Neverwinter Nights: Dark Dreams of Furiae

Half the time prompts don't work. I talked to the same person 5 time's just to get a different chat option, and still couldn't progress. I got to the house in the the rathole, read every item, found out about some slavers. Couldn't make it any further, nothing would happen, the game wouldn't let me leave saying I hadn't found all the clues. There's literally nothing else to click on, went into the bar talked to the old hag who told me how to get worldvine when I already had it from the guy outside. Still couldn't leave. All the doors say they require a special key.

It's enjoyable if you are lucky enough not to encounter bugs, I unfortunately was not that lucky. It requires constant saving which really digs into my immersion, it shouldn't but due to the bugs being cut scenes and conversations not triggering it can literally stone wall your entire game, that's honestly my biggest gripe & it's a shame because I don't see them fixing it, it honestly kind of feels rushed, like the creators knew how to work the creator but had little knowledge of how NWN functions mechanically, for example there are boxes and creates littered around the city, which is cool- except due to NWNs path finding you can't open half of them & their default health has been left unchanged, so as a low level character you're stuck for 20-30 seconds breaking chests. I didn't get to finish it due to me not saving frequently enough & getting stone walled on day 6, with no objectives and what I'm guessing was the "cut scene" not starting in the tunnels.

I am, admittedly, pretty hard to please when it comes to RPGs in general. It is my favorite genre and I feel most games fail to meet the balance of a. ) choice and consequence; b.) quality narrative; and, c.) meaningful interactivity that I defined earlier RPGs. Playing such games, ideally, should be like experiencing a compelling saga from the perspective of an involved character with the freedom to express yourself and realize your own ambitions within the context of that story. To put it another way, they should be virtual novels with interactivity and player agency. This is none of those things, nor does it attempt any of those things. That, it and of itself, would be fine and would hardly warrant a review. Most RPGs exist bereft of lineage. Personalizing a character with stats and tactical flexibility seem to be sufficient for most people and who am I to argue with the indiscriminating consumer base keeping the genre alive? This, however, goes beyond misguided into essentially flawed through poor design choice and a complete lack of appreciation for the mechanics and game play of the core game upon which this module is predicated. Highly restrictive with poor prose and sparse content, it was not even interesting enough to be frustrating. I was almost relieved when, maybe ten minutes into the game, I breached the second zone of the game and found myself trapped in an area with one building which I could not enter and zone exit I could not use. . . And yes, the game literally gives you notifications invalidating your choices so one cannot even fail without the game's express permission.

As I had already played through all the other official NWN content I decided to buy this one despite the very negative reviews due morbid curiosity for 0.80€ on a sale. Story and setting-wise it is decent. Set in Planescape (but not in the famous city of Sigil) there some references Planescape and PS:T, and a city that is under the control of devils is a fairly novel concept to me. The adventure is very plot and narrative driven with not a lot of combat and even many of those you are able to skip with some skill checks. The heavy investigation focus was interesting as well. In the gameplay department the module/DLC starts to fall flat. The adventure was quite buggy with crashes, pathfinding issues, dialogue that told I made choices other than what I actually did, broken journal entries (either missing text or overflowing text) etc., but even when it worked it felt more of a chore to play a lot of the time despite having some interesting story telling. The adventure also feels rushed and the final hour (which is quite substantial as the adventure took me only around 3½-4 hours) especially felt quite bad both in gameplay and story, and the ending is extremely low-budget to put it kindly. As a side note the original music is pretty good and is still playing in my head as I am writing this review. Overall I can only recommend the game on a very deep sale and if you are really desperate for more NWN content, but you can find more higher quality adventures from the modding community for much much cheaper price tag. The 80 cents (€) I spent I didn't make me feel robbed but not entirely satisfied either.