Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

When I first heard about the plans for enhancing Baldur's Gate, I was quite skeptical. As a fan of BG saga, I was afraid that the changes will ruin the story, that the new NPCs wouldn't fit the world, etc. I wanted to play BG again so I decided to give a try and bought the Enhanced edition to be able to play it on today's computers. I really enjoyed it, there are no radical changes that will ruin the game. I like that you can use the kits from BG2 and that many bugs have been fixed. Thank's to this edition, I can play it again on modern computers with slightly improved graphics (which supports higher resolution). The only thing I don't like is that Beamdog removed the original animations and use some comics-like movies, but it's still OK.

This game was an absolute blast! I've tried playing it multiple times, both the original not long after it first came out as well as the Enhanced Edition, and for some reason I always fell off, having trouble stick with it. This time around I actually kept going and found myself really enjoying the game. I've played through the first 1/4-1/3 multiple times over the years, so finally making it past that point was incredibly rewarding. I definitely enjoyed some of the small touches of the Enhanced Edition, making an older game at least slightly more playable than it's original form. The modern widescreen resolutions, the touchup to the overall UI, seeing the background walkable area on maps, colored character circles, and containers for different types of items were just some of the things that helped make the game feel a little more modern and playable. The story got really good as I made my way further and further actually getting into the city itself and falling into a good bit of political intrigue. It was refreshing seeing something different that just the typical fantasy RPG tropes, which while definitely present were enhanced by some different ideas that I know were new in the late 90s. It is a bit hard to go back to a game that was created in a time where things were kept a little too open on where to go or what to do next, but I finally just let myself play the game without worrying about what I might be missing, trying to play with guides, and just enjoying the experience. Maybe I'll actually go back and play a different type of character with a different party and see some of the things I missed, I enjoyed the final product enough to actually think about doing that someday. Now though it's time to move on to BG2 which is a game that again I played a little back when it came out, but never got very far into, and from what I know about it it's considered one of the greatest RPGs of all time. i'm excited to see what they improved on from the first game!

As of 2020, this game is working absolutely great. I haven't played BG in over 20 years so I don't remember a lot of the minute differences, but I encountered almost no bugs (Dynaheir refused to find me after I recruited Minsc, had to console her in). There are no black borders around characters, no crashes, etc. I don't know of any reason to prefer the Steam version over this. It works fine.

I played the original back in the day and now I'm finally replaying this version today and I have to say, I'm really pleased with the enhancements and additions. The new quests are interesting and really fill out the game well. I'll be honest, most of the graphical enhancements weren't really that noticable for me except for the ability to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel which I find myself using all the time. There's a bunch of "quality of life" improvements that make this a lot easier to play than the original on today's PCs, not the least of which is the ability to scale the game flawlessly for the higher resolutions we use today. All in all, an excellent version of a timeless classic, even if I do miss the cheesy CGI animated cutscenes from the original. I think the one thing I appreciate beyond everything else is something that really doesn't apply to this version - Beamdog's porting of this game to just about every platform under the sun. For years I sang the virtues of this game to mostly deaf ears and the more time passed the deafer they got. Having the original Infinity Engine game available on almost everything makes it more accessible than ever. If this version is what prompted this new renaissance, I'm doubly grateful for it.

I don't get all the hate for the EEs. Its BG that runs well on modern systems and all you to scale to modern resolutions without running through hours of modding.