Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

While it is very much a product of its time and a prototype for its superior sequel, Baldur's Gate still holds up. Generally speaking, the gameplay has aged rather well, especially when compared to more cumbersome RPGs of its era: the combat and inventory systems are surprisingly straightforward and easy to get a hold of. Since you have up to 6 characters with limited AI to manage (or rather babysit) simultaneously, some fights can get a bit chaotic, but as a DnD game there are largely enough options and combat configurations to make battles strategic and interesting: spells, buffs and debuffs, melee and ranged weapons... You have a lot to work with, and it's solid stuff. Overall, BG nails the feeling of liberty and adventure it's going for. The gameplay largely focuses on exploring cities and forests and stumbling upon unexpected quests and hostile encounters. Not a whole lot of time is spent in dungeons, which, frankly, feels fresh - even if a lot of the areas you get to visit feel a bit empty and make for somewhat repetitive gameplay. And while the game is no literary masterpiece, the story and dialogues are definitely solid and do a great job of making you feel like an adventurer sent unto an epic quest. It helps that the graphics still mostly hold up to this day: the prerendered and painted backgrounds not only ooze charm, they also look legitimately good and have aged pretty damn well! While this “Enhanced Edition” lets you play in HD and offers a new expansion and some neat tweaks, it also makes some unnecessary and inauthentic changes: the “modern” cutscenes look like fanarts and are somewhat jarring, the new characters and quests are kind of sweet but rather out-of-place... And for all these changes that no in-game option lets you revert, it feels like a lot of issues are left uncorrected. It's still a decent way to play BG for the first time, and at least purchasing it lets you retrieve the original game, but it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

I've been waiting for years to take the time and play this game entirely, and finally did it last year. A CRPG Masterpiece, for those that are into that kind of stuff. Rating the game and experience, EE was good enough for me, no crashes. I tried the original game (without mods) but it was too clunky. In any case, good memories, I enjoyed a slower pace game at the time, OSTs still put me in that mood, which is great. Playing the second part now, there's so much more content, but the first part was a pure brain candy.

I know it is cool to hate Beamdog, but Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition is a great game in a great package. The annoying bugs are long gone, the game is fast and polished, the UI is great, especially for a 1998 game. I have spent more than 80 hours playing BGEE, and I honestly haven't as much fun with the originals. I am still trying new classes for my main character, new combinations of party members, still learning something about spells and items in the game. When you make that next step and find the game is getting quite a bit easier, there is always a next difficulty level, or you could always come up with cool personal limitations to the gameplay that fit the story and the world. And when you are running out of ideas, there is always the great community full of advices on how to prolong your fun with BG games.

This review is based off from using Windows 10 + Laptop with NVIDIA to play this game: So I played this revision of the game with the current patch implemented, and far as I can tell this game runs smooth like butter and I enjoyed it thoroughly when it came to the main original campaign. The new technical stuff offer more options to play with though one of which I really didn't like too much such as the new look for the characters which I automatically turned off. I also recommend mods that restore original content that didn't quite make it into BG1 Enhanced Edition, but adds a couple more hours to the game's overall average playing time. As for any other optional mods I leave it up to the person reading this, but always make sure to research each mod thoroughly before installing it (as some still have some major bugs). The Cons - Though I do like the new content to a certain extent, but I felt a couple of the new scenarios seemed kind of rushed which doesn't quite reflect the same quality to the original game. The areas that are locked behind a alignment check (technically) seems like a major letdown because these areas should as least be given a good-guy route instead of being forcibly evil to participate in it. I had to use the cheat commands just to see what these areas were all about due to my alignment. For now it will probably be up to modders to remedy this as I'm sure Beamdog as moved on since then to work on other projects. The Pros - The game runs smoothly as it can ever be thanks to Beamdog's patches; I understand that coding computer games can be a real challenge whether your a small or big studio and some of these previous reviews seem rather unfair though justified in their experience at the time. I like some of the small extra additions they made with this game that just improves the overall experience.

I don't understand all the bashing on Beamdog here. This game is freaking fantastic, and looks amazing on widescreen displays, with the full 16:9 aspect ratio that wasn't there in the old days of the CRT monitor. It's not just the presentation, but it blends in just the perfect amount of fantasy, and reality. I'm a JRPG person, and I am extremely, extremely impressed by this endeavor. This game reminds me a lot of Legend of Dragoon, with the balance of seriousness in combat, and comic relief in dialogue. The voice acting is super top-notch, and the characters actually have life to them, especially Neera, who had a very similar demeanor to Meru, and the voice acting on her sounds like something I'd hear in a big-budget production film. The soundtrack is pretty good, may I add! The addition of story mode is an extremely welcome addition to folks such as I, who just want to enjoy the game, but slay things at the same time without a hitch. So far, I'm not seeing any glitches, or bugs that unfortunately plague many PC games. I thought a game rated 4.1/5, Kingdom Come: Deliverance would be a great game from just the ratings alone, but after seeing that it contained bugs, and had a lot of extra annoyances with all the different negative stats plastered onto it in an attempt to be realistic, this is an incredible relief. I see why people love Baldur's Gate. I originally bought this on a sale a long time ago, and when I saw the reviews trashing Beamdog, I didn't give it a real try, and fast-forward to today, and I finally gave it a shot. I am quite impressed. A far, far cry from the 3.7 average I'm seeing here. Personally, I give this game a 4.45/5 stars. It is a classic that I recommend to any RPG fan. Once you get used to the isometric point-and-click nature of this game, it has plenty to offer. Overall, the story is original, and well-written, characters have special charm to them, and the voice acting was especially well-done. The game speaks for itself, play it!