A Legacy Best Left Unknown(Dragon Age 2 DLC Review)

    My One Minute Review:

              Dragon Age 2 was released on March 8th of this year.  Almost 4 months later this lone piece of downloadable content has arrived.  This piece of content is around 4 hours in length, if you fully explore as I did.  The piece of DLC tells the story of a Warden Prison that was set to hold a Darkspawn named, “Corryphus.” Might have the spelling wrong as I couldn’t find a reference for it.  I won’t give the simplistic story away but lets just say you will have it figured out long before the end of the content.

             The content does introduce a new enemy type, a new weapon called, “Hawke’s Key” which you can customize through the latter half the content.  While the add-on can be played at any point in the main game.  Even after the main game.  I played it on a clear save.  My characters ran from level 18-20 throughout the content.  I never died until the final battle against the boss.  Which seemed to me to be a strange spike in difficulty.  Considering the rest of the content, there is little to no challenge; this is an unexpected spike.

           The final boss is an area specific battle reminiscent of the final boss fight in the Deep Roads in the main story.  Except that this battle is even more area specific.  The characters must all run into a different specific area for each phase of the fight.  But the A.I. characters have a tendency not to do this.  With only one character remaining, I did beat the boss. But as a whole the fact that none of the tactics would have needed to be touched throughout the whole game and then they be required in this one battle.  Seems odd to me.  The prize for beating the boss, absolutely NOTHING!

         In fact, the whole piece of content adds virtually nothing to the game as a whole.  Hawke’s Key is a relatively weak weapon compared to others in the game.  If I didn’t all ready have the best armor in the game, there was an armor set you can acquire by exploring that might be helpful later.  But as a whole unless you just need to level up beyond the main game; there is really no reason to play this content.  While there are new cutscenes in the content there is nothing here you can’t live without.  I would have really liked to see a new mage character or perhaps a linking piece of content between Dragon Age 2 and 3.  Than what amounts to at best a side story and at worst a waste of time. 3/10…