It's like if Unpacking was set in a whole city and had cute additional story beats threaded throughout. Also, spooky. Not in a bad way. This is such a cute game!

It's a fairly short but pretty reasonably challenging game. Hits that balance between easy & difficult well enough; played it with a friend and we came close to using hints, but just about managed to avoid them. Would recommend for people looking for a fun puzzle experience.

Don't forget to carry your package!!

if only multiromance weren't locked behind a mod! Heinrix's romance made me tear up. Fantastic game, fun lore, good introduction to 40K as a universe.

If you're new to Dragon Age, you'll have a great time with this game. The writing is wonky and cringe at times, especially at the start of the game, but it gets there. The combat is fun and fluid, the story is pretty decent, and the ending sequence is fantastic. There's a number of very touching sidequests, the game has some dark moments, and it's all-round enjoyable.

The problem is, it's meant to be a Dragon Age game.

Your world-state? That's gone. You keep three choices and your Inquisitor, whose mind Rook is able to sway regardless. The ability to roleplay your protagonist as you like? That's effectively gone. Your Rook will randomly spout backstory pieces unrelated to what you agreed to at the start. Romance? Minimal; I had maybe three romantic scenes and they didn't involve a kiss until the very final stages of the game. You can't talk freely to your companions anymore, you don't get to check how they're handling big events. There's intra-party conflict, but it's minor and mostly brushed over. You can't really disagree with anyone, you can't play evil, you can't kick people out of the party.

The game's bones are good. The companions are all very likeable (well, maybe save one) with good motivations and stories behind them, but the way their stories are told really suffers. There's a lot of 'telling' instead of 'showing', and a lot of stuff that's glossed over and barely touched on. This also extends to the rest of the world: we learn about major world changes through letters instead of seeing anything of them.

Veilguard also treats the world of Thedas like a much lighter, happier setting. Elven protagonists are treated identically to humans save one or two backstory mentions. Dwarves don't mind humans or elves being around. Mages don't have any issue doing whatever they want. There's no conflict or tension with the factions, there's no discussion of Tevinter's slavery other than 'it's bad' (and that's promptly brushed over and ignored), and things like the Crows' historical record of torturing child recruits or the Lords of Fortune's history of piracy are pretty much brushed over or painted with lighter colours. You have a bunch of shady groups working together, and they're all just treated as heroes! What?!

If you want a fun RPG with some interesting choices, good combat, fun characters, and 70 - 80 hours of content to 100% the game and all achievements, Veilguard is for you. If you want Dragon Age 4: that died on the cutting room floor somewhere in the multiple reboots that were forced on this game while Bioware prioritise Mass Effect. There'll be no DLCs for Veilguard, apparently, which only makes it worse: the game will never live up to its own promises.

It's like Stardew Valley, but the setting is high fantasy, the writing is excellent (I love the characters!), and it doesn't suffer from being in early access. The QoL is great, too! Given the choice between current-day Stardew Valley and early-access Mistria, I'd pick Mistria.

Really good story, beautiful characters, lovely plotline. The choices you make matter quite a bit, but it's not hard to do the right thing if that's what you want. I was genuinely emotional quite a few times. Would 100% recommend this to any fans of Coffee Talk, VA11 Hall-A, et cetera, or anyone who likes a good fantasy adventure story.