There's a simple solution for the Escaton Palace crash bug. Go into Controls and turn music volume all the way down before entering. Afterward, you can turn it back up. I just finished this one and I really enjoyed it. I think it's better than MM7 on a number of levels. One major difference is that in this one, you only create one character at the beginning, and the rest you hire along the way, with many different hirelings to choose from. Another major difference is the character classes. 5 of the 8 classes are really "races": Minotaur, Dark Elf, Vampire, Dragon, and Troll. Then there's Necromancer (who is essentially a sorcerer and alchemist), Cleric and Knight. I liked the story a lot more than the MM7 story/plot. There's a lot of gameplay time here, too. I found it super addictive and played multiple hours a day, but it still took a couple weeks to finish. The end of the game went pretty fast, but basically felt like a reward for the attention I had put into advancing my characters and finding/choosing the right powerful items for them. By the way, I recommend getting the Town Portal and Fly spells asap. Having to hoof it everywhere is boring!
Possibly the best MM game, although I have yet to play through MM8. There's a "linear" main quest line, but you have a lot of choice as to when to do the main quests vs side quests, how to prioritize using skill points, etc. There are also many different character types to choose from: Knight, Sorcerer, Druid, Ranger, Hunter, Thief, Paladin, Cleric, etc. You also have to make a choice between taking the path of Light or the path of Darkness at a certain point in the main quest line, which means gaining access to either Light or Dark magic. One critique I do have is that the the conclusion/climax isn't very interesting/exciting. There's not much of a story there, really, nor a big exciting battle at the end, and the plot at the end seems quite disconnected from the beginning. There seemed to be something shady going on with a certain Lord, as seen through some intercepted messages, but that never did reveal itself. Still, it was lots of fun to play, and I'm looking forward to trying MM8.
After having already played Icewind Dale II, this game was pretty much what I expected. It was fun, not to an addictive degree, but enjoyable. The gameplay is linear, with one quest leading directly to the next, but heck, most games are that way, and the complexity and room for creativity in D&D battles keeps things interesting. I didn't give 5 stars because I was disappointed that the game ended with characters at only level 18 or so. That means high-level abilities are completely off the table, and level 8/9 wizard spells are basically off the table. I would have preferred a longer game. I can easily think of some simple ways the game could have been made much longer without much more development time/budget. Also, I would have preferred higher difficulty. I played on Hard and found that to be only moderately difficult. I played the expansion (Heart of Winter) on Insane difficulty, and that wasn't terribly challenging, either, even though I started with new characters instead of carrying over my characters and all their gear. I'm fairly well-versed in D&D gameplay, but there should be an option for an even higher difficulty level. Still, the game was fun, and I also liked the bonus dungeon in Heart of Winter. That dungeon seemed bland at first, but having gone into it at the very beginning of the expansion, it got very challenging at times, and knowing that the only way out is to progress deeper into it made things very interesting. The final battle in the expansion was too easy, though, even on Insane difficulty. Also, like the main game, it ended too soon, with characters around level 18. I had bought tons of spells that I never even got to use. Still well worth the sale price, and surely worth the normal price if you have the $.
I would give maybe 4.5 stars, but I'll round up to 5 since the older reviews don't reflect the fact that the bugs have been fixed. This game had tons of side quests, and you're allowed to choose when (and if) to complete them. There are also many NPC's (characters that will offer to join your party) to choose from. A few critiques: (1) The mysteries to be solved are simplistic. The game overemphasizes quantity of quests over quality. (2) I would have liked to have had lots of outdoor battles in open spaces surrounded by hordes of enemies. So many powerful spells could only be used in a limited way in this game, in tight spaces against small numbers of enemies. (3) Many weapons classes (clubs, flails, morning stars, daggers, darts, spears, warhammers, scimitars, wakizashis, ninjatos and katanas) were too under-represented among powerful weapons (+4, +5, and +6 range) to find/upgrade. There's quite a few powerful two-handed swords, but so many other weapon classes were neglected. If you're not very familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, you'll have to play a little while to learn about the different character classes and abilities, the different spells, etc, but you can learn as you go. Also note that the little lantern icon in the bottom right corner is important. It turns party AI on and off, and you will want to turn it off at times if you don't want to pull your hair out in frustration when trying to direct your characters. With the AI on, characters will attack enemies automatically, even if you repeatedly move them away, and they will also cast certain spells (such as healing) automatically, which will be wasted if you move the character after they begin casting, or if multiple characters cast heal on one character at the same time. It's impossible to use the Bard Song ability with the AI on, as your bard will immediately stop playing and start attacking.
Start out on easy mode and gradually learn the game. Either read the manual up-front or use Ctrl-F and search it for whatever you want to know. The "set goal" option in the research tab is very useful, as you don't have to keep checking the research tree to see what you want to research next. There's a lot to learn in this game. Apparently even the developers of the game did not have enough time to really get good at it, as they named the max difficulty setting "nigh on impossible." If you get really good at the game, you can beat the "nigh-on-impossible" difficulty setting fairly easily. I'm at the point where I have to choose maximum difficulty AND choose a nation that has next to no starting resources to make the game challenging. The random map generation is a great feature. If you don't like the map for whatever reason, just generate a new one. No two games will be alike, and there's always the excitement of using your explorers to prospect for the various minerals, gold, gems, etc. I recommend selecting the option to fight battles manually, rather than automatically, because the AI makes certain mistakes. For example, if you have light artillery that out-ranges the enemy's heavy artillery, the enemy will often just sit there and let you destroy numerous heavy artillery units before retreating. They will also sometimes press the attack against a superior force and let their units get destroyed, rather than retreat. If you find military strategy boring, by all means let the computer fight the battles automatically. Just know it will make the game more difficult.
I was frustrated when I first started playing this, because the game doesn't clearly define "market employees," which led to much confusion as to how to both allow an inspector in the market AND keep market peddlers going in the right direction AND allow market "buyers" to purchase goods. The key is that the *buyers* who leave the market to go purchase goods are NOT considered "market employees." They CAN therefore go through gates that are closed to "market employees," and this is critical, because these gates are needed to guide the market *sellers* (peddlers) in the right direction (market employees = peddlers and announcers). You could use road blocks to guide them, but a road block would block the inspector on your market loop, so you need gates that are closed to market employees, except for the gate going into the housing loop. The only real critique that comes to mind is that the game lacks realism in some respects. For example, it doesn't make sense that the complexity of meals (e.g. having meat, millet, and salt available, versus just meat and millet) determines the size of housing, which really should be determined by the building materials available and the development of architecture. The "random walker" concept is also unrealistic. In the real world, peddlers and building inspectors know where they need to go. However, this doesn't detract from the actual challenge and fun of the game. It actually adds a bit more challenge. Hint: construct road loops for all buildings that require inspection, so the inspectors' routes are maximized, saving labor/money/space. Also note that market buyers WILL NOT buy food from a warehouse. They will only buy food from the mill, so you should set your mill to "GET" food, and set your food warehouse (once you need one) to "ACCEPT" any extra food that won't fit in the mill. This game becomes more and more complex as you go through the ages (starting with the Xia tutorial), but you learn as you go.
This was a good sequel. I enjoyed the challenge and creativity involved in: character creation/advancement, spell selection/usage (i.e. the entire D&D spell list), equipping characters, the various tactics one can use in battle, etc. Basically it's enjoyable due to the things that make D&D enjoyable. I gave 4 instead of 5 stars because it's also *missing* some of the key elements that make D&D enjoyable. I'm sure this was somewhat unavoidable due to budgetary constraints, as well as the system constraints of the early 2000's, but I can't help but say what could have made the game better. The party cannot deviate from rather narrow areas of travel, and you have to complete the series of quests in an area before the next area can be visited. There is also no way to zoom out on the field of view. Effectively, you can see much shorter distances than you can in actual table-top D&D. In fact, the "Spot" and "Track" skills, which are critical in tabletop D&D, do not exist in the Icewind Dale series. This takes away some of the strategic fun of spying and sneaking up on potential enemies. You can use the "Hide" skill to explore unseen with your rogue, or you can use invisibility spells, but there are few scenarios in this game where that is really helpful, although I guess it's unavoidable that a tabletop game where your imagination if the limit is going to have more possibilities than a PC game. While the game feels large and long in a way, it also feels like it ends too soon. My characters had just reached level 16 when the game ended. I never got to try out those 9th-level spells! The ending battle also seemed a bit too easy and anti-climactic. Some previous battles had been more challenging than the final one. Also, toward the end of the game I was awash in gold from all the enchanted items I had found and sold, but there weren't any merchants that had anything I particularly wanted at that point. Would have been nice to see a few BIG-ticket items.
