[No DAV Spoilers] I finally figured out how to enjoy DAV as an OG DA player.

By accepting that it's not an OG Dragon Age Game.

This is the definition of a soft retcon/reboot for a franchise.

Hear me out.

Once I got over the fact that all of my lore and choices were basically retconned away, and that they aren't coming back I started playing the game as "fresh" and found myself enjoying it more, particularly around the combat system's balancing and game performance. Writing is meh, but hey so was Skyrim's (although Skyrim has some of the best one liners ever).

In particular, as awesome as the OG trilogy is from a storyline and lore perspective, they were all a bit buggy [DA2 being the biggest criminal in that regard] and sometimes clunky from area to area. DAV has been utterly seamless in terms of gameplay after 60+ hrs of play. Have yet to encounter a bug or system crash.

The visuals are gorgeous. Is the art direction a compete 180? 100%. I utterly loved the dark fantasy gritty surrealism of the 1st 3 games. But once I separated that expectation, I found myself enjoying the high fantasy looks and color schemes.

In addition, while the combat system is no longer pure tactics based, it's still a lot of fun especially if you don't like turn based combat. Do hate that i can't control the companions and that their cooldowns are not based on individual moves? Oh yes, absolutely. But also, the spellblade is basically everything I hoped the Arcane warrior would be from DAO.

Dont get me wrong- im so, so sad my in-game universe is gone now, it's one of the things that made Dragon Age, Dragon Age. It really was what separated it from other gaming franchises and made me keep wanting to come back. But like the bioware of old, I think this game helped me accept that the old bioware isn't coming back.

All that being said, I play video games, like many others, as a form of escapism and thoroughly enjoy flinging a sword and booming magic attacks virtually. And I have to honest, this game more than delivers in that regard.

If this was a new game, new lore, etc. we would probably be screaming it's praises left and right especially around technical performance. We, rightfully, are upset because we invested so much love and appreciation into this franchise. It's always sad to see stuff go. But once I let go of that, I came away thinking hey that was fun, which is all I ever really want when I play video games.