Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

All Beamdog "Enhanced" editions are garbage. You can't even change the resolution. If you happen to have a 4K screen, the mouse cursor will be tiny. New UI art looks like it has been made by an intern.

While it is very much a product of its time and a prototype for its superior sequel, Baldur's Gate still holds up. Generally speaking, the gameplay has aged rather well, especially when compared to more cumbersome RPGs of its era: the combat and inventory systems are surprisingly straightforward and easy to get a hold of. Since you have up to 6 characters with limited AI to manage (or rather babysit) simultaneously, some fights can get a bit chaotic, but as a DnD game there are largely enough options and combat configurations to make battles strategic and interesting: spells, buffs and debuffs, melee and ranged weapons... You have a lot to work with, and it's solid stuff. Overall, BG nails the feeling of liberty and adventure it's going for. The gameplay largely focuses on exploring cities and forests and stumbling upon unexpected quests and hostile encounters. Not a whole lot of time is spent in dungeons, which, frankly, feels fresh - even if a lot of the areas you get to visit feel a bit empty and make for somewhat repetitive gameplay. And while the game is no literary masterpiece, the story and dialogues are definitely solid and do a great job of making you feel like an adventurer sent unto an epic quest. It helps that the graphics still mostly hold up to this day: the prerendered and painted backgrounds not only ooze charm, they also look legitimately good and have aged pretty damn well! While this “Enhanced Edition” lets you play in HD and offers a new expansion and some neat tweaks, it also makes some unnecessary and inauthentic changes: the “modern” cutscenes look like fanarts and are somewhat jarring, the new characters and quests are kind of sweet but rather out-of-place... And for all these changes that no in-game option lets you revert, it feels like a lot of issues are left uncorrected. It's still a decent way to play BG for the first time, and at least purchasing it lets you retrieve the original game, but it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

I've been waiting for years to take the time and play this game entirely, and finally did it last year. A CRPG Masterpiece, for those that are into that kind of stuff. Rating the game and experience, EE was good enough for me, no crashes. I tried the original game (without mods) but it was too clunky. In any case, good memories, I enjoyed a slower pace game at the time, OSTs still put me in that mood, which is great. Playing the second part now, there's so much more content, but the first part was a pure brain candy.

Czy gra posiada polski dubbing? Bo ja mam tylko po polsku napisy a rozmowy po angielsku.

I know it is cool to hate Beamdog, but Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition is a great game in a great package. The annoying bugs are long gone, the game is fast and polished, the UI is great, especially for a 1998 game. I have spent more than 80 hours playing BGEE, and I honestly haven't as much fun with the originals. I am still trying new classes for my main character, new combinations of party members, still learning something about spells and items in the game. When you make that next step and find the game is getting quite a bit easier, there is always a next difficulty level, or you could always come up with cool personal limitations to the gameplay that fit the story and the world. And when you are running out of ideas, there is always the great community full of advices on how to prolong your fun with BG games.