Around this time last year I went through all the Mass Effects in order, but I cba finding my post on that here, if it was even one as it could've been a few.
This year I decided to go for Dragon Age's, as I also hadn't done them proper. Well, Origins and II are fantastic games with some minor/understandable faults but fantastic story (also my romances broke in both somehow, in funny ways each time). Inquisition even in its current state is hilariously full of bugs, but nothing *that* gamebreaking (for me), and it's a good game with places that make little sense compared to the previous entries, but a good DA that feels faithful to the franchise and the early games.
Started the latest game - Veilguard - and honestly, it's a great RPG. Atrocious Dragon Age game, but a great RPG to play - combat feels good in the class I picked, the companions work well in a way that makes sense, levelling system feels good, itemisation is different but in a great way so you don't have to keep track of weights/slots and the likes, there's special mechanics that are interesting and bring a new thing to the table, the environments are incredible for the most part.
The writing however is... somewhere between questionable and horrid, both interpersonally and for quests/objectives/narrations. Constant contradictions, direction lacking in many moments, small details just completely overlooked (your background for example is pointless in so many situations where it should be obviously used that it starts grating a bit), some dialogue is written as if you're in your edgy teen phase and it just doesn't work for adult conversations (except for the edgy-teen-phase character where it sort of does, but broken clock and all that). Conversations with NPCs have a different flavour of "Yes" for every option that lead the same or similar way, no one really shows that they're mad at you even if they are, it's just a bit... "meh" at times to talk to people.
I've a bit more to say, but I'll keep at it - I'm at ~30 or so hours (and I think exactly half-way, exploration takes a while) but I want and try to complete every side mission and exploration objective before heading to the final story, so I'll be at it a while longer, but so far for every good thing there's something that kinda halves the experience of it.
I saw someone do a comparison of this vs. Andromeda, and honestly it's just not on - Andromeda was a better Mass Effect entry instantly than Veilguard is a Dragon Age entry.
