Problems

Know your limitations

It doesn’t fully make up for this limitation, however. As with Neverwinter Nights, in SoU you’re stuck with just a single character and a lone henchman to help with the heavy lifting. This remains just as annoying as it was in the original campaign, although at least this time the developers have softened the annoyance factor somewhat by giving you the ability to order changes in tactics, how they level up, and inventory. So you still can’t take direct control of your ally, but at least now you can tell him or her what weapon to use in combat, to only take levels as a Cleric, to guard you or attack enemies on sight, and so on. Thankfully, the artificial intelligence is solid aside from a couple of minor sticking points. The only incident that really bothered me was a visit to a kobold lair where my dwarven Thief/Cleric pal refused to sheath her weapon even after an agreement had been made to do exactly that (I had to go into her inventory and manually unequip her warhammer).

Managing that inventory

Woof woof

Reward time!

Lack of control and such a small party size create problems beside boredom. Having just a pair of mail-clad adventurers to boss around pretty much kills the strategic elements of combat. Unless you’re a Mage, your options are limited. Until you get to higher levels, you’ll go through the motions over and over in each battle. It’s a good thing that the game isn’t combat-intensive. If it were, repetition would be overwhelming players before killing the last kobold in Hilltop.

Getting in the way

You’re also given few choices in the beginning of the game as to who to employ as a henchman. By “few,” I actually mean “two,” and neither is all that great in the early stages unless you play a Fighter. Dorma Trapspringer is a handy Cleric/Thief combo if you choose a Paladin, as I did in my first run-through of SoU, but damn near useless if you pick a Mage, as I tried in my second. Sorcerer/Barbarian Xanos Messarmos isn’t much better, as he’s not much of a fighter or a spellcaster, and his choices in battle are less than inspired (he’s a half-orc, so maybe he’s supposed to be this stupid). Seeing as the story opens in a school for warriors, it would have been easy for FloodGate to provide a wider range of choices in the beginning. Perhaps issues with play-balancing got in the way. You get an interesting option later in a kobold Bard called Deekin Scalesinger. He’s hilarious, at times as funny as Minsc from the Baldur’s Gate games, though not very useful to a Fighter in need of a companion with strong healing abilities.

Mob scene

More pesky kobolds

Elves never die

These problems are really pretty minor when you take into consideration the strong scripting and design, though it was still sort of hard for me to get into SoU. While I loved the old-school D&D atmosphere, the feeling like I was playing a solo pen-and-paper game with the computer serving as DM, it seemed like something was missing. Actually, it seemed like about four somethings were missing—namely, the rest of my party. This is more a problem that I have with the Neverwinter Nights style and engine than this expansion in particular, though the problem remains and I can’t separate the two for obvious reasons. Those without such issues will probably be able to better appreciate this expansion.