All this talk of the Enhanced Editions, they sure are something of a contentious subject, aren't they?
I'm playing through the Original Saga again and I feel like even after all these years, it holds up pretty well. I'm running the Enhanced edition and it's pretty good so far. I decided to run an evil party this time since I know the EE added two more evil-alignment characters, which finally makes BGII playable with a full evil party without messing around with mods or custom multiplayer characters.
I have only used Baeloth and Dorn so far (and Rasad briefly), but I didn't find either of them too offputting-Dorn is pretty straightforward as far as evil characters go and is pretty upfront about why he's following you. Chaotic Evil but you always know where you stand which is nice. Baeloth is pretty eccentric and toes the line with being OTT. I get that he's a secret character, but IMO a bit of a toned-down version would have been a good addition to the BGII roster, it's a shame that he's BG I +SoD exclusive, because BG II is the game that would benefit the most from additional companions. I imagine he'd be pretty fun in a party with Edwin and Viconia in that game.
Currently I'm debating getting SoD, since I'm nearing the end of BG I. I know that it adds a bunch of new companions and romances, and brings back some of the BG I companions that didn't make the jump to BG II, which is all most welcome. I'm particularly surprised that Beamdog was able to write a new romance for Safana, a preexisting BG I character-something that I had previously thought was off the table for Beamdog. This is tempered by the fact that I know that none of these new characters or romances make the transition to BG II. Starting a romance with Glint or Corwin knowing that you can't continue it in BG II doesn't sound very appealing.
BG I&II are still great games, and I don't feel like the Enhanced Editions take away from any of that, but the former isn't perfect-there are lots of little annoying design features, stuff cut from rushed development etc, and the later does a very imperfect job of patching up those imperfections. EE isn't going to make late-game BGII or TOB any less rushed and crushingly linear, it's not going to let you run with Xan or Shar-Teel in BGII, or restore cut romances or party members like Valygar or Mazzy, (or add new ones to existing characters for that matter-sorry Edwin fans) the EE is very limited in it's scope and is somewhat disappointing in that regard if you were looking for new or revised content to spice things up. I'd say it *is* better than vanilla BG at this stage, but there's a bit of an unfortunate air of untapped potential around it IMO.
