Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear

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2.6/5

( 299 Reviews )

2.6

299 Reviews

English & 6 more

Posted on: April 4, 2016

Ramevox

Games: 650 Reviews: 68

A distasteful display.

An awful attempt for easy cash via the nostalgia blackmailing. Siege of Dragonspear is an awful production when it comes to the gameplay and all other aspects such as writing, music and the overall feel. It's bug riddled, it has UI changes that don't make any sense at all, the encounter design shows that producers have no clue how to make a BG game. Save corruption, difficulty setting is bonkers, imported characters are corrupted, the whole experience is awfully unpleasant. But what quirks me the most is writing and the obvious agenda behind it. It's one thing to implement such themes as homosexuality, deviations or sex issues - any theme or topic can enhance the writing quality without outraging masses of people if it's subtly implemented, with any kind of modesty (a good example are original Fallouts). The problem with SoD is that nobody from the staff cared about the writing or the overall quality of the product: it's obvious that these themes were pushed down the throat because of their bias and their agenda's obviously apparent goals and they're implemented in the worst way possible. Forced, hillariously stereotypical, mary-sued to the limit of normal people's level of tolerance. But the only thing they've achieved is the reveal of theirs view on customers: a dumb mass that needs to be educated along their pov, which cannot be criticized, because PC. I thought that nothing worse could happen after what I've seen recently related to Siege of Dragonspear. Oh wait, there is: the developer actually begs on the website to troll the rating and shop sites (metacritic, steam and gog) with 10/10 reviews. Take a look for yourself: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/50341/negative-reviews-on-gog-and-steam .Can't go lower than that. It's just pathetic.

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Posted on: July 14, 2016

holyknight3

Verified owner

Games: 128 Reviews: 2

Ignore the Vitrol

I was on the fence about purchasing this game, but was ultimately glad that I did. It's placement in the series allowed them to play around with the itemization, and stray from pure AD&D 2nd ed. just a little bit, ultimately for the better. There is some very tight encounter design that makes the combat more interesting, and the power level this expansion takes place in is that nice sweet spot where you have a lot of options, but aren't going to completely blow the enemy away every time without careful planing. Also of note for those who like to play Kensai dual class into mage, there is just enough XP to regain your fighter classes if you switch at Fighter 9, allowing you use all those scrolls you found in Bauldur's Gate 1. Huge plus for me. In terms of story, the expansion doesn't disappoint. I never felt like it was trying to shove any agenda down my throat, like some of the reviews have stated. There is a decent gradient of morality, and you have good opportunities to play to your alignment. You have a fair degree of latitude in how you approach the solutions. The story does a great job of making you feel like a hero, and makes for a satisfying conclusion. There were a few bugs at launch, but they seem to have been mostly fixed now. None of them stopped me from completing the game, but they did force specific solutions that I may not have perfered to take. All in all, it was a decent expansion to a well loved classic. Disclaimer: I did not complete Baldur's Gate 1 until the Enhanced Edition came out, and currently in the process of playing through Baldur's Gate 2.

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Posted on: April 3, 2023

Carnalon

Verified owner

Games: 59 Reviews: 6

Not really worth it

Here are the things that I think of when I hear "Siege of Dragonspear": 1. The dungeons are mostly bad. 2. The difficulty is really low. 3. No Imoen (if you find her annoying in BG:EE, remember that she was optional). 4. There is a really cool encounter with a lich. I really loved that part. 5. The final two acts of the story line is so much better than the beginning, though the plot "twist" is really obvious. 6. I really like the antagonist. 7. The ending is kind of terrible. 8. The experience carries over into the next game, if you want to take your character into BG2:EE. 9. When an NPC wants to talk to you in BG:EE, they will talk to the next available party member. In the base game, you very rarely said your name in the dialogues, but in this add-on, you say it constantly. Now, Jaheira, Khalid and all the others all apparently have my name. This makes me laugh sometimes, but mostly really takes me out of the immersion.

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Posted on: April 4, 2016

terrancenewman

Games: 54 Reviews: 1

Beamdog, Baldurs Gate and Politics

Let's start this review by saying I am a huge Baldur's Gate fan, having fell in love with the series in my early childhood. Baldur's Gate defined what an RPG was to me, and all games I played after it were consciously or unconsciously compared to it. Fast forward to today. I have a wife, kids, a dog, and a house to take care of it. I don't have time to sit endlessly in front of my computer anymore, but I still have my moments, and MAN was I excited when I heard there was going to be more Baldur's Gate. However, after seeing and playing this expansion, I am totally and completely disappointed. Beamdog, you have failed Baldur's Gate fans, the series, the original devs, and most importantly yourself. There is a lot of controversy right now surrounding some very hamfisted fan fiction tier writing that has made it's way into the game. I don't really care about that, however the easiest solution is to simply fire the offending party, remove the out of place content, and everyone moves on. However, even if that had happened, I still couldn't recommend this game even to the most hardcore BG fans like myself. It is not a fun game. Not only is most of the characterization done at a 4th grade level (Literally, "X is a very Y person" kind of stuff") but they have butchered the personalities of pre-existing characters to suit their own predilections. And if you can make it past the truly abysmal writing, you arrive at the absolutely embarrassing number of bugs. Here are a few examples: 1. Casting any item creation spell removes all of my gear 2. Equipping all of your items, and then leaving the inventory screen causes your gear to be removed again 3. I can't seem to mouse-over 1/2 of the NPCs in the game 4. There is an after effect of the load screen visible within the terrain in all areas tested I could forgive the stupid political crap. I could forgive the writing. I cannot forgive the bugs in conjunction with the rest of it. My rating is a 1/5, do not buy this game.

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Posted on: March 24, 2019

CarlosMoonshine

Verified owner

Games: 189 Reviews: 1

Very surprised

After seeing the grumbling and bad user reviews I assumed there had to be some truth to all the complaining - it couldn't all be just a politically motivated backlash, right? I mean, it would be so hard to make a game that captured the feeling of the original series that it made sense to me that it might fall flat. I'm a long term fan of the Infinity engine games, but I avoided this one for quite a while until someone persuaded me to give it a go. I've been stunned to discover that Dragonspear is, in fact, good. It looks both nice and faithful to the originals, with cool new areas. Dungeons are designed with the same sense of pacing: minor fights, major fights, a main story line and lots of little diversions peppered around the place. Side quests feel nicely distracting, being self-contained short stories in the way that BG2 did so memorably. Combat encounters don't feel exactly like BG1 or BG2, but perhaps like a mix of the two, with some Icewind Dale-style encounters thrown in. The best moments are when the game emulates BG2's approach to mixed, balanced enemy parties, with spellcasters working alongside warriors and such. Characters feel faithfully recreated. This is a challenge, because the original BG1 characters didn't all return to BG2 and many of them had very little characterisation in the first game. By its nature this expansion explores gaps in the story so some elements are going to be filled in that were left to our imagination before, but they do make sense and the game goes to some effort to help set up the slightly abrupt start to the prologue of BG2. With SoD installed you will start BG2 at a higher level than before (if you import your save) so that will affect the balance somewhat, but in the longer run most of BG2 is balanced for this kind of level range anyway, so apart from some of the early stuff being a little easier I don't think it upsets the flow of the game much. I'd recommend this for new and old fans of the series.

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