Ah then that is a good point. Visually you can't do much in a 2.5D isometric game that's sprite based. But I played BG2 often enough to maybe not judge this correctly anymore
BG2 fostered exploration and talking to everyone I admit, but it also made that relatively hassle free. Thanks to the separate zones so you could explore 1 area pretty comprehensively.
I disagree, and boy did I love BG2 but it had huge flaws that reminiscing tend to overlook, the first one being the most of idiotic instant gameover if your main character got knocked out, the second one being droping you off in the capital city straight off the bat with just a vague to inexistant notion of what was going on.
Are you talking about D:OS ? ;P Game ends if your 2 chars die. And you are dropped on a beach as source hunter with no notion what source magic even is. Or what a source hunter is. (Sorry, I don't mean to be snide, but that just jumped at me ;P)
Aside that, I think the "where the heck are we and what just happened" start of BG2 was a great change from the usual way RPG's started back then. And you did get to know what was going on fairly quickly, unless you got side-tracked (which indeed, can mean your death very quickly if you get side-tracked to the wrong quests ,p) That the game ends when your main-char died caused me great aggravation indeed.... it's even worse when you are the playing mage, and you cast time-stop and you meet the 1 guy in the game that's immune to that... oh joy ,p So don't think I am overlooking that ^^
