I bought the two BG games recently to play through Radmin with a few friends, and I would like to know which version is better (We're starting with BG1.)

All the reviews in the storepage seems to indicate the Enhanced version isn't worth it, and most reviews just say to play the original version instead. But these reviews are also old, like, from 2015 or so. So I'd like to know if that's still the case and the original version is still better, or if I should play the Enhanced edition.

There are threads in this forum where people do nothing but argue about which is better. They become quite heated about this and there is a lot of name-calling. I'm sad to see another thread like this getting started. I hope people will be civil.

Oof, my bad. I didn't know I was about to unleash that kinda thing by asking this question. If the moderators want to delete my post before it gets too heated, please, go ahead.

Well first of all, I dont know if you bought BG here on GoG, but you can only buy the EEs here anyway, which (with some trickery explained in one of the sticky threads) gives you access to BOTH versions, without needing a DVD for either.


Then you can play one and then the other and compare for yourself.


Many, including me, prefer the originals. The new content, lets just say its a bit shaky in quality, especially the new NPCs.


But the EEs are far simpler to install.

They are so bugfixed that the bugfixes are the bugs now. For example in the original game I would always give Keldorns armor to Minsc for a while, until I could get Keldorn the Gauntlets of Dexterity. Not possible in the EEs. It makes even less sense because the only uber item the NPCs ever owned is Edwins Amulet, and you could never move Edwin's Amulet in the first place. Everything else fades out of use because you get better. Whatever.

They contain some nice rebalancing, like you can get a Club+1 and Club+2 in BG1EE, you can get a Find Familiar scroll, you can find a Spook scoll, you can find one containers each for gems, scrolls, and potions, respectively.

They also introduce new classes and old classes have important rebalances. Like Paladin and Ranger now cap their caster level at 20, not 9, anymore. Thats so much better, though I still would prefer they wouldnt cap early at all.

Mind you can get A TON of rebalances and additional content for the originals through fanmade mods.




All in all I'm happy I have both versions, they both have their uses.

The choice might be made for you, depending on your circumstances. The Original Saga can be made to run on modern systems, but generally the Enhanced Edition is easier to get running, especially if you want anything other than an old Windows system as the host. Since you plan to play multiplayer over the Internet, the Enhanced Edition might be a better choice for you. Generally speaking, the Enhanced Edition made some stylistic choices that some people dislike because they want the game to play exactly as the original did. If you are not attached to the semantics of the original game, I suggest you start out by playing the Enhanced Edition. You can always start a new campaign in classic if you find you really dislike the Enhanced Edition.

I got the EE version on GoG, and it came with a redeem code for the original version.

Hm, so there's new content but it's of lower quality. But is that something that is a chore to play through? Like, did they add a new dungeon or something that is unskippable and you have to suffer through it? If not,and if it's something that's skippable, then I'd say that isn't so bad.

But the gist of it is that I can get a similar or better experience with the original version through mods, right? Tbh, I don't wanna mess with mods right now, hmm. But yeah, I got both versions, so I'll eventually play both and see which one is better for me. But for now I might stick with the EE, at least for multiplayer. Yeah, the EE might be better for multiplayer, so I'll see how it works out. And I never played BG before, so I don't hold any kind of attachment to it. Just found it polarizing seeing so many reviews in the storepage bashing EE and saying to play the original version instead.

If you are new to the series, then I strongly recommend that before playing multiplayer you either (a) play at least a little bit of the campaign in single player or (b) enable the automatic pause options, to give you more time to react to situations. For (a), you don't need to complete much of the game, but I suggest you complete at least a couple of combat encounters so you can decide how much, if at all, you want to pause during combat. Personally, I find the game much easier if I make heavy use of pause so that my characters are always doing exactly what I want, rather than standing around while I try to track all aspects of the action. I also find the keybinding "Hard pause" (which is unset by default) to be very useful. Spacebar always toggles the game's pause state. "Hard pause" will pause if unpaused, and do nothing if paused. This makes it easier to pause without worrying that an ill-timed pause from another player or the auto-pause will turn my intended pause into an unpause, releasing the action right as I wanted to stop and think.

No its pretty easy to skip the new EE content in the base game, to actually see that content you have to accept the new EE companions into your group, and since their dialogues are boring and poorly written textwalls (which admittedly you can get through quickly by just pressing 1 a lot), their stats are rather poor, and their class choices are also not too useful, I'm not too eager to accept any of them.

I do however routinely accept Neela(?) or how she's called temporarily in group because she comes with a bag for gems, which is easy to take from her and is very, very useful, as are the other containers in the game. The other two EE companions come with no useful items.

Neela wants to tell you the most boring story possible of her childhood. She's a Wild Mage and oh my god, she got in trouble for Wild Magic. What a surprise. Who could have possibly expected that one.

Rassad or how he's called is a Monk (possibly the weakest class in the game) and honestly wants to textwall you about his philosophy. Who saw that one coming.

Havent had Dorn in party yet but what little I've seen of him he had his humor surgically removed. Think Michael Dorn (Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine), but evil and boring.

I havent played around with mods too much but according to what I read in mod forums, it is relatively easy to maintain BG mods for classic and EE in parallel, as well as BGT and EET. The one thats not getting supported anymore is Tutu because that would be a lot of work to do.

Tutu is an old project to run BG1 with the BG2 engine. It is abandoned.

BGT (Baldur's Gate Triology) and EET (EE Triology) are fanmods to combine BG1 and BG2 into a single game that can be played with the BG2 engine. Also there are a couple other benefits, like there are five companions that are shared between the two games (Imoen, Jaheira, Minsc, Viconia, Edwin) and you can for example apply the attribute increases that can be found in BG1 to to them and they will still have these improved stats in BG2.

Or one of them, Imoen, is a Thief in BG1 and a Thief(7)/Mage dualclass in BG2, but in BGT and EET you can control how Imoen develops and for example make her a Thief(10)/Mage instead, with more thief skills.