/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2727939]

Finally gave Icewind Dale a shot this week. It's... not a bad game, but there's no way to not draw parallels with Baldur's Gate / Planescape Torment, and it's just so, so much worse. No NPCs, no party banter, no personal questline, paper-thin story, and heaps and heaps of near meaningless hack n' slash encounters.

I'm determined to like this game despite it, but I'm having a hard time finding a 'hook'. So, people who like Icewind Dale, *why* do you like it?

[Anonymous No.2728016]

>>2727939
I don't like it but i finished two times, Heart of Winter included.
It has the best Black Isle music in any game and combat it's good. The only problem it's there's only combat.

[Anonymous No.2728656]

>>2727939
Sometimes I'm just in the mood for fights without worrying about anything else.

[Anonymous No.2729510]

>>2727939
I definitely prefer the likes of BG and Planescape, but Icewind Dale was cool for really nailing the whole combat and exploration aspect.

[Anonymous No.2729561]

Nuts to this game, I'm just going to go replay Baldur's Gate.

[Anonymous No.2729567]

>>2727939
You're not missing anything. It's a dungeon crawler, that's it. If that doesn't appeal to you then keep playing the other Infinity engine games.

[Anonymous No.2729606]

>>2727939
Apples and oranges.

Nobody ever said ID has good story or questline or party banter or NPC. Holding all that against the game is unfair. It's like saying "FF6 is bad because it's not open-world like FF13".

You know what it's great at? Giving me a skirmish campaign where I can build a team based entirely on what I have in mind and let me role-play (aka imagine) their adventure.

I am one of those guys who love Doom and don't care much about story. I could never got past saving the vampire lady in Baldur's Gate, because all the walking back and forth and talking bored me (Planscape Torment os the one exception).

You don't go to the bar and complain about the food. That's not the point.

[Anonymous No.2729694]

>>2727939
I actually just replayed this! And I just started Pillars of Eternity.

As an oldschool D&D fanatic, I love the combative aspect of Icewind Dale, and I really had to make a stretch to enjoy the main questline. I pause at literally every moment to examine how each attack and roll went. So, I feel that to a certain degree you have to really be in to the mechanics to full appreciate the game. The other Infinity games are completely unlike it, so you may like them better. I also suggest PoE.

[Anonymous No.2729745]

You know what's the worst part of ID?
The traps. The fact that trap finding is turn based is as retarded as in the other infinity games, but here traps don't even give experience. They make some segments really sluggish and in my opinion it gives no satisfaction.
The rest of the game I like, it's all about creating a team and pitting it against challenging encounters. If the game is "hack n' slash" for you, you may want to raise the difficulty. Without challenge there is no game.

[Anonymous No.2729792]

>>2729606
This game made by the same people who did Baldur's Gate using the same engine as Baldur's Gate and the same visuals and system as Baldur's Gate have created no expectation of having quality similar to Baldur's Gate? C'mon now.

Plot and character development matter in RPGs, there if nowhere else.

Now, like I said, I'm willing to try to like the game, but I don't see a single thing different in the combat between this and Baldur's Gate other than this throws more at you at a time. Is that the draw? Handling more encounters?

[Anonymous No.2729806]

>>2729606
>not open-world like FF13

[Anonymous No.2729819]

>>2729792
>This game made by the same people who did Baldur's Gate
Actually it wasn't made by the same people.
It was just an atempt to make money with the Infinity Engine, like Dark Alliance was an attempt to make money with the Baldur's Gate name.

And both are nice games but you can't expect anything like Baldur's Gate.

>Plot and character development matter in RPGs, there if nowhere else.

I don't think so. But if you expect that from IWD you just should try with another kind of game like Torment or Mask of the Betrayer.

[Anonymous No.2729820]

ID was intended to be more hack-and-slash than Baldur's Gate. I avoided playing it for a long time because of that despite being a huge Baldur's Gate (and general AD&D-based CRPG) fan...I finally gave it a shot a few years ago, and I think I played it for an hour at most.

It's not for everybody. Some people like the hack-and-slash gameplay, though.

[Anonymous No.2729874]

>>2729819
I've played Torment and Mask of the Betrayer numerous times. Icewind Dale was always this glaring oversight on my part. The only D&D title that I'd never really played.

Now, obviously since it was a Black Isle Studios game running on the Infinity Engine, it created certain expectations. And since I've gone through painstaking efforts to avoid spoilers about the game for years, I really only have myself to blame.

I don't know why I can't seem to enjoy it. Temple of Elemental Evil was really light on plot and heavy on dungeon crawl and combat. Same with Eye of the Beholder, Dark Alliance or hell, I even love Iron & Blood. But Icewind Dale for some reason? I just can't find that hook.

Maybe it's because I've made hundreds of Baldur's Gate characters over the years and have explored every conceivable build in such depth that a game built around doing that is inherently less appealing? I just don't know. But it really bothers me that I can't seem to enjoy this game.

[Anonymous No.2729907]

>>2729874
IWD encounter design it's really poor. Maybe it's because of that.
But there's nothing wrong about not enjoying IWD. It's a repetitive game and sometimes can be really boring.
Also, there's a IWD remake with NWN2 engine and D&D 3.5 rules. Maybe you can try with that.

[Anonymous No.2729980]

Yeah I recently tried IWD out only to quit after realizing that it was 95% dungeon crawling

[Anonymous No.2730508]

>>2729874

I got into the game by working out the smallest possible party that would give the best gaming experience, playing it on the hardest setting, and injecting a lot of my own imagination into it. In my opinion there's enough storyline to justify all the fighting, and later in the game it starts to open up a bit and get more Baldur's Gate-like.

Also it has INCREDIBLE soundtrack and atmosphere. The serpent dungeon music is like the perfected distillation of every classic dungeon crawler's MIDI theme blended into one.

[Anonymous No.2730804]

sage
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[Anonymous No.2732718]

I enjoyed it because it reminded me of ye olde gold box D&D, where your party consisted of a bunch of nobodies and all the exposition came from the various NPCs you encountered. I can see how lack of character development and limited relationship to the story beyond facilitator of dead monsters and gatherer of loot can be a turn off, but I like a nice balance. Sometimes I just want to explore and adverture without the burden of finding out the fate of one of my party members lost relatives or fulfilling my inevitable destiny as "the chosen one".

[Anonymous No.2732769]

>>2732718
>it reminded me of ye olde gold box D&D
Except for, you know, the real time with pause bullshit.