Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

I'm not surprised to see so many different opinions about this game from previous reviews. Yes, this one can be rated 9.0 or 6.0 and none of these are totally wrong or right. In my opinion, Motb really makes an effort to diversify the original and some of its changes are good enough while the others can frustrate many players.

Let's talk about the storyline of the game. I don't agree that it's "ridiculous" like some people say. Of course you feel totally different from the original. The atmosphere is intense and there are no longer funny dialogues. But this change can be very interesting consider the fact that you gain many new companions, all well designed, and you now start off as an epic hero, not an unknow character like in NWN2. It's also open ended, allowing you to choose between sacrificing yourself or being selfish. I think the ending is satisfying for a game like NWN 2, since the choices are different enough from each other and reflect 2 paths: good or evil.

The most important change in game play is the spirit eating system. In this point, I must confess that I myself become quite frustrated. This feature really spoils the game play because it brings about nothing other than making us lose concentration on the good RPG aspect of the game. It's like a timing system spreading from the beginning of chapter 2 to the end of the game. All the time players feel urgent and have to do everything in a rush out of the fear of running out spirit energy. Too bad the developer give you no option to get rid of this curse. And also, you can't really play evil path any more because if you try to use your spirit eating power too much you will become so horribly addicted to it that there is no time to do anything else other than sucking soul or you will end up dying.

Other changes in game play are minor and doesn't have much effect. You can play several new races but none of them are especially well designed to fit a specific class. The new classes in the game are fun to try but they are not too much different from existing ones. There is only one good thing, that is , the game now have much more puzzle along with combat, and some situation can be solved by either way. This makes Motb looks more like an adventure game, saving you from getting bored of hacking all the time.

The new camera option can also cause some dispute. Since Motb offer new perspective that allows you to micro your group more easily, it's obviously a good intention. But the matter is that they make this the default option and this camera mode make it difficult to remember your orientation, so you may feel somewhat uncomfortable at first. But this doesn't really matter because you can return to tracing mode like in the original any time in the game.

Last but not least, graphics in this expansion seems smooth. I no longer suffer the frame rate trouble like in NWN2. Such a good fix should be highly appreciated.