A great treat for the NWN community - after so many years, a new official premium module. I played the DLC over the weekend, I believe the predicted gameplay length of 10-15h is about right. The story is good. While it's not on par with NWN2's Mask of the Betrayer (which to me is the best story told in an RPG), but I enjoyed it quite a lot. The final part of the adventure was amazing, I could really feel the epicness. A warning - there are a lot of tie-ins to previous stories and you should play this only after all of the official campaigns, as well as after Darkness over Daggerford and Tyrants of the Moonsea. Not because it's required to understand what's going on, but to avoid spoilers from those earlier adventures. For someone who played them, however, the tie-ins are a great treat. The recruitable companions could be a bit more fleshed out, I feel. Whereas in Tyrants of the Moonsea companions played a larger role in the plot, here they're for the most part just tagging along instead of being vital characters in the story. Their AI could also be better and henchman dialogue could include more options, like making a bard companion cast Bard Song. New content is great: very cool new monsters (looking forward to seeing them more in future custom content) and new music tracks. They managed to create a great atmosphere of traversing the cold and harsh lands of Icewind Dale. I was a bit worried that the story will be left unfinished given this is the first chapter of a longer campaign planned, but while there are plots left hanging, the module's main story is neatly tied up and I do have a feeling of completeness (which I can't say about another old premium module that was supposed to be continued, Witch's Wake). As for bugs, I've encountered only a few, none of them game-breaking. To sum up: great stuff for Neverwinter Nights fans. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Blades of the Netheril campaign!
Review based on my playthrough of a Steam version. In short, it is just as good as Darkness over Daggerford (possibly better), for those of you who played it. This is a high-level (15+) module with horse support (for a small part only, though), DoD-like map system and sailing / sea encounters. The story is alright. Not a masterpiece, but good nonetheless. Visuals, for an NWN module, are definitely good. Ossian teamed up with some community members to make use of some of the best NWN tilesets available (which were also improved a little), as well as adding new ones. The elven city tileset expansion is very nice. There are also some new models, which are of great quality - the only thing one can complain about is that they stand out from the blocky models of vanilla NWN. Areas are large, sometimes only to give the player a feeling of vastness, because some parts are not accessible. Sound: There are a lot of new music tracks, majority of which I found fitting and of high quality. The new tavern and battle tracks are my favorites. There's also a LOT of voiceover for dialogues and I was pleasantly surprised to discover it's generally much better than in the OCs. As for the gameplay, it's also very good. There are a real lot of quests (I counted over 30 in my journal), most of which are more advanced than "go, kill, fetch". The game is unfortunately rather easy - my Dwarven Defender had little to no trouble on the hardcore difficulty except for two or three battles. There are also a few companions available, which are fleshed out more than the ones in DoD, to the point of playing semi-major roles in the storyline. Mechanically they're a bit weak, but they drop to the floor with 1HP instead of dying and get up after the battle is over, so you never have to resurrect them, which is nice. All in all, the game took me about 30 hours (despite not doing every side quest). For a Neverwinter Nights fun, this is definitely a must play, despite its few shortcomings.
This truly is an expansion-sized DLC, rivalling either of the official NWN expansions in scope. And I find it better than either of them. It's a perfect combination of great atmosphere, intriguing storyline (that the player character has a reason to pursue), semi-open world and a lot of optional quests. But all that applies to the original, free to download edition. What can one find in the Enhanced Edition version? Many bugfixes, voiceovers for important NPCs and many new perfectly fitting music tracks. All in all, not necessarily must-have improvements, but very welcome nonetheless. And for those who don't know, the (now free) original version was supposedly to be a paid premium module, but the authors were tragically screwed over by Atari. I feel they'd deserve money even if they hadn't improved anything, because this is truly a very good module, however you slice it. How does it compare to other official NWN content? I find it better than the base campaign and also better than SoU + HotU (despite my fondness of HotU). Also, although I like Pirates of the Sword Coast and even more so Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, I have to say Darkness over Daggerford is overall the best of them all. A must-have for all NWN fans.
Some people love this DLC, while others hate it. It's definitely different from most other NWN modules, both official and fan-made. The concept is simple - enter a randomly generated dungeon and reach its lowest floor, where a boss awaits. In your descent, you will find enemies, merchants, quests, loot and puzzles. The DLC pushes the Aurora engine to its limits in the technical regard. This is the only official module that supports player characters of any level (though 5-35 is recommended) and supports multiplayer while we're at it. The module definitely fulfills a certain niche in the world of NWN modules - that of a hack and slash dungeon crawler, though whether NWN is appropriate to fill that niche at all is subjective. Nevertheless, even though the story is not a focus of this module, it has a few memorable characters you may grow fond of (looking at you, Little Timmy). If you pay attention to item descriptions, you'll also find many great short stories, most of which are pretty amusing (the mood of the module is relatively light-hearted for the most part). What are the negatives, then? The loot. THE LOOT. It's EVERYWHERE. And I know, that's how hack and slash games are expected to behave, but the loot is given in such abundance, money completely loses its worth and you can not so long after starting find yourself overpowered and all your fights boring. The remedy lies in the game's VERY customizable dungeon settings. There is a trick here, though - you need to receive the Token of Mastery first by... beating the game. Or you can simply use a cheat to give yourself one, or a mod. Your choice. Either way, once you get around this little problem, you're left with a great "endless mode" NWN DLC that you can play with characters who finished other modules/campaigns, or characters that need to level up before playing one.
I always find it difficult to give a numerical ratings, because there are so many nuances that it is often difficult to just assign one numerical value that would account for all of them. This is one of these cases. The module itself is one of my favorites. Wyvern Crown of Cormyr is fairly linear (which is not necessarily bad, as it allows it to be more focused), though there are quite a few side-quests. Note that you often cannot return to areas you finished your adventures in, the only place you'll be visiting regularly is the town hub of Thunderstone. The story is great for the most part, though the ending is unfortunately rushed (it doesn't just "feel" rushed, the DLA team back in the day admitted that it was). The music this module introduced to NWN is my absolute favorite OST in the series - it's mysterious, melancholic and simply beautiful. Horses are advertised as the module's main feature. Many people dislike NWN's horse-riding system and I can understand that opinion, because they are clunky at times. I like them, but even if someone doesn't, they are needed only occassionally in the game. The jousting mini-game is another big thing of the module. It's a rock-paper-scissors variant for the most part, though you can collect rumors about various riders' strategies to increase your chances. I like both horse-riding and jousting as extras that set this module apart from the rest. All in all, I'd easily rate the module as 5 despite the few shortcomings I mentioned, if it wasn't for one thing: the DLC is bugged and you can get stuck in a joust unless you win in one bout, which is very annoying. I prepared a fix (you can find it on Neverwinter Vault by searching for "Taro94's premium module fixes"), but wasn't sure whether I should give it 5 stars if it's broken like that. Still, I believe it is very much worth purchasing, so I wanted my rating to reflect that. Especially with how many silly unwarranted 1/5 reviews it has.
