Okay, Dragon Age: The Veilguard was VERY fun. The combat wasn't tedious at all from the very start, which I was pleasantly surprised by because I remembered (and have since rediscovered) Inquisition having the most tedious combat mechanics I have ever played with, and I'm including Bloodborne in that. Handling two party members instead of the three with the ability wheel was awesome, too. LOVED the combos, loved that I could charge my shots, loved a lot of things.

In my first playthrough, I played a they/them qunari rogue and romanced Davrin; I decided on this before even meeting him when a guide to romancing the characters I skimmed online said something like 'he'd be happy to be your prey,' and I looked at him, and I looked at that sentence, and I looked at my qunari rogue, and I looked into his eyes again, and I thought, I am going to destroy you, and it's going to be delicious. Obviously this doesn't happen in-game, not really, but I want everyone to know what my initial rationale was.

And then I kinda went and fell in love with him myself. Had the same thing happen with Josie in Inquisition, to be honest. I don't do dating sims because they bore me, and I've never been the kind of person who reads fic and images themselves in anybody's shoes, but I'm not above living vicariously through a carefully constructed avatar. And Davrin is hot as fuck. And has a pet bird. Which from the very moment they join you in the Lighthouse, you can go up and SQUEEZE WITHIN AN INCH OF ITS LIFE. It doesn't even try to squirrel away! What a good good boy.

How am I supposed to sacrifice Davrin when the griffon goes with him? I considered it in my second playthrough, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I made Taash a widowex again. Sorry Taash. Sorry Harding, who was my second choice for romancing also.

My choices during my first playthrough were my usual "I'm a good person and this is what I'd do in an ideal world" kind -- I negotiated at the beginning, let the mayor go, saved Treviso because I thought Minrathous had more defenses and also knew Neve would hide her disappointment better than Lucanis, and was generally a bleeding heart all around. I'm glad I got to play through Lucanis and Spite's meeting of the minds so to speak, which is not present in the saved-Minrathous version I got.

I disliked Solas less in this game than Inquisition, probably because there was no romantic aspect to Rook's interactions with him and I didn't have to deal with that part of his bullshit. I almost picked the tricking him option at the end of my second playthrough, but I felt like Chyrium had warmed up to him too much.

Chyrium is one of the D&D characters I bring out into various one-shots and currently play in a dungeon crawl as a circle of the sea druid, though she's usually a tempest cleric. I decided to make her in the game and have her as my Rook for my second playthrough because I needed a solid, three-dimensional excuse to make all the opposite choices and I didn't want to make one up, but I had a ready-made one right there. It was interesting as a TTRPG player too to see which of Rook's mannerisms and ways of phrasing things were completely wrong for a character that wasn't meant to slot into "Rook."

Mostly, from the get-go, she punched first and asked questions later. Of all the factions, the Shadow Dragons made the most sense for her, which I thought would encourage her to save Minrathous, and she'd also be into Neve, who I couldn't imagine wanting to romance otherwise, and it was an adorable romance. (She called me Trouble! I said with hearts in my eyes at one point.) I also wanted to try a mage, and Chyrium is already an elemental spellcaster. I mostly did a second playthrough because I missed out on a single trophy -- getting Mythal's essence without fighting her -- but I had a great time. Put the game on easy and just had a romp. Loved seeing the different quests in Treviso and Minrathous after saving Minrathous, too. Getting to pick the Archon, and then when I thought Neve was taking me on a date and it turned out she was meeting with the Threads and then became their leader? Game kept me on my toes a little bit, I liked that. God, Chyrium dating a crime boss is so perfect I could cry.

The hardest part of the second playthrough was my desire to romance Davrin again (I was so strong) and wanting to take Neve with me at the end, which left me scrambling a little for who to send where in the final attack. In the end I put Emmrich on the wards and took Davrin and Neve along -- first playthrough I'd taken Davrin and Emmrich through both last quests. I had Bellara and Neve with me until I had to send Bellara off to get blighted.

Replaying Dragon Age: Inquisition now is taking some getting used to, because the combat does fucking suck, even on easy. There's nothing fun about pressing R2 and shooting arrow after arrow after arrow after arrow until I have the whatever to use an explosive shot or whatever. And there's way more shit to keep track of, though I appreciate that I can sell the armor and weapons I don't need; kinda wish Veilguard had let me do that so I could buy out all the shops and all the decor (that I then never used). Veilguard's puzzles were also infinitely tighter. But I'm having fun. I made another qunari archer, but male this time because I want to romance Dorian, and honestly he does kinda make the whole thing worth it. I forgot how much I loved Dorian. I just got to Skyhold last night and just like the first time in 2020, I was so confused by the Haven attack that I still have very little idea who I saved or didn't. Apparently the blacksmith was fine but Minaeve is dead. Shrug.

The world also feels significantly more fucked up from a moral standpoint. I definitely saw some posts when Veilguard came out about how all the careful cultural worldbuilding fell by the wayside and I... was not mad about that. I can see how someone who's really into Dragon Age would be disappointed as hell by that, though. I feel like the stakes are way higher in Inquisition somehow, like I'm gonna make one wrong move and everyone's going to die or hate me or damn the world to ruin. My position in Veilguard didn't feel anywhere near as precarious.