O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Among the “classic BioWare titles” the one that I always liked the least was Neverwinter Nights without expansions. It actually happened to be the first “realtime with pause” cRPG that I got to play on my own PC, with me getting the other classics a few months afterwards, after I dropped the first attempted playthrough because I got bored. It was only after thoroughly enjoying the Baldur’s Gate games that I’ve decided to give NWN a chance and in the end did get some enjoyment out of it. The two expansions that followed, Shadows of Undrentide and especially Hordes of the Underdark, were far more enjoyable, yet I couldn’t help but feel that NWN core mechanics and controls were simply less interesting then what BioWare did with Infinity Engine and would do with KOTOR and later titles. So, the last time I’ve actually properly tried replaying NWN was in 2006, if my save files are to be believed. And even then, I didn’t get to the end, getting bored again.
This replay, using the Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition in its latest (as of my writing this, the game is constantly updated) version, fared a bit better. Though, my opinion on the original game hasn’t changed much.
While a lot of the concepts in NWN are similar to what BioWare did in previous and later RPG titles with realtime with pause combat, what was always extremely different is the fact that (at least in singleplayer campaigns) your player character was almost completely alone. It wasn’t about gathering a party to venture forth – you could have one “henchman” per player (and per team, if you were playing coop, at least in some patches) but otherwise it was a solo or coop affair. To the point, where it’s very hard to avoid seeing NWN as a “slow Diablo with D&D rules”, rather than a follow up to Baldur’s Gate as some people expected. Now, this always depends on what campaign you’re playing and one of the biggest selling points of NWN was it’s ability to host more or less proper D&D sessions with a DM and a party, but as a single-player game with its official story, it was pretty much just that – a tedious and boring action RPG.
That original campaign is as agonizing to go through as it used to be in 2002. I’ve never tried Anthem, but apart from that, this remains the least interesting thing BioWare has ever produced. Yet, in many ways, it started a “formula” of sorts that would be reused time and time again in future BioWare productions. There’s an ancient civilization that threatens the world, there’s a betrayer who might have a relatable backstory and get a chance of redemption at the end, and each story bit/chapter has a hub and multiple options in terms of in what order you can explore things. In fact, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a title that was in development at the same time and released just a year later, would reuse the main plot almost verbatim, but in a far more interesting way.
Though, it’s not just the plot that get frustrating. By Act 3 (of 4) the game seemingly extends itself just for the sake of it. Already too long and full of optional dungeons and quests that aren’t really that interesting or deep, it adds 10 more hours of uninteresting stuff, made more frustrating due to how incompetent your partners are. With pathfinding being as bad as it is, it’s not helping that your partner might forget what they were doing. Especially if you can’t lockpick and disarm traps yourself and run around with Tomi, since by the end the game locks and traps every single chest you find just for the sake of it – most of them contain nothing of value. Not that there aren’t cool quests or moments in the original campaign, but ultimately it’s simply not worth the time.
Shadows of Undrentide is a welcome change of tone and pace. It starts on a much smaller scale and with a new character (story-wise, you can import your existing one, but I would advise against it). Instead of going for some crazy epic stuff from the beginning, it starts slow, fighting kobolds and gnolls, trying to outsmart some tougher enemies instead of doing everything with brute force, adding moments where your alignment is influenced by your choices, even smaller ones, and making every location actually unique in some way. And the story and characters, while not fantastic, are intriguing and different enough to get you hooked. It eventually works its way into becoming an epic adventure by the end, which ends up feeling deserved.
It does have annoying moments and the final third of the expansion is considerably weaker and more annoying then what comes before, but it’s a really fun campaign which tries to be inventive, even if sometimes it’s to the detriment.
For the longest time I’ve considered Hordes of the Underdark, the second expansion, to be the main reason to even bother with the original NWN. And while now, after replaying it, I must say that my memories of it were more positive than the actual experience of playing it is, it’s still the most interesting piece of content released for the game. A direct sequel to the previous expansion, it starts at a relatively high level and by the end gets into ridiculously epic levels, while somehow managing to stay interesting and not devolve into mindless action and grinding.
Big part of that lies in just how different each of its 3 chapters are. It starts as a high level dungeon crawling adventure, not unlike something from Icewind Dale. Then transitions into something almost straight from Baldur’s Gate II. And ends the story with heavy Planescape: Torment flavor. It is a bit too ego-boosting, with everyone constantly talking about how cool your character is. And it does try to fit a really huge epic story with big character development arcs into a relatively short campaign, ending up awkward at times. Still, it is genuinely engaging and fun and a far cry from the terrible boredom of the original campaign.
That said, there are some serious issues with the expansion that become more evident the closer to the end it is. Second chapter has a serious bug that can render all magic items unusable forever in one optional area, something that might be exclusive to just this re-release. And the last chapter is just too full of concepts and mechanics that the poor engine simply couldn’t handle, so you’re always running the risk of getting locked out of completing the game, because of some action you did or some important character getting stuck inside a wall. All that said, if there’s one reason to play NWN, it’s this expansion.
And if you do decide to replay the game, Enhanced Edition is a great way to do it. When it was originally launched, there was hardly a good reason to get it, as the Diamond Edition, already available at GOG at the time, wasn’t that much worse and tended to be less buggy. But after several years of updates, the Enhanced Edition started to look and feel superior to what the game originally was and in addition added lots of the “premium modules” (paid story campaigns that were DLCs before the concept of DLCs) that almost got lost to time. While I’ve not played those yet (I might revisit the game just for those at some point), some of them get more praise than any of the main expansions. Plus, if you are interested in the multiplayer aspect of the game, it’s far easier to do it in this edition than with the old one.
Should you play Neverwinter Nights? If you’re really into D&D RPGs (and 3rd edition) with realtime with pause combat and either more interested in the multiplayer aspect of the title or willing to ignore the dreadfully boring main campaign and enjoy the expansions and premium modules, this could be a good time. It can be… trying at times, if you play singleplayer, and the campaigns are pretty long, especially if you do the side quests. And I would recommend Baldur’s Gate, Jade Empire, KOTOR or Dragon Age over this any day. But there might be something for you to enjoy in this one.