Cav's Place

Finally, this expansion showed what could truly be done with the Neverwinter Nights engine and toolset. Good story, touching on many parts of the lore, varied events and locations, creativity… There were elements that even reminded me of Planescape: Torment, which must count for something. The henchmen are more developed as well, Aribeth quite obviously the most notable but definitely not the only one. I guess they’d also be more useful in battle, but in order to get the maximum experience for my character I still didn’t keep them with me, yet did all I could to keep going back to them and find out their stories and what they had to say. This is what I’ll truly remember Neverwinter Nights for. And the talking sword I carried all the way to the end was a nice touch, and quite a character in itself.
There are issues as well, some of them rather unavoidable due to the engine and toolset, but the developers nevertheless did their best, most of the time. You can still spot some of the patterns, but mainly if you look for them. On the other hand, needing to carefully plan the order and way of doing things in order to be able to do and obtain everything is not due to those limitations, and that was quite frustrating, as was attempting to get as much experience as possible in the battle against the forces of the Valsharess. That, in itself, eventually proves less of an issue, since there is one place where, with a lot of patience, you can pretty much get infinite experience, but that’s close to the end and those other moments before then did make me give up multiple times and need months or even years to convince myself to continue.