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Classically good

Here you can find the music review for
Mask of the Betrayer (2007) | Storm of Zehir (2008).

If someone were to ask me if I could recommend a good, classic role-playing game - which no one does, but just in case - my immediate answer would probably be 'Neverwinter Nights 2‚. Denn kaum ein anderes Game, was ich gespielt habe, schreit einem so direkt Dungeons & Dragons ins Gesicht. Von der klassischen Heldenreise über die Party mit unterschiedlichen Charakteren, Klassen und Völkern bis hin zum pausierbaren Kampfsystem und der Fantasy-Welt bietet das Werk der Story-Veteranen von Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Pillars of Eternity, etc.) offers exactly what pen and paper means on the PC.

Of course, there are now much better examples, but for this review we're jumping back 14 years, so it's okay to be a bit less critical. I don't really want to say too much about the game, at the time it kept me glued to the screen for several days and enthralled me with its twisty and seemingly everlasting story. Incidentally, I didn't play the predecessor from 2002, but I found my way around the world of Neverwinter just as well.

But now to the Neverwinter Nights 2 OST. It comes from the composers Dave Fraser and Neil Goldberg and, contrary to the sprawling game, is quite manageable with its 19 tracks. However, they are of a consistently high, to very high standard. This is quite unusual, as classic role-playing games with their ambient tracks often drive the overall score towards the lower end. In this case, we have a pleasant mixture of quieter/neutral tracks alternating with fast-paced, action-packed versions. Overall, the music balances itself out and, in my opinion, manages the fine line between dark, menacing motifs that tend towards the thriller-like and orchestral, hopeful melodies that emphasize the fantasy genre.

Take "Neverwinter City", for example, which characterizes the eponymous city of Neverwinter as a bright, lively and, as it were, sublime place that evokes purely acoustic associations with Stormwind from World of Warcraft or whose vocals create almost angelic white backdrops à la Minas Tirith from The Lord of the Rings in the mind's ear. This façade is then broken up again at night in tracks such as "Back Alley" or "Ammon Jerro's First Murder". Menacing strings and the sound of a bell, characteristic of this soundtrack, announce lurking danger, creating the image of a deserted street shrouded in fog at night. Not all that glitters is gold, and the deceptive harmony is thrown into disarray.

In addition, the soundtrack offers great action pieces that create a dense atmosphere, especially in the rather sedate battles, which are based on the pen and paper concept. In fact, the composers manage to capture the style of Jeremy Soule, who orchestrated the predecessor, very well, making tracks such as "Back Alley (Combat)" or "Dock District (Combat)" resemble Souls tracks such as "Rakghoul Attack" from Kotor or "Daedra in Flight"(Oblivion). What stands out for me, however, is the "King of Shadow (Combat)" track, which is almost reminiscent of hard style rather than classical music. The package is rounded off with variations of the main theme ("Ilfan Ruins", "Neverwinter City (Interior)" and other side themes such as "Village" or the Githyanki theme - a clear recommendation for me. However, you can probably leave the game for current top dogs like Pillars of Eternity.

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Nostalgia warning

The rating of the individual tracks is purely subjective and clearly colored by my own experience with the game. You can find out more in the article About Nostalgia.

Nr.	Title	Interpret(en)	Ratings
01	Neverwinter City	Jeremy Soule	5
02	Ammon Jerro	Jeremy Soule	5
03	Docks Battle	Jeremy Soule	5
04	West Habor (Combat)	Jeremy Soule	4
05	West Habor (Dead)	Jeremy Soule	4
06	Swamp	Jeremy Soule	2
07	Village	Jeremy Soule	3
08	Neverwinter City (Interior)	Jeremy Soule	5
09	Ammon Jerro's First Murder	Jeremy Soule	3
10	Dock District (Combat)	Jeremy Soule	5
11	Back Alley	Jeremy Soule	4
12	Back Alley (Combat)	Jeremy Soule	5
13	Dungeon	Jeremy Soule	2
14	Githyanki	Jeremy Soule	4
15	Githyanki (Combat)	Jeremy Soule	5
16	Ilfan Ruins	Jeremy Soule	5
17	King of Shadow	Jeremy Soule	3
18	King of Shadow (Combat)	Jeremy Soule	5
19	Credits	Jeremy Soule	3

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Mask of the Betrayer

2007 was almost exactly 15 years ago and a lot has changed: A pandemic has the world in its grip, Battlefield-games can no longer be bought with a clear conscience (yes, I'm still angry) and I'm no longer 14, but soon to be 30, which means not only that I have more hair on my back than on my head, but also that my memories of Neverwinter Nights 2 and its first add-on Mask of the Betrayer are no longer quite so dewy. I think I played it. But I'm also very sure that after hundreds of hours I got stuck on the final boss of the main game thanks to picking the wrong skills and then never played through the game due to lost savegames. So I have no idea whether the expansion is any good, which is why I'm going straight to the music review.

This time, the soundtrack is not by Dave Fraser and Neil Goldberg, but by another dynamic duo called Alexander Brandon and Rik Schaffer. Although they stick to the fantasy atmosphere thematically, they move into darker realms and strike a more oppressive note. These certainly fit - and if I remember correctly - with the murder-mystery theme of the game, but the tracks work less well as individual pieces for in-between.

Unfortunately, there is no reference to the great themes of the main game, which were thankfully based on Jeremy Soule's distinctive style, which means that this composition - to put it simply - just sounds less good. As the name suggests, "The Veil Theater" is supposed to exude theatrical atmosphere and class, but it sounds more like irrelevant background strumming. The "Barrow Combat" tracks, on the other hand, use percussion to create tension and drama, which works, but the tribal music still seems a little too unspectacular. In general, the score is more akin to classic role-playing games such as Baldurs Gate or Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines... which makes sense, as Schaffer wrote the soundtrack for the bloodsucker game.

None of this would be a problem if the score wasn't overshadowed by the main game for me. It is commendable that certain themes such as "Shadow Mulsantir" are made more multifaceted by variations such as "Shadow Mulsantir Combat" with new instrumentalizations, but hardly any of it sticks in the memory. Especially as some of the tracks end very abruptly. In general, however, the soundtrack cannot be accused of being too one-dimensional: the ringing of bells creates a nice peaceful atmosphere, the oppressive basic tone works well. And the occasional use of guitars and strings evokes associations with games such as Diablo or Overlord. Nevertheless, the OST as a whole is only 'satisfactory' for me.

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Nr.	Title	Interpret(en)	Ratings
01	Betrayer Theme	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	5
02	Opening Lobby	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
03	Barrow 1	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	2
04	Barrow Combat 1	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	4
05	Barrow 2	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	2
06	Barrow Combat 2	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	4
07	Imaskari Ruins	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
08	Mulsantir Gate	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	4
09	Mulsantir	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
10	Mulsantir Combat	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	4
11	The Veil Theater	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
12	Shadow Theater	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	2
13	Shadow Mulsantir	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
14	Shadow Mulsantir Combat	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	4
15	Approaching the Spirit Army	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
16	Spirit Army Battle	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	4
17	The Sloop	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
18	Temple of Kelemvor	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	1
19	Death God's Vault	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	2
20	Death God's Vault Combat	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	4
21	Wells of Lurue	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3
22	Wells of Lurue Combat	Alexander Brandon; Rik Schaffer	3

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Storm of Zehir

Since I never actually played through Neverwinter Nights 2, I don't think I ever got to enjoy the content of Storm of Zehir. So I'll just quote the Wikipedia entry here, as real journalists do:

Storm of Zehir is an expansion of Neverwinter Nights 2 and continues the formula of a role-playing video game played from an overhead third-person perspective. Players first create a character along the lines of the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 rules by selecting a variety of traits, such as a race, class, and feats. New character creation options include the yuan-ti pureblood and gray orc races, the swashbuckler class, and the hellfire warlock and doomguide of Kelemvor prestige classes. The rest of the player's party can also be created, unlike Neverwinter Nights 2, but pre-made characters are available if the player is not interested in complete customization. The party can then explore several regions on the Forgotten Realms continent of Faerûn. The game provides an overland map that is used to move between different areas like towns and dungeons. While on the map, characters can use various skills to identify treasure, monsters, and other points of interest, such as side quests and secret locations. The party can rest while on the map, but doing so puts them at risk of random encounters in the form of wandering monsters.

Additional content:

• New character options (new races, base and prestige classes, background traits and ancestral talents)
• New animal companion
• New creature models
• New textures
• New tileset
• New visual effects
• New crafting system

Wikipedia entry for Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir

Everyone on the same page? Okay, then let's move on to the soundtrack. Because something has changed there too.

Instead of Rik Schaffer, Paul Romero and Rob King are now involved. We know the composer duo primarily from the Heroes of Might and Magic-series, where they have delivered increasingly great soundtracks over the years. So it's not surprising that I particularly like the pieces in Storm of Zehir that drift a little in this fantasy direction.

However, we don't actually hear a transformed form of the Heroes-formula here, which has its very own style. Instead, perhaps with the help of Alexander Brandon, we encounter an arrangement of classic fantasy, as we know it from Kingdoms of Amalur, Overlord or Age of Wonders , for example. Gone are the days of realistic tones like in the main game or Maks of the Betrayer. No, this gamerip swings the stereotype cudgel to the full and hits my dopamine store every now and then with tracks like "Beach (Combat)", "Shipwreck" and "Swamp (Combat)". Although the score doesn't come close to that of the main game, it at least comes a little closer to my enthusiasm.

Nr.	Title	Interpret(en)	Ratings
01	Startup Screen	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
02	Neverwinter Nights II: Storm of the Zehir	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
03	Adventurer's Guild	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
04	Batiri	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
05	Batiri (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
06	Beach (Ambient)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
07	Beach (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	5
08	Cave	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
09	Crypt	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
10	Crypt (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
11	Crystal Cave	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
12	Dungeon 1	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
13	Dungeon 2	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
14	Dungeon 3	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
15	Forest (Ambient)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
16	Forest (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
17	Herald of Zehir	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
18	Hills (Ambient)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
19	Hills (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
20	Chult (Ambient)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
21	Jungle (Ambient)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
22	Jungle (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
23	Lantan	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	5
24	Merchant HQ	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
25	Party Creation	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
26	Plains (Ambient)	Andrew Barnabas; Paul Arnold	4
27	Plains (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	5
28	Port Llast (Happy)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
29	Port Llast (Lessmournful)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
30	Port Llast (Mournful)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
31	Priory	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	1
32	Samargol	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
33	Shipwreck	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	5
34	Shrine	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
35	Swamp (Ambient)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
36	Swamp (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	5
37	Tavern (Samarach)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	2
38	Tavern (Sword Coast)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
39	Tavern (Sword Coast Song)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
40	Viper Temple	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
41	Worldserpent	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	3
42	Worldserpent (Combat)	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
43	Yuan Ti	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4
44	Credits	Alexander Brandon; Paul Romero; Rob King	4