"Return to me... please" absolutely took me the fuck out at the knees tbh. That break of tradition, that tiny lapse of confidence, because this one's personal - and I don't think he's used to that.
A list of things that bother me about Dragon Age: The Veilguard:
!Beware of spoilers if you want to go into this game blind!
Word of advice: I truly think that it is better however to play this game fully informed or else you are in for a big shock.
The dialogue feels artificial.
What do I mean by that? From what I have observed the dialogue between Rook and the companions is unnatural. This expresses itself in lack of emotional expression or too much of the same in an unfitting situation. But for the most part it's the first resulting in the companions never being truly mad at Rook nor expressing such feelings towards them whatsoever. Instrad the dialogue seems to function like a simplified explanation of things and events around you to make sure you understand properly and don't get fancy ideas like interpreting a situation through your own personal lense and take away an understanding the devs did not explicitely want you to have.
The game has strange priorities in terms of exposition.
The game has companions and NPCs either state the obvious in a slow and clear pronounciation or doesn't give necessary background info at all.
For instance it has the Veiljumpers state that Arlathan Forest is dangerous as multiple members of their organization are being carried away and injured, as if the player wouldn't conclude this fact by, I don't know, engaging with the game? At the same time it doesn't provide who these Veiljumpers are exactly and how they know of Solas and the true character of the Evanuris as these facts are not common knowledge among the people of Thedas.
Rook and Varric seem to have an established history but we never get to see how they met and what they did together. We don't get to build our relationship with Varric as Rook like we did as Hawke or the Inquisitor. We have to pretend it's magically there.
Which brings me to my next point: the game doesn't care for established lore and replaces it with a nonsensical version
Said Veiljumpers, including Bellara, consist almost entirely of dalish elves who have an extensive lore surrounding their pantheon, religious ohilosophies and principles. Their gods are the Evanuris, also called the creators. Elgar'nan is the Allfather in this pantheon while Ghilan'nain is the Mother of Halla in dalish tradition. This should have lead to conflict with Rook who is fighting these very gods. Instead the elves seem the accept the fact without second thought.
The same goes for Davrin who somehow identifies Ghilan'nain as the Mother of all Monsters while it remains unclear from where he takes his information.
On the flip side human Andrastianism doesn't seem to play a role at all. The game does not explore what rise of the elven gods means for the belief in The Maker. The human companions don't comment on it either and the templars have seemingly vanished.
The Antaam are waging an expansionist war without command from the Arishok now. Despite the Qun being a highly disciplined doctrine that values firmly set roles and chain of command above all else, the entire qunari military arm is somehow able to act without order and war amongst themselves.
But wait, there is a word for Qunari who behave like this already established. Tal Vashoth! So the game is basically claiming the entire qunari military went rogue.
The Antivan Crows, hitmen for hire, who buy kids from the slave market to raise them to be obedient killers and use trorture to reach this goal and are willing to kill said members if they go rogue or mess up a job, are the good guys now who protect Antiva's streets from harm.
Ferelden and Orlais got swallowed by the blight and whoever rules Orlais got assassinated by the Venatori anyway which renders the entire questline of Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts pointless.
And appearantly Morrigan slept around a lot now and Shaper Valta from the Decent dlc has become a statue in Kal Sharok?
The devs lied about previous choices not mattering
It becomes clear that the devs may have had a certain world state in mind when writing the story. This becomes clear when Harding talks about the Inquisition's spymaster being Charter but also mentioning Leliana. But we all know Leliana was the spymaster. So if the position fell to Charter there must have happened something that forced Leliana out of the position, like being named Divine for instance?
This impression is further cemented by the attitude of the First Warden towards the Inquisitor. It was stated that the First Warden had no high opinion of the Inquisitor. But why? They never met before. Could it be that the First Warden could be holding a grudge because of a specific decision made at Adamant, possibly the banishment of the wardens by the Inquisitor?
This is not even complete as I have not finished the game yet. But lord, this is a lot already in the beginning. At this point a miracle needs to happen to to render the points above meaningless but it isn't going to happen.
