Nostalgia is better left just as a fond memory
I can see how this game could had been great once. Care and love poured into it is self evident. Game has a massive significance in gaming industry. Sadly, game is terribly done and reeks of amateurs down to their role-playing. This is game only for people who want to remember how great their childhood were or ones who are still stuck there.
💖Love is Blind💖
Just because something is a labour of love or you have fond memories of it, it does not necessary mean that it is good. Time was not kind to this game and it is thoroughly outdated in everything. From most obvious, graphical prowess and ugly looking pixels to more transcendent properties like a story telling. Nothing in Baldur’s Gate compares favourably to games today and it is a great example why people reviews are mostly useless. They do not review games objectively, they evaluate them mostly through hype and preset beliefs which they formed many years ago when they first played a game which was not crap while most games were. While this game was influential and significant, it doesn’t warrant a recommendation for a person looking to play this game. A historical significance is only of interest to museum. Over time many better games came out which are better in every metric. I do believe that many old games are still worth playing even today. Starcraft I has an amazing campaign for example. However, this game has absolutely nothing to offer which could not be experienced in a lot better form elsewhere.
This nonsense is best to be seen
I’m attaching a video to this review to better convey what it is actually like to play this game. These are just few things which stuck out to me. Its horrible combat, balance, story telling. However, game is a never ending trove of badness. For one thing which is good there are dozen of things which are bad.💀Time is a Cruel Mistress💀
Nothing this game does could not be seen elsewhere done in a better form. Its graphics, story, gameplay, sound, world building, engine. Game is completely outdated in every respect while surprisingly still being actively supported. Gameplay
Calicifer’s Reviews
- Game is thoroughly outdated how it plays. Small inventory spaces, a lot of individual items. The fact that various specialised bags in this game is one of the most treasured early game items tells you a lot. There are no real storage options outside of putting all your items at random chests.
Heroes are equally as baffling. In order to recruit new ones, you have to swap old ones. Some of them will remain where they are standing. Others will go to friendly inn while few others will stay at different places. You have to collect them as pokemons and getting one is frustrating, because often you only can recruit on the spot. You have then to go long way back to Friendly Inn to deposit them and go right back to continue what you were doing. Even if you want to swap them out, it is not recommended, because heroes need to level up in order to face foes encountered later in game. For some heroes like mages, additional levels are extremely important due to their broken scaling. Thus, you can’t even experiment with different heroes to see what you like.
Combat - Oh, it is bad. It is broken. It is extremely unbalanced. From mages being useless to becoming Gods to stealth characters utterly breaking a game. Combat in this game is badly done. From being completely outnumbered and outmatched to encountering basilisk in low level environments which can instant kill your hero and end your game. Combat in this game is a quick load chore dominated completely by RNG. You can clear hard encounter in a first try with luck or you can reload a save dozen of time until you cheese enemy hard enough until you win.
Story - Story in this game reeks of amateurish roleplaying straight out of hobby shops. Characters, as little they are developed in this game, are written in such a terrible way that it makes you cringe. Dorn is a good example. It seems like a teenager doing a bit about how evil he is all the time. Usually they will complain all game long and then leave you or force conflicts for no reason which are then solved by quick loading and doing the same thing again which doesn’t trigger the event.
The main story is typical of Dungeons of Dragons community. They have no clue how to tell a good story. They imagine overcomplicated grand mystery which you will have to unravel. They make up evens in that story and then put you into a passenger seat. You are going through the world which assumes that you know all the background role and are involved in it. In this game, you start with giant time sink in a castle. Talking about utterly irrelevant things when you must go due to unspecified threat. That threat finds you and you flee. It mentions Iron Throne and how evil it is. For some reason it keeps on picking on you despite having no motivation to do so. Then story railroads you into mission while keeping the whole plot and motivation hidden. You have no clue what Iron Throne is. What is their motivation until the latter part of the game. You have to slug through dozens of hours of poorly explained story to get there. Encountering people who are very into their roles while you have no investment in it at all. In the end you discover that you are a Dragonborn and have to fight another Super Sayan Dragonborn who is trying to become a God by killing everyone. Yeah…I’m not even exaggerating here. Story is such a rubbish one.
There are also a lot of inconsistencies. One quest asks you to get evidence on Iron Throne. You go to their headquarters in a middle of a major city with a gang of heavily armed mercenaries. You slaughter everyone from its cellar to the top floor and leave. Captain of a guard celebrates you for your deed and sends to your own childhood castle to get evidence which is found on their leaders there. I go in and slaughter them. Now I’m suddenly convicted of murder. This is a massive inconsistency. However, game thought that I will not kill them and then they could frame me for murder and execute me. Except, I did murdered all of them in middle of castle in cold blood. Game then tries to portray you as innocent running from a law for a random mass slaughter which were you and everyone around you were committing all this time. This game is as contrived as it can get.
☠️Some things are better left in the Past☠️
Not every game age gracefully. Some of them were good only because they were okey’ish games when there weren’t any good games out there. When field was full of small studios full of amateurs who were learning on the job (this is the case here too). Back then there was a lot of passion, enthusiasm, but not a lot of skill, experience or resources to make games. This is such a product. It comes from times when developers were doing what they were doing, because they absolutely loved it. Games like these were important long ago and they do have historical significance. However, it is a good thing that industry evolved past its own roots and moved away from everything what they once were.Calicifer’s Reviews
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