Neverwinter Nights 2 - Retrospective Review

This and Kotor 1\2 and Dawn of war compose the greatest hits of my early childhood

In all my expérience of PC RPG there are 2 moments that come to me the strongest in my memory : the first was when the gardian appears in the begining of Ultima 7, the second (attention spoiler) when I stand before the door that will lead me to the fugue plane. MOTB is mysterious, deep, tragic, full of pain, hope, its the story of undieing love, montruous curses, vengefull gods, the eternal fight between feelings and duty. Your compagnons are alive and complex, this game is just magical much like Torment.

I agree, do main OC and then MOTB, great story and interesting companions!

I wuold have loved so much for this to release on PS4 same way they did NWN1 and BG. This was truly one of my favorites, really miss playing it.

Why play elder scrolls when this is best.

That rotating circle graphic under the character is incredibly annoying, can that be turned off?

so many bugs in this game though that ruined the original experience for me and i never picked it up again.

my first graphic card,my first Game that i got for free with it Nvidia 8800 GT.

Yay 100K views!!!

It really was a case of unrealized potential, but not only because of the outcomes, but mostly because of game breaking bugs.
Over the course of many years I tried soo hard to complete it over 3 different campaigns., BUT it would always get total game breaking bugs. I would go on the console and game files to fix or bypass one bug, just to get another game breaking bug not much further. At some point i realized playing nwn2 meant spending more time on the console or on the game files trying to find workarounds, than actually playing it.
Tried it again years later on the latest nwn 2 complete edition with "thousands of bug fixes and updates" only to have the same fate, such a shame.

I literally remember almost nothing from when i played it back when it was released. Well, nothing but Bishop fcking me over at the end.
Have to replay it sometime.
You had some sort of base too, right?

I have the platinum edition on steam which I grabbed many years ago on some sale and never touched. Any idea how bad it is bug-wise when compared to the GOG version? I wonder if I should rebuy it or play as is.

It came out in a period where UIUX was having major breakthroughs everywhere and whilst upon replaying it recently did get a lot of things right, it also got a lot of things very wrong. The feeling of the game was extremely abrasive to most people playing CRPGs at the time, or RPGs in general and it made everyone not like it. But given a chance it was actually mostly fine.

If you aren't playing the PWs then you are missing out.

i played this like hell when it came out. i loved Qara

Just watched the new movie, and it totally wants to make me go back and play this again!

I only have the steam deck and it seems too much for me. Do you have a story video for this game?

Hope someone is decompiling this somewhere so we get a legit enhanced edition some day.

I've never been a fan of when RPGs make you create the entire party (IWD, Wasteland 2, etc.) I understand the gameplay appeal but the result is there's really no protagonist at all. And it's not just a matter of "imagine whoever you like is in charge" because it means the game can't react to your character(s) at all. It's kinda like continuity nods in Elder Scrolls games where they're like "a certain hero/an unknown person did X" except literally as the events are happening.

This game never gets old for replay! Still got 2 dvds, nwn2 main and motb. Good job there. 👍

Wow, very thorough and detailed review, thanks! I just finished NWN 100% on Steam, and learned everything I wanted to know about NWN2 from this video. You're a gem!

Love your reviews and content. Please keep up the great work and hopefully one day we can have you as a guest on our podcast. NWN2 game is heralded as a classic and is my second favorite DnD PC Game. Hint: Troika made it

If you still love this old game you should check out my Facelift mods on the nexus and the vault. NWN2 Facelift Pack is a mod I made in the early 2010s and Character Facelift 2022 is my latest mod, ongoing, with a goal to improve the character heads in the game to more modern graphical standards. For some reason I keep coming back to this game, the ease of modding, the vast quantity of community created assets and content, it's a modders dream, only eclipsed by NWN1 IMO. I guess the Elder Scrolls games have bigger communities but I never really vibed with the Elder Scrolls world and lore. DnD is more my flavor of choice.

Great review, you hit a lot of the issues the game has experienced right on the head. The biggest problems with NWN2 were bugs and NWN1. Despite being a graphically and gameplay superior title, NWN2 just couldn't compete with the already booming NWN1 community adoption. I personally prefer NWN2, more modding possibilities and in depth editor/tools but I can see the appeal in the first game too. Communities keep these games alive and are in and of themselves, their own reward.

so sad that i can't play coop with my friends anymore

Have all the bugs that plagued this game since release been fixed, with the latest gog update? What about the performance, i remember this used to run very poorly even on powerfull systems?

I love NWN2, if only it wasn't too rush

ahh the only game i played that had 2 handed weapon duel wield feat.

I like how the idea of owning and managing a stronghold would later go onto Pillars of Eternity.

NWN2 was really a diamond in the rough. As much as it's praised in the comments here, I remember how the NWN1 community hated it, or was at least heavily divided. Sadly, some of the most notorious "haters" were the mod builders, be it for NWN2's bugginess (only after MotB it was really playable), hardware requirements (back then the "Crysis of RPGs") or the learning curve of the toolset. The game had a lot more potential for modding and general greatness, but was abandoned by most way to soon. The NWN1 community has never really stopped to create and making some awesome mods, including "real mods" as in new animations, tilesets etc., while NWN2 quickly starved out. I wish a few more would've sticked to NWN2 as well. Also, this game really deserves an Enhanced Edition, but again there seems to be no real interest - Beamdog are all die-hard NWN1 fans as well. :)

who hasnt touched this game yet , now is the ttime too have a great chrismas

Nwn2 MoTB has by far best story i have seen in any RPG.Overall tied for the best story in games alongside Clive Barkers Undying.

As i keep telling everyone.
It is a shame neverwinter nights 2 has still not been surpast dispite being so old.
Pathfinder games get close but are still inferior.

Anyone tried the copap servers, Avlis has been persistent for like 10 years and they recently updated to nwn2.

I was so excited when this game came out, having played nwn1 so much. I was extremely disappointed with the animation though and some visuals like breaking a chest or door.

NWN2 isn't bad, but one thing that was a big part of its downfall was the really horrible party control implementation. It's very difficult and frustrating to get your party members to do just what you want, and that's something that NWN1 did fairly well. If you're the type to not really care what all your party is doing, the modules you're playing don't have really difficult combat encounters, and the module doesn't have puzzles that require using your characters in combination, then you could play through and not notice.

I created a online world for this game, 15 years ago.
I had to leave it because I was moving. And then I didn't play again, I don't know why. I've been waiting for something similar to this game with such simple creation tools.
Very easy to use.

I could never get in to NWN2; The ugly graphics and clunky UI. Neverwinter Nights 1 wasn't pretty neither, but it was much easier to get in to.

The atmosphere! I was totally immersed!

One of the best games ever made. Balder's 3 is gonna match it though it think.

Actually replaying it again. This review put me in the mood. I will say character camera mode is downright unplayable. Now I realize why I've never played that mode before. Visually it's more impressive, but it's buggy as hell and a pain in the ass to move. Exploration mode is the only camera mode worth playing (using click to move mostly). Though had to switch to strategic mode to target a few fireballs out of range. Character mode was making me want to quit the game, it's that bad.
They did a lot with this game engine. Straight up better than NWN 1 in every way. It still doesn't allow the choice and questing you would get in a game like Fallout: New Vegas, but it's still a solid game. Obsidian was at their prime then. I feel their quality has slipped a bit since the late 2000's.

cool.

This was the only game I ever bought at launch, 'cause Nerverwinter Nights, right? What could go wrong? Greatest disappointment in my life, and I had a few.

Mask of the Betrayer set the bar for me crpg wise. I loved it greatly and I was quite sad that almost no one ever did games like this anymore. I was ecstatic to discover Kingmaker and then Wrath of the righteous, which has become new favorites of mine.

Y'all, come and join us in multiplayer! Whether BGTSCC, Haven or Sigil - you're welcome!

NWK2 is basically an unfinished game to get the true story and dialogue you need to use mods fact of life stuff the paladin in release was almost written out of the game so its not what the makers wanted

The problem with SoZ is... Why did they put a story/final boss in there? The mechanic is cool, the adventuring for the sake of of it (and make profit) is cool, competing with other mercant houses and the castle bulding think are ok, but the story... Meh.

Aaand I will mention it again, NWN2 was the first RPG game that allowed you to build your own fortress, build buildings in it, and you were able to play as trader as well. Such a great and underestimated game.Later they made the Legends of the Sword coast game which was amazing, but the story was not that interesting.

So sad they turn this single player franchise into a MMO crap , as much as i love Pathfinder , Forgotten Realms as a setting for Me is unbeatable , sadly this is the last SP Rpg that uses Forgotten Realms setting, now just waiting on BG3 to see if live up to the name .....

Biggest issue I have with NWN2 is the camera. Frankly it’s terrible and while I appreciate having full party control, the camera makes it feel far worse than Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale, for instance.

I was never fond of NWN2 mainly because I can't help but compare it to NWN1, and then it just feels like fall from grace. The main thing is the clunkiness, even though it's a much older game, 1 just feels way more fluid to play. Then there's the interface, 1 had a really comfortable one which also looked great (and had really nicely drawn unique item icons), 2s is just abhorrent to me, Then there's the art direction, honestly, I just can't stand how 2 looks, it's just ugly, from monster designs to armor looking like wet rags glued to characters who appear to be very cheap wax figures, and then the iffy animations (when I'll always remember how cool 1's dance-like combat looks).