Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

The best DnD RPG ever, pure classic, childhood memories.

The decision to charge more price and hide the originals is very puzzling, don't give this company your money.

I'm not sure if I reviewed BG 2 non EE, but if I did my review was biased. I never really liked BG saga, Torment and IWD. It was because Fallout and Fallout 2 destroyed any other game for me. However, I finished both Fallouts dozens of times and now I wanted to give BG II:EE another try. I have to say it will probably become my third favorite game of all times. I don't like writing too much in review, so I'll just list advantages and disadvantages (just kidding): + big and interesting world, + very interesting and useful companions. + very good character development system and great combat (I always though AD&D is crap, but now I see it's great) which demands a lot of thinking and tactical play, + great music and graphics still looks nice in FullHD (in some places very nice), + real cRPG where we can kill whoever we want, + there are a lot more I'm sure, but I only have 30 hours of playing so far some disadvantages, but they're enhanced edition related: - awful journal! - world map zoom in and out is out of place imho Pillars of Eternity related part: I like Pillars of Eternity, but it looses badly in comparison to BG 2 in few very important cases. Some examples: - stupid storyline with reincarnation thing. It just kills the game for me, because reincarnation makes everything meaningless. Who cares if I die or if I kill some mystical creature when we'll reborn in some other bodies? - boring and non tactical combat. I don't know what's exactly wrong with PoE combat, but it doesn't feel alright. There are no equal fights. They're too hard or too easy and there are dozens of creatures with every boss. In BG 2 for example my entire party had trouble with single, but powerful vampire. - while I like RPG system in PoE it has big disadvantages: fighters don't get additional attacks and don't do additional damage with higher levels (except when you take some perks). Monks for example are very fast and they get damage bonuses with every level. This is a joke, because bare hand freaking monk does more damage than skilled fighter equipped with two magical sabres! - many abilities, potions are restricted to combat which is damn stupid.

I would give maybe 4.5 stars, but I'll round up to 5 since the older reviews don't reflect the fact that the bugs have been fixed. This game had tons of side quests, and you're allowed to choose when (and if) to complete them. There are also many NPC's (characters that will offer to join your party) to choose from. A few critiques: (1) The mysteries to be solved are simplistic. The game overemphasizes quantity of quests over quality. (2) I would have liked to have had lots of outdoor battles in open spaces surrounded by hordes of enemies. So many powerful spells could only be used in a limited way in this game, in tight spaces against small numbers of enemies. (3) Many weapons classes (clubs, flails, morning stars, daggers, darts, spears, warhammers, scimitars, wakizashis, ninjatos and katanas) were too under-represented among powerful weapons (+4, +5, and +6 range) to find/upgrade. There's quite a few powerful two-handed swords, but so many other weapon classes were neglected. If you're not very familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, you'll have to play a little while to learn about the different character classes and abilities, the different spells, etc, but you can learn as you go. Also note that the little lantern icon in the bottom right corner is important. It turns party AI on and off, and you will want to turn it off at times if you don't want to pull your hair out in frustration when trying to direct your characters. With the AI on, characters will attack enemies automatically, even if you repeatedly move them away, and they will also cast certain spells (such as healing) automatically, which will be wasted if you move the character after they begin casting, or if multiple characters cast heal on one character at the same time. It's impossible to use the Bard Song ability with the AI on, as your bard will immediately stop playing and start attacking.

By brilliant, I do mean the game itself. Baldur's Gate 2 much, much, muuuuuuuuuch better than the original. The story seems to start out a bit separate than the story in the original but it grows larger into a tale of how you will decide your fate. While most modern rpgs boast about how "you can be a cool dude, or you can be a bad dude, your choice" in the marketing, Baldur's Gate 2 does it right, because you CAN be a cool dude or a bad dude. Your choices have consequences and the story is a major moral turning point for your character. The story is about embracing your heritage, and becoming what you were destined to be, and it can take a different moral based on how YOU play. The writing is fantastic, every quest has meaning to it, and it all works. The infinity engine is great, as always, it's just a great game, play it now. The EE is okay, I guess. I don't like the extra content Beamdog put in, but you can avoid that. What you've got here is an amazing game. EE - 4/5 Original - 5/5