O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Of all the Infinity Engine-based games that I’ve played (I’m to play Icewind Dale 2 next for the first time, but otherwise all of them) Icewind Dale was the only one that I had barely any memories of. I remembered playing it, remember it being obnoxiously high on combat and not much else, but otherwise, I couldn’t remember anything else. Now that I’ve replayed the game in the Enhanced Edition version (with the expansion and the add-on to the expansion I’ve not played before included), I understand why it was so.
Tim Cain in his postmortem talk on Fallout said that what Interplay really wanted their yet to be named Black Isle Studios team do instead was a Diablo clone. They felt like real time action RPGs were all the rage at the moment and wanted to capitalize on that. I feel like, after publishing Baldur’s Gate and realizing that they have a D&D license and a powerful engine with real time combat that proved to be successful, they decided to finally make the team do that Diablo clone they wanted. Because Icewind Dale is pretty much exactly that – a party-based, D&D-based Diablo-like action RPG with hordes of enemies, tons of loot and even an additional harder mode for NG+ to play to get even better loot. And personally? I don’t think it works all that well.
Combat in Infinity Engine games was always quite well suited for strategizing and tactics only to a certain degree. Having a couple of powerful enemies, or mid-sized mobs of easier enemies or a terribly powerful enemy like a dragon and nothing else usually allowed you to smartly micromanage your team and have a fun, but not particularly annoying kind of challenge. And the lack of reliance on uber powerful loot you constantly find also meant that you felt rewarded when finding some magic artifact with a unique name or getting it as a result of a quest. Which is very different from how a typical Diablo-like action RPG tends to work, where enemies are counted in dozens and cool loot is constantly showering the player.
That is the template Icewind Dale is trying to follow, meaning that you very often find yourself dungeon crawling and surrounded by 16 annoying enemies, who might drop several items that you can at least sell for a high price if you don’t want to use them. And you might not want to use them just because your entire team is probably already sporting some +2 or higher magic equipment and you can’t be bothered with anything less cool. Fights range from just tedious, to annoying, never really clicking with the realtime with the pause gameplay. It’s easy to fall into the usual cycle of – encounter a horde, fight them, quicksave, rest, quicksave (or reload if awoken by monsters), go forward. And when encountering especially annoying enemies it’s as easy to start abusing the usual engine tricks without feeling guilty – cloudkill, a couple of skulls and fireballs into enemies offscreen, a few summoned monsters, then clean up the rest with your party. Or abuse the heck out of the loading transitions to divide the enemies. Doesn’t make the game any less tedious but at least you can progress. To encounter more annoyances like this. And then the game’s done.
The game has a consistently nice look to it, though, with really great looking locations that have a certain sense of being and feeling real and interesting. Even if all that they really have is a lot of enemies and trapped treasure. There’s the most basic story to speak of, dialogues are barely important with very few occasions where you can actually influence anything by talking. And it’s even worse in the expansion and especially the horrendously balanced add-on that with little warning locks you in a location that starts manageable but gets insanely high level without any ability to get out of there if you accidentally went there early. It made some sense when it was an add-on you manually, well, added to the game. And makes no sense when it’s supposed to be a natural part of Enhanced Edition.
Enhanced Edition itself is a bit of a mixed bag. While it’s stable, looks far better than the original ever could and introduces several helpful updates and changes (quickloot bar is a godsend in this type of game and I made a mistake of toggling it off often and forgetting about it), it also doesn’t really fix some of the annoyances. Pathfinding for your team? Godawful, prepare to watch your party vibrate into each other not moving an inch when you tell them to go anywhere. Or take the longest possible route for no discernible reason. Or sometimes ignore enemies around them despite the AI rules. Map can occasionally bug out after cutscenes. Some quests can still break if you do them in a slightly different order. Sound for the voice acting, especially in the CGI cutscenes, can crackle… It’s far better than playing the original, mind you, but….
The question then stands – should you play the game at all? And I’d say no. There’s a very dedicated niche of people who still enjoy this extremely combat heavy dungeon crawl and can like how it works with the Infinity Engine gameplay, but I’m not one of them. So if you’re far more interested in actually good stories, or feeling of adventure without the need to constantly bathe in blood of your enemies and magic items, I’d rather suggest playing Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny. And if you do want a dungeon crawl, well, unless you really need a party of 6 and real time with pause action, why not play a proper aRPG instead? Though, one thing about this game that I will definitely recommend checking out is the amazing soundtrack by Jeremy Soule which might be the best overall Infinity Engine game soundtrack. Shame, the game couldn’t come even close to how great the music is.