Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

I love this game so much. I've beat it at least 5 times in my life. Maybe more. I learned about this game in 1999... I was in 8th grade. My friend and I were in detention with our social studies teacher. We were talking about Diablo 1 and how good it was. Our teacher overheard us talking and laughed at us and told us about Baldur's Gate and how much better of a game it was compared to Diablo lol. He was a good teacher haha! I was intrigued, so I bought the game... and it blew my mind. That was my first experience with the D&D universe. It's just so good. Idk what else to say. Every good isometric RPG in the past 20 years has been inspired/influenced by Baldur's Gate in one way or another. This game is the godfather of isometric RPG's. If you never played Baldur's Gate, JUST DO IT! You won't regret it. Ugh... so good.

I don't own and never played Enchanced Edition. But since you can't review Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga anymore on GOG I will do it here. My first memory of this game is from high school. When my friends played it and talk about all the time. Somehow I haven't played it then, but it stayed in my memory and 10 years ago I finally tried it. Since then I have completed it four times. I could write about it's charming soundtrack (I still listen), beautiful detailed graphic, replayability and well done D&D mechanic and world implementations. But what keep me most is it's slow, quiet, peaceful experience. Countless hours of travel through the wilderness, forests, shores and mountains that fill the space between villages, towns and cities like Baldur's Gate itself. That feeling you really travel through the real world and nature. It's almost like reading Lord of the Rings books. I know there is Baldur's Gate 2 with more of everything, but first game has its unique quality and vibe which for I love it. It's similar as Fallout compares to Fallout 2 in this regards.

I was going to write a more in-depth review, but the character limit wouldn't let me, so I'll only write a bit about the EE and not the game itself, which I love since I first played it more than 20 years ago, but can certainly be boring for new players, so I'd recommend starting with 2. Anyway, about the EE, I cannot say anything about the new content, yet, but I can say that it doesn't work well with a 4K screen, because the UI is either so small that you cannot see a thing or scaled up so much that it takes up more screen space than it did in the original, or at least close. Furthermore, the resolutions of various elements don't match at all, some parts will be very blurry (or pixelated, depending on the settings, though that only affects the game view and not the Interface, if I'm not mistaken), while others will be sharp and stand out like a sore thumb. Also, the cursor is really tiny. The solution was to play at half the resolution, which is 1080p. Depending on personal preference, you can use integer scaling, which almost makes it appear like it would have on a CRT monitor back in the day. If you cannot be bothered to change your desktop resolution every time the game is started (because it automatically uses it), there is a tool called IntegerScaler that is basically a better version of the windows screen magnifier. However, you must set the game to window mode and scale the window to 1920x1080, which can be done by IntegerScaler, though it is a bit tricky. However, once set up you just run IntegerScaler (I have to start it with admin rights) and use the shortcut or configure it to scale the game automatically (which, again is a bit tricky). That way, everything is much more consistent and the game looks and plays much better.

Don't mind the haters. Yeah, some of the new material added by Beamdog can feel off, but it never bothered me. Why? Because at its core it still has all the ingredients that make it pretty much the perfect game for me. Story is awesome, the agantonist too, the graphics may be slightly outdated, but they work. New classes and class-kits, updated UI, ease of life improvements make this superior to the original version. But, it is a HARD game for first time players. Brutally so if you play as anything else than warrior classes, and do not yet know of the tricks and strategies you need to survive as a rogue or mage. Leveling is slooow, looting new gear takes time, and soe encounters feel like they are so far above you that you must have made a wrong turn somewhere. Not to mention Durlags Tower, which is one of the best crafted dungeons ever made, but is also brutally hard! But, it always pays off in the end, and, you have your most loyal servant, the quicksave key, at your disposal. When you finally level up, and find a Longsword +1 and a Plate Armor, you feel so much stronger! When your mage can cast TWO spells instead of one, and you learn how to summon wolves or cast fireballs, then you start go get the upper hand! THe game is still challenging, all the way through, but it is never impossible. The best thing aboug BG1? It leads into BG2, which is the best game ever made IMHO.

This review is based on the fact that I never played original BG and any other BG entry. As well worth mentioning that I had zero experience in D&D before. If you are a newbie like me, you'll be pleased to know that there's a very good training mode that will get you familiar with the basic mechanics of the game. Unfortunately, some of the stuff like what does 1d8 damage means and what exactly value of your armor means I needed to check outside of the game, but that's not a big problem. Also, there're a lot of difficulty levels to choose, so it'll be suitable experience if you just want to see how the story unwraps or you're looking for a good challange. RPG system is very flexible and worth experiments, you can make an expert in particular craft or dive deep into dual-calss or even triple-class 'Jack of all trades' type of built. You're able to have up to 6 people in your party, so it's possible to balance your weak sides with companions. Speaking of companions, maybe it's just me, but I never felt any connections with them, even with those, who joined me by the main plot. They all felt just like tools in you posession to assist you in the time of need, but nothing more. Gameplay-wise it's a real-time rpg, but you can pause the game to give orders to your team. There were some hiccups with navigation through narrow dungeons, sompanions can got stuck or go to a diffirent direction. It's a bit frustrating especially during heated combat. I want to give some praises to the story, which wasn't generic and had a few plot twists that made me not only involved but really surprised at times. Music serves really well in building an atmospehere. There's no big variaty in locations, but what it has is quite detailed and deep. Overall, I would highly recommend to try this out. Maybe it'll not rock your world, especially if you've played recent installment, but most definetely you'll have a great time.