autumnleaf16

I thought I’ll continue my computer game reviews corner, well…it is not really a corner, and not really a proper review I guess, but it is fun too do. I had an absolutely shitty day at work so I thought I’ll do something fun right now.  So, here it is. Neverwinter Nights’s have two expansion packs, ie. You need the original game (which is the one I’ve already talked about it) in order to play the extra games. But it is really weird, because for the other games that I have played with expansion packs, their expansion pack relates to the same character/s. But in the case of Neverwinter Nights, the expansion actually relates with each other, but not with the original campaign. I’ve only got the second expansion but apparently what happens is that the PC goes on this quest, and then they stumble onto a second quest (which is the events in the second expansion). Funnily enough, you get to hear about the PC of the original game (the hero who found the plague cure and all that), but you are not her. In Baldur’s Gate- the expansion for the first one is just the pc going to do this extra quest before the last chapter, while the Baldur’s gate 2 expansion is after the whole event, you go to this other place. So same pc, same NPC. That’s why the Neverwinter Night expansion is so weird for me…but I still like it. The good thing about the expansion is that their graphics become so much better. I think there also a lot of new classes but I didn’t get to play them as somehow I couldn’t play since I just imported my character from the original campaign and she didn’t have the required criteria. Once again, due to the promise of a romance I charged through this game.

So anyway…here it is…a review for the game! Maybe I should call it a summary of the game, as that seems more accurate.

Prologue/Chapter One
Depending on whether you start the game straight away, or import a previous character, you might need to adjust your levels- ie.level up to the minimum experience. Once you finish this you will be required to go sleep, (note- if you import a character with their level higher then the minimum you just start with your dream.) You are in this inn at the city of Waterdeep.

You dream of a room of drow (those who haven’t read forgotten realm novels might be confused about the drow- who are also known as the dark elves. Basically they are elves with black skin and white hair, and they live in the underdark- underneath the surface. Their world is matriarchal and they are absolutely pshcyo, they basically backstab everyone, and as long as you don’t get caught, every thing is acceptable. An evil race- kind of like an evil version of the Spartans. The whole rule of ‘don’t get caught, and the devotion to being good warriors/mags/clerics etc.) So you sees this drow woman who is called the ‘Valsharess’ and she orders her mages to show her the person she hears would destroy her. Since this is a RPG, it is naturally normal that you pop out! You are the one in the prophecy, the one destined to destroy her.

You wake up, and see this drow transporting all your staff away. I was really gutted at that, because I had some really good equipment since I imported my character from the original campaign. (Which is a bit weird in the story sense I guess) (But don’t worry, you get to find most of your equipment by the end of the chapter, which is really good. I mean, the armour my pc wore at the end up the original campaign, I actually wore to the end of my expansion game!) But anyway, you kill the drow and then go down to meet the innkeeper. Interestingly enough you have one item in your possession that was not stolen from you. It is this artefact that can transform you to this realm, with this reaper guy in it. The thing is called ‘the relic of the reaper’ but I never used it. I think because my PC’s level was really high level the game was really easy. But anyway, you talk to the innkeeper who tells you that his inn is actually built over this underground dungeon known as the Undermountain. The dungeon is ruled by this wizard known as Halaster, and it connects to the Underdark. (where the scary drow live!!!) But Halaster had prevented drow from using the undermountain, but yet drow are somehow arriving on the surface and creating havoc in Waterdeep. So it is up to the hero to investigate what is happening.

In the inn you also meet some…old friends, possible henchman from the original campaign. You get to meet the bard, the cleric, the thief and the half orc fighter (which is bizarre, cause apparently he could get together with the PC, so it is kind of a ‘what the heck are you doing here by yourself’ feeling. But I suppose they just don’t take that into account). But you get to talk to them about what happened to Neverwinter and it is quite interesting. Eventually the drow attack and these four just charge into undermountain while you are unconscious. Once you wake up you are greeted by Deekin- this kobold bard, (your acquaintance from the previous expansion packl)

So you go through Undermountain, and you can get through quite fast, so it’s not that hard. But it can get a bit annoying at parts, as you often have to find four something in order to get a door open, four keys or four rods or four chains. (an important advise- when you get to the last level, level 3, don’t forget to loot the goblin right infront of you, as he have this key for a door that can only either be opened by the key, or by a pretty good thief. I didn’t have either so I had to go back and find the thief after bashing at it for about ten thousands time in vain. So yeah…don’t forget to loot for that key.) Unlike the previous game, you can actually have two henchmen, instead of just one. This makes the game more interesting, and the henchmen will actually talk to each other.

Once you reach to the last level, you get to meet Halaster- who is imprisoned by the drow. During this you also meet this drow who follows the goddess Eilistraee (note- the majority of drow, who are evil, follows Lloth, while the good ones follow Eilistraee). She gave you some hints but does not help you until the final battle- freeing Halaster. Now…Halaster is crazy. Not only does he not thank you for helping him, he tells you that you disrupted his plan, and then he get into this argument with his own clone. Apparently he let the Valsharess captures him in order for his plan to work. But somehow he decides to send you to attack the Valsharess. He binds you with a geas- which basically means that you have to do the task he orders you to, as you will die if you don’t. (which shows that he is a very powerful wizard as a geas usually requires consent from both side). With the exception of Deekin, he will actually send your henchmen to some other place while you are sent to the underdark, with Nathyrra.

Chapter Two
To be honest I like chapter two much better, but then it could be because the henchman you could romance come out. As I mentioned before, you get a selection of five henchmen in your group but only one will be able to go to chapter two with you (Deekin is the only one who can stay with the pc throughout out the whole game). Nathyrra doesn’t really count as she is not really a henchman in the first chapter. The second chapter is set in the underdark, in the drow city of Lith My'Athar. So basically you should end up arriving with Nathyrra, who introduces everyone, including the Seer- who is their leader. They tell you that the Valsharess has bound a demon to her, making it her ‘servant’, and she also made alliances with beholders (giant eye balls), mindflayers/illithids (a type of monster, but don’t ask me to explain), and a bunch of necromancers with vampircal creatures). The Seer asks you to do something about this- investigate, negotiate or kill depending on your mood. You have to do this anyway, because you are ‘ordered’ to stop the Valsharess- whom you learn intend for world domination (don’t they always?) Basically, hint hint, you should stop such a person regardless of the Geas. The seer also asks you to see if you can get some alliances.

Now…you get two new henchmen in chapter two, who will stick with you to chapter three. If you didn’t take Deekin with you then you don’t have much of a choice. You can have Nathyrra, a drow elf as mentioned, an assassin/mage. If you are playing a guy then you can have a romance with her. Your other henchman is Valen, a tiefling (part demon) weapon master, you get to have a romance with Valen if your PC is a female.

There are five main quests in chapter two, and I am pretty gutted that I didn’t get to do of them. I’ll just list them out.
1= golem island quest.
2= winged elf quest
3= mindflayer quest
4= beholder quest
5= necromancer/vampire quest
Quest 1 and 2 are in area A, which is at the right of the drow city (I think), while quest 3, 4, and 5 is at the left of the drow city. The main point is that there is no way that you can travel from Area A to Area B without passing the drow city, and if you return to the drow city too often, you don’t get to do all the quest, because the city would be under attack. What I did was doing 5 first, then 2, then 3, then 1 and then on my way to doing quest 4, I got told that the Valsharess is attacking, so I didn’t get to do the last quest. So…when I returned to the drow city for the fourth time. I think you are meant to go to area A and do quest 1 and 2, then go to area B and do the rest. But I’ll just talk about the quests slightly.

1= golem island quest (pretty straightforward and easy apart from one point.) The only reason it was hard was because I ran out of healing potions…this was the last quest I did and I was so gutted to know that I had to face the Valsharess’ army with no potions.

2= winged elf quest (very easy, but this one is quite fun. There is a small mystery which you have to work out. And I kind of did!!!! Yeah!!! I’ll say that this is the easiest one.)

3= mindflayer’s quest (I kind of cheated on this one. You can either attack and kill everyone in sight, but the Valsharess will still have mind flayer allies from their other… ‘home’. Or you can do it diplomatically by giving them this mirror you get from quest 2, and the mind flayers would break their alliance with the Valsharess and remain neutral. I negotiated)

4= beholder’s quest (I didn’t get to do this one. Sob…so right now I don’t know what happens).

5= necromancer/vampire quest. (I did this one first, which is really stupid, as this is the hardest one for me. I didn’t read the cheatguild properly and I thought ‘small area, easy!!!’ then I had a closer look and realized that I only looked at the area of the first level, when there are at least six or seven levels. But by that time I was half way there, so I just decided to bear it through. And it was so hard!!! You have to fight an undead dragon!!! A dragon who is also a vampire? It’s made from skeletons but it’s alive. Qutie ewww really.

But after you get these quests done (or if you returned to the drow city too many times) you get informed that the city is being attacked and the next bit of the game actually becomes a bit strategic. You have to allocate the entire force. I just followed the cheatguild’s advice, which made every thing easy. (note- the cheatguide at game banshee is the best). Interestingly enough, the Valsharess will offer you a chance to double-cross the seer in a dream before the day of the attack, and I think you can actually kill the seer if you agree, although you will still end up killing the Valsharess, and everything will be the same. Well, I didn’t betray the seer so once this battle is over, she drags me to confront the Valsharess for a final time.

You have a final battle with the Valsharess, where the demon who serves her double crosses her by killing most of her forces. Once you killed her, the demon will give you an update of what is happening. (The actual fight with the Valsharess is not that difficult for me, since I was fighter, and afterall, she is not the ultimate villain anyway.) The Valsharess bound him into this pact, but since you killed her, your broke the pact so he is now free. Somehow he kills you, and send you to the place he once ruled over (Cania, one of the hells in the world).

Before I go on to Chapter Three, I will just talk about the romance that you can have with Valen. I’ve only played the game once as a female, so I don’t know what the Nathyrra romance is like. Unlike the Aarin Gend romance, Valen does not like you at all when you first meet. He tells you that he distrusts you, and it seems that he resent the PC for being regarded as the one who will save everyone from the Valsharess, especially due the seer. (I think he sorts of like the seer so…jealousy.) But eventually he will apologise to you and even become friends with you. I think at the near end of chapter two you can began to ask him about his past: he is part demon and he became this other demon’s slave, subjected to doing a lot of nasty stuff that made him felt as if he lost his humanity. He was in love with this human woman, but then his master found out and killed her, which scarred him even more. He eventually escaped to the world of Faerun, and met the seer who helps him to control his demon blood. He is quite a…freaky character if you just judge from this chapter. If you ask him how he is feeling, he will reply something like ‘other then this urge of killing someone due to his demon blood, which pops up occasionally, he’s perfectly fine.’ But anyway…the last conversation I had with him was when he told me about his girlfriend, and that he has moved on.

Chapter Three
You arrive in the realm where the ripper is, and he tells you what happened. Basically the Reaper is bound to serve the demon (aka the overall antagonist in this expansion pack, his name is Mephistopheles, which is really a big mouthful). Mephistopheles knows the reaper’s true name, which is the name that is given by the god, and if you know someone’s true name you can use it to control them. The reaper has been ordered to not let the hero leave Cania, but he tells you that if you find his (the reaper’s) true name, then you can command him to let you leave. Yeah…the story line gets pretty weird. The reaper however, will help you by summoning your henchmen that were with you before you got killed.

As I said before, I don’t know about the Nathyrra romance, but the Valen romance gets very interesting at this stage. As you wonder along in Cania, Valen will tell you that he have something he must tell you. Basically he will confess that even though you have not travel together for long, he have developed feelings for you. Since you are all facing constant danger, he feels that he has to tell you that he love you right now. I mean…ok, the love declaration is really sweet and romantic but it is just…too fast?! (But then, it might be because I missed a vital conversation since I didn’t get to do the beholder quest, and Valen only talks to you when you are doing one of the quests in chapter two. I think it is event triggered, not time triggered.) Ok…from my PC’s view, the last time he talked to her was about how he moved on, and that he believes she will not betray the seer. And then the next time he talks, he tells her that he love her. Funnily enough, you can tell him that this is too soon, and he will accept it, but it doesn’t seem to change much. As he still calls you ‘his love’, as he would if you tell him that you love him too. (but his rejection speech is so sweet…I felt so guilty for even making my PC telling him that she is not ready and sure yet).

But I definitely like the Aarin Gend romance better, as I feel it have more development. You start by talking to him in a general way, before you ask him about his past. And after certain stage he will actually address you as his friend, and then after one or two more stories he kind of began to flirt with you by saying how happy he is to be in the presence of such a charming woman like you, which eventually led to a conversation where he admits that he is worried for you, then he will end the conversation by telling you to be careful as he does not want to lose you. Then you move onto the part where you can discuss your relationship, and you kind of see it being built up, his doubt of whether this is the right thing, and his fear of having to face the dilemma of choosing between you and the city, to the last conversation where he sort of tells you that he will actually choose you over the city. Whereas the Valen romance just happens so sudden: he is hostile to her, then he changes his mind, then he trusts her and all of a sudden he loves her.

Note- this will sound really nasty but if Valen is in love with the PC, try to get him killed somehow. Because he will have this really sweet/cute speech for the PC when she resurrects him the first time in Chapter three. And it’s really cute as he’ll reach out to cup her cheeks, then drop his hands due to shyness. (although this happened to me in the middle of a really hard fight, which was a problem.)

So the PC explores Cania and meets an old friend: Aribeth from the original campaign. She somehow ends up in Cania and when you find her she will actually attack you on sight. After much persuasion you can get her to join in as your henchman, and you must choose her alignment. Basically you can convince her that she can redeem herself, and she will be good, or you can tell her the equivalence of ‘screw all this’ and she will be evil. (I didn’t have her as I kept both Valen and Nathyrra but my sister did, so I knows what will happen). It is quite sad to have her in your group as she will tell you that she never loved Fenthick (recap from first review, her boy friend who got hung and caused her to betray the city). For me it is just really sad because she did all these things when she didn’t even love him, so you kind of wonder why did she betray the city if she didn’t truly love him, as Aribeth claimed that she only betrayed the city because Fenthick was every thing to her. (well…you get to find out that Aarin Gend and the PC didn’t get together as well, which is equally sad, considering that he seemed to have decided to give up his duty for her).

As you travel through Cania you got told by someone that there is this person who is ‘the knower of names’, who knows every one’s true names. But no one knows where she is. You are then advised to ask the being known as ‘the sleeping man’, who is the oldest resident in Cania. So you go to the temple of the sleeping man and got told that if you have to pass a test if you want to see him. The test involves gathering five pieces of information, and once you see him you have to wake him up, or interpret his dreams. (waking him up is easier as you just have to use a trumpet you can get from this guy, or stab the sleeping man. Unless your pc has really high wisdom the second possibility is really hard). You ask the sleeping man about the location of the knower of names, and he tells you to find the knower of places, whom he has met before, he gives you this ring and tell you that you just have to put it on the follow the arrows and you will eventually get to the knower of places, who will tell you where the knower of names is. In return, though, he want you to ask the knower of names who his one true love is, he is in Cania because the knower of places told him that he will find her in Cania.

The PC puts the ring on and follows it, once again, you go through many areas with puzzles which can be really annoying. The most annoying one is the mephit’s hand. You have to kill this mephit in this chest and to do that you have to place a trial of gems, leading to the centre of this area, and once he get to the centre you press this button and the mephit get burnt, and you keep his hand, which let you jump from one area to another. This bit is so annoying, because there are rats that eat the gem, which make you have to reload. Another annoying place is where you have to travel on these rotating plateform. But eventually you get there…

You also get to meet some more old acquaintances during your journey to the knower of name. You get to meet the dwarven monk and the guy who worked for the lizard queen in the original campaign, and a lich from the previous expansion. This is pretty hard a battle, and Valen died here in my game. It was honestly one of those ‘Yes, you are being very sweet and romantic, but can you please just shut up and fight and talk to me only when this is over’ moment.

Once you get to the knower of name you have to use a catapult to free her from her prison, but the problem is that there are about twelve prisons, and you can’t see which one she is in and the others have demons that attack you. I was lucky though, unlike my sister, who found her in the tenth prison she broke. But once she is freed you get to ask her about every one’s true names, and it is really fun! Only that you need money, so I…cheated by using the cheat code to give myself about one million gold. You can find out the name of your Henchman, and also the name of your true love. If you are romancing Valen or Nathyrra then they will be the names of your true love. But there is an inconsistency in the game, because you can also be the true love of the sleeping man. I think the strangest thing about this expansion is that you actually don’t have to fight the overall antagonist if you don’t want to. If you managed to find out his true name (you have to ask the knower of name’s true name first, then command her to tell you the demon’s true name) you can just order him to die or never leave Cania and that’ll be the end of the story…in fact this is probably the best ending.

Once the PC finds out the reaper’s name they can go back. But first they will have a talk with the sleeping man. If his true love is in your party, or is you, then he will actually help you in the final battle- unless his true love is you and you tell him that you never want to see him again, he will just leave. Or you can kill him by ordering him to abandon this quest, he kind of just…lay down and die.

After you finished all your unfinished business you can tell the reaper to send you back to Faerun, and before you leave you can use your henchman’s true name to help them, eg. Free Valen of his demon heritage as well as making Nathyrra stop feeling guilty. (she used to kill for the Valsharess). You will arrive in Waterdeep, as Mephistopheles attacks the city. You can tell him that you want to stop him, join him, or replace him, and you actually will get different endings depending on what you tell him. He will also try to sway your henchman. Valen would not be tempted at all if he is in love with the pc, although I heard that if he is not, then it would be really difficult for you to persuade him to not desert you. As for Nathyrra, I am not sure but I know that if you used her true name to help her come to term with herself, she would not be tempted at all either. But if you have their true name you can just use it to order them to not betray you anyway.

You can fight Mephistopheles but I just used his true name, then I get to see the epilogue, which is really fun as it is personalised, unlike the original game’s ‘and everything restore to order but no one is sure what the heck happens to the hero.’ But once again, there are inconsistencies. If you decide to join or replace Mephistopheles then you will end up living in Cania, but the epilogue for Valen (if you have a relationship with him) says that you two are constantly travelling around. Likewise, the PC can be both the sleeping man and Valen’s true love, and it is really weird. The sleeping man’s epilogue says that you and him end up never parting, yet Valen’s epilogue show the two of you together. Also, in regard to the sleeping man’s true love one possibility is this woman whom you are forced to kill. If you tell her that she is dead, and you killed her his epilogue ended up something like ‘he lost everything due to his gamble on love’ or something sad like that, but if you say ‘just know that you will be happy together’ she seem to be able to come back alive as the sleeping man’s epilogue says he never parted from his love once he found her.

Gosh…I don’t know why or how but I ended up typing this much…I will put up my fan fiction tomorrow.