Icewind Dale Review

Icewind Dale, with all expansions, complete. At 45 hours total. *I don't think any of us could have been prepared for that.* For reference, this was on the Enhanced Edition, normal difficulty, classic rules, but with one or two of the archetypes from Baldur's Gate 2 that weren't in the original game. Icewind Dale is what happens when you tear dialogue trees out of a CRPG, but have a team so dedicated to making something good that they give it their all anyway. An absolutely stunning experience beginning to end, and one of those games that I *really* want to disect in full, so we're gonna break this down a bit. **Story:** We'll start off with what I kept hearing was a weaker part of Icewind Dale. The story in this game is not trying to be Baldur's Gate. It doesn't have extensive roleplay opportunities or Planescape Torment style levels of 'this is so good it could've been a book.' Rather, Icewind Dale wins you over via atmosphere. Much like the tabletop Dungeon Crawls, or even DOS era CRPGs it clearly took some inspiration from. Every map is covered in flavour text, small details, and impactful fights to really sell that experience of delving deeper than any mortal should go. Finding rare moments of civilization alongside brutal monsters and areas fraught with peril. Unlike Baldur's gate, where I often felt bored clearing endless map after map of tedium. Exploring in this game is a treat, a dangerous treat to be sure, but going from an ancient ruined temple, to a cavern warmed by geothermal vents, to a necromancers lair that allowed my Paladin to challenge him to 1 on 1 combat, or reaching the most inhospitable places in the frozen far north where life itself is struggling to gain ground, learning the tragic tale of a fallen elven stronghold or how a king drove himself mad out of selfish pride turned to paranoid fear. The atmosphere and environmental storytelling in this game are something truly amazing, and a rarity compared to many similar western RPGs that struggle with bland, repetitive environments. For being an entire game set in a snow level, it has more character in it's world than near any other game I've played. Truly a success in showing how one can fuse gameplay and story together, even in a gameplay heavy environment. Speaking of gameplay... **Core Systems:** I'm not going to dwell as long on the mechanics of the Infinity Engine. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is a fairly obtuse system, full of weird design quirks and questionable balance. That being said, it remains a wonderful tool for this sort of retro styled RPG. So aside from a somewhat painful learning process (Odds are your first character in any infinity engine game will be terrible and unviable) I have no real complaints. However, I do want to mention that poorly balanced *does not* mean poorly designed. And not in the more modern style of "some options are bad." Rather, this is a similar mentality to some games that decide that being "overpowered" isn't a bad thing if it's still fun. So yeah, you might find out that speccing into clubs gets you a beast of a weapon that decimates the first third of the game. Only for then your spellcaster to gain access to spells that can **literally** instant kill any enemy with a roll of the dice. But it's still fun? Like seeing each character having their moments of glory and bouncing between your party of 6 or so is really engaging. Cause yeah, there's always an optimal way to win. And maybe everyone says "you don't need a pure thief." But if that's only because the other classes are overpowered, then why not bring a thief if you like them enough?

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