The Neverwinter Nights 2 Ending Was Only Okay (spoilers)

After starting the game more than 7 months ago, putting it down for a while, starting from the beginning with another character, and after weeks of staying up way too late, I finished the game Neverwinter Nights 2. Let me start by praising this game in saying it’s the best living legacy of the original D&D, and Ad&d. (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.) I’m sure Gary Gygax is proud.

Yes, there is that massively multiplayer online role-playing game D&D: Stormreach, but it’s dumbed down if you will, for the sake of smooth game-play. The true roleplaying game connoisseur, is playing Neverwinter Nights 2 which implements almost fully, D&D in it’s current form; 3.5 edition has published by Wizards of the Coast. It seems like only yesterday I was playing Ad&d 2.5 edition rules with Baldur’s Gate. NWN2 comes from that great tradition of computer role-playing games; The Baldur’s Gate series with it’s expansions, Icewind Dale I & II, Torment, and of course the original Neverwinter Nights.

There are still a lot of people who still play the original Neverwinter Nights, which is a testament to the design of the game, and the community created content ability it has. It’s multiplayer functionality is developed by the community with the toolset that comes with the game, with a lot of intensely developed worlds to play on. NWN2 also has this ability for community created content, either with modules (stand alone adventures), or persistent worlds (developed worlds hosted on servers for multiplayer role-playing). The Mask of the Betrayer expansion for NWN2 really streamlined and improved the game engine a lot, so the people that still play the original, really have no excuse not to start rebuilding their worlds in NWN2.

Anyways, after recently finishing the original campaign for NWN2, I was a little disappointed with the ending. Don’t get me wrong, the whole thing is an amazing piece of work, with seemingly endless hours of game-play, characters, and adventures. It’s an amazingly long journey and build up to that final scene in the lair of the Shadow King. Which is why I was so disappointed, with all that incredible build up, I was expecting a lot more in the end.

 In part III when you are in command of your own fortress, I thought was some really interesting new game-play. It brought in elements of simulation and strategy games, with having to find and assign sergeants to different missions, choices in rebuilding the keep, funding your army, training them, etc. The end of part II in the keep of Ammon Jerro felt much more like a proper ending than the real end did, I had to replay the final battle with Ammon several times with new strategies and approaches to finally win. At the lair of the Shadow King I waltzed in and destroyed everyone in one swoop, kind of cool but boring.

I much prefer to be challenged in the climactic battles of a game. With the Baldur’s Gate series, Torment, and the Icewind Dale series even, many of the battles are very hard to win. They required replay many times with different spell combinations loaded, different potions, different character positioning, and different strategies. Overall NWN2 is a fantastic game, which does not deserve the stigma of being buggy that it has gotten. Like I said the MOTB expansion really enhances and improves the NWN2 engine, and there are no excuses for anyone not to play it. It has endless options for game-play with the toolset, modules, and persistent worlds available.