To play or not to play Icewind Dale
Baxyratty
Member Posts: 190
So i'm getting further along in my latest run through of BGEE and am looking for something to hold me over until BG2 comes out. I have Icewind Dale, and i remember playing it as a kid and rage-quitting cause i got lost (didn't feel like reading the journal lol. Now that i'm older and have a greater attention span, is IWD worth going back to and beating while i wait for BG2EE?
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I remember getting really frustrated at how difficult it was, but this time I've been playing on Insane difficulty since the beginning, only having had to reload once. It's such a different, yet fun way to play a game like this.
So yeah, it's definitely worth it.
That isn't to say it's necessarily worse, just different. You get the unique opportunity to craft a full party yourself, which lets you experiment with classes that aren't represented well in BG. The pace of the game is great, with a solid difficulty curve and fantastic locations to explore and battle through.
IWD also has a challenge mode called Heart of Fury, which is great fun for experienced players. Enemies have drastically higher stats (and award comparably better experience), making even simple encounters against goblins a challenge. You can import an endgame party into HoF, or start fresh with level 1s.
If you're interested, this is my most recent IWD party (Started at level 1 in HoF mode):
Paladin -- Probably the best tank in IWD, since their natural Protection from Evil ability lasts until rest, cannot be dispelled, and stacks with a priest or mage's identical casting.
Ranger/Cleric -- Druid spells are much better in IWD than in BG, which makes a Ranger's spell progression nicely compliment a Cleric's. Unfortunately Dual-Wield isn't supported in IWD, but Rangers instead get a bonus APR when wielding a single weapon and no shield.
Fighter/Druid -- As above, druid spells are fantastic in this game. They have great AoE and crowd control options to compliment your arcane casters, and the IWD shapeshifts have sweet immunities that let them tank indefinitely against certain enemies.
Cleric/Mage -- Personal favorite combo, only represented by Aerie in the BG series. Great versatility in IWD, and since you can build it yourself, you can give them some elven chain and a heavy shield and make them quite durable as well.
Thief 7/8 -- Mage -- Thieves are weaksauce in this game. You max out on support abilities quickly, and due to the swarm nature of most fights, backstabbing is rarely a worthwhile pursuit. This is the main caster of the party.
Making a full party is fun but lack of banters/npcs that I care about seriously hurts the replayability for me.
I found that the difficulty is tough up front but gets much easier as you progress (aside from a few tricky fights). Fun to try it out but if you are looking for a deep, immersive experience I can't really recommend it imho.
What they decided to focus on was the combat, and used the same mechanics as Baldur's Gate. Unfortunately, Baldur's Gate mechanics are horribly clunky and don't feel "right". It's basically what you would get if you take an arbitrary action game, merged it with an arbitrary real-time strategy game, and then made everything arbitrarily function in terms of a six-second rule.
Even then, combat encounters seem to have had little effort put into them, bar a few boss fights. There's one area I fondly remember where a lovely gentleman dead guy would appear every 2 metres to lecture you on etiquette or something, and every time throws 10-billion wights at you, which of course lags the game into complete slow-motion for some reason.
Of course, the environments look pretty and you do get the "epic quest" feel from the game. It's very linear and story-driven though, so if you do play I wouldn't recommend playing through more than once.
It's not extremely bad, but I wouldn't expect something close to Baldur's Gate standard.
As an aside, i am very surprised that anyone could get lost in IWD. I remember it being pretty much, finish one dungeon and it points directly to the next one. Of course it has been a few years so....?
http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=174&Itemid=122
And the soundtracks on both games are amazing.
don't get me wrong i love a good story with well developed npcs as much as the next person, but it's nice to take a break from it all and hit up the lizard men punching bags with tired, grim faced, stranded adventurers trying to find a way out of that icy hell called the Spine of the World.
Overall IWD is fun if you enjoy exploring vast dungeons and surviving tactical battles. Locations are all gorgeous and memorable, a sharp contrast to bg's 'forests trees grass rock and more trees' scenery. Most magical treasures are randomised, and plenty, which adds to replay value. There is some place for roleplaying as well, depending on the character talking's class and abilities, many different answers and solutions can be found from commoner npcs in Kuldahar etc
Still haven't completed the core IWD portion though, have a few more hours left
It's pretty beautiful how you have Planescape on the left which is basically a deeply written story with incredibly descriptive dialogue, Baldurs Gate in the middle, a seamless combo of storyline and gameplay, and Icewind Dale on the right, which still has a cool story but at it's core is the meat and potatoes of the 2e infinity engine
Pro: (1) it's beautiful to look at; (2) the music is great; (3) it has some interesting magic items (too many, really); (4) the mechanics are essentially the same as BG/BG2 (so they're familiar); (5) bards and druids are awesome; (6) there are many cool spells not in BG/BG2
Con: (1) it's very linear; (2) there is no 'core' PC (you create the entire party) and thus is less 'immersive' than BG/BG2; (3) there are no banters, etc. (and thus is less 'immersive'...); (4) the constant fights can begin to drag if you play for a long time
Overall, I think it's okay, at times quite fun, and thus worth one play-through. But it's no BG!
Anyway I personally love IWD and think it's absolutely worth it. It has the best atmosphere of the IE games, and the maps are really beatiful. Also it's not nearly as hack'n'slashy as some might say if you read the ? texts, journals, talk to all NPCs, etc. there is plenty of story to be had as well.
Edit: Also if you want a party there is rather decent NPC mod. I usually get annoyed by the shitty writing most NPC mods have, but this is pretty well done.
http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=174&Itemid=122
And if you needed additional reasons to play IWD, there is plenty of combat fun to be had. It is far more of a traditional D&D Hack 'n Slash. After playing through IWD on a reasonably challenging difficulty, you will find the Baldur's Gate games to be easy by comparison. It's like a crash course in Infinity Engine combat.
My warriors / pally have completed the game with 18/18/18/7/6/18 (for the pally).
Mages have been using a 9/18/16/18/xx/xx stats
There isn't much of re-playability in this game. I have done it three times in 14 years and each move through the dungeons was a struggle (thousands of enemies to dispatch).
It often involves cheap tricks to put you in a dire mess (for instance shadows appearing anywhere in scripted events in the severed hand - Just throw a warrior in front so the script starts and bring him back to your party members which are next to a wall to prevent being attacked from behind). Or in IWD2 Hook Horrors are scripted to follow you even when your are invisible with your rogue-- but they can't hit you since you're sneaking).
However, musics are great (I really like the Xunomei level combat theme in the Dragon's Eye) and some backgrounds are pieces of art themselves (if you like ice of course - ice museum is great).
Overhaul game should do a poll to ask what should be the next EE games (if there is one after BG2:EE) because it's far from being that obvious IWD is a really great game.
It's in beta but he says it should be pretty stable
Note that I still prefer BG2 to IWD. Because, while IWD has a more fundamentally interesting story, BG2 makes better use of its story and characters, and has a lot of really good side material. So it's not so clear cut, in the end.
Besides, avoiding combat in BG is possible, but, to be honest, it pretty much always means to miss out valuable treasure. Icewind Dale is straightforward: You are faced with monstrous enemies and the course of events makes fighting them the most reasonable course of action.
I mean come on ! ...How many times have you heard it already ? Skipped through it ? Flinched every time the lame sad music popped up when a certain wingless elf started to whine ? Run their Fed X quests ?
Having a good imagination I make up back stories for all my NPCs in IWD and stick by them.
I like ( most ) of the NPC interaction in BG 2, but ,sometimes, it's nice to hang out with a group that keeps their yaps shut and just concentrates on killing bad guys instead.
It's a linear , thinly plotted surface dungeon crawler with great backgrounds and wonderful music.
And I liked it.