It is a shame that this expansion has come to be defined more in terms of the attacks on Beamdog by anti-LBGTQ bigots, rather than it's content.
This is an excellent expansion, with an excellent story and I cannot recommend it high enough. Developers like Beamdog give so much to us old-school RPG-fans and they deserve all our support.
If you think that the fantasy worlds of games should be closed to some people because of their gender, sexual orientation, or race. Then you are probably one of the trolls giving this expansion a one-star rating and you should be ashamed of yourself.
If you think that it is high time that games embraced a greater diversity of people, allowing for more gamers to identify with the worlds and myths we love, then this expansion isn't just a good buy on merit of its excellence. It is an essential buy because it is in support of that vision.
A worthy follow-up to Baldur's Gate EE, combining the best parts of classic Baldur's Gate with the nuanced story and deeper companions we've come to expect from more recent games. The writing is excellent, the encounters are new and exciting, and I had an absolute blast playing it. More like this please!
I honestly can't see how anyone can complain about this expansion for reasons other than pushing a nasty agenda. But if you come to Baldur's Gate to fight monsters rather than be one, you'll leave satisfied.
Loaded with bugs and inexplicable changes. Quality of writing and acting is poor, which is a big strike against a game that should, in theory, be driven by its narrative.
Setting aside personal feelings on the subject material, the tone does not fit Baldur's Gate at all. If the developer wants to go in this direction, that's fine. Create an original property that better agrees with that pursuit. Don't try to shoehorn it into a classic series such as Baldur's Gate. The spirit of the game is completely lost here. When one of the main characters in my Baldur's Gate playthrough is weighing in on modern internet controversies, when social issues and hot takes are inserted with all the subtlety of a hammer hitting a nail, I'm checking out.
This is to say nothing of how the developer has handled the criticism of their release, doing their best to censor it while imploring their fans to load websites and platforms such as this one with reviews slanted favorably.
I appreciate what Beamdog did with the Enhanced Edition games, and I know from the original content added to those titles that they are capable of doing good work in that regard. This is something else entirely. Siege of Dragonspear is completely off the rails, and whoever is handling the company's response to the game's reception is right behind it.
As the tittle states, this game tries to do two things at once. It tries to offer fan service, while also be its own game. It is far to hard to try and appease to many different elements within the gaming community. I think this is where, perhaps, it has disappointed fellow players and fans of this franchise.
The story writing is not as bad as I was lead to believe. I kind of miss previous epochs in gaming where you had to physically discover if a game was bad or not, before being bombarded by a long list of opinions from others. I will in part agree that the writing was in large part inexperienced. This I actually enjoyed as I write a lot and from time to time might publish something. So seeing something that is in process of development is really cool for me. I enjoyed a piece of marketing they did called "Hero With a Thousand Faces", always good to see a bit of Joseph Campbell (A person who had a massive influence on George Lucas during the first trilogy of Star Wars films).
However, coming into what this medium considers a classic in writing with a lack of passion has been somewhat less thought out. The original games where a typical "the stars align" and you could see the passion for D&D, gaming and the setting of the forgotten realms. This is something I wasn't expecting and therefore got some enjoyment from re tweakings to certain aspects of the narrative.
The game dynamics to me were similar to the old games. I like the lack of loading screen. The bugs were pretty bog standard, I imagine as someone that started gaming on the spectrum and commodore, I have more patience than others, and the CLUA system works perfectly.
Though I felt somewhat disappointed with seeing more style over substance. I would have taken a bit more questing over looking at updated visuals and redesigned maps.
Not as bad as others have said, Should be approached as its own game and not one part of the larger franchise.
I'll get the elephant in the room out of the way first. A lot of people complain about heavy-handed social justice warrior nonsense in this game. I honestly don't really see all that much of it, although the inclusions are fairly ham-fisted and sophomoric when they do appear. I think the real problem stems from an interview wherein the lead-writer loudly announces her intentions to infuse the game with her own political rhetoric, millions of fans be-damned. Advice to Beamdog, find writers who don't feel the need to overshare their politics with everyone. If she hadn't chosen to act so smug and self-righteous, this probably wouldn't have blown up.
The good stuff:
1. They've brought back the original voice cast (sans one or two), which is great.
2, The characterizations (while not completely accurate to the original) feel somewhat deeper than the older versions, and provide for some nice role playing opportunities.
3. Several of the dungeons are quite fun, and have many interesting secret.
4. The engine changes are largely for the better, and it's great to be able to do things like have a shield equipped but still switch to a bow or two-handed weapon.
The bad stuff:
1. The game is buggy, even with the latest 2.1 patch. After getting to the crusader camp area, I could no longer save unless I hit the quicksave button roughly 20 times. I had to reload a main save from a couple hours back which was not cool. It also crashed to windows a few times.
2. Some of the writing and dialogue is quite good, and you'll find yourself enjoying it until it until you are hit in the face with some inexplicable design decisions. Examples include: A surfer dude, pot head that sounds terribly out of place, a transexual living in a world where a sex change is a magic spell away, and so on. However, there is nothing another round of editing couldn't fix.
Despite any shortcomings, I still recommend it to fans of the series. Hopefully they will get to make more.
