It felt like a whole lesson in morals, rather than a being a dark, fun RPG. Also that everyone were supposed to be friends and love each other, together with some of the cringiest dialogue I've ever seen in a fantasy RPG.
Only reason I'm mad though is because now Bioware will never have the chance to kick out the trash and redeem themselves. Quality-wise, they haven't made a good game since Mass Effect 2, maaaaaybe Mass Effect 3.
I agree about Inquisition. The gameplay is kind of a drag but I genuinely enjoyed the characters and the story. I loved upgrading the Keep and actually being the Inquisitor. It felt earned. The banter was also great. Origins will forever be my favorite but Inquisition is a (not so close) second. Hated Veilguard and never even finished DA2
They perfected the combat in 3 and some phenomenal setpieces, huge payoff poignant moments ("someone else might have got it wrong"; "I must go alone" eg) and the multiplayer was an absolute blast. I still maintain that 1 was the best game in the series despite the janky combat just for its consistency and amazing narrative pacing, but three was definitely not the red-headed stepchild people tend to make it out to be just because of the ending
Mass Effect 3 is in many ways the best of the series. Yeah, the ending is a bit disappointing but it's a very good game overall especially with the DLC.
Yeah I’d say ME3 really only starts to fall apart after Rannoch (only talking story I’m not a super fan of just making the gameplay Gears of War, but I think that was a EA mandate) and frankly nowadays you can kinda just mod out the really bad stuff in those last 2 hours (or Kai Lengs entire existence).
I get why people would say that... but i can finish DA 2 just fine, and always kinda get "stuck" playing inquisition. The combat feels off somehow... and i guess the world feeling more..
I do intend to play inquisition again soon... But i kinda gotta figure out what exactly is bothering me so i can fix it :P Maybe im just bad at the game and shouldnt play on nightmare (i love it on nightmare on the other 2 games)
ME3 had just enough QoL stuff in it to make the game more engaging to play. I even defend that the ending isn't the worst thing they could have done...
Agreed. I haven't touched ME3 since its release, but I remember my first "oh no" moment being the very end of that game. Everyhing up until the final assault was great imo.
and DA: I had its charm and the gameplay was very solid. I liked the war map concept and the combat, but the story just didn't interest me enough to finish it.
It had some of the best dungeons and story decisions of any Bioware game, period. The future dungeon was excellent. The choice between Alistair or Hawke... fucking brilliant. The gameplay was excellent too, its just the open world nature and the garbage filler fetch side quests were annoying. Otherwise its a solid 8/10
I believe that the too seldomly talked about reason for many beloved studios churning out crap is that their younger, newer devs, are not inspired, trained, or raised in the way the old timers were.
The short way to put this is that the new blood don't read books.
Another apt comparison applies to Star Trek fans. Look at any of the older series for an example of what is emblematic and adored about that series. Then look at the modern renditions. They don't even resemble the foundational genre of the thing.
Feels a lot like they want to self-insert and put their own problem and self-esteem issues in whatever they write, rather than writing idealised characters.
They're capable technically but are they inspired? That's what I said. Do they study the craft of writing and understand the franchise they're working on? Do they read books and watch movies? Which ones? Do they have good taste?
All of this is subjective but if you take uninspired, mediocre output like The Outer Worlds with Obsidian for instance, I think it's convincing as a potential reason.
Meanwhile the indie scene especially on PC is where all of the good art is by comparison. Hundreds of titles a year.
Now I've split thoughts between two replies to two of your comments, but what you're driving at is that geek became meaningless when we gained control of so much of the economy. The filter used to be passion, and literacy in so many senses of the word. Our strata suddenly became a source of a Good Job.
A long time ago, I did my best to redirect the "fake gamer girl" animosity towards the more accurate term, carpetbaggers. Didn't work, but I was right.
My best friend is my 80 year old neighbor, that weird old mix of IBM engineer and woowoo witch that used to be so familiar; my last connection to the world I grew up in and loved. I feel like the light of Gygax will die with him. I can barely see a glint of it in anyone my age, and no trace of it in anyone younger than me. No flame to rekindle, no spark.
Mass Effect 3's high points were almost ENTIRELY pay-off for storylines set up in 1 and 2. The main storyline of Mass Effect 3 was rotten from beginning to end. From making the main drama Earth focused (the Citadel was always the heart of the franchise) to taking away the mystery of the Protheans to casually killing the heart of the setting while simultaneously forgetting that conquering the Citadel meant the Reapers won (all relays shut-off, the Reaper cycle begins anew, humanity and everyone else loses) to the stupid-ass AI child.
Also, killing the Citadel and the possible endings for Mass Effect 3 meant that the setting was always dead. If BioWare wanted the Mass Effect setting to endure past the Reapers, the Citadel needed to survive and the ending should have been something, anything other than that nonsense.
If any game told me that BioWare was going to crash-out and fail, it was Mass Effect 3. Everything that followed was predictable. You can't build a company based around stories and writing, then fail at the main plotline in its biggest franchise.
EA contributed to BioWare's downfall - rushing Dragon Age 2, for starters - but BioWare played a significant role in its own demise.
It just shows how important creative directors are in the process and how big of a impact they can have. In this case, it was a writer, who happen to write several solid characters, but clearly couldn't cut it at a higher role.
terrible lesson with terrible morals. It wasn't even pre-teens-modern audience-whatever shit they were catering game, it was just incredibly boring utter garbage. I can't comprehend how it's possible to write this. Like, if you are a good artist, you physically can't draw like a 3 y.o, unless you're trying to imitate kid.
They were riding on the social trend of making a product for those that aren't actually interested in your product but these people made it clear that your product needed to be adjusted to their needs and standards.
Publishers or main parent companies have learned their lessons by now and re-adjusting the course back to what consumers are willing to pay for. But for many studios, it's too late. They went hard on a demographic that didn't exist and gotta pay for their mistakes.
To be fair it only had a year and a half of development time. All things considered it was extremely impressive for how little time they had. It's a shame the writing for the series took a noticeable did after DA2. The irony that the game with less than half the development time had better writing than every Dragon Age afterwards.
Andromeda was the sign of what's to come for me. It was the first Mass Effect game I never finished. It was just too boring. And I LOVE the ME universe.
Then came Dragon Age the Veilguard. And it was also the first DA game I never finished. The pattern formed and it became impossible to ignore. Bioware killed their 2 most insanely successful and popular franchises.
I thought ME4 might be a redemption arc, but tbh.. I've seen no indication that the leadership in Bioware had improved an iota from Veilgaurd to ME4. And I bet EA found the same and just cut them loose before they lost more millions.
No. All opinions are subjective. Someone liking it is just as valid as someone not liking it. They're equal in validity. Slop doesn't exist. It's just mob mentality.
Slop is just a word invented by pretentious snobs to justify their hatred for people with opinions that differ from theirs. Majority opinion means nothing. It's all an illusion.
Every claim you made in that sentence is actually wrong.
Slop became trendy because collectives started to notice a trend of quality decline in media. Releasing unfinished or lazy media became normal. It was never about hatred for the people who consume it more than confusion for targeting those people en masse on such a large production scale.
Majority opinion always matters, especially when you are under a government who rules by it or obligated to those who purchase your product.
It's all an illusion.
Only if you don't have the capacity to understand how the world works.
Veilguard is both better than its reputation and not good enough to defend very rigorously. Combat has its moments and I liked the environments. On the other hand, the writing is really bad, a lot of the previous lore was glossed over (where are all the slaves in Tevinter?) the dialogue choices are super limited, and the best parts were basically ripped from ME2.
It's a 7/10: no regrets playing it, didn't hate it, not likely to ever play it again.
Yes its better than the hate it got. Its not that much better to make it worth defending. People act like it was a 1/10 when its like 5. No reason to defend a game you wouldn't recommend to your friends.
I love a good moral in a videogame but honestly, a moral just works when people feel genuinely moved and connected to a story and characters. DA:O managed to get that right, the Mass Effect games also did it. It's a shame that Veilguard had no heart or soul. I really wanted to like the game, instead I felt...nothing. Sometimes I rolled my eyes because of the clunky writing. The only part of the game that managed to grip me (slightly), was Emmerich's story quest. I still had some hope for the new Mass Effect (delusional, I know) but yeah, that's gone now. Shame.
ME3 was really good, right up until the end. I have never been more angry at an ending before in my life. So many years and so many save files just to "choose my own adventure" with little regard to all the decisions that lead up to it. I felt betrayed.
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u/WhoAmIEven2 7h ago edited 7h ago
Not even sure what they wanted with Veilguard.
It felt like a whole lesson in morals, rather than a being a dark, fun RPG. Also that everyone were supposed to be friends and love each other, together with some of the cringiest dialogue I've ever seen in a fantasy RPG.
Only reason I'm mad though is because now Bioware will never have the chance to kick out the trash and redeem themselves. Quality-wise, they haven't made a good game since Mass Effect 2, maaaaaybe Mass Effect 3.