This generation has brought all sorts of old games back from the grave to try to make them relevant again, and with varied success. At the center of the effort to bring more mainstream and quite popular titles back, usually with some value-added flair, has been Aspyr. While you could argue whether some of their projects have worked out as well as likely hoped, there’s no question that they’ve shown quite a bit of love to the many early PlayStation-era titles they’ve brought forward to this generation’s consoles. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a title I never encountered in its heyday, but I’ve certainly heard some good things about it over the years. Getting to play it now, I can at least understand a fair amount of its appeal within the context of the time it was released.

Unlike many classic RPGs that obviously took some loose inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons in terms of some of its player classes and monsters, right from the get-go it is clear that this is intended to get as close to pen and paper as possible. Rather than being focused on refining your character’s look, you’ll instead be taking the time to work out much deeper elements that will all in some way at least carry some minor consequences downstream. For people unfamiliar with the depth that’s possible in this universe, it may be an eye-opener, but I’ll give the game credit for doing a fair job of distilling what you’d want to know about each possible choice without going overboard. Similarly, general combat play, leveling your characters up, and more continue to show a real focus on the pen and paper basis, even showing the roll information in a side window if you’d like to understand what’s happening. In terms of its storytelling though, I’m not sure anything impressed me as feeling groundbreaking here overall.

What really drags down the experience is what I don’t doubt are the game’s authentic overall mechanics for things like combat, married with console controls that are workable, but hardly ideal. I suppose if you stick to controlling a heartier melee-focused class, or a magic user who is able to do some damage or keep enemies at bay, combat could go more smoothly, but especially early on trying to go with ranged combat is a nightmare. True, that isn’t uncommon in principle, but your clumsy ability to control your heroes does nothing to help the situation. Given that combat is always such a focus in these sorts of titles, your intended party likely will need to be practically set up to better match how the game plays than what you may prefer. Again, perhaps that may be true in other titles, but here it just feels like it has been underlined somehow.

As has often been the case for these releases, that really puts the quality and value of the game in the eyes of the beholder. I have no doubt that people who have fond memories of the original release, and who’ve been craving that more traditional approach to everything, could absolutely have a good time with it. Perhaps gamers who dig D & D, but missed it, and don’t mind things being on the slower side could enjoy it as well. If you’re not in either of those categories though? Most likely you won’t end up finding it to be as good a match.