{"id":565,"date":"2021-02-12T23:47:39","date_gmt":"2021-02-13T04:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/?p=565"},"modified":"2021-02-12T23:47:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-13T04:47:42","slug":"baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/2021\/02\/12\/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I haven’t played the original game, so I’m not sure what this is enhanced with. It’s the classic Dungeons and Dragon adventure within the area of Baldur’s Gate! This is an isometric party-based RPG full of swords and magic. I am not good at this kind of game, so let’s get going!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find it on Steam<\/a>. Special thanks to swaswj for making this review possible. This is also not a review of the full game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Enhance!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This game is not easy at the start. Especially for someone that has not played Dungeons and Dragon. the 2nd edition, I believe. Which is me. I have no idea how to make a proper character build and this game sort of works better when you start with a good build in mind and work towards that. Me, I just did barbarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Welcome to the world<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After the starting area, the story kicks off with you and your childhood friend dropped in the world looking for a reason why someone wants you dead. Along the way, you will gather a party of up to six. Hopefully you can control them effectively. There is a pause feature to help you issue commands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not that good at managing so many people in real time. And I don’t know enough about the rules of DnD 2E so I’m just sitting there watching my characters swing away. They make contact like, once every four or five attacks so if I were to give them orders for each one of that? Combat would take forever. I mostly just let them do what they want with the occasional order to do a spell or to drag a squishy away from the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, you’ll probably want to give your lower-HP characters like mages some ranged weapons or turn off their AI, otherwise they’ll be running into combat where you don’t want them to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To battle!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So early game was rough. Quick save saved me since most encounters were determined by my getting lucky and managing to kill the enemy before they killed me. Not helping things were the tricky nature of the game. The first four party members they push you to just on normal playing happen to dislike each other and won’t work well together, so you’ll have to look around to find other party members yourself. It’s rough going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I started leveling up, though, and getting some more HP and better equipment so I don’t die as often, the game became smoother and more interesting to get through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Got to hang out at the inn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Baldur’s Gate is a pretty open RPG with some time limitations if you start certain quests. Beyond that, you can go out explore the world and do some quests. It is interesting to go around doing dungeons and seeing new places. Most of the time, combat will be the only answer, but there are a few cases where you can talk your way out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each map area has one or more interesting things going on. Being a more old-school style game, there are no map markers, so you’ll have to listen to the quest giver to know what to do. You can also find quest items before you even get the quest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of that, finding the actual quest might be more difficult as towns has the annoying thing of making certain doors hidden from the player. It’s not even in a secret way, but just the house you need to enter is facing the wrong direction, thus the door is not visible to you. And you also don’t know which one of the many houses has a quest since most of them have nothing important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To somewhat help you, you can write down notes in a journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s time for the fungeon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The companions you can get are mostly static. They make a few comments here and there, but nothing substantial to what’s actually going on at the time. There are new companions in the enhanced edition that talk more about their personal lives, but that’s about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that annoys me is that somehow, your character cannot gracefully turn a guy down. Some of the time, when you meet a potential companion and refuse to let them join your party, because come on, you already have a full group and are in the middle of something, that companion will leave entirely and you can’t find them again. In at least one case, refusing someone will have them attack you! Sheesh. I’m sorry the game doesn’t give me a party management system and you want to join while I’m doing something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then when you kick companions out of your party, sometimes they’ll go to certain locations, other times, they’ll just wait in place, even if that place is out in the middle of the woods. They’ll keep all the cool gear you give them, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re almost better off quick saving to know who is a companion and then ignoring them if you don’t want them at the moment. Party management can be somewhat of a chore in this game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lots of jerks around<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The game does get far more enjoyable the further in you get. The world opens up and you can start building a party you like. The story is full of intrigue as you slowly solve the region’s problem and figure out why someone wants to kill you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This game is a classic, and I can see why. It is big open world RPG and is full of things to do. There are lots of quests, some with different resolutions. The game is replayable too, if you want to try out different party members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s go find out more about the world!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find the game on Steam<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t played the original game, so I’m not sure what this is enhanced with. It’s the classic Dungeons and Dragon adventure within the area of Baldur’s Gate! This is an isometric party-based RPG full of swords and magic. I am not good at this kind of game, so let’s get going! Find it on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[33,32],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vgreviews","category-videogames","tag-open-world","tag-rpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":566,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}