RPGWatch Feature: Dragon Age - Witch Hunt Impressions
 

Witch Hunt is the last DLC for Dragon Age, with one of the most interesting premises - finding some answers to the Morrigan enigma. If you're thinking of pulling the trigger on this DLC, read on for my impressions. A sample:
Read it all here.
More information.

well, I'll give that a miss then - I said before (somewhere) that I didn't think a 2-bit DLC could do justice to Morrigan - what you've said above confirms that unfortunately :-/

Sounds like a blatant case of false advertising. :thumbsdown:

Thanks, Dhruin. I'll give this one a pass then.

I haven't purchased a dlc in a long time. I was never interested in playing Darkspawn and there was no way I cared about that "french" girl, but Moriggan now that was a different story entirely. Too bad they offered next to nothing because they've shown they can actually make a dlc worth the few bucks it costs. Stone Prisoner would have been worth paying for if it hadn't been included in the collectors edition.

I played it last night. I was fine with the ending and liked it - BUT I also did not get the bug so many people are getting. If I had I would have been extremely irritated and upset. I don't blame people in the least.

It was also very short for the "last" DLC and for a character as big as Morrigan. I will stress I liked it and would give it about a 7, but I was dissapointed and expected more from Bioware.

I can see VO having some impact on costs and the shortness of the chat with Morrigan. Yea I am on a VO rant lately :)

Combat was very standard and the only dialogue was uncontrolled (i.e. you could not initiate it) between the NPC's - although it was amusing at times. It was also short and rather uninspired, and buggy to some.

For pluses I enjoyed seeing Dog again and playing my Warden. I happen to really like some of the little tidbits of information scattered about and I also did find the ending very satisfying, especially some of the information gleamed on Flemeth, Morrigan, and the future.

And therein lies my problem with DLC like this. I think I would find the experience very much like Dhurin did - I just don't get on with one-shot pieces of play that aren't part of a bigger whole. However I want to get the lore and story, and almost (but not much) feel cheated that it wasn't already included or will be included in a full future game. Maybe it well, and I'll be happy. But shifting the main character of DA2 makes it less likely I'll want to invest in my current character in this way. Annoying.

I have now tried three times to start Awakenings. I can't do it past 15 minutes or so. Just boring.

Dragon Age just has no lasting appeal for me. I completed it once, and tried going through it again after a few months off. And I can't do it.

I've tried the Leliana add on content as well and can't finish it. I enjoyed DA the first time through, but really don't like it much now.

It's very short, I explored every corner of every area and it only took me 90 minutes to complete. It's also very easy, I played it on nightmare difficulty without even comming close to having one of my characters dying. And that's in a party without a tank character. The party members are pretty good though, voice acting and script wise.

The area's themselves are all recycled, although they are brought on a satisfying manner. This DLC is supposed to be final chapter to be told about our Warden and the implementation really reflects that. It's like a revisit of old battlefields who have moved on after a war. You retrace your steps of (slightly) touched up old content until you meet up with Morrigan.

That however, is something else entirely. Apart from having the bug, she doesn't reveal anything. The only thing that's (slightly) meaningful is that she says there's a storm comming and that's it. No revelations, nothing. You can bring some sort of closure to your Warden's story though, but even that avenu is an open ending.

Overall I'd rate it 6/10, especially for its price. It is nothing compaired to Leliana's DLC.

Terrible. A story which explains NOTHING. And in the end, due to the bug my end decision was not reflected, but Morrigan only complained why I once had declined her offer, when I did NOT.

Man, what an evil way of Bioware to steal my money.

To all who doubt, save your money. The DLC is SO NOT worth it!

@Kalniel - I do agree as I am one who loves a consistent character. It felt great to have my Warden playing again, even if only for 90 minutes or so. I wish I could play him more…. even though he is destined to die young anyhow (although in my "happy ending" mind I have resolved it.

As for the other comments - I pretty much agree with most of what people are saying. It wasn't a great DLC even if I liked parts of it.

However I am posting as there is an update (think it is on the forums will try to link to it when I get home). The bug has to do with the saved game used for the import. The one to use is the "post coronation" one. You can tell if you have a "good" import based on the dialogue choices right at the begining when Dog joins you - ie do you know dog? do you have the find, kill, get baby choices about morrigan or a single generic one.

Not that this is acceptable by any means - but for those who want to play it without the bug wanted to share.

Sorry to say, I agree completely, Dhruin. $7 wasted. I expected to find out about Morrigan and her baby and close what was billed as the "final chapter" in the DA story. Instead I got an hour of fluff. Short, I expected. Empty of content I did not.

That's €5 saved then,this was the only DLC I considered since I didn't touch Awakening due to it's technical problems.Can't say I'm really bothered since my Origins character could not know what happened to the Witch.
Thanks for the tip everyone

A quick question (I'll probably get this DLC at one point, since I'm playing as dalish elf that's rather naive around the ways of the world).

How on earth do you find nightmare easy? I'm having a tough time on the 'easy' difficulty…

As for the storm coming, Morrigan has always been an enigma…and this could only mean….More Morrigan in DA2, either for the main game or as DLC. And couldn't the storm be the Quanari Invasion…? [If there really is a quanari invasion going in DA2, Bioware must have lost all it creative strength and force these 15 years…]

what a pity - i was hoping to get a somewhat epic final confrontation with morrigan :-(

Well for those who romanced Morrigan there was actually some very good closure.



There were also a lot of tidbits/foreshadowing in codex, conversations of people near by, etc. of things to come in DA2.

Also a lot of hints in the ending.



I may play it again and focus less on rushing to the end and combat and hunt for more clues.

Did you import an Awakening character or…? I honestly went *click*, *yawn*, *click*. I think one character got low-ish fighting the varterral and I was thinking about controlling the mage to use some spells effectively but then it was dead.

@wolfgrimdark, I guess some players might find that "closure", but I didn't. It was a nice touch (you know, for the whole 15 seconds) but nothing about the baby or her plans were revealed at all. She does make sure to foreshadow Flemeth, which felt like an advertisement to me.

I don't mind the lack of answers per se but there was no depth to the lead up, either in the dialogue or the gameplay -- and then no genuine resolution on top of that.

I distinctly remember killing Flemeth in DA:O. I'm glad i haven't gone near any of the DLC if all it does is throw out any of the decisions my character made.

I can somewhat stomach a sequel laying out what was cannon but to do so in DLC is just lazy.

Why include the choice at all if they're just going to be like "actually, that never happened. You know that dragon you put a sword through, that was just a hallucination"

It was hinted in DAO that Flemeth wasn't truly dead after you fought with her, read the codex entry. Morrigan didn't seem to be think that she was gone forever either.

Like the person said above me, Flemeth was defeated but never killed. The sequel isn't breaking canon as the codex made it clear Flemeth wasn't dead (by hinting the possibility that she might not be).

Morrigan even down right says it too, several times in fact.

Well Flemeth certainly looked dead by the time I was done with her. ;)

she was …er…just resting. Reminds me of Dallas (yeah it was shown here :-/ ) …remember when Bobby Ewing wasn;t *actually* dead?…it was all a dream !

Maybe you dreamed you killed Flemeth ;-)

Haha, yeah, the good old Bobby Ewig alive thing.

I didn't kill her. Why should I? It's only Morrigans dubious word against her, and so far I had no proof what Flemeth did was evil. I don't kill people just on hearsay!

Heck I don't know WHO really IS evil in the entire setting. Maybe in the end those Maker believers are the culprits and the Dragons are the good guys being wronged. I don't belive anything given in that game, so I avoided killing just because someone tells me so.

I always trust the reviews here most of all so I will pass on this. I was hoping for a lot more story, which had that been the case I would have accepted the shortness of the campaign and bought it. So much potential here and they blow it with fast and easy…..

I didn't read this thread in fear of spoilers, and yes you did spoil the entire DLC in the article.

That said, the Dwarven Thaig is from Stone Prisoner and the last two areas are from Awakening, so those aren't new either. I do not know whether the Elven Ruins is a copy of something or not.

The best DLC for awakenings, in hintersight, is probably Golems of Amgarrak, as far as new content goes. It's not that great, it's just the best one, with Leiliana's Song as the second.

That said, Awakenings was nice. I say it's worth it.

Dalish Elf starting area.

Ah.

I guess I could add then, that if someone thought the cellar in the Circle Tower was new, it was part of the Mage origin story.

I thought I'd played all the Origins but I either missed the Dalish one or forgot. I had a limited window of time to get this out, which is why I said it isn't a traditional review; I'd normally take my time and double-check my facts.

Spoiled the entire DLC? Only in that there's nothing in it in the first place.

You present a step by step outline on the events and areas passed as well as some lines on the new boss monster. I say thats more of a spoiler than stating simple "there's very little new content in this DLC".

I'm not going to argue with you - but, no, I don't. I don't describe any of the dialogues, who you meet or talk to, or any of the actions you actually take - other than to generalise about combat with some common monsters. If you actually play it, which you clearly haven't, you'll realise how little detail I've provided.

I don't actually describe where you meet the vartarral, the circumstances or how the battle proceeds - only that I didn't find it challenging.

I am referring to the following section.



Uhm…

I am actually not arguing with you and you do seem to be a bit more defensive than what you need to be. I pointed out that I would consider the above to be a "complete spoiler", which might sound a bit harsh in a gaming community, but it was actually meant to be a friendly reminder for future articles that there are those of us who are sensitive about that sort of thing. My comment was not meant to be interpreted as "I hate your guts and I would drive over your pet if I had the chance". Since I didn't read it before playing Witch Hunt I wasn't harmed by it. Like you, I would probably warn who ever plans to pay for the DLC that they are paying for very little.

Warning the following is a spoiler for Dragon Age - Witch Hunt:



That is all taken from the highlights over at gamespot's review of it. Tons of spoilers in that as well like "way too easy":lol:

In the text they go into greater detail than Dhruin even hinted at and I still didn't feel like it spoiled the game for me if I was actually thinking about buying it.

Dhruin's impression reads like a normal review to me. I still don't have a clue as to WHAT the story is about other than what is already hinted at in the title and now I know there is barely anything new and the combat is easy.

The environment looks good, but that's not thanks to Witch Hunt, because it's all "stolen" or reused from earlier campaigns. The environments in Awakening looks a lot better than the ones in Origins, and Witch Hunt uses several areas from there.

The boss fight is ok even though it's very easy, it was when I received an achievement for beating it I realized I had been playing the game on hard all the way through… It looks good. Problem is, such content is what I expect in a DLC all the way through. In Witch Hunt it's pretty much the only new content in the game.

I was awestruck when the credits suddenly popped up like "what the he—, did I do something wrong?". I had assumed I was 1/3 through the module at the point the ending credits begin to roll, and that I was just about to see the new stuff after some stretch-out sidemissions.

I kinda like Finn. It was too bad he got so little spotlight.

Just played it through, and I agree whit most in here. Come to think of it, non of the DLC’s that came after lunch, have any new locations, all are reused from Origins or Awakening, whit exception of Golem’s of Amgarrak. I think this DLC is more a Teaser of what to come, that a serious add on, I actual like it (not love it), but I understand why some feel that they have been tricked in to pay fore a 90 min long Teaser for DA2.

Bad Things:

- Way to short.
- Way to Easy.
- An end that don’t give any closure.
- To much reuse of old locations.


Good Things.

- Good voice acting and dialogues.
- An end that keep the mystery alive (loved by me).
- A chance to play whit your epic hero.
- Some new equipment to Origins/Awakening.

The part with the Dalish place was the cool one for me, since my hero was Dalish. So in a way my story ended where it ALL began long ago. That was sort of nice. It is just one more reason for me to say, I think the cutting of origin stories from DA2 is a BAD mistake.

I thought Leilanas Song was a good DLC. It gave Leilana a very interesting past, even tho I found her a bit pale and boring in Origins, the DLC was good.

I always read : "Danish place" …

Well, that was horribly disappointing. I got really no answer from her since I played female warden (friendly with her). At least I know male wardens who romanced her gets better ending. Anyone played dalish elf origin? Does she reveal something more if you play dalish elf? Does the game recognise that you are the one who touched mirror and almost died from it? Since I played human, Ariane mentioned that one of them is dead and one is missing.

To me, DA: Origins wasn't that superb a game. It was just so hackneyed in its storytelling and so vague when it came to combat mechanics. I really missed the D20 system as well as simply knowing how spells worked (or didn't) via the interface. Don't get me wrong, I got over these things for the first playthrough but I became incredibly bored trying to play it again some months down the line.

To compound it, all these DLC's of questionable value get released. It really makes you mourn the Bioware of yesteryear (or, in this case, yesterdecade).

I find myself in complete agreement :)

When you move away from a proven and entertaining system like D20 - the last thing you want to replace it with, is a boring, restricted, and streamlined system like in Dragon Age. I never had much trouble figuring things out in it, though, but I was appalled at the limitations of the class system, and I couldn't even come up with more than a single character I'd play it with. So, a replay was no-go - as I never replay CRPGs with exactly the same character, and there was zero build variety in the game. It was like Dual Wielder, Archer, Tank, or Two Handed guy - and absolutely no reason to think about how to actually place your points during level up. It was simply a matter of when you got stuff, not about what you wanted or tough choices. One of the most basic things you MUST have in your character system, is a series of difficult choices. You WANT the player to think about his build, and you WANT him to miss out, so he'll experiment with the game - and play it again to see all those powers he didn't see the first time.

That's it for non-mage characters. Contrasted with D&D 3.5 - where I've created, literally, dozens of completely unique and EFFECTIVE melee characters. Then we have archery and stealth, which is a complete bore in DA as well. It's as if they went "Brad Wardell" in their design department.

What they did is like taking the meat out of the burger, and replacing it with more salad.

With all that bitching, though, it's still a fine game with a great story and presentation. It's just sad that it's not something I'll replay and contemplate - like the old Bioware games used to be.