Middling Lead-Up To a Great Ending
Morrigan was, for me, the most interesting part of Dragon Age: Origins. She was a character who got more and more fascinating the more you learned about her, and ultimately became one of the most interesting romantic interests. So after she departed at the end of the first game, saying "Never follow me..." my first reaction was to follow her, of course. I finally got my chance with this piece of DLC. Sadly, the chase is less fun than the catch, but it ends on a very interesting, and seemingly variable, note.
The game gives you the chance to import a character from any campaign you've already started or create a new character (though why you'd do that is utterly beyond me) and starts you at Flemeth, Morrigan's mysterious mother's, hut. The events of this game, based on how it all ends anyway, seem to take place after the Awakening expansion. You were led here by your Mabari war hound (if you didn't get him in the first game, a short line of dialog explains how you got him in the context of the story). You enter only to find a Dalish elven woman who's pursuing Morrigan for her own reasons. You join her and journey to the Circle of Magi where a mage joins your search for the Eluvian Mirrors, strange portals that can teleport people between them.
The journey to get these party members is extremely thrown-together and it might've been better to get a couple of returning party members rather than these strangers who trust you enough to journey with you having known you for all of five minutes. The characters go fairly undeveloped, though there is a lot of competent banter between each other as well as the dog. Ultimately the game ushers you from one area to the next, finding clues to Morrigan's location, leading up to a massive boss fight against a never-before-seen monster. The boss battle is frantic enough (on Hard difficulty, anyway. Anything lower is a breeze) to be satisfying, but everything leading up to it feels like you're going through the motions.
I was ready to write the game off, but the interaction with Morrigan is actually very well done and extremely satisfying, depending on how you want to play it. There are even a few clues to Dragon Age 2 dropped.
Ultimately $7 is enough to pay for two hours of content, but the content just isn't that good. Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening were both very slow-paced, plodding games and this clearly illustrates why that is. The game just doesn't work with the frantic pace the plot puts forth, but for those who felt the ending to either Origins or Awakening was just too up-in-the-air or vague, this definitely gives closure and even sets up the sequel. I recommend this only if you had some real emotions (whether positive or negative) toward Morrigan and want to see, and decide, her ultimate fate.
