I played NWN2 when it came out, and had good but foggy memories of it (mainly remember playing a good Warlock in Mask of the Betrayer). So when the most recent sale came up, I decided to revisit - also because i've started playing D&D IRL again. The game is less 'practical' to play than its predecessor or the Baldur's Gate games - everyone rushes at the enemy at the same time and the AI isn't always super clever. But it's a fun, sprawling story with some very good story twists and turns, and pleasant NPC party members to converse with (no rivals to Minsc and Boo's throne, though). So, I've invested over twenty hours, and I get hit with a bug where I can't use the cursor to make the party move anymore. No help for it anywhere. And it has corrupted all my saves. A game killer. Apparently, after all this time, it still hasn't been possible to remove all the bugs from the game. I had other bugs as well, but those were easy enough to work around. So, all in all, game itself is very fun and a pretty good translation of D&D 3.5e. And you may get lucky and avoid the nasty bugs. But be forewarned: they are in there and they are plentiful.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete Edition Pros: - Amazing gameplay - Based on D&D 3.5 rules - Amazing soundtrack - Plenty of races and classes to choose from - Decent graphics [nothing extraordinary] - Amazing story - Tons of voice dialog - Great spell effect Cons: - Default AI sucks * DLCs: - Mask of the Betrayer - Top Notch - Storm of Zehir - Top Notch - Mysteries of Westgate - Top Notch EDIT:* FIY to fix the AI you can download a mod called Companion and Monster AI 2.2 from NeverwinterVault. Feels so much better! Congratz to GOG devs for briging this gem back to life!!

I avoided this game when it first came out because reviews of it were so bad. User reviews I saw from players at the time were likewise as scathing. I kept avoiding it because Obsidian still continues to make buggy games even today, and Neverwinter Nights 2 was their first, or among their first offerings. Lately, I kept seeing it here on gog. Kept remembering how much I liked the first Neverwinter Nights. Kept hearing how there have been patches and the like. Figured I'd give it a try. Big mistake. Even on a modern computer that can easily run modern games, this game staggers, stutters and sputters along like a cantankerous old car. The game is that badly optimized and it's obvious Obsidian didn't know how to fix it, or simply couldn't be bothered to fix it completely. What patches I've found have fixed some things, but this game has way too many problems.

If this game was stable, it would be an evolutionary improvement on NWN 1. Unfortunately, like the first one, is is remarkably unstable. Unlike the first one, it does not seem to have been patched to stability. It crashes a lot, and sometimes crashes so hard it breaks task manager and requires a hard shutdown to clear. Beyond that, it's the usual fare: running around, getting in fights, cursing the AI, turning the AI off, NO turning the AI OFF, wait, why is the AI "off" but still acting? *facepalm*. If you can get past the stability and the AI, it has the classic "rest every fight because why not" syndrome, which doesn't play well with third ed's linear-fighters-quadratic-mages syndrome. The combat is also fluid, in a bad way - there are mobs of rogue-types who will happily run straight past your melee, AoOs be damned, to gank whoever they feel like ganking. But on the bright side, friendly fire is off by default, so you can fireball the ensuing furball until the enemy stop twitching... honestly, is this engaging or fun tactics? There's also the camera, which I found a minor annoyance, but still annoying - it spontaneously zooms in and changes angle a lot, and looking around for doorways is actually a chore at times. I quit in the city of neverwinter without ever getting into the locked off district. It's a shame, because there are bits in here that could have been good. But bits aren't enough. If it didn't crash all the time I'd give it two stars, and if the AI actually turned off when the button says it's off I might go as high as 2.5. I'm also playing Baldurs Gate 1 (enhanced) and Pathfinder Kingmaker at the moment, and both of those make this look like amateur hour.

NWN2 is a weird game. It's pretty much identical to NWN1, aside from better graphics and better gameplay systems. However, it never really caught on as much as NWN1 did. There aren't as many modules that were made for it, and nowhere near as many PWs. Eventually it was abandoned, and because the game never got an "Enhanced Edition" upgrade like NWN1 did, it's incredibly buggy in it's current state. However, if you can get it on sale, then it's worth playing for a nice little gem known as "Mask of the Betrayer". It's an expansion of NWN2's base campaign, and it's without a doubt the best official module in the entire NWN series, and arguably one of Obsidian's best works. It's brutally difficult, borderline unfair, and riddled with bugs caused by NWN2's ancient engine, but at it's core is an incredible story and an amazing adventure. Aside from MotB, there isn't really much here. There are a few decent user made modules, but at the end of the day you'll get more mileage out of buying NWN1 instead.