Double Dragon

I hit another major story beat in Dragon Age Veilguard, so this seems like a good point for another checkin!

 

 

Overall I'm really enjoying it so far. This most recent section was pretty explicitly framed as Help Your Team Members Deal With Their Personal Issues, which I honestly enjoy, particularly in a BioWare game. Companions are always a high point in these games, and while I shouldn't draw any final conclusions before finishing the game, at this point I feel like this is one of the best overall ensembles from any of the Dragon Age games. In particular, I think this may be the first DA game where I have felt a strong attachment to every single member of the party. Typically there are a few characters I love, a few I find interesting and one or two I'm annoyed by. This time, from top to bottom I like them all. They're all very unique, in personality and background and combat style and stuff, but they all click individually and work as part of a big, varied but unified team.

 

 

I'd mentioned before that my motivation behind team composition has changed over time, and it continued to evolve in this act. DA:V (which, side note, now that I write it that way it seems confusing, since V is the fourth game and not a roman numeral fifth) is the first game in the series with a rigid separation between your PC and the companion NPCs. You personally gain XP and level up as you complete quests and kill monsters and stuff. Your companions don't have levels or the same skill tree or XP. Instead, you gain Ability Points as you increase your Bond with them. It seems like you make a lot of progress in the Bond when you finish their personal quests, but you also gain some Bond by having them in your (two-person) party when you complete a quest, and I think you also gain a little Bond by defeating enemies/bosses in their primary enemy faction (like Darkspawn for Davrin, Venatori for Neve, Antaam for Taash, etc.).

 

 

In some ways this reminds me of the 90s / early 2000s era of CRPGs where companions would only gain XP while being in your party, so you were incentivized to recruit your core party early, and then keep them around forever and never swap in less-favored members. That shifted later to have companions always gain XP at the same rate whether in the party or not, so you wouldn't be gimping yourself (or not significantly so) if you wanted to temporarily bring another member in because they seem more relevant for a particular quest or environment or something. In DA:V I feel like I'm actively encouraged to swap between party members, not just to hear different banters and things, but also to keep their ability points moving forward. So we've moved back to companions advancing based on having them in your party, but in a way that feels like it's rewarding you for adding them versus penalizing you for removing them.

 

The pacing of the game has felt good, it's a long game but not overwhelming. I think the zone design really helps here, usually there are multiple things you can do in an area, including major story quests, companion quests and side quests, along with a few puzzles to solve and high-value treasure chests to track down. There's a good sense of progression, and more opportunities open up as you move along, but since there's a finite amount of stuff to do at a given time in a given zone you never reach that breaking point of an Oblivion or a Skyrim where the sheer volume of quests makes each one feel meaningless.

 

 

Gear advancement has felt pretty good. I said this before, but I'll repeat that I love the lack of inventory management. No item limits or carry limit, and you can't sell any gear, only trash/"valuable" items. That does mean that you end up getting a ton of equipment that you'll never use, but that's okay, it doesn't harm you to have it in your inventory, and it is extra-exciting when you do get a drop that works for you. I've been sticking to pretty consistent loadouts for my PC and my companions, I think so far I've only customized for one specific fight, after losing against a very tough optional boss who's vulnerable to Necrotic and resistant to Electric attacks. The one very minor annoying thing is that each Enchantment can only be applied to a specific piece of gear at a time - you can swap to another item of gear at any time while in the field, but if you want to put an Enchantment on that, you need to trek all the way back to your home base first. It would be nice (at least gameplay-wise) if each enchantment was applied to the slot instead of to the item, or if you could swap enchantments in the field.

 

 

Build-wise, I took the Veil Ranger specialization, which is the Archer subclass of a Rogue. My Abilities are mostly lightning-based, and for combos I can inflict Weakened or detonate Overwhelmed. I can make this work with a lot of companions, but it's a particularly natural combo with Taash who can detonate Weakened and inflict Overwhelmed (both on command and periodically passively). I mostly do ranged attacks from a distance, usually trying for headshots but often settling for center-of-mass targeting. During this Act I've mostly been rocking the Trueflight Bow, which does bonus damage to Armor; a big part of that is that it's generally been my highest rarity useful bow, I think it's currently at Epic tier. The special effects of this are generally useful, I think there are some other ones that might be a better match for my playstyle, so once I finish upgrading other bows I might swap it out.

 

 

One interesting thing about Veilguard is that there are two broad classes of gear. Most items have a dual upgrade track: as you find duplicates of the same item, you upgrade the Rarity tier, which in turn will unlock other special effects of the item; you can also use the Caretaker's Workshop to upgrade the Level of the item, which will directly improve the numeric stats of the item (like Damage or Stagger). Then there are a few hard-to-find Unique items. These don't have a rarity or a level and come fully unlocked. These tend to be gimmicky. Examples include a Bow that reduces your Arrow Count to 1 but massively increases the Damage; another Bow that adds seven arrows and fires triple shots that each do 50% damage; one piece of Armor that massively increases your Defense but reduces your Ability power; and so on. I think that for a future playthrough of the game, it could be very powerful to design a build around some of these specific Unique items and beeline to them as soon as you can. In a way these items remind me of the Meteorite Staff from Elden Ring, in that it's a very powerful item if you get it early, but will eventually be outclassed after you're able to upgrade other items.

 

 

As I've built out more of my Archery abilities I do less hand-to-hand combat, but it is very satisfying. My strategy is heavily built around Dodge: I'll close range with someone (or shoot at them until they close range with me), get in a few hits with my dual-wielded blades, then dash through them, get a few more strikes, dash again, and repeat. Depending on the enemy speed and how crowded the battlefield is I may be able to get a whole attack chain in before the dash, or might need to dash after each individual tap. I'm currently using two Unique weapons for my melee swords. One does very low damage but inflicts Bleed on each hit, along with increasing the max stacks of Bleed; obviously this gives decent DOT, so if I'm in trouble I can lay down a few stacks of Bleed, run away, and hopefully something bad happens to the bad guy. The other weapon does 0 base damage, but inflicts a good amount of every type of Elemental damage, for high overall damage; I added an Enchantment to this that adds back in some Physical damage. I think this ensures I can do Critical melee hits no matter what element an enemy is resistant to.

 

 

Overall, I try to pick items and abilities that increase my archery abilities. I'm not too concerned about arrows: thanks to my ability tree I have a good amount to carry and good regeneration, so even in boss fights I never run out. But I'll use items that boost ranged damage, help with weakpoint attack, or otherwise increase my most common attacks. (Unlike Elden Ring, I haven't dug into theorycrafting and still don't understand [haven't bothered to look up] some basic concepts; for example, I have taken several passive abilities that upgrade my Area Abilities and Duration Abilities. But, I don't know what Area Abilities and Duration Abilities are, and whether I use any of them, and thus whether those upgrades are useful or useless.)

MEGA SPOILERS

In the romance department, I'd been flirting with multiple ladies, narrowed it down to Bellara and Harding, and ultimately locked in to romancing Harding. I already had a soft spot for her from our time together in Inquisition, and she's just great in general. Some sweetness (I love her subtly flower-embroidered collar), a lot of strength, self-awareness, devotion to her cause and her team, a certain level of maturity while still remaining open to new experiences. We're currently dealing with a physical incompatibility in the form of her raw lyrium expression triggering intense drowsiness in Rook. I'm curious to see where her Stone Sense storyline continues.

 

 

Harding is a bit of an outlier in general. She seems to be the one companion without any associated faction. I suppose that Kal-Sharok is her most affiliated location, but unlike, say, Arlathan Forest for Bellara you can't ever return there. She's most linked to the Inquisition, and I did love meeting the Inquisitor and getting notes from them, but that's a very distant southern faction you never directly interact with. On a practical level, while all other companions have unique gear you can buy from their faction merchant, Harding seems to have a few pieces scattered between a few different stores.

 

 

My favorite overall companion is probably still Davrin; as I noted in my previous post, I've been surprised by just how strongly he's grown on me. I initially assumed he would be a boring one-note fighter type, but he has such a great personality, an interestingly specific struggle he's dealing with, and... I dunno, I just really like him a lot.

 

 

Emmrich is probably the most out-there companion; I can't think of anyone similar from any other RPGs I've played. His vocal delivery reminds me of Dorian from Inquisition, which is great, but his personality and background are very different, despite both being mages. Like Bellara he has a nerdy obsessive quality to him, but he's her opposite in age, experience and maturity, reminding me of a beloved professor emeritus. Full of interesting ideas, confident while never seeming arrogant. He's often my go-to when I have a tough boss battle ahead but Harding isn't in my party, as I've built out his Heal ability and he synergizes well with a different set of companion abilities.

 

 

For the main story: I don't think there were any especially huge choices in this act like the Minrathous-vs-Treviso choice of Act 1. I've been generally supportive and encouraging of all companions as is my wont, although the form this takes can vary; some seem to respond better to toughness while others warm up more to a sympathetic ear. I don't think your tone ever locks you out of content, but you get stronger reactions one way or the other.

 

 

The last big story beat I hit was helping the remnants of the Grey Wardens defend against one of Ghilan'nain's blighted high dragons. This was a pretty epic fight: once you get the dragon down a good chunk, the second blighted  high dragon swoops in. But there's also a fun mechanic for the latter part of this fight where you can periodically summon off-screen allies (in my case Minrathous shadow dragons) to fire a powerful magic ballista at a designated target. By this point in the game I'd fought enough dragons to get the mechanics down. Periodically, one or more of their limbs will start glowing and appear in the modal overlay as a "Weak Point". After doing enough damage to the shifting "Weak Point"s, the dragon will collapse to the ground, exposing its heart as a new Weak Point. It takes massive damage when you hit that - I think each hit might be a crit or bypass defense or do multiplicative damage or something. Anyways, you want to whale on that exposed heart while you can, but that's also a great time to fire off your Ultimate Ability or invoke a lyrium-infused ballista bolt or otherwise do huge damage. So, even with two dragons on the field at the same time, I was able to get through this battle without dying and reloading, yay!

 

 

Immediately after this sequence and the next set of story beats, I picked up Taash's personal quests, which led me to yet another two cool dragon battles, one fire dragon and one ice dragon. So that was a good four dragons taken down in one long session - pretty fun!

 

 

I'm just dipping my toes into Act 3, which so far seems to be continuing the Act 2 theme of "The most important thing you can do now is to teach the Power Of Friendship to your team." I feel like the game is heading towards an ultimate boss battle against Elgar'nan, possibly with Ghilan'nain but maybe separately. But who knows. I haven't seen Solas for a while and I definitely still don't trust him. I am curious about Mythal; I did talk with Morrigan and Flemeth's alternate spirit, so I imagine Mythal will be an ally if anything. The stuff about the Titans has been interesting too, especially as that's been teased since the Descent DLC for Inquisition. I imagine that the Titans will be more prominent in a future DA game, but again, I've been surprised in the past!

 

 

Oh, I should also note here that I defeated the Formless One late in Act 2. I've loved how this tradition of semi-hidden, optional, super-duper-powerful bosses has continued throughout all four games, and of course that continues the great tradition of Kangaxx and similar "secret bosses" in Baldur's Gate and earlier games.

END SPOILERS

I'm already making good progress in Act 3 and enjoying the game. I think it took longer for this game to click with me than the earlier ones, in large part due to the more Action RPG style of it, but now that I'm invested in the companions, world and story I feel motivated to keep going, and I have enough experience with the controls that I'm no longer annoyed with them. (I do still wish this was more of a traditional tactical RPG than an action RPG, but that isn't my choice to make.) I probably have one more post to make after I wrap up the game, will see you in a bit with that!

Dat Antivan Veil

Checking in on Dragon Age Veilguard. I hit a pretty solid story beat recently; I think I'm probably out of Act I, assuming that is a thing for this game. I've finally assembled what seems to be my entire party, have some big story goals to pursue and a whole bunch of side-quests. So I wanted to write another little-ish post to capture my thoughts thus far, hoping to avoid writing too long of a novel after finally beating the game.

 

 

Let's start out with some purely mechanical notes.

 

 

The control scheme for exploration is pretty much the same as for Dragon Age Inquisition. It's been so many years since I've played that, and I'm abruptly reminded of how funny and mildly frustrating it is that "jump" and "use" are bound to the same key. Rook runs up to someone and hops up in the air when he wants to talk. Comes across a treasure chest and does a happy little hop. Comes across a door: do you pick the lock? Bash it down? Turn the knob? Nope: just jump straight up!

 

 

I do really appreciate the simplified inventory system. Armor just comes in complete sets, not individual pieces. New armor equipment drops from large treasure chests (marked on the map) or after clearing a stage; you can preview the equipment compared to your current piece and decide whether to swap or not. Each companion has their own separate gear, so you never need to sort through hand-me-downs. Equipment (armor, weapons, rings, runes) are never sold. You do sell miscellaneous items you pick up in the world, which in previous games were labeled "junk" or "trash". They are exactly the same in this game, except they've been rebranded as "valuables".

 

 

One mild annoyance is that there is an optimal way to sell the "valuables". Certain items are favored by particular vendors, so you're better off selling to them; you could also sell to other vendors for far less benefit. The only way to discover this is to travel around six different zones (with long loading times each) before selling to anyone, or else to pull up this Google Sheet and have it in front of you while you're deciding what to sell.

On the plus side, there's no carry limit for quantity or encumbrance, so you can skip past my absolute least favorite RPG activity; instead, just focus on playing the game, and sell the trash-er-I-mean-valuables when you need the cash.

None of this is remotely realistic, of course. Even less realistic is how finding a duplicate piece of equipment will upgrade the rarity of the existing piece you have: by definition, wouldn't it become less rare after you find two? But as a system it works great. Your gear keeps advancing: when you upgrade the level of one piece, every other piece in the category advances as well; and when you find a new piece, even if it isn't one you plan to use, it removes that from the pool and increases the odds of finding a piece you do want.

 

 

The world is pretty cool, although I've been spoiled by Elden Ring and to a lesser extent Baldur's Gate 3. DA:V feels like Inquisition, with large zones rather than an "open world". Each has its own unique atmosphere, whether a dripping gloomy swamp or a bright sunlit forest or a bustling dockside neighborhood. They do feel a bit generic fantasy-y, not as striking and original as Elden Ring... but that's okay, there is comfort in familiarity.

 

 

I do like how exploring pushes out the world as you uncover more of a zone's map but also connects earlier parts as well. You'll open doors that were locked on the other side, push down a tree to cross the canyon to where you originally came from. This makes subsequent travels through the area quicker and easier. It reminds me a lot of Elden Ring dungeon design, which eliminated back-tracking by providing shortcuts back to the start. But in Elden Ring it tended to be for one-time travel after finishing a dungeon or a streamlining the path to the boss. In DAV the entire world is linked like this, letting you cross-cross and move through the map more quickly and easily as the result of your previous exploration work.

 

 

There are a lot of different types of puzzles in the game. The rules seem inconsistent - when holding an arcane cube you can't jump. The types of puzzles tend to cluster by areas: arcane beams around fade portals, blight boils in blighted areas, wisps in the necropolis. The puzzles are fine, probably more enjoyable than the stand-alone puzzles like astrolobes in DAI. One thing that's a little annoying (as with navigation in general) is that it isn't clear when a particular puzzle can't be solved yet, you'll need to leave the area and come back after opening another door or something. 

 

 

Non-systemic puzzles have been good, nothing earth-shattering but also nothing too frustrating or difficult. Like one where you needed to make three statues point a certain way, and if you explore around the area you'll find miniature statues pointing the way you want. I did really enjoy a companion conversation back at the base where we griped about needing to solve puzzles to get loot - I think my Rook said something is, "I dislike random puzzles. There has to be some sort of a purpose!" Dragon Age has had some really good lampshading in the past, and this is right up there: we're playing in a universe where people are obsessed with putting annoying puzzles in their dungeons to thwart adventurers.

 

 

Combat also... I was going to say that it's like Inquisition, but it isn't. What is like Inquisition is enemy placement: there's a regular trickle of "trash fights," infinitely respawning low-to-mid-level enemies. You can get small amounts of XP and gold or trinkets from killing them. But they end up serving as resources in level progress. In Inquisition you could build up stuff like Guard from low-level fights and carry that into a boss fight. Similarly, in Veilguard you can get Momentum or power up your Ultimate from those trash fights, and enter the boss fight with a much stronger punch than if you had just entered directly from the quick-travel spawn-in point. 

 

 

Having played this some more, I really get now why people compare it with Mass Effect: it's basically exactly like that. You have two companions with you. They can never die. They fight on autopilot, but you can order their targets, and command them to use their special abilities on cooldown. You want to plan cross-team builds to use primers and detonators. I'm not complaining - Mass Effect combat was fun - but it is a shift from the previous Dragon Age games (which, to be fair, were each radically different from one another).

 

 

That said, for party composition I've mostly ignored companion builds or synergy. At first I prioritized bringing the people I liked. Then I started bringing people most relevant to the area. Now I'm also bringing the lowest-bonded to get their relation meter up; I think this advances when they complete a side-quest with you. I'll sometimes bring a strong and synergistic team if I'm specifically expecting a big fight and not exploration.

 

 

A quick note on the save system: after dealing with sparse and limited save points in Elden Ring, it has felt really refreshing to be able to save anywhere at any time (at least outside of combat). That said, it isn't a true save: previously-defeated non-boss enemies usually come back after loading a save, and if you've, say, burst three of five Blight boils, save and quit for the night, when you reload the next day you'll need to burst all five again. That hasn't been a big annoyance, and I'll still take it over Elden Ring style saves, but I've also started to make sure my end-of-day saves are at the end of a section and not in the middle when I can help it.

MINI SPOILERS

Early in the game, I was a bit struck by the casual language; in particular, some characters like Bellara have speech patterns closer to a modern teen than the standard faux-received-pronounciation generally associated with fantasy. Casual dialogue (with lots of modern swears!) has always been a part of the series but feels more pronounced now. Though, that also may be my reaction playing this game in my 40s vs playing Origins in my 20s; the characters here feel young but they're probably around the same age as people in Origins and Dragon Age 2. (Well, other than Wynn!)

 

 

Steam says I've played for 34 hours, which seems about right. I've spent a bit of time in the menus but not a ridiculous amount. I'm doing my standard RPG thing of trying to exhaust all side-quests before proceeding with the main game. Giving a slightly spoilery rundown of my game so far (mega spoilers for Inquisition):

 

 

My Rook is a male Qunari Rogue, somewhat recently taking the Veil Ranger specialization to focus on archery. He was a Shadow Dragon in Tevinter, and sees himself as a warrior defending the oppressed from the powerful, particularly breaking up slaving rings but more broadly anyone misusing their influence or authority. He would theoretically have some sympathy for Solas's crusade against the Elven gods, but is fixated on Solas's willingness to sacrifice innocent human life to tear down the veil, and as a result is consistently hostile to Solas in all our communications.

 

 

I think I mentioned earlier that Rook left the Mayor to deal with the consequences of the Blight, seeing it as a way to punish the putative leader for sacrificing his people. When the Evunaris attacked the cities, Rook opted to defend Minrathous first, mostly because of his affinity with the Shadow Dragons; once he could reach Antiva, though, he focused on clearing all the Blight possible.

 

 

I've recruited all companions, just recently getting Taash on board. I like all of them; Davrin is probably the one who has surprised me the most by how quickly he's growing on me, at first he seemed like a pretty generic Gray Warden but he has a really great personality, and I strongly relate to his bond with his griffin, which is a mix of affection, exasperation, humor and worry. I'm mostly flirting with Harding and Bellara, though I haven't committed to anyone yet.

 

 

The last major story thing was fighting Ghilan'nain and her dragon during the Siege of Weishaupt, which was a nicely epic sequence. I really loved how the companions you didn't bring in the party participated in the assault, which felt a bit like the action in Mass Effect Citadel. The boss fight was hard and fun; some annoying camera issues where a dragon's neck fills the screen so you can't see any of the dozen other enemies running around, and there's a recurring issue where you can get knocked into the water and insta-die-and-respawn, but even with those glitches I had a blast.

 

 

I continue to understand why reviewers compare this game to Mass Effect, and right now I'm particularly getting a Mass Effect 2 vibe: we've assembled this team of People With Particular Skills, and the explicit goal now is to Help People Solve Their Personal Problems so they can Focus On The Bad Guy. I'm not complaining! Mass Effect 2 was great, I'm already enjoying the Veilguard companions and expect to like them even more as I get to know them better.

 

 

Oh, and before I forget, I was a little bummed that so little of the world state from the first three games comes forward into this one, but it was fun to see the Inquisitor pop back up again. I kind of wish I had spent more time designing her; I decided that my first PC Aztar Cadash will be my canonical Inquisitor for this game, and she is a dwarf with darkish skin and short reddish hair, but really doesn't look much like my original one. I'm wondering now if a fan will ever build a tool to extract the Inquisition sliders (either from a save file or the Keep) and give steps on rebuilding them in Veilguard. But (a) the fact this game takes place a decade later does give at least some plausibility to looking different, and (b) having (who I think is) the original voice actor(s) back is hugely convincing.

 

 

More broadly, I am legitimately enjoying seeing (literally) old faces popping back up again. I was surprised to see Isabella make another appearance, I think she was MIA in Inquisition, other than maybe a War Table mission or two? She is visibly aged, which I honestly enjoy, it helps the world feel grounded and real. And somewhat similarly, seeing Morrigan appear was fantastic; she has not visibly aged, which makes a lot of sense given she is (a) a witch, and (b) Flemeth's child. But her style has changed (arguably more so than Isabella's), which gives the same sense of growth, that each person is the star of their own story and we get to see these stretches where we intersect.

 

 

 

 

END SPOILERS

So yeah, I'm definitely enjoying this game; it's too early to weigh in on how this compares with the earlier ones, at first it wasn't gripping me as strongly as I'd hoped but now that I have the team together and the main story has kicked in I'm getting a kick out of it. I'm looking forward to playing more and writing more about it!

The Somewhere Book

I'm a big fan of China Mieville, so it's a bit surprising that I first heard about his latest novel on The Colbert Report. It's an interesting book, co-written with the actor Keanu Reeves. Some years ago Reeves wrote a comic called BRZRKR, and more recently he and Mieville have collaborated on a novel "The Book of Elsewhere" that builds on the comic.

 

I haven't read BRZRKR, and I'm a little curious about the intended audience for TBoE, whether they assume that most readers are already familiar with the world and characters, or that they are not, or if they try to account for both. I honestly found the book a little hard to get into and struggled for the first hundred pages or so; I mildly suspect that, if I was already invested in the characters or familiar with their background, I might have gotten hooked earlier. I'm glad I stuck with it, as around the midpoint it started to click with me, and by the end I was really enjoying the ride.

MINI SPOILERS

One of the very few things I knew about BRZRKR heading into this novel is that it's a pretty gory comic. The main character, who variously goes by "B" or "Unute", is an ancient, immortal fighter. When he gets angry, he enters a sort of fugue state and becomes a whirling dervish of death. He's stronger than anyone on the planet and can take on entire squadrons of armed soldiers without serious injury; when he does get hurt, he rapidly heals; and even when he does die, as has happened many many times over tens of thousands of years, he is reborn again, with all his memories intact and ready to fight again.

The book mostly takes place in the present day, where B is the focus of a secretive special-ops agency of the US government: he's a one-man wrecking crew, but has an entire organization backing him up, giving him direction and support. A lot of the early book was referring back to previous events, including some deaths of soldiers attached to the unit, and I suspect but don't know that those are callbacks to the comics.

While the main plot unfolds in the present, there are a lot of chapters and sections that flash back to previous events in B's life, sometimes from his perspective and sometimes from the perspective of a mortal: a kid he encountered on a trans-oceanic voyage, or the woman he was married to for several decades, or an adversary. Mieville really unpacks and unspools the implications of B's life: how would someone's mind work if they had 60,000 years of memories to sift through? Would anything be able to surprise them? Would anything feel significant? Many of these flash-back events felt like one-off issues of a comic, where you take a break between big arcs and explore some backstory or a side character. In many cases, though, these end up directly tying into the main plot by the end.

By the end of the book, I concluded that Mieville was the perfect person to write this novel, in large part due to his mastery of the macabre. While this setting is very different from Bas-Lag, a lot of the description and imagery feels right out of Perdido Street Station: lots of blood that oozes and crusts and snags and snaps, eggs that are coated with slimy mucous membranes, bones that snap and tear into flesh. He'll tell the tale of a bullet as it passes through a body, the damage done within and the explosive mess it leaves as it exits. Fights are raw, brutal, physical, tolling. I've long thought of Mieville as a visceral author, in the sense of "filled with viscera," and this book is an exemplar of that aspect of him.

I should say that I don't, generally, enjoy those kind of books! I'm perfectly fine with glossing over the "gross bits" or leaving them out of the story entirely. That said, I think Mieville is extremely talented at that mode of writing.

Oh! And before I forget, I should say that I can't help but read B/Unute's lines in my head with Keanu Reeve's voice. It's pretty fun! Glancing at some art from the comic now, it seems clear that B is modeled after Keanu, so that's cool. (There's a character named "Keever" who I had also thought was based on him, just because of the name, but I think that's just me thinking that.)

MEGA SPOILERS

The plot takes a while to click in, and this ended up being one of those books where I got nervous near the end since it seemed like there was too much story left to go and too few pages. He does end up wrapping up everything in a satisfying way, though. I'll sum up my understanding of the overall story here, though most of the oldest stuff isn't made clear until near the very end of the book.

There are, broadly speaking, two primal forces in the universe, which B identifies as "Change" and "Entropy"; it feels a bit like a life/death or an order/chaos dichotomy, but is fundamentally different, as chaos and death can also be forms of change.

These forces have avatars, personalities, agendas. The "Change" force was likely responsible for the creation of life millennia ago. At some, rare points in the past, the "Change" force entered the body of females who had called upon it in times of great distress, and the women bear children: demigods, of whom B is one example. We know of a couple of humans, and one pig; there may be more. These beings all share immortality but otherwise are different.

The Entropy force wishes to end the Change force, and really all the dynamism of the universe. This will ultimately mean ending life, but one early step on the way is ending B.

Over the years B gets to know the big, as well as a half-sister, Vayn. B is identified with Death, while Vayn identifies with Life: she can make inanimate objects gain consciousness and move around, or bring back life to people who have died. Vayn tricks B into entering her church, binds him and tortures and kills him thousands upon thousands of times, before eventually realizing that they area actually the same: his ending of life is as essential as her creation of life. (Vayn tries to tell B this, but he refuses to let his raging fugue state lapse for long enough to listen.)

Many many years later, an agent of entropy, also known as Thowless, learns about B's activity in the Unit. Taking on the persona of Doctor Shur, a warm-hearted therapist, she becomes a trusted member of the Unit and builds bonds with the various soldiers, scientists and bureaucrats composing it. When one soldier dies at the hands of B, she subtly steers his lover into a supposed support group called the Life Project. While ostensibly a 12-step-style support group for grievers, it is actually a powerful cult run by Alam, a biological descendent of Vayn. Alam is guided by Shur, and grows to believe that by killing B, the avatar of Death, he can end Death itself and grant life to all people.

The infiltration into the Unit enables some funky things to happen, including what's basically a flesh golem going on a rampage, along with mysterious assassination attempts by super-fast invisible bugs. In the middle of this is Caldwell, a deep agent for what I think is yet another cult or secret society, who is turned by Alam and crew, and eventually traps B. Rather than fight, B agrees to surrender, and eventually reveals the situation to Alam. Shur is revealed, some people die, B emerges with a much better understanding of his place in the universe, and feeling much less alone.

I'm leaving out a whole bunch of plot there, but that's the main through-line as I understand it!

END SPOILERS

This did end up being a really enjoyable read. I'm still not really planning to pick up BRZRKR, but if I ever happen to run across the collection at the library or something I may check it out. It's one of those things that isn't really for me, but it is a very well-made example of what it is. I'm glad to have gotten to experience a slice of the genre, from one of my favorite authors no less!

Guard That Veil!

I finally started Dragon Age Veilguard, many months after it released and about ten years after the previous installment "Trespasser" came out. I'm still very very early in the game; Steam says I have about 10 hours, including character creation. But I wanted to jot down some first impressions. If previous games are any indication, I'll have much more to write later on!

 

 

MINI SPOILERS

Veilguard continues the series' pattern of changing what feels like everything about the game with each new entry. There's a total new combat system, a total new visual aesthetic. On the visuals, there's a very prominent purple motif that carries through all the menus and user interface, as well as much of the gameplay. It's really striking, and I think I like it.

 

 

For combat, I'm still getting used to it. The combat reminds me a lot of what I've seen of Hogwarts Legacy, a real-time action RPG that's oriented around dodges and parries and counterattacks. For the most part you'll attack an enemy until you see a glow around your PC's head signaling an incoming attack, then dodge or parry to avoid the damage, and resume attacking. Your companions' special abilities occur on cooldowns, while your own can be activated after you do enough damage.

 

 

You acquire skill points by leveling up and occasionally by finding special items, then spend those skill points in a web of possible abilities. This aspect is similar to skills in Inquisition, which in turn owes a huge debt to Final Fantasy X. One big change is specializations: you directly unlock a specialization by reaching it in the tree, instead of requiring a special quest or unlock as in previous Dragon Ages. (Dragons Age?)

In a blow for the series, you now only can bring two companions with you on quests, down from the traditional three. Some quests are locked to a particular companion, leaving a lone slot to fill. The overall dynamic now feels very similar to Mass Effect, in particular how you need to prepare for synergies: each companion will be able to inflict a certain status effect (like Sundered, Weakened, etc.), and will be able to "detonate" another status effect, exactly like in Mass Effect building teams that can product Biotic Bursts or Tech Explosions.

 

 

Companion builds have a similar skill-tree unlock system, but significantly simplified from the player character's, and it appears that you get companion skill points by progressing their stories instead of from leveling. In combat, companions mostly run on auto-pilot, but you can order them to use cooldown abilities on specific enemies, or can requests buffs for yourself.

The game keeps the Barrier system that's been around for ages, but seems to have dropped the Guard mechanic that was introduced in Inquisition. Enemies may have Armor that you need to take down before you can stagger them, or barriers that will regenerate after a delay, so usually you want quick, light attacks on Barrier enemies and slow, heavy attacks on Armor enemies.

I'm playing as a male Qunari rogue. I didn't spend as much time as usual in character creation, but I'm very very very very happy to see that the hairstyle options are dramatically improved over what Inquisition offered. I'm also pleased to see Dragon Age following the path of Baldur's Gate III and other recent RPGs in allowing mix-and-matching of sex and gender characteristics, where you can vary your character's voice, genitals, pronouns, etc. It's interesting how franchises seem to start exploring in this space with NPCs before later opening the door to PCs to escape the traditional rigid divisions in character creation.

 

 

I was mildly bummed that the Dragon Age Keep is no longer in use; instead, there's an option buried in character creation where you can make a handful of selections about what happened in Inquisition. I'm not surprised about this - maintaining lore consistency becomes exponentially more complex as the number of games grow, many casual fans probably don't remember what they chose 15 years ago in Origins, and properly supporting the vast number of decision points Inquisition did would have required spending a ton of engineering time and money in content that most players would never experience.

 

There is a very light Origin option for your character, where you can select the faction they were associated with prior to the events of this game. It's much less involved than the Origins origins, but offers more choice than we got in DA2 or Inquisition, so that's cool.

 

 

Your main character is known as Rook, although that's clearly a code name, and they have an actual name you can select (which nobody will ever use). Again, this makes me think a lot of Mass Effect with Shepherd and Ryder. We kind of went through this with Hawke, but Hawke had a much more fixed background, while Rook's varies based on your origin. I have noticed that Rook seems significantly more dominant from the get-go than any of the previous protagonists. The DA:O silent protagonist has a very slow and gradual climb in authority throughout the game, and even at the end is still arguably playing second fiddle to other folks like Morrigan, Alistair and Logain. Hawke canonically gains power between acts 2 and 3, but during the actual gameplay portion is always a lone agent against the world. The Inquisitor grows into a position of authority within roughly the first third of the game. Here, Rook seems to be giving orders and steering the direction from basically the start. That isn't bad or good, just different. It does kind of make me think of the difference between, say, GTA games where your protagonist starts off riding bicycles and finding baseball bats versus Saint's Row where the game might start with you being the President of the United States and firing off laser death rays from a UFO.

 

 

As for the story: Again, I'm very early on. (This still counts as Mini Spoilers for Veilguard, but probably Mega Spoilers for Inquisition and earlier games). You start off on somewhat familiar ground, working with Varric and Harding to track down Solas. In my backstory my Inquisitor vowed to stop Solas and kept the Inquisition active under the Chantry; so far that hasn't impacted this game but I expect it will. My Rook is similarly anti-Solas, though I am growing increasingly curious about the implications of that. It's been clear for a while that Solas sees himself as a good guy, and the damage he's causing as a regrettable sacrifice for a greater cause. My Rook isn't having any of that nonsense, though.

 

 

So far I've recruited Harding the scout, Neve the detective, Bellara the Veil-Jumper, and Lucanis the Antivan Crow. Since Rook is a Rogue, that's a solid 3/5 rogue-heavy party! I've been prioritizing Harding so far, although it looks like all companions are eligible romance interests. I am really enjoying the direction of the party so far. In Inquisition, I was a bit bummed that there were twice as many male companions as female, so it was pretty fun to have the first three companions in Veilguard all be ladies.

 

 

MEGA SPOILERS

For decision points... I brought Harding with me into greater danger during out first confrontation with Solas, and as a result she's been pretty beaten up, though her spirit remains as strong as ever. I opted to leave the Mayor of that one blighted town to his fate. In general I'm always a good guy who believes that everyone is capable of redemption... but what the Mayor did was heinous and he didn't seem remorseful about his actions. I was interested to see Harding approve of my harsh action; I would never think of Harding as "evil". But that's always been one of my favorite things about Dragon Age: it's better than any other game I've played at evoking complex moral dilemmas that explode the trite good/evil dichotomies most other games wallow in.

 

 

 

 

END SPOILERS

I think that's about it! So far I'm enjoying the game; I'm not fully "hooked" just yet but I imagine that will set in as the plot advances. I'll probably be semi-completionist in the game, I usually like doing all the companion quests and faction quests and things, but won't feel compelled to, like, get 100% of the collectibles or anything like that. I expect I'll have at least a few more posts to drop as the game kicks into gear!