Throne of Bhaal is nothing but an 'on-rails' trudge from boss fight to boss fight, with *the* very worst dialog/writing you have ever heard/read. There are no redeeming factors in ToB. None.

Hello everyone!

I guess it's the mentality. It's probably more enjoyable if you treat more like Icewind Dale. I hated it for a while then I just accepted what it was.

I wish Throne of Bhaal was true expansion to BG 2. Alas, you can't return to any of BG 2 zones and your party progress is lost. I think BGT remedies that, but it would be great if it was in-built functionality. i think it is one of major weaknesses of ToB.

I can understand wishing it was a true expansion to BG. And its a valid criticism that most of the time you're going from "boss fight to boss fight."

What are you talking about when you say party progress is lost? Is it only the Enhanced Edition that goes directly from the end of SoA to ToB with your party intact and having the same level and items?

Hmm, not sure about this now. I remember ToB started in dark forest with magissa boss. Then you were sent to hell and Sarevok joined you and then you could get other party members joining you. Perhaps I am mistaken and confused by the fact that you can start ToB without ever touching BG 2 main game.

There are two ways to keep your party when transferring to Throne of Bhaal.

1. Beat Shadows of Amn and you can start Throne of Bhaal with your SoA party.

2. When starting a new ToB game, select the "Import Game" option. This will let you keep your party (minus Yoshimo).

Note that, if you use a tutorial save, you get to keep the tutorial characters.

What about the music? I thought a few of the music tracks in TOB were really good

I have the greatest respect for Inon Zur and his music, but I don't rate games on their soundtracks, great as they may be.

Compared to Shadows of Amn, it's just not nearly as good. Compared to most modern triple A titles, it's a great game. The problem is, since it's the sequel to SoA, that's what it gets compared to. I think if it were its own game, it would be much more well-received.

While ToB isn't as good as SoA, I still like it. It's got good itemization, for one, and the fights are fun for the most part. I also enjoy Watcher's Keep immensely. I like the HLAs they added, and the shenanigans you can get up to with Time Stop and Improved Alacrity are just silly. They also succeeded in making Druid a decent class again, compared to an extremely lackluster one in BG1/SoA.

On the whole, yeah it's not as great as SoA. But I genuinely do not understand why some people here hate it so much.

It's not 'here'. Find any BG forum and you'll get the same kind of response from the majority of long time players.

Even better than Timestop + IA is to cast Wish, choose the "Time Stop + Improved Alacrity" choice (which isn't actually IA; it reduces casting times to 0 but doesn't remove the once per round rule), and then cast Improved Alacrity. You can now cast any spell with a casting time of 0 and then immediately cast another, allowing you to cast every single spell you know in 0 time.

(Note that this doesn't work in the Enhanced Edition; they changed the effect to actually replicate Improved Alacrity instead of reducing casting time.)

As a side note, the way they implemented Wish reminds me of the MAHAMAN spell from the early Wizardry games. MAHAMAN had no negative effects, but then again, it did level drain the caster (unlike BG2 Wish).

To be honest the main reason I hated ToB was beause the "surprise villain" is so painfully obvious that my charname came out as a complete moron for not reailising it immediately >___>
Also there was a part where a creature tried to fool us with the illusion of a dead person from the past. And yea, we kinda fell for it...
Is my charname an idiot??

Really liked Watcher's Keep though....

Like someone above said, I felt like it was a very "on-rails" type experience, which is not what I'd expect from this type of RPG at all. I felt little sense of exploration or of having any control over what happens. It certainly didn't feel worth replaying.

That said, I loved summoning Planetars and watching them run around the map shouting "I shall prevail!" and kicking the ass of anything that comes near.