Dragon Age Awakening Impressions
By Wemibelle 18 Comments
I just finished Dragon Age Awakening a few days ago and had a really good time with it. Continuing the story of my Warden (who I had just finished the main game with, my second playthrough) was really neat and I feel that the story was interesting overall. Of course, for people who had their Warden die at the end of Dragon Age: Origins, it must have been irritating having the game retcon your ending and ruin that choice. Lucky for me, this playthrough was the one that I allowed Morrigan to make her demon baby and leave my party so it made sense enough for me. The actual points of the story were a little silly as well, what with the talking darkspawn and crazy Mother character.
I felt that this pack was WAY easier than the main game as well. My first playthrough was with a DPS warrior and I had a very hard time with a few spots. Most of it was probably me being dumb and not having strategies but the game kicked my ass pretty hard. I ended up changing the difficulty to Easy near the end of the game just to get through it. My second playthrough (this one) I decided on a tank and I also read a few more tips. Holy crap, was it so much easier. Being up in enemies faces with taunts let me gather things better and having two mages with Crushing Prison was a godsend. None of the fights in Awakening gave me nearly as much trouble as some of the ones in Origins.
The new characters are different and interesting. Of particular interest to me was Nathaniel, having greater importance to me as a Human Noble. Here was the son of the man who killed my family and took my life away and I had the option to kill him. I had to ponder this for a few minutes and think about what he had said. I decided to bring him along and see if he was like his father. Learning how Nathaniel didn't know anything about what his father had done and seeing him slowly stop blaming me for his father's death was great and made me glad I hadn't just killed him from the get-go.
Overall, I enjoyed my 15 hours or so with Awakening. The game moved at a much brisker pace than the original and the smaller map made the quests much more manageable and enjoyable for me. I actually finished each and every one of them, a task I wouldn't feel up to in Origins. If you've finished Origins, I highly reccommend playing Awakening. If you haven't even finished Origins yet, go do it now!