Kulyok

(Don't delete your DA2 post-campaign saves. Playing Legacy makes most sense after Act 2, when Hawke is 1) romanced; 2) Champion; 3) Leandra is dead and Carver is firmly anchored in the Wardens. And, interesting though Legacy may be, it's not worth replaying DA2. So keep your old saves).

In short: there're a lot of good things that can be said about Legacy, but one fundamentally bad thing: it's non-replayable. Unlike Watcher's Keep(that Legacy is probably based on), or A Golem in Honneleth, or even Origins, it's a one-time thing, just like DA2 campaign. You play it, you enjoy the finale(or not), turn off the computer - and that's it.

First of all, there's new artwork. It may seem repetitive, as the same textures are repeated in outdoor areas/indoor areas/dungeon areas, but it's new and pretty, with many combinations of pools, bridges and galleries. Even the loading screens are new, so it looks nice and refreshing.

Second, there's dialogue. Just like in Golems of Amgarrak, your companions comment on stuff often. Granted, sometimes they do it out of line. (In the beginning of the mod, outdoors, Carver: "Oh, Deep Roads!" Varric: "Damn. Deep Roads." Anders: "Maker, Deep Roads again!" my Hawke(doesn't see any Deep Roads anywhere): "Huh?") There are a few banters, too. Some are bugged: in one, Anders and Hawke discuss that Carver disappeared with the Wardens and doesn't write, whereas Carver's standing right there.

Romance content: next to none. Don't get your hopes up. I counted four basically single-line references: once Anders says something like "glad you're all right and those bad guys didn't get you"; once Varric quips that Hawke's not a virgin; once Anders calls Hawke "love". Also, there's this Varric-Anders banter where they suddenly start talking like teenage American schoolgirls from the 90's and say that Hawke is "pretty cute". Sigh. Next thing Anders will start singing "I Wanna Be A Supermodel".

I liked Hawke-Carver relationship(we were at "friendly" zone, though not all the way to 100% meter), but if you hoped that something will be revealed about the Hawke lineage, you're up for a disappointment. Malcolm Hawke worked for the Wardens and strengthened the enchantments for the seals that contained the Big Bad. And only Hawke blood can open the seals again. That's it, as simple as that.

Varric's small quest(find the dead son of a Paragon and say a dwarven prayer for him, or something) didn't work for me, either. I mean, look at the Origins codex for the Dead Caste, for an Admirable Topsider, for the Crosscut Drifters, hells, even at Darion's journal from Awakening. That's a story. In here, there was none. Find the journal pages 1,2,3, then find the body. Cut.

I was relieved to see that at level 18, I could play through casual difficulty without much trouble, but puzzles really pissed me off. In the past, you had to play through a puzzle to get some extra XP or treasure; here you have to complete a rather difficult puzzle just to move on to the next level! And to complete an even more complex puzzle to get the full set of armor for Hawke, the set that's scattered throughout the whole DLC! (I'm talking about connecting "beams of light" - one beam was okay, four was a bit too much). Seriously, it was a bummer.

And just like in DA2 itself, the finale was good. [SPOILER! Don't read if you haven't played!] It turns out that Chantry may be right after all: the Big Bad is one of the ancient magisters who entered the Golden City, a high priest of Dumat, the first archdemon, and who is now a corrupt talking darkspawn with awesome magical powers. Anders seemed really stricken by it, but to me it changed nothing: not all mages want to enter the Golden City, so Chantry shouldn't imprison every mage. Also, the magisters did not unleash the Blights: it was the Maker, a horrible bastard who started the entire thing with the darkspawn and Blights. I mean, the dwarves didn't even worship the Maker, what would THEY suffer for? Non-believing? Thank you very much.

By the way, I may be wrong, but I think that siding with Larius, a diseased former Warden, at the Final Seal(but not before) is not the best choice - you have to kill four good Grey Wardens, whose only crime is that they've been under the Big Bad's influence. If, on the other hand, you side with Janeka and make her kill Larius, you save the Wardens in the end, and Larius is far past his Calling, anyway.

Also, if no Grey Warden could approach the Big Bad because of the Big Bad's hypnotic calling, how come Anders(who had difficulty resisting the call two levels earlier) and Carver, both Grey Wardens, killed the Big Bad so easily? That's a huge plothole, I think.

(And Anders's moment of "I can't do it anymore, let me turn into Justice, unleash a couple of shades and call Hawke "love" so she'd kill me, and then I'll rise again, good as new" was just silly. Don't you think?)

By the way, here's one moment that made BG2's Watcher's Keep better than DA2's Legacy: items. In BG2, finding items felt good. There were halberds, swords, armor details, and each had its unique item icon. Here, it's just some amulets and belts and they all look the same.

I said before that Legacy is non-replayable. I think there's more. There's no room for empathy here. It's a good product, a solid one, with a plot and a setting and some people, but no characters make you love them or hate them or pity them(except maybe that Carta dwarf, Varric's former friend). There's a plot, but there's no story. There're people, but no characters. Hawke does not go through emotional choices, and neither do her companions.

So, bottom line: I'd recommend to play it once, but I wouldn't keep your hopes up.

I don't know any good ones, yet, unfortunately: I searched dragonagenexus for companion and NPC modification, but unfortunately it's overloaded with facial modifications at the moment.

However, this one looks brilliant: http://social.biowar...m/project/4364/

It fixes some import issues, including Nathaniel flag. I think it's worth a shot.

Well, obviously, spoilers. So don't look if you haven't played it to the very end yet.


Female Rogue Hawke. Party: Anders, Fenris, Aveline/Varric(50/50 of the time). Full friendship with everybody but Fenris(full rivals). Supported the mages in the end.

Romance: Anders.

The romance was kind of nice, but sorely lacked nakedness and there was very little of it. To the point that when my mom died, I was kind of happy to get an extra romance-related dialogue. Dear me. I liked the ending, though(it turned out that Anders was a Really Important Plot figure, blowing up the chantry and all).

Alistair's cameo was very funny, but him, Zevran and Leliana were terribly ugly. At least Flemeth and Merril got cool new look. But it was nice to see old faces, though all of them, except Cullen, played little role, if any. I wish I could meet Nathaniel, but I did "Fools' gold" quest, so I couldn't meet him in Act 3.

I really felt sorry for Orsino. His "Yay! Abomination!" transformation happened really out of nowhere, and it was as if developers really, really needed another boss battle. Well, they could've made Alain do it, or anyone! Sigh. Stupid.

I liked the main storyline a lot, though it was a little shorter than I have expected. The supporting quests were really very nice and varied in Act 1, but in Acts 2 and 3 there are fewer and fewer of them, and less varied, too, so I got the impression that either they were rushed, or overwhelmed with all these multiple quest outcomes. And bugs(at least three minor quests were bugged, Sketch's, Rescue(Act 3) and Evil Tomes). Alas.

The world hasn't changed any between the acts, though. New house - yes. Nothing else. Even owning a mine didn't matter that much in the end.

I saw that the developers really, really wanted to impress us with multiple paths and characters from older quests(Acts 1 and 2) turning up in Act 3, but to me it all rang hollow, like Hawke says each time: "Uh, and who are you again? I helped you when?"

The pre-battle dialogues were nice, though I thought that Merrill and Isabella really got no character development. Isabella was just jumping here and there, and Merrill never got her loneliness issues resolved. And what's up with that mirror? How could Morrigan and my Warden step through it if Merrill had it four years later? And if they had already stepped through the mirror, why had Alistair said that the Hero of Ferelden should be in Denerim soon?

And poor Aveline! Got married, had a dream job, and has to be on the run again. Come to think of it, Varric's business got ruined, too. Not that he cares much. And I wonder what happened with Fenris: no friends, no family... I think my Mage Hawke might romance him next, just to see that sexy naked screenshot.

Anyway, that was my first playthrough. What about yours?

Why did they ever release a demo? It's so boring to play through the beginning all over again, I think one of the first mods will be "skip Lothering". Hmph. At least I'm going to strip Carver and Bethany of their equipment as soon as I smell trouble.

Does anyone else have those tiny blue dots at the edge of vision? Sometimes along the lines of Cassandra's face, sometimes in Flemeth's armor, sometimes in Bethany's, sometimes just along the rocks? I'm playing on Windows XP with DirectX 9 on low settings(I do not want to install Vista or Windows 7 for as long as possible), maybe that's the reason.

Anyway, sigh. Well, at least my Theron save imported perfectly(you have to leave the save in MyDocuments/blahblahblahBiowareCharacters, where they belong to do that).

And DA servers are down again! Blast, have they ever heard the word "release date"?

P.S. I'm all for new things, and I'm sure it's a great game, but honestly, I just wish they released a new game in the same engine and didn't waste their budget on puppet faces and horrible monotone inventory icons.

"Terminator, Terminator!" ©

Anyway, I am downloading. Are you?

Oh, link: http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/demo
Apparently, they have Russian subtitles, even.


EDIT: AAAAaaand... DONE!