The Temple of Elemental Evil

Where can I start? Let me start by admitting that I have never, ever beaten the final boss. That said, I have logged hours and hours on this game. I just can't get enough! As great fan of D&D since the 90s, I have never found a game that was as true to the real experience of playing the actual game on pen-and-paper. The complete list of character options, the TURN BASED gameplay, the ruthless difficulty... I love Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, but always wondered, "Why did they all have to be played in real-time?" The turn-based combat scratches that peculiar itch when I really wish I was playing D&D with friends, but alas, it isn't Sunday, Monday, Wednesday or Saturday, so I need to wait. Another thing I wonder is when video games stopped treating me like an adulut. ToEE has something NWN could have used: consequences. Hard decisions. Real, nail-biting suspense when your fate is in the hands of the dice, and if things go sour before your next turn you'll have to roll a new character. On the downside, there are bugs. Lots of bugs. And a lot of unfair slights. For example, don't ever take any exotic weapon proficiencies, nor Weapon Focus: Dwarven Waraxe. Because you'll never find magic Dwarven Waraxes. Not even masterwork ones you can enchant. It seems weird giving 3 stars to a game I've spent so much time with. It could have been the perfect game, if it had received more care and time before being rushed to release.

Engrossing turn-based combat (without grids, yay!) is the basis of this representation of the 3.5 ruleset, making for a shallow roleplaying experience (gotta fill the holes with your imagination) but a deep squad-based tactical game, probably the best at that as far as D&D games go. Much better than Neverwinter Nights in that regard, it's a game that is not for everyone - it's not perfect by any means and many of the downsides that don't bother me as much will probably make others ask for a refund immediately. But there must be some deep reasons for loving so much a game that corrupted my saves (it was my fault for save scumming probably), kicked me in the teeth and reduced my sleep hours to the bare minimum: It's just that creating different builds and party combinations and launching into combat against the unforgivable difficulty curve of the game (hits you like a brick until your spellcasters become too OP, just like in 3.5). I loved the game at first sight even with it's severe bugs back in the day, but you don't need to suffer the same pains I did then. There are community patches that are a must, google will help you with that. Among other things, you can unlock the level 10 cap of the original game up to level 20 (clerics will become degenerate gods by then), and even a couple of new campaigns for your party of adventurers. I really miss Troika Games. No other dev has hit such a streak of janky masterpieces as they did.

First off: for anyone complaining about the bugs, immediately go download the Circle of Eight patch/mod (it *is* compatible with GOG version of this game) and patch your game. Bugs Be Gone. Enjoy. End of story. Now, to the game: This is, simply put, the best turn-based RPG ever put to a computer screen. It's combat engine is better than anything I've seen, including the Fallout games (those are better games, story-wise, but the turn-based combat is really thin compared to ToEE's D&D adapted engine). ToEE does what no other computer RPG has ever done, and that is accurately and wonderfully implement the Dungeons & Dragons rules, right down to movement and attacks of opportunity! It's thrilling and fun to watch the table-top D&D rules that so man of us grew up on come to life in a game like this. Combat in this game is strategic and fun! I've never seen a game do D&D rules this well. The story is taken straight out of an adventure module from D&D and is chocked full of neat maps, unique locations, fun loot, some pretty intense combat situations. It's everything you'd expect from D&D. The only thing the game really lacks is some memorable characters. This is one area where games like Baldur's Gate and Fallout have an upper hand - they have memorable NPC's and arguably a much better and deeper story. But those games are deeper and broader games. This is an adventure module, and for what it is, it's a load of fun. This isn't the huge world of Fallout wasteland or the Sword Coast. But what's there is great. And besides, what this game is really about is party-based adventure. Combat is really the heart and soul of ToEE. This game is pure delight for those of us who like to construct our entire adventuring party from scratch, and then go out into the world and adventure. Table-top D&D has always had a far richer combat experience than any computer game could ever emulate. But ToEE gets as close to the real thing as I've ever seen. I mean, attacks of opportunity! Heck yes! AoE spells (Web) that actually matter! And movement is something that is actually important. It's simply awesome to move your cursor around the game and watch the computer calculate your character's path on the ground with bright lines, with markers for attacks of opportunity, letting you know if you can actually make that move and attack, or not. The turn-based combat lends itself to far more strategy than the spacebar-stoppage of games like Baldur's Gate. It's awesome fun to watch your part walk away from a really heated battle with lots of NPC's, somehow surviving because that last sword strike felled the final enemy... It's just awesome fun. The shame is that more games like ToEE aren't made. Because this sort of turn-based D&D RPG is brilliant fun.

This game was an oasis in a sea of desolation in the CRPG scene after BIoWare went off to be less and less RPG makers, and it seemed like no turn-based Western RPG would ever be made again. Here it was: An actual, honest-to-God faithful representation of the 3.5 ed D&D game system, with standard and move actions, ability to toggle special types of attack like all-out attacks or defensive fighting, reach weapons (OK, so minimum range wasn't quite implemented...), different enemies had truly different types of attacks (watch out for stirges that deal constitution damage through bleeding!) and you even had places where sleeping in dank corners would possibly lead to diseases. There was a real, decent attempt at role-playing options in the vein of Baldur's Gate, and your alignment really did seem to matter... ... What went wrong? Why wasn't this the second coming of the Gold Box series or Baldur's Gate? Well, it was a buggy mess. And it took fan patches over a few years to actually put the game back together. It's a true tragedy that a couple more months couldn't be spent on playtesting and bug hunting. Don't get me wrong, WITH the patches, if you're a CRPG fan, there's absolutely no excuse for not playing this gem right now.

I played almost 10 hours with this game, got into the outer part of the temple. There I stopped playing due to a bug where my main weapon somehow vanished from the hand of my fighter. Since it was not the first issue I faced, I quit the game and never went back. Good: - battles are good, tactical, if you put energy into you character creation etc., it pays off - atmosphere is good - I personally loved the graphics and sound effects, music was mostly OK, sometimes voice acting is bad, but it adds to the nostalgic feeling Bad: - controlling the characters when not in battle is awful, feels sluggish, sometimes some characters just stop moving even if they are selected - game can crush randomly - in the starting village, you run up and down the whole town several times to do quests which felt absolutely unnecessary, boring and annoying due to the control hardships. I like RPGs (e.g. Planescape Torment), but in this game, everything outside of character development, loot and battles feels like a drag - bugs mentioned earlier (randomly vanishing NPCs which appear and disappear as they would like, disappearing weapon slots, enemies somehow see you through walls an initiate combat, but are not coming closer to you etc.) To summarise: if you can patch it up, and deal mentally with the horrible RPG parts/dialogs/running from NPC to NPC, you will enjoy the battles and the D&D system. Otherwise, Icewind Dale 1+2, Baldur's Gate 1+2 are far better options IMO.