As I understand it, there are three main ways to play Baldur's Gate 1. Here they are, in the order they first became available:

1. Play the original classic game (which I'll call the Classic Edition). This means playing the game with the original engine, with all its quirks including the forced unpause when accessing the inventory and the slow walking speed. It also means playing without any of the classes and kits that BG2 introduced.

2. Use a total conversion mod of BG2 that changes the game into a remake of BG1 (which I'll call BG1-in-BG2). There are (at least) two well known mods that do this, TuTu and Trilogy. This gives you the enhancements that BG2 brought to the table, but also brings with it its own set of quirks, including the forced pause when accessing the inventory.

3. Use the Enhanced Edition. This, of course, further enhances the game (though, with the EE based off an updated BG2 engine, inherits some of its quirks), but it also, of course, brings quirks of its own (apparently Haste and Boots of Speed Stack?). It also adds some new characters and scenee, and there are some characters who don't like the additions.

What I am wondering is whether anyone, after playing BG2-in-BG1 or the Enhanced Edition, has ever gone back and played the Classic Edition. Have you done so, and if so, what are your thoughts on that experience? Were there things you missed, and perhaps things you didn't miss? Did anything surprise you, or not be as you remembered it?

I never returned to the classic versions. I like most of the improvements EE did to the BG mechanics. No plans to return to classic versions either. But this is the voice of minority here... :)

I've played these two games many times, but I don't even have a copy of a BG1-in-BG2-engine on my PC, be it EE or BGT. I still play the original BG1. One reason is because, BG1 was the second CRPG I played (the first being Divine Divinity) which introduced me to the whole RPG genre. I skipped meals and sleep to play it. As such, the original BG1 is very dear to me and there is nothing that can replace it.

I have done megamod installations in the past and I have played BG1 in BG2 engine, with new features, new classes, and everything. But I think I'm quite done with that. Now, when I want to do a full BG playthrough, I'd still play the original BG1, then BG2, separately.

Another reason is that, over the years, I have made countless personal modifications to the original BG1. There really is no replacing it or reproducing it.

Yet another reason, is that, to install a compact and nice copy of BGT with my favorite mods just takes way too much time, due to the fact that I'm extremely picky. Time selecting components, customizing components, resolving conflicts, then making additional personal modifications. I just can't quite find the enthusiasm to do this anymore. I did try this several months ago, because I wanted to do a full Monk playthrough from BG1, but ended up deleting the installation because I wasn't happy with it when it was done.

That's why I have no problem replaying the orignal BG1, despite its rough UI, QoL features, and engine limitations that make combat extremely awkward compared to BG2.

I know / have seen enough of the EE that I know there is no point in trying it. I have tried conversion mods / heavily modded installations in the past but I always come back to the original BG.

For reasons similar to those amazingchestahead mentioned -- I bought the game when it was released, back in 1998, and it was the game that introduced me to the genre. For me, there is no other game that evokes the kind of nostalgia that BG does. My most recent playthrough was last year and this still holds true. I also prefer it over BG2.

I'm an old fan of BG 1 & 2. I still have the old boxes with cds. Then I bought both games here on gog. Never approached the ee editions... I didn't appreciate very much what i saw from images and youtube videos about them.
I played both games with few mods, a lot of mods, trilogy, bwp, etc.
But sometimes like in these days there's a lot of nostalgia about the first Baldur's Gate. In my life this game has been very important. So every now and then I returned to the classic edition with just one mod, unfinished business. And even if I think soa + tob is better in every aspect, there's one thing that I really appreciate from the first game: the graphical interface recalling the old logo of forgotten realms which I consider much better than modern logos.

I play the original, or Classic BG1 to this day, after trying some heavy modded version (but never in BG2 engine) and EE. My journey was a follows:

I came across the game sometime in 1999 when it was released with Polish dubbing (an excellent one I might add) and I saw it when my friend's older brother was playing it. I was immediately hooked by the atmosphere of the Nashkel mines and the characters. I also saw the game in a computer magazine, which further increased my curiosity. At that time I didn't have my own PC, but my friend let me play the game for a bit and I just loved the experience.

When I got my own PC in 2000 and Baldur's Gate was one of the games I really wanted to get. Once again my friend helped me out in that regard and I finally got my own copy of the game. I loved everything about that title: the feeling of freedom, the setting, the characters, the combat, the music and sound, the graphics and the artstyle. This is still to this day my favourite title (I tend to not call things as 'the best', I prefer to call them 'my favourite', because it's a subjective matter in my opinion).

Around 2004 I got the Internet connection and I've completed the game at least twice and I tried the sequel (didn't like it). I've came across the DSotSC mod, which was a totally new concept to me. I managed to install it and it changed the game quite a bit, adding new challenges and extending the playthrough.

With time I've found some other mods, like NTotSC, which made the game even longer and more difficult. I tend to go through games quite slowly, so BG1 turned into this enormous behemoth of a title that took months to complete. I never tried the BG2 engine mods, due to my negative opinion of the sequel.

I'm not sure of the exact timeline, but I think in somewhere around 2011 I went back to BG1 and I thought about the way I should play it. I noticed that all those mods changed the atmosphere of the original game, some of thoe additions were really nice and well made (I was even testing the v3.00 of NTotSC mod that unfortunately was never finished), but to me it didn't feel like BG1, but BG1 on steroids. So, I decided to go back to the original game and love playing it that way to this day.

When EE came out, I gave it a try, even though it uses BG2 engine and has some questional changes/additions that I didn't like. Played it untill chapter 5 and gave up on it. It just doesn't feel like BG1 to me as well and doesn't even look like it.

So, after different experiences I still play the original with all its quirks and low resolution. To me all those things add to the experience: the stone GUI, the unpaused inventory screen, the slow walking speed, the original cinematics, the loading screens etc. That's the original authors' version and I just love it that way.

I love the original and have nostalgia for it as much as anyone but there's litterally zero point in not playing it in the BGII engine. All the nostalgia is the same, you just have better features and implementations and the game works much better and as actually intended with all the AI pathfinding and combat fixes that don't change the underlying mechanics much or the story and choices and progression and graphics in any way that makes them not nostalgic any more,. It's not like we're talking about some remake that looks and plays like Shytrim and happens to have the BG name, it's just the original but improved in all the right ways, not like those X-Wing Windows editions that changed mechanics, music and graphics or other re-releases of games that had actual bad points to them compared to the original. All the good stuff is in and better than ever. Pretty much how BG would have been if they had made 2 first and then 1 as a prequel in the same engine and with the same systems etc. Anything else is just ocd or something like it, haha.

I disagree with this. The underlying mechanics and even combat encounters are changed. A LOT. The class kits and new classes alone change the game in a huge way, adding a lot of powerful options that the original game was simply never designed around. On top of that there are also a lot of new spells and abilities that were added in BG2 that weren't present in BG (i.e. weren't taken into account when designing enemies and combat encounters) and the BG2 engine somehow changes the monster spawning nodes, causing the number of creatures per "pack" in the wilderness, etc. to be vastly different from how they were in the original game -- a problem that, to my knowledge, neither BG1Tutu nor BGT, or even the EE were ever able to fix.

There are more changes but most of them are visual and they impact the gameplay less (though they do, in many ways, change the "feel" of the game) but the above actually causes BG in the BG2 engine to be a vastly different experience than unmodded / non-EE BG. Many players might not care, but for people interested in the authentic, original experience -- BGTutu, BGT and the EE are very far from it.

Yes, BG2 engine changes the gameplay a lot and not in the direction that I prefer. To give a list of some of the differences:
- new spells
- increased movement speed
- kits
- dual-wielding
- weapon style proficiencies
- 100% chance spell scirbing
- experience for scribing scrolls and thieving skills
- magic resist does not apply to healing spells
- summons limit to 5 units
- weaker archery

Apart from those, the characters in BG2 engine just look ugly and the animations are mirrored, now that's an improvement.

IIRC, this only happens in BG2 if either:
1. The difficulty is set to Normal or Easy; on Core Rules or higher, this does not happen. This is the most likely cause.
2. The character's Intelligence is really high, like 24 or higher. An Intelligence score this high is not something that can easily happen; you might only see this in BG2's tutorial, where the mage there is given 25 INT just to make sure that a failure doesn't occur when the game is teaching you how to scribe scrolls.

Of course, the other changes you mentioned *do* apply. Personally, I don't mind the introduction of weapon style proficiencies, as they feel like a meaningful and fair choice.

What I *do* mind, however, is the splitting of weapon proficiencies into smaller categories. I dislike the system in the first place (how do you know what each weapon type is good for without knowing what can be found in the game?), and BG2 makes it even worse. I would much prefer a system where you could make use of any new weapon you could fnd, and where the only weapon proficiencies were like weapon style proficiencies (but add at least one ranged option here).

I really don't like the EE version. Everything is off. Picking inventory items isn't snappy, the new menus look awful and bad design, graphics are too smooth and milky...Mostly everyone will say, 'but its so much more convenient!.....".
Its basically like saying the new modern MINIs are so much better than the old ones. No point arguing.
The ultimate best way to play BG2 is to download the original game, then MOD it (fix pack, SCS, quest packs etc...).

I am not a hater on all the EE games. I think planescape torment EE is incredible. Somehow they kept most of the design intact, just made very minor changes. BG2EE is just awfull.

I try different versions. There are things I like about the original, things I like about Tutu and things I like about Enhanced Edition. There's no definitive version among them. Last playthrough was in the original engine. Next time I want to play with Tutu, admittedly partially because my current monitor has really bad handling of the fog of war dither pattern. This reads like someone who's never played the original Baldur's Gate. It plays very different to any modification (EE/Tutu) that runs it in the Baldur's Gate II engine.

I play only classic versions of BG and BG2, maybe with some small mods that fix some issues.I really dislike EE editions of these two games. It feels like I am playing different games with terrible UI.

On the other hand, IWD EE and Torment EE are great. They feel like the originals with minor tweaks to make them work on modern systems. This is not however the case for BG:EE and BG2:EE.

None of these games are even playable and no one knows anything which explains why everyone that claims they know so much about this, has never once been able to answers a single question I've asked no matter how nice I was or how detailed I presented the problem. I even made videos showing the issues and still never got any answers.

So to answer the question of did anyone go back to this, the answer is no because no one on this forum knows anything about this game or how to play it.