As mentioned in the last update, I've been playing the console version of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. It is a game revered by a certain generation of late 90's gamer. A standout in a time of a standout RPG's. A rip roaring adventure through the world of Dungeons and Dragons. It's contents a veritable checklist for everything gamers look for in a legendary RPG. Yes it's 'finally getting around to playing another classic game' time again. Now that I've gotten around to playing the thing and having sunk a few dozen hours into it I'm going to ramble on at length about how it sucks...
I kid, I kid! I mostly kid!
Playing it now it's an often decent, occasionally good game that was probably great by the standards of 1998. I say probably when in fact I recall more than one glowing recommendation from back in the day. Anyhow, it's a fascinating time capsule of gaming and a genre I wouldn't really get into until the release a few years later of Neverwinter Nights. Believe that one has been remastered too but enough dwelling on the irrevocable onset of time and how my entire childhood is being remastered before my eyes.
For the handful of people not in the know Baldur's Gate was a late 90's effort developed by BioWare back when they were revered developers of RPG's and published by Interplay back when they still err... existed. Hugely popular, a critical and commercial success that spawned a number of sequels and spin-offs, not least the third entry which came out recently and blew everyone's mind, you probably know the one. So there I think I've set the scene.
A top down isometric RPG that sees you guide your group of adventures through the classic fantasy world of the Forgotten Realms. Quests, gear, stats and dice rolls, it's got it all for better or worse. Not that I'm saying this doesn't work because when it does, it works very well indeed. Especially in this remastered version released by Beamdog who have done a very commendable job of updating the game whilst preserving it's presentation as a product of its time.
First the good and I guess the plot deserves special mention here as it flows at a good pace and keeps you interested in just whatever the heck is going on with your main character and their mysterious backstory. The XP and levelling is a fairly grind-free affair even if I found some grunt work was required to meet the demands of the endgame. The presentation is pleasing in a throwback retro way and it's a certainly a generous package with a number of add-ons included for completionists.
That said...
I have an issue with this game, I mean not just this game but the general genre of the top down classic CRPG that requires perhaps more patience than skill. Yes I know someone out there is shouting 'SKILL ISSUE' at the moment but hear me out. Almost every encounter in this game from the start to the end requires either tremendous foresight to prepare for it or just wants you to have the full game guide open as you play it, emptying the adventure of much intrigue and mystery as you do so.
It gets more pressing the further you get into it but you can almost see the inner workings of the game developers minds as they put this together. Everything seems to be designed for an optimal build of skills, weapons, spells, buffs and armour. If you don't have it then prepare to either backtrack a lot to re-prepare for your encounters or slog away with what you have and repeatedly die and reload your save on your way to success. Some point after the umpteenth re load it all starts to feel a little punitive, like the game is punishing you for not having ample foresight or for not exhausting every avenue available before committing to an objective.
It chips away at any sense of enjoyment is what I'm saying. It's not unique to this game for sure with numerous other EOG's from this time sharing many of the same frustrations I will be playing Baldur's Gate II after this and no doubt that will share much of the same design philosophy. From my limited experience with actual tabletop D&D, I know that system has a whole lot more flexibility built into it so games don't just stop dead at major obstacles. Maybe the tabletop game was less flexible back in the late 90's and the videogame is reflecting that but I sense it wouldn't have remained quite the enduring past time it is if that were so.
Nonetheless the stop-start flow and irregular rhythm of Baldur's Gate remains a real issue for and the one major disclaimer against all the praise that has been heaped upon it over the years. It's not like you meet these difficulty spikes in increasing frequency as you approach the endgame, these sudden upturns in difficulty and frustration can seemingly strike at any point. A challenging dungeon where progress is steady but not easy can suddenly become a tiresome chore in mindless repetition and iteration and I've yet to see the purpose it serves beyond just being difficult for the sake of it.
It's not like I'm railing against the difficulty here per se, rather a gameplay design choice that clearly seems to favour one solution high and above all others to the expense of an otherwise enjoyable gaming experience. A gameplay approach that seems to demand either an encyclopedic knowledge of rules, spells and buffs or a precient level of fore-knowledge to get the best experience out of the trickier enemy encounters. In my opinion it doesn't quite worknand explains in part why this genre went out of fashion for a while before being revitalised in modern times
Of course a lot of road has been travelled in video games since then with BioWare taking perhaps more steps than most to transform the humble RPG into something more dynamic, reactive and dare I say flexible?. Problems generally don't require the one exact solution when it comes to tests of combat, skill and chance. Of course these changes haven't gone down well in some quarters either to go by some of the reactions against the later Mass Effect sequels. Likewise the latest Dragon Age didn't go down especially well either but this seems to be more due to politics than mechanics.
As I say I have enjoyed Baldur's Gate and will be playing the immediate sequel. There's is indeed a lot to like here and it's a clear foundational step to much of the later RPG greatness that was to come. To repeat a point from an earlier post I made about playing old games, I think perhaps we were all a bit more patient back in the day when there were less options around and so we were happy to go along with the bad that came with the good. Much like with the original Fallout games that could be a right chore to play and once completed I don't think I'll be revisiting these games any time soon. As such Baldur's Gate gets a guarded recommendation in the year of 2025, attached to a small list of crucial disclaimers.
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