As a Dungeons & Dragons fan, I looked forward to Neverwinter Nights. I tried playing Neverwinter Nights (the first one) several times and just couldn’t get into it. That first segment where it’s basically “go here, fight boss, find item” times 4 felt like a long drag, despite the pretty amazing gameplay and graphical treats for the time.
For instance, I found a guy who talked about how he had his way with a girl and ran away, so I pulled up my context menu and killed him. Few games give you that freedom.
During my Master’s year, my friend recommended I check out the sequel. The experience was loads different. You start out customizing your character and then you meet up with 2 friends to go compete in your town’s annual fair. More likely than not, you’re going to trounce the competition. But celebrations that night are cut short as these weird goblin/troll forces attack the town, sacking it completely despite your attempts to mount a defense.
Your foster father reveals that the enemy was looking for a shard that he hid in the ruins next to the town. You fetch the shard, and to protect the town, you travel to Neverwinter. Along the way, you meet more companions, such as the dwarf who wants to be a monk so he can learn how to fight better and the stalker druid chick. There’re plenty of quests to do and places to see. Eventually you assume command of Crossroads Keep, and you can build it up to be a bastion of awesomeness based on whom you choose to build what and when.
The graphics are beautiful and the combat is fun and varied. The different camera schemes make navigation comfortable for different players. There’s multiplayer, allowing me to play with my friend, though the game literally ignores all but one player (which means, for one thing, the game becomes easy with multiple people; we got around this by setting the game to the hardest difficulty, with friendly fire on, at which point we died more to Qara’s area-of-effect magic spells than to the enemies).
NWN2 also allows you to create your own items. You can, for example, forge a katana, enchant it with whatever you want given you have the correct items, and then you get to name your own personal item. I love that system. It’s so much better than grinding or farming for items, praying to RNG the entire time, like you’d find in most RPGs.
My favorite part of the game is this completely optional segment where a famous bard (Cain) who’s full of himself decides to goad you into challenging him to a music contest, just so he can put you down. My friend told me that I should purposely lose the competition, so I did, and when Cain taunts you for losing, one of your response options is to “[s]et Cain on fire and steal his lute.”
…Yeah. That was glorious. I don’t even care that I got a bunch of Evil points for that. This game easily gets the highest rating from me.
I’d like to say a few words about the expansion, Mask of the Betrayer. When I first wrote this shrine in late 2015, I intended to play through the expansion and incorporate it into the shrine. While it was my second playthrough of the vanilla campaign, that was my first time experiencing the expansion. I got a few hours into it and gave up.
MotB features what’s basically an addiction simulator. You get infected with a “spirit-eater” curse, giving you a meter of spirit energy. That meter drops over time and if it hits 0, you die. To stave this off, you must eat spirits, which is morally dubious in-game and also increases your craving. The higher your craving, the faster that spirit meter drops.
Generally speaking, there are ways of dealing with this easily while you’re in-town. For instance, you can consume one of the many undead spirits roaming the town’s shadow zone, which will fill your spirit meter but will not increase craving. But when you’re doing quests in other areas, you’re under a constant time-attack-type scenario, which adds undue stress and goes against one hallmark of RPGs – taking your time to explore the world.
About 3 years later, I decided to give it another go. I stand by what I said in the previous paragraph, but I will admit that having completed the expansion, if you keep your craving at its minimum level, your spirit energy falls so slowly that it’s rarely an actual concern. So, I’ll go ahead and give this feature a pass. And even though I don’t really like the opposite, I will admit it does something few RPGs do – create an actual sense of urgency consistent with the plot.
Now that we’ve discussed the expansion’s main mechanic, let’s talk about the story, which most people consider top-notch. It didn’t exactly blow me away, but I agree that it’s a well-written, cohesive, and somewhat deep plot. Sure, the first few hours have your character (and you, the player) wandering around with completely no clue as to what the hell is going on. But unlike some other cRPG expansions I could name, the game explains to you, over time, subtly and slowly but surely, what everything means.
You first hear an old myth about a guy named Akachi, a high priest of the god of death. Akachi betrayed his god but was defeated. It seems to have nothing to do with your plight, but – again, subtly – the game hints that it has everything to do with your plight. You hear about the god, Myrkul (whom I eventually destroyed), exacting some sort of punishment on Akachi that nobody seems to know the nature of. You later learn from some sleeping hags (whom I murdered) that your curse came from Myrkul…and it clicks into place, roughly halfway through the game, without the game having to dump exposition on you, that the spirit-eater curse is Akachi himself.
Oh, sure, the game does eventually spell out everything explicitly – the Founder does this, explaining that Akachi betrayed Myrkul out of love for her, so after Akachi was captured and turned into the spirit-eater, she spent centuries plotting how to grant him peace. But by then, nothing really came as a surprise. I learned more and more about the plot gradually until I had a clear idea of what I was trying to do and why by the time I got to her.
I will say that MotB is horribly balanced. Fights that I steamrolled were right next to fights I had a hard time with. Some fights completely boiled down to which side successfully cast a mass instant death spell first. The last boss also has some fuckery going on with his HP, as he sat at “Near Death” for ~30 minutes with me summoning meteors into his face while fire and acid burned away at him over time. In contrast, I got him from “Uninjured” to “Near Death” in about…1 minute?
Also, the plot revolves heavily around the Wall of the Faithless, which is composed of souls that didn’t follow a god in life. Imagine trapped inside a nightmare wall with other souls all screaming for the rest of time just for being an atheist or an agnostic. The end stages of the game have you leading an army to attack the wall to destroy it and free everyone inside, but then you just…don’t. You take control of the entire city housing the Wall, but then you just…leave. Why? I wanted that thing torn down.
The character: Benamin, Knight-Captain of Crossroads Keep
Since this game is based on D&D, I can use the stat system I devised directly:
Strength: 9-12 (C-rank) to 13-16 (B-rank)
Dexterity: 9-12 (C-rank) to 13-16 (B-rank)
Constitution: 5-8 (D-rank) to 9-12 (C-rank)
Intelligence: 13-16 (B-rank) to 17-20 (A-rank)
Wisdom: 17-20 (A-rank) to 21+ (S-rank)
Charisma: 9-12 (C-rank) to 13-16 (B-rank)
Here’s me at MotB’s end-game, before I fought the last boss inside my soul. As you can see I relied heavily on enchanted items (that I named with extreme levels of creativity) to ensure that my character didn’t die from a stiff breeze blowing him over.
For instance, I found a guy who talked about how he had his way with a girl and ran away, so I pulled up my context menu and killed him. Few games give you that freedom.
During my Master’s year, my friend recommended I check out the sequel. The experience was loads different. You start out customizing your character and then you meet up with 2 friends to go compete in your town’s annual fair. More likely than not, you’re going to trounce the competition. But celebrations that night are cut short as these weird goblin/troll forces attack the town, sacking it completely despite your attempts to mount a defense.
Your foster father reveals that the enemy was looking for a shard that he hid in the ruins next to the town. You fetch the shard, and to protect the town, you travel to Neverwinter. Along the way, you meet more companions, such as the dwarf who wants to be a monk so he can learn how to fight better and the stalker druid chick. There’re plenty of quests to do and places to see. Eventually you assume command of Crossroads Keep, and you can build it up to be a bastion of awesomeness based on whom you choose to build what and when.
The graphics are beautiful and the combat is fun and varied. The different camera schemes make navigation comfortable for different players. There’s multiplayer, allowing me to play with my friend, though the game literally ignores all but one player (which means, for one thing, the game becomes easy with multiple people; we got around this by setting the game to the hardest difficulty, with friendly fire on, at which point we died more to Qara’s area-of-effect magic spells than to the enemies).
NWN2 also allows you to create your own items. You can, for example, forge a katana, enchant it with whatever you want given you have the correct items, and then you get to name your own personal item. I love that system. It’s so much better than grinding or farming for items, praying to RNG the entire time, like you’d find in most RPGs.
My favorite part of the game is this completely optional segment where a famous bard (Cain) who’s full of himself decides to goad you into challenging him to a music contest, just so he can put you down. My friend told me that I should purposely lose the competition, so I did, and when Cain taunts you for losing, one of your response options is to “[s]et Cain on fire and steal his lute.”
…Yeah. That was glorious. I don’t even care that I got a bunch of Evil points for that. This game easily gets the highest rating from me.
I’d like to say a few words about the expansion, Mask of the Betrayer. When I first wrote this shrine in late 2015, I intended to play through the expansion and incorporate it into the shrine. While it was my second playthrough of the vanilla campaign, that was my first time experiencing the expansion. I got a few hours into it and gave up.
MotB features what’s basically an addiction simulator. You get infected with a “spirit-eater” curse, giving you a meter of spirit energy. That meter drops over time and if it hits 0, you die. To stave this off, you must eat spirits, which is morally dubious in-game and also increases your craving. The higher your craving, the faster that spirit meter drops.
Generally speaking, there are ways of dealing with this easily while you’re in-town. For instance, you can consume one of the many undead spirits roaming the town’s shadow zone, which will fill your spirit meter but will not increase craving. But when you’re doing quests in other areas, you’re under a constant time-attack-type scenario, which adds undue stress and goes against one hallmark of RPGs – taking your time to explore the world.
About 3 years later, I decided to give it another go. I stand by what I said in the previous paragraph, but I will admit that having completed the expansion, if you keep your craving at its minimum level, your spirit energy falls so slowly that it’s rarely an actual concern. So, I’ll go ahead and give this feature a pass. And even though I don’t really like the opposite, I will admit it does something few RPGs do – create an actual sense of urgency consistent with the plot.
Now that we’ve discussed the expansion’s main mechanic, let’s talk about the story, which most people consider top-notch. It didn’t exactly blow me away, but I agree that it’s a well-written, cohesive, and somewhat deep plot. Sure, the first few hours have your character (and you, the player) wandering around with completely no clue as to what the hell is going on. But unlike some other cRPG expansions I could name, the game explains to you, over time, subtly and slowly but surely, what everything means.
You first hear an old myth about a guy named Akachi, a high priest of the god of death. Akachi betrayed his god but was defeated. It seems to have nothing to do with your plight, but – again, subtly – the game hints that it has everything to do with your plight. You hear about the god, Myrkul (whom I eventually destroyed), exacting some sort of punishment on Akachi that nobody seems to know the nature of. You later learn from some sleeping hags (whom I murdered) that your curse came from Myrkul…and it clicks into place, roughly halfway through the game, without the game having to dump exposition on you, that the spirit-eater curse is Akachi himself.
Oh, sure, the game does eventually spell out everything explicitly – the Founder does this, explaining that Akachi betrayed Myrkul out of love for her, so after Akachi was captured and turned into the spirit-eater, she spent centuries plotting how to grant him peace. But by then, nothing really came as a surprise. I learned more and more about the plot gradually until I had a clear idea of what I was trying to do and why by the time I got to her.
I will say that MotB is horribly balanced. Fights that I steamrolled were right next to fights I had a hard time with. Some fights completely boiled down to which side successfully cast a mass instant death spell first. The last boss also has some fuckery going on with his HP, as he sat at “Near Death” for ~30 minutes with me summoning meteors into his face while fire and acid burned away at him over time. In contrast, I got him from “Uninjured” to “Near Death” in about…1 minute?
Also, the plot revolves heavily around the Wall of the Faithless, which is composed of souls that didn’t follow a god in life. Imagine trapped inside a nightmare wall with other souls all screaming for the rest of time just for being an atheist or an agnostic. The end stages of the game have you leading an army to attack the wall to destroy it and free everyone inside, but then you just…don’t. You take control of the entire city housing the Wall, but then you just…leave. Why? I wanted that thing torn down.
The character: Benamin, Knight-Captain of Crossroads Keep
Since this game is based on D&D, I can use the stat system I devised directly:
Strength: 9-12 (C-rank) to 13-16 (B-rank)
Dexterity: 9-12 (C-rank) to 13-16 (B-rank)
Constitution: 5-8 (D-rank) to 9-12 (C-rank)
Intelligence: 13-16 (B-rank) to 17-20 (A-rank)
Wisdom: 17-20 (A-rank) to 21+ (S-rank)
Charisma: 9-12 (C-rank) to 13-16 (B-rank)
Here’s me at MotB’s end-game, before I fought the last boss inside my soul. As you can see I relied heavily on enchanted items (that I named with extreme levels of creativity) to ensure that my character didn’t die from a stiff breeze blowing him over.
Here's an equipment breakdown (not including my weapon, which is the Silver Sword of Gith if you missed the screenshot above):
If you’re wondering why I have more HP than my max HP, it’s because I had Greater Stoneskin on when I took this screenshot. For some reason it didn’t show the actual stone effect – it usually does.
Initially, I played as a melee character that relied on magical buffs, mostly using attribute-boosting spells like Bear’s Endurance. As I enchanted better items I stopped using those as item bonuses don’t stack with magical buffs. Later, I relied more on my spells, such as Bigby’s hands or my favorite, Meteor Swarm. The playstyle was interesting and varied if not cumbersome, since recasting multiple buffs each time I rested was annoying.
Major decisions
Neverwinter Nights 2 is uniquely linear and has few major decisions. I chose to support the Watch in Neverwinter while aggressively killing Watchmen who took bribes – except for one guy who was basically just trying to support his family. I chose to help Neeshka rob that Collector guy because, as you learn, he’s not that good of a person. In the Qara v. Sand influence check I heavily favored Qara because Qara is awesome. That’s…about it for the main campaign, I think?
As for the expansion, I spared Okku because he’s a giant bear god that joins your party if you do.
…You need further explanation? What further explanation do you need? He’s a giant bear god.
Anyway, I rarely ate spirits and mostly played a guy trying to get rid of the curse rather than use it to consume everything. I ended Myrkul because fuck that guy. When the Founder explained to me her role in all this, my actual real-life response was, “lady, you could’ve just asked for my help” and then decided not to kill her. I attacked the City of Judgment because of course I was going to bring down the Wall of the Faithless. At the end I restored Akachi using his mask…for justice.
Random things to note
Being the Knight-Captain of Crossroads Keep, I was in charge of building up this dilapidated land into a bastion of power to fight off the Big Bad. Looking back, I’m unsure whether this actually affects the game at all, but it was kind of fun. Here are my final stats:
Keep stats
Funds: 201793
Income: 1793
Recruits: 852
Merchants: 425
Peasants: 434
Peasant civility: High
Morale: Very high
Greycloaks: 2002
Volunteers: 1251
Greycloak civility: High
Training: Best of the best
Unit strength: Very high
Weapons: Best
Armor: Best
Constructed buildings
Blacksmith
Merchant shop
Church of Tyr
Neverwinter Nine Grand Tower
Keep library
West wing
Captain’s suite
Sergeants/duties
Katriona: training
Bevil: road patrol
Light of Heavens: recruiting
Jalboun: special assignments
Security
Fortifications: reinforced towers
Land: Very high
Roads: Very high
Road construction: renovated with watch towers and new bridges
Next, in this game exists a fully-grown dragon named Tholapsyx. If you make the right choices, it’s fairly easy – and well-advised – to avoid fighting her. Well, I attacked her anyway (she did say she wanted to eat me…), and it took a few tries, but in the end I was victorious and helped myself to her clichéd pile of dragon loot:
- Benamin’s Crown (+9 Intelligence and Will Save, +8 Charisma and Dexterity)
- Benamin’s Armor (Adamantine, 28 Spell Resistance, +35 Health, 8 Regeneration, +8 Armor)
- Benamin’s Belt (+10 Strength, +9 Fortitude Save)
- Benamin’s Boots (+8 Constitution, +9 Reflex Save)
- The Likely Amulet (+9 Wisdom, +5 Natural Armor)
- Benamin’s Cape (25 Resist Electric and Fire)
- Grips of Gond (+12 Craft Alchemy, Armor, Traps, and Weapons)
- Iron Ring of Engineering (+9 Saves v. Electric, Fire, and Cold)
- Ring of Power (Freedom of Movement, 1 Regeneration)
If you’re wondering why I have more HP than my max HP, it’s because I had Greater Stoneskin on when I took this screenshot. For some reason it didn’t show the actual stone effect – it usually does.
Initially, I played as a melee character that relied on magical buffs, mostly using attribute-boosting spells like Bear’s Endurance. As I enchanted better items I stopped using those as item bonuses don’t stack with magical buffs. Later, I relied more on my spells, such as Bigby’s hands or my favorite, Meteor Swarm. The playstyle was interesting and varied if not cumbersome, since recasting multiple buffs each time I rested was annoying.
Major decisions
Neverwinter Nights 2 is uniquely linear and has few major decisions. I chose to support the Watch in Neverwinter while aggressively killing Watchmen who took bribes – except for one guy who was basically just trying to support his family. I chose to help Neeshka rob that Collector guy because, as you learn, he’s not that good of a person. In the Qara v. Sand influence check I heavily favored Qara because Qara is awesome. That’s…about it for the main campaign, I think?
As for the expansion, I spared Okku because he’s a giant bear god that joins your party if you do.
…You need further explanation? What further explanation do you need? He’s a giant bear god.
Anyway, I rarely ate spirits and mostly played a guy trying to get rid of the curse rather than use it to consume everything. I ended Myrkul because fuck that guy. When the Founder explained to me her role in all this, my actual real-life response was, “lady, you could’ve just asked for my help” and then decided not to kill her. I attacked the City of Judgment because of course I was going to bring down the Wall of the Faithless. At the end I restored Akachi using his mask…for justice.
Random things to note
Being the Knight-Captain of Crossroads Keep, I was in charge of building up this dilapidated land into a bastion of power to fight off the Big Bad. Looking back, I’m unsure whether this actually affects the game at all, but it was kind of fun. Here are my final stats:
Keep stats
Funds: 201793
Income: 1793
Recruits: 852
Merchants: 425
Peasants: 434
Peasant civility: High
Morale: Very high
Greycloaks: 2002
Volunteers: 1251
Greycloak civility: High
Training: Best of the best
Unit strength: Very high
Weapons: Best
Armor: Best
Constructed buildings
Blacksmith
Merchant shop
Church of Tyr
Neverwinter Nine Grand Tower
Keep library
West wing
Captain’s suite
Sergeants/duties
Katriona: training
Bevil: road patrol
Light of Heavens: recruiting
Jalboun: special assignments
Security
Fortifications: reinforced towers
Land: Very high
Roads: Very high
Road construction: renovated with watch towers and new bridges
Next, in this game exists a fully-grown dragon named Tholapsyx. If you make the right choices, it’s fairly easy – and well-advised – to avoid fighting her. Well, I attacked her anyway (she did say she wanted to eat me…), and it took a few tries, but in the end I was victorious and helped myself to her clichéd pile of dragon loot:
Finally, there’s an optional sequence where I got to build/name a golem and have it fight other golems. Here it is in all its glory, constructed from specialized parts I found throughout the expansion: