring out even more how bad the graphics are , I realized this after I set up my 4k TV all the older TV shows I had in 1080p really didn't looked as good as when I had my 1080p tv also most movies I had looked as bad . the 4k showed all the little details which made them look like crap ,
 

Lysrin

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Mini review update :)

Still only 6 hrs in and I am enjoying a lot of it. I like the settings, the combat, and the skills are interesting. The overall story so far is decent. I'm finding the combat quite fun but people looking for more complexity will likely find it a bit weak (Fextralife's review hits on this too). But...

The dialog and conversation options are its Achilles heel for me as many other reviews have said. Some of the companion dialog is just soo bad and uncomfortably cutesy and to use that over used word "cringy". I have tried to be open and give it the benefit of the doubt, but I just find myself rolling my eyes often no matter what conversation option I picked. There is so much teamwork, don't be discouraged, we're all special, blah blah it does get nauseating. And I'm not commenting specifically here on the woke controversy stuff. The companions and your character interactions just very often come across as unrealistic and Hallmark movie lame. Honestly, it just isn't good writing unfortunately. It has had occasional exchanges that have been good, enough to make you think "ah it's going to get better!" but then... nope :)

I still like the game overall and am enjoying it. But I think I would certainly be in the camp at this point of saying that this is a sale price worthy game, and to say again that die hard DA fans, if you choose to go in, go in with your expectations set to something completely other than it being the next true DA game.

It does run really well on my system though. I switched over to Quality settings in Adrenaline and it looks stunning at 4K and still has me at 121.9 avg FPS. Combat with all those glittering skill effects going off I was still getting between 75-85 FPS.
 
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