Mittelmäßige Maskerade

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.

Games from the Dungeons & Dragons-series

Neverwinter Nights (2002)

Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006)

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.