Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

I am reviewing the original version of Baldur's Gate w/ Tales of the Sword Coast expansion here, which is included as a bonus game if you purchase the Enhanced Edition (I've yet to play the EE). Baldur's Gate is an excellent "traditional" style party-based RPG full of exploration, party building, and questing, based on the venerable Advanced Dungeons & Dragon rules. The twist back when BG1 was first released was that the combat was in real-time, instead of turn-based as in previous games based on AD&D. BG1 also had exceptional graphics when it was released, which was of course a selling point back then. How about now? It's fantastic. I have always preferred turn-based combat, and so I have had trouble getting into BG1 over the years. However, it finally clicked on my latest attempt (started last year), and I found myself getting addicted to the game. It contains a truly massive world to explore, full of hidden quests, characters, and equipment; thrilling combat that can sometimes become a bit frustrating but allows for tactics that would simply not have been possible in the classic AD&D Gold Box games; and a fun story that keeps you interested over the 70 hours or so it will take to complete the game. So, why not five stars? There are a couple things bringing the experience down. First is the inconsistent writing. Dialog related to the main story is all written quite well, but the dialog in the optional content is just awful. More importantly, some of the mandatory "boss" encounters can be a massive increase in difficulty if you haven't prepared ahead of time... which is impossible on your first playthrough, so you'll probably have to die and reload a few times to figure out what to do. On the other hand, the game is so open-ended and massive that you can always choose to put a difficult encounter aside and go explore or do some quests elsewhere. All in all, BG1 completely deserves its status as a classic of the genre!

With BG3 coming up thought I would refresh my memory and replay the series. As it has been a long time between games I can't really say if this version is worse than the original all I can say is I had fun playing it again.

When I first heard about the plans for enhancing Baldur's Gate, I was quite skeptical. As a fan of BG saga, I was afraid that the changes will ruin the story, that the new NPCs wouldn't fit the world, etc. I wanted to play BG again so I decided to give a try and bought the Enhanced edition to be able to play it on today's computers. I really enjoyed it, there are no radical changes that will ruin the game. I like that you can use the kits from BG2 and that many bugs have been fixed. Thank's to this edition, I can play it again on modern computers with slightly improved graphics (which supports higher resolution). The only thing I don't like is that Beamdog removed the original animations and use some comics-like movies, but it's still OK.

This game was an absolute blast! I've tried playing it multiple times, both the original not long after it first came out as well as the Enhanced Edition, and for some reason I always fell off, having trouble stick with it. This time around I actually kept going and found myself really enjoying the game. I've played through the first 1/4-1/3 multiple times over the years, so finally making it past that point was incredibly rewarding. I definitely enjoyed some of the small touches of the Enhanced Edition, making an older game at least slightly more playable than it's original form. The modern widescreen resolutions, the touchup to the overall UI, seeing the background walkable area on maps, colored character circles, and containers for different types of items were just some of the things that helped make the game feel a little more modern and playable. The story got really good as I made my way further and further actually getting into the city itself and falling into a good bit of political intrigue. It was refreshing seeing something different that just the typical fantasy RPG tropes, which while definitely present were enhanced by some different ideas that I know were new in the late 90s. It is a bit hard to go back to a game that was created in a time where things were kept a little too open on where to go or what to do next, but I finally just let myself play the game without worrying about what I might be missing, trying to play with guides, and just enjoying the experience. Maybe I'll actually go back and play a different type of character with a different party and see some of the things I missed, I enjoyed the final product enough to actually think about doing that someday. Now though it's time to move on to BG2 which is a game that again I played a little back when it came out, but never got very far into, and from what I know about it it's considered one of the greatest RPGs of all time. i'm excited to see what they improved on from the first game!

Ce bon vieux Baldur's Gate restera toujours une référence et un bon jeu. Mais cette ré-édition reste quand même décevante. Je m'attendais à des graphismes mis au goût du jour, des textures plus fines, que sais-je. Finalement cette réédition reste inférieure au jeu original auquel on rajoute certains mods. On aurait aimé une édition complète qui enchaine Baldur's Gate 2 dans la foulée, plutôt que d'avoir deux ré-éditions différentes. Les nouveaux personnages sont cependant assez intéressants, et ont plus de discussion que les autres PNJ du jeu original.