Actually, that was the game I really digged into the fight system which I nipped in Baldur's Gate in my first 110 hours or so. In that one you may use exploits and not quite understand what are the benefits of this Infinity engine dice roll fighting since you hand-pick your party and tend to shortcut, but in Icewind Dale you get pre-generated party or characters (well, you can handcraft all your party in the beginning, and that is another very nice feature, but you'll probably try the default party in your first run), so I just had to play as intended, and it came out great. I generally liked the plot, it felt better written than in Baldur's Gate, no cringe silly dialogues and the setting felt really fresh and motivating to explore: it's not the Sword Coast from countless Forgotten Realms books and BG1 and BG2 and apparently BG3, and the lore is pretty rich here with books and dialogues, yet you need to sedulously craft it piece by piece in your mind, and it's nice if you know something about Faerûn already (I think at least it's vital to learn about gods and demigods before playing, as with BG). Unfortunately, there are still items with THAC0 +4 and -4 which mean exactly the opposite (if you know what's this all about); locations are pretty bleak, and I barely saw anything in chapter 6; and the final part of the game is genuinely shit, and I just forced myself into it. The ‘Heart of Winter’ add-on (which is included) is so much better than the original game plotwise, it features the most remarkable soundtrack by Jeremy Soule, memorable characters, a couple of really nice side-quests with variability and perfectly sensible antagonist which you can relate to (not like baby Bhaal and hilarious what's-his-name from the main IWD), and it's pretty short (which I consider a good thing).
