izigame.me

“The streets will run red with blood when my work is finished.”
~Sarevok Anchev

Baldur's Gate is a legend. It was one of those game-changing things that made huge impact on the whole CRPG genre. For many reasons. First, there was D&D. Not like we didn't have games based on Dungeons & Dragons before, those SSI titles, for example, were quite famous, but BG brought all that on the whole new level. While using the second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it pretty much simulated the whole tabletop thing, while making it look like our usual diagonal-down CRPG at the same time. Some mistakes were made, but still, for their very first game, BioWare (a young Canadian team formed by newly graduated doctors) did an amazing job. Second – BG introduced an advanced pause mode. The same one we still use in, say, Bethesda's Fallout. While being a real-time game, BG managed to avoid messy battles by letting us giving commands during the pause. The juiciest part, though, was dialogues.
Heavily inspired by Star Control II (and already improved in Fallout series), those became even more cool in BG. Technically, dialogues in BG were less complicated than what we had in Fallout. In Fallout, lots of your stats played a key role in dialogues, while in BG those stats checks relied mostly on charisma. But that's not the point. The point is – BG was a true RPG. All of those D&D alignments? Those were there and they actually mattered. While most of the other games wanted us to be good (ish), BG allowed us to choose. For real. Good, evil, everything in between? It was there. Our choices mattered and NPCs treated us accordingly. What's even better – the game was lore-heavy. BioWare actually bothered and studied lots and lots of Forgotten Realms literature, thanks to which not only we've got in-game lore books, there were also tons of nods that only the fans of that settings understood. Heck, we actually met characters like Drizzt Do'Urden from R.A. Salvatore's novels and Ed Greeenwood's Elminster Aumar! And, of course, the original story was an epic tale that revolved around the dead god. An evil one too, which made both good and evil paths even more satisfying. BG was... I dunno, to me, a huge D&D fan, it was a bloody religion back in the days. Therefore, to just say that I do recommend it is to say nothing. But. As you can see, this here is not an original BioWare's game. It's Beamdog's “Enhanced Edition”. And it's... not the same thing.
First of all, who da f*ck are Beamdog? Well, it's a company founded by ex-BioWare Trent Oster (who worked on original BG's models) and Cameron Tofer (original BG's co-coder). Means that they know what they're doing, right? Right? Well, unfortunately to us all, it doesn't really look like it. Where should I start... Let's just say it's one of them mobile-oriented remasters that come with all sorts of in-built “cheats”. There's a difficulty selector now and the lowest option comes with a “god mode”. Means you can't die, OK? And while usually I don't mind things like “rewind” feature in old platformers, this? It feels like a bull. Poorly implemented too, especially since you still can be killed by certain spells. That's not my biggest complain, though. My biggest complain is “press the button to see secrets” feature. Originally introduced in a sequel, it doesn't make sense in the first game at all. See, BG was designed to have secrets. Those pixel-wide guide-oriented stashes that were close to impossible to find without knowing exactly where to look. Enhanced Edition? It shows you them all. And it ruins the game a lot. Think about it. One of the best armors in a game (the best for fast characters) requires you to hunt down some strong enemies, pay quite a lot of money and wait. But you know what? Thanks to how you can see all secret stashes now, you can just go and pick one up minutes after you'll finish prologue. What. The f*ck?
There's more. Like they've added new expansions. One of which is just an arena, while another one acts a bridge between first game and its sequel. Which is cool, but they've also raised the level cap there. Why is that bad? Because you can export characters to BGII. Again, you weren't supposed to be that overpowered originally. Even the core game, while having an official old expansion called Tales of the Sword Coast included by default, becomes more imbalanced now. Like they did some changes in D&D thing. Which is good. On paper. I mean, rangers were supposed to have dual-wielding weapons according to the original rules. It was one of the biggest mistakes BioWare did and since I love rangers, I used to complain about that a lot. But think about it. BG was a finished product. And it wasn't designed for dual-wielding rangers. Now what Beamdog guys do? They give rangers two swords and let 'em pick up the best armor early in game. What. Were. They. Thinking?! Sure, BG was never a perfectly balanced experience. But this? This is a mess.
There's more. The core game comes with some new places and characters (companions included). Again, sounds like a good idea, but no. It lets you earn more experience easily, it adds things that game wasn't designed to have (like those item bags) and... It feels stupid most of the time, really. Remember Garrick? A bard that wanted us to protect his mistress from some baddies? Beamdog placed one of the new characters right next to him. Why is that bad? Because situation is exactly the same. We've got two possible companions now, one next to another, both with the same exact prelude. Again, WTF? They even placed another bald guy next to Minsc and guess what? The dude placed so poorly he has no way but to help us against one of the assassins even without recruiting. The good thing is that you can romance the new guys (romances weren't a thing until sequel back in the days), but guess what? Only the new guys are romanceable. Which is... Weird. To say the least. Heck, Beamdog even managed to mess up the lore! Original version happened a bit later in Forgotten Realms' timeline, while Beamdog moved it a bit earlier, which... Let's just say there'll be things mentioned now that weren't supposed to happen yet. They even added the new bugs, while obvious problems like Nester's dagger sprite weren't addressed at all.
In other words, the Enhanced Edition of good ol' BG feels more like a mod. Technically, there's a lot of new content, life improvements and, of course, it's more comfortable – the map is way better, you can change the font size, copy notes to your journal, switch between “improved” visuals (which are just blurry mess similar to filters from emulators), etc. But somehow, it ends up being as far from the original experience as possible. Does that mean that you shouldn't pay for this version? Not really, no. BG is still a fantastic game that even in this form feels totally awesome. Many of the problems I've mentioned you won't even notice without knowing about how things were supposed to be originally. Also, there are lots of people who like adding all sorts of mods to their games. And before you ask, yes, I'm one of those who always prefer the vanilla experience, but still, I'm not bi****ng about things not being the way they were when I was younger. I'm complaining about the changes not being thought-through at all. Somehow, Beamdog managed to do more damage to Baldur's Gate than our pal Sarevok. And one of the most epic role-playing sagas out there totally deserved better. Dixi.