I said in another thread I would explain why I only got halfway through BG II after completing BG I once, and here I will explain it:
I'm going to be called a heretic for this, but the reasons boil down to: I hated how BG controlled in and out of combat situations especially with six characters (though I could bear with it to some extent, I never want to hear that voice say "you must gather your party before venturing forth" again), combat was (to me) too shallow, chaotic, and reliant on spellcasting and didn't feel at all rewarding (and my tunnel vision problem didn't help in the least), it always felt like if I picked the wrong class the game would be significantly harder just because "fuck you for picking the wrong class", the companions came off as rather shallow in BG I (BG II helped with some, but...) and too pissy in II, especially how if you romance one character and have a second romancable character in your party (Aerie and Jaheira, and while the latter was useful, I found the former infinitely more interesting and that made her my romance target), they can leave just because you didn't pick them, the writing got kinda wooden and pretentious, all the gay options added later are evil (how's that for unfortunate implications, eh?), and all in all, the mechanics felt outdated.
I was playing it I want to say in 2013 (I found a disk for sale at best buy with all the D&D games from Baldur's Gate I to NWN and bought it), after playing games like Morrowind, which I think still holds up well, Skyrim, which also still feels fresh to me, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 1 and 2 (I think, when was 2 released?), all three of which are fun but showing their age a bit, among dozens of other games. Really the only IE-like series I ever completed was the PoE series (never completed Pathfinder: Kingmaker because the time limits just grated too much on my explorer style of gameplay, Tyranny just didn't click with me, nor did IWD, but I did play the crap out of Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance and A2, Avernum: Escape from The Pit, Geneforge I, and other turn based fodder).
