Not a patch on Origins and the new characters lack substance
10/07/2010
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I LOVE DAO, and seeing as I don't have Xbox Live at the moment Awakenings was my only way of getting more of the good stuff! But I was sorely disappointed, finding it to be nothing like Origins. I completed DAO for the umpteenth time as a female human noble so that my choices would have the consequences I wanted in Awakenings. I love Alistair so wanted to see his cameo as king with my character as queen. I was hoping he'd make another appearance but he doesn't. Anders the mage appears to be his replacement with a similarly silly but likeable personality. But he's not Alistair and there's nowhere near the same depth. The story line and conversations with companions was my favourite part of Origins. In Awakenings, you can't stop for a chat while adverturing and there's no camp! You can have limited conversation at the Keep, but it's not engaging and you don't really care if they like you or not. Why oh why Bioware chose to make Oghren the only playable character from origins I do not know. I never had him in my party in Origins and never chose him in Awakenings either. That said, Valenna, Justice and the dwarf girl are equally bad. Nathaniel is of some interest given he's the son of Arl Howe, the man who murdered your family if you import a human noble character. But again you don't get time to find out enough about him. Amarinthine must be up north too as he's deathly pale. By far the best 'character' is Ser Pouncealot, Anders cat. He has a unique ability but I never found out what it was, I blinked and the game was finished! He's very cute though, especially with his bling bell collar on.
The difficulty rating is bizarre. In DAO, I swapped between Casual, Normal and Hard quite a bit trying to find the right balance of fun/ challenge. But in Awakenings, I was so strong, so rich and so well kitted out within 20 minutes that even the hardest setting posed no threat. Speaking of gear, almost every chest and corpse has level 8 or 9 armour and weapons, so everything you spent 30-40 hours getting in Origins is worthless almost immediately. At last there's a personal storage chest so you're not having to sell useful items and armour every 5 seconds, but what's the point in storing anything when the game is so easy and you don't need to craft anything. Runecrafting is a new skill but again why bother when you can defeat everything without any armour enchantment. And why buy anything when you can get rune tracings, armour and weapons from chests, bodies and the like. I ended up with over 650gold and nothing to spend it on!
The new skills are good, and this time the mages seem very powerful. Anders is excellent as he's a healer who can inflict a fair amount of damage too, making there absolutely no need in having the moody elf in your party.
If you thought the side quests in DAO were tedious and pointless, the ones in Awakenings are worse. They are mindless and boring, and the companion side quests are particularly dull because you don't care about your companions!
The pace of the game is completely different to DAO. There's a real sense of urgency in Awakenings, jumping from one 5 second battle to the next, and sidequests that take a couple of minutes to complete. There's no travelling to and from locations (I must have gone to Lake Calenhad 5 or 6 times in Origins) and you just never have time to develop anything.
I was also disappointed with the ending (there's several of course but looks like I chose right first time). The choices aren't nearly as difficult as in Origins, as it's pretty predictable that if you've forked out for decent walls for your Keep and armour for your men, the place will hold without you. Of course it's left open for a sequel, but my character, after reuniting with Alistair, disappears from court, seemingly forever. I think that new characters do bring new interest to a story, but some of the greats should stay throughout the series. Morrigon's p