Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

I've played the original Baldur's Gate back to the days when the game and its add on where released and the Enhanced Edition allows to enjoy the gaming experience on current hardware. I've played the Enhanced Edition from 2016 onwards on Windows, Mac OS X as well as Linux without anything to complain about. The original game deserves 5/5 stars and I also give 5/5 stars for the smooth experience on modern computers. From my point of view, the added content is nice but the new NPCs and their related story lines can also easily be omitted if one prefers the original flavor. Maybe a comment for players who play on a Linux machine: The installed game works out-of-the-box. There is no need to tweak anything as long as the listed 32bit libraries are present. This is a circumstance I really appreciate.

It's really great, but it does suffer from the classic D&D early level issues of 1 hit kills you. After first few levels it's not hard. I do have to say that trap finding is complete horse s**t, due how it works, as in, it's really rare for your rogue to spot a trap before you step into it, even if you are careful with 100 in find traps. Also the path finding is often really bad, and can get stuck inside each other, in addition to just everything else. The music is great, the atmospheric forest ambiance is even better. The companion interactions are a bit non-existent. - The Tales of the Sword Coast: This is a bit weird. Apart from the Durlag's Tower which is a fun dungeon, the part that actually gets its own cut scene cinematic etc. with voice over, when you go this one island, is... really odd, as in the whole "adventure" thing is only like 30 minutes in length. - Siege of Dragonspear: Despite what people say, the Siege of Dragonspear is good. It is linear, but the dungeons, companion interactions and music is great. The story is a bit lacking, as in, it does not really make that much sense, but it does tie in BG1 and BG2 together better than not having it. With that all being said, I would recommend picking up a mod pack, like the Gibberlings 3 - Anthology Tweaks. It's an installer that let's you pick and choose what to put in: https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/tweaks/tweaks/ You'll probably also need this to make it work: https://github.com/ScottBrooks/modmerge

I am a guy that lives RPGs, but buys far more than he plays! I bought the original baldurs gate on CD (remember those?) when it first came out but rarely played it. So a couple of days ago I decided to blast through this on Story Mode so I could get the story and not take overly long to complete it. I wasn’t interested in combat being challenging or dragging my play through out as I knew my attention span wouldn’t tolerate a long play. Overall I think it was quite well done in terms of the story but not wonderful. It seemed to spring the plot “twist” on you very suddenly which I found to be odd. I base my rating purely on the story quality and for the age of the game the story was not only engaging but also delivered well through game play and cutscenes etc. Definitely worth a look and story mode to me made the dates graphics and mechanics a non issue.

Play it. And the second one. And the Planescape Torment. That's it. That's the whole advice and review. One of best RPGs ever. And Beamdog fixed lot of their bugs. What else to say?

I had the game on my to-play list since a long time, since it is a classic and I am a big fan of CRPGs. Now in anticipation of Baldurs Gate 3 I finally pulled the trigger and took the time to play through it. It was a great experience and it aged well enough to be enjoyable to play through. To my surprise it did not play quite as the CRPGs I already knew, having such little focus on story and dialogue, and especially because of the lifeless companions. But the combat, even though a bit clunky at times, was challenging and interesting. The setting of the game and the little story/dialogue bits were captivating and interesting and I am looking forward to continue with Baldurs Gate 2 soon, for which I have high expectations. On the technical side I had no issues and the game ran perfectly fine for me. To summarize I think the game is very good and can recommend anyone to play it and the great expansion Siege of Dragonspear.