Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Baldur’s Gate is a classic. It revived RPGs and started Bioware’s years long career as a leading RPG craftsmen. How does it stand the test of time? It’s… alright. While none of the individual elements stand out, the game is polished and plays well even 20 years after release. The 2nd D&D edition is a bit archaic, with awkward restrictions and really rigid class system and the story is nothing to brag about. Encounters are simplistic often consisting of same types of enemies making any tactics or strategies nonexistent. However, the game has a sense of adventure and warmth, which makes it worth giving a shot, though I would recommend starting with the sequel. It is a much better game in writing, pacing and gameplay. I like the technical side of the EE. Beamdog added a lot of really neat functionality, which make Baldur’s Gate a much more pleasant experience to play. A UI to loot corpses without individually clicking on each one, inventory screen showing changes to stats when equipping items, health bars, zoom, proper though somewhat buggy journal. What I dislike a lot are the creative additions made to the game. For one – “remastered cinematics”. It is shocking to see worse cinematics added to such an old game. Poorly drawn, static images often fail to communicate scenes from the original game and would be better left unchanged. Luckily original cutscenes can be modded back in, which I would strongly recommended doing. Beamdog also added three new companions. While the idea itself isn’t the worst ever, as with enhanced engine there are new classes which aren’t covered by original companions, their design, look and writing simply stick out. It is after all, an old stylized game, and while writing in BG1 isn’t stellar the new additions simply don’t gel with the rest of the experience. EE comes with classic edition, and I would consider giving it a shot first and switching to EE only if experience proves to be too archaic.

Baldur's gate enhanced edition has no flaws that I was able to find. Plays really well. If your new to the game same often during the course of the game. I bought this game on sale for $4.99 on gog. Also got got original saga for free. Thanks GOG for a great deal!

I just recently completed this game and it's nice how they incorporated many of the changes that were in Baldur's Gate II into this game such as kits, half-orcs and so on. Sure you could probably get those same functions with mods, but it's nice to be able to just install the game with those features already there. Speaking of mods, you can still use a whole bunch of mods. I used the tweaks anthology from gibberlings3.net to customize the game to my tastes, and I'd probably recommend the same for most players. Incorporating things from 3rd edition like mages being able to wear armor albeit with a spell casting failure percentage is pretty awesome. As for the story itself, it's still the same great story from before. I do wish there was a better postgame. Once you get to a certain point in the game, it just doesn't feel right to be going off and doing sidequests after the return to Candlekeep. The whole Tales of the Sword Coast expansion would really be better suited to being played after defeating Sarevok. I'd much rather do that than play Siege of Dragonspear, but that's another review. Once you defeat Sarevok that ends the game, so you can never get back to those other quests if you didn't complete them beforehand. Some of those quests are pretty difficult, thus the increase in level cap. That would be a feature that would definitely help out this game in my opinion. One other small, minor quibble I'd like to add. They redid all of the movies in this game. Maybe it's just me, but I'd like the option of being able to view the old movies from the original release after completing the game. Long story short, if you are a fan of the original game and/or AD&D, you can't go wrong getting this version of the game.

Disclaimer: I played this game for the first time in 2019. I beat the game on "core rules" in 2019, and have played it off and on since, trying to beat it on harder difficulties. Graphics: B. Even for an older game, I don't mind the graphics in Baldur's Gate. It is easy to tell what objects are meant to represent, and considerable effort was obviously put into backgrounds. Of course more modern games have better graphics, but these get the job done. Combat mechanics: A. I feel that from a game mechanics perspective, Baldur's Gate accomplished what it set out to do. Combat is surprisingly flexible and manageable for a party-based RPG. Character creation: D. While I like the wide range of races, classes, skills, and attributes, this concept of clicking "reroll stats" can turn into a major time waster. "Well why shouldn't I just sit here and click re-roll untill I get nearly perfect stats?" Indeed. That is the logical thing to do, the problem is that doing so is tedious and completely unnecessary. I would have greatly preferred a "pool of numbers" to allocate rather than rolling dice. This is a legitimate way of creating characters in the tabletop version of D&D, and it removes this feeling of being "cheated by chance." My advice is to not spend too much time on character creation if you just want to experience the game for the first time. Expect to die semi-frequently no matter what you choose. Story: C. The main story is decent, but there are a lot of dumb side quests. Music, sound effects, voice acting, and cut scenes: C. While not terrible, the same short music clips loop throughout the game. My advice is to simply turn off all sound and listen to music you actually enjoy in the background. All of the dialog shows in text, so you aren't missing anything. Replayability: D. I didn't find any difficulty level above "core rules" even remotely enjoyable. Overall: Recommended for a single playthrough on "core rules."

A classic RPG. I starting playing it for the first time a couple of months ago. It can at times seem archaic and unforgiving but give it time and once you get into it, the experience is wonderful. Puts a lot of modern games to shame with it's emphasis on a rich and rewarding combat experience based on the AD&D rule set. It's well worth while familiarising yourself with the rules before starting the game as they will help with understanding the stats system. There are quite a few mods which will improve the game. The gibberlings3 have some nice mods for the game. As a add on the Siege of Dragonspear adds more to the story. Now onto BG2. I found the game to work flawlessly on Linux so a big thank you to BeamDog for investing the effort in the Linux port.