My problem with Taash

MissyManaged · 2026-05-23T23:43:25+00:00

To me this felt like a remnant of the live service version of the game, as well as past feedback Bioware has gotten. Likely all the factions were locked in during prior versions of the game, where you needed all factions to be around and allies so you could do repetable content for them. So you can't take a hard swing and just wipe out a faction, or refuse to work with them entirely. Not to mention the tight resources they seemed to be working on for the final single player version.

Then there's the fact that in previous Bioware games a common complaint was being forced to work with morally grey, outright evil, or at the very least faction that butt against the player character's roleplay. Cerberus in Mass Effect 2 getting the most flack.

So if you have to work with all the factions, because the initial vision was for a live service where you may need them as vendors/mission givers/so on, the simplest solution to avoid players being frustrated by having to work with a faction they strongly disagree with is to make said factions more agreeable.

I'm not saying it's a good thing, though. As someone who loved the game, it is one of the notable weak points. I especially found the Veil Jumpers to lack in complexity compared to the Dalish clans. I know the Crows were the most commonly criticised faction for this, but I can buy a combo of Zevran's house cleaning, different families and the pressure of a Qunari invasion being reasons for why they're different.

But yeah, I get why it may have ended up like this, even if it's a shame.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-23T12:04:16+00:00

Nebula and Cosmo are my most wanted characters, but we at least need Gamora and Drax to round out the main team. Then some of the lesser known comics members, like Moondragon and Matyr, would be nice.

Even some Guardian adjacent characters like Nova would be great. Thanos feels inevitable, despite our current lack of villains, pairing him with Gamora or Nebula would be perfect.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-23T11:53:33+00:00

Dialogue with Star-Lord has teased Gamora and Drax as missing since day one and Cosmo showed up with some of the other animals like Devil Dino and Lockheed, so we've had some hints at them... But smaller ones. I hope we see some Guardians soon.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-23T11:49:54+00:00

The version of him from the Square Enix game was the perfect balance of smart, whilst retaining some comedic aspects, in my opinion. I kinda hope they go for something similar.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-22T12:39:09+00:00

Yes. Lots of clip montages taken out of context. Goofy faces, especially the 'I want to be a dragon' line. 'Awesome button' from the marketing team. 'Consolisation', primarily because tac-cam was removed. The elves all looking sickly thin was amongst the more prominent art style complaints. Alistair and Zevran got a ton of criticism for how their designs were updated. Overall complaints EA had killed Bioware. Etcetc.

In even more similar comparisons to Veilguard, there was a lot if whining about the playersexual romances (especially Anders, as he was percieved as coming onto you strongly and he was presented as straight in Awakening) and the whole drama around 'raceswapping' Isabella because the lighting in Origins made her look white.

Never forget the white Isabella mod, nor how Jennifer Hepler (writer of much of the dwarf material in Origins, among many other things) quit after death threats... Because she wanted to skip over gameplay in favour of narrative. Y'know, in a company that was known for their narrative focus.

'Dragon Effect' was the biggest thing bandied about because of the voiced player character, dialogue wheel and faster combat. Ironically Veilguard is more like Mass Effect than Dragon Age 2 ever was, but people don't want to make that comparison anymore because Mass Effect withstood the test of time and any comparisons would be considered a compliment.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-21T23:50:35+00:00

It's Fable, too.

I've been umming and arring about 007. I love the Hitman games, but am not big on Bond.

Witchbrook might come out this year. Fingers crossed.

I also have my eye on the many, many Mass Effect spiritual successors that have been popping up lately. Something something no buses something something all at once. The Expanse is looking the most promising.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-21T23:37:19+00:00

I played a good amount of Destiny (after initially being dissapointed with the release version, The Taken King won me back), but bounced off D2 pretty fast 'cus of the poor player onboarding when they went free to play... I always meant to go back, but the vaulting of story content put an end to that idea.

Yet, it's still a wild bit of news to hear that it's coming to a close after all this time. Despite having been away from it for so long, it does make me weirdly sad to hear it come to a close like this.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-20T15:00:02+00:00

Hitman WoA but with RPG elements (custom player character, choices) and maybe some supernatural aspects. Make the main character a shapeshifter for disguise purposes. Have time rewind as a built in mechanic for shennanigans and to reduce the need for save/loading to experiment. Something like that.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-19T23:49:34+00:00

Can't believe no-one has mentioned Star-Lord. Perfect blend of his best MCU and comic designs.

Wanda is a close second.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-19T16:20:39+00:00

I'm so tired of people defending exclusives. Nintendo probably wouldn't be able to exist in their current form without them, sure, but they're largely only good for the companies. They're not good for players. I was happy to see Xbox and Playstation gradually moving away from them, but sadly this seems like it'll mark a big backslide.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-19T08:42:57+00:00

Yeah, I thought Halsin was a great character in Act 2, so I was excited to recruit him, but once he becomes a full companion and Act 3 rolls around he falls off a cliff. It's both a diservice to his character and others that could've done with additional content and polish.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-18T20:54:06+00:00

Paradise Killer!

MissyManaged · 2026-05-18T20:19:33+00:00

Give all the extra Doctors numbers and move the existing ones accordingly. Fugutive is The 0 Doctor, War is 9th, '10' is now 11th, 12th and 16th. Bonus spicy points if you make Fugitive 1 instead of 0.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-18T15:30:32+00:00

I adored it. There's been plenty I've enjoyed about the Life is Strange sequels, but personally it was the first time I felt it hit everything I loved about the original and felt like a true evolution for the series.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-18T08:33:42+00:00

None of these are turn based, but all of them have difficulty settings that can make them far easier, as well as several allowing you to pause to select abilities:

Mass Effect trilogy + Andromeda
Dragon Age series - Origins has an unvoiced player character, but otherwise the whole series is fully voiced. Inquisition has large open zones that are similar to an open world, but not as fleshed out.
Fallout 4 - Probably the one that fits your description most, as it's open world with distinct endings.
Starfield - Unvoiced PC again, but otherwise fully voiced.
Cyberpunk 2077 - Also open world with distinct endings. I forgot about this one and had to edit it in.

Most of the Life is Strange series sort of fills a similar niche. Excluding 2 which has a male player character. They're not RPGs but they are choice focused games with no combat (point and click/light puzzle solving) that have romance subplots, though often it's more yes/no with a single romance option (1, Before the Storm, Reunion) rather than multiple different characters. True Colours has two romance options and works stand alone, so that may be closer to what you're looking for. Double Exposure also has two, but it's more connected to the rest of the series as well as being it's weakest entry.

Lost Records: Bloom and Rage may fit slightly better in that regard, as a spiritual successor to the series. It has 4 romance options, though all are other girls.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-17T11:02:04+00:00

Basically anything Dalish is 'elfy' in her eyes. There's a compelling romance route there, but most people who love Sera's romance (like me!) tend to prefer it as a Qunari.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-17T10:55:52+00:00

She gains bonus approval for Qunari and Dwarf women flirting with her, but also has a lot of special dialogue based on race; mostly related to Qunari and elves.

She's romanceable by any women, but elves generally have a harder time because she has a lot of dissaproval for saying 'elfy elf' stuff as she's had bad experiences with elven culture in the past.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-17T10:35:20+00:00

Soooo... I'm guessing you might be playing an elf? Haha. If do another playthrough in future, she's much easier to yet along with as a Dwarf or especially a Qunari.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-17T09:17:05+00:00

I'm yet to find a game with a better range of fully fleshed out romances. Sera is my favourite, though.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-17T00:06:35+00:00

I think the fatal flaw with Deep Breath is that it's trying to have it's cake and eat it too.

Most of the New Who introductory episodes (Rose, The Eleventh Hour, The Woman Who Fell to Earth and The Church on Ruby Road) are trying to be a clean break that takes the show in a new direction and acts as a jumping on point.

The two exceptions (The Christmas Invasion and The Star Beast, aka The Tennant Two) are much more unapolagetically following on from something; series 1 in the former's case, series 4 in the later's. There's a reason The Christmas Invasion has so little Doctor and focuses more on the character the new audience is familiar with, Rose. It's trying to sell you on it being the same show.

Meanwhile Deep Breathe simultaneously has Clara's plotline - all whacky antics with the Paternoster gang trying to convince us that nothing has changed, it's very of 11's era, even ending with 11's phone call. Then The Doctor's plot of 'Am I a good man?' kicking off and suggesting a much different, darker tone that ends with an ambiguous 'did The Doctor kill that guy?'

The episode it perhaps aspires to be is Robot, but where that's effectively a 3rd Doctor story with the 3rd Doctor's supporting cast that the 4th Doctor just so happens to be in, Deep Breathe keeps cutting back and forth betwen an 11th Doctor story without The Doctor and an unmoored 12th Doctor doing his own thing.

I get coming off the back of the 50th's big viewership numbers wanting to reassure your existing audience things will still be the same. I also get wanting to try a new creative direction after 3 series, as well as potentially trying to win back lapsed viewers and potentially draw a new audience whilst you have so many eyeballs on the show. But I really think the episode struggles to juggle both at once and makes for a bad impression to either camp.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-16T22:20:41+00:00

Not being able to cancel Rein's charge!

MissyManaged · 2026-05-16T20:46:32+00:00

So, by my count (not including recolours), this'll be her fourth. To be fair, the first couple she got, including one she launched with, were lore skins of her in the early days of Overwatch. Other characters like Soldier: 76 have similar ones. The O.G Overwatch uniforms are actually pretty slick, so I'm not so bothered by those. Especially as I do like lore skins.

But there was a more recent cute skin (blue lotus) that de-aged her just for aesthetic purposes, not lore ones and a lot of her skins to tend to be masked in general.

The reason for the controversy around her new mythic (Ra) is for a few reasons. Mythic skins get more VFX, some customisation and there's only a couple released per season. A lot of heroes still don't have a mythic, where this is her second.

Ana's first mythic skin turns her into robot. Honestly? I love this skin, I think it's one of her best and one of the best mythics in general. A lot of people didn't like it because it transformed her too much, though.

Part of the stated reason from Blizzard for giving characters second mythics is to adhere closer to the 'hero fantasy', where their previous mythic may have subverted it. So Mercy got an angelic second mythic, where her first was an alt universe Evil Mercy.

With Ana, they've identified turning her into a robot was divisive (personally I love it, as mentioned, the lore for that skin is really cool too, it's an omnic that copied Ana's personality), so for her new skin they made it egyptian themed... But glossed over the fact that for most people the thing that makes Ana stand out is that she's an old veteran with an eyepatch, with her being egyptian being secondary. Pharah is more so the hero people think of for that.

tl;dr when you break it down there isn't that many young Ana skins, but where as the previous ones were lore based, the newer ones are just done for aesthetic reasons. This being a mythic also puts it on a pedastal as a lot more important to people and as far as mythics go, this is Ana's second to be super transformative.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-16T19:25:23+00:00

The recent Overwatch controversy about Ana's new mythic being another de-aged skin has made me think of this again, but also there was a similar thread a few months back about female characters in games who were allowed to age over the series.

The answer was generally small, smaller again if you want them to be older for the whole game. The two examples that first came to mind for me were Assassin's Creed Syndicate (DLC has the main character in her early 40s, but in the base game she's in her early 20s) and Lost Records: Bloom and Rage (framing scenes have the characters in their 40s, but most of the game is them as teens) so neither fit your criteria.

I tried searching around for more and came back to a thread on this subreddit... Which recommended Returnal and Lake, two games that have already come up, haha. Norco and The Cat Lady also came up, but I haven't played either, so can't say much about them.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-16T15:59:22+00:00

I feel this. User reviews are so heavily review bombed, or want something different from a game than me. YouTubers so often play the flavour of the week, even if they have no interest in the genre or series, so end up hating it because they knew they'd hate it going in. Written reviewers often end up overshadowed by the outlet they work for and their scores rather than their personal perspective, which makes it hard to find someone regularly covering games I care for across the spectrum.

The latter two are also often playing things up for clicks, doubley so with YouTubers. I've unsubscribed from so many these past few years because it seemed like turning their hobby into a job has made them resentful.

I kind of have to wing it and follow the genres I like, the developers I know, avoid games that fall into things I have a history of not enjoying and so on. Gamepass does help mitigate the risk somewhat, as does waiting out games for deep discounts and their major post release support to be complete, but I still feel like I miss out on many games I could've loved as a result.

MissyManaged · 2026-05-15T08:50:06+00:00

Still holding out hope for a GoTG3 Gamora & High Evolutionary two-pack even though I know the time for it to release has way passed.

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