Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG1 & BG2 worth it while waiting ?

To catch up with some lore and the past, is it worth it to start BG1/BG2 while BG3 progress with patches and content ?

If you havent played them and dont mind the very different graphics? Absolutely. The 'full experience' is long, but BG 2 especially is simply a fantastic experience and story.

No, and yes.
There's no immediately obvious connection to them and Baldur's Gate III beyond the overall theme of 'how much are you willing to sacrifice for power'. There are references to 'gorians ward' and minature giant space hamsters in some books, but nothing else is mentioned and the description of the protagonist from BG1 is very deliberately nothing beyond "They existed".


There's going to be a bit of 'culture shock' with the rules however (2nd edition that they run off has a 'low is good, high is bad' system, so your armour class drops when you put on plate mail!). I'm also not blind to how western rpgs have moved on; inter party dialogue is basically non existent, and while the sprites and maps have a charm, they and the interface definitely show their age.

I think it's worth it because I enjoy the characters and the story is genuinely interesting, the characters are memorable, and the gameplay itself still holds up. It doesn't seem necessary however, and unlike Bethesda with Fallout 3 vs fallout 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate III isn't going for a fundemental shift of game types. If you're interested in games from a design point of view, I would absolutely reccomend you try it, for a game on it's own, a classic, I'd also reccomend it, but there's no obvious connection to Baldur's Gate III, so I'd skip it if you're only thinking of it for that.

If you do pull the trigger, I reccomend you try and avoid Beamdog's version-while some of the things they did were great, my understanding is they also added entirely new bugs.

Disagree on the advice to avoid Beamdog. It's difficult to go back to vanilla after playing the EEs. There is one annoying bug with pathfinding where you will get stuck in a one place for time but otherwise, yes, bg2 is the best RPG made.

I would play through it in Neverwinter Nights 2 engine if I were you, Baldur's Gates engine imo did not pass the test of time.

It's gonna be tough for new players to get into the old Baldur's Gate games, some of my friends couldn't get into due to graphics, combat, or the story structure. I would say that you should play the game with an open mind. In term of story, a quick wiki for anything you miss is enough, but Baldur's Gate 3 is very self contained. They intentionally set the game in a distant future to reduce the burden of older games have on the story.

Not a huge fan of BG1, but BG2 is simply stellar.

BG1 and BG2 are both great. If you forced me to choose, I'd say BG2 is better (mostly on the strength of the villain) but both have very good stories. My recommendation would be to start with BG1 and play straight through.

EE is fine. "Seige of Dragonspear" is an "add-in" that Beamdog created fairly recently, and is not part of the original Bhalspawn trilogy (which was BG1, BG2, and BG2: Throne of Bhaal). I don't have an opinion on it because I haven't played it, but the time skip between 1 and 2 is part of the original Baldur's Gate experience.

Get alot of mods. There are plenty lists out on google, but the banter packs and fixes are a must and then, companions and quests as you like.
BG1/2 is great, but the mods make them genius

Not unless you're a fan of older games in general. Someone who grew up with 3-D gaming consoles and is used to RPGs with more refined gameplay probably won't end up enjoying them very much. We're talking about a span of 20 years after all.

My suggestion is looking up how the gameplay is (i.e. a retrospective or Let's Play) and see if it is for you. Playing through the entire series is quite the investment in time, and I'm not sure if the game (aged as it is), is for everybody.

I have very fond memories of the series, but there are so many fantastic games out there I always have to consider the opportunity cost.

If the gameplay doesn't look appealing to you, I'm not sure if the story/lore is worth it to play through, given the length. I'm sure there's some YouTube video out there that sums up the plot/lore in case you're curious.

That there is even some equivocating going on is distressing, Shadows of Amn is often ranked one of the best computer games of all time, it certainly comes in at No. 1 for me. Go play it, they'll probably be giving it away for a song in the run up to BG:3, go play.

The restored content mods maybe not at first, but certainly the fixes/tweaks mods.

One of the reasons I can come back to BG:2 is because there was only so much content you could really get in one go, this also makes the modding community's contributions fit in easily, though the writing is sometimes a little amateurish.

I'd say yes. Both games are fairly good. I used the companion banter packs for BG1, because there, companions have not a lot (if any) banter. And the tweak and fix mods are fairly good. Other than that, I wouldn't use a lot of mods on the first playthrough. Later maybe Unfinished Business, which restores some quests.

You find some elittle nods to those games in BG3 - so far I found mentions of some companions (Dynaheir, Faldorn, Minsc for example) and events.

BG1 is very much an old school game in that it is very unstructured and you're supposed to "go find yourself something to do" without it being a sandbox in the way modern games are. This might feel like you have no idea what to do when you start playing it.

BG2 is structured much more like modern games and quests make themselves known to a much higher degree. It is likely to be much more approachable and I would start there instead of with BG1. It's the higher quality production of the two anyway.

I find personally that once you've committed yourself to playing an hour or so of it, you don't mind the graphics, and instead become immersed in the story and setting of the game. I would also say, that BGII is a far greater game since it has more focused story, and in my opinion, more memorable and unique main quests, subquests and characters, and it also has a more serious tone than the previous game. Though BGI is a good game, I do really dislike the amount of goofy "Monty Python-esque" NPCs you encounter in BGI, since I find it really it detracts you from the setting of Forgotten Realms, but BGI was BioWare's first venture into the FR setting.

I can also say, that I personally started with BG2 and completed it without ever having completed BG1 (though I've played a sizeable chunk of it), and I had a great time, and I didn't find myself lost at all with references regarding what happened in the first game, since everything of significance is pretty much explained by the NPCs. Also BG2 has a different antagonist and is set in a different part of the Realms, so it is really accommodating to anyone who hasn't played the first game.

I started with BG1, but at the time I was so young that I didn't know any English and was also too frightened by the vast black unknown area on the map that I basically never left the Candlekeep Inn. BG2 was the first of the two I actually played a lot of when it released a few years later. I ended up going back to BG1 some additional years after though.

I tried, but honestly you'll need a lot of love for outdated gameplay mechanics. I drop it up because the mechanics, interfaces, and other things like this just annoyed me.

The graphics themselves are a bit outdated by modern standards, the games use sprites rather than models. The aesthetics however hold up and are top tier still. Story, music, atmosphere etc is all worth it in my opinion.
The game mechanics are a bit aged but... I think it is closer to 5e than 3rd edition is to 5e. The mechanics do hold up still, I think. Sure, it is not as good as what we have now but once you get used to it, it does work for a CRPG.

The first game is based around story buildup and exploration, small side quests and more humour (almost the sort of thing you can expect in Divinity: Original Sin games) and there are fun little easter eggs. BG2 becomes more storyfocussed, and somewhat more linear, though with plenty of sidequests still (Some short and sweet, others involving longer stories and their own seperate areas with dungeons).

I would say check out some videos with gameplay really. If you can get past the graphics themselves, and the 2d style with sprites, the story, aesthetics, adventure-experience etc makes all up for that and I would definatly recommend.

thanks guys for all the advises, it's great and will give it a shot. I will finally understand who's this guy "minsc" that you've been talking about.

ah ! Just when I thought - ok I got this - I see that curve ball coming. I did some digging and NWN2 can run baldurs gate 1 & 2 with a mod name "reloaded". Is it what you are referring to ?