This review contains spoilers
Leliana's Song is meant as a retelling of Leliana's backstory, specifically the parts surrounding her betrayal by her mentor, Marjolaine. It comes off to a great start, with Leliana and her crew in Denerim at Marjolaine's service, ready to play the Orlesian game of intrigue between nobles. There's chemistry between Leliana and Marjolaine, as well as between her and her two sidekicks, and there's a bit of an open-endedness to how you can go about the objectives you're given for the night. This freedom, however, doesn't last long.
The DLC soon devolves into a lame, linear dungeon crawling romp: most of the main quest is spent going back and forth through the Arl of Denerim's estate from the main game, with fights that are either too easy or, in a couple of cases, flat out impossible without precise cheesing. There's pretty much no character progression, either: throughout the entire DLC, Leliana is a dual-wielding rogue that plays exactly like one of those would in the midgame campaign, and the starting equipment is good enough that there's little reason to be excited about whatever drops.
This would have all been fine if at least the story had been able to carry the DLC, but... okay, look, I understand the realities of game development, and how you can't exactly go creating the entirety of Val Royeaux for a piece of $7 DLC just because Leliana's story happened there: one must to find a way to use existing assets to save on cost. I also get that a bard telling a story will embellish or outright lie to make the tale more impressive -- I once listened to this dude named Varric tell this long-ass tale about a refugee and he had to repeatedly be stopped and asked to retell parts of it, but without the bullshit.
Neither of those things justifies how backwards Leliana's Song is, both as a DLC and as a retelling of Leliana's story. It doesn't reuse assets, but entire maps, and it doesn't do so cleverly: instead of making smart use of timeskips, being less specific about locations and conveniently only showing indoor or natural parts of Orlais -- which would have been indistinguishable from Ferelden maps -- it goes with a contiguous chunk of Leliana's life that is retconned to take place entirely in Ferelden, in a dizzying series of events jarringly unlike any story Leliana has ever told.
In Leliana's Song, every step of Leliana's betrayal takes place in Ferelden; she was never discovered by Orlais officials, but by some psycho in Ferelden who happened to be dating Marjolaine, and after her prison break, she sets out to have revenge on the both of them. This story is in conflict with Leliana's character from the campaign: the facts are all backwards; her worst qualities are highlighted as she is painted as ruthless and cruel, but at the same time, weak; her piety seen in the early moments of Dragon Age is absent, replaced with skepticism and lust for revenge; her resolution with Marjolaine is forced and much less impactful than the actual events in DA:O.
The excuse commonly made for it being so off is that this story is being changed on the whims of the storyteller, which sounds reasonable at first, except that that explanation contradicts Leliana's character in another way: she's the storyteller. Why does she paint herself in a much worse light in this version than she does in the one she tells the Warden? To whom is she telling a story where it makes sense to lie about the central points of the story, but say, not cover for the cleric that helps her? Why is she making her own backstory into this weird mix of romance, revenge and tragedy that is bad at all three?
Finally, I'll admit this is sort of a nitpick, but the stupid title cards. Talk about a tone-deaf way of introducing characters. They fit the opening fine by flashily introducing this band of thieves, but later usages of the device destroy the mood of the scenes they're trying to fit into. Again, nitpick, but god, does it feel like some intern directed this.
Leliana’s Song is easily the worst piece of Dragon Age: Origins DLC, a bar by no means easy to clear. It's a disappointing venture into its titular character's past, with the only conclusion that can be drawn from it being that Leliana is a terrible person and terrible storyteller. We don't take Leli slander in this house, so I think I'll just tell myself this DLC didn't exist.
The DLC soon devolves into a lame, linear dungeon crawling romp: most of the main quest is spent going back and forth through the Arl of Denerim's estate from the main game, with fights that are either too easy or, in a couple of cases, flat out impossible without precise cheesing. There's pretty much no character progression, either: throughout the entire DLC, Leliana is a dual-wielding rogue that plays exactly like one of those would in the midgame campaign, and the starting equipment is good enough that there's little reason to be excited about whatever drops.
This would have all been fine if at least the story had been able to carry the DLC, but... okay, look, I understand the realities of game development, and how you can't exactly go creating the entirety of Val Royeaux for a piece of $7 DLC just because Leliana's story happened there: one must to find a way to use existing assets to save on cost. I also get that a bard telling a story will embellish or outright lie to make the tale more impressive -- I once listened to this dude named Varric tell this long-ass tale about a refugee and he had to repeatedly be stopped and asked to retell parts of it, but without the bullshit.
Neither of those things justifies how backwards Leliana's Song is, both as a DLC and as a retelling of Leliana's story. It doesn't reuse assets, but entire maps, and it doesn't do so cleverly: instead of making smart use of timeskips, being less specific about locations and conveniently only showing indoor or natural parts of Orlais -- which would have been indistinguishable from Ferelden maps -- it goes with a contiguous chunk of Leliana's life that is retconned to take place entirely in Ferelden, in a dizzying series of events jarringly unlike any story Leliana has ever told.
In Leliana's Song, every step of Leliana's betrayal takes place in Ferelden; she was never discovered by Orlais officials, but by some psycho in Ferelden who happened to be dating Marjolaine, and after her prison break, she sets out to have revenge on the both of them. This story is in conflict with Leliana's character from the campaign: the facts are all backwards; her worst qualities are highlighted as she is painted as ruthless and cruel, but at the same time, weak; her piety seen in the early moments of Dragon Age is absent, replaced with skepticism and lust for revenge; her resolution with Marjolaine is forced and much less impactful than the actual events in DA:O.
The excuse commonly made for it being so off is that this story is being changed on the whims of the storyteller, which sounds reasonable at first, except that that explanation contradicts Leliana's character in another way: she's the storyteller. Why does she paint herself in a much worse light in this version than she does in the one she tells the Warden? To whom is she telling a story where it makes sense to lie about the central points of the story, but say, not cover for the cleric that helps her? Why is she making her own backstory into this weird mix of romance, revenge and tragedy that is bad at all three?
Finally, I'll admit this is sort of a nitpick, but the stupid title cards. Talk about a tone-deaf way of introducing characters. They fit the opening fine by flashily introducing this band of thieves, but later usages of the device destroy the mood of the scenes they're trying to fit into. Again, nitpick, but god, does it feel like some intern directed this.
Leliana’s Song is easily the worst piece of Dragon Age: Origins DLC, a bar by no means easy to clear. It's a disappointing venture into its titular character's past, with the only conclusion that can be drawn from it being that Leliana is a terrible person and terrible storyteller. We don't take Leli slander in this house, so I think I'll just tell myself this DLC didn't exist.