This is a matter of degrees: one of them (i.e., the original saga) is a firecracker and the other (i.e., Larian's project) is a main-sequence star. Also, I don't relish saying this, but, the writing/pacing in the Baldur's Gate series was head and shoulders above everything Larian has produced thus far; I never walked away from either title (or their expansions) feeling that the experience was generally goofy.
Humor has always been subjective. I am an older gamer and for me the talking squirrels are less fourth wall- breaking than a bandit making a wood and caverns "wink, wink" joke. Or the npc comments you get when you click on them. Playing the saga back then, not everyone was a Minsc & Boo fan either. It just that also with less games on the market and in general the gaming community being smaller, I'd say the expectations were less too.
