Playing this game was a really important milestone in my life, being the first real RPG I played at a young age, it really awoke a love of fantasy in me that I never experienced before, and to this day, it sits at the top of my favourite games of all time, for the immense impact it had on me.
I played this game numerous times. What I thought was a simple dungeon-crawler turned out to be a full-blown epic story with lots of content. Loved it, what a great closure to the Infinity Edge games.
In my opinion it had story and was better RPG than BG2 expansion Throne of Bhaal. And location of Volcano is by far one of the best cRPG locations of all times.
The community-made enhaced edition is a lot better than what people would normally expect. There is tons of new spells, abilities, even metamagic was added and a lot more stuff, sneak attacks were fixed and there is a lot of new stuff in general, npcs, magic items, quests, etc. Really worth checking it out.
Back then developers actually put thought in how the UI looks. Nowadays they just slap some white text on a flat background, usually dark grey, and then call it a day
@@icetroll00 yeah dude I agree with you! This is so much better. Especially with the wizard statue holding that spinning ball. It would be cool to use the spinning ball in another context of UI for an frames per second counter on pc.
Exactly, the UI and the itens icons, the character portraits, the art style, are all strong points dor this game. I really enjoy the vibe and immersion they give off.
Do you want to cover the Drakensang games? Drakensang: The Dark Eye and Drakensang: The River of Time. Very interesting RPGs somewhat similar to the mid-2000s Bioware games (DA:O, Kotor). Based on a D&D-like tabletop system that is very popular in Germany.
The soundtrack for Icewind Dale II is amazing. I first played it when it came out, and the themes - especially the "Skeleton of a Town" theme for Targos Town - are very pleasantly nostalgic. Inon Zur knocked this one out of the park. (He also did Dragon Age Origins, Baldur's Gate 2, Fallout 3 and 4 - with Dragon Age Origins being a standout as well.)
It did get a community-made enhanced edition this year though, which gameplay-wise is better than what beamdog released. Sure, its still fighting the engine limitations but it works flawlessly on modern systems.
I recall NWN and Morrowind being released more less at similar time as IWD2. And while Morrowind looked great for the time being, IWD2 looked far better than NWN, it was a pinnacle of drawn terrain graphics, while all the 3D games were still too low polygon and ugly effects.
Of course BG 2 is the main star of the show, but I quite like IWD2 to this day. Playing a solo game with a Sorcerer is a really fun challenge! Also, I like to play with a 5-character party to be able to reach close to level 20 (and cast 9th level spells) before the end of the game. Otherwise, you only reach those levels in Heart of Fury.
Yeah, I was able to reach level 16 with a party of six on normal difficulty. Only by doing absolutely every side quest in the Severed Hand, though. And those enticing level 9 spell scrolls were such a tease, too. :/
For an entertaining variant, try solo HoF mode from level 1. It's brutal at the beginning, where it practically requires summons abuse (particularly undead) but you are getting 3600 experience per goblin in Targos.
I did an evil human sorcerer run over the summer. It is challenging but at the same time, enemy mages were all too easy to kill. The tactics mod is very good
I like 5-character parties in IWD2 too. After playing couple of times I saw this amount of men (or women) makes game pretty balanced, especially if contains one or two ECL (4 characters are hard for the most part but steamroll in the last chapter, 6 characters have troubles in every boss fight due to low level).
@@Nergalsama01 I remember getting over lvl 40 but I might have used the item duplication exploit on a specific book... Anyway I am pretty sure the level cap is higher than 30.
I recently replayed this game for the first time in ... more than 15 years, I guess. I remember really struggling with it back in the day, and I only won the final battle against Isair and Madae by cheesing it. See, my entire party was dead by the final phase of the fight, except for my Dwarf fighter, who had a magic throwing axe that would return to his hand. Thankfully, the weapon was good enough to hurt the bosses. So I kept running around the center of the map, round and round in circles with Isair and Madae on my ass the entire time, occasionally stopping to throw the axe, hope that it would hit and then continue running. I don't even know how long it took, but eventually I wore one of them down enough for the ending to trigger. Over the years (mostly owing to Wrath of the Righteous, I guess) I've gotten better at figuring out what these kinds of games expect from me, so I had a way easier time with it. It's a good game. Except for the damn ambushes. Especially the section with the Hooked Horrors after you beat the white dragons. Damn things just drop from the ceiling in ridiculous numbers. If your party formation is off or you didn't pre-buff, you're dead. :/ Other than that, I had a good time with IWD 2. I'm also thinking about tackling the EE of the first one now. EDIT: I do kinda wish there'd been more roleplaying opportunities to call the Ten Towns out on their bullshit, though. Their petty behavior only fanned the flames for this conflict. Now, the Legion clearly has more than enough to answer for, but all their offers of peaceful relations were refused or not taken seriously to begin with. -_-;
Icewind Dale I & II is, unlike NWN, probably underrated. Back in the day, the few who had played it would speak fondly of it, and you'd find random art of a character shouting with pure joy over finding their copy of Icewind Dale. Even today, no one barely talks about it. Yet people will mention NWN casually.
I recall NWN and Morrowind being released more less at similar time as IWD2. And while Morrowind looked great for the time being, IWD2 looked far better than NWN, it was a pinnacle of drawn terrain graphics, while all the 3D games were still too low polygon and ugly effects.
They no longer have the source code, so an enhanced edition is off the cards. They would never do a remake from scratch today. This difficult, brain heavy and brutal style of CRPG isn't as popular today. Not even close. They'd have to dumb it down so much it wouldn't be recognizable.
had a migraine before watching the video, I left the screen away, listened to it as a podcast and at the end the migraine faded away. thank you for the clear, soothing review !
I found that, around the mid game or so (when you encounter the giant dragon in the jungle part), running my dwarf up to the most powerful hostile (in that case ... the dragon) and drawing the attacks, then casting otilukes sphere on him, allowed me (usually) enough to time to do significant damage with my mages and ranged characters to win most fights. I also had a half-elf ranger, who I'd built for dual-wielding, but after giving him a longbow and my thief a crossbow, they were the main damage dealers firing all kinds of enhanted arrows from a distance while my fighters basically blocked and tanked. A lot of the combat success came from positioning and supporting, because sometimes you're seriously outnumbered and in very close quarters. Very challenging game, on difficult settings, but very rewarding. And I've never had a cleric. Not a single time, in over 5 playthroughs. Makes the game more .... interesting.
Funny how they considered the game dated looking at the time. Most of the games that were cutting edge at the time you look at now and they are ugly. This game however has an art style that will always look good.
Nothing special there, the sentiment "2D is old and bad, this new 3D is so amazing!" has been going on since Quake 2 or so really, and, despite common sense, it only got stronger and stronger as 'cutting edge' 3D graphics became obsolete within a year, every year almost. As some wise soul once said, 3D ages like milk.
Agreed, look at neverwinter nights 1 now : everything looks like crap except creatures. Also I remember Icewind dale being considered the most pretty isometric RPG when it came out (1 or 2 : I don't remember which)
Hi Mortym! I absolutely loved the Infinity Engine games. Grew up playing BG 1 and 2. Recently got into the Neverwinter and Icewind Dale games. Humble had an awesome bundle that included a bunch of these types of games/crpgs. Looks like I am going to be busy for a while!
I have all of the remasters of these, Baldur’s Gate and Planescape etc., and a few months back I spent hours and hours not long ago setting up the mods for all of them. The plan was to play the Baldur’s gate games in one long, united go as the same character, with everything fixed and patched up to the nines. Then I’d play the rest of the games, probably ending with Planescape since I’ve completed that one before… Took me forever, largely because running the mod manager took forever. It felt much like modding Morrowind does when I put it into its “vanilla+ but pretty” state that I prefer… I couldn’t get the damn thing to run. Idk what went wrong and because of the way the mod manager consolidates things I have to start from scratch. I have not played any infinity engine games since 😢
apparently there is an engine reimplementation for infinity engine called GemRB, it has a linux version so steam deckers might wanna check that out as it runs natively and has no need for proton/wine.
Just wanna say I found you because i started playing WOTR but I watch most of your videos just because they're relaxing. You have an awesome voice for this!
Something about this game. Baldurs Gate didn't grab me in the same way. I'd rather spend 6 hours playings Mines Of Titan, or Eye Of The Beholder, than Baldurs Gate 1. So when I downloaded IWD2 from an FTP in the middle of the night and installed it the next day, I wasn't optimistic about sticking it out. But it turned out to be one of the best CRPGs I'd ever played, with some memories from that first playthrough that still stick with me today. The music, the atmosphere, the journey itself and how ridiculously powerful your party becomes while it never feeling "easy" to get through. For me, it's up there with Fallout 2 and that's saying something. I haven't played through it since about 2013, and I'm about to start a brand new playthrough. It's a shame the source code was lost, so there will be no "enhanced edition", even just to support higher resolutions in widescreen so I could play it on my 43" 4K TV. But it doesn't matter too much. Chances are, if they "enhanced" it, they'd mess something up in what is a near perfect game, and the bugs were never game breaking in the first place. Just the usual infinity engine stuff from back in the day. They did a great job in delveloping it so fast, and the made it such a huge adventure! Chris Avalone said "I think we made it TOO long...." but I disagree. It never feels padded.
Remember playing this game, and got into a cave that had like 3/4 levels, almost exhausted, no items, no arrows, and I reach what i think was an underground city. My main was a paladin and the first dialogue that pop up with the inhabitants was something like "Hi weary traveler, want to stay in the city?" to which my paladin could answer" "AHH I CAN SEE THROUGH YOUR ILLUSIONS YOU WONT FOOL ME" and the entire city turns into wyrmlike creatures. 10/10 Edit: It's albion from Icewind dale 1 :(
I still remember The Lost Followers battle and an ice castle gauntlet that awarded +5 radiant shortsword. Memories... I think I should replay as a solo sorcadin.
this game is absolutely excellent. a masterpiece in every way. It took me years to finish it, which I did last year during lockdown. Thank you for going to the trouble to review it.
This game is super easy if played as a solo sorcerer. You get to high levels super fast and your summons+spells just destroy content for you. Fun times! :)
Even though there is no set char or party, you actually get to know something about what happened to the previous game's chars and party (sort of, considering the Luremaster situation).....
I remember when I got this game back in the day it was pretty good. I still have the original game and it’s retail box. I remember it being strangely more difficult than the previous Icewind Dale games.
Another excellent review. Would you consider a top 10 of your favorite RUclips channels related to gaming? Always nice to see top level video essayists and reviewers give props to their fellow creators.
I was in high school when this came out. For some reason my memory remembers this game as neverwinter nights. I remember running around finding all of this cool loot to equip my party members with. It's was so long ago.
I have this as well as the others in this series (Baldur's Gate, the OG Icewind Dale and Torment) on CD-ROM. I don''t remember if I ever actually played this though. Thanks for going through this!
Loved it. Shame I can't play this again. I found it more immersive and engaging than the first Icewind Dale. So the reason I came here is that I didn't find it on Steam so needed information. Yep. Mortismal Gaming is the place to go if you want serious advice and info
IWD is the only infinity engine series i haven't played. I have the EE in my library since it came out, and i do want to check it out. It's just there are so much new rpgs coming out now, plus replaying the more recent game. This year alone, i replayed ATOM before checking its expansion, trudograd then replaying the whole pillars of eternity series, and now playing wrath of the righteous.
This game was beautiful, environment, story, music. Art on this game is incredible. Imagine if Larian studios make Icewind Dale, it would be just crazy good.
Their is a huge hole were something like Icewind Dale 3 should be. Like a hardcore D&D dungeon crawler that encourages you to minmax and use every mechanic. Also one thing to keep in mind is that spells like sleep and spray colour are considered silver bullets in most D&D games at low level, in Icewind Dale using those spells is considered basic competence. It is also sad that this game never got an enhanced edition, it could have done with better feats and class kits.
I enjoyed this game when it first came out, though I was disappointed for how little of 3.0 was actually implemented in the game for how much that aspect was hyped up. As a long-time ttrpg player, players love the idea of rolling stats but only actually love it if they luck out and get high rolls. Point buy, or some other form of character creation that allows a fairly level starting basis, is the far superior way to go to avoid table drama.
I loved this game the first I played it. I actually preferred the rule set to the first game. I'd love to see a third installment sometime in the not too distant future.
Thanks for shining some light on this game! I’ve played almost all of the infinity engine games and this is one that I missed. Have you played the Avernum games? I think they are criminally underrated. Or at least the one I played. I happened to pick up Avernum 2: Crystal Souls on sale a few years back and i loved it! Anyways thanks a lot!
I understand that it's nostalgia speaking in me, since I grew up on IWD and IWD2 (not BG, I have to say), yet I really appreciate the setting of far north, very good ost from Jeremy Soule and Inon Zur for these games, and a lot of very interesting combat. Locations are outstanding in their beauty. When I played BG later, it was falling behind a bit to my taste. In any case, great game. Did a solo sorc run two years ago, still a lot of fun. The only, hm, point of criticism if I may say - game is really long, which influences the pace. That's kinda what lead designer - Josh Sawyer - told as well. To my liking wrapping things up around Kuldahar would have been fine, yet game goes on for a long time after that.
this was the first game I´ve ever bought with my own money. Came in a box, with map, manual which was actually like mini rulebook for DnD with all the classes, level advancing, spells, everything really, so we used that to pick up the DnD itself. Good times.
i have very fond memories of both of the icewind dale games. it's a real shame they lost the source code for 2- how exactly does that happen? there's a real problem with video game preservation and it's such a shame.
This is one of the classic CRPGs I have not played. I played IWD1 but was unfortunate to get a copy of this. Would love to one day but thank you for this review.
Now, that I think of it, another good thing, that helps to sell this game along with the music, is sound design. Which is rarely gets mention for some reason.
took me so long to play this game and its probably one of the best after you've beaten the others and are looking for more of a challenge. Wish it would be possible to use this 3ye engine for Baldurs Gate and IWD 1. Really love the ability to pick feats while leveling and it feels like something is missing when you go back to play the previously mentioned games without those feats
When I played this I was new to 3E dnd, and I still did ok till the last battle. The game had problems, and I loathed the auril stage at the time, but it's worth playing for sure. Thre was even a beta mod that let you play bg2 in the iwd2 engine.
My problem with running IWD2 on a modern PC had been that the game was extremely choppy like 3 FPS. Changing the colors settings from 16Bit to 32Bit in the special settings tool (in the game folder) fixed it (at least to a reasonable FPS amount). I hope it can be helpful for someone with similar problem.
i love this game, it's like top3 in my book. firstly, it is beautiful to this day, amazing and very believable aesthetics compared to your generic fantasy. even against obsidian's own white march in poe - it wad kind of like a modern iwd game, but they went with more fancy setting and lost alot of its charm. secondly, music and sound design is amazing. obviously. thirdly, and probably most importantly, the game has very well crafted quests and stories and tightly shandified world, even though completely linear. still, in every location there quests that all weave into more general overarching narrative. especially in targos - like all quests are either a part of the situation on somehow connected to each other. which combined with visual style, music and ambient sounds make one of the most immersive experiences. to the smallest aspects - like the dead cat i caried around to the final battle because i felt its importance. and even though the game is most likely too long for its own good, still it is full of memorable locations-clusters, npcs and cool little stories. like in the horde's fortress or around the ice temple or with limha and her son. iwd2 is like a 60's fantasy adventure movie ortv show, but good, if you know what i mean. and the intro video is so amazingly designed - once again, it is simple, believable and extremly atmospheric - intriguing, but highly disturbing in gamerpoop terms. hooks you up right away. the sence of adventure is what makes tgis game great. yeah, it has its flaws and limitations, but the level of artistic coherence is top notch imo.
I have played all these so many times as I just love the build a party mechanic. For me that's the replay value. Trying different classes and combo. Sure it have fallen a bit in grace in terms of performance, but it's still a beloved game. I only wish you could skip the entire goblin section and go right to the ice castle as I really hate to play through the goblic camp part.
Thanks for the review, this game is full of childhood half-remembered memories for me like others, which is how I found both this review and your channel so hey. It's so wild seeing my own hazy memories take form again and remember at least 'hey, I recall this wild ice temple thing!' As a kid, I had no clue about the hybrid rule system or any of that, it was an adventure though. I distinctly remember getting to some sort of monastery and getting held up by a set of trials or traps, dying to it over and over because well, dumb kid. Looking up walkthroughs or books or sth didn't help, ah well.
It was a bit tough at first. Those Goblin archers hit like a truck. Took some getting used to. The bit in the forrest was a bit annoying at first until you figure it out. Took me 3 days to figure it out. ;) The test was a bit annoying too. You have to save between every fight because that part was glitched a bit. And if you hit a glitch.... you had to restart from the beginning. :( But other then that.... Loved it. :) It was nice to explored the Ten Towns on last time. ;)
I think I was stuck in a room full of mirrors, there was a lightning bolt that needed to be reflected by adjusting those mirrors in a special way :D I do not remember if I managed to pass that area or no, haven't played it for 10-15 years ago :D :D
I like this game a lot (especially the possibilities of very different builds) but holy hell there were some game-breaking bugs that made me pull my hair. For this reason alone I am reluctant to play it again.
I played D&D 2nd edition/Advanced D&D pen and paper back in the early 1980s. Baulder's Gate 2 and Ice Wind Dale are two of my all time favorite games, games I have replayed several times. I actually hated Ice Wind Dale II. I played it when it first came out and what I remember about it was that it was very linear, yes I know Ice Wind Dale was linear as well but that was fun, and I could not stand some of the new stats.
Ngl, Icewind Dale 2 used to be my favourite game of all time, trumping BG and Morrowind back in the day. On another note, I just saw your review of Troubleshooter and I have to say, if you enjoyed that game, you just HAVE TO try "Tale of Wuxia". Even if not for review, but just for yourself, I think you'd love it x)
Hey Mortimer have you played the black pits 1+2 for the infinity engine games? it sometimes comes with the baldurs gate enhanced edition. you may have even talked about it during your BG videos and I just missed it. a quick series of gladitorial style combat sequences with interesting character interactions in between. It won't blow you away but figured since you've hit every other you might enjoy seeing some familiar game mechanics and characters from BG. Regardless a big fan of your channel!
I missed this one while growing up but I recently bought it on GOG and just started playing through the prologue. I am not very familiar with this games rules so I decided to build a party based on what I know is customarily good from other RPGs I have played (i.e. bg series) You mentioned that some situations require specific abilities to pass them. I chose a handful of recommended builds I found online and built a party consisting of: Aasimar Paladin Human Darkmoon Monk 1/Dreadmaster of Bane x Ghostwise halfling fighter 4/ barbarian x Tiefling rogue Human sorcerer Will I be able to succeed in every situation with these 5 or should I create a 6th character to catch anything I missed?
To this very day I have not completed a full walkthrough of any of the infinity Engine games BG1 & BG2, IWD & IWD II & Planescape: Torment, Still have the original disc for them all too lol, but grabbed them on GoG when they went on special and am slowly going through my back catalog of 500+ games; big list to muster through, I turn 50 this week, so quiet a few years in gaming to go lol, gaming has come a long way since the Live versions of Space Invaders standups, even remember playing the original Atari Pong! gaming system in 78, yup OG gamer here
Just curious, did you use any specific workaround to get the game to work? I have a windows laptop and eventually I got it to work but not without some issues, any mods/workarounds you found helpful?
The GoG version worked out of the gate, never needed to do anything to it. I found some unsupported resolutions in a configuration utility hidden in the files but otherwise it was just the out of the box experience
@@MortismalGaming Thank you for the reply, I am getting ready to start playing the game due in large part to your review. Keep up the good work man I'm glad I found your channel!
From my own experience with those old Infinity Engine games: Aqrit's ddwrapper is the only and still the best tool to fix all of the DirectDraw issues those games have on Windows 10/11. Of course if you have any - it's somewhat config dependant. I can run those games without any issues on my old PC (AMD A8-7670K with integrated GPU), but if I would like to play them on my newer (and more powerful) one, I would need to apply above mentioned fix first, no matter if it's GoG version or some older one. Mods to consider: WidescreenMod (works with any IE game) with Luren's GUI fix (for IWD2 only; game looks great in 1360x768 on 1080p monitor, by the way).
1paladin/4 fighter/25 cleric half orc 19 druid/11 bard tiefling 1 rogue/29 wizard drow 1 monk/1 rogue/28 cleric of bane deep gnome 1 paladin/29 sorcerer aasimar 30 sorcerer human very fun power party, start with the first 4, add the last 2 after chapter 4 6 full casters in this game is very fun
16:50 I don't own a Steam Deck, but it's possible you need to pull in drivers from a different repository. I imagine it's an Ubuntu based device, so try adding the 'Universe' repository.
Very hardcore game, was a slap in the face for me when I tried to play it right after Wasteland 3 expecting a similarly casual game. Take the surgeon skill people, just take it..
Wow I didn't know we can import our party. I think I may still have saved my characters from Icewind Dale 1 which I would have played back in like 2002 or so. I had a perfect party I thought, would be great to just import em. I wonder if I could import my Baldur's Gate character?
Personally, I loved the pre-rendered backgrounds and still do. Never considered the graphics of this game to be dated, even in 2002. My main issue with the game and all infinity engine games was the clunky character movement and AI pathing.
I think in order to play icewind dale 2 on steam deck, you would probably need to use gemrb or something which is an open source implementation of the infinity engine, but not sure how stable it is
Playing this game was a really important milestone in my life, being the first real RPG I played at a young age, it really awoke a love of fantasy in me that I never experienced before, and to this day, it sits at the top of my favourite games of all time, for the immense impact it had on me.
I played this game numerous times. What I thought was a simple dungeon-crawler turned out to be a full-blown epic story with lots of content. Loved it, what a great closure to the Infinity Edge games.
In my opinion it had story and was better RPG than BG2 expansion Throne of Bhaal. And location of Volcano is by far one of the best cRPG locations of all times.
@@OldSkullSoldier I loved the forest location, similar vibes to Ravenholm from Half-Life2.
The community-made enhaced edition is a lot better than what people would normally expect. There is tons of new spells, abilities, even metamagic was added and a lot more stuff, sneak attacks were fixed and there is a lot of new stuff in general, npcs, magic items, quests, etc. Really worth checking it out.
I find the menu UI extremely beautiful in terms of the bordering and colorway. It feels super aesthetically pleasing and appropriate.
Back then developers actually put thought in how the UI looks. Nowadays they just slap some white text on a flat background, usually dark grey, and then call it a day
@@icetroll00 yeah dude I agree with you! This is so much better. Especially with the wizard statue holding that spinning ball. It would be cool to use the spinning ball in another context of UI for an frames per second counter on pc.
Exactly, the UI and the itens icons, the character portraits, the art style, are all strong points dor this game. I really enjoy the vibe and immersion they give off.
Do you want to cover the Drakensang games? Drakensang: The Dark Eye and Drakensang: The River of Time. Very interesting RPGs somewhat similar to the mid-2000s Bioware games (DA:O, Kotor). Based on a D&D-like tabletop system that is very popular in Germany.
Great game. A litlea hard in begging but great level satisfaction when learn all mechanics.
I own one of them, might get around too it eventually
Would be interested in those reviews! Love the games when I was younger.
I recently replayed the first one. I love it. Such a great game.
@@MortismalGaming I would also like to see your view on the Drakensang games, they are a very dear part of my childhood
The soundtrack for Icewind Dale II is amazing. I first played it when it came out, and the themes - especially the "Skeleton of a Town" theme for Targos Town - are very pleasantly nostalgic. Inon Zur knocked this one out of the park. (He also did Dragon Age Origins, Baldur's Gate 2, Fallout 3 and 4 - with Dragon Age Origins being a standout as well.)
I absolutely love Skeleton of a town. Why isn't it much longer?
Most of the tracks are good, but also really short. Probably a budget constraint. >_>
Probably one of the best and most underrated soundtracks in gaming history. Both tracks mentioned are on par with the Tristram Diablo 1 theme.
Soule did the first one then was Zur, it's funny cause some games music was done also first Soule then Zur.
I consider IWD2 to be a beautiful attempt at creating a homebrew AD&D 2.75 edition.
One of the few games where the 'default' party setups weren't completely trash. Great game in its day & still fun to play today.
the fact this never got an EE is an absolute crime in my opinion. By FAR my fave. Incredible depth, great music, great story.
it is actually better as they ruined the games with different graphics. They should have kept the original mood and just eliminating all the bugs...
@@1luarluar1 I can understand why you'd say that, but I actually like the more modern sprite vs the older, bg1 style chunky sprites.
@@charlyjordan3545 yes, it's a question of taste, unfortunately for me that's the trend, but I'm happy you can enjoy..:-)
It did get a community-made enhanced edition this year though, which gameplay-wise is better than what beamdog released. Sure, its still fighting the engine limitations but it works flawlessly on modern systems.
@@Arkandos42 aye! I know of it. Been waiting and patiently watching its progress for about a year or so now
I won't call the beautiful hand drawn backgrounds and sprites dated. If anything early 2000's 3D models are dated.
I recall NWN and Morrowind being released more less at similar time as IWD2. And while Morrowind looked great for the time being, IWD2 looked far better than NWN, it was a pinnacle of drawn terrain graphics, while all the 3D games were still too low polygon and ugly effects.
Update - The enhanced edition mod is now out
Of course BG 2 is the main star of the show, but I quite like IWD2 to this day. Playing a solo game with a Sorcerer is a really fun challenge! Also, I like to play with a 5-character party to be able to reach close to level 20 (and cast 9th level spells) before the end of the game. Otherwise, you only reach those levels in Heart of Fury.
Yeah, I was able to reach level 16 with a party of six on normal difficulty. Only by doing absolutely every side quest in the Severed Hand, though. And those enticing level 9 spell scrolls were such a tease, too. :/
For an entertaining variant, try solo HoF mode from level 1. It's brutal at the beginning, where it practically requires summons abuse (particularly undead) but you are getting 3600 experience per goblin in Targos.
I did an evil human sorcerer run over the summer. It is challenging but at the same time, enemy mages were all too easy to kill. The tactics mod is very good
I like 5-character parties in IWD2 too. After playing couple of times I saw this amount of men (or women) makes game pretty balanced, especially if contains one or two ECL (4 characters are hard for the most part but steamroll in the last chapter, 6 characters have troubles in every boss fight due to low level).
@@Nergalsama01 I remember getting over lvl 40 but I might have used the item duplication exploit on a specific book... Anyway I am pretty sure the level cap is higher than 30.
I recently replayed this game for the first time in ... more than 15 years, I guess. I remember really struggling with it back in the day, and I only won the final battle against Isair and Madae by cheesing it. See, my entire party was dead by the final phase of the fight, except for my Dwarf fighter, who had a magic throwing axe that would return to his hand. Thankfully, the weapon was good enough to hurt the bosses. So I kept running around the center of the map, round and round in circles with Isair and Madae on my ass the entire time, occasionally stopping to throw the axe, hope that it would hit and then continue running. I don't even know how long it took, but eventually I wore one of them down enough for the ending to trigger.
Over the years (mostly owing to Wrath of the Righteous, I guess) I've gotten better at figuring out what these kinds of games expect from me, so I had a way easier time with it. It's a good game. Except for the damn ambushes. Especially the section with the Hooked Horrors after you beat the white dragons. Damn things just drop from the ceiling in ridiculous numbers. If your party formation is off or you didn't pre-buff, you're dead. :/ Other than that, I had a good time with IWD 2. I'm also thinking about tackling the EE of the first one now.
EDIT: I do kinda wish there'd been more roleplaying opportunities to call the Ten Towns out on their bullshit, though. Their petty behavior only fanned the flames for this conflict. Now, the Legion clearly has more than enough to answer for, but all their offers of peaceful relations were refused or not taken seriously to begin with. -_-;
Icewind Dale I & II is, unlike NWN, probably underrated.
Back in the day, the few who had played it would speak fondly of it, and you'd find random art of a character shouting with pure joy over finding their copy of Icewind Dale.
Even today, no one barely talks about it.
Yet people will mention NWN casually.
I recall NWN and Morrowind being released more less at similar time as IWD2. And while Morrowind looked great for the time being, IWD2 looked far better than NWN, it was a pinnacle of drawn terrain graphics, while all the 3D games were still too low polygon and ugly effects.
While BG1&2 will always be my favorites, I enjoyed Icewind Dale 2 very much. Will probably do another play through soon. Thanks for the review.
This is one of my favorite Infinity engine games. Honestly i would be happy if it just got a full remake since a enhanced edition is unrealistic.
They lose source code ,that s why they did only enhanced for the First icewind Dale
They no longer have the source code, so an enhanced edition is off the cards. They would never do a remake from scratch today. This difficult, brain heavy and brutal style of CRPG isn't as popular today. Not even close. They'd have to dumb it down so much it wouldn't be recognizable.
had a migraine before watching the video, I left the screen away, listened to it as a podcast and at the end the migraine faded away.
thank you for the clear, soothing review !
I loved this game SO much. One of the only games I was able to find the broken strats for on my own as a kid
Also this really made me fall in love with Peter Stormare. He does fantastic work voicing one of the main antagonists
I found that, around the mid game or so (when you encounter the giant dragon in the jungle part), running my dwarf up to the most powerful hostile (in that case ... the dragon) and drawing the attacks, then casting otilukes sphere on him, allowed me (usually) enough to time to do significant damage with my mages and ranged characters to win most fights. I also had a half-elf ranger, who I'd built for dual-wielding, but after giving him a longbow and my thief a crossbow, they were the main damage dealers firing all kinds of enhanted arrows from a distance while my fighters basically blocked and tanked. A lot of the combat success came from positioning and supporting, because sometimes you're seriously outnumbered and in very close quarters. Very challenging game, on difficult settings, but very rewarding.
And I've never had a cleric. Not a single time, in over 5 playthroughs. Makes the game more .... interesting.
Thanks for pointing out the good story. Its one of the things that always got overlooked when people were talking about IWD2
Funny how they considered the game dated looking at the time. Most of the games that were cutting edge at the time you look at now and they are ugly. This game however has an art style that will always look good.
@David I agree! I love the hand drawn backgrounds.
Nothing special there, the sentiment "2D is old and bad, this new 3D is so amazing!" has been going on since Quake 2 or so really, and, despite common sense, it only got stronger and stronger as 'cutting edge' 3D graphics became obsolete within a year, every year almost. As some wise soul once said, 3D ages like milk.
Agreed, look at neverwinter nights 1 now : everything looks like crap except creatures. Also I remember Icewind dale being considered the most pretty isometric RPG when it came out (1 or 2 : I don't remember which)
@@armelior4610 There are some astounding backgrounds in Heart of Winter. And the base game, same as IWD2, is not too shabby either.
I still remember the frozen aquarium
Really enjoying that you included a section about Steam Deck compatibility in your newer reviews ❤❤❤
Hi Mortym! I absolutely loved the Infinity Engine games. Grew up playing BG 1 and 2. Recently got into the Neverwinter and Icewind Dale games. Humble had an awesome bundle that included a bunch of these types of games/crpgs. Looks like I am going to be busy for a while!
I have all of the remasters of these, Baldur’s Gate and Planescape etc., and a few months back I spent hours and hours not long ago setting up the mods for all of them.
The plan was to play the Baldur’s gate games in one long, united go as the same character, with everything fixed and patched up to the nines.
Then I’d play the rest of the games, probably ending with Planescape since I’ve completed that one before…
Took me forever, largely because running the mod manager took forever. It felt much like modding Morrowind does when I put it into its “vanilla+ but pretty” state that I prefer…
I couldn’t get the damn thing to run.
Idk what went wrong and because of the way the mod manager consolidates things I have to start from scratch.
I have not played any infinity engine games since 😢
apparently there is an engine reimplementation for infinity engine called GemRB, it has a linux version so steam deckers might wanna check that out as it runs natively and has no need for proton/wine.
Just wanna say I found you because i started playing WOTR but I watch most of your videos just because they're relaxing. You have an awesome voice for this!
I honestly wouldn't mind seeing another series on infinity engine, still has so much charm.
Something about this game. Baldurs Gate didn't grab me in the same way. I'd rather spend 6 hours playings Mines Of Titan, or Eye Of The Beholder, than Baldurs Gate 1. So when I downloaded IWD2 from an FTP in the middle of the night and installed it the next day, I wasn't optimistic about sticking it out. But it turned out to be one of the best CRPGs I'd ever played, with some memories from that first playthrough that still stick with me today. The music, the atmosphere, the journey itself and how ridiculously powerful your party becomes while it never feeling "easy" to get through. For me, it's up there with Fallout 2 and that's saying something.
I haven't played through it since about 2013, and I'm about to start a brand new playthrough. It's a shame the source code was lost, so there will be no "enhanced edition", even just to support higher resolutions in widescreen so I could play it on my 43" 4K TV. But it doesn't matter too much. Chances are, if they "enhanced" it, they'd mess something up in what is a near perfect game, and the bugs were never game breaking in the first place. Just the usual infinity engine stuff from back in the day. They did a great job in delveloping it so fast, and the made it such a huge adventure! Chris Avalone said "I think we made it TOO long...." but I disagree. It never feels padded.
Remember playing this game, and got into a cave that had like 3/4 levels, almost exhausted, no items, no arrows, and I reach what i think was an underground city. My main was a paladin and the first dialogue that pop up with the inhabitants was something like "Hi weary traveler, want to stay in the city?" to which my paladin could answer" "AHH I CAN SEE THROUGH YOUR ILLUSIONS YOU WONT FOOL ME" and the entire city turns into wyrmlike creatures. 10/10
Edit: It's albion from Icewind dale 1 :(
I still remember The Lost Followers battle and an ice castle gauntlet that awarded +5 radiant shortsword. Memories... I think I should replay as a solo sorcadin.
My favourite part was the Time Volcano.
this game is absolutely excellent. a masterpiece in every way. It took me years to finish it, which I did last year during lockdown.
Thank you for going to the trouble to review it.
This game is super easy if played as a solo sorcerer. You get to high levels super fast and your summons+spells just destroy content for you. Fun times! :)
Even though there is no set char or party, you actually get to know something about what happened to the previous game's chars and party (sort of, considering the Luremaster situation).....
I remember when I got this game back in the day it was pretty good. I still have the original game and it’s retail box. I remember it being strangely more difficult than the previous Icewind Dale games.
Still some of my favorite video game artwork to this day.
Ooh, this brings back memories. Haven't seen the video yet, so I'm exited to see how much or little(more likely of the two) I actually remember.
Another excellent review. Would you consider a top 10 of your favorite RUclips channels related to gaming?
Always nice to see top level video essayists and reviewers give props to their fellow creators.
I would be interested to see this too.
Personally I greatly prefer the pre-rendered graphics of the old infinity engine compared to the boxy 3D graphics of the era.
*Instantly stops whatever stuff I was doing at work to watch a new Mortismal video*
Beamdog is still negotiating for an IWD2 EE, one of their directors confirmed it on discord.
I was in high school when this came out. For some reason my memory remembers this game as neverwinter nights. I remember running around finding all of this cool loot to equip my party members with. It's was so long ago.
I have this as well as the others in this series (Baldur's Gate, the OG Icewind Dale and Torment) on CD-ROM. I don''t remember if I ever actually played this though. Thanks for going through this!
Loved it. Shame I can't play this again. I found it more immersive and engaging than the first Icewind Dale. So the reason I came here is that I didn't find it on Steam so needed information. Yep. Mortismal Gaming is the place to go if you want serious advice and info
IWD is the only infinity engine series i haven't played. I have the EE in my library since it came out, and i do want to check it out. It's just there are so much new rpgs coming out now, plus replaying the more recent game. This year alone, i replayed ATOM before checking its expansion, trudograd then replaying the whole pillars of eternity series, and now playing wrath of the righteous.
I cantor start my day properly until wishes of wandering in wisdom, front mortym
Amazing job as always, mate. Thank you for this nice review
Imo it was cool how they put locations from iwd showing how they changed
This game was beautiful, environment, story, music. Art on this game is incredible. Imagine if Larian studios make Icewind Dale, it would be just crazy good.
Their is a huge hole were something like Icewind Dale 3 should be. Like a hardcore D&D dungeon crawler that encourages you to minmax and use every mechanic. Also one thing to keep in mind is that spells like sleep and spray colour are considered silver bullets in most D&D games at low level, in Icewind Dale using those spells is considered basic competence. It is also sad that this game never got an enhanced edition, it could have done with better feats and class kits.
Your script was really good, very informative video and interesting opinions. I just subscribed, thanks!
I enjoyed this game when it first came out, though I was disappointed for how little of 3.0 was actually implemented in the game for how much that aspect was hyped up.
As a long-time ttrpg player, players love the idea of rolling stats but only actually love it if they luck out and get high rolls. Point buy, or some other form of character creation that allows a fairly level starting basis, is the far superior way to go to avoid table drama.
I loved this game the first I played it. I actually preferred the rule set to the first game. I'd love to see a third installment sometime in the not too distant future.
Played it back in the day, I liked it. Story-lite DnD 3rd(ish) Edition hack and slash.
I adored this game. The story was really well done, and I wished they had an option to side with the siblings.
Thanks for shining some light on this game! I’ve played almost all of the infinity engine games and this is one that I missed.
Have you played the Avernum games? I think they are criminally underrated. Or at least the one I played. I happened to pick up Avernum 2: Crystal Souls on sale a few years back and i loved it! Anyways thanks a lot!
I understand that it's nostalgia speaking in me, since I grew up on IWD and IWD2 (not BG, I have to say), yet I really appreciate the setting of far north, very good ost from Jeremy Soule and Inon Zur for these games, and a lot of very interesting combat. Locations are outstanding in their beauty. When I played BG later, it was falling behind a bit to my taste.
In any case, great game. Did a solo sorc run two years ago, still a lot of fun. The only, hm, point of criticism if I may say - game is really long, which influences the pace. That's kinda what lead designer - Josh Sawyer - told as well. To my liking wrapping things up around Kuldahar would have been fine, yet game goes on for a long time after that.
this was the first game I´ve ever bought with my own money. Came in a box, with map, manual which was actually like mini rulebook for DnD with all the classes, level advancing, spells, everything really, so we used that to pick up the DnD itself. Good times.
i have very fond memories of both of the icewind dale games. it's a real shame they lost the source code for 2- how exactly does that happen? there's a real problem with video game preservation and it's such a shame.
This is one of the classic CRPGs I have not played. I played IWD1 but was unfortunate to get a copy of this. Would love to one day but thank you for this review.
Now, that I think of it, another good thing, that helps to sell this game along with the music, is sound design. Which is rarely gets mention for some reason.
took me so long to play this game and its probably one of the best after you've beaten the others and are looking for more of a challenge. Wish it would be possible to use this 3ye engine for Baldurs Gate and IWD 1. Really love the ability to pick feats while leveling and it feels like something is missing when you go back to play the previously mentioned games without those feats
Excellent review !
( it is on my "to play" list already and I am waiting on the community Enhanced mod to be considered ready )
When I played this I was new to 3E dnd, and I still did ok till the last battle. The game had problems, and I loathed the auril stage at the time, but it's worth playing for sure. Thre was even a beta mod that let you play bg2 in the iwd2 engine.
one of my all time favourite games.
My problem with running IWD2 on a modern PC had been that the game was extremely choppy like 3 FPS. Changing the colors settings from 16Bit to 32Bit in the special settings tool (in the game folder) fixed it (at least to a reasonable FPS amount). I hope it can be helpful for someone with similar problem.
i love this game, it's like top3 in my book. firstly, it is beautiful to this day, amazing and very believable aesthetics compared to your generic fantasy. even against obsidian's own white march in poe - it wad kind of like a modern iwd game, but they went with more fancy setting and lost alot of its charm.
secondly, music and sound design is amazing. obviously.
thirdly, and probably most importantly, the game has very well crafted quests and stories and tightly shandified world, even though completely linear. still, in every location there quests that all weave into more general overarching narrative. especially in targos - like all quests are either a part of the situation on somehow connected to each other. which combined with visual style, music and ambient sounds make one of the most immersive experiences. to the smallest aspects - like the dead cat i caried around to the final battle because i felt its importance.
and even though the game is most likely too long for its own good, still it is full of memorable locations-clusters, npcs and cool little stories. like in the horde's fortress or around the ice temple or with limha and her son. iwd2 is like a 60's fantasy adventure movie ortv show, but good, if you know what i mean.
and the intro video is so amazingly designed - once again, it is simple, believable and extremly atmospheric - intriguing, but highly disturbing in gamerpoop terms. hooks you up right away.
the sence of adventure is what makes tgis game great. yeah, it has its flaws and limitations, but the level of artistic coherence is top notch imo.
Another really enjoyable review!!
I have played all these so many times as I just love the build a party mechanic. For me that's the replay value. Trying different classes and combo. Sure it have fallen a bit in grace in terms of performance, but it's still a beloved game.
I only wish you could skip the entire goblin section and go right to the ice castle as I really hate to play through the goblic camp part.
Wonderful game. Finished it again recently as a drow evil party. :) shame it will never get the enhanced edition treatment.
Thanks for the review, this game is full of childhood half-remembered memories for me like others, which is how I found both this review and your channel so hey. It's so wild seeing my own hazy memories take form again and remember at least 'hey, I recall this wild ice temple thing!' As a kid, I had no clue about the hybrid rule system or any of that, it was an adventure though. I distinctly remember getting to some sort of monastery and getting held up by a set of trials or traps, dying to it over and over because well, dumb kid. Looking up walkthroughs or books or sth didn't help, ah well.
Great video. Glad that you liked the game. I think you nailed every point so I don't feel I need to elaborate. Fun game.
You have the voice of a person that deserves success. I wasn't surprised to see that you have made a successful channel.
It was a bit tough at first.
Those Goblin archers hit like a truck. Took some getting used to.
The bit in the forrest was a bit annoying at first until you figure it out.
Took me 3 days to figure it out. ;)
The test was a bit annoying too.
You have to save between every fight because that part was glitched a bit.
And if you hit a glitch.... you had to restart from the beginning. :(
But other then that....
Loved it. :)
It was nice to explored the Ten Towns on last time. ;)
This is my favourite IE game. The combat is suberb. I'd love to see the IWD series get a remaster in the Pathfinder vein.
I think I was stuck in a room full of mirrors, there was a lightning bolt that needed to be reflected by adjusting those mirrors in a special way :D I do not remember if I managed to pass that area or no, haven't played it for 10-15 years ago :D :D
I like this game a lot (especially the possibilities of very different builds) but holy hell there were some game-breaking bugs that made me pull my hair. For this reason alone I am reluctant to play it again.
I played D&D 2nd edition/Advanced D&D pen and paper back in the early 1980s. Baulder's Gate 2 and Ice Wind Dale are two of my all time favorite games, games I have replayed several times. I actually hated Ice Wind Dale II. I played it when it first came out and what I remember about it was that it was very linear, yes I know Ice Wind Dale was linear as well but that was fun, and I could not stand some of the new stats.
so we finally got our EE :D looking forward to the new review!
love your work, great content!
Ngl, Icewind Dale 2 used to be my favourite game of all time, trumping BG and Morrowind back in the day.
On another note, I just saw your review of Troubleshooter and I have to say, if you enjoyed that game, you just HAVE TO try "Tale of Wuxia". Even if not for review, but just for yourself, I think you'd love it x)
This was the first IE game I played and it's one of my favorite RPGs still
Hey Mortimer have you played the black pits 1+2 for the infinity engine games? it sometimes comes with the baldurs gate enhanced edition. you may have even talked about it during your BG videos and I just missed it. a quick series of gladitorial style combat sequences with interesting character interactions in between. It won't blow you away but figured since you've hit every other you might enjoy seeing some familiar game mechanics and characters from BG. Regardless a big fan of your channel!
I have, played them for the EE reviews, enjoyable enough for sure
@@MortismalGaming Wow you don't mess around when you say 100%
I missed this one while growing up but I recently bought it on GOG and just started playing through the prologue.
I am not very familiar with this games rules so I decided to build a party based on what I know is customarily good from other RPGs I have played (i.e. bg series)
You mentioned that some situations require specific abilities to pass them.
I chose a handful of recommended builds I found online and built a party consisting of:
Aasimar Paladin
Human Darkmoon Monk 1/Dreadmaster of Bane x
Ghostwise halfling fighter 4/ barbarian x
Tiefling rogue
Human sorcerer
Will I be able to succeed in every situation with these 5 or should I create a 6th character to catch anything I missed?
I played it back in time. Loved it so much
To this very day I have not completed a full walkthrough of any of the infinity Engine games BG1 & BG2, IWD & IWD II & Planescape: Torment, Still have the original disc for them all too lol, but grabbed them on GoG when they went on special and am slowly going through my back catalog of 500+ games; big list to muster through, I turn 50 this week, so quiet a few years in gaming to go lol, gaming has come a long way since the Live versions of Space Invaders standups, even remember playing the original Atari Pong! gaming system in 78, yup OG gamer here
The title of the game is fitting with winter around the corner
Just curious, did you use any specific workaround to get the game to work? I have a windows laptop and eventually I got it to work but not without some issues, any mods/workarounds you found helpful?
The GoG version worked out of the gate, never needed to do anything to it. I found some unsupported resolutions in a configuration utility hidden in the files but otherwise it was just the out of the box experience
@@MortismalGaming Thank you for the reply, I am getting ready to start playing the game due in large part to your review. Keep up the good work man I'm glad I found your channel!
From my own experience with those old Infinity Engine games: Aqrit's ddwrapper is the only and still the best tool to fix all of the DirectDraw issues those games have on Windows 10/11. Of course if you have any - it's somewhat config dependant. I can run those games without any issues on my old PC (AMD A8-7670K with integrated GPU), but if I would like to play them on my newer (and more powerful) one, I would need to apply above mentioned fix first, no matter if it's GoG version or some older one.
Mods to consider: WidescreenMod (works with any IE game) with Luren's GUI fix (for IWD2 only; game looks great in 1360x768 on 1080p monitor, by the way).
1paladin/4 fighter/25 cleric half orc
19 druid/11 bard tiefling
1 rogue/29 wizard drow
1 monk/1 rogue/28 cleric of bane deep gnome
1 paladin/29 sorcerer aasimar
30 sorcerer human
very fun power party, start with the first 4, add the last 2 after chapter 4
6 full casters in this game is very fun
16:50
I don't own a Steam Deck, but it's possible you need to pull in drivers from a different repository. I imagine it's an Ubuntu based device, so try adding the 'Universe' repository.
Can you tell me how to transfer a party from Icewind Dale 1? I didn't see a way.
"Welp... looks like I'm gonna have to go on a killing spree!"
When was IWD2 ever on steam?
I couldn't find any information about it.
Nice review Mortym, any plan on reviewing Wasteland 2 in the future?
Yes, should be getting to it in November most likely!
Very hardcore game, was a slap in the face for me when I tried to play it right after Wasteland 3 expecting a similarly casual game. Take the surgeon skill people, just take it..
I loved playing this game when I was a kid it was hard and never finished it
Wow I didn't know we can import our party. I think I may still have saved my characters from Icewind Dale 1 which I would have played back in like 2002 or so. I had a perfect party I thought, would be great to just import em. I wonder if I could import my Baldur's Gate character?
Personally, I loved the pre-rendered backgrounds and still do. Never considered the graphics of this game to be dated, even in 2002. My main issue with the game and all infinity engine games was the clunky character movement and AI pathing.
Sad that this and nwn2 never received an enhanced edition. With the success of bg3 it would be a perfect time to bring new life into these
The source code was lost, so they'd basically have to remake them completely which no one seems inclined to put the resources into
I love the portraits more than the game.
Great game. Great review.
Hmmm, might be time for another IWD+IWDII playthrough.
Game like this are severely missing from market nowadays.
One of the few games where I genuinely asked myself "Are we the baddies?"
I think in order to play icewind dale 2 on steam deck, you would probably need to use gemrb or something which is an open source implementation of the infinity engine, but not sure how stable it is