I have to say that this is the best playthrough I have had of this game, I had a great time running through the story again. I took a slightly different path through the game, with the biggest changes being a romance with Zevran rather than Alistair and that I did indeed take up Morrigan’s offer this time. That was quite hard to do – and I have to admit I felt absolutely awful about persuading Alistair to take part in the ritual… until I saw his face in the cutscene :P
all the gang
I almost didn’t want to start the final battle as I knew that this would be it… the end. I have to admit to turning the difficulty down for this playthrough as the combat is quite challenging (and fun!) on normal difficulty but it takes a lot longer… so the final battles were pretty easy but still quite epic.
I’m in a quandary now though – I was convinced that the ending of my first playthrough was ‘best’ but now… I’m actually liking the way the story panned out having taken up Morrigan’s offer. Well fortunately Dragon Age Keep isn’t in open beta yet, nor is Inquisition released… so I have some time to decide :)
the final blow – happily not mortal this time
I did find though, jumping straight from Origins to Awakening was a really bad idea. You go from being very comfortable with your skill and group setup, with companions who have been there all the way through to having new skills and new companions. It was quite jarring. Oghren’s re-introduction was hilarious though – he is fighting a pack of orcs and stops to wave jauntily halfway through.
I’m about a third of the way through Awakenings now – Dragon Age 2 awaits :)
