Beforehand, I had mentioned that I played Inquisition before DA2, which meant that I never really got a chance to play its Legacy add-on released a few months after its launch. This also means it was another case of seeing someone in a future entry (in this case, Corypheus) in their debut DLC, which like, really stings when you think about it. At least with Anders he was a companion that sported a drastic - and worse, but we'll... unpack that in the main review - personality change, Corypheus is the main baddie that's just plopped into the next game with preceding no fanfare or elaboration, so it's just another Bad DLC Practice scenario that were infesting the early-mid 2010s... but I digress. From the looks of it online, this is best played after the completion of the All That Remains questline in Act 2, which I can agree with due to the contents of the story here. I had a pretty adequate time overall, mainly due to feeling like the DA team making one big apology lap for all the crap decisions regarding DA2's gameplay. I'm saving the full brunt for the main review, but to briefly elucidate and foreshadow, you are

• No longer dealing with inflated health pools, a majority of the enemies here have their stats feel just right.
• No longer having to deal with random enemy reinforcements cropping up when it should've been over already, instead being done if it feels contextually necessary.
• Solving two or three puzzles that do a bit more than the bare Go To X Then Activate Y queries, and even those ones have a smidge more going on like with the Altar Of Dumat and Malcolm's Will side quests.
• Witnessing actual colors, lighting, and other mood setters instead of all the stock presentation plaguing the majority of the base game's dungeons.
• Partaking in fights, both major and minor, that are much, much better designed. The secret fight against Malvernis, especially, had more involved tactics and command planning than literally everything I had brute forced against prior, and it was right around the time I picked up on various cross-class combos too.

As for the rest of the package, they're well enough. Codices are more intriguing this time around, though DA2's lineup of them were already decently handled to begin with. The dungeon dwelling here still doesn't hit quite as much as they do in Origins, but it's also a step above the norm due to all the things I mentioned prior. While I'm not totally into the story being told, especially since Corypheus himself is just a water downed version of The Architect from Awakening (...which now that I'm saying this, also had watered down interactions of the Grey Warden stuff from there too in the form of Janeka and Larius), I will still give credit since it at least delves into and elaborates upon the Hawke Family, doubly so if you decide to bring the Sibling character along for the plot. Good for me, since I'm barely struggling to care about Hawke as-is in this point of the game's narrative. There's a couple of items here that makes the previously-alluded stale combat take up less time and making you bulkier, but a good number of items in other DLCs do an equal or outright better job, especially since these ones are scaled meaning they're potentially worse if you do this too early. At least Hawke's Key has a hilarious exploit, though!

Nothin else to really go over, just a rather solid add-on in the entire Bioware repertoire of these. Any other complaints would be akin to what I have with most: feels too under budgeted in accordance to the main meat within.