Neverwinter Nights Official Campaigns
This is how I rank the official Neverwinter Nights 1 campaigns. The ranking takes into account only the campaigns themselves. As well, the ranking is based only on the adventure as played in single-player mode.
The ranking does not take into account ruleset changes and additions made by expansions or 1.69 CR, which add greatly to the overall NWN experience (+classes, spells, feats, skills, tilesets, scripts etc.), but also retroactively imbalance the OC (in the case of NWN Build additions).
The ranking does not take into account ruleset changes and additions made by expansions or 1.69 CR, which add greatly to the overall NWN experience (+classes, spells, feats, skills, tilesets, scripts etc.), but also retroactively imbalance the OC (in the case of NWN Build additions).
Shadows of Undrentide
Jointly developed by BioWare and Floodgate, Shadows of Undrentide (2003) is notable for its unique setting (Silver Marches, Anauroch and Undrentide), its infusion of Netherese Realmslore, and its amusing, innovative and visually impressive scripted events (ox stampede, kobold-jumping).
Impressive also are its reactive dialogue options, original and non-standard characterizations [Shadows of Undrentide Henchmen, Drogan Droganson] and strictly tailored itemization. SoU is much smaller in scope than the OC and HotU, but it's the highest quality package officially released by BioWare for NWN. In fact, in terms of polish and professionalism, SoU does not have many equals 16 years subsequent to its release.
Hordes of the Underdark
Developed by BioWare and released in 2003 as the final official expansion for NWN, Hordes of the Underdark is famous for its epic-level adventuring (levels 15-30), mechanical innovations (reaper relic, demonic grappling hand, puzzle ring and sensei's amulet) and big budget/high production values such as cinematic cutscenes, professional VOs and an OST by Jeremy Soule which is at times breathtaking and second only to Icewind Dale (e.g, the theme of Lith My'athar).
In addition, HotU dungeon design features teleporting, secret doors and many puzzles which were not seen before and haven't been seen since. A nice touch also, was that it separately paid homage to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment over the course of its three epic acts.
This is very minor, but I must mention it: the Valsharess's ear-piercing death-scream. You can hear it here towards the end [related post].
Overall, HotU was a great way to cap off official NWN content. I only rank it below SoU because I prefer low level campaigns over epic ones, and SoU has much tighter itemization and power-progression in general.
In addition, HotU dungeon design features teleporting, secret doors and many puzzles which were not seen before and haven't been seen since. A nice touch also, was that it separately paid homage to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment over the course of its three epic acts.
This is very minor, but I must mention it: the Valsharess's ear-piercing death-scream. You can hear it here towards the end [related post].
Overall, HotU was a great way to cap off official NWN content. I only rank it below SoU because I prefer low level campaigns over epic ones, and SoU has much tighter itemization and power-progression in general.
Original Campaign
The Original Campaign for BioWare's NWN (2002) is not as bad as many people - including myself [*] - say it is. Often falsely branded a "tech-demo" of what the end-user was supposed to do with the Aurora toolset (and, indeed, end-users ended up surpassing the OC in several cases with their own NWN Modules), the OC is actually a properly fleshed out (albeit cookie-cutter) campaign that has entertained new and casual players for the past 20 years, and continues so to do. For those completely new to the genre, its tutorial-prologue remains a useful and comfy introduction to NWN.
Most of the OC's single-player issues stem from it having been built primarily with multi-player in mind (e.g, the number of receptacles to loot and its repetitive dungeon design), but the seminal Aurora campaign is not without virtue: the NWN companions are well-written, there are examples of good quests and area design (Helm's Hold, Charwood), and Aribeth is one of the best character-anchors in the D&D subgenre.
[*] Back in the day, the OC disappointed me because I was a veteran of Infinity Engine games such as Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. Those are tough acts to follow, and I was looking for a linear evolution on Baldur's Gate technologies and design principles such as Full Party Control and non-linear contiguous exploration. In my two-part NWN1 Retrospective (long-since abandoned), there remained thick traces of how I felt back in the day, too. However, I did return in order to soften the criticisms a bit.
Most of the OC's single-player issues stem from it having been built primarily with multi-player in mind (e.g, the number of receptacles to loot and its repetitive dungeon design), but the seminal Aurora campaign is not without virtue: the NWN companions are well-written, there are examples of good quests and area design (Helm's Hold, Charwood), and Aribeth is one of the best character-anchors in the D&D subgenre.
[*] Back in the day, the OC disappointed me because I was a veteran of Infinity Engine games such as Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. Those are tough acts to follow, and I was looking for a linear evolution on Baldur's Gate technologies and design principles such as Full Party Control and non-linear contiguous exploration. In my two-part NWN1 Retrospective (long-since abandoned), there remained thick traces of how I felt back in the day, too. However, I did return in order to soften the criticisms a bit.
I also found SOU relatively the most enjoyable of the 3 NWN OCs, not that I liked any of them all that much.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point about the reputation of the original OC probably suffering because of the time and context in which it was released. Many people played it expecting it to effectively be BG3, which it decidedly was not. However, while certainly flawed, had it been compared to the games that came after, rather than the classics that came before, it would probably look a lot better. Not that I would be the best judge, having played only a small handful of new games since getting NWN (working with the toolset really cut into my playing time, and most of the newer games did not seem to be all that good anyway...)