Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

tl;dr: The closest comparison is obviously Black Isle's Baldur's Gate games. It uses the same AD&D 2E ruleset, the same Infinity Engine and is set in the same Forgotten Realms universe. The biggest difference is that, whereas the Bhaalspawn Saga focuses on story, companions and Forgotten Realms lore, Icewind Dale is a combat focused dungeon crawler built around a custom party. If you enjoyed the combat in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II, and wanted to experiment with very different party builds with plot largely out the way, you'll probably have a great time with Icewind Dale. If you found Baldur's Gate's combat tedious and only put up with it for the story, this probably isn't the game for you. Player Context: I first played Icewind Dale in the mid 2000s, not long after Baldur's Gate II, which was my introduction to CRPGs. I remembered very little of the plot and wasn't even sure whether I'd finished it. This year I've been working through my backlog, and because I only had vague memories of the game and had never played the Heart of Winter expansion, it still felt fresh. The Enhanced Edition adds a few useful quality of life improvements, such as widescreen and modern resolutions support, the very useful quick loot bar, extra spells and additional classes and kits not in the original. There are also a few more questionable additions, such as the new voice sets and portraits. The portraits are fine, but don't really match the style of the original artwork. You'll probably end up using custom portraits anyway, so that isn't a big deal. If you're coming into this from later D&D games like Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate III, the 2E rules are not going to be intuitive to you. Classes and kits are very restricted by race, with humans having the greatest variety; AD&D was afterall only one step removed from the original D&D, in which "Elf" and "Dwarf" were both classes as well as races, class/race restrictions were largely removed by 3E. With THAC0, all you need to remember is that lower Armour Class and lower THAC0 are better, while higher resistances are better. Your Full Plate Armour with Armour Class of 1 is going to suit your frontline fighter better than the Studded Leather with 7. For my first run I went with a gimmick party of five dwarves, four fighters and one fighter/cleric, plus a halfling thief. Basically Thorin's Company from The Hobbit. The party handled the early game with ease but started struggling in the middle of the game, and the party composition became repetitive. By the time I started Heart of Winter, I decided to start again with a more balanced diversed party. Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster: By the time you reach Kuldahar at the end of Chapter One, you'll meet a barbarian shaman who starts the Heart of Winter expansion. You cannot begin it until your party reaches around level 9 or 10, and once you do, you cannot return to the main campaign until you've finished it. I recommend leaving Heart of Winter until after the main game, either by importing your party or starting a new one. Playing it in the middle and then returning back of the main Icewind Dale campaign makes the too much easier. If you do import your characters, remember to remove valuables from your Bag of Holding, Scroll Case, Potion Case and Ammo Belt first, as their contents do not carry over. Heart of Winter is enjoyable, with a good story, but it is very short. Its length was apprently a common complaint when it was released, and Black Isle later added Trials of the Luremaster as a free extra adventure inside it. I enjoyed the combat throughout Icewind Dale, but Trials of the Luremaster wore me down. It is about the same length as Heart of Winter, but is almost entirely combat with very little story. By this point, most fights are not difficult, there are just a lot of them. Like Heart of Winter, playing it before finishing the main game will leave the rest of the campaign too easy. As a side-note, Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition kept the original character record screens almost unchanged. Compared to Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, which redesigned them into a much cleaner layout with buttons taking you to skills/stats/abilities instead of one dump of text to scroll. Minor issue, but it made for comparing character stats and kills slightly troublesome. If I replay Icewind Dale in the future, I'll happily play Heart of Winter again. I doubt I'll bother with Trials of the Luremaster a second time. Technical Points and Bugs: The game is buggy, a side-quest could not be completed and a few times I encountered game-stopping bugs prevented me from progressing game without resorting to opening up the console to resolve this. A few times a character gets stuck behind a door, Ctrl-J to teleport them to a new location saved the game. I played on Linux, and experinced one crash-to-desktop attempting to drink multiple potions from a character's inventory rather than via quickitems belt. The Good: Combat is the main attraction here. If you enjoy building parties and experimenting with different class combinations, there's plenty to like. Creating your own six character party gives far more freedom than Baldur's Gate. Heart of Winter is a worthwhile expansion despite being short. The Bad: The story is serviceable but expansions messes with the pacing and difficulty curve, Heart of Winter is over too quickly. There are bugs, but enabling the console and learning a few commaands will save you. The Ugly: Trials of the Luremaster is almost entirely combat. If you're already feeling fatigued by the end of Icewind Dale, this pushes it even further into boredom. Some Tips >Keep a few weapons that deal elemental damage. Some enemies can only be killed by certain damage types (fire and acid). >Enable AI scripts for your thief so they're always searching for traps, and for your bard so they keep singing unless told otherwise. >Increase the mouse scroll speed to maximum. The default makes moving around the map painfully slow. >Turn on auto pause for Enemy Sighted and Trap Found.

[h1]Enhanced Edition Review[/h1] I really liked the blend of tactical combat and the deep RPG mechanics from the pen-and-paper game translated into a video game. While Baldur's Gate laid the foundation, it had several issues. Icewind Dale fixes many of them, although it introduces a few new ones of its own. [u]Gameplay[/u] I won't describe the core gameplay mechanics that define Baldur's Gate, as they're largely the same here. What matters is how Icewind Dale changes the focus. While both games look similar on the surface, Icewind Dale places a much greater emphasis on combat encounters, and it improves them significantly. Experience comes much faster, allowing you to move beyond the slow and restrictive early levels more quickly. The game also features larger, more challenging battles that require better tactics and party composition. This works especially well because you create your entire party from scratch. Since there are no recruitable companions and you cannot rebuild your characters later, every decision during character creation matters. From a combat perspective, Icewind Dale is the superior game. There is a greater variety of magical items to discover, more high-level encounters, and generally more rewarding battles. The game even features a dragon fight, something the original Baldur's Gate surprisingly lacked. [u]Enhanced Edition[/u] Like the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, this version modernizes the original game with widescreen support, quality-of-life improvements, and compatibility with modern systems. However, the effort feels much more modest. Unlike Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, it doesn't introduce major new content such as additional companions or storylines. [u]Story[/u] Unlike Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale doesn't feature recruitable companions with unique personalities, dialogue, or personal quests. Instead, the game is almost entirely focused on combat. The main story has an interesting premise and, in my opinion, a more surprising twist than Baldur's Gate. However, the narrative is much less dense, and the constant stream of combat encounters can become exhausting over time. Side quests are relatively rare, but the ones that are present are generally well-written and engaging. Even so, Baldur's Gate offered a much more memorable world and cast of characters. [u]Sound[/u] Because your party consists of custom-made characters, there is very little voiced dialogue beyond the combat voice sets you choose during character creation. NPCs also have far fewer voiced lines than in Baldur's Gate. The soundtrack is still excellent and fits the game's atmosphere well, but I found it less memorable than Baldur's Gate's music, particularly its iconic exploration and environmental themes. [u]Conclusion/TL;DR[/u] Icewind Dale is an excellent RPG with a very different focus from Baldur's Gate. Players looking for memorable companions, character interactions, and a story-driven experience will disappointed. However, anyone who enjoyed Baldur's Gate's combat and wanted a game that expands and refines that aspect will find exactly what they're looking for here. While I believe the lack of memorable companions ultimately hurts the overall experience more than the improved combat enhances it, Icewind Dale is nevertheless a fantastic tactical RPG and one of the best combat-focused Infinity Engine games.

Its a Baldur's Gate clone, but with an emphasis on pure D&D gameplay, and... snow. This is the game for those who want to make "a D&D dream team" and go ham with it. Things will get tough here, so you better make a team with good synergy. As a negative, the Heart of the Winter expansion has some parts that really drag, and they are awful. The main game has an enjoyable pace though. Overall, Icewind dale 1 is a pretty fun D&D game with nicely remastered isometric pre rendered backgrounds, and a good soundtrack that sets the mood. Even if you are not familiar with the D&D universe, you can still get some enjoyment out of it. Worth your money on a sale. 8,4/10

纯粹踢门团，故事聊胜于无，整体流程解法线性，角色塑造也基本上没有，堆怪堆的很严重，不过好在冬之心里的谜语大师地图还算有点设计，其他的都很难评啊，这场冒险说不上感动也说不上史诗，估计过个几年内容都会忘掉。

Excellent game 9/10

[h1][b] TLDR: A classic party-based RPG with a compelling campaign and strong sense of adventure. Deep customization adds flexibility, but dated rules, clunky mechanics, and weak party interaction show their age. [/b] [/h1] [h1]PROS: [/h1] ➕You create your own party…. ➕Good narrative ➕Feeling of adventure [h1]CONS: [/h1] ➖…but creating your own party means less interesting story-driven characters ➖Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd Edition) is dated and often cumbersome to play with ➖Party collision is constant and annoying [h1] [b] Content (Game world/Narrative) – [7/10] [/b] [/h1] The game world is typical of early 2000’s-era CRPG games. Each area consists of numerous screens from a top-down perspective. The environments appear beautifully designed, almost like a painting, but it can be very hard to see where exactly to go next. I literally spent multiple minutes inside of an area (Severed Hand) and couldn’t figure out how to leave because the stairway was shrouded in a black shadow. The exploration is good- there’s usually a side path to explore that will lead to some treasure, enemy, or quest. The narrative is simple, yet good enough to where it kept me intrigued the entire way. The game is about finding the source of evil that is plaguing a village. This has you running up and down the entire realm of Icewind Dale as one thing leads to the next. There are some nice twists and turns. While there is a severe lack of inter-party interactions due to your custom made characters, I did like how the narrative felt like a D&D campaign and your characters were less denizens in the realm of the world, and more like other players playing the game that you control. [h1][b] Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] The gameplay loop is basically a dungeon crawler. You go from one area to the next, clearing out the area and completing quests. I’ll be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of the mechanics of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd Edition). I became familiar with the game in 4E so that and newer are more my style. The mechanics for players new to 2E can be very clunky. THAC0 and the tons of spells are often confusing to manage, especially with magic being so powerful that almost every class wants to be some form of mage for the protections. Otherwise, the mechanics are pretty much a copy-paste of more popular CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, so if you’re familiar with those, then this is also familiar.l The difficulty can be hard, but there are a lot of options to allow a player to simply play through on the story. I played about half the game on the normal setting, got to a boss I couldn’t beat, then turned the difficulty down to the lowest to finish the game. I appreciate that kind of option. [h1] [b] Technical (Graphics/Performance) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] While the graphics are obviously poor due to the age of the game, ID still does a good job at looking decent. I would say this is around PS2-era of fidelity. I had no issues with performance and maintained a consistent 60 fps. I didn’t notice any obvious bugs, but I did want to call out a convoluted quest line for the sword in Lower Dorn’s Deep. If you don’t do things in a very specific order, you lose out on a weapon. Thankfully the weapon wasn’t great for me since I had no paladins, but I hate vague quest lines that require a guide or you’re locked out of items. 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD [h1] [b] Audio – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] Music was average, nothing really stood out to me. Voice acting is present, but only for the main quest line. It sounds a bit dated. [h1] [b] Replay Factor (Longevity) – [3/10] [/b] [/h1] There is some decent replay value, mostly through trying different party combinations. The story seems very linear with no player choices, so I can’t imagine replaying and expecting different outcomes. [h1] [b] Final Verdict – [6/10] [/b] [/h1] Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (IDEE) is a classic CRPG in the same vein as the legendary Baldur’s Gate. And while BG needs little introduction with BG3 being one of the best RPGs of the current generation, ID seems to be a sleepier hit, forever in the shadow of BG. This was my first time playing ID and I think that ID differentiates itself enough from BG to stand on its own. The main big thing to me that made this a different experience was how you create your own party. This is both a positive and a negative. It allows the player to fully customize their party setup right from the start instead of having to deal with the narrative bottleneck that accompanies BG. However, the negative side here is that you miss out on all those great party interactions between characters, and that’s a big deal for some people - losing the romance potential and backstory can definitely make the experience more shallow. Despite this, I felt as though ID made it work. Yes, I missed out on the insane ramblings of Minsc and Boo, or listening to the insights of Imoen, but in a way, I felt as though the narrative was a D&D campaign and the members of my party were the players beside me going through this adventure for the first time. And speaking of the story, I didn’t expect much, but wow, when I returned to Kuldahar after a few missions to speak to Arundel….things got real. Overall, I do recommend Icewind Dale, but I can understand how players may want to skip due to the aging mechanics of 2nd edition D&D. [h1] [b] Recommend? (Price) [Y/N] [/b] [/h1] [h1]Yes[/h1] $20 is a good amount considering the game takes about ~30 hours to finish, so the dollar-to-hour ratio succeeds, but where it fails for me is the age. I would say sub $10 is a better price point, with the historical low of $2 being an exceptional deal. You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR

For new players absolutely no! That was my first team rpg like and it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ me up pretty good. I chose a default 6 people team and they were dying instantly. I was combinating not drag em all to beat one guy while the rest shoot you to death with arrows right? In some way I was doing so but anyways they ♥♥♥♥♥♥ me up. Was playing on that original normal difficulty which says ,,with basic rules'' Sorry but no I cannot reccomend it to new players rn even to myself to try again on ez.

2026年 7月 5日記。今日たまたま以前途中までやって、そのままになっていたこのゲームを再開したところ、指定言語の中に日本語があったので、それを選んでやったところ、画面上に会話などが日本語で表示されたので、すっかり喜んで、ゲームの続きを（と云っても以前のファイルは消えてましたので、新しく）はじめ、ゴブリンをやっつけたところで、セーブをしたところ、画面の下に緑色で「セーブに成功しました」と出るんですが、実際にはセーブされておらず、終了しようとすると、もとへ戻ってもいいのかと警告が出ます。 察するところ、セーブとロードは英語でやった場合は有効で、ストアに「日本語はサポートされていません」と注意書きがあるように、自由にできないみたいですね。これじゃ、ゲームの進行時には日本語でやっておいて、セーブとロードをするときは英語に指定し直すわけですか？　こういう器用なことができれば、やってみますが。日本語化されていると喜んでいたんですが､ぬか喜びだったのかな。もうちょっと調べてみますが、これだと、過去に少しやりこんでいたファイルは、英語にすると出てくるのかな？　この状態では中途半端で、バルダーズゲートと並んで、古くても定評のあるゲームなのに、残念に思います。 その後、気になったので、英語でやってみたところ、同じく注意が出て、セーブできません。してみると、オートセーブみたいに一定のステージをクリアするとか、ある場所に来ないとセーブできなかったのかな。実を云うと、このゲームは、遙か昔パッケージ版で、クリアしたことがあるんですよ。結末は地味だった記憶があります。その後も懐かしさのあまり、Steam 版を購入したわけですが、すっかり忘れてしまってました。 そうだとしても、「セーブに成功しました」という表示は一体何でしょう。私としては、日本語でも、英語やその他の国語でも、いつ、どこの場面でも、自由にセーブやロードができるといいな、と思っています。長時間パソコンの前に坐っていられない身だもんで。有名なゲームを長生きさせてくれてる現在の会社さんの努力には敬意を払っていますが、更なるご検討をよろしくお願い申し上げます。 7月10日記。上記で指摘した点は、もしかして、6月24日に「バルダーズ・ゲート」と「Icewind Dale」にEE向けバージョン2.7アップデートしたと公表されていることと関連しているのではありませんか？　Steamさんとしても、この点をどうか精査して下さい。