It's done. Finally, I've completed the expanded Dragon Age:Origins/Awakening universe game thingy with the completion of Witch Hunt. *Blows tiny trumpet*
So Witch Hunt is more remarkable then Golems but mostly because Golems isn't very interesting aside from a difficult final boss fight. Once again you can import a Warden from another DLC(presumably Awakening or Golems) and because of that my Warden finally reached the level cap of 35, though most things I fought died incredibly quickly. I think any of my characters died like a 2 or 3 times in the whole DLC. Also, Witch hunt has a plot, though arguably not much of one.
Basically, the setup is that you're trying to find Morrigan after her disappearing act at the end of Origins and show up at Flemeth's hut looking for her. Inside is a Dalish Elf named Ariane who is also chasing Morrigan, who stole a book from her clan. She joins forces with you and you end up scooting around Ferelden looking for a way to locate Morrigan. Along the way you meet Finn, a Circle Mage who takes an interest in your quest and also because there's a mage Spot open in the party to be filled. Oh, and last but not least, Doggo is back and he's still a very good boi! Yes he is!
The DLC actually gives you the map of ferelden back for the first time since the base game, and you run around visiting a number of places you've already been before assuming you played all the content before this. You go to the circle tower to do some research(and there's a brief "puzzle" where you run around the library looking for books to help you find an elven artifact) when leads you to the Cadash Thaig(which featured in the Stone Prisoner DLC as the finale to Shales quest) next to the ancient creepy temple from the Dalish Origin(which wasn't seen again in the base game) and finally the creepy dragon boneyard from Awakening. Hell, you find Morrigan in the same room the Mother boss fight was in in Awakening and it turns out the Magic Mirror that Morrigan is looking for was RIGHT THERE THE ENTIRE TIME.
When you find Morrigan at the end, there's isn't really much to it. I wasn't there to kill her though that was an option I was presented with. Instead I asked her what was going on and most of it was her being mad that I didn't go with the Old One Baby deal she offered. She then reveals Flemeth probably isn't dead and is something more then human cryptically as fuck, before saying she's going SOMEWHERE ELSE. I offered to go with me but nope, she wasn't having it, so presumably I could have gone with her if I'd done the baby deal? I guess I won't know. But she leaves and the whole thing ends on that sequel hook, which presumably gets followed up.....later? maybe? I've heard this series isn't really that good at following up a lot of the plot threads very well, preferring to shift focus with each game and I'm mentally preparing myself for that, realizing I should shift my expectations with DA2 and again with DAI.
It makes the whole thing kinda weird because while all the maps are recycled from the base game, unlike a lot of the other DLC maps they're used as the same places and not just "place that looks suspiciously like this place you visited in another context but never remarked upon" and it's clearly meant to be an epilogue to the entire experience, a tour down memory lane so to speak. And it does kinda feel like it's own adventure and not just something bolted together for extra cash like some of the other DLC, but unfortunatly, it's also way too short for this purpose.
The whole premise of traveling around the country trying to track morrigan is a good one and revisiting places you've been before to find new meaning and hidden secrets(Cadash Thiag is revealed to have once hosted Elven refugees long, long ago and some of their artifacts are still there) is cool. Hell, the new companions are interesting and have some fun dialogue, but at the same time, the DLC is like 2 hours long if you're going slow. There's not enough time to really get to know the new guys before the experience is over and there's not much in the way of side material either. If this DLC had been spread out a bit more like Awakening, say 5 or so hours of tracking Morrigan down, it might have had more impact.
It stands out because when you revisit the creepy temple from the Dalish Origin and meet Morrigan again, it feels like a LONG time has passed since last seeing either of those, especially since that area in the Dalish Origin was never revisited until now and Morrigan has been MIA for a good 20ish hours if you didn't just skip the DLC to get here. There's also the weirdness that this is basically a short "Remember all these things?" for like one or two relatively small loose ends from the base game while Awakening felt like a proper, if short(10 to 20 hours), sequel which tackled new issues like rebuilding the grey wardens and what if the darkspawn evolved to be more than mindless not-orcs. I felt like the crew from Awakening were a new family to replace the old one from Origins because I'd spent a lot of time with with(20 hours isn't a ton but it's not insignificant either).
So, that's basically it. I'm gonna move on to Dragon Age 2 in short order, but before I do, my next post is gonna be a quick recap of the the last....*Checks notes*....60-70 hours of gameplay over 2 pretty hefty chunks and a bunch of little gameplay tidbits that is the Ultimate edition of Dragon Age Origins.
