The Awakening expansion for Dragon Age is nothing short of awesome. It makes you feel like you've picked up where you left off in Dragon Age, allowing you to even import your main character from the previous campaign.
As far as the gameplay is concerned, it is the same great Dragon Age, but it has an entirely different feel than Origins in that you're starting from level 20 so you have lots and lots of abilities to play and work with. There is also a large increase in the number of sustained abilities that one can utilize. This can be quite effective when you start stacking auras and/or sustained abilities. Consequently, Willpower becomes a sought after statistic in order to actually utilize the plethora of abilities at your disposal. Fighting itself is more intense and some of the new abilities, like Massacre, are extremely entertaining.
I play on Nightmare difficulty and I found Awakening to be easier than regular Origins for two reasons: the first is because there are so many more abilities to work with and the second is because there are books that one can buy for 12 gold to customize characters' abilities entirely from level 1. This allows you to craft your group to have an unmatched synergy. It also allows for trying new and different tactics / builds with your characters. Unfortunately, the ease of play also means that you breeze right through the game, so it can feel rather short in comparison to the monster that was Origins.
The group and party dynamic feels different in Awakening as well. To gain approval rating, you have to have a member present in your party and happen by some object in the terrain that invokes a conversation. This means you can't just spam-talk to your party members to gain approval like you could in regular Origins.
Finally, the storyline is fantastic and Awakening does a great job of bringing good moral choices to the forefront, setting new standards for games. In Origins, despite all of the different factions and gray areas, there was still the feeling of "good" verses "evil" when it came to you verses the darkspawn. Without spoiling anything, Awakening does an excellent job of turning this polarized standard on its head and it even brings the darkspawn themselves into the gray. The questions it forces one to ask and the choices it causes one to make imitate moral choices in real life instead of keeping the polarized fantasy outlook that so many of us are familiar with. It is refreshing and it really puts a huge twist on the storyline, making one question their own purpose as a sort of hero of Ferelden. I do feel it could have been explored a bit more and perhaps the ending was a bit rushed in its conclusions, but I'm sure we can look forward to exploring that storyline further in the next expansion.
For those more interested in the character development aspect that is present in Origins, while some of the basics still remain in Awakening, Awakening is more fighting and less songs by the fire. Even still, I don't think it will disappoint as the loads of action can make up for it.
In short, if you loved Dragon Age, Awakening is a must have and it is a blast to play.
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Ureak Mazino
it is an extension pack
Reviewed in India on March 18, 2015Platform For Display: PCVerified Purchase
