izigame.me

What a weird "Enhanced Edition"!
Edit: Game crashes a whole lot, it got even worse after getting inside Neverwinter, it's a pain.
I'll start this off by saying I do like the original game, it does have quite a lot of charm to it even after all those years. It's not anything special by any means though and if you're interested in the series then you're probably way better off playing the first entry, it's got less bugs and loads more content and support from the community.
The unEnhanced version of this game has been delisted from steam for years now but is still available on GoG, it's definitely playable but I personnally have a lot of gripes with it, mainly concerning text being too small depending on your screen resolution, clunky gameplay/camera management, a UI that can be awful a lot of the times etc.
As such I was really hoping this version would solve a lot of those issues and while partly true... The way it has been handled is honestly quite terrible.
Let's start with the parts that feel very lazy:
-Tiefling player character still have no tail, pretty sure it was due to technical limitations at the time but not sure I would buy the same excuse nowadays. Yeah, it's a small nitpick but like it's the best part about playing as a tiefling imo.
-Textures have been upscaled but they don't look great and there's still a big gap in quality between the faces of your companions and random npcs so it can be quite jarring as well.
-There's still lots of bugs!!! Like even in character creation there's a face where the eyeball are too big and are clipping through the eyelids, like come on! And yes, bugs don't stop at character creations, flickering shadows, weird texture issues, character getting stuck in some camera modes... I haven't played a lot but have already encountered too many issues for my taste.
Now let's talk about the Weird parts! They made a new UI, I wouldn't call it beautiful by any means but on some levels it's quite a bit more functional, and the text is also generally easier to read... So why is it LOCKED behind using a CONTROLLER!!! Like I know a lot of the new UI is made with controller in mind but there's also big parts of it that could have been used when playing with keyboard+mouse without issues... Especially when it comes to the dialogue.
As of right now, when you use a mouse you get stuck with the orginial bad UI, even the text is slightly too small on higher resolutions and you can't tweat it.
Also for some godforsaken reasons if you have a controller plugged in your pc then it will vibrate during combat even if you don't use it. Of course there's no setting to turn it off because it would be too much to ask apparently...............
It is very tiring.... I like the game, I want to enjoy myself but this version feels so half baked, I don't want to have to "fight against it" to enjoy myself if that makes sense.
For the price it's honestly very hard to recommend it right now. I can only hope it will get the same treatment as the first game and end up being a lot better with time.

This review is coming from someone who still plays multiplayer on the regular with the GoG version so I am innately familiar with the game. I launched it (when it didn't crash) and it doesn't seem all that different to the original.
I'm happy to update the review come updates, which I hope they will.
The positives:
It's NWN2, it runs about as well as the GoG version. It has some minor changes done to it to be more usable but it doesn't feel all that different to the original complete edition.
The Negatives:
1. No borderless window option
2. 4K UI scaling is awful, the cursor is larger than my thumb. It looks like it was made for blind grandmas.
3. No scaling options
4. Multiplayer browser has been made quite literally worse than the GoG version that has categories.
5. Bugs that were fixed by the community almost over a decade ago are still present.
6. 64 bit client for multiplayer is missing.
6. Graphical options were removed
7. New bugs (EULA opens every time, hit sounds dont play, wrong voice selected on character creator etc)
8. "Perform Default action on target" no longer performs default action on target, such as attack the target. So the keybind is useless.
9. AI Texture upscaling is done inconsistently. Some textures are perfectly clear, and look kind of good. Others look like a blurry mess with visibly blown up pixels. Almost look base game (Did they forget to upscale some?). This can look worst when you have an object that seems to have 20 times the texture quality of the object its on top of which is very jarring. It can look like the HD Texture Pack cat meme.
There's little reason to replay NWN2: EE if you already played the GoG version, the changes don't justify it. And the UI changes are worse than base GoG version for 4k monitors which is what I still run the game at. The primary appeal of NWN2 in the long term is multiplayer and that doesn't seem to be in the best place right now with the client and as servers update, the latter not being on Aspyr. There's tons of things the multiplayer community would want and expect from the MP being updated.
I do hope Aspyr fixes the issues as they aren't that difficult to work on in the long term and all pretty minor. Though it is strange that the server browser was made worse.
So far the GoG version with the community made Client Extender is by far the superior way to play this game, which is baffling.
On the EULA front:
You can fix this by setting EULA=1 in nwn2player.ini where ever the documents directory for your game is.
On UI Scaling:
UI scaling exists, but it can only be changed in an .ini file for some strange reason.
Find the documents folder for your game and in it the nwn2player.ini (There is one in the main game file and one in the documents, the one in the main game doesn't seem to work for me)
Find here you can change the scale of the UI! setting UI EE Scale to be UI EE Scale=0.5 makes the cursor an actual reasonable size. UI Scale itself is for all the UI in general, so 0 would be not upscaled and basic untouched UI from the base game.
Why Aspyr didn't include changing the UI scaling in the options is a question only they can answer because it's a free win that they already did the work for.

Only voting 'yes' because no option for mixed and figure a review is needed already. Note that at time of writing without additional edits of post, this is first impressions only.
It becomes very clear that this game is just the original complete edition with extremely little changes graphically, even including the original, low quality intro videos. The menues themselves had changed for the sake of it and paradoxically you press the left button of the pair at the bottom center to continue. Multiple details were moved around for controller friendliness and while it works for the appearance creation, it doesn't work for characters with animal companions. Made a druid as that is my default preference for dnd games' first tries, and there were zero stats provided for the companions (ignore that companions really don't do well without modding.)
They also changed several aspects of the camera and framerate such that it was weirdly smooth to watch the zoom in and out of the camera and it was quick... but due to controller support, there is zero auto-turn for those who used the Character Driving Mode such as NWN1. this is really frustrating for Kb+m who enjoyed/preferred that view, even if it is understandable.
It looks like, at a glance, it likely will cooperate with preexisting mods and modules based on that impression, but I'm sure someone will do a proper deep dive and confirm/deny it. Was it worth the extra money vs the complete edition on GOG or the prior version if you were like me and had access to it before it was taken off steam? Not sure, haven't crashed from a map transition yet, but that takes some hours to get to.
edit1: (67 mins playtime) New flaw found, Allies and enemies alike will actively fight outside their designed areas due to increased render distance. Aspyr apparently decided to increase how much of the map and characters could be done, which is great in some respects, but Bevil decided to trigger the mage fight scene in the OC on his own trying to fight some bladelings behind said mage's home, something the regular game would not do.
My recommendation has turned negative. This game is only worth it to those who cannot run the GoG version or require controller support as that seems to be the only good make or break thing. Additionally, EULA will claim any and all mods for their ownership and distribution, which while semi-required for steam workshop distribution, really doesn't feel great in the current game dev environment... at least they're not Nintendo yet?