I hope to see as little BG1 in BG3 as possible. Barely got through that game, would not like to have the same experience with this one.
BG1 came out in Highschool for me, and it was a watershed game. Its like Super Mario Bros or Goldeneye, but the D&D crpg equivalent. Legendary for the times and basically beyond reproach. I don't know how I feel about BG1 being rereleased and represented by Beamdog though. BG1 is very similar to Star Wars in my mind. Star Wars the motion picture I mean. The BG enhanced editions are pretty analogous to Star Wars special editions. Like instead of just holding it at restoration with the fine grain coffee beans, they went that extra step and added a bunch of stuff. Like quite a considerable amount of stuff. I get playing BG1 using the BG2 engine ala Tutu, or with weidu mods in the afterlife since that kept it going in the aughts, but the EEs went rather further by becoming total replacements. Suggesting they'd still hold up like 25 years later, blending old stuff with new stuff, I'm not so sure. I like old games and still think they're worth having on the hard drive, but I'm not sure I could really recommend BG1 as a time machine for anything much beyond historical fascination, or at least not to someone who didn't have an experience with it growing up. Same as Star Wars.
One thing BG1 did do though, is give off a strong impression that the peeps who made it had played and loved like all the D&D crpg games that came before. You could just feel the love and the reference, but at the same time it wasn't just another PnP campaign translation like the old SSI gold boxes. It basically synthesized them all into a perfect FR pastiche. Again very much like Star Wars the motion picture did with the serial cinema recyclatron. It's just such a tall order for it to come back after two decades and expect it to recapture the essence of the original, but that's nevertheless what I do expect hehe.
I can only guess that trying to play BG1, after already having been exposed to more modern fair, would be a little disappointing. Most of the compare contrasts above, you could plug in Dragon Age and get much the same. With a shoulder shrug for the D&D rules and setting I guess, but it was the D&D and FR setting that made BG1 what it was. I'm still not sure why they aren't reping more FR in the art direction for BG3? Like using the legit logos and putting them up top. If I imagined this box coming out on a shelf, right now it feels like "from Larian: the studio that brought you Divinity Original Sin II!" is emblazoned in giant print where we'd expect to see the "Forgotten Realms" and the D&D5e logos going hehe.
For infinity engine gameplay Pillars and Pathfinder have basically given it to us, absent only the FR setting. What I wanted from BG3 is rather different, to bridge the divide between games like that and the modern 3D AAA heavy hitters, but within the Realms setting and using the D&D systems. The problem I think is that D&D games always assume too much prior familiarity with the rulebooks and have a hard time introducing the systems and explaining how things work or translate into the gameplay. BG1 didn't do a particularly stellar job there either hehe. What they did do though was provide a lot of companion and party combinations to introduce each class and all the various spells and abilities on offer. I still think the best thing they could do for BG3 would be aim for a dozen classes out the PHB and a companion to showcase for each. I think the quickest thing they could do to make it feel more BG1/2 would just be to add 2 more party slots and allow for a larger party. It would probably decrease difficulty but the trade off in pacing and general BG vibe would be worth it without costing anything for peeps who like a tighter party of 4. Most times the last 2 slots are the rotating ones anyway. I think it would work better like that in SP, and in MP too for still taking along a couple story characters.
