Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear

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2.6/5

( 296 Reviews )

2.6

296 Reviews

English & 6 more

Posted on: December 30, 2020

anicsin

Verified owner

Games: 183 Reviews: 4

Sloppy

It's hard to write a review about SoDS, because I wanted to like it so badly. The teaser got me super hyped and I just couldn't wait til I've finished BG. -Story This is the part that I've liked the least. I kinda see what the writer(s) had in mind, they wanted to make BG more like D&D, they wanted to open up the lore and the world a little bit. You see a lot of famous monsters from D&D, but the thing is they couldn't really integrate them into the story, they were just there. Hey look, a cool monster we all like, hey look a nice piece from the lore. But they didn't connect... also the maps were really dumb. In BG you had a feeling of a world that was more or less alive. Here you can have the camps of two enemies just a short distance from each other, also look there is this cool crypt and oh wow that sidequest. Just too much on a single map. Altogether the story was more like a usual campaign from D&D, but BG wasn't like that, it was much more and I expected more from SoDS as well. Disappointing. -Sound and visual design This is where I really have to give credit to Beamdog, nothing to complain about. -Characters A lot of people have written about how Beamdog has changed some of the original characters. Altough I can see why people didn't like the way they took them, it didn't really bother me. What did is how agressively the writer(s) tried to force new elements into the characters. But unlike others I liked Glint, he was a charmy fellow. What I didn't like is that the new rogue characters were kinda useless in combat. But I enjoyed that the characters had a lot of dialogues between them. -Mechanics? Dunno So last but not least, the difficulty. I did this on insanse and oh boy... the difficulty curve was just so off sometimes. You'll know when you get there I guess. But really imbalanced, something similar to IWD1. Overall: nice addition to BG2 story, but boring or outright dumb quests and writing choices. Would recommend with a high discount only.

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Posted on: September 10, 2021

jharrison02

Verified owner

Games: 6 Reviews: 1

Mostly enjoyable transition between games

I generally enjoyed this game, with a few caveats -- I think there should have been more recruit-able NPCs from BG1 (from the beginning, while in BG), and the plot is a little too linear for the kind of re-play ability I'm used to with BG1/2. SoD also interrupts the progression for some soloing character classes (for example, the case of a Kensai dualed to a Mage/Thief due to the XP allocation). There's two really outstanding dungeons in this game, and the underground river map is absolutely jam packed with stuff to do and explore. All of the backgrounds look fantastic, and are probably the best in the series. Could the transition between these two games have been tied up with a cut-scene? Yes, but who actually watches them now? If you've played both BG1 and BG2, then go ahead and play this (if I was a new player, I don't think I would want to dip my feet into this saga with this game). I'm going to give it 5 stars, because GoG doesn't do fractions (I would have given it 4.5 stars).

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Posted on: January 30, 2022

Louard_le_Barbare

Verified owner

Games: 293 Reviews: 124

Totally skippable, but... mostly fine?

As expected, this “midquel” released 17 years after the original Baldur's Gate is lackluster in some regards. It feels fanficy, kind of barges into the established canon, and it is difficult to swallow that all the epic hijinx the characters get into happened right between BG1 and 2; in fact, the only real ties to Shadows of Amn are shoehorned in at the very last minute! But if you can get past this, it's actually quite enjoyable. The writing is nothing earth-shattering really, but let's be honest here, BG1 also was a fairly standard fantasy story: this expansion is at least on par with it, and even exceeds it in some regards! It is a badass tale about traveling through the country to take part in an epic battle, and I'm all for it. Many of the quests present you with interesting and subtle situations, and several characters are non-conventional, likable or memorable - notably the main antagonist Caelar Argent, who puts a neat twist on the “loyal good” alignment! Overall, a lot of efforts have clearly been put into this. Some original voice actors are back, and as for the atmosphere... BG always was a great-looking game, but the backgrounds here are straight up gorgeous (to the point where their level of detail can be jarring!), and the new soundtrack is fittingly beautiful and epic. The gameplay is mostly more of the same... It has more dungeon crawling than the original campaign, so your mileage may vary on that. The level design is solid, and while there are a bunch of challenging fights, rarely do they felt cheap or unfair to me. However, it is very linear and has several points of no return: make sure to complete every quest before doing anything that might advance the story! So yeah, SoD falls into a lot of predictable traps, you can skip it without missing much... but it's ambitious, fun to play, the writing is okay, and clearly, a lot of love was put into it. Maybe it would have worked better as a standalone story, but overall, it's worth a playthrough!

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Posted on: April 14, 2022

Grimo88

Games: 54 Reviews: 2

A tragic gem

It's sad that in 2022 the review-bombing one star scores still dominate the GoG page. This expansion suffered greatly at the hands of toxic politics on both sides of the political spectrum. I maintain that the inclusion of LGBTQ characters in the game was not the problem, but the bizarre marketing leading up to release, in which a very vociferous lead writer marginalised the community by claiming that she was bringing a sexist, awful story into the 21st century and if they didn't like it, too bad. But guess what - it's a really good little module. Encounters are tight, balanced and very clever. There's multiple ways to solve a few quests - something the original, for all its flaws, didn't really do. As a huge BG2 fan, I actually prefer Dragonspear to ToB. None of the toxicitiy above takes away from some great design, and the emotional impact of hearing those voice actors again. It's a really faithful expansion that was buried beneath hideous US politics. More faithful, I would argue, than BG3. If you're on the fence, it is totally worth it whether you are a new or old player.

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Posted on: March 7, 2023

Danvil

Verified owner

Games: 61 Reviews: 6

Great game in the style of BG1/2

After reading all the negative reviews I hesitated quite a bit before buying this. However it turns out this is not the pile of garbage some people pretend it to be. I played BG1/2 back in 1998 and over the year went through it maybe three of four times. Dragonspear adds a bunch of refreshing new content between the two games. It is not easy to bridge the story perfectly as BG2 has to start with the good canon party, no matter what happened in BG1, or what you choose in Dragonspear. Overall it did a good enough job. The story is written well and I really don't understand the hate which some of the new characters got. I rarely, if at all encountered them anyways. Played with Dorn and Baeloth and they are both in the style of other classic BG characters. The game is overall a bit more linear than BG1 and smaller than BG2. The maps are smaller and denser which works well. Some of the BG1 maps are a bit too big and empty. Pretty much everything else is like BG1 and BG2, and as I like those games there is not much to complain about. Now I can play from Nashkel all the way to the throne of Ball a continuous giant 200 something hour great fantasy opus!

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