Whereas Baldur's Gate feels like a game out of the storytelling 90s, where every character has an individual story--and those stories drive the plot of the campaign from level 1 to level 30--Icewind Dale feels like a game from the 80s. In those days, it was "cool" if you showed up with a backstory for your character. It showed you were serious about the game. But that backstory wouldn't impact the campaign beyond your character's own decisions. And, while there might be dozens of pages of backstory in the DM's head, it was never going to filter down to you as a player except through the occasional bit of exposition. That is Icewind Dale. Sporadic exposition that functions as punctuation around chapters full of bloodletting and looting. Another throwback to those halcyon days of story-free gaming is the dramatic shifts in challenge level. You might fight through a dozen rooms of orcs only to find a room inhabited by a dragon. In the P&P game, those rooms were often seen as a chance to show common sense and run, however. In Icewind Dale, these rooms are instead capstones...boss fights that must be overcome to advance the plot. Fighting the same battle a half dozen times in the name of perfecting "tactics," which usually amounts to enough lucky die rolls to make enough saves and enough attack dice to kill the enemy before they kill you. The story is compelling, and the Infinity Engine is in top form. Moreover, I LOVE what Beamdog has done with the place. But, at its core, this is still the same old dungeon crawling epic, where you become the canary in the story's deep, unlit coal mine, hoping not to expire for lack of plot as the cave threatens to let out on bare graph paper at any moment...
I tried playing this game when it first came out. My wife and I had loved BG1, but there was something ominous about the game system in this one. Not the AD&D part, but rather what they had done with the AD&D rules to facilitate high-level play. I loaded it up a couple times, but the ultimate deal-breaker ovver the years was the non-sequitur beginning. If you played BG1 with a heroic party, then odds are one of your characters starts the game plot dead, never to return. Coupled with the fact that all your gear from the first game is also gone, I just couldn't make myself care about the new story. Two decades later, Hordes of Dragonspear created the perfect bridge between BG1 and BG2. No longer a non-sequitur, all those elements that I hated became part of the story. They became motivation both in-player and in-character. I moved straight from BG1 through HoD and right into BG2...and from there straight into Throne of Bhaal. This game does take liberties with the AD&D rules, but mostly in the name of fun. If you like the story of Baldur's Gate, especially as it travels through Hordes of Dragonspear, then this is the ultimate and fitting finale. I enjoyed it immensely; the storyline, the game play, the turn-based combat, even the dated art and interface. Throne of Bhaal shifts tone following the resolution of Shadows of Amn, but I'm reluctant to call it "tacked on." It's a conclusion. It follows the story that started in BG1 and led into HoD before ending in Shadows of Amn, but it has few direct links aside from some key NPCs and references to your character's many accomplishments. If you loved the story, the way I did, Throne of Bhaal feels very combat intensive, like the DM who forgets to challenge his high-level PCs' minds and instead keeps throwing bigger and badder monsters to fight. But the resolution that comes resolves the entire Baldur's Gate saga, not just the expansion. This game packs a LOT, and in the end I felt like it was well worth the journey.
My first experience playing Baldur's Gate was from a multi-disc folio in 1999. I revisited the EE version in early 2020, and it has come a long way. I love turn-based RPGs with an emphasis on story. Baldur's Gate gave that, and I remembered it fondly, but never fondly enough to play the sequel. With EE, though, came Siege of Dragonspear. Oft-maligned, SoD adds a few things that finally made me start playing the sequel. First, it bridges the gap. When SoD ends, you are thirsty to find out what happens next. It not only resolves the story from BG1, but it makes the gear-erasing opening scenes of BG2 palatable by making them part of the story. Another thing SoD and EE bring to the mix is fresh new NPCs. I never cared for Minsc. But with Khalid and Jaheira, I was left to fill out my party with someone I just didn't want. EE gave me plenty of heroic options that brought a wealth of story. SoD scattered them to the four winds and made me hunt them back again, but I DID get them back; I still felt like I was playing "my group" by the end. SoD also gives an epic conclusion to the story of BG1. There's nothing wrong with the end of BG1, but the finale we get in SoD is epic by comparison. As a lifelong DM, it's the ending I would give my tenth-level party. Players may be nervous that there's been a lot of talk about a single transgender NPC. Take this: I read six paragraphs of a dwarf talking about how he needs new boots or he's just sure he'll die in his next fight. Then I read three paragraphs of a woman explaining how meaningful it was that I returned something to her. Both were explanations of the McGuffin hunt that I had just completed. Both were as meaningful to the story. The only way to be offended is to be offended that this NPC simply exists. The fact that mere existence was offensive to so many is the real story. For twenty years I went without playing BG2. Because of EE, I have begun and already progressed into the second chapter...and I have zero regrets.
