Dragon Age: The Veilguard – If you had to make a list of the best Western RPG games ever, many players would have many different choices across many different eras of the genre, but there would definitely be one game. BioWare in there.

That's why, Dragon Age: The Veilguard must be a “trump card”, BioWare's last chance to reaffirm its position, as well as regain credibility with both gamers and critics. But before the game was released, there were too many controversies and turbulences related to the game, from gamers' criticism of the game's character art style, to BioWare's “core” team leaving the company. between the development process, until the humiliating failure of Anthem causing the direction of the game to change suddenly.

So is this “trump card” of BioWare really worth the long development time? Or will BioWare continue to slide with no way out?

Let's step back into the land of Thedas with MarkGame with familiar faces to find out!

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Thorough and experienced

With such a turbulent development process, perhaps the most surprising thing about Dragon Age: The Veilguard is… the thoroughness of the game.

The game's art direction is now more detailed, focusing on complex buildings and magical, but still extremely beautiful structures – perhaps desolate ruins, silent before the waves. Historical winds, bustling, vibrant cities, lush green forests and countless other extraordinary dimensions, all pop up before the player's eyes in an extremely attractive and beautiful way!

Continuing the tradition of BioWare – Thedas's The Veilguard very different from Thedas's Origins, Dragon Age II and Inquisitionthis makes players motivated to explore new lands, new powers and even return to familiar places in previous parts, only to be overwhelmed by the high quality of graphics and The game's beautiful art direction.

The game's gameplay mechanics have also been significantly improved, especially with the combat system. Now, the game's main character Rook attacks faster and more accurately with smooth and instant blocking, dodging and countering mechanisms, along with beautiful and powerful moves, not only that. , players can completely activate their teammates' skills quickly and conveniently, unlike the somewhat cumbersome “turn taking” mechanism of previous versions. Dragon Age before – this makes the combat experience of Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels like the originals God of War new, although lacking a lot of depth compared to those two games.

That's right, because Dragon Age: The Veilguard It's a game that's “heavy” on role-playing and skill tuning. The game's combat system is balanced between three main character classes (Warrior, Rogue, Mage), with each character class having three additional specific branches, with each branch associated with a certain faction operating in Thedas. For example, the Duelist branch of the Rogue class with the ability to move flexibly and attack at high speed will be associated with the Antivan Crows organization, or the “buffalo” Champion branch will be associated with the Gray Wardens faction.

It is important to refine and upgrade these character classes to optimize their effectiveness in the game, or simply to attack… more skillfully and beautifully. Dragon Age: The Veilguard does very well throughout its duration.

With beautiful environment design, pleasing sounds and smooth, satisfying combat mechanics, the game's boss battles are truly impressive!

From small but powerful dark magicians who unleash dangerous spells to dramatic and epic “dragon hunting” scenes, most of the boss fights in Dragon Age: The Veilguard are all satisfying “climaxes” for players, deadly but beautiful exchanges of moves.

Despite going through the year 2024 with many unforgettable “battles” with dragons like Bayle the Dread in Elden Ring: Shadows of the Erdtree or Cang Kim Long in Black Myth Wukongbut when the water surface in the game vibrates with electric rays and the sky-shading wingspan of Katanranda the Stormrider is still a truly unforgettable encounter that Dragon Age: The Veilguard Bring it!

Beautiful environment design, pleasing sound and smooth, satisfying combat mechanics, the game's boss fights are truly impressive!

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Nothing Settles…

Although with such high quality gameplay, graphics quality and environmental visual style, all the remaining elements of Dragon Age: The Veilguard will definitely bring a feeling of… relative disappointment to the player.

If the game's plot and content could be summed up in four words, it would be “a waste of potential!”

Set not long after the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Veilguard has players follow Rook and familiar characters (Varric, Harding and Neve) to stop a dangerous Solas ritual, but accidentally summon two evil, dark Elven gods and release them. freedom to rage and destroy the world. Solas was now trapped in The Fade, so he made a blood pact with Rook, to stop the two gods on his behalf.

This is inherently a quite interesting direction for any “veteran” player of the game series Dragon Agebecause throughout this journey players will learn many new and interesting things about important characters in Elvish mythology such as Solas or Mythal, as well as discover more familiar and strange places such as Rivain and Telvinter.

But this is the point that makes the writer feel the most confused, because it seems Dragon Age: The Veilguard trying to please veteran players of the game, while also trying to create a product aimed at a new group of players.

The game opens with characters that require players to play through at least Inquisition to get “familiar” with the game's content, but leaves characters like Varric and Solas halfway to introduce the character lines. new… not really interesting, old characters like Morran and Inqui are introduced with many “hints” and promises, but appear superficially and somewhat strangely.

The superficiality also comes from the way BioWare exploits the central themes of the game series Dragon Age, with some locations like Tevinter, although they look beautiful, they lack important narrative “anchors” such as blood magic or the issue of forced labor and slavery.

The same thing happens when players clash with the Antivan Crows, when so much of the history of organizations and places is reduced to one-sided, shallow clashes with a ridiculously evil villain. .

This is even more frustrating when the BioWare team is completely able to create extremely interesting levels, truly impressive narrative twists that go far beyond their predecessors, especially like the “prison escape” screen. in the second half of the game, and an impressive and emotional ending climax!

And it is this superficiality in details that makes the characters' lines Dragon Age: The Veilguard also “loses” a lot compared to its predecessors. The game still has a series of relatively interesting side quests for the player's companions, but lacks consistency in storytelling compared to “team-heavy” role-playing games like Baldur's Gate 3 or Atlus games like Metaphor: ReFantazio and Persona – so the emotional climaxes or romantic relationships in the game feel extremely half-baked and lacking in appeal.

Such a superficial character, lacking depth, was ultimately “ended” by BioWare's “relatively confusing” appearance design choices and character dialogue. Characters in Dragon Age: The Veilguard It can't be called “bad”, but their expressions feel a bit ridiculous and too cartoonish, plus the lines are forced and cumbersome, explaining concepts that seem to be “forced into them”. yes” but doesn't really help advance the game's plot.

And the saddest thing with Dragon Age: The Veilguard Even though this is the most thorough and complete game that BioWare has released in a long time, with quality that far surpasses Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromedathe game, in essence, is a neat and complete product, but creates an “extremely half-baked” and forgettable feeling, especially in an impressive year of the gaming industry!

If the game's plot and content could be summed up in four words, it would be “a waste of potential!