Basically, this is a not-FTL game with poor grahpics, bad choice of gamma, overexploitation of neon and writing that is sporadically very good, while the final plot resolution is something that should never have even occured to anyone in modern day. The endings are fucked up colored (in shades-of-grey-neon) endings, that do not redeem the difficulty of the journey towards it. Meh.
The writing is good, but underdone and forgoes asking some of the most obvious questions, hence depriving the player of really dealing with the main problem of the game in any satisfactory fashion. There are also many red herrings that you expect reveal a grand side-quest, which in fact turns out to be a mandatory main-line quest that you cannot really avoid. So much build-up wasted it hurts. This is probably not as much the writerss' fault as it is the designers and the producers. There is also a severe imbalance between the urgency of the main quest and, literally, any side activities, for the main character, because it just wouldn't make sense for a person so singularly focussed on following the primary plot device to be distracted to the degree that the side quests demand. It all only falls into place when you recall the most fundamental law of jRPGs - events wait for you to move them however long you want, so you in fact have infinite time to finish the main storyline. Such as it is. The side-quests, however, are quite well-written - good enough, at the very least. The game itself follows far more the jRPG model of side-quests than anything else would. And then you get the ghost galleon, for free, come the finish, which you actually have tu use. Oh, and there's gays, gays everywhere. While understandable with the current western trends, it is more than abhorrent, and I only thank the game for the gay dialogue options that are obvious and can be avoided. But the fact that they are still there and can be visible is disturbing.
A very disappointing poorly optimized game that, frankly, only delivers in the story part - and I haven't advanced beyond the second mission. Part of it is, the game is simply very slow and very boring without much to consider from the tactical standoff. In TBS sense it has some value, and the story of returning a princess to her throne after she has been betrayed has been around since God knows when, but the entertainment value is... not so good. Overall it is probably what I expected from the alliance of Harebrained Schemes (whose games tend poor optimization and very slow overall pace, but surprisingly good writing) and Paradox (whose games typically lack depth while being overall somewhat playable - right up and until you discover said lack of true depth). Oh, and now after the game crashed my saves somehow went down the drain, so bonus points there.
A very disappointing poorly optimized game that, frankly, only delivers in the story part - and I haven't advanced beyond the second mission. Part of it is, the game is simply very slow and very boring without much to consider from the tactical standoff. In TBS sense it has some value, and the story of returning a princess to her throne after she has been betrayed has been around since God knows when, but the entertainment value is... not so good. Overall it is probably what I expected from the alliance of Harebrained Schemes (whose games tend poor optimization and very slow overall pace, but surprisingly good writing) and Paradox (whose games typically lack depth while being overall somewhat playable - right up and until you discover said lack of true depth). Oh, and now after the game crashed my saves somehow went down the drain, so bonus points there.
The new expansion has pretty much killed a decent game under the guise of improving it. If you have played the original and wish to relive the experience, don't bother and go get your original CDs. If you haven't touched the franchise, you might try this but will end up not understanding what all the fuss was about. For myself, disregarding the bugs and unnecessary interface changes, as well as the whole poor writing drama surrounding the game, I have found the streamlined 'improved' sprites aggravating. They add no real detail and just look like vector versions of what was already there, which is pretty bad for a 2016 game. So yeah, BG2 is a good old game. Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition 2.0 is not.
