being a faithful adaptation doesn't make it a good game by default.
this is literally the central design philosophy behind Baldur's Gate.
Bioware knew that a perfect adaptation wasn't possible, so they put their chips and effort into the real time capabilities of computers.
Their risk resulted in BG being the best selling PC game launch of all time and created an industry distribution model that became the STANDARD for all games. The weapon wheel is Bioware's greatest legacy, and is a direct result of the RTwP innovations that they pursued as a studio.
Baldur's Gate is a masterpiece for a great many reasons.
All the complaints about RTwP boil down to limitations in computing 20 years ago. The fact that no one has innovated it since Infinity Engine is kind of tangential - the potential is still there.
