lackblogger
SasqWatch
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Tyrants of the Moonsea (2019EE) a Neverwinter Nights premium module.
I absolutely loved playing this one. At the same time though, I'm not entirely sure it's better than Darkness Over Daggerford, even though it's the one I've enjoyed the most since Hordes of the Underdark.
It's a high level adventure, so maybe that's part of it. You start out at level 15 but you can import a lower level character if you wish. Judging by some of the dialogues, the game gives you the option to claim you were the hero of Daggerford, so, in a way, it's a sequel to Daggerford in the same way Hoards is to Shadows of Undrentide. Like those games, you can play it completely independently of all other entries and not have any issue or even notice the references.
Levelling is relatively slow and you wont really be delving into epic levels as combat doesn't reward you with much XP, the bulk of XP coming from quests. So you can kill a dragon and get, like, 256xp but when you tell someone you killed the dragon for them then you'll get 1000xp. Most regular encounters get 2-5xp per kill. So it's not really possible to grind levels and the focus is very much on completing quests in whichever way you choose to do that.
This isn't to say combat isn't front and centre though as there is lots and lots of really good combat here. Pretty much every fight provides a different kind of enemy with different challenges and the game does warn you from the outset in the game description that the module is best suited to a martial character. I'm sure an expert could run anything, but I was reloading battles quite regularly until I tipped the OP point about 2/3 of the way through.
And if you play your cards right you can get beautifully OP.
The companions are great and I didn't dislike any of them, with lots of variety and plenty of intrigue. It's not a game where you choose your companions so much as a game where the companions that are given to you all go on to be very main-plot-driven. They're not so much chatty companions as they are plot-interesting companions.
The plot itself is a good one but also one I can't divulge much about as it's one of those that slowly reveals itself. All you know from the outset is that there's a weird cult emerging that's summoning demons all across the realm, the realm in this case being the city-state region of the Moonsea. Because the game was originally a module, built in chapters, there are many points where you think "ah, this feels like the endgame", only for the game to go-on from that and double in size and scope. By the end it really feels like a full and massive game rather than a module. I think I spent about 50 or 60 hours on it.
The only drawback here is that for all it's size and scope, the more you travel, the more each location can feel a bit 'samey'. Not in any visual or encounter sense, but just in the format sense, in that each town map has an inn, a temple, a shop and maybe only one other point of interest, even if those places are radically different in each location. This is good from a comfort perspective but is the one area where Daggerford feels more like the better game overall, as it's environments never feel repetitive and also feel more content rich. Moonsea does feel like it's not entirely finished because of this as you'll get a huge map to explore, but most of it is cut-off from exploration aside from the inn, temple, shop and point/s of interest.
I don't know if this is going to be last premium module Beamdog release officially, but it also feels like a swansong to all the other modules and contains aspects from all the other games. There's pirating and ships, regular references to Daggerford, a tiny segway into horse riding, characters from the shadow realms, huge demon lords, and even an infinite dungeon of sorts, and just oodles of meta for those that have played all the other games.
In terms of Lore and general reading, the game has plenty of this but doesn't dump the stuff, rather it neatly and comfortably scatters itself around very nicely so that there's always an interesting tome, chat or item description to read at about the right point in the game where a nice reading break should be. As such I found myself reading pretty much every word in the game aside from the stock books that have appeared in previous games and barely ever skipped any dialogues and always pressed pause and had a good slow browse of every merchant's stock.
Moonsea also went the distance and hired lots of new voice actors, with there being plenty of fully voiced dialogues for main NPCs. Which adds a lot to the overall prestige.
From looking at forum posts from people that have got stuck or missed stuff, it's usually a case of them rushing something or skipping quests because they assumed they were rubbish quests, when, in reality, everything connects here, so there is some adventure game'ness about Moonsea that will be missed if one goes into it with a speed mindset.
The only real downside to the game is the crash to desktops, which happen quite frequently, mostly when clicking on area transitions. This is quite a common thing in NWN generally, but is particularly bad here, at least for me. However, it can be solved by simply following the routine of "save game before any area transition" as no saves were ever corrupted. Again, not rushing too much will mean you'll rarely lose much time or energy from reloads in this regard, if any.
The worst bug, that did happen a couple of times, was when my character got locked into a position by a combination of environment and companions. These are the equivalent of unexpected CTDs and can be a real bummer, especially if they happen right after killing a particularly difficult Lich. Oh well, just gonna have to kill it again!
The moment to moment gameplay is fantastic and the nature of the plot and companions all blends so well as to make this a really entrancing and addictive romp through the realms. It truly rekindles the best aspects of NWN 1 and reminded me of why I love NWN 1 so much. But maybe Daggerford feels like the better premium module in the afterglow? Maybe. I'd give Moonsea an 8.5/10, though it was a 9/10 at some points.
I absolutely loved playing this one. At the same time though, I'm not entirely sure it's better than Darkness Over Daggerford, even though it's the one I've enjoyed the most since Hordes of the Underdark.
It's a high level adventure, so maybe that's part of it. You start out at level 15 but you can import a lower level character if you wish. Judging by some of the dialogues, the game gives you the option to claim you were the hero of Daggerford, so, in a way, it's a sequel to Daggerford in the same way Hoards is to Shadows of Undrentide. Like those games, you can play it completely independently of all other entries and not have any issue or even notice the references.
Levelling is relatively slow and you wont really be delving into epic levels as combat doesn't reward you with much XP, the bulk of XP coming from quests. So you can kill a dragon and get, like, 256xp but when you tell someone you killed the dragon for them then you'll get 1000xp. Most regular encounters get 2-5xp per kill. So it's not really possible to grind levels and the focus is very much on completing quests in whichever way you choose to do that.
This isn't to say combat isn't front and centre though as there is lots and lots of really good combat here. Pretty much every fight provides a different kind of enemy with different challenges and the game does warn you from the outset in the game description that the module is best suited to a martial character. I'm sure an expert could run anything, but I was reloading battles quite regularly until I tipped the OP point about 2/3 of the way through.
And if you play your cards right you can get beautifully OP.
The companions are great and I didn't dislike any of them, with lots of variety and plenty of intrigue. It's not a game where you choose your companions so much as a game where the companions that are given to you all go on to be very main-plot-driven. They're not so much chatty companions as they are plot-interesting companions.
The plot itself is a good one but also one I can't divulge much about as it's one of those that slowly reveals itself. All you know from the outset is that there's a weird cult emerging that's summoning demons all across the realm, the realm in this case being the city-state region of the Moonsea. Because the game was originally a module, built in chapters, there are many points where you think "ah, this feels like the endgame", only for the game to go-on from that and double in size and scope. By the end it really feels like a full and massive game rather than a module. I think I spent about 50 or 60 hours on it.
The only drawback here is that for all it's size and scope, the more you travel, the more each location can feel a bit 'samey'. Not in any visual or encounter sense, but just in the format sense, in that each town map has an inn, a temple, a shop and maybe only one other point of interest, even if those places are radically different in each location. This is good from a comfort perspective but is the one area where Daggerford feels more like the better game overall, as it's environments never feel repetitive and also feel more content rich. Moonsea does feel like it's not entirely finished because of this as you'll get a huge map to explore, but most of it is cut-off from exploration aside from the inn, temple, shop and point/s of interest.
I don't know if this is going to be last premium module Beamdog release officially, but it also feels like a swansong to all the other modules and contains aspects from all the other games. There's pirating and ships, regular references to Daggerford, a tiny segway into horse riding, characters from the shadow realms, huge demon lords, and even an infinite dungeon of sorts, and just oodles of meta for those that have played all the other games.
In terms of Lore and general reading, the game has plenty of this but doesn't dump the stuff, rather it neatly and comfortably scatters itself around very nicely so that there's always an interesting tome, chat or item description to read at about the right point in the game where a nice reading break should be. As such I found myself reading pretty much every word in the game aside from the stock books that have appeared in previous games and barely ever skipped any dialogues and always pressed pause and had a good slow browse of every merchant's stock.
Moonsea also went the distance and hired lots of new voice actors, with there being plenty of fully voiced dialogues for main NPCs. Which adds a lot to the overall prestige.
From looking at forum posts from people that have got stuck or missed stuff, it's usually a case of them rushing something or skipping quests because they assumed they were rubbish quests, when, in reality, everything connects here, so there is some adventure game'ness about Moonsea that will be missed if one goes into it with a speed mindset.
The only real downside to the game is the crash to desktops, which happen quite frequently, mostly when clicking on area transitions. This is quite a common thing in NWN generally, but is particularly bad here, at least for me. However, it can be solved by simply following the routine of "save game before any area transition" as no saves were ever corrupted. Again, not rushing too much will mean you'll rarely lose much time or energy from reloads in this regard, if any.
The worst bug, that did happen a couple of times, was when my character got locked into a position by a combination of environment and companions. These are the equivalent of unexpected CTDs and can be a real bummer, especially if they happen right after killing a particularly difficult Lich. Oh well, just gonna have to kill it again!
The moment to moment gameplay is fantastic and the nature of the plot and companions all blends so well as to make this a really entrancing and addictive romp through the realms. It truly rekindles the best aspects of NWN 1 and reminded me of why I love NWN 1 so much. But maybe Daggerford feels like the better premium module in the afterglow? Maybe. I'd give Moonsea an 8.5/10, though it was a 9/10 at some points.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2014
- Messages
- 4,762