I only played this game because of the fact that it very quickly became part of the PS-Plus Extra catalog and therefore I was entitled to download and play it for free. I had seen all the nasty reviews and then the counter-attack by the media and Bioware where they were putting up conversations about how it was "the greatest game ever!" and then there were comments from people attacking the game that likely hadn't played it at all either.
This was originally going to be a singular article, but it got to 2000 words and I realized it was too long.
I ignored all of that when I downloaded it and was just hopeful that they maybe did something good with the continuation of one of my favorite games of all time which was Dragon Age: Inquisition.
It didn't take long for me to realize that this was not going to be like that game and in fact, it was going to be a lot worse. I stuck with it though, hoping that it would become good at some point but after about 15 hours of gameplay (which is enough to really understand a game in my opinion) I got to a section that was controller-throwing frustrating and after I nearly threw the controller out of rage, I determined that it was time for me to walk away.
I'm gonna skip the modern-day social stuff that is thrown in there and the woke aspect of the game because that has been talked into the ground to the point where I don't want to weigh in on it. I'll just say that it is definitely there and you will notice it. It seems as though the characters are not talking to one another but that they are breaking the 4th wall and talking to you, the player. That's just dumb. Anyway, there is a lot of other, more quantifiable dumb stuff in this game and I would rather focus on that.
I've written before about how the AI in this game doesn't seem to be very focused on the "I" portion of AI and basically all encounters feel the same. The difference being that some of the enemies you face are going to be big and have enormous weapons that smash through you and others are going to be ones that have something ranged like magic or spears. Fair enough! What else are they supposed to use?
The issue that you face here is that you get surrounded on a regular basis or are relentlessly pursued by some gigantic sonofagun and if you are ranged character, which most of us are, they enemy AI seems to be programmed to simply follow you thus allowing you to not get any space to actually get any ranged shots off. Since you can't see all around you because of the first person perspective, you frequently will be in the middle of attempting a sort of jumping stabby stabs only to realize that two ogre-like fellas are actually behind you and once your animation gets set up to do your strikes you get whalloped from behind. Fair enough again, the enemies should be going after the person who is strongest I guess but that's another problem... they don't go after who is doing the most damage or even who is doing any damage...they just go after YOU.
But here is the thing that really gets to me. In some battles, basically the only thing I did was dodge roll endlessly, to the point where I wondered if perhaps I was doing damage to the circle button on my controller, I'm not doing ANY damage to the enemy, but my sidekicks are constantly attacking. So why does the horde have its sights set on me... the one combatant that is dancing around the fighting space like a fairy rather than the ones that are doing actual damage to them? Not much damage mind you, but more than zero.
The whole idea behind having companions in any game like this is because you are supposed to work as a team, keeping one another alive, fighting towards a common goal of overpowering your enemies but in the case of Veilguard these two teammates that you bring with you dish out such a low amount of damage that they may as well not even be there. Their only purpose is that they have 3 skills that they can use and once every 30 seconds or so, you use those skills in battle by commanding them to do so.
They do not draw aggro, they cannot taunt and here is the strangest part of the whole thing: They CAN NOT die. They don't even have HP. I am the only member of my group with HP. I have intentionally put myself in an out of reach position where the enemies couldn't get to me and just sent my two troops out to fight on my behalf while I made lunch. This was about 20 minutes of them just getting thrown around the battlefield in a way that would have killed me in 30 seconds, but not them... they just keep chugging away in their infinity loop of pea shooter damage that never even manages to break the "shield" of the enemy they are focused on. If I had left it there until my side won, which you would think would be an eventuality since my teammates cannot die and their opposition can die, this would just be an endless loop and a waste of animation. The teammates cannot kill anything on their own. For me, and especially since my teammates are not ever the focus of other enemies even when I intentionally remove myself from battle, I would rather have them not be there and just give me faster cooldowns on my own skills.
Honestly, why are they here if they can't actually do anything?
You know that buddy of yours in gaming that absolutely loves walking from one place to the other only to be told once he arrives at that place that he now needs to turn back around and walk all the way back from where he came from just because? You probably don't remember him because he doesn't exist. Veilguard forces you to walk to distant places, often in the same map that you are in at the moment, in order to talk to someone or go get a piece of paper and then come back. Fetch Quests they are called and they are in just about every bad game I have ever played.
I do not know why game devs do this: Is it so they can make the appearance of their game being longer? Is it an attempt to how off the landscape of a particular map? Is it simply so they can say that they have a lot of quests?
I would understand if there was some sort of encounter that happened on you way from point A to point B but nope! That is not what happens here.
This is the kind of game where you thank all that is holy in the world when you open your map and see that for some reason you already have fast-travel opened up near where you are meant to go and just warp there.
If there is one thing I can say that is good about this game's design is that load times are not an issue. They apparently have some people working there that are good at preventing this. The rest of it is trash though.
I gave this game a fair shake with 15 hours put into it. I was desperately trying to find something good about it. But at the end of the day I want a game to feel FUN. I don't mind a challenge but frustration? Nah, you can keep that. This game isn't even difficult, it is just filled with enemy cheat cheese and scenarios such as various rooms that make a lot of your skills useless.
It's also quite boring but the worst part is the combat, and I will dive even deeper into that in the next installment.
