Dragon Age 2: Legacy Review

Dragon Age 2: Legacy takes you into a section of the Deep Roads, where you uncover dark secrets of both the Hawke Family and the Grey Wardens!

Release Date: 26/07/2011

Platforms: Pc, Xbox 360, PS3

Price: $9.99 for PS3, 800 BW pts/ MS pts for PC and 360

Total run time: 2h, 30m (Blood/Force Mage Hawke, Aveline, Anders, Varric)

Difficulty: Moderate (there are a few hard encounters, but nothing a DA veteran can't handle; even on hard/nightmare)

Accessibility: Act 2, statue in your estate's library

Summary: Legacy takes a turn for the better, in terms of story, gameplay, visuals, and BANTER (Aveline actually has a sense of humor now)!

Visuals/Audio:

You'll all be glad to hear that they didn't reuse any areas at all, giving us several environment changes as we progress through the game. They've also improved on various environmental effects, allowing the area you're in to really set the mood of the game.

Nothing new in terms of audio, it’s the same old DA2 audio files at work here. 9/10

Story:

Not much can be said about the story, without giving away spoilers. Though I can say that the story of Legacy gives you an in-depth view on the history of the Hawke family, making the ever-so-bland character of Hawke a whole lot more bearable (It's just sad that Carver is still dull as fuck); more so if you rolled a mage. You'll also get to read several codex entries that bring more flavor to the world of Dragon Age. 8/10

Gameplay

The fights are a lot more fun this time around. You get more chances to interact with traps, and there are a few changes with the fight mechanics used on the darkspawn, but what really takes the cake is the final boss. The final boss encounter in Legacy is a whole lot of fun! It's highly interactive, it involves a decent amount of planning, has a lot of movement, and it's not too hard (unlike The Harvester)! If you've seen the cartoon "Avatar: The Last Airbender", you'll see that the final encounter is reminiscent of an Avatar going ape...which is a good thing.

The DLC offers a several items that are pretty neat.

1. Class-specific weapon for Hawke: You get to "customize" this as you go further into the game.

2. Armor set for Hawke: I'm not 100% on what the set bonus is (because I failed to get all the pieces in my run), but there is a set bonus! You get the four different pieces in four different locations as you progress in the game.

3. Jewelry and upgrades for your party members.

8/10

Total Score:  8.33/10

This DLC is definitely worth every single penny I spent on it. Sure, there may be a few things that could have been done better, but at this price, it'd be tough to complain.

Dragon Age 2 Legacy trailer

Finally, an actual DLC coming for Dragon Age 2. It's real content this time, giving us a reason to hold our Dragon Age 2 copies again. Official Trailer is up for Legacy and as always, Bioware makes it look epic.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djocoCJo7_g]

Targeted by a vicious criminal cartel that are hunting "the blood of the Hawke," you must put an end to their relentless attacks. Leave Kirkwall, and journey to an ancient Grey Warden prison in order to find the source of the aggression and uncover the harsh truth about the Hawke lineage. Playable from any point in the DAII campaign, face all new darkspawn, forge a powerful new weapon and come face to face with an ancient horror.

Dragon Age 2: Legacy will be available for download on July 26 for PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. If you are indeed interested in expanding your Dragon Age 2 content, it will cost you $9.99 on the PSN, 800 Bioware points on PC, and 800 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live.

[Source: Bioware Official Site]