Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Mixed reactions"

The same fantastic graphics as NWN2. The same solid gameplay, including some new race/class/prestige class options. Add in the "Epic-Level" options for playing a character that's higher than 20th level, and there are some really fun customization options.

Unfortunately, they didn't stop at better plot/advanced character customization.
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Gameplay Positives: I love the added playable races, classes, skills, feats, prestige class options, epic-level stuff. The storyline is also very mature and engaging. The advancements in the adventure editor toolset are also quite excellent. Inter-planar travel is interesting, but heavily over-used.

Gameplay Negatives: I was upset by the fact that the game does not take place in and around Neverwinter. In fact, much of the game doesn't even occur in the Forgotten Realms. Instead, you'll spend the lion's share of your time on the Plane of Shadow and the Fugue Plane. I miss my castle!!

The cast of NPC's available to form your party is rather lame. After having the choice of about 10 NPC's in NWN2 to form your team from, MotB drops that number to 4 (only 3 of which can be in your party at any point in time). It also felt like they were trying to justify an epic-level campaign in this aspect as well. Instead of making interesting NPCs, they made uninteresting NPC's but gave them weird races. A hagspawn, a bear spirit, a disgraced angel, and a clone. In addition, they don't even represent all of the character classes very well. You'll have a choice of wizard, sorceror, priest, fighter. My main character was a priest, which means there was no rogue in the party. The wizard's familiar had some rogue skills, but they were horribly lacking in comparison to a full-blown thief's abilities.

Graphics Positives: The same excellent atmosphere as NWN2 but with some added colour and polish. Very nice.

Graphics Negatives: The camera controls suffer terribly indoors, often forcing you to keep your party members as far back as possible in order to keep them from obstructing your view as well as obstructing your ability to click on things in front of you. Plus, having the party members that far back makes them take longer to get into a fight.

Sounds Positives: The usual excellent voice acting and music that Bioware is becoming known for.

Sound Negatives: None

Reviewer's Tilt: An interesting story, but they tried too hard when it came to the setting and NPC's. Far too outlandish. It barely felt like the Forgotten Realms setting at all. NPC's, setting, and indoor camera are where the game loses points in my book