Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Previous Baldur's gate games! Dated?

Both Baldur's Gate titles feature a day and night cycle; Larian's attempt doesn't.

BG2 was my first cRPG and it still is my favorite RPG of all time.


Don't get me started...

I don't find discussing BG1&2 to be much of the revelance here, as BG3 has barely anything to do with them. It's a sequel in the name only.

BG2 is a classic, and one of the few 100% guaranteed games to be included in my top 10 of all times - it is "dated" in the way films from silver era are: they are clearly not a modern production, but at least for me it doesn't diminish their value or my enjoyment of it. Some of it's individual ideas are underdeveloped by todays stadard and there are elements that I could easily criticise, but they all combine into something one of a kind and special. Did a full playthrough of BG1&2 sometime around PoE2 campaign (so 4, 5 years ago?) and it was still great experience. Did play around with infinity engine games on my ipad about a year ago, and in spite of clunky touch interface I still had a pretty good time.

I think less of BG1, even though I am very fond of it as well - but I see it more as the game that came before BG2. A bit like Demon Souls to Dark Souls, Systemshock1 to Systemshock2, Civilization1 to Civilization2.

I'm playing a TON of BG1/2 right now (EE for me, just due to better mod support etc.) while I'm waiting for BG3 to come out. I still absolutely love it to this day and I think it aged very well. The modding community has also kept it fresh for me - mainly through challenge mods like SCS and Ascension.

I recently just finished a solo-run with an uncapped Fighter/Mage/Thief (mainly because otherwise you can hit the XP cap in chapter 4 of 10 in BG2/TOB). The final battle with this mod (done by David Gaider, one of the Devs of the game) is probably still my favorite final boss fight in RPG history. It's an intense gauntlet of fights after fights that stretches your resources to the limits, especially if you're solo-ing. It also fixes some of the narrative issues of the original ending. Highly recommended for anyone replaying this fine game today.

The thing I miss most really is more the 2E aspects of the game, where the magic system really feels like magic. There are certain hard rules and interactions to the system - i.e. if someone has Protection from Magical Weapons, they WILL not be hit. That's it. No brute forcing like how you can in Pathfinder or 5E. It's very binary and unfair on an individual basis, but in party-based game I think it adds a lot chess-like mini-games and depth. However, I don't think any modern D&D game will get to use that system again.

The other thing I'll say will probably not go well with the Table-Top purists, but BG2 definitely took in liberties in adapting the D&D rules for the videogame, and I think it was WAY better for it. There is a lot of broken cheese in this game that has become defining features of the game IMO. Some of it is almost core to the gameplay - i.e. learning the latin spoken for different spell types, and microing you toon away and item-swapping to the right pieces to help you tank it last moment as literal magic projectiles approaching is an AMAZING experience, and more Diablo than D&D. But it's amazing, and I wouldn't have BG2 in any other way. The amazing final battle that I just had on Ascension would not be possible if both my character and the enemies were playing by the "rules".

My only complaint about the game - i.e. the thing that has aged worst for me - really is some of the plotting and lack of branching/choices. For a game that lets you roleplay an ascension to godhood, it does kind of often put you into places of absolute powerlessness for plot convenience via cutscenes. I.e. getting captured multiple times, constantly being tricked by not just the main villains (even if you can see it coming a mile away), but even minor sleezebag side characters like Saemon Havarian, etc. It's surprisingly linear. But at this point I'm basically fast forwarding the dialogue to get to the fun parts so the break in immersion doesn't really hurt that much.

Currently doing a Cleric/Ranger party run - another example of cheese or "bad implementation turned fun". It's a kind of a infamous multi-class because Bioware implemented it in that makes this class get all the Druid spells too (something off limits to Clerics and Rangers). Ironically, the Beamdog actually removed this cool interaction - it was the first thing I modded back in lol. I'm blazing through this pretty quickly - already in Throne of Bhaal with 3 of the 5 down for the count.

Embarrassingly, this new EE portrait might have inspired me to name my character after someone from BG3...

You must have tough times with sequels huh?

I mean ... every studio gives every game their own identity ... hells even different Actors playing the same character play it allways "their way" ...
Hells sometimes even the same studio delivers different game bcs team working on it changed too much over the time!
Just recently i have found interesting project where group of DnD players played the same session over and over ... but each time different player was a GM ... i would not believe how much they differ if i didnt see it wih my own eyes and ears.

Video game sequels cranked out by completely different developers some two odd decades plus later are different from sequels released two to four years later by the same developers.

Basically this. I can accept the change from 2e to 5th, i can suck it up about the old painting like art style vs. the new 3d stuff, etc etc. But I find it really hard to accept they chose to not follow the predecessors in the things listed below. I also really do not see the advantage or benefit of not implementing stuff that was standard 2 years ago. Can't help but feel it is a serious downgrade. It's like making a nice, new, expensive version of a classic car, but refusing to give it a paint job. Because, you know, it's only cosmetics and it's only what's "under the hood" that manners....



Otherwise, I still start new games fairly frequently in the EE infinity games. Given I have them on my phone, they've been my goto time killers for when i'm flying or otherwise need to wait for long. At this point, I would legit be more exited about them finding the IWD2 source code and releasing it as an EE together with the OG Bg3 - the black hounds which was forever lost to us too...

I can't imagine playing the EE games on my phone. I feel like the control of things would be devastatingly slow...

My character's pre-buff routine right now uses almost 15+ keybinds between Divine / Arcane spells so it can go faster lol. Having to manual click each one... I would go insane.

Speaking of another thing I would love to see come back - companion perma deaths aka "chunking".

There's nothing more satisfying and hilarious than the tradition of finishing a no-reload BG run with a cobbled-together half-sized party - not the one you wanted but the one you deserved because you got the rest of your party perma-killed.

I know BG3 will not have the same amount of companions and will likely have mercenaries, but as someone who'll eventually play no reload, I want to the game to punish me

It helps that I am not one of those ultra hard settings + mods kinda BG player. I play on 'core rule' difficulty precisely because I want to avoid the tediousness of pre buffing. Also, I'm probably only able to enjoy playing this on my phone because I know the UI already. The key is auto-pause

^This is *exactly* how I felt: sheer joy! That very first time I played BG1 was almost a magical experience. Keeping in mind I had never played anything like that before on a computer, it literally blew my mind. I was in grad school at that time with no money to afford anything, including a computer. But my grad school friends were all playing this new game that had just come out and raving about it. Then a few months later one of my friends was going away for the holidays and needed someone to house-sit for him, and he told me I could play games on his computer as much as I wanted. Well, the very first night, around 9 pm, I booted up his computer and launched BG1. The next time I looked up at the clock it was 7 am.

Hahaha this made me chuckle. I can totally relate, on the nights I wasn't at home playing I used to come back in the early hours of the morning and still boot up BG, IWD or NWN.

I think what BG1 did really well (though I understand this divides opinion) is the sense of loss and being out in the wilderness without much of a clue what to do or where to go. Personally I loved the exploration but appreciate this wasn't for everyone. BG2 obviously had a much tighter sense of exploration but it still conveyed time and distance, things which are notably absent in Larian's theme park maps. I think in a fundamental way they don't really *get* what made those games so memorable.

Yes you nailed it. I was immediately able to relate to Charname in a very personal way. You are this adopted kid with no known background. You are raised in Candlekeep, which only serves to highlight even more how much of a nobody you are, being constantly surrounded by people so very highly educated and talented. Finally, when you become an adult, your adoptive father takes you out of this closed setting you've spent your whole life in, on a very important journey you know nothing about. But soon after leaving, a very ominous and scary and uber-powerful enemy attacks and kills the only person in the world who cares for you, leaving you cold, starving, exposed, vulnerable, and so very alone in the world. And you have no idea what to do next, and only a very vague idea of some place you're supposed to go to. Heck you don't even have confidence you will survive the day!

No other game since has made me feel as connected to my PC as the beginning of BG1 did for me.

Yeah, a wolf killed me right away. Then I reloaded, decided that first wilderness map was too dangerous, and went down to High Hedge ... yeeoww, six skeletons!

Robert Frost never wrote about the reason *why* a particular road was seldom traveled.

But anyway, I grew to love BG I. Much more satisfying than watching TV.

Same here. The very beginning of the Bhaalspawn saga is what did it for me. I never replayed any IE games more than the beginning of BG1.

I remember the first times I played BG1 how I was struggling to beat Tarnesh. This guy used to give me a lot of trouble, as I never picked Monty and Xzar. I was such a Paladin back then

It's funny to recall just how 'green' the beginning of BG1 made the PC feel and in many respects rightly so because it created such a tangible sense of character progression in the long run. Comparatively the BG3 intro sort of feels like a high school graduate intern being thrown into hospital emergency room.

Hehe. In BG1, if you had created Charname as a wizard with low CON, literally tripping over a rock could kill you.

And yeah, I also don't ever take along the evil duo. It's always me and lil' sis against the world!!

Damnit, we should have received Infinity Engine games for Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Dark Sun...

Remember how wonderful it was in BG1 to finally get a simple normal sword that didn’t break all of the time? Not even a magic sword, just a sword that didn’t have contaminated iron in it. Talk about building up slowly. No lightning swords, or static electricity swords, or whatever - just a normal sword felt so satisfying. And when you finally fought someone (not just found in a crate) with a +1 (or +2!!!) weapon and kept it for loot, wow, that was satisfying.

ha! One of those things I really like in that game - carrying a spare weapon, not really understanding how and why weapons break. It was especially cool to see as I played BG1 after BG2. I am stil not sure if the system was completely scrapped or if BG2 showers players in so many magical items from the get go that I just never experienced it.