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alias_sqbr) wrote2024-06-10 07:39 pm
alias_sqbr) wrote2024-06-10 07:39 pm
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Thoughts on the New Dragon Age Trailer
tl;dr pretty negative but no more than I expected to be.
The trailer (I'm not embedding anything since you need to be logged in to prove you're an adult anyway)
So I know not everyone has been paying much attention to what's happened Bioware over the last few years. But basically, most people responsible for the previous Dragon Age games were fired or quit, most notably lead writer David Gaider. Those who remain are beholden to EA, who repeatedly force everyone at Bioware to chase whatever latest video game trend has caught their eye.
And with the popularity of Baldur's Gate 3, that now means character heavy fantasy games! Hooray! But you can't just bash one of those together from other people's half-finished drafts and have it be good, especially since the directive from on high appears to be "Overwatch but fantasy".
Oh also I suppose some of you might have followed me recently enough not to be aware that I am a MASSIVE fan of Dragon Age, and Bioware in general.
But some time ago I came to terms with the fact that for me, the the Dragon Age series is likely finished, as is Bioware. This is just a new game in that universe created by the umbrella company that owns the IP.
I don't particularly care about the new art style, it's not my favourite but it's fine. I don't like that they changed Scout Harding to look so Chiselled, but can see why they felt it necessary to make her look Definitely Adult to avoid people being weird about a romance with a dwarven, and thus very short, woman. But she and Varric aren't being written as especially in character or interesting, which makes sense since I'm pretty sure their original writers are gone :/
If this was a better game I might care that you probably can't play as a dwarf but ehhh. Also it's funny that up until a few days the name of the game was DreadWolf and now Solas doesn't even appear in the trailer. I mean I'm sure the plan was always to deal with him early on/off-screen and introduce some more straightforwardly evil Big Bad, given that Dragon Age Inquisition handled the huge, world-changing war started at the very end of Dragon Age 2 by going "Yeah it was really intense and morally complicated! But it's over now, phew" and then the actual conflict is An Ancient Evil Opened A Hole In The Sky. But they could at least pretend to care about him a little.
I rolled with Nice Cullen, I can deal with a lack of consistency as long as the story is good on it's own merits, sadly I suspect the odds of that are Low. It's a pity, the trailer mentions killing gods, and I am always down for that (though it's probably just the elven gods, which feels kinda unfortunate given the history. Let me kill the Maker!)
I am not really the market for "Overwatch but fantasy, and you can have sex with everyone" but am sure there is one, alas I doubt it will be very good at being that, either. Still, 7 bi romanceable companions is nice in and of itself.
Certain people on my tumblr dash are very excited for the sexy old man bisexual necromancer and I'm happy for them. I would be happy about the Scout Harding romance if I thought we'd get anything like the character from Inquisition, or decent romance writing at all.
I was curious to compare so looked up some early trailers for the previous Dragon Age games:
Dragon Age Origins (the actual game Did Not Look Like This it was 2009 lol)
Dragon Age 2 Having real trouble finding ANY trailers which show much about the companions even though they're great
Dragon Age Inquisition
Seeing them all together, I am reminded that I miss the old EVERYTHING IS COVERED IN BUCKETS OF BLOOD aesthetic that got dropped for Inquisition. And even the Inquisition trailer promised angst and the chance to Ruin The World even if the game itself didn't fully deliver on that (I liked it, but it was a little bland). Also I am having Morrigan feels. Watching her turn into a spider and kill a bunch of people, ah, my heart.
There's not much in this new trailer that is actively bad, asides from the Vibe being very un Dragon Age, which one could blame on marketing. But there's a notable lack of good things like any signs of an interesting story etc. Without the broader context, I would be cautiously optimistic. But with that context... I went in with low expectations, and nothing here gives me reason to raise them. I might play the game if I hear it's enjoyable on it's own merits, but I'll have to prepare myself to deal with my melancholy about what might have been.
The trailer (I'm not embedding anything since you need to be logged in to prove you're an adult anyway)
So I know not everyone has been paying much attention to what's happened Bioware over the last few years. But basically, most people responsible for the previous Dragon Age games were fired or quit, most notably lead writer David Gaider. Those who remain are beholden to EA, who repeatedly force everyone at Bioware to chase whatever latest video game trend has caught their eye.
And with the popularity of Baldur's Gate 3, that now means character heavy fantasy games! Hooray! But you can't just bash one of those together from other people's half-finished drafts and have it be good, especially since the directive from on high appears to be "Overwatch but fantasy".
Oh also I suppose some of you might have followed me recently enough not to be aware that I am a MASSIVE fan of Dragon Age, and Bioware in general.
But some time ago I came to terms with the fact that for me, the the Dragon Age series is likely finished, as is Bioware. This is just a new game in that universe created by the umbrella company that owns the IP.
I don't particularly care about the new art style, it's not my favourite but it's fine. I don't like that they changed Scout Harding to look so Chiselled, but can see why they felt it necessary to make her look Definitely Adult to avoid people being weird about a romance with a dwarven, and thus very short, woman. But she and Varric aren't being written as especially in character or interesting, which makes sense since I'm pretty sure their original writers are gone :/
If this was a better game I might care that you probably can't play as a dwarf but ehhh. Also it's funny that up until a few days the name of the game was DreadWolf and now Solas doesn't even appear in the trailer. I mean I'm sure the plan was always to deal with him early on/off-screen and introduce some more straightforwardly evil Big Bad, given that Dragon Age Inquisition handled the huge, world-changing war started at the very end of Dragon Age 2 by going "Yeah it was really intense and morally complicated! But it's over now, phew" and then the actual conflict is An Ancient Evil Opened A Hole In The Sky. But they could at least pretend to care about him a little.
I rolled with Nice Cullen, I can deal with a lack of consistency as long as the story is good on it's own merits, sadly I suspect the odds of that are Low. It's a pity, the trailer mentions killing gods, and I am always down for that (though it's probably just the elven gods, which feels kinda unfortunate given the history. Let me kill the Maker!)
I am not really the market for "Overwatch but fantasy, and you can have sex with everyone" but am sure there is one, alas I doubt it will be very good at being that, either. Still, 7 bi romanceable companions is nice in and of itself.
Certain people on my tumblr dash are very excited for the sexy old man bisexual necromancer and I'm happy for them. I would be happy about the Scout Harding romance if I thought we'd get anything like the character from Inquisition, or decent romance writing at all.
I was curious to compare so looked up some early trailers for the previous Dragon Age games:
Dragon Age Origins (the actual game Did Not Look Like This it was 2009 lol)
Dragon Age 2 Having real trouble finding ANY trailers which show much about the companions even though they're great
Dragon Age Inquisition
Seeing them all together, I am reminded that I miss the old EVERYTHING IS COVERED IN BUCKETS OF BLOOD aesthetic that got dropped for Inquisition. And even the Inquisition trailer promised angst and the chance to Ruin The World even if the game itself didn't fully deliver on that (I liked it, but it was a little bland). Also I am having Morrigan feels. Watching her turn into a spider and kill a bunch of people, ah, my heart.
There's not much in this new trailer that is actively bad, asides from the Vibe being very un Dragon Age, which one could blame on marketing. But there's a notable lack of good things like any signs of an interesting story etc. Without the broader context, I would be cautiously optimistic. But with that context... I went in with low expectations, and nothing here gives me reason to raise them. I might play the game if I hear it's enjoyable on it's own merits, but I'll have to prepare myself to deal with my melancholy about what might have been.
no subject
Like I get that we will probably get great fic for sexy old man necromancer (particularly vs. younger mage killer), and that's nice, but that's also nothing to do with the game itself or how it looks. That's just the creativity of fanfic and frankly folks don't need a game to come up with that dynamic. (Though I'm glad it's a spark!)
I'm very meh about it. Also Veilguard is SUCH a terrible name compared to Dreadwolf. Like the latter is immediately very gripping whether you're familiar with DA or not, the former means nothing, and are two relatively weak words soldered together. Origins / Inquisition / Dreadwolf stand up pretty strong, I feel like Veilguard represents a kind of step back in the writing and we've had...step backs. D: So many step backs.
I am going in with extraordinarily low expectations and given my difficulties playing DA:I I suspect I will just watch it unless it's somehow incredible or has like kink representation or something. I'm really glad we got BG3.
(That being said I am absolutely the kind of person to stealth in and write a 250k fic in the Veilguard fandom after basically doing the same with Stuck on the Puzzle so *rubs hands together* we'll see!)
no subject
Yeah, the existence of Baldur's Gate 3 does soften the sting slightly. But it's not the same ;_;
no subject
Hahah DA2 is my favorite of the games, but yeah, even before the world changing war Meredith and Orsino really did their best to make things as unnuanced as possible at the end
I feel pretty meh about the trailer and more meh than I was expecting even after your post -- it really felt slapdash. Character promotion/heist/fantasy comedy/halfhearted attempt at epic fantasy which feels so not DA, and there wasn't really anything to anchor it. And come to think of it, DA characters have always been heavily anchored in a setting. I agree it didn't feel like a continuation -- the vibes were very weird considering where things ended up in DA3, and also the nostalgia callouts were sparse and didn't work for me.
(I don't really care that much about Harding or Varric so that part of the trailer didn't work for me. (If there had been Zevran I would have immediately given it 500000 more points instead of like, -0.5 points for trying to appeal to someone not me).
no subject
Ha, yeah, Meredith turning into a giant red evil possessed statue did kinda undermine the subtlety of her characterisation. Orsino turning into a Boss Monster was at least close enough to his Boss Fight I could edit it out of my mental version of the plot more easily.
no subject
2 is still my favorite, despite all its warts and flaws, and I am excited about no romance restrictions, but mostly I'm so grateful they didn't make it multiplayer-compulsory.
no subject
Ha, yeah, I'm not saying Buckets of Blood is objectively the best aesthetic. Haaa I was going to make a joke about games which would be made worse by it, and had just settled on Animal Crossing as a good example, then remembered that I did in fact... download blood textures to turn my house into a haunted house >.>
no subject
(I feel like on the one hand I didn't like DAI's plot anyway, on the other hand it did set up a bunch of threads and I want to know where the people who set them up were going with them.)
no subject
Yeah, the other trailers were definitely a reminder that Trailers Lie. So we'll see.