Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Removed the gamma/brightness settings. Too Dark, Massive Eyestrain, (In Durag's tower dungeon especially.) Requires a third party mod/addon to be able to see what your characters are doing. In 2021. NEXT!

This game - considered a bonafide CRPG classic by most - is a disappointment for one reason: Its gameplay does not hold up. It's not a matter of archaic UI's, confusing journals or other things one might associate with old games. The EE fixes most of these issues, and even if it didn't I'm perfectly used to playing games like Fallout 1 and 2 along with Planescape Torment, games that are known to unintuitive, wonky and somewhat outdated. No, Baldur's Gate is simply a game that fails to challenge or provide fun combat encounters. I went into it expecting tactical battles where I'd have to utilize potions, spells and weapons in a variety of ways in order to beat colorful and differentiated enemies. But most battles are against samey looking goblins, gibberlings and goblydoinks that simply line up for the slaughter, while all I have to do is press the attack button and watch the animations play out. They're spread out across dozens and dozens of samey looking forests and mines that my OCD compels me to clear, but provide me with no exhiliration or excitement at all. It's been a chore, really, and the only reason I carry on is to import my character into the vastly superior Baldur's Gate 2. I don't know if it's an issue with the EE or if I'm merely a much better player than 15 years ago, but I don't remember this game being so easy. In my 27 hours of playing, I've had a total of five hard battles. Most of them in Durlag's Tower, a dungeon that appears to have been designed by someone else entirely. I went into this game well aware that it's unremarkable in the story department, that the companions have no personality to speak of and that most quests are of the basic "go fetch my boots from a bridge troll" variety. I didn't mind that. What I did mind is that what I had percieved to be the game's saving grace, its combat, was no good. Now I just hope Baldur's Gate 2 holds up better so I haven't wasted my time playing the first one.

Baldur's Gate is a very, very good game. This is an average-to-good update of it. The more modern UI is a welcome change, the widescreen and high resolution support is good, and it's great to see a beloved old series resuscitated. Those two things are the biggest changes and I don't know if maybe I was expecting a bit more. That said, they have done a lot of bug-squashing and improved the game and engine in ways which are less obvious at first-glance. Mods are available for the orginal, of course, but you can't crank the game to the standard of the EE. Plus, modders don't owe you updates, bug fixes, or a working product in the same way that a paid developer does. I don't think it hurts to incentivise and reward pros for taking care of classics. I rather like the idea that someone is locked into giving a damn about this game for the near future - Beamdog have kept it bouncing along for a good few years now whereas it was becoming widely forgotten by the broader gaming community before they picked it up. Unfortunately, despite all the good they've done, they did feel the need to tinker with the plot and world a bit. As with most writing teams who want to put their own stamp on a classic, the guys who were tasked with adding new stuff messed it up: The new characters are incongruous and irritiating. To be clear though, the new characters are partly avoidable. They might dominate the occasional scene but can be largely payed around in the grand scheme of things. The other major creative change they made is the cutscenes. I think they're fine. It's obvious that (a) the janky late 90s cgi animations had to go and that (b) whatever creative choice they made would upset some people. I don't have an issue with their solution except they have removed some very dialogue from the into (I didn't check the rest but probably the same). Overall though, this is a very, very good game and the EE is probably, now, the best way to play it.

I am reviewing the original version of Baldur's Gate w/ Tales of the Sword Coast expansion here, which is included as a bonus game if you purchase the Enhanced Edition (I've yet to play the EE). Baldur's Gate is an excellent "traditional" style party-based RPG full of exploration, party building, and questing, based on the venerable Advanced Dungeons & Dragon rules. The twist back when BG1 was first released was that the combat was in real-time, instead of turn-based as in previous games based on AD&D. BG1 also had exceptional graphics when it was released, which was of course a selling point back then. How about now? It's fantastic. I have always preferred turn-based combat, and so I have had trouble getting into BG1 over the years. However, it finally clicked on my latest attempt (started last year), and I found myself getting addicted to the game. It contains a truly massive world to explore, full of hidden quests, characters, and equipment; thrilling combat that can sometimes become a bit frustrating but allows for tactics that would simply not have been possible in the classic AD&D Gold Box games; and a fun story that keeps you interested over the 70 hours or so it will take to complete the game. So, why not five stars? There are a couple things bringing the experience down. First is the inconsistent writing. Dialog related to the main story is all written quite well, but the dialog in the optional content is just awful. More importantly, some of the mandatory "boss" encounters can be a massive increase in difficulty if you haven't prepared ahead of time... which is impossible on your first playthrough, so you'll probably have to die and reload a few times to figure out what to do. On the other hand, the game is so open-ended and massive that you can always choose to put a difficult encounter aside and go explore or do some quests elsewhere. All in all, BG1 completely deserves its status as a classic of the genre!

With BG3 coming up thought I would refresh my memory and replay the series. As it has been a long time between games I can't really say if this version is worse than the original all I can say is I had fun playing it again.