- Joined
- Mar 9, 2007
- Messages
- 5,812
I'm playing through the Baldurs Gate series yet again, this time entirely in the 'Enhanced' addition with the add-on 'Siege of Dragonspear'.
SoD is a really interesting add-on package. On the plus side, a lot of your choices really do make a difference to the overall experience of the game (which wasn't always the case in the original) and the what choices you make will have a major impact on the final battle. There are also some interesting new characters (well one at least) and some cool new weapons. Also pretty much all the equipment you finish BG1 with transfers over to this addon.
On the negative side, it is much more linear (past certain stages, you can't revisit earlier levels), your hand is held much more firmly as to what to do and where to go and there doesn't seem to be any link between this and BG2. Pretty much nothing you finish this game (barring the Golden Pantaloons and one or two useful items) transfers over to BG2, and there is no mention of what happened in SoD in BG2. So character relations/romances that were going pretty well have to start all over again.
The lack of any meaningful transfer from Enhanced BG1/SoD to BG2 is pretty disappointing, as the transition from BG1 to SoD is seamless and works really well. It was quite jarring to finish SoD, then have to load BG2 and manually transfer my final save over to BG2.
And despite multiple play throughs, I always tend to pick largely the same characters. Nearly all good (Imoen, Minsc & Boo, Neera, Aerie) or at worst neutral characters, and definitely no evil. As far as BG1 and BG2 are concerned, the game storyline only seems to properly move forward when you play it being nice and helpful to others (as opposed to killing everyone) and some of my favourite characters just can't abide working alongside evil ones. I used to try and keep Edwin the mage, but it was far more trouble than it was worth to keep the group together.
The thing is though, that in this game by far the most interesting characters seem to be the evil ones. Baeloth, Korgan, Viconia and Dorn all seem to have very entertaining characters, but I just can't have them in my team. Now in the early stages of BG2 I have the opportunity to take Hexxat into my team. A very evil vampire who has one of the most unique entrances into a game (as a playable character) that I can think of. Right from the start you know what type of character she is without even looking at her stats. But I was very tempted still to take a vampire into my party just for the experience. But I dislike 'carrying' a character just so that I can offload them when I know another will after be coming into my team, and I'm still loathe to have any evil character on my side, despite how interesting their story might be.
One thing I think that BG misses out on is the chance to get a character to move from 'evil' to being good when they are companioned by other good characters. Or maybe even the other way with good characters in an evil party being seduced to the dark side. But an evil character seems to be evil right to the very end, despite the number of good deeds the team may do. Interestingly in the original game there was an object (the Helmet of Alignment)t that changed the alignment of a character; has anyone ever tried this? I'm assuming that it might play some havoc with the scripting in the game.
Anyone else have experience with these games? And (having never played BG3 yet) is there any kind of smooth transition between BG2 and BG3?
SoD is a really interesting add-on package. On the plus side, a lot of your choices really do make a difference to the overall experience of the game (which wasn't always the case in the original) and the what choices you make will have a major impact on the final battle. There are also some interesting new characters (well one at least) and some cool new weapons. Also pretty much all the equipment you finish BG1 with transfers over to this addon.
On the negative side, it is much more linear (past certain stages, you can't revisit earlier levels), your hand is held much more firmly as to what to do and where to go and there doesn't seem to be any link between this and BG2. Pretty much nothing you finish this game (barring the Golden Pantaloons and one or two useful items) transfers over to BG2, and there is no mention of what happened in SoD in BG2. So character relations/romances that were going pretty well have to start all over again.
The lack of any meaningful transfer from Enhanced BG1/SoD to BG2 is pretty disappointing, as the transition from BG1 to SoD is seamless and works really well. It was quite jarring to finish SoD, then have to load BG2 and manually transfer my final save over to BG2.
And despite multiple play throughs, I always tend to pick largely the same characters. Nearly all good (Imoen, Minsc & Boo, Neera, Aerie) or at worst neutral characters, and definitely no evil. As far as BG1 and BG2 are concerned, the game storyline only seems to properly move forward when you play it being nice and helpful to others (as opposed to killing everyone) and some of my favourite characters just can't abide working alongside evil ones. I used to try and keep Edwin the mage, but it was far more trouble than it was worth to keep the group together.
The thing is though, that in this game by far the most interesting characters seem to be the evil ones. Baeloth, Korgan, Viconia and Dorn all seem to have very entertaining characters, but I just can't have them in my team. Now in the early stages of BG2 I have the opportunity to take Hexxat into my team. A very evil vampire who has one of the most unique entrances into a game (as a playable character) that I can think of. Right from the start you know what type of character she is without even looking at her stats. But I was very tempted still to take a vampire into my party just for the experience. But I dislike 'carrying' a character just so that I can offload them when I know another will after be coming into my team, and I'm still loathe to have any evil character on my side, despite how interesting their story might be.
One thing I think that BG misses out on is the chance to get a character to move from 'evil' to being good when they are companioned by other good characters. Or maybe even the other way with good characters in an evil party being seduced to the dark side. But an evil character seems to be evil right to the very end, despite the number of good deeds the team may do. Interestingly in the original game there was an object (the Helmet of Alignment)t that changed the alignment of a character; has anyone ever tried this? I'm assuming that it might play some havoc with the scripting in the game.
Anyone else have experience with these games? And (having never played BG3 yet) is there any kind of smooth transition between BG2 and BG3?
