This is essentially Baldur's Gate.

While its design is starting to show its age a little, the engine is far from perfect and so on and so forth and so bloody whining, there's still enough of the magic here which will reduce the seasoned PC role-playing gamer to rapture. It's not the future of PC gaming, but a glorious slice of the recent past. This may be the last adventure like this you'll ever go on. And there's a certain style and grandeur to anything like that​

It says something that, despite these technical issues, we found it very hard to tear ourselves away from Neverwinter Nights 2 long enough to actually write this review. Just like its acclaimed spiritual predecessors, the game is wholly engrossing and begs to be explored. Rare is a game with such meaningful and varied character development, and the plethora of options available will guarantee that many players will want to indulge in its experience from the point of view of several different types of characters. Neverwinter Nights 2 is one of the best RPGs we've played in a long time -- bugs and performance issues be damned.​

Even though Neverwinter Nights 2 sees a few inventive components, the game actually doesn't amount up to anything groundbreaking in terms of gameplay. Quite simply, the development team decided to draw on all the aspects of gameplay that made KoTOR great and implement that in NWN 2. As you'd have thought, Obsidian came up with a gripping and well-balanced plot, which holds your attention the whole time. In a nutshell, Neverwinter Nights 2 is like Knights of the Old Republic enveloped in a well-known D&D universe. Apart from inserting plenty of elements that will surely keep RPG buffs happy, Obsidian also re-introduced the character alignment system (i.e. good vs. evil). Once again, making various choices through dialogue and warfare defines your character, allowing you to set the border carefully between good and evil personalities. Of course, you can always take the situation to the extreme, either by being an ultimate goody-goody hero or a merciless villain.​

So here we are, at the end of our arduous journey. Did I enjoy playing Neverwinter Nights 2? Yes I did, even though I’m not exactly a D&D fan, but the story, characters and the choices I had at my disposal made me overlook the bad AI, frustrating party micromanagement, gamebreaking bugs or the Spartan inventory system. Many will ask if they should play NWN 2 considering that it’s geared mainly towards D&D players. Yes, you should play it but you’ll also have to leave some of your RPG preconceptions at the door if you want to truly enjoy the game. And as expected, the game ending leaves the door wide open for at least an expansion, so I have a feeling that in the future we’ll spend quite some time in the Forgotten Realms.​

Despite some minor failings, which I anticipate will be patched quite shortly, Neverwinter Nights 2 is an exceptional game. This game has one of the best single player storylines seen in not just a CRPG, but in any RPG in years. If you are a real RPG fan, you owe it to yourself to give it a chance.​