I always prefered the weathered and rugged looks of Justin Sweet's Icewind Dale II portraits over the 'cleaner' ones from the Baldur's Gate trilogy. Somehow they simply have more character to them. I'm also a fan of his other concept artworks as well.
@Kamigoroshi They have more character to them, and yet somehow they're more of a blank slate, so we can put our own characters into them. That's why I love them far more than BG's.
'Camping' in the Vale of the Shadows for a good ole' yeti slaughterfest via rest respawns. Nothing like boosting your characters for a few extra levels.
All kidding aside though, Everard's sacrifice in the vein of Jarrod, was pretty good stuff. First time I saw that part, I was pretty impressed.
@Quartz That's right! The IWD portrait guy made the new ones for BG:EE, didn't he? I had forgotten. Or perhaps I'm wrong, in which case I've just made an ar*e of myself.
Having my ranger use "charm animal" on Yxunomei and it actually working on her... the battle of dragons eye suddenly got easier. Wonder if they' ll fix it in EE...
Working like Napoleon in front of my laptop with my ice-tea , with my 6 , Heart of Fury , to find a way to beat that Summoner Yuan-ti. I had it , but later then I found an easier way , a story-driven way that made me feel so, so bad...
I also remember the psych I had when getting a strategy to beat Yxunomei. Some frustrations , and later victory.
The feel of isolation when you work through a game at the hardest , without any spoilers and hints is good. It's a shame it is only once for every game as long as your memory is intact.
The Severed Hand is a very nice place. My favorite with BG city and Beregost. Lights, musics, the history of that fortress, Larrel, everything is beautiful
Sadly my most fond memory as my game breaking on the last boss and not playing the final cutscene, my guys just sat there. But i cant fault the game for that. I think my most fond memory was always making my druid' ya know the guys that a supposed to be all formal and proper have the silly voice. Summon a fire elemental? Yeah thats fine i guess
One of my favorite memories...astrolabe whirls, twirls....Severed Hand kicked my butt so many times, taught me how to use clerics for the first time. Never really appreciated the cleric in BG, but the Hand taught me that they aren't merely medics and turn undead/sanctuary is a powerful tool to have in your arsenal.
...taught me how to use clerics for the first time. Never really appreciated the cleric in BG, but the Hand taught me that they aren't merely medics...
I agree with that. I learned that clerics are those who "turns fighters on" , after I dualled a mage., and don't forget about druids too. Though I did not learn it in IWD , I especially selected druid at first because of both healing and 'summons'. Summonning was the master piece in my chess. I still got fond memories dispatching countless gnolls at the Shadow Dragon in BG2 , yelling "Die Scum!" and going down after a second like it's a Braveheart movie. Shadow Dragon stopped resisting at the mass army of William Charname Wallace after inefficient attempts to malison hobgoblins and gnolls , poor sod.
Actually, a fairly recent playthrough I did with a friend of mine (his first playthrough), in the Black Temple of Lower Dorn's Deep, right before the second to last encounter with Poquelin, that huge fight with all of the Zombie Lords and simply dozens upon dozens of high and medium level undead monsters, among other things...
My friend's characters all became stunned and were badly wounded. My three characters (I had a female dwarf barbarian, a female half-elf cleric/mage, and a male thief) had their fair share of troubles too. I forget what exactly happened but my thief (ranged fighter) was more or less useless or subdued in the fight, leaving my barbarian to try to hold off a ton of the baddies while my cleric/mage turned undead around my friends' characters (all on low health) in order to keep them alive. Eventually my barbarian even had to flee from the fight because it was becoming too much for her, resulting in my cleric/mage going into the front line with turn undead on. Cast several spells as well, but mainly, turn undead was my baby. Ended up killing countless undead that way, and the Zombie Lords and Greater Mummies in the fight kept fleeing away from all of the wounded/stunned characters so they could lick their wounds.
Eventually, it was won, with probably a hundred or so monsters lying--dead--again--on the floor around us.
It was amazing, it gave me a totally new appreciation for the cleric/mage (she had 44 hit points with gear that even raised her HP, leaving her even way under the HP level of my thief). She was a huge asset for the team before this, but was almost always out shined by my barbarian. Not in this battle
My first encounter with the infinity engine was with a pirated copy of IWD that my dad got from somewhere. I couldn't have been older than 13-14 at the time, and I had no experience with AD&D at the time, although I was a rabid RPG fan.
I built characters that I had no idea about, who frequently died because they had super low HP and I only had one or two healing spells at a time. Soon after, I discovered you could import characters right from inside the game, and everytime one died, I replaced him with a copy of himself. I think I managed to make it to Kuldahar.
I later purchased a copy of HoW thinking it was a standalone game, and managed to borrow a copy of my uncle's IWD to install it. From there, everything was golden.
As for a sweet memory of the series, I can recall in the final battle of IWD2, my dwarven fighter was hit by a disintegrate spell, and continued to do a full round of critical hits to the boss as he was fading out of existence. He killed the boss, but didn't live to see the credits roll, truly a heroic sacrifice.
I'm very, very fond of staring up IWD and starting a new game. Oh, the endless possibilities of party creation! It's a re-rollers dream and nightmare all at the same time. I always set aside hours for it, and did a lot of preparation beforehand. Fun for days, and I'm not exaggerating.
The second memory I cherish is when I first played IWD "seriously", that is, further than Vale of Shadows or wherever I ended up the first few tries. I made it to those beautifully illuminated gnome villages before abandoning the game. What was most magical about it is that I clearly had a sub-par party, and still made it that far. To this day, I can't imagine how I did it without loot-reloading spam, powergaming at char creation, not using guides for fights, and having a party consist of a 2H sword Ranger, a dwarf Fighter (that one was powerful, I'll give you that), a singleclass Thief (ouch), a singleclass Druid (that I used for spearfighting in leather armour and as a healbot, double ouch), and two mages - one generalist, one specialist; I don't even know where I got the spells for those two girls.
Really, it's a wonder how magical things can be when you're young, and how strange they seem when you've grown up and are overthinking everything. I defeated Yxunomei without major cheese and guides...
I have to add: When someone teleports you to a ruined castle, without warning, it is your right to become very angry. Like it happened to me, first time I talked to Hobart (A very fond memory)
What I loved the most was playing the Heart of Fury mode, especially at the start of the game: what a thrill to struggle for an hour finding strategies to kill a couple of goblins, making you jump several levels at a time!
After reading through the posts, I am glad to find many that shared similar (if not the same) views on Icewind Dale. The wonderful music, background art, as well as beautiful portraits.
If I have to pick something that hasn't been said yet, that'd be the evil choices I got to make in the Icewind Dale series (Especially in Icewind Dale II)
Comments
All kidding aside though, Everard's sacrifice in the vein of Jarrod, was pretty good stuff. First time I saw that part, I was pretty impressed.
Wonder if they' ll fix it in EE...
I also remember the psych I had when getting a strategy to beat Yxunomei. Some frustrations , and later victory.
The feel of isolation when you work through a game at the hardest , without any spoilers and hints is good. It's a shame it is only once for every game as long as your memory is intact.
Collecting the correct equipment to make a fighter-type immune to slashing damage.
My friend's characters all became stunned and were badly wounded. My three characters (I had a female dwarf barbarian, a female half-elf cleric/mage, and a male thief) had their fair share of troubles too. I forget what exactly happened but my thief (ranged fighter) was more or less useless or subdued in the fight, leaving my barbarian to try to hold off a ton of the baddies while my cleric/mage turned undead around my friends' characters (all on low health) in order to keep them alive. Eventually my barbarian even had to flee from the fight because it was becoming too much for her, resulting in my cleric/mage going into the front line with turn undead on. Cast several spells as well, but mainly, turn undead was my baby. Ended up killing countless undead that way, and the Zombie Lords and Greater Mummies in the fight kept fleeing away from all of the wounded/stunned characters so they could lick their wounds.
Eventually, it was won, with probably a hundred or so monsters lying--dead--again--on the floor around us.
It was amazing, it gave me a totally new appreciation for the cleric/mage (she had 44 hit points with gear that even raised her HP, leaving her even way under the HP level of my thief). She was a huge asset for the team before this, but was almost always out shined by my barbarian. Not in this battle
I built characters that I had no idea about, who frequently died because they had super low HP and I only had one or two healing spells at a time. Soon after, I discovered you could import characters right from inside the game, and everytime one died, I replaced him with a copy of himself. I think I managed to make it to Kuldahar.
I later purchased a copy of HoW thinking it was a standalone game, and managed to borrow a copy of my uncle's IWD to install it. From there, everything was golden.
As for a sweet memory of the series, I can recall in the final battle of IWD2, my dwarven fighter was hit by a disintegrate spell, and continued to do a full round of critical hits to the boss as he was fading out of existence. He killed the boss, but didn't live to see the credits roll, truly a heroic sacrifice.
The second memory I cherish is when I first played IWD "seriously", that is, further than Vale of Shadows or wherever I ended up the first few tries. I made it to those beautifully illuminated gnome villages before abandoning the game. What was most magical about it is that I clearly had a sub-par party, and still made it that far. To this day, I can't imagine how I did it without loot-reloading spam, powergaming at char creation, not using guides for fights, and having a party consist of a 2H sword Ranger, a dwarf Fighter (that one was powerful, I'll give you that), a singleclass Thief (ouch), a singleclass Druid (that I used for spearfighting in leather armour and as a healbot, double ouch), and two mages - one generalist, one specialist; I don't even know where I got the spells for those two girls.
Really, it's a wonder how magical things can be when you're young, and how strange they seem when you've grown up and are overthinking everything. I defeated Yxunomei without major cheese and guides...
(A very fond memory)
Just standing about in Kuldahar basking in the atmosphere.
Figuring out that bards and druids actually are cool in this game.
Some of the surprisingly witty and entertaining dialogue.
If I have to pick something that hasn't been said yet, that'd be the evil choices I got to make in the Icewind Dale series (Especially in Icewind Dale II)
Good ol' memories...