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Kulda-fucking-har: The Trailer Park of the Forgotten Realms
|  | | | | It will take all of your wits and guile to defeat the maniacal labyrinth of Kuldahar. | |
After the beginning part you find yourself in Kuldahar, a town nestled
in the roots of a giant stupid fucking tree. What this means is nearly everything of
importance is located in a hollowed-out root, so that you have to trek up and around these
fucking roots to get from one place to another. It's more or less set up so that
almost every shop, inn, whatever is situated by itself at the end of a dead end. And since
the pathfinding in the Infinity Engine is utterly brain-dead, you have to hold your idiot
party's hands every time they need to go somewhere. For added laughs, there's a
stupid river running down the middle of town and the east half is up a big hill, so you
have to cross bridges and shit as well as navigate those fucking roots. This is the worst
fucking town I've ever had to suffer through in an RPG, and naturally it's home
fucking base for most of the game. Every time I returned from a dungeon I sort of sighed,
as I had to go to the other side of the map to talk to Arundel, then over there to
sell most of my shit (merchants only buy/sell certain things, seemingly at random) and buy
weapons, then three different places (which were as far apart as possible) to buy magic
items and spells and sell the rest of my shit. Then back up some other fucking root to
sleep, in an inn that's nowhere fucking near a map edge. Now I know why the music
(which overall isn't bad) in Kuldahar is so soothing, anything to keep you from
flipping out and bashing your head into your monitor. Kuldahar, I hate you.
Dungeons & Dungeons
The rest of the game is pretty much dungeon crawling, alright. I
don't care if the Vale of Shadows - oooOOOooo! - or other places are outside,
they're all dungeons. Most are multi-level as well, so be prepared to hike in and out
of the fuckers a couple times each as you try to clear them out. The monster selection is
at least different from Baldur's Gate. However, there sure are a lot of
fucking undead monsters to contend with. Many dungeons are full of nothing but undead
creatures loping towards you. More than a few times in battle, my priest just stood there
Turning these crusty faggots back to give my fighters a chance, since undead have absurdly
good THAC0s and usually do severe damage. I guess that's a way for BIS, after
realizing that nobody tried to Turn Undead in BG1, to force you to use Turn (by the way,
trying to Turn Undead if you're a Paladin barely works). And since this game
isn't called Hotbreeze Harbor, all sorts of cold-based monsters are on your
jock. Naturally, those asshole developers give you dozens of cold-based spells. Fireball
is God in this game, but still. Yeah, I cast Ice Storm on you, snow troll.
|  | | | | I don't know what half these monsters are. Note the absurd number of types of
undead. | |
Ugh, trolls. The developers must have been so proud of themselves when
they made up that stupid bit where a troll falls down when injured enough, and then you
have to finish it off with acid or fire; those ugly faggots are everywhere. One dungeon,
The Severed Hand - oooOOOooo! - is full of "shadowed" goblins and dwarves and
elves and shit, whatever the fuck "shadowed" means. All I could figure was that
it was a cheap way to throw monsters like that at you, with unnaturally low Armor Classes,
that shoot arrows and stab you with swords, and there will be nothing to loot off their
corpses CUZ THEY WERE ALREADY DEAD, SEE. By the way: conserve ammo, all of it (especially
fire and acid arrows); there's barely enough to get through the game, especially
enchanted stuff. If you're firing +1 arrows at goblins, you're going to be shit
out of luck by the end of the game. Other dumb monsters include made-up nonsense like
Blast Skeletons, which explode into a Snowball Swarm when you hit them. Whatever; if you
have the overpriced books from the pen and paper game, I suggest you whip them out, unless
you have a comprehensive memory of them and know what the fuck a Remorhaz is.
|  | | | | Didn't I tell you to include a Bard in your party, dumbass? | |
Speaking of which, this game utilizes some of the cheapest-ass tactics
I've ever seen to put you at a disadvantage in combat. Who knows how many times you
enter a room to find yourself immediately surrounded by monsters. And not just gay little
ogres, I'm talking about giants, wyverns, shit like that. Sometimes entering a
certain area "triggers" monsters to appear out of thin fucking air to surround
your party. This happens with annoying frequency in The Severed Hand CUZ THEY WERE ALREADY
DEAD, SEE? Fortunately, most monsters in this game bunch up and can be dealt with like in
BG1, with generous helpings of area-effect spells. Most of this is why a Bard, a class not
unlike your loser Uncle Larry, who can do a lot of different things but isn't very
good at any of them, is useful. You'll need the muscle early on (or just the help
from his songs. No, really), and the spells later in the game. There's no rule
against you pausing the game and taking off armor, so you can give your Bard armor with no
problems. A Fireball from both mages and another from your Bard squashes most of the
bum's rushes you'll get in the game. Plus, a whole hell of a lot of the loot
you'll get is too esoteric to identify with anything less than an Identify Spell or a
Bard's level of Lore (and quite a bit of the loot is Bard-only). You'll want to
equip and use the stuff you find nearly immediately, stuck in the bowels of some
umpty-level shithole dungeon as you usually will be. And if you decide to go onto the
expansions, the added features for the Bard make him pretty TUFF. Or just schlep a bunch
of blue-shaded shit around for half the game, see if I care.
RPG...RTS...WTF?
Tactics are fairly necessary to get through most of this game,
especially when your party is lower-level. Some monsters will be alerted to a battle and
will come flying out of the fog to get you. You'll want to take advantage of terrain,
and look for bottleneck points since monsters will often trundle past your fighters and
start whomping on your mages in the back. Learning to know the radius of your Fireball
spell will come in handy, since you'll often end up with ten or so monsters piled up
in front of your fighters. Position your Priest(s) right behind your fighters, actively
healing them during combat, or they'll probably die. In the plus column, though,
missile weapons are ridiculously effective. The damage adds up quickly, and you'll
almost never miss. Any monster coming at you by itself probably won't even make it
near your party (hence the mobs you usually have to contend with) if they all have bows
and slings (and they should). With all the fighting you'll have to do, you need to
approach this game more like a squad-level RTS than an RPG. This isn't Betrayal at
Krondor, you don't get to just fiddlyfuck around in the woods half the time.
Having a Ranger in your party who can sneak ahead is also a good idea. Most dungeons are
riddled with traps. This is why I recommend having a Bard (and a Ranger), so you only have
to put points into Traps and Lockpick for your Thief. Otherwise, you will find yourself
about halfway through the game in front of chests you can't open and/or traps you
can't remove.
Surprise! The End Boss Has Tons Of HP, An Absurdly Low AC, Is Immune To Magic,
And…
Is anyone surprised? Didn't think so. I won't give away the
ending too much, beyond saying that the End Boss for this game is the cheapest I've
yet seen in an RPG, and that's saying something. Naturally, he's 100% resistant
to magic (the otherwise-serviceable strategy guide lies), and you need +3 weapons or
better to hit him. He'll also cast Dispel Magic on your party right off the bat, so
forget about "buffing" yourself. He can cast any spell in the book, including a
fucking made-up one where he teleports away and simultaneously Flamestrikes your party.
Yeah, right. He's actually ridiculously easy to kill if done the right way, you just
have to find it.
What's The Verdict?
If you want to roll up your whole entire party and amble through
several fairly tough dungeons, there isn't much out there better than the IWD series.
There's a way to get through all of it fairly easy, part of the "fun" is in
finding it, I guess. Unlike a Diablo clone, it doesn't devolve into a mad
clickfest. Unlike Dungeon Siege, it doesn't play itself. It's a good game
when you want to play something for an hour or two, since you can pick up the story easily
enough at any point (unless "Clean out this dungeon and then talk to whoever" is
too intricate for you, you slobbering idiot). I wavered between wanting to beat this game
down compulsively and putting it down out of semi-boredom (playing this game too much at
once readily invokes Here We Go Again Syndrome). But, if you get off on the little
"Blink!" RPGs make when one of your characters level up, this game will satisfy
your urges as readily as any game this side of Everquest.
 Bill Dungsroman
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