Icewind Dale Retrospective | A History of Isometric CRPGs (Episode 5)

Icewind Dale is Episode 5 in my series on the history of isometric CRPGs. This is based on the Enhanced Edition released by Beamdog in 2014. If you would like to know more about my series on isometric CRPGs then please check out this video: • UPDATE: New CRPG video...
Patreon: / cdavis_games
Twitter: @cdavis_games ( / cdavis_games )
Discord: discordapp.com...
Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/chri...
Paypal: paypal.me/cdavisgames
Fallout 1 Retrospective (Episode 1): • Fallout 1 Retrospectiv...
Fallout 2 Retrospective (Episode 2): • Fallout 2 Retrospectiv...
Baldur's Gate 1 Retrospective (Episode 3): • Baldur's Gate Retrospe...
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear (Episode 3.5): • Baldur's Gate: Siege o...
Planescape: Torment Retrospective (Episode 4): • Planescape: Torment Re...
#IcewindDale #BeamDog #CRPGs

[@matternicuss]

Icewind Dale is massively underrated. The setting, music, narration, and overall atmosphere really give it a very 'classic D&D' adventure vibe. The encounter design is also leaps and bounds better than Baldur's Gate's, utilizing the engine and combat system far better imho.

[@gunblade250]

The encounters were better, but the story sucked compared to Baldur's Gate. The major problem with creating your entire party is that the characters don't have any sort of back story or personality. Also the expansion was a complete rip off.

[@matternicuss]

Graeme Thomson I really enjoyed the main plot. It has a story book feel that is really charming, and besides the scope is much smaller than BG so they’re trying to do different things. The lack of pre defined character personalities didn’t bother me as much because I used my imagination to fill in the gaps, but I can see that being a detriment for some. There’s a mod called NPC project that has Baldur’s Gate style companions, but I haven’t tried it personally.

[@ryanc5572]

@@gunblade250 I always make my own parties in these kinds of games, so that never bothered me. The story isn't as good as BG's, but its still a great adventure all the same.

[@iitim2152]

@@gunblade250 In a way though that's what makes dnd great. I named my chars after my wife and kids, old friends, etc. Gave stakes to the adventure. It would a little extra to imagine dialogue etc but someone more 'devoted' than I could lol.

[@420haxx]

Maybe it's rose tinted glasses but i recall really enjoying IWD, it really had a nice old school feel to it, almost feeling like the dungeon crawler goldbox style D&D games from the 90's remade in the BG engine with all the benefits that go with it. All the extra improvements like voiced dialogue, well crafted massive dungeons, ambience and music really gave the game a memorable setting. Again i cant overstate how good the music is.

[@tatuira93]

Icewind Dale sets out to replicate the feel of an oldschool dungeon crawling adventure, except it's much more creative than the old AD&D modules when it comes to set-dressing, dungeon design and environmental storytelling. You either "get it" and appreciate it, or you don't. Calling it a "filler" or "lesser title of the brand" is doing it a huge disservice. It's a different, more traditional, no nonsense look into D&D. Those that do see the value will stand by it, I do.

[@Yomom12388]

It's almost as if some people have different tastes or something. Weird.

[@Hylonomus]

I enjoyed it. The story was lame by crpg standards, and it lacked a certain feel that the BG games had, but that said I did enjoy all of the encounters. The game is a breeze to play and experimenting with different types of parties added greatly to the replayability. Want to run a party of nothing but multiclass wizards? Go for it! Want to play a tactical hack and slash party consisting entirely of fighters with various weapon loadouts? Go for it! A band of thieves? A coven of druids? Try it out! Otherwise you can fine tune a perfect party of balanced characters. I wish more games allowed you to build an entire party instead of relying on what the game pushes on you.

[@Omnibus4Everyone]

That's basically what Chris said, though. Even though I love BG2 for the narratives, I equally like ID for just giving people, who want more of the combat, a crazy good dungeon crawler.

[@megamike15]

and now he is out right skipping iwd 2. you can't just be skipping games you don't like and still call it a retrospective.

[@matijavuk4214]

don't really like any of his retrospectives, shiets on all of my favorite rpg's XD

[@IndigoBrown915]

Bummer you didn't like this one. Icewind Dale was my childhood and I was so confused when nobody I knew had ever heard of it. To me, there was no world like it that I was able to go through. It was beautiful, it had fantastic sound effects, movie-level music, and, as a kid, it seemed larger than life. I understand your criticisms, but I still appreciate the sheer level of detail that was put into this forgotten game.

[@kummakummakummakummakummac8606]

Indigo Brown - I played most of the Infinity Engine games but not this one. It's one of the games I want to play but for whatever reason never do. I heard it's similar to Baldurs Gate but more combat focused. Combat and exploring the worlds were always my favorite parts of these types of games.

[@IndigoBrown915]

@@kummakummakummakummakummac8606 It's a lot more directed than Baldur's Gate but definitely more polished. I'm not sure about the remastered version though.

[@SNE4KZ]

Mordor is my game now knows but I played the shit out of. Found it on a "galaxy of games" cd that was free on the counter at a random store.

[@handsoffvenezuela14]

I feel the same I played it as a kid (12 years ish) and I was being introduced to d&d at the time. I was completely taken in by it. I went back and played it a couple of years ago and still enjoyed it.

[@ryanc5572]

It's an incredible game

[@Abraxis86]

I like IWD more. It focused on the combat and mechanics of DnD, which were superior on PC, and ditched the illusions of choice, which were inferior compared to a live DM. BG I'm sure is the better game for all those with no real DnD, but for those with real DnD who just want to experiment with different classes abilities and party compositions in all kinds of adventures without much fluff in between, IWD was just so much better. The music and general art aesthetic is on another level too, this sound-track was made in Jeremy sole's prime.

[@DVX_BELLORVM]

I'm joining the chorus of Icewind Dale lovers. It's a really phenomenal game that never got its due because of comparisons to the Baldur's Gate series. As a tabletop AD&D gamer since the late 80's, I find that ID is the closest of the Infinity Engine games to capturing the feel of both live-action roleplaying and the classic 'Gold Box' games. I love creating my entire party and coming up with different builds and imagined personalities for the characters. I agree, ID certainly could have used more varied dialogue options and incorporated side quests to cut down on the linearity, but the richness of its tactical combat is second-to-none for this era of D&D CRPGs. It doesn't surprise me that as someone without a background in D&D you enjoyed BG and Planescape more than ID because of their deeper stories. I also really enjoy the Baldur's Gate and Planescape games, but they're much more like video games with a D&D setting and ruleset strapped on them than an attempt to replicate tabletop D&D on the PC. And that's fine, it's just important to recognize that these series, despite utilizing the same game engine, are trying to do different things and lend themselves to different playstyles.

[@bhlaab]

famous and infamous don't mean the same thing

[@glen3898]

Not according to the 2 Amigos :P

[@mamba5445]

LOL. When I first started watching this series I was actually specifically looking forward to the Icewind Dale episode

[@Jesusjablo]

Icewind Dale is a heaven for people who read R.A.Salvatore.

[@tatuira93]

I read R.A. Salvatore because of Icewind Dale.

[@gdoggcasey]

@@tatuira93 I played Icewind Dale because I read Salvatore :P

[@ataridc]

@@gdoggcasey I played icewind dale because of r l stine.

[@joshmiller7870]

Also same. I played it because Akar Kessel and Crenshinabon!

[@timyo6288]

I read Icewind Dale after playing Salvatore

[@idaret.]

I'm Infinity Engine veteran Things that you missed : * Icewind dale deals great with lvl 1 problem in DnD - Baldur's Gate is super hard on level 1 and kinda trivial after achieving lvl2 . Every combat encounter is super hard and it takes ages to get lvl 2. Icewind dale is super generous and after leaving Easthaven most of your party should be at level 2. Thanks to that difficulty curve is much smoother. * "Class specific quests" - It's very easy to miss. If specific class-character speaks with specific questgiver, you can get very interesting results. For example, do you remember ogre from location before Kuldahar ? If you have druid, you can help him and you get extra experience. There are few instances of that in the game. * Difficulty - ID:EE is much much much easier than original. New quests added exp. New classes are basically cheats(dwarven defender wtf) and some of new spells are unbalanced at best. To be honest I remember not being able to kill final boss in original ID(~10 years ago) because he was that tough. In EE version I killed his minion in cutscene(Contingency spell) and then destroyed him in 2 sec on insane difficulty. I couldn't believe it so I installed original version(thanks gog for giving classic edition when you buy EE) and played entire game again with optimized team and final boss was hard but I was able to beat it this time. For me Icewind dale is "tactical diablo". I love art and music. In games we rarely go into frozen land so it's kinda unique.

[@tatuira93]

Having finished both the original back then and the EE I can say that aside from a few things, the difficulty from the core gameplay is not that different, if it all. It might be easier if you indulge in the new stuff (which I saw very little of) , but in my playthrough, it wasn't much different.

[@mihai000000]

u can kill a 5k sirene/nereid at levle 1 in baldur's gate easily with ranged wepons which will automatically level both u and imoen to level 2. Its just that most people don't know what to do or where to go to aquire experience in bg1

[@ryanc5572]

Druid's talk with Mytos is pretty great too.

[@antondavidovic3996]

Disagree with the new classes being "cheats", if anything, it brings balance to the game. The original is imbalanced against the player and is frustratingly hard for new timers. Its easy to say that the EE is too easy when you've already played the game and know what to expect...

[@Timmahist]

"Tactical Diablo" Yeah that's it

[@djoleserbian]

2019 and i played icewind dale today, i stil love it

[@StrawHatTony420]

Was just doing vale of shadows yesterday

[@nosignal7156]

I kind of miss playing these games. They tried to tell the story through the atmosphere, the winter climates, the big tree woods, etc. The scenery told the story. And I kind of understood what it was about even though it didn't have large dialogues.

[@jjohnsonmarine]

I think the Icewind Dale series was more of a D&D simulation, as opposed to the PC centric story of BG...I LOVE BG...I also appreciate the ability to play as whoever I want in ID...not just another Baalspawn.

[@stanleydykes4134]

I have Icewind Dale 2 for Windows 98. Once i get a suitable computer, i will play it. never played these types of games before.

[@gorkie6998]

im in dorns deep now :))

[@wanderinghistorian]

"It would be like reading the Bible through once and then saying, 'I've got some ideas to share,' when you know you won't be saying anything that hasn't been said 1,000 times before." Wow, in a video about an old RPG, this was a nugget of wisdom I don't often come across, but you are 100% right. SOOOO many people read something from the Bible and start spouting off about this and that like they've uncovered some bright or dark secret thousands of years old that NO ONE has ever heard about YOU GUYS! LOL. Worst part is many people doing this have not read the entire Bible through even once, just some snippet someone sent them out of context.

[@zer00rdie]

I asked for Icewind Dale :(

[@AeonQuasar]

For me it's my favorite game of those RPG due to the party creation freedom. I actually have a ongoing game right now.

[@silentspartan46]

I only played it a few months back for the first time and I had a great time with it.

[@dailywarcraftreforged9816]

I loved Icewind! :( my pc died around the time I was playing in the snakemen tunnels, in the mountain. Lost game saves and never went back to it. Might revisit it one day.

[@danielgreen6302]

This is a man in search of a perfect story...for him. Remember that, and sleep dreamfully.

[@Arylwren1]

I'm currently playing icewind dale for the first time since 2005. still one of my fav games, old as it is.

[@antondavidovic3996]

I disagree that bottle-necking large groups of enemies in narrow passages is "cheap". Its a legit battle tactic, think Battle of Thermopylae.

[@gameswithtoasty3246]

Totally agree. Games like Pillars of Eternity really push that tactic in dungeons so your tanks don't get overwhelmed.

[@oh-not-the-bees7872]

Its logical and was used in ancient warfare.

[@eliarevalo]

I loved using choke point. Pillars 1-2 as well.

[@agunemon]

Nahhh the spartans clearly used cheats... Hahahaha jk

[@palchristianandersen9086]

The spartans also invented a tactic where they'd walk around the periphery of the opposing army until one or two soldiers spotted them, became aggressive and abandoned the rest of the army in a dumb animal rage to pursue the spartans away from the others Once these soldiers were out of range of their comrades they'd always decide that they were tough enough to face the spartans alone and would never do anything to warn their allies often resulting in their demise. The spartans would repeat the process until only the strongest member of the opposing faction was left still standing and then finish them off when the numbers were in the spartans favor.

[@saelkyl]

Icewind Dale is my favorite Forgotten Realms saga put into a video game. So much nostalgia.

[@artiefufkin88]

Icewind Dale is one of the Best RPG's I've ever played and was an absolute joy. Creating 6 characters at once was SO MUCH FUN, I often spent hours creating a team, only to immediately create a new team after I was done, because it was SO enjoyable to create a party - it was one of the funnest parts of the game. Then the gameplay itself was legendary. I loved every second of it! And Arcanum is my favorite game of all time, if you do a video on it, please do it justice!!! Thx for the channel

[@spaghety]

One of my all-time favs.. for some weird reason it gets better and better each play through

[@georgemerrimaniii2314]

Icewind Dale is my favorite because I love testing the mechanics to their limit on the hardest difficulty. Icewind Dale is MUCH harder than BG1 or 2, maybe not ToB, but it's very good. Plus, the Icewind Dale art was so much more beautiful than any other Isometric RPG I've played. I love the music and atmosphere.

[@deleroast]

IWDII Heart of Fury mode.

[@welcome_to_the_own_zone]

I just played through IWD again in December. It was my 4th playthrough since its release and I absolutely adore it.

[@petrinafilip96]

One game you shouldnt really forget imho is Dragons Age Origins. It was a modern CRPG before the CRPG revival in mid 2010s.

[@vaynelevant]

loved origins a lot. i even skipped work just so i can continue playing lol. i hated that bioware made newer dragon age into mass effect. origins will forever remain special to me.

[@NoobFromRomania]

@@vaynelevant I had a shitty GPU when DA:O released so I had to borrow a better one from a friend but he could only borrow it to me during the night as he was not using it. I remember a lot of sleepless nights because it was my first cRPG and my mind was blown away of how amazing the game was.

[@vaynelevant]

@@NoobFromRomania i was using a shitty $35 geforce 9500gt back in 2011. idk what more shitty card you can have back then. but cheers to DA:O. the first ever game i lost sleep to was icewind dale back in 2000 back when i was in high school. usually i play games up till late night like 1am or 2am. icewind dale kept me up till the next morning, slept for 4 hours and played some more. i even skipped school just so i can keep on playing. lmao currently enjoying pillars of eternity 2. check it out if you haven't yet. you might like it too.

[@NoobFromRomania]

@@vaynelevant at the moment I am playing PoE 1 + the white march expansions on hard and with expert mode. Got about 120 hours so far. Bought PoE 2 obsidian edition yesterday :D. Took me a while to understand the mechanics of games from infinity engine era and adult life takes its toll. About the GPU back then, I had a relic, can not even remember the model. Could only play counter strike 1.6 and the dota custom game of warcraft 3. It was a card from 2006... hard times :))

[@vaynelevant]

@@NoobFromRomania i had a radeon 9550 back in 2006. it sucked big sweaty balls. ahaha

[@deserk]

A lot of what you've said, is what I thought when I first tried out the BG/IWD games, i.e. struggling to understand the damned THACO system. I remember blinking and scratching my head after noticing my armour class went down after equipping armour (given that I was familiar with mostly NWN1/2 before trying out BG/IWD) But with time, and a little reading up on the net, I came to understand it better. And though I love BG2, the Icewind Dale games are really my most favourite, since they are incredibly replayable. Creating your own party is a hell lot of fun, and you can basically use your own imagination to fill in the story of those characters, and because they are your own characters you feel much more stronger attachment to them than some NPC. It has also really rich, welcoming atmosphere and amazing music (truth be told, I think Easthaven/Kuldahar/Lonelywood track are to this date some of the most beautiful tracks ever made by Jeremy Soule, and this man made terrific tracks for games like Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, to name a few) Also for fans of NWN2, there is an awesome module conversion of the first IWD game for NWN2 on the Neverwinter Vault. HIGHLY recommend, very fun to play the game with the 3.5 system (as well as with more classes, feats, etc)

[@seagullphilosopher2173]

This was such a beautiful comment.

[@SpartanWolf222]

One cool thing about the Bard in this game that might have made you chuckle is that early mermaid/siren quest at the start gives the Bards an option to communicate with the creature by playing a song with them. It's a nice, adorable little touch.

[@osvaldoprado9906]

I came for the video review, but stayed for the comments. Like many of you, I played pen & paper RPGs, D&D 3.5 was my first, but then many others like Rolemaster and Vampire: the masquerade. The first game I played in search of an RPG experience was Diablo 2, but after discovering the Infinity Engine games, I started looking there. I first found a demo of BG, I liked it, but I preferred IWD because of the similarity to p&p rpgs. Another game that I loved was Temple of the elemental evil, just great. I can hardly imagine how many adventures you have gone through but it is something I feel in the comments, that magic, those allies lost in battle, the enemies defeated and the mysteries uncovered. A big hug to all tabletop role-players.

[@maskoblackfyre]

First game I ever played. Had no idea what an RPG is at that time. Yet I feel hopelessly in love and never recovered :)

[@janveidt2700]

While it's definitely not my favorite, I seem to remember it quite fondly, maybe even more so than any other CRPG I played back in them olden days. First time I created my own party, think that meant a lot. Just something about creating six characters from scratch, especially with those perfect portraits! The fact that you have your own party, I think that even makes all that combat much more appealing. Or is that just me. I dunno, always just kinda got in the grow of 'OK team, let's do this!' It was exciting, seeing my team overcome all those challenges.

[@mauro.go177]

Yeah, YOU are the group of adventurers (and even you can be alone or up to six characters) and you want fame, riches and power. Your group had no luck in others regions so they heard about some remote village called Easthaven were the chief was calling for adventurers.

[@CinKaiDRocks]

I really like Icewind Dale. Great atmosphere!

[@fubecafy]

I may have already posted this (because I keep rewatching the videos in this series, and having different thoughts each time), but I actually really like IWD and IWD2. IWD2 taught me how to do combat, and it enabled me to actually do well(ish) in BG1/2.

[@TheCivildecay]

I actually loved icewind dale 1 and 2! I read in a old interview that icewind dale was supposed to be the diablo of black isle/bioware games. (fun fact: planescape torment was supposed to be black isles final fantasy)

[@carlosthejakl8493]

Can def see that in the magic of planescape

[@iitim2152]

I replayed icewindale last year and loved it. Named the characters after me my wife and kids, and a few friends who'd passed away. I'm not gonna pretend I came up with a narrative and character development, but it made the risk of losing a character real enough to add stakes to the game. *Yeah watching through the whole video realized I'd forgot the base game, and only remembered the expansion story.lol

[@nikospolitis5635]

Icewind dale is by far my favorite game of the Infinity engine games.The soundtrack is just amazing and it adds a lot to the atmosphere. IWD is a linear RPG with a decent story and great combat.Being linear makes it great as an entry game for people who want to try the Infinity engine games.Baldurs gate does have a better story but it is atrocious for newcomers. I have printed the maps of IWD and Baldurs Gate and i run them as a DM for my pen and paper parties who have not played the games on PC.The IWD campaigns played out much better and my players enjoyed them more.In Baldurs gate it was so easy to get sidetracked in the wilderness and lose the story.I highly recommend them to other DMs to try them for their parties.They make excellent campaigns.

[@saelkyl]

Jeremy Soule is incredible. He also did the Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim soundtracks. Some other works of his include Dungeon Siege, Guild Wars, NWN, and KOTR.

[@cyric2010]

The music in Kuldahar is my favorite video game music of ALL TIME.

[@erkkajouste774]

I love your Isometric RPG series, thanks for creating these videos! About Icewind Dale, despite the lack of deep storytelling, I found the hand-painted backgrounds in maps vivid and immersive and the most beautiful of all the Infinity Engine games :) Thanks for covering this less loved game as well!

[@mauro.go177]

They are really spectacular. It's like you are there, with the cold piercing your bones. My favourite area is the exterior zone of the frozen aquarium.

[@Gregorovitch144]

You are more interested in story and character than combat, that's fair enough, but it means IWD was not designed for your taste. IWD is a combat game above all, and it is special because of the love that went into the encounter design - some of the encounters are spectacularly well designed. It was not a "filler", it was made specifically because a lot of folk really like playing hard core combat in their D20 games and designing their own parties from scratch to do that. Another big thing with IWD was the location artwork, a big step up from BG in some areas.

[@andrewvincent7299]

Just so you know...back in the day it wasn't called a DLC. It was an expansion pack.

[@megamike15]

well trial of the luremaster was basically a dlc for heart of winter. it was jsut not called that.

[@eliarevalo]

DLC is an expansion pack, that is short and mostly shit. Expansion packs were basically nearly as long as the original.

[@ronnieradon]

wow we didn't know that. thank you sooo much for informing us >.>

[@dzejrid]

Ahhh... IWD... my first introduction to isometric AD&D-based RPG's (bar Eye of the Beholder many years before, but that was different era and different type of game). I can't count how many times I've played it. I do like the things that you pointed out as flaws: that fact that you don't have to care about your party's personal feelings and waste time on conversations and personal quests is a bonus. I used to play a lot of dungeon crawlers back before that so IWD was basically a dungeon crawler that had a fairly good story, nice graphics and intersting (for the time) combat. It didn't overwhelm you with choices and consequences, didn't threaten you to miss some pieces of content because you made such or such choice in such and such moment. I liked that. One of the reasons that among all those classic RPGs from the era this game was the only one I completed. I was never able to do it with BG or P:T precisely because of choice and consequence. I am the type of player that wants to see everything, so I kept reloading in those other games to see all the possibilities and at some point it led to drawn-out campaigns that I would lose interest in continuing. IWD was free of that. You had a party that you made yourself, you had a series of tasks and conversations served to carry the narrative rather than you making any decisions. Which in turn led to a tighter game which let you experience everything in one playthrough.

[@EinFelsbrocken]

Thats a really good comment.

[@tatuira93]

C&C can be overrated; not everything in your world needs to be reactive.

[@reinier4429]

I loved Icewind Dale, great game.

[@waltwright84]

So glad I found this channel! I played all the Dungeons and Dragons games of this era (except Planescape for some reason) and Icewind Dale was my favorite--- maybe because I played the whole thing co-op with a friend on my LAN. Story-wise I think creating your own party is an advantage over being stuck on the path of a 'chosen one' because it's YOUR party and I was immediately more invested in digital versions of my pen-and-paper D&D characters.

[@scruples]

Icewind Dale II has a more fleshed out and interesting story relative to the first game. While it's more combat-heavy than BG or Planescape, ID II is still my favorite cRPG of that era.

[@megamike15]

i did enjoy the story more in 2 then 1 but some of the dungeons are bad imo.

[@theshands3405]

I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way, but the way Chris talks and structures his essays is kinda meditative. Where as most other long form essay writers tend to deliver there lines with and air of command/authority. The calmness of these reviews feel almost asmr inducing to me.

[@SNE4KZ]

I watch them to fall asleep. I enjoy his reviews then I listen again at bed time lol

[@Rem0ve2]

This is one of my most favorite CRPGs. I have played this game several times with countless parties. It is a fun dungeon romp.

[@irvory8017]

icewind dale series is my favourite from the infinity engine - i love them and i was excited about this video the most - i do love baldurs gate and torment but.... icewind dale is amazing and icewind dale 2 even better

[@steveomalley2640]

Guess I'm a weirdo. This was my first crpg and I loved it start to finish. Went back and tried to play Baldur's Gate and never understood why people loved it and didn't like Icewind Dale. I missed having the control of building my party the way I wanted and really enjoyed the more linear story. Come to think of it, I don't like many of the modern sandbox games either, so maybe that explains it. Point is, this is exactly the video I've been waiting for personally.

[@alexoelkers2292]

To be fair Baldurs Gate 2 blows both Baldurs Gate and Icewindale out of the water. With Planescape Torment having the most amazing storyline out of the infinity engine games.

[@MrSquareNeck]

Well you don’t speak for everybody, I’m happy you made a video about it bruv

[@robharris5317]

Icewind dale...1 word describes it ....superb!!!!, it is a game as superb as baldurs gate before it and will always be one of my favourite games of all time and the story is brilliant all in its own right, long live the dale!!!!

[@Isewein]

The PPG NPC Project mod really solves all these issues with feeling disconnected from the story. Highly recommended!

[@megamike15]

yep. would not have liked iwd 1 or 2 as much as i did with out the npc mods for both. same with bg npc project for bg 1.

[@Dreez76]

Never played IWD1, but i played IWD2 religiously.. one of the best games i've ever played, the story was awesome. I loved making a 4char group instead of the normal 6. Made it more interesting.

[@ANO-.-NYM]

It sucks IWD2's code was lost- makes me treasure my CDs of it even more!

[@Paindriller]

Big fan of IWD here.

[@shawngillogly6873]

I feel this is very harsh on IWD. The lore is quality. The story may be simple, but it provides more than a threadbare justification for the adventuring you wanted to do anyway, or you wouldn't be adventurers.

[@Jesion-kv9tu]

The real problem is that it's based on a weak combat system, which makes most of the game a chore to get through

[@mauro.go177]

I found the story ok. Reading a review before, I was prepared for a lot of combat and nice frozen landscapes. And that is what I got. It was nice to make your own group of adventurers, ready to get rich and powerful.

[@shawngillogly6873]

@@Jesion-kv9tu I have never thought of Infinity Engines based on AD&D 2nd a "weak combat system." Just the opposite.

[@Jesion-kv9tu]

@@shawngillogly6873 it tries to shoehorn real time combat into a system designed with turns in mind

[@alecs5394]

Awesome video. I love Icewind Dale, it was the first game of the series that I played, and it still has a special place in my heart. :)

[@dabibibibibi455]

I love this series, watched it more than once. Hope you're doing good. It got me into do many great games, and gave me new favourites. Such a shame this channel is so underrated.

[@SwainBjornstrandt]

It was the first video game i ever played. It helped me with english as a child. I love this game. There is a review of it, where the reviewer actually shows love to the game and there are many reasons for it.

[@dick8689]

I grew up playing these games and my favorite was Icewind Dale, just the name brings back excitement. So some of us like that game =)

[@martonpapp6920]

I truly love this game. It is focusing mainly on combat, but still has better story than most games nowadays. An dat music!!!!!!!

[@dantauche7917]

I absolutely LOVED the frozen aquarium it was INSANELY friggin cool!!!

[@kirestus]

iwd is my all time favorite dnd game, me and my friend used to play it online and talk about the story all the time

[@Simi822]

Icewind dale is as good as the other games, and had some excellent dungeons and fun encounters and the second one was also great.

[@lawrenceyancy3364]

Wooo!! I’m hyped for this! Love the series so far!

[@saelkyl]

IWD is a love letter to those who played a ton of AD&D and totally bought into the Forgotten Realms lore, reading Salvatore books. Because of this, you certainly will find a small niche that absolutely loved it, like me. It’s dense and often counter-intuitive almost by design and your criticisms are entirely valid.

[@bowtopostulio]

I enjoyed this game a lot more than i thought i would. i started playing it randomly when i wanted to play something but my schedule was too hectic to commit to any RPG, my favorite style of game. I loved that i could commit a few evenings to this game or just a couple of hours and then not play it for 2 weeks and it wouldnt impact my enjoyment. like you said in previous episodes, one problem with a lot of these games is if you leave for too long you forget the story and the quests. i loved that i could just hack, slash, loot and upgrade in this game. i was also reading the RA Salvatore Icewind books around this time and it was a ton of fun connecting the worlds.

[@terabyter9000]

What an amazing, in-depth review and retrospective. I love the bit at the end where you are willing to get better at the game. Most would just complete it and move on.

[@fubecafy]

Can we get an Icewind Dale 2? I don't meant to be "that guy" but I genuinely enjoyed IWD2 :)

[@thefoxoflaurels3437]

Can I say how awesome it is to see a very intelligent person discuss games in a very intelligent way? You always make the audience be critical of your own playstyle and knowledge base when making a conclusion you're not totally comfortable treating as an absolute. Even when I vehemently disagree with you; I never got the impression your justifications didn't make 100% sense. The humility makes me even more impressed with how I don't think you're making much of an effort to appeal intelligent like many inferior essayists would try to.

[@SamsButterscotch]

As someone who spent one summer at their parent's farm with no internet replaying through Shadows of Amn half a dozen times (still one of my fondest cRPG memories) I loved IWD. I absolutely loved the visual aesthetic (the Infinity Engine is still one of my favorite isometric engines to this day and I used to be an absolute SUCKER for frozen mountainous settings), the music and the majority of the encounters. Sure there wasn't much of a story, but the little there was stood out to me, for one reason or another ( I can still recall 'Astrolabe, whirls, twirls' vividly to this day). Ironically, I've still to this day have not gone past the first half hour of IWD 2 (as back when I tried to run it I encountered a dozen crashes).

[@dyrball]

I don't have a lot of experience with CRPGs but of the ones I played I liked Icewind Dale the most....and I did look forward to hearing what you have to say about it.

[@gurufabbes1]

Just finished Icewind Dale 2 after 16 years playing it back and forth. Thanks for the video on the series!

[@mariorusek8080]

I loved icewind dale, and it was old as hell :D Isair and Madae were decent antagonists and the first defense of the city against orcs was great!

[@mariorusek8080]

Or was that icewind dale 2 haha

[@mauro.go177]

It was the second game.

[@lepermessiah1433]

LOVED this game way back and bought it on STEAM a month or so ago.

[@konstantinstefanov365]

i ... actually liked icewind dale gamaes, and for some reason when i was young i only had them and this might be the reason why. I actually have very fond memories of them and enjoyed them a lot :)

[@TomBombadil676]

You're spot on about the souls game lore interpretations ; people only recognize information related to what they already thought

[@HoneyDoll894]

while there is of course some confirmation bias it seems pretty clear that least on a larger scale there is a clear story, but the details are up to anyone to interpret how they want

[@alroth1035]

I haven't played either Icewind Dale I or II since the late 00s or early 10s at least, so I largely go by memory even though I have played them a few times each. What I would say is that there is likely a reason to my mind that Icewind Dale II would be worth a video, though it is due to a particularly niche subject which is more to do with the comparison of pre- and post-9/11 climates and the effect they had on narrative and so on. You notice immediately that Icewind Dale is fairly straightforward with a major threat threatening the region, led by a pretty standard villain in the form of some demon with a crystal shard in his power, and you go about killing bad guys because they're bad until you've rid the region of the threat and are hailed as heroes and so on. Icewind Dale II is essentially the same story, or a similar enough story at least, but immediately you recognize nuances and layers to the depictions of good and bad guys that recognize a degree of culpability in the former and a degree of justice and righteous cause in the latter - without spoiling much there's a general feeling of past injustices coming back to reap what the 'good guys' sowed and so on, which is all a pretty classic take on morality and approach to conflict in post-9/11 media. There's a more deliberate intention to understanding the reasoning behind creatures that might have in the past been very traditional one-dimensional villains, by way of deeper motivations, further exposure to their side of the conflict, or merely coming across the odd outliers to the "always chaotic evil" rule and so on. That brings with it a whole can of worms too though, in that the game is again lacking in choice, and this issue is felt even stronger this time around as the other side may well have a point and make you interested in maybe helping *them* out instead. I understand there was an idea to make that a possibility early on but because the game was developed over the course of a ten-month period and made mostly as a band-aid solution for Interplay and therefore Black Isle's financial woes at the time, this alongside other options like goblins and orcs as playable races and so on were left on the cutting room floor.

[@TimmacTR]

I loved Icewind Dale for these exact same reasons. It the most Diablo-like game from the infinity engine games.

[@the-real-Lovefist]

Loved IWD back in the day. Think I’m gonna try out the EE that’s been sitting on my drive.

[@cletustrainer]

I loved this game!

[@mikelong3268]

I enjoyed the dungeon crawl. Challenging fights, great for leveling up fast, and learning how to play all your characters. Great time to try that jester out, stalkers and so on. I don’t like any of those classes but you get the point.

[@simonevogel7990]

If he doesn't like the combat in Baldur's Gate because it's too complex, he'll absolutely hate Temple of Elemental Evil. Curious to see what the final verdict on TOEE will be. Seemed like a fair assessment of ID though. Icewind Dale was mainly an exercise in dungeon crawling for dungeon crawling's sake, and TOEE is very much in the same vein, but with a more robust system which is either a point people will love (if they found combat in earlier crpgs lacking) or hate (if they aren't inclined to enjoy the micromanagement while suffering at the hands of a fairly harsh learning curve).

[@theaspectofvoid]

Ive been playing d&d and ad&d for about 16 years, mostly 3.0 / 3.5 and imho toee was completely broken from the point of dungeon master - Sure there were some early nonfighting quests in the City but you could get to lvl 2 max. Now Welcome to the Temple - here are 4 dire frogs. Time for some archers, more archers? Here you Go. Oh you have reached lvl 3? Here is this tiny room with an oger xD i loved the strategy in each and every fight, numbercrunching etc but Holy shi***ing goodness fu****g gracious it is Not for the beginners

[@simonevogel7990]

@@theaspectofvoid Pretty much. ;) It has such a slow start that you end up wanting to rush into the nearest dungeon, and then all of a sudden every battle is severely lethal. And it doesn't really get easier (maybe in the late game but I never finished the damn thing). It's punishing, and demands that you take the time to learn the systems (if you didn't come into the game knowing them) and that's why I'm curious to see his reaction. The combat is good! It's pretty damn satisfying to succeed, even though the story is a bit lacking (kind of like Icewind), but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call Temple the Dark Souls of D&D CRPGs. /meme

[@theaspectofvoid]

@@simonevogel7990 Temple of Dark souls? Try playing Baldur's Gate 1 as a Mage. Skeleton and Cobold AI always goes for the one with the lowest HP xD also the older Parts of the might and Magic series :) i am just so Happy, that planescape got it's own Video and was received well in this Channel.

[@tatuira93]

And it would be a damn shame, because both IWD and Temple are great games.

[@Mrityugata]

18:01 Actually, Icewind Dale is suprrisingly better in that particular regard then Baldur's Gate -- it does feature unique interactions based on class, alignment and race. For example a paladin can use _Detect Evil_ ability in dialogue to see through the masquarade of the talonite cultists, while a mage can have a polite conversation with Presio the necrommancer about the art or communicating via skeletals minions.

[@zander2758]

I think someone did a roundup of all checks innthe IE games, it came out with BG1 having almost none, BG2 having a few more but not that many and IWD1 and 2 dwarfing them in that department.

[@tobi2731]

The ammount of spells you can learn is not capped at 14. 17 INT gives you 14 spells per level. 18 INT gives you 18. However 19 INT gives you 99. So you can just temporarily increase your INT to 19 with a potion (or other means) and learn them all. Annoyingly however there is still a chance to fail the scroll on Core Rules and Above (it's minor but still exists) - which is annoying because there's a lot less scrolls in IWD than BG. The Luremaster Guards can be dealt with reasonably easily if you CC them. Throw down multiple webs/entangles, give your tank(s) a Ring of Free Action and bombard them with damage from afar. I finished the game just yesterday for the first time and even on hard (where all dmg is increased by 50 %) my Dwarven Defender was so tanky that I could actually send him in and bombard hm with Aoe spells like Fireball (ofc resistances help even more) and he'd simply outlast the enemies. Potentially add a Greater Malison to decrease the saving potential of the guards (which makes web more effective and lets fireball hit harder). Another trick is to let your Bard use skull trap as Bards level super quick, dmg scales with levels and the dmg is not capped afaik. A level 20 Bard could deal 20-160 AOE DMG with a single skull trap (10-80 if they save) and you can even stack them before a fight. One thing that is kind of ridiculous about IWD dificulty is that you actually get more exp on harder difficulties (and on easier ones). Hard is 150 % dmg but also 150 % EXP. Insane just doubles it, so it's not much harder, you're actually kind of encouraged to play on harder difficulties. Overall I agree with your criticism of IWD, I might even be harsher on the writing which is really not very strong in the main game. HOW was significantly better in that department but still far from great. However one thing I did enjoy more about IWD than BG is that it does offer greater tactical depth because of the way the levels are designed and also because you can customize your party so much.

[@thisguybro]

Absolutely brilliant content. I've marathoned all your Baldur's Gate and Torment videos. Very enjoyable, well reasoned, thought out and presented. You deserve more subs and these games deserve more attention!

[@civ-fanboy2137]

Belhifet is not banished to the Prime Material Planes, but from the Prime Material Planes back to Baator/Hell :D

[@LosRikos]

Glad you did this one mate. Your reviews are good in my book. You cover the details at a caliber as similar enough as me. Im familiar with 90% of your games cant wait for metro dude def give us the scoop and pick that up man!

[@kaqqao]

The first time I played Icewind Dale I was wrongly expecting Baldur's Gate under a different name, and was disappointed as the result. But the second time I knew exactly what I was coming for, and I enjoyed it immensely. I played on Heart of Winter difficulty and with only 4 characters. To this day I remember how nerve wracking and intense the major fights were 😲

[@rolftheuber]

Please stop saying "infamous" when you should be saying "famous". Infamous means "famously bad", so every time you say infamous when describing something not usually thought of as being bad, I have to wonder if you actually meant "thing bad" or if you just used the wrong word.

[@frosttroll3411]

rolftheuber I thought infamous meant really famous and good, thanks for letting me know...

[@Mystra]

@@frosttroll3411 No that's what famous means lol

[@deecap71]

isn't famously bad what "notorious" means?

[@Thirteen13551355]

I'd say Dark Souls is 'infamous' but it's still massively popular. So maybe he meant in a way similar to that.

[@OlympusPublicAffairs]

I've understood Infamous as being famous for a bad reason. Jesse James was infamous for his criminal activity. Ghandi was famous for his values.

[@iitim2152]

Uuuh a well-made cleric is every bit a demigod as any other caster

[@lanagievski1540]

I literally just finished this game. I enjoyed basically everything other than the story/characters but also went into it with expectations low regarding those things. I also found it to be quite light on engaging side quests and found myself zooming through the game despite doing as many side quests I could. On reflection it probably felt quicker than it was because it’s less plot and more lore and dungeon crawling. I have also never played a game where characters get stuck and fall behind as much as this game. I enjoyed it for what it was and wanted more by the time it was over.

[@torikazuki8701]

Just saw the review Chris & as a long-time fan of Icewind Dale, I'd have to say it's quite accurate. However, it remains one of my favorite Infinity Engine games for one of the reasons that most people don't like it- The fact that all the characters are 'Generic'. This makes it ideal to play a 6-Player Multiplayer game & my friends & I had a blast doing so. The Lore Writing you spoke of actually worked in complementing all the Roleplaying that we did as players & because the characters had no preset personalities there was nothing to interfere with how we envisioned our PC's. So it seems a bit counterintuitive, but if you can find some friends who really want to roleplay through a game like you would a Pen 'n Paper RPG, IWD works extremely well.

[@Misanola]

You missed the potential with the bard. War song of the Sith is one of the best buffs in the game. It would have also solved your gripe about healing with potions.

[@vandannski]

Regarding the 6 companions being blank slates. That was the whole point. It was your job as the player to create the fantasy/background of your party.

[@bryanr5644]

Loved this game.

[@Tryptic214]

Icewind Dale is a gem in the rough for one key reason: multiplayer. It is vastly superior to Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 for playing with a friend, because of the ability to each design your characters and the linear storyline that doesn't leave you open to disagreements. I played this game with my sister and it remains our best bonding experience. We tried Baldur's Gate 2 but the focus on pre-generated characters and the main character made it into an unbearable slog that left one of us doing nothing much of the time.

[@Kaledarkwind6151]

I love these videos man!

[@iitim2152]

Deadly funnel is the main tactic for any crpg I've ever played.

[@luxj]

Well at least I was looking forward to this video, will be fun to watch it now

[@jakejutras5420]

I was looking forward to Icewind Dale... thank you.

[@mrchuckmorris]

I grew up on Baldur's Gate, then got into actual D&D in high school and college. Only after that did I look back at the old Bioware games I'd missed and play Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale. Planescape blew me away with its incredible story and writing, and it's still my favorite of the two. But Icewind Dale succeeded at creating what was closest at the time to a video game version of a true D&D campaign. When you play D&D, the whole idea is that you have a handful of unconnected randos who, for some reason, decide to stick together and investigate strange goings-on, do some dungeon crawling, loot chests, kill monsters, level up, and eventually fight some big bad guy who wants to take over the world. IWD was built with this in mind, and even advanced upon the 6-player co-op Baldur's Gate had started. In this way, the game is a resounding success... an expensive experiment in translating tabletop RPGs into video game form. I'm glad it got an enhanced edition, so I can pop my BG1 characters into it and pretend THIS is what they were doing after / instead of Siege of Dragonspear before they embark on BG2.

[@LessTextMoreMusic]

I was looking forward to watch this video for weeks.

[@smokingone]

i always found IWD superior to BG because of the options you had for your team, you could roll with 5 wizards if you wanted. also the game let you level up higher then BG and thus have more time to explore builds. I was never a fan of games that shoehorn you into a position and it was a relief to see this game let you just play however you wanted, you weren't the chosen one, you weren't anyone, you had a team, really was a throwback to older rpgs like final fantasy 3 (US) where you didn't have a main character and had the freedom to design your own team.

[@zander2758]

Tbf, the EE of BG1 and 2 do add the option to make an entire custom party from the start, irrc the original versions of both did not have this option.

[@shenanitims4006]

It’s funny, this is the second Icewind Dale retrospective I’ve watched that has criticized it for not having pre-canned protagonists. Which is precisely why I preferred Icewind Dale back in the day. Granted, I grew up playing 2nd Edition AD&D, and was introduced to CRPGs when Nintendo was literally giving out copies of Dragon Warrior 1 to introduce the game type to Western audiences. You make the party, you make the reason why these characters are involved.

[@cocomunga]

The Enemy AI is a pain in the ass in Icewind Dale. Instead of fighting the nearest party member and chasing them, enemies chase down whoever they first see from far away and will not stop unless they pass someone else while chasing you down. It makes using Mages pretty tough until you get Stoneskin, and being able to make your Mages invisible whenever you want.

[@mauro.go177]

But that way is easy. You can block the enemy with your others characters and hack him to death while the chased down character is relaxing some distance away.

[@Mrityugata]

47:25 I'm very sensitive to the issue of backseat gaming, so I'm sure I haven't made any comments on that in your previous videos, but now that you've asked... Maybe you should try using stealth/mages' invisibility spells/cleric's _Sanctuary_ spell in order to scout ahead :) But obvious stuff aside, it's a good policy to diversify your spells and potion distribution in such a way, so as to be ready for anything. For example, it seems natural to cover all your anti-fear needs by having a cleric memorize a couple of _Remove Fear_ spells. But it is prudent to have, say an instance of _Resist Fear_ memorized by a mage as well, so that if the cleric gets stunned, killed or otherwise made unavailable, your party doesn't suddenly become vulnerable to fear effects. Similarly with potions. Having a potion container tempts you to keep all your potions on one person, but well, same as above. Also, sometimes the NPCs (or even common sense) do give you some information about the dangers you might face, and so can make educated guesses about what you might need. For example, if you're heading into a mausoleum, you should expect undead and therefore make sure you have ways to counter lever draining and immobilization. As a sidenote on potions, seeing as this is a history series, a bit of history trivia for you: original Baldur's Gate didn't let you pause while on inventory screen (changed in BG2), which made those quick use slots extremely valuable.