Neverwinter Nights marks Dungeons & Dragons' first foray into digital 3D, as well as Infogrammes' reorganization into the next incarnation of Atari. However, it was at best a solid success, but not a revolution in RPGs that BioWare and Atari had hoped for, despite its inclusion of robust (if rather complicated) adventure-making tools.
Shadows of Undrentide is an expansion for the main game, offering a new official campaign that has some improvements over the original and more importantly, some new game mechanics.
The new campaign is not a continuation of the narrative in the original official campaign. Regardless, to veterans of Neverwinter Nights that had been crafting full-featured adventures since the release of the original game, the new official campaign would not seem like much. After all, it had been made with the same tools that players had since the original.
In the new official campaign, the player character is not canonically the hero/heroine in the original Neverwinter campaign, but is the student of a seemingly reclusive hermit with a penchant for grooming would-be adventurers, who have no idea of his past. Of course, he typically has a troublesome past, and it wouldn't take long for the game to have the player character and his/her fellow students getting roped up in one of the intrigues that their master is involved in.
The main plot themes would turn out to be the ones that are typically in high-fantasy stories: yet another megalomaniacal villain is bent on achieving power through dangerous, world-threatening means; there are more dangerous magical artifacts that need to be secured; ancient ruins that are best left undisturbed lest they release their curse on the world, etc. They won't be unfamiliar to veterans of high-fantasy games.
Like in the original campaign, the player can import an already developed player character to play Shadows of Undrentide with, but the campaign is best played with a completely fresh one, due to the difficulty curve being more suitable for a protagonist that canonically is not supposed to have seen much action yet; fortunately, the description of the campaign does include such a recommendation.
As to be expected of an official campaign, important NPCs have voice-overs that are intended to give vocal exposition on the main and secondary plots. However, the launch version of Shadows of Undrentide has so few pivotal characters, that there are few voice-overs, and these tend to be just merely decent. The lines that they have are not very inspiring either, e.g. many of them do not give enough weight to what is at stake in the story, though they are still good enough to convey whatever message and emotional baggage that need to be passed.
The player character remains a mute who communicates through on-screen text.
The companions that the player would get are not as varied as those in the first game, but they appear to be more than just by-standers with respect to the main plot, which are what the henchmen in the original campaign were.
They also happen to be rather motley in terms of both background and gameplay, though whether this is for the better or worse is highly debatable. As an illustrative example, one of the player's companions is an Orc barbarian/sorcerer. While he has a background that is worthwhile to know more about, his multi-classing is at best only meant to complement the player's chosen character class, e.g. if the player needs a more brawn-oriented companion, it is better to have him specialize in his Barbarian aptitude instead of his Sorcerer powers.
While this does give the player the option to have a henchman that compensates for the player character's shortfalls, it is not that much different from picking the most suitable companion from the roster of henchmen in the original campaign. Moreover, that their multi-classes are so incompatible means that the (presumably wise) player would have them specializing in one of their two classes instead of dabbling in both, which would create very lousy combos.
Such designs only serve to emphasize Neverwinter Nights' lack of full control over the class-related development of characters other than the player's own player character.
They also do not showcase the mechanic of prestige classes, which only the player character can take.
Most significantly, one of the companions is designed such that players would either find him lovable - or very irritating.
Deekin the Kobold Bard is an oddball of a companion, and a rare one in Dungeons & Dragons RPGs too because Kobolds are usually treated as fodder for low-level adventurers. His less-than-heroic background and oddball eccentricity can be a joy to know better, and his naivety and sometimes innocent mischief makes for very amusing lines.
Unfortunately, the novelty of his character may be damaged by his voice-over, which is teeny, often-rasping and frequently going into uncomfortably high pitches.
On the other hand, the voice-acting for the other companions are relatively wooden compared to Deekin's, thus leaving players with NPCs that are not entirely pleasant and worthwhile knowing better.
That is not to say that there is no undisputable improvement in the designs of companions in official campaigns though. The player can now change the gear of companions and place items into their own inventory spaces. Of course, such improvements had already been implemented in fan-made adventures by then, so these would not be of much surprise to long-time players of Neverwinter Nights.
Furthermore, the player does not have much control over how companions use the items in their inventory, and they often make unwise decisions. For example, they can very well waste potions and items with charges in fights with enemies that can be defeated with the use of these.
As for the progression of the story itself, players who are well-versed with adventures set in the high-fantasy universe of Dungeons & Dragons would not be strangers to it.
The player character and his/her companions will go from place to place, seeking out artifacts of power that are typical and common plot devices in D&D stories, investigating local troubles and solving them (which are also typical to D&D RPGs) and defeating ancient evils (which are very much also typical to D&D RPGs). Meanwhile, the player characters advance in power while gaining many useful and often magical gear through the looting of containers, treasure troves and the likes.
There won't be much in the way of refreshing surprises in Shadows of Undrentide's campaign.
There are some notable designs that the developers, which are no longer just BioWare but who is joined by Floodgate Entertainment, had implemented in the Shadows of Undrentide campaign that made it feel nominally different from the original campaign.
One example of these is the lesser prominence of Healing Kits and Potions, which have been reduced in both quantity and variety; the original campaign gave plenty of these to the player, reducing the appeal of Clerics and Druids. It is just a small change, but one that fans of Dungeons & Dragons and balanced gameplay would appreciate.
In terms of aesthetics, there hasn't been much in the way of improvement. In fact, a discerning player would notice that a lot of the graphical and aural content in the original version of Neverwinter Nights have been recycled in Shadows of Undrentide. Examples that would illustrate this recycling can be seen in the so-called magic-saturated dungeons, where a lot of the graphical effects that are associated with magical occurrences are reused wholesale.
Fortunately, there are some new additions to the library of models and environmental designs. There are new models to go along with the new monsters that had yet to be seen in Neverwinter Nights, packaged together with (somewhat) unique sound effects to make them feel distinctly different from those in the original campaign.
There is also a new set of environment in the form of deserts and dungeons made with yellow bricks, apparently to fit the setting of the campaign in Shadows of Undrentide, which is partly set in the desolate desert-overrun ruins of the former Netherese empire. There are also new soundtracks and ambient sounds to go along with these new environments, such as a serene melody that plays to the howls and murmurs of the desert winds.
Ultimately, all of the above are content that could have gone into a sophisticatedly done user-made adventure.
Nevertheless, there is still some value to be had from Shadows of Undrentide. This comes in the form of Prestige Classes, which is a feature that had been introduced in the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Unlike the standard-fare classes, prestige classes cannot be taken straight from level 1 but have various requirements on the development of the player character before they can be taken.
Taking on levels in these classes grants the player character new skills, bonuses and abilities, which can be very powerful. More often than not, the next level in any one of these Prestige classes would grant something new, which is a design that is different from regular classes.
For example, the Assassin prestige class has requirements that can be most easily achieved with a few levels in the Rogue class, with the reward being tremendous abilities in stealthy and sneaky combat, such as a powerful variant of the Rogue's sneak attack (which also stacks with the latter) that is available from the first Assassin level. The second Assassin level grants the Uncanny Dodge perk, which removes any penalty from getting flanked. Such improvements practically make the Assassin class an obvious upgrade for a Rogue character.
Of course, a discerning player would point out that these prestige classes can be overwhelmingly powerful, even though they have been established in Dungeons & Dragons (which is a table-top turn-based game that is far different from the pseudo-real-time gameplay in Neverwinter Nights, as it should be pointed out too). Fortunately, the developers do realize these concerns too, and have implemented restrictions on the number of levels in these prestige classes that can be obtained; generally, only ten levels may be achieved in any one of the five prestige classes in Shadows of Undrentide.
There are complaints to be had in the designs of these Prestige classes though.
The most significant of these is that achieving their requirements would lead to some lousy combinations of regular classes. As an illustrative example, the Arcane Archer requires the player to take at least one level in the Sorcerer or Wizard class, while the rest of the requirements are best achieved with a Fighter class; furthermore, the player character must be an elf or half-elf. An elven fighter/wizard is hardly the best of multi-classing decisions, and it is more than likely the player will not bother casting arcane spells when his/her Arcane Archer can spend rounds and turns firing magic-imbued arrows instead.
Granted, most of these requirements have been designed with the canon of Dungeons & Dragons in mind, but reconciling gameplay considerations with canonical ones is a different matter.
It can be a bit of a disappointment that there are only five prestige classes, and not all of them can cater to or augment every one of the regular classes in manners that are both efficient and effective.
To summarize this review, Shadows of Undrentide is a decent expansion, but other than its introduction of the mechanic of Prestige classes, there is little else refreshingly new that it offers.