Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

Technically the game works well, the changes and updates to the engine really improve the gameplay and graphics. Only problem: Icewind Dales are not quite as good as Baldur's Gate, since they have very few character interactions that are not simply quest related. No party banter or romances. This is a shame.

Bought 4 copies of the game for a LAN, but the multiplayer doesn't work. Constant crashes. What use is a remastered edition of an old game that doens't launch - the entire point is to not have to fumble for hours to make it work...

This game is awesome. Is it has some luck involved yes because its dnd there is always luck involved when you have dice deciding how well you do. Does it make or break it? No! This game is older which means you have to understand the rules to play the game i have beat this gave 5 times, so you need to plan your party accordingly it will be difficult but managable. Every Party Needs One Tank One Healer One Theif One Mage. You can change the other two parties members to other classes and still beat the game. This also means you need to plan their stats accordingly. Read the rules because this game does not cater to players who dont take time to figure out what each character role should be. This game should be difficult but the first chapter to me is always the most difficult. But after awhile you will figure out how to fight the routine battles and then have to get into some serious planning for the harder ones. Just like dnd their is always some trick to make the battle easier. Isnt that the fun of these older games is that they are difficult? Everytime i finish the game i get a huge sense of accomplishment. It is a blast the locations are different and varied lots of lore to read to learn about the world around you. I love the two Icewinddale games and which their was a third one sometimes a good old fashion kill and loot game is fun.

One star for being unable to load save games. Yes, I tried the fixes. They didn't work. The thing is, I shouldn't have to fix those issues. This is marketed as optimization for modern systems. Except guess what? The original version saves and loads properly. Not "Enhanced" one, which I'm supposed to fork over way more money for. No, this is not on Windows. I have many other games that save and load in the same directory without issues. This is 100% on Beamdog. They are the ones who promised modernization. They are supposed to keep up, not fall behind something 14 years older than their "polished" version. Yes, what I managed to see of UI looks better, but it's worthless if it can't perform a basic function like loading a save.

I really enjoyed playing this and the Enhanced Edition is very well done! They just added new items and made some items available that were in the database but not obtainable in the original game. Furthermore they quests that were not finished and did not make it into in the original game available. I don't get the criticism that it is basically the original game with resolution patch applied. It is way more than that. It works now on all modern systems, the rules were updated to the ones used in BG2. The UI scaling is done perfectly. On my high DPI screen everything looks very good especially fonts. A resolution patch alone would not have done the trick. What is very convenient too is that you have more options to bind your own keys which made controlling the group more convenient than the original. You can make less mouse dependent with saner keybinds. If you like games liked Baldur's Gate and it's combat system and particularly enjoyed dungeons like Watcher's Keep you cannot go wrong with this game because it is basically just that! Each chapter is basically another dungeon area you get access to. Which also means that this game is very linear but I did not mind. One thing I have to criticize though is how the expansions Heart of Winter and Trials of the Lure Master are embedded into the base game. They feel more like three different games. Upon completing the base game you cannot just import your final save into HoW like you can do in BG2 upon starting ToB. You have to export and import characters. During that process you lose all the containers (like Bottomless Bags) and their contents. After completing HoW you cannot go back to do TotLM. You'd have to start HoW over again. I recommend playing the base game until you have reached the gnome camp in Lower Dorns Deep. Afterwards go back to Kuldahar and start HoW. Then go right for TotLM and after that complete HoW and then go back to Lower Dorns Deep to complete the game. It feels more connected that way.