Icewind Dale 2 Complete

When I read that this was a difficult, combat-heavy D&D Dungeon crawler with minimal story and character development, I figured there wouldn't be anything worthy of interest since I'm not particularly interested in D&D, nor dungeon crawlers. But I don't accept ignorance so I'll try it. Fast forward over a dozens hours later and I can't stop thinking about this game. First of all, the story and characters (sidequests and the like) are really well written. They are minimalistic for sure but high-quality and the game has alot of surprises along the way (i.e. a Goblin Chief you can talk to in the middle of a dungeon which might result in one-less fight to go through? That's pretty cool). Furthermore, the weapon/item descriptions are amazing and memorable (a better version of the item descriptions you see in FromSoftware's games imo). Second, the dungeon-crawling itself is phenomenal. This is because of 3 things. 1. The combat encounters are all smartly created and often challenging. You'll faces entire hordes that try to overwhelm you, more tactical battles against overpowered but few enemies, ambushes and everything else you can think of. It's one of few games I can remember where almost every battle feels impactful and meaningful. This is not one of those games where you click on an enemy and wait for them to die. 2. Atmosphere and sound design is superb. The maps themselves look good and give a great, oppressive, lonely atmosphere. 3. Briefly mentioned above but the suprises along the way from secrets to sidequests to spells/weapons. It's all done in a way to make the dungeon crawling be more than just XP grinds. I also must mention the artwork of the game (both games really) which really stands out. They are all really high-quality and look like paintings (far better character portraits than Baldur's Gate imo). All in all, an extraordinary surprise and a far better game than I had expected. Definitely worth your money and your time. Highly recommended!

Oh, this game makes me wish for its EE version so much....

I played it a long time ago straight, and it was kinda archaic then. I did like the multiclassing options, although not advised on every character of course! But this game REALLY shines with the G3 Tweak Pack. So much QoL improvements that you feel you are playing an EE. Or just get the G3 Tweaks Anthoogy, which has tweaks for all your D&D Infinity Engine games.

the game won't run on window 7 at all i tried everything even gog tech support couldn't help i did every thing they told me to do but no go

I am doing this as a review with the EE Mod installed. Pros: - The game works very well and has lots of options to customise your characters as you level up. - Lots of dialogue options. - Loads of spells and skills. Cons: - The plot is dire. Once Chapter 3 started, I couldn't quite work out what I was really doing in terms of plot, only that I was being propelled along some very linear areas with monsters in them. - Chapters 1 & 2 felt solid and the gameplay was tough in places and had good challenge levels. - The battles don't scale well with your levels. It feels like the game has been designed around understanding the skills in more depth than someone would for a first playthrough and as a result, the difficulty curve gets exponentially higher with little warning. A good example is the Wyverns battle in Chapter 3 - I had very little difficulty before it, but they were killing my entire party within a minute of fighting. I've given it three stars because I can see why someone might enjoy the game, but beware - It is very monotonous and unforgiving.