Having enjoyed both KOTOR games, I finally decided to take a look at Obsidian Entertainment's second project: Neverwinter Nights 2. Another sequel to an award-winning BioWare game. Obviously, before I actually installed the game, I was sort of worried.

KOTOR II: The Sith Lords was by no means a bad game. Obsidian, and Chris Avellone in particular, enriched the Star Wars canon with such prominent characters as the Jedi Exile, Kreia, Visas Marr, G0-T0, and, of course, Darth Sion and Nihilus, as well as expanding Canderous' role in the Mandalorian Wars and their aftermath. All of these were referenced in later Star Wars materials, and have firmly taken their appropriate places in the Star Wars setting.

Yet the game itself was obviously unfinished — and it took a whole another game from the same developer just to realize how unfinished it was. Never mind the Restoration Project. They will obviously improve the game, and greatly so, but not to its intended glory.

Because NWN2 is everything TSL could be, had Obsidian more time. Blame LucasArts. Obsidian is innocent, and completely redeemed themselves with the second, finished game. It was the greed of the publisher that nearly ruined TSL, and a team as professional as Obsidian was the only thing that saved it from becoming a total flop.

That being said, I should probably put a disclaimer of some sorts. I'm not an RPG fan, I haven't played any "true" RPGs besides both KOTORs, and only because they're Star Wars. Well, I also played a bit of the first Neverwinter Nights (to see what was borrowed into KOTOR) and a bit of Planescape: Torment (to see what was borrowed into TSL). I found the dialogues in the second game too incomprehensible, however, and the graphics too horrible.

I've never played any pen-and-paper RPGs, don't know how they work, and I don't have a slightest idea how the Dungeons & Dragons system works. Even after playing through two of the three NWN2 acts, I still don't understand what an "attack of opportunity" is.

I remember the opening of NWN1: a pre-rendered epic cinematic, telling about Neverwinter City and the Wailing Death... It was dark and scary. Then it cut to my character in a ridiculously small area with a single NPC, and I spent a minute moving around, getting used to the camera, which reminded me of old isometric games like Diablo and Nox. After KOTOR, it was seen as a drawback.

The opening of NWN2 is anything but epic. Of course, I created a female character, and, after a KOTOR-style cutscene with Daeghun the foster father, was left to explore the controls. I spend several minutes bumping into things, cursing, wondering where the heck the keyboard sensitivity setting is, how to get a KOTOR-style camera, and, after I finally customized the camera to my preferences, how to exit this damn building. I clicked on the door to open it, then, being used to KOTOR, tried to run through the doorway... to no effect. I finally realized that I had to click on the already opened door to exit the area.

The village of West Harbor reminded me of the Half-Life 2 mod Eclipse: the same fairy-tale-ish, beautiful scenery and an overabundance of bloom. The performance, however, was awful. Only after I disabled shadows and adjusted a few other parameters to minimum could I call the framerate "okay".

Of course, KOTOR's Odyssey engine never exhibited superior performance, and, as it turned out, neither did its "younger brother" Electron, both of them derived from NWN1's Aurora engine. Still, I had to install the 1.03 patch just to find the game playable, with the "camera always behind" setting.

After the cutscene with Amie and Bevil (think Bastila and Carth in a medieval peasant village) warning me about the attack on West Harbor, I was like "meh... how unoriginal". I gathered the militia, and here came the first shock: Amie died. My reaction was "Wha...?" and, if I could, I would slaughter all those NPCs telling me she was dead for real. Only after I looted her body did I realize that she isn't going to get up, and this made me greatly upset. The second surprise came when Bevil left the party. Not only did I lose one companion, I didn't even get a chance to travel with the other one!

...But let me continue my rambling. The party members are stupid. The enemies no longer suffer from the Sith Trooper Indifference Syndrome, meaning that if you attack a group of them, be sure that the nearby enemies will actually run to help them, not stand still and wait for their turn. In the Bandit Camp, they gave me, Khelgar (who boldly ran to the next group immediately after offing the previous one) and Neeshka (who couldn't last a couple of seconds if a bandit got to her) such a serious beating that I considered stopping playing altogether, fearing that the game was too difficult. Fortunately, the difficulty seemed to lower in Highcliff and further lower in Neverwinter, almost reminding me of KOTOR, where you could survive massive fights with barely a scratch.

Almost. I found it next to impossible in this game. Lightsabers were obvious game breakers, and without such uber-weapons, I found most of the enemies quite tough. You can't get a Terminator-class Jedi Tank to Force-push a dozen of enemies at once and then finish each one off in one strike, one by one, while the others are stunned. Fights are actually challenging and thus interesting.

Also, skill points didn't come cheap. I multiclassed into Paladin to get a melee fighter with Diplomacy (NWN-ish for Persuade) as a class skill, and, being lawful good, this class obviously suited me. I don't really like the fragile spellcaster classes. My typical party consisted of Khelgar (replaced with Casavir once I got him), Elanee (who could switch between spellcasting and melee fighting while shapeshifted — the NWN2 druids sure resemple the WoW ones in this respect), and Neeshka — the only ranged attacker I ever used, except for that sequence with Bishop as a mandatory party member — for her ability to open locks, disable traps and tumble. Unfortunately, Neeshka keeps running out of arrows at the worst possible moment, like during boss fights... I have never used Qara and Grobnar so far, and only used Sand and Bishop when they were mandatory party members.

Now, where was I? The party members are stupid. A typical fight in a house often went like this: I stand in front of everyone and try to tank away hits, Neeshka is shooting while standing in a doorway (and still getting hit), not allowing Elanee (standing behind the door) to join the fray, and Casavir and Shandra are nearby but... don't care, unless I manually select them and command them to join the fight. Sometimes they will run from target to target, delivering one blow to each, and sometimes they'll run far ahead after killing everyone in the immediate vicinity. Needless to say, it's irritating.

Luckily, party members with 0 HP don't die for real, only lie on the floor moaning, like they did in KOTOR, and rise after the battle is over. If I ever do a webcomic about NWN2, I'm sooo turning Neeshka's constant deaths into a running gag.

The plot is interesting and somewhat convoluted, but linear. And I mean linear linear. You don't get to choose between planets or something like this. Perhaps the only place where you actually get to choose something is the choice between working for the City Watch or criminals (much resembling the Ithorian vs Czerka choice on Telos), branching the story into two different paths (which soon converge, however, and you become a member of the Neverwinter nobility no matter what). At other times, aside from occasional sidequests, including companion sidequests (this game actually has companion sidequests, unlike TSL), you're rather limited in what you can do.

The most prominent points in the game were, in my opinion, the trial and the Crossroad Keep mini-strategy. Although the trial was actually somewhat of a disappointment. I thought it would be long, and I would have a chance to elaborate on every bit of evidence I gathered with Sand's help. Instead, it jumped straight to questioning witnesses, although this part was entertaining. I'd say the trial, and the preceding evidence-gathering, outshines the Sunry trial from KOTOR by far.

Only later did I read that the trial, despite all the hype, didn't matter that much after all, and the story will continue the same way (resolving the issue in a fight) regardless of whether you're found guilty or innocent. The man behind the man, "you have failed me"... blah blah. Then, I spoiled the surprise by reading the walkthrough and discovering that you're awarded Crossroad Keep after defeating Garius, but there were still three surprises for me: first of all, his death (so anticlimactic! I like it this way!), then the fact that you could make Torio your advisor in the Keep, and the fact that Luskan denied any affiliation. Although, Luskan being Luskan, the latter should have probably been expected.

Managing the keep and searching the world for the right people was perhaps the most exciting part of the game so far. I ran around from location to location... "My very own keep! Woohooo!" Then a couple more surprises: the destruction of the final statue, which I totally didn't see coming, and the way the knighting ceremony was interrupted. I was actually prepared to screenshot everything, anticipating approaching Lord Nasher and kneeling before him... Not in this life.

I haven't played through the rest of Act III yet.

Anyway, some aspects of the game just scream of the good old KOTOR. The inn (Ebon Hawk) and the KOTOR-like dialogues (although most of the dialogues are still NWN1-like) are among the most prominent ones, as well as the influence system from TSL. The dialogues are well-written and the story is promising, despite the occasional cliches (actually, the developers play with them often, twisting the audience's expectations; there are very, very few predictable plot points). The controls I found rather clumsy compared to KOTOR, but nothing I can't live with. After the patch, the only annoyance is the fact that the keyboard keys still rotate the character too quickly. The graphics have much improved, and if KOTOR III were to be made with the NWN2 engine, I'd totally support it. The outdoor areas and the streets of Neverwinter look simply gorgeous at times, prompting me to press PrintScreen every five seconds or so.

I'm running out of time, so I'll just jump to a speedy conclusion: it's worth playing. If you want a KOTOR set in a medieval fantasy land, it's exactly what to look for. The TSL bashers are welcome to see what Obsidian Entertainment is really capable of while not facing ridiculous time constraints; many an unfinished idea from that game found its way into the other one, becoming fleshed-out. This includes influence, Crossroad Keep itself (known as Khoonda in Star Wars), and, from what I heard, the final battle, where mistreated party members will actually defect to the villain — something that was planned for Malachor V, but cut mercilessly.

NWN2 is what TSL could have been, but never became due to executive meddling. It's fun, polished, and challenging.