History YMMV / IcewindDale

** [[spoiler:A blatant case of TalkingIsAFreeAction which takes place during the FinalBattle; Everard makes a FinalSpeech to the party and pulls a HeroicSacrifice by throwing himself in the portal to close it. The whole time [[BigBad Poquelin]] just stands and watches, and not a single demon comes out of the portal.]]

* OvershadowedByAwesome: When people talk about this era of {=CRPGs=} ''Icewind Dale'' tends to be treated as a bit of an afterthought behind the more popular ''Baldur's Gate'' and ''Planescape Torment.''

* OvershadowedByAwesome: When people talk about this era of CRPGs ''Icewind Dale'' tends to be treated as a bit of an afterthought behind ''Baldur's Gate'' and ''Planescape Torment.''

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: You can trivialize 2/3rds of the game by specing your starting party to handle undead. The Vale of Shadows, the Severed Hand, and large parts of Dragon's Eye and Dorn's Deep, are chock full of various kinds of undead enemies. A sufficiently high level Paladin or Cleric can just activate Turn Undead and walk through the areas watching their enemies either flee in terror or die on the spot. Spellcasters can also ignore a fair chunk of spells that have no effect on undead, including a majority of cold-damage spells.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: You can trivialize 2/3rds of the game by specing your starting party to handle undead. The Vale of Shadows, the Severed Hand, and large parts of Dragon's Eye and Dorn's Deep, are shock full of various kinds of undead enemies. A sufficiently high level Paladin or Cleric can just activate Turn Undead and walk through the areas watching their enemies either flee in terror or die on the spot. Spellcasters can also ignore a fair chunk of spells that have no effect on undead, including a majority of cold-damage spells.

** Battle Arena. You have 1 minute to defeat a random monster with difficulty scaling up. The catch? The arena is a 3x3 square. To win a single battle, you need to win 3 fights on 3 squares so they form a line, tic-tac-toe style. There's a minimum of 250 battles to complete the quest. You're allowed only one combatant and the rest of your party is automatically locked-up. Battle Arena is completely optional, but if you skip it you'll be missing out some very good quest rewards.

** Umber Hulks. Looking straight in their eyes will confuse you if you fail your saves. That they're also backed up by [[ALoadOfBull Minotaurs]] is not helpful either.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: In ''Icewind Dale II'', it is hard to sympathise with the Ten-Towns when the whole conflict was literally started by the mayor responding to the Legion of the Chimera's overtures of peace by attempting to assassinate its leaders with cakes poisoned with holy water. And the player's only option is to massacre the entire Legion of the Chimera, simply because they had audacity to get angry due to being treated like crap.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: In ''Icewind Dale II'', it is hard to sympathise with the Ten-Towns when the whole conflict was literally started by the mayor responding to the Legion of the Chimera's overtures of peace by attempting to assassinate its leaders with cakes poisoned with holy water. And the player's only option is to massacre the entire Legion of the Chimera, simply because they had audacity to get angry due to being treated like crap. You're even helped out in the final dungeon by an agent of the drow, who's been sent to give you her aid because it's also in her proud, pure race's best interests to ensure a kingdom of freaks and mongrel half-breeds is destroyed.

** The Black Raven monastery. To reach the Underdark, you need to complete 8 trials. Don't have a monk in your party? Good luck fighting without your favorite armor and your best magic weapon. [[EvilIsEasy Which is probably why people prefer to slay all the monks rather than enduring the trials]].

** The Black Raven monastery. To reach the Underdark, you need to complete 8 trials. Don't have a monk in your party? Good luck fighting without your favorite armor and your best magic weapon. [[EvilIsEasy Which is probably why people prefer to slay all the monks rather than enduring the trials]].
* UnfortunateImplications: In ''Icewind Dale II'', literally the entire plot is kicked off due to FantasticRacism... and the whole game basically treats the racists as '''right'''. The whole conflict was literally started by the mayor responding to the Legion of the Chimera's overtures of peace by attempting to assassinate its leaders with cakes poisoned with holy water. And the player's only option is to literally massacre the entire Legion of the Chimera, simply because they're a bunch of filthy half-breeds with the audacity to get angry due to being treated like crap by humanity. You're even helped out in the final dungeon by an agent of the drow -- not the token "good" drow, but a representative of the [[AlwaysChaoticEvil regular kind]], who's been sent to give you her aid because it's also in her proud, pure race's best interests to ensure a kingdom of freaks and mongrel half-breeds is destroyed. At the very least, there's more than a little GreyAndGreyMorality involved if your interests align with the collective drow nation.

* UnfortunateImplications: In ''Icewind Dale II'', literally the entire plot is kicked off due to FantasticRacism... and the whole game basically treats the racists as '''right'''. The whole conflict was literally started by the mayor responding to the Legion of the Chimera's overtures of peace by attempting to assassinate its leaders with cakes poisoned with holy water. And the player's only option is to literally massacre the entire Legion of the Chimera, simply because they're a bunch of filthy half-breeds with the audacity to get angry due to being treated like crap by humanity.

** The Black Raven monastery. To reach the Underdark, you need to complete 8 trials. Don't have a monk in your party? Good luck fighting without your favorite armor and your best magic weapon. [[EvilIsEasy Which is probably why people prefer to slay all the monks rather than enduring the trials]].

* ThatOneBoss: The optional fight with the four Iron Golems in the Black Raven Monastery basement is extremely difficult if you aren't ''very'' well equipped. The Golems will ignore almost all damage done by anything less than a +3 weapon, of which there are very few by that point in the game (most of which are otherwise weak short swords). They ignore ''all'' magic damage, are healed by fire, are very difficult to hit in melee and hit like freight trains. Oh, and they'll constantly spam poison gas clouds which will insta-kill many summons and rapidly drain your PC's health.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The music was composed by Music/JeremySoule, the same man who composed ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' and VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim. You can found the soundtrack on YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z79mHHBJEgk&list=PL0CFF7FD5BD804DD9 here]].

* CompleteMonster: The wicked devil [[BigBad Belhifet]] disguises himself as Brother Poquelin to steadily recruit people to his armies so he may conquer Ten Towns. Using evil beings to wipe out anyone who may get close to the truth, Belhifet intends on sweeping over Ten Towns to destroy it and reap the souls of all there for his infernal armies so he may unleash Baator upon the mortal plane. Even before being defeated, Belhifet rapes many women to father half-devil children to further his plans. After his defeat, Belhifet turns out to be the secret villain of the [[VideoGame/BaldursGateSiegeOfDragonspear Siege of Dragonspear]], having tried to kidnap and torture Caelar Argent as a child. The secret master of Hephernaan who [[ManipulativeBastard manipulated all the evil of the Shining Crusade]], Belhifet intends on the utter devastation of the Material Plane.

-->'''Yxunomei''': Your involvement in this matter is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. A mote of dust floating for a small moment in the sea of time.

-->'''Yxunomei''': My vendetta is none of your concern. Your involvement in this matter is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. A molt of dust floating for a small moment in the sea of time.
-->'''PC''': You're underestimating my lifespan by a great deal. My people can live for hundreds of years.
-->'''Yxunomei''': Oh, my. Hundreds of years. You must feel very proud to be able to leap out of the primordial ooze of godly creation, gasp for a moment in the air, and lie on the shore in the belief that you won't die like all the other fish.
-->'''Yxunomei''': All the while, elephants of stone stomp on these celestial shores [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech and *you*, in your blindness, take no note. No. You are one of many fireflies dancing for a moment in the night, feeling at your brightest that you can illuminate the universe at will. *I* am a star. I came into existence when your world took form. I am as persistent as time. Where I move, infernal tides crush foreign shores and nations of thought are drowned in blood.]]
-->'''PC''': I'll take that to mean that you're more than a few hundred years old.

* ItsShortSoItSucks: When the ''Heart of Winter'' expansion was first released, people complained how short it was. This prompted ''Black Isle'' to release a second expansion, ''Trials of the Luremaster'', free of charge. AndTheFandomRejoiced indeed.
* {{Narm}}: In the first installment, your characters will go into IdleAnimation when waiting for the next round to attack.