Beaten: Apr 25 2022
Time: Not sure, guessing around 35-40 Hours
Platform: Windows (via Parallels on Mac)
Icewind Dale 2 is a sequel for the people who mastered the first game and D&D years ago, and want to be tested.
If you’re unfamiliar, Icewind Dale 1 is an Infinity Engine game (along with the Baldur’s Gate series and Planescape Torment) with less of a focus on storytelling and much more emphasis on the dungeon crawl experience. It comes up less in best-of lists than it’s brethren, but make no mistake, it’s a classic in it’s own right. The first game uses AD&D 2 as its basis, just like the other infinity engine games, but really required a mastery of those systems to get through the end.
Icewind Dale 2, on the other hand, runs the at-the-time newly-released D&D 3.0. I’m not really qualified to talk on the differences between the systems, but the only real balancing difference I noticed was that creating characters felt more hit or miss, like you needed a better idea of what you were doing to get past the first area. Beyond that, IWD 2 bumps up the number of enemies and dungeon/puzzle complexity significantly, starting at a point similar to around halfway through IWD 1 and ending up in a crazy spot, before ratcheting it down a tad in the final hours.
The world building doesn’t feel quite as… unique, for lack of a better word, as the first game. The situation is interesting, sure, but the areas you end up in are a little bit more standard for these games, and a lot of the dungeons are just places you pass through. There’s one big exception to this, the bottom of Dragon’s Eye, which contains a weird little situation you need to solve to move on, but beyond that and the final dungeon (chapter 6, which is phenomenal), it just feels a bit more transient than I would’ve liked.
The pacing also falters in a way that none of the other infinity engine games really have for me, with chapter 5 just having such a specific puzzle solution, followed by another puzzle situation, followed by the final dungeon’s smorgasbord of semi-optional content, it just felt like the game should’ve cut a dungeon out or something.
Besides that though, the complex puzzles and situations throughout the six chapters feel well done and well placed, with the scale of each encounter being solidly one notch beyond the last, and a really high standard of writing throughout. It actually reminded me of Fallout 2 in that way, being a funnier, more self-referential game than the first in the series
It’s not a game that would set the world on fire (you can tell, cuz it didn’t lol), but for a dungeon-romp with high quality dialogue? You could do so, so much worse. If you like the first one and wanna explore D&D 3.0, pick this up (over NWN 1, if that’s the choice lol)
Time: Not sure, guessing around 35-40 Hours
Platform: Windows (via Parallels on Mac)
Icewind Dale 2 is a sequel for the people who mastered the first game and D&D years ago, and want to be tested.
If you’re unfamiliar, Icewind Dale 1 is an Infinity Engine game (along with the Baldur’s Gate series and Planescape Torment) with less of a focus on storytelling and much more emphasis on the dungeon crawl experience. It comes up less in best-of lists than it’s brethren, but make no mistake, it’s a classic in it’s own right. The first game uses AD&D 2 as its basis, just like the other infinity engine games, but really required a mastery of those systems to get through the end.
Icewind Dale 2, on the other hand, runs the at-the-time newly-released D&D 3.0. I’m not really qualified to talk on the differences between the systems, but the only real balancing difference I noticed was that creating characters felt more hit or miss, like you needed a better idea of what you were doing to get past the first area. Beyond that, IWD 2 bumps up the number of enemies and dungeon/puzzle complexity significantly, starting at a point similar to around halfway through IWD 1 and ending up in a crazy spot, before ratcheting it down a tad in the final hours.
The world building doesn’t feel quite as… unique, for lack of a better word, as the first game. The situation is interesting, sure, but the areas you end up in are a little bit more standard for these games, and a lot of the dungeons are just places you pass through. There’s one big exception to this, the bottom of Dragon’s Eye, which contains a weird little situation you need to solve to move on, but beyond that and the final dungeon (chapter 6, which is phenomenal), it just feels a bit more transient than I would’ve liked.
The pacing also falters in a way that none of the other infinity engine games really have for me, with chapter 5 just having such a specific puzzle solution, followed by another puzzle situation, followed by the final dungeon’s smorgasbord of semi-optional content, it just felt like the game should’ve cut a dungeon out or something.
Besides that though, the complex puzzles and situations throughout the six chapters feel well done and well placed, with the scale of each encounter being solidly one notch beyond the last, and a really high standard of writing throughout. It actually reminded me of Fallout 2 in that way, being a funnier, more self-referential game than the first in the series
It’s not a game that would set the world on fire (you can tell, cuz it didn’t lol), but for a dungeon-romp with high quality dialogue? You could do so, so much worse. If you like the first one and wanna explore D&D 3.0, pick this up (over NWN 1, if that’s the choice lol)