DragonAge - The Veilguard

I am about a third of the way through DragonAge - The Veilguard, playing as a warrior. I made him look like the character from my books, Talon. 

I love how expressive BioWare have made the characters, especially your hero, Rook. Before this game, my number one favourite game of all time was DragonAge Inquisition, followed up by Final Fantasy X. I have also been a long-term player of World of Warcraft, since vanilla. 

I loved Horizon Zero Dawn and got partway through Horizon Forbidden West. I appreciate games like the Ark Survival series, Valheim and Conan Exiles for the setting and survival aspects, but find them a bit too hard. No Man's Sky occupied me on multiple platforms for hundreds of hours.

But there's nothing quite like seeing your character up close and personal in the movie cinema-style cut scenes and live action of BioWare's masterpieces. The dialogue feels believable. The characters are well-rounded. There's sometimes a bit too much talking and not enough opportunities to practice my combat skills, use new weapons and armour and abilities.

So far, I am loving this game. Now that I've got the hang of it, I am thinking I might play it through again as a rogue once I'm done. BioWare have removed all the tedious and annoying parts of RPGs and left in only the good stuff. You don't have to spend time managing inventory. You have no weight limit to worry about and that slows down other games. There is no boring travel between relevant scenes - everything remains relevant and you can fast travel at all times.

The combat took some getting used to, but now that I'm reasonably proficient at blocking it feels much more realistic than any other game I've played. I can slow it down by pressing TAB (which I love, as it gives it a slightly more turn-based feel than live action RPGs). The character will automatically turn to face mobs that he has blocked with his shield. You don't really turn yourself or your view, but the game handles the camera angle for you, which is good. Every scene feels carefully designed and perfectly angled to optimise your field of view and the gameplay experience.

This is the kind of game that is my dream for The Psion Saga to be made into. The reason I think my fantasy series would work well in this type of game is the interesting ways all the different characters from the books would be able to contribute to the plot and action. The hero has special powers that nobody else has, but there are others who are more proficient at different kinds of combat or other skills that they need. The fantasy setting, attention to detail, world-building, monster creation and magic system would be fascinating in a video game.

I'll write more about that in another post.