Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

One of the best RPGs of all time. It's impossible to do a decent review without it going into pages. The enhanced edition is great, despite initial teething problems. Tons of bug fixes that were never in the original game, plus it plays absolutely perfectly on modern hardware. The quality of life changes made can all be turned off if you want a more 'classic' style.

Unless.... First thing first. If you never played DnD ever, I really recommend to start with Baldurs Gate, because the lower starting classes and therefore difficulty. But if you committed yourself and ready to thoroughly learn Thac0 and spells (there are a lots), so fighting, you are good to go. Just don't complain if you a casual player because its not at all, but you'll see eventually! :P And there is no shame Resting in the game. ;)

I have played from the beginning multiple times and always have to start over because it will not let me save the game. I have tried multiple fixes from various web sources, but nothing seems to work. At this point I cannot play it and because its been more than 30 days I am stuck with it. Not happy. Will not purchase from this developer again.

It's Baldur's Gate alright. And the graphical improvements are a godsend (yes, I know that the vanilla game has a high resolution mod, but for me at least the EE fix works better. ONCE YOU DISABLE THE UGLY CHARACTER OUTLINES THAT IS). There's also some new content; new classes and such for what I can tell. It's somewhat interesting, but there are mods out there that do the same thing just as well, so this is zero-sum. By the way, while BGtweaks works, many vanilla trilogy mods still don't work. The deal-killer is the price. Spin it any way you like, these improvements are just not worth the money when you can get the original saga for a third of the price. It's still the same game. I only got it because there was a 85% discount. I advise you wait for the same, or a better one.

Baldur's Gate II is, in this humble reviewer's opinion, the greatest PC RPG ever made. This is doubly true if you enjoy party-based cooperative questing. The writing is top-notch and the joinable party members are colorful without seeming absurd (usually). The Dungeons and Dragons fantasy world is engrossing and, after the prologue dungeon, manages to largely avoid the tired and overdone "grittiness" of many recent PC adventures. The brother and sister team of main villains are both intimidating and tragic in their backstory as it is revealed throughout the adventure. The voice acting hits the perfect notes almost universally. The combat is tactically rich, especially in the area of spell-based protections and piercing. For example, your warriors may be able to tear an unprotected enemy wizard to shreds in seconds, but you will often find that their attacks are deflected harmlessly by the wizard's protective enchantments unless your own mage has a counterspell to pierce his shield. The enemies are varied in their designs and abilities, requiring the party to change tactics in many cases to avoid being, to use one of the most insidious examples, vaporized by the eye lasers of a group of beholders. Although my description of the tactics in the game sound reminiscent of several other RPGs, you will quickly realize that this game is not designed to baby the players. If you don't have an appropriate protective enchantment or a thief that can disarm a particularly deadly trap, Baldur's Gate II is perfectly happy to figuratively sit and laugh as you struggle in futility. The Enhanced Edition adds a nice facelift and some quality of life features while tinkering very little with the greatness of the original version. The game also features one of the largest modding communities for any series, and the adventure can be enjoyed anew through future playthroughs with a custom set of mods installed. Note: story-centric individuals may want to play Baldur's Gate 1 first.