Aside from the hiccup you can have with the changing art style from a technical perspective, it's easily the most sound, best looking and technically almost flawless game BioWare has produced in a looooong time if you go back to two decades now.

It's just sad that the result of it's other aspects are so dissonant with the franchise core DNA. That and the fact it obviously bares the scars of it's rebooted development from a multiplayer game to now a single player one.

Considering that there was a decade between Dragon Age: Inquisition and Veilguard... I feel the jump in visuals isn't significant.

There were moments in Inquisition with large scenic vista's and I thought "wow, that looks great!" especially back in 2014. - It really showed what Frostbite could do.
Veilguard uses the same game engine and some of the artistic choices (I.E. Characters) were a slight regression... But I never had that moment where I wanted to stop and just check out the scenery like I did in inquisition.

This is on PC of course, so I was never hamstrung with the 1080P blurry visuals of consoles back in 2014.
Inquisition in 2024 at 4k with Redux overhaul mod can look spectacular.


I was actually happy with the writing in Veilguard for the most part, I love the story arc of Varric and Solas, their characters have come a long way.

But sadly we didn't get to see more of Morrigan and other characters from Origins which I felt were the strongest in the series. (Especially the bickering between Morrigan and Alistair.)

The humor and sarcasm wasn't as pronounced.

Overall it's a good game, it's just not a industry defining game, if you liked inquisition you will like Veilguard.

They butchered this franshise.

The graphical leap isn't good enough for the 10 year gap for sure, as I mentioned big thing for me is it looks far too cartoony and the lighting just isn't as nice. We know Frostbite is worthy of better, I've seen Dead Space (2023). That example video you showed it s good example of what it could do 10 years ago, although the field of view they have is weird.

As for writing, Solas was done well but to me he was really the only part, some of Rooks voicelines feel forced to make sure you follow the narrative, instead of feeling natural, as per your mention of sarcasm and most the sarcasm wasn't even sarcasm. Having it said in a northern accent as well, it should have basically been insults. :P

However:

"if you liked inquisition you will like Veilguard."

Strongly disagree, you like generic action games where you collect chests for upgrades, play Veilguard. 

Inquisition is one of my favourite games ever, you can see how DA2 and to DA:I progressed, especially with combat, exploration, customisation and even RPG stuff etc. But Veilguard is nothing like either.

Now I'm convinced of access journalism. 

And you also prolly shouldn't get too much invested into this whole ordeal. Opinions on the matter have been numerous, bad/good, everything has been said. Let it soak in and just play what you want.

Well, there must be something to this game cause I woke up this morning and said fuck it, I'll grind some levels and do some side quests to kill those the drakes. I was having fun and yhat's something hard come by these days. So that's what I'm gonna do, I suspect thing should be easier if I level up myself and my pawn to 40 or so and add to mage offense pawns to my group.
Maybe there's a vocation I can unlovk that'll switch up the gameplay and make me more powerful.

I don't respect any outlet that gave this game a stellar review. Veilguard is 5 out 10 game on it's own. It's an average game. It's not buggy. It functions as intended but that's it. Saddling it with the Dragon Age IP just makes it even worse. Let's take the Dragon Age out it.

• Shallow combat. The story arc I've seen with multiple reviews and player impressions is that even people that enjoyed the combat change their mind by the end of the game. It has no depth. This compounded by poor enemy variety and bad enemy AI. Each faction looks different but their enemy mobs have the same archtype and function. This is made worse by Bioware substituted a larger health pool for better enemy AI. 
• Poor Writing. The game treats it's audience like they have the memory of a gold fish. As that Angry Joe review points out. They repeat the same information repeatedly in short time frame. They essentially talk down to the player. Squadmate conflict resolutions has Rook play the role of kindergarten teacher and his squad mates acting like 5 year olds. You can seem to call out their bad behavior. Taash is stickler about having their identity respected but can't extend the same courtesy to Emmerich and you can't say anyting about that. It boggles my mind that this game's script got reviewed and given the okay. It was clearly play tested at length, hence the lack of bugs, but it sounds like the game was victim of "toxic positivity"
• Illusion of choice. Veilguard lacks choice by in large. Many of the dialog options are presented as different options but will play out exactly the same. Others will give the appearance of being different but given an identical result. Biggest example being how Rook handles the Warden Commander. The conclusion of the game, which is hailed as greatness, is a poor man's version of the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission. In ME2 characters could loyal to Shepard and yet still die if you put them in a wrong role. In Veilguard, with the exception of their Ashley/Kaidan style choice, you members will survive no matter what role you place them in, as long as they are loyal. Again, Veilguard gives the player the illusion of choice.

That's just the negatives of the game without taking the Dragon Age issues into account. The development team had zero respect for the choices of existing Dragon Age fans. Which makes Veilguard being a direct sequel to Inquistion a terrible choice from the outset. This results in returning characters being caricatures of themselves because theere is no mechanism to account for things they've done in the past. Varric was never that close to Solas. Varric was close to Hawke and potentially the Inquisior.  Morrigan's son Kieran can't be addressed nor can the Well of Sorrows choice. The latter of which has significant effect on how she views the Inquisitor. Isabela is Isabela in name only. They butchered the true nature of multiple factions. The Antivan Crows are NOT good guys. The buy children and turn them into assassins. Veilguard doesn't reflect their true nature at all. Ugh...this game is such slap in the face.

They done it. 30% sale on console and even bigger sales at retailers here. Wow, this thing must have bombed hard. I was expecting a January sale or a very slight sale for Xmas, not one this massive. It's half price at some retailers. They are trying to get some coins back now and have given up on the idea of breaking even.

Sorry to hear you put yourself through that. I spent a lot of time watching it in a let's play, time I wish I could get back.