Amazing, yes, accessible to your average gamer? No, and that was a shame because it was a great experience. Dragon Age: Origins was a monster in size, scale, and length. The hardcore may cry fowl at this (given the price). Yes, Awakenings is considerably shorter than its predecessor. There is also a new rune crafting option that was a nice add (explaining that is beyond the scope of this review).įinal thing that may surprise you as "good" is the length. There are no new races or classes, but there are a few new specializations to change up your characters' play styles. Another awesome option is that unlike the original, you can reset and rebuild your characters' skills at any time. I believe this is because in Awakenings you start at a much higher level and have a much larger and more diverse set of powers/abilities from the start. The difficulty felt both more balanced here and a bit more forgiving. You will love Awakenings' characters just as much. This speaks more to how great Origins was in character design than it is a flaw of Awakenings. It is a little bit of a shame that, except for 1, all the characters you grew to love in Origins do not make the jump to Awakenings. Speaking of characters, you will meet a handful of new companions in this game all well written, interesting, dramatic, and often hilarious. The stories will suck you in, the ridiculous moral choices that effect the game world around you in profound ways are still there, and the characters are just as awesome. You do not have to play Origins to play this! You may even start a new character. First, this is a new story that happens after Origins. The good outweighs the bad again in Awakenings.
All of this can be said of Dragon Age: Origins.
Not 100% a bad thing because it is fun, just feels like more design could go into it. Save the game constantly all it takes is one bad battle or one moral decision with enormous consequences to set you back hours of gameplay. This means you will experience some glitches, your companions will have limited AI, and the save system is still awful. It is clearly built on the same engine as Origins with zero changes. There are no technical or gameplay refinements here. Yes the characters, situations, and story were that good.Īwakenings brings more of the same in a more digestible package. However it's strengths were so strong it sucked you in and made even me guilty of playing 60+ hours of it to complete the epic. It suffered from good-not-great visuals, cliche' Lord of the Rings want-to-be music, erratic difficulty, and a myriad of technical hiccups. It was not a technical powerhouse by anyone's standards. Origins had superb quality in story, character development, and overall presentation of an immersive world. Reviewing Dragon Age: Origins is an essay on it's own, so I suggest you take your personal experience of that game and bring it to this review or you read some Dragon Age: Origins reviews first. In the latest video we did over on our YouTube channel (it's longer, apologies), but we address major plot points, THAT character betrayal, and the nuance that 90% of players miss out on with their first playthroughs.Your enjoyment of Dragon Age: Origins will primarily drive your love-like-hate status of Dragon Age: Origins - Awakenings. My second playthrough I went male Mage "purple" which led to some of the most hilarious dialogue options I've ever seen, a storyline that means more when playing a mage, and more meaningful character interactions. Blue is diplomatic, which is my preferred playstyle, but little did I know that was the very first thing I did wrong. I first opted to play a female Rogue "blue" Hawke. But, I kept seeing a pocket of the DA fandom alight with passion for the characters so I dove into another playthrough to shake things up to see if maybe my choices led to the disconnect.
But I didn't relate to Hawke the way I did with my Warden and that left me heartbroken. I beat it, and like everyone else - I was shocked at the ending. When I first played Dragon Age II I felt empty.