Neverwinter Nights 2 review: Mask of the Betrayer is the best freaking expansion in the RPG world

So much found memories.Thanks for your good work !

Шикарная дополнение с чертовски мрачной атмосферой. А диалог с Миркулом буквально одна из немногих вещей в играх в целом, которая вызывает мурашки!

Но оригинальная компания с её компаньонами все равно роднее и ближе к сердцу =)

This one is very easy to agree with, so much better than even the OG campaign

Lol, no. It's shit. They killed off Elanee and Casavir for literally 0 reason at all and didn't allow you to continue your romance with them, then they shoehorned Safiya in (?). If they had allowed you to continue your romance with Elanee - maybe, the boneheaded way they handled old companions from the original campaign? Nah.

Randomly watching this video on a sunday and never felt so seen rofl.

Yes, MotB is a masterpiece.

Mask was so so so special that I never managed to figure out how did the main title suck so bad in the comparison.
Also, it oozes forgotten realms lore which is always great

I love neverwinter 2, however I am picky about Obsidian games.

On one hand you get one of the best story driven , immersive and atmospheric rpgs ever made. Complete with a diverse group of characters and obsidian excels at this. The awesome and better party mechanics. Never winter nights 2 is awesome even in 2022.

However be warned , this is super glitch filled. Triggering waypoints that don't work sometimes and sometimes I would be walking and then all the sudden be teleported back to a certain point on the same path. Still those two things didn't happen all the time but enough that it got annoying.Then sometimes at random the performance would just tank? This also only happend a couple time's then would work like normal?

Also the graphics are shit , even at the time it came out. It looks like a dreamcast game that got improved somewhat. It has steep requirements for the time so the graphics are really head scratching for me. Like I said it looks like a dreamcast combined with an original x box game combined , with some slightly better textures and lighting. That is the best way to describe them. The particle and magic effects are all cool and everything is better looking than part one so there is that. Idk if its the tool set that is included or what. the graphics are improved over the first but not by much.

So my final verdict would be

Graphics 5 out of 10
music and sound 7 out of 10
Gameplay and story 9.5 out of 10
Fun Factor 8 out of 10
replay value 9 out of 10

So I say a very solid 8.5 out of 10.

It would have gotten a much higher rating from me but the glitch filled way points , camera and walking really can get annoying in spots and are noticeable enough to actually kill some of the immersion at times.Then the head scratching graphics to this day make me wonder why the steep requirements?

If you can get past that stuff be prepared for one of the deepest and most well written rpgs ever made.

On the difficulty: If you play a buffing Wizard, in my experience at least, the difficulty is pretty manageable. Also, I love telling Kelemvor that I'll be back.

I played through all the NWN2 main campaign and it was good, but I've tried many times playing MotB and just found it ridiculously difficult. Can't progress through the game because I'm obliterated in the fight in the theatre. Tried many builds, same result.

Just fyi, elementals also count as spirits. Once you know this, summoning a bunch of them around you and hitting suppression, a few times, means no more problems with spirit meter. If you don't want to play as the devourer.

Never beat nwn2 due to how janky everything felt,
It was like eating knockoff cereal.

I put Mask of the Betrayer up there together with Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium as 3 best written RPGs to date.

I bought nwn2 and loved it, unfortunately for whatever reason is was almost unplayable for me because of crashes so I didn't get far. I'd love for a remastered version to come along.

BEST. FUCKING. EXPANSION. EVER. Amen!

I honestly got bored playing MotB and was relieved when it was over lol. Though at the time it could have been because I was playing through nearly all NWN 1&2 campaigns. I think I enjoyed Zehier more lol. I will play it against down the road and see if it was better a second time.

Nice to hear about another thing Obsidian has done well bc I love PIllars but have never played this. Hope they bring this type of talent to Avowed

So Safiya = Virgil

Agreed. Masked of is massively overlooked.

Highly recommended! Unfortunately MOTB makes it difficult to play other “story” based RPGs because it’s a difficult bar to reach. It’s so good I replayed a good section of the end game just to get a better ending as I missed some stuff and didn’t like how it ended. I rarely do that, but it was so good I wanted the best possible experience. I agree, the academy was the weakest section, annoying tedious puzzle and fetch quests, but beyond that the game is a fantastic expansion. I found the spirit meter was much easier to manager if you got the “eternal rest” ability in the death god’s vault in a conversation. That way you can feed on undead spirits without taking a hit to your “good” reputation. You also can use “ suppress hunger” once a day to control your meter. Some don’t like him, but Okku is awesome, I don’t care what anyone says haha.

mask was dogshit. You couldnt kill kelemvor and that was all I was in for.

On all my replays, I used console commands to turn off the spirit eater mechanism..

I really enjoyed Mask of the Betrayer. Safiya wasn't just a "my culture doth protest" trope or token evil companion, but one with complex motivations unrelated to being a Red Wizard of Thay. Indeed, she had great potential to be either heroic or villainous all dependent on the player. Likewise, Gann could continue to be the misanthrope out to just cheese everyone or become a more reliable and dependable person despite his chaotic nature.

As to the story, in addition to it covering the four Greek Loves, it also touched very much on the nature of faith and existentialism. Indeed, the whole conversion with Myrkul (especially if your wisdom and intelligence is high enough to get the extra dialogue options) comes out as something akin to a Nietzschean/Kantian discussion on the nature of spiritualism. That along with Obsidian's Planescape: Torment was able to create compelling stories based on deep thought topics that philosophers have grappled with throughout the ages. And they did it in a way that was not as preachy and in your face as many of the games, movies, and "entertainment" we find today.

it really is, amazing game!

MOTB has much better storyline than original NWM2 and one of best in RPG, It's not classic from zero to hero (although we all love it) but it's more closer to Planescape Torment which is the best game story line ever.

Is this game on steam?

I prefer the first campaign and storm of zehir.

I hate safiya/nefris/lienna/the founder, she's the reason why the curse is released on the world again. It was sealed and she just had to remove the seal and give the curse to someone to start the bs all over again when she could've simply done her research without dooming the world I make sure to kill her on every playthrough.

The spirit eater mechanic is a huge chore especially if you want to take the evil route.

But it's not bad I just don't like its story like the other 2

I love Neverwinter Nights 2 and ALL of its expansions! It was my first REAL dungeons and dragons RPG i had ever played, my first game with adult themes in it, first romance in a game, first everything really! I remember playing it nonstop as a kid in middle school, and have been playing it again recently since COVID. It is a truly great game!

i played NWN2 so much, this just makes my day! what a channel!

MOTB had a great story, but I do not really like epic level D&D very much, so I was not big on the combat and character progression side of things.

Why didn't you metnion One of Many or Kaelyn the Dove?

Hordes of Underdark has to be the best, this one goes right after it.

That title. You're goddamn right.

Your background music maybe needs a change.Trying to focus on what your saying but music is getting In the way.

Hey. I just found your channel today and watched a few (and a few more) of your vids. Why do you have so few subs? Your material is worth at the very least a hundred times that!

Please. By all means, continue making content.

All hail the knight-captain!

Controversial opinions: MotB was ruined by it's ending. Mass Effect 3 was not ruined by it's ending.

Thanks for the review, i agree wholeheartedly.

Nwn 2 is a classic rpg storywise.
Meet some friends, do some side quests, get the sword, kill the evil thing at the end. It's about the people you meet and how you rise to power.
MotB though is an rpg that has an impact on a cosmic scale. If the rules of the universe and the gods are wrong, then what do you do? Change them? Save yourself? Become something that even the gods fear? I love the nwn2 series, thank you for this video

Such a sigma grindset expansion

I haven't played the Safyia romance, but the Gann one never struck me as all that forced. Probably because of all the dream sequences that are just the two of you. ;-)

First I have heard of this! NWN was OK. Where is the best place to buy this online? I have steam and occasionally use GOG. Thank you for any advice and the video

MOTB was the expansion pack that got me interested in developing the Realms of Trinity. Without it, I never would have been interested in doing so. Mechanically, and core engine features for developers were through the roof over the OG. Since then, thanks to the community, there is tons of new fixes for the engine and content that can be used to build very robust content. Heck, were still live and doing well of being up for 13+ years. I cannot say enough about what Obsidian and Bioware have done for the community. I had the opportunity of interviewing Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obisidian, back in 2013, and the vision he had for NWN2 was epic, and they had epic challenges to get done what they did..

between BG2 and this game was the good ol times indeed

I've played NWN2 for over a decade and never played this campaign. Maybe need to fix that.

Hordes of Underdark can go toe to toe with it

Does this have co-op?

Honestly one of the best RPGs ever. Right up there with Planescape: Torment in terms of creativity and story. It's a pity it is an expansion. You can play it on its own, but then you have that cognitive dissonance where your character starts at legendary level - something that I have difficulty with. Unfortunately, the alternative is to play through the main campaign of NWN2, which is okay but not great - definitely forgettable. On the plus side, Mask of the Betrayer makes more sense if you've played the original campaign, since it is designed to be the follow up, and some of your companions from the original campaign turn up in MotB. Overall though, if you don't feel like playing many hours through a lacklustre campaign, don't bother. Mask of the Betrayer is definitely worth playing, so don't let the fact that is an expansion put you off.
I played through the NWN2 campaign and then Mask of the Betrayer over 10 years ago. I can only remember 2-3 parts of the original campaign, but I can remember ALL of MotB. I went the good route, where I refused to feed, and it made the game very difficult, very tense (because you are literally dying, so everything is timed), and ultimately very rewarding.

Obsidian level of story .... also the original game is great as well, despite its flaws