Icewind Dale was the only Infinity Engine D&D game I ever played.  Also, I sucked incredibly at it.  I remember the furthest I ever got was with a party that didn't have any mages in it, mainly because any time I did have a mage in my party, he would inevitably die a horrible and early death.  Things went great until I encountered an enemy that seemed invulnerable to physical damage, however, at which point I was just kinda sunk.
 
That game was hard.

Yeah, Icewind Dale is pretty hard. I've only just started and I keep getting my ass kicked by an ogre in the first dungeon. But I'm determined to finish it, especially since I plan on playing Icewind Dale II later on.
 
By the way, Nocturne is one of my favorite RPG's on the Playstation 2. It's pretty much just a big dungeon crawler, but it's worth playing for the dark themes and atmosphere alone.

Icewind Dale was fun, but coming off Baldur's Gate it seemed incredibly linear. It does sort of work as an introduction to the IE games as a whole due to its shortness and simple structure, except it also happens to be incredibly tough on beginners. Hmm.
 
I'm slightly amused at the notion that you'll stop Icewind Dale because of its difficult last few hours to move onto SMT: Nocturne; a game so malevolently unforgiving you'd think Lucifer created it, possibly to gauge our reaction to a demon apocalypse. And after the Matador, Thor and Dante boss fights I was kind of wishing for one.

I remember quite lot of Icewind Dale but don't think I ever finished it. Will need to do that one day still. I assume getting it running so high-res is GOG's doing?

" Icewind Dale was fun, but coming off Baldur's Gate it seemed incredibly linear. It does sort of work as an introduction to the IE games as a whole due to its shortness and simple structure, except it also happens to be incredibly tough on beginners. Hmm.  I'm slightly amused at the notion that you'll stop Icewind Dale because of its difficult last few hours to move onto SMT: Nocturne; a game so malevolently unforgiving you'd think Lucifer created it, possibly to gauge our reaction to a demon apocalypse. And after the Matador, Thor and Dante boss fights I was kind of wishing for one. "

I'm currently making my way through severed hand, like the third or fourth dungeon. It's a verrry hard game. I really want to beat it so I can go play IWD2, which seems to be the better of the two, even though the first is pretty good. I really liked both baldur's gate games more though because of the story.

Luremaster's no-escape aspect is why I never got around to doing that. I never actually beat the game, either. I got far enough that I either learned there was some obscure puzzle element I needed to figure out, or I just wanted to take a break and never got back to it. Icewind Dale 2 I regret not returning to. 
 
Icewind Dale 1 I just sort of remember. I LOVED stomping guys with my custom party. Loved making the party, loved watching them grow and get brutal. But there was a part that I completely bypassed by using a single character with a very high stealth rating. THE WHOLE BOARD was basically skipped. It was so meant for battle that it wasn't ready for me to treat it like an actual multi-solution RPG.  Either that I was screwing myself by not sopping up the experience.
 
I was originally reluctant to hit ID2 because I try to stick to sequel order, but I'm so glad I eventually gave up and started 2. It may not be what a lot of people want when they look for an RPG, but ID2 satisfied me a great deal. It's something I will pick up again soon. And the nice thing is, I won't have to worry a whole hell of a lot about what I need to do next. There ARE some benefits to straightforward games after all      *narrows eyes at Elder Scrolls 2 and 3 journal system*

If I recall, Dante was added to newer versions of the Japanese game (and the one that eventually got translated) to drum up crossover appeal and he fights the main character (ostensibly a demon) at a few points in the story. Unfortunately his first battle, which he's overpowered for, was directly placed after the battle with Thor which is also an incredibly hard lightning-based boss that follows several smaller bosses in an arena tournament type deal.
 
The Matador isn't too much of a problem if you're prepared for him, but like Shadow Yukiko he's sort of a wake-up call boss for people who are foolishly trying to play a SMT game like a regular JRPG instead of a "spend hours in fusion screens and grinding to make a very specific group that can survive this boss's attacks" JRPG. So in that sense he's usually the reason a lot of people stopped playing Nocturne.  I think I just gave up after I realized the whole game would be Matador and Thor boss fights.

" Things went great until I encountered an enemy that seemed invulnerable to physical damage, however, at which point I was just kinda sunk.  That game was hard. "

Keep up the good work, I want to know what these games are like, but isometric view makes my eyes puke.

Somewhere, somehow, Snide just raised his fist in recognition of this great blog.

A lot of things done with IWD were done to circumvent the easy ways to spam victories in BG.  So distances were compacted so bows aren't the overpowering force they are in BG.  You also have a lot more creatures that need magic weapons to hit meaning the summon creature and animate dead spells aren't quite as powerful (though they still are very powerful). 
 
You also have the environments set up in such a way to make it hard to kill enemies.  I still remember the undead elves behind barricades shooting arrows at my party while I have to fin a way to get back there so they don't shread my mage.

" @ArbitraryWater:  If you want to really challenge yourself, go for the true demon ending.  Trust me. "