Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

When I was younger I remember people telling me to play Baldur's Gate. I was never interested because I was obsessed with JRPGs like Final Fantasy (to this day, I still feel that FF6 is the best RPG ever made). However, overtime I started to go outside of my "safe zone" and started to experiment with other games outside of the JRPG genre. My first being Morrowind, which to this day I still consider one of the greatest games ever made -- however, too vast for me to want to play all over again. After that, I thought I had had my fill of cRPGs, so I didn't bother. Now I'm older and I finally decided to play Baldur's Gate, and fortunately it was an update Enhanced Edition. I beat it just last night. So what's my take? Spectacular. For being such an old game, it was a wonderfully balanced experience. It had the same atmosphere as Morrowind, but not too vast. It had the same deep story and emotional connection to characters as many jRPGs, but not as linear. That said, I didn't really know how to think of it at first. The first 2 chapters or so are a bit confusing and somewhat shallow, but I now know it was for the sake of building up the story. I had a difficult time getting used to combat at first, but once you understand the system and start to strategize, it really grows on you. Your characters are extremely weak till around 5-6 levels, so don't expect to be battling anything serious till this point. In the meantime, explore with caution. Oul of all the fights I can remember though, the most epic was during Minsc's quest to save his friend. Storming the Gnoll fort was insane. I remember luring a bunch of Gnoll commandos down and having a massive fight on the stairs -- arrows, magic missiles, dead bodies strewn about -- JR Tolkien would be proud. However, exploring was the real treat in Baldur's Gate. I felt that all the sidequests were a game on their own, and every character had a real personality, problem, and adventure behind them. I actually enjoyed taking sidequests because of this. I think I spent more time on sidequests than I did on the main story -- and that's saying something. And unlike many other players, I felt the alignment and reputation system was really interesting. It did annoy me a bit when some of my evil characters wanted to leave because of my high rep, but there are so many other good characters to use that I got over it. And the great thing is, even if you're far into the game, any new characters you pick up automatically goes up to the level of your other party members. You can also focus on their individual quests any time you feel like it (except for those with a time limit, but that's rare). In other words, if you've grown attached to one character and you lose them, don't worry, because most of the companions you pick up are worth knowing. The dialogue is also wonderful and you can tell they put a lot of time into the story, which although doesn't have the biggest jaw dropping moments (like JRPGs), but is intricate, believable, and takes itself seriously. In other words, it's a story for a mature minded audience who appreciate politics, psychology, and the nuance of human nature. My only gripes? Dying is a real pain in this game. Even if I lost one companion in battle I would reload, because the thought of having to pick up all their gear and rush back to a temple to revive them was not on my list of things to do. Also, sometimes if you select all your party members at once and tell them to walk somewhere, one might get stuck behind another NPC. it was always annoying when I was about to move to another location and then realizing one of my characters was still on the other side of the screen because they were stuck behind someone else. Healing was also a difficulty -- the potions were just far too weak between the middle and end of the game. Even healing spells weren't that great. I also experienced some bugs near the end with dialogue not popping up or my journal updating the beginning of special events only after they were completed. And perhaps the biggest let down was the ending. After I beat the last boss, the only thing I was rewarded with was a slowly zoomed in artistic cinematic of the boss laying on the ground dead. While I was happy that I finally beat the game (and this almost impossible to kill boss), I was extremely disappointed that there was nothing to say after. So what happens to our hero? How does the story wrap up? There isn't anything to tell you. The game just ends. Despite these minor issues, the game still deserves major praise. I hope that BG2 is as better as they say, because I have very high expectations after this one.

Still has the same problems that it had 10 years ago. I love the original game, but this version just randomly freezes. Kinda weird, that still nobody fixed these issues. You got to quicksave so much, not because you die, but because it freezes randomly on you.

From my point of view, a gamer that has played both the original and this one, EE is the better game today. I own the retail versions of BG, BGII and IWD and loved playing them back in 2000ish. I've spent tons of hours on those games exploring everything in an age where walkthroughs and the freedom of forums wasn't that wide spread. A few years ago I wanted to get back to the series for old time sake, and after installing the game, I couldn't get past the interface issues. An old game, on my huge 24" screen looks plain ugly, doesn't matter how you look at it. And I hate playing windowed mode. So I skipped playing the game. When the EE version was announced I was very excited and I even pre-ordered it on beamdog (I own both BG titles there). My expectations were exceeded. I just loved the new look & feel of the game. As much as possible, beamdog managed to bring an epic titles back to the 21st century. So positives: - great look and feel, doesn't lose any of the original flavour. I was excited to battle Dragons and the Illithids :) - there are class kits just as NWN has, yay! - the new added characters manage to bring extra fun to the game. The dialogues are great and lots of fun. (wild mage rocks :)) - UI, did I mention the UI? Big resolution....

We tried to play it with just two players over LAN and Internet. We connected just fine but the game crashes alot making it almost unplayable past the first few hours.

Now this is the game I remember from my childhood. If you want to play Baldur's Gate again, go ahead and buy it. Perhaps the price is a little too high for such an old game, but if you wait for a sale, you can buy it really cheap.