Awor Szurkrarz said:
sea said:
b) that it led to a much, much improved sequel.
Which still had the same flaws as BG1 and added a new element of decline - Bioware dialogue choices.
Some of the flaws, yes. In other ways it was a major improvement.
For one, story. Baldur's Gate has a simple plot, but it's also got plenty of little holes in it, and the majority of it does not play out through action, dialogue and so forth, it plays out through... walking to a place to find a letter. The delivery is just awful. Compare that to Baldur's Gate 2, where you're given freeform goals (amass lots of money early on to pay for information), different parties to side with who may or may not actually help you, side-quests which do a decent job of tying into the main quest, and a villain who is both compelling and whose motivations are clear (rather than just, you know, a big scary orc).
Second, world design. Although the Sword Coast might have been realised "realistically", the fact is that Baldur's Gate 2 just has far more variety, the locations feel far less redundant and superfluous even if there are fewer of them, and most locations have a reason for existing, rather than just for the sake of endless filler content. Baldur's Gate has its moments, but they're eroded by the endless hiking through boring, repetitive wilderness areas, fighting the same enemies over and over again. It's almost as bad as an MMO in that respect. Baldur's Gate 2 "trims the fat" while getting much better use out of the environments that they did go to the effort of making. Efficiency in design!
Third, combat. While more or less the same system between games, with more choices in Baldur's Gate 2 as far as classes and weaponry go (though not necessarily significant ones), Baldur's Gate 2 has far, far better encounter design, far less filler combat, and far more unique enemies and monsters, high-level enemies like beholders to trash, dragons which actually can and will wreck your day, mages who put up huge protection spells before blasting you with deadly combos, etc. The first game had some of this stuff, but only in a very limited capacity, and it was buried under layers and layers of killing goddamn gibberlings and xvarts. Baldur's Gate 2 has its issues (enemies who cheat the rules), but it's far stronger in this respect and success is based far more on real tactics rather than how well you can abuse exploits.
As for the dialogues... an RPG can be linear story- and dialogue-wise, and I really won't mind so long as it offers me something to sink my teeth into. Most of the dialogue in Baldur's Gate 2 is actually very well done, emo Twilight romance bullshit aside, so that's a plus for me. Conversations that give a false sense of choice in themselves aren't a bad thing, either, unless they really lie to you or force you into things you think you should or should not have to do, and I think Baldur's Gate 2, for the most part, does a good job of avoiding falling into the "but thou must" trap.
Really, for the most part, the flaws in Baldur's Gate 2 that remain present from Baldur's Gate 1 really boil down to the game engine/perspective/combat system than anything else, and I think that's to be expected given the game was made in (if memory serves) less than a year. It's actually surprising just how much of an improvement it is over the original considering... which also makes it sadder just how fucking awful Neverwinter Nights turned out, but that's another story.
Matt7895 said:
Can somebody pklease tell me how the FUCK Baldurs Gate and Baldurs Gate 2 are great CRPGs?
I mean, for FUCKS SAKE, this is really pissing me off. It is as if Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape Torment, Fallout: New Vegas etc don't exist. Those are RPGs, they have choices and consequences. The BG series is just fucking combat, and shit combat at that.
A CRPG doesn't have to have choice and consequence in its story and/or quests to be good, and many of the more combat-heavy CRPGs have quite a lot of choice and consequence as far as character creation and building go, if you want to look at it in terms of pure mechanics.
