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

Yeah SoD was pretty decent, especially since it gave you a way to import and continue playing with some of the Companions that didn't make it into BG2.

I wish instead of inventing a handfull of new NPCs, that they had simply allowed us to recruit the BG1 NPCs that make cameos in BG2. Like allowing us to recruit Xzar or Tiax, Coran, Faldorn etc in BG2 after their cameo archs conclude. I think that would have been received somewhat more favorably than the new EE companions they created. It would have worked for pretty much everyone in BG1 except Khalid and Dynaheir (since they died according to the prologue of BG2). BG2 was a bit uneven in terms of the companion classes available especially for the villains. So recruiting Eldoth or Shar Teel etc in BG2 would have been cool.

I don't really get the big fascination with Misc. He was always the first to get chunked in my BG1 games! Dumber than a bag of hammers lol.

Neera was alright for a Wild Mage to be added for BG1. I just didn't see a huge need for another spunky Mage to be inserted into the BG2 roster though, since that archetype was pretty well covered already by Imoen and Aerie from ch1, and Nalia from chapter 2 on. Nalia was more compelling and had the better Voice acting in my view. I never liked the Monk as a class, so I didn't care one way or the other about Rasaad. The EE companions are a little cringe sometimes but they don't really take anything away from the core game. Their companion quests give some cool combats and loot at least. The banters and interjections in BG2 are pretty frequent though, almost excessive, but you do get a lot more backstory for them especially in BG1.

But yeah I'd have rather seen more of the BG1 companions made recruitable in BG2, since I think they'd have been a lot more popular for fans of the original.

Its funny looking at all the BG1/2 portraits again just now, to see how busted in the face everyone is by BG2 hehe. Just the scars and scrapes (which they all have in BG2). Some of the returning fan favs from BG1 got a pretty serious makeover in BG2 like Viconia and Imoen, but I tend to prefer their BG1 looks in most cases. I really think its Kinkade effect I can't get past in BG2. Way too much yellow and pink and fuzziness across the board in the og BG2 portraits, and the forms are rather flat. BG1 had a more clearly defined palette, usually with a stronger read for the main color of the small portrait, and more interesting backgrounds for the larger portrait. Which just made looking at the savegame preview and portrait bar color sweep more visually appealing to me in BG1 as opposed to what they gave us in BG2.

I also wish they had included more mystery type portraits for Charname. You know, the hooded figure type portrait, where the face is half in shadow and the features are left less defined, so it could service more char types. Or just a few more options for each race/gender across the board. EE did add a few more portraits, but missed some obvious stuff that would have been nice to see, and again the difference in art style/caliber was noticeable. Least for me

These are the original BG1 Portraits...


Here are the original BG2 Portraits...


Just for comparison, some of the og Icewind Dale portraits, which still look pretty clean here even at a tiny scale...
I had trouble hunting down the close crops for the small size portrait that actually display in-game, but they were all fairly well executed. In general the handling was looser, more like a concept art wip than a fully dialed portrait. But basically, because Justin Sweet and the gang had the pro chops, these IWD portraits come across as looking a lot more polished to me, even where the brush strokes are less defined and some of the finer details are left up to the imagination. Just a stronger overall presentation, especially with the full figure presentation, and I like the darker ambiance.



I'd have hoped for something more like that for a Baldur's Gate enhanced edition, but I don't even want to post the default EE portraits, cause they're just kind of embarrassing lol. I like some of the larger EE portraits. Just not so much the crops they used for the small size portrait. All the EE portraits are resized/cropped too wide for their default small size, the one that displays on the sidebar and in the gamesave. Its more pronounced with Hexxat and Clara than Dorn or Neera, but they could all use a closer crop to bring them more in line with the face sizes of the BG2 characters. The crops they used make the EE portraits stand out from the default BG2 portraits even more than the BG1 portraits stand out next to them. Better to switch out for Custom portraits I think, of which there are like 1000s floating around these days. If you can get through all the Edwin/Viconia hooded photoshoppers.

Why settle when you could have a Dorn who looks more like this badass by Dave Rapoza...?


Or if you need your Viconia to strike a sexy pose like its Vogue, why not just go all the way with it, like one of those the killer Drow paintings by Aleksandra Trezvina?


Whatever you can handled with 10 STR right? lol
At least in BG1/2 there are options for custom portraits hehe