Baldur's Gate 1: My Memories vs The Enhanced Edition 

the biggest problem with this game is that you are not coming back from school to play it anymore

I bounced off baldur's gate a lot in high school but I finally got down and beat bg1 on core rules, working through 2 rn. I gotta say there is a certain *something* about those big empty wilderness areas. I wouldn't want them in every CRPG and I appreciate bg2 moving away from that design, but it gives me a similar feeling to mass effect 1's uncharted worlds, big desolate fantasy vistas to explore, never know what you might find.

I remember playing the original Balder's Gate around 1999 or 2000 on a 266Mhz Pentium 2 with 96mb of RAM, a 4mb Diamond Viper v330 video card, and running on MsDos and Windows 95.

You could create an entirely custom party. You hade to play 'multiplayer' and insert all of your characters you wanted to. But then just play solo.

Great insight! As much as I'd like to play old school crpgs, I've been totally spoiled by turn based combat. There are mods that recreate BG1&2 in the Neverwinter Nights games but Id love to them in BG3 even though it might take years.

I played Enhanced Edition several years ago, and for some reason I just couldn't go beyond that.

I 100% agree with the Beamdog added NPC they stand out I don't tend to use them because of that as I find it emersion breaking the same for BG2 Enhanced.

Can’t wait for thoughts on BG2!

At least new companions are more fleshed out, though I didn't like some of them. Majority of original companions only had like short introduction, they only existed to give different options for classes and alignments (now obsolete due to ability to hire and make your own mercenaries).

In the original version I actually made a full party by starting a multiplayer game and then moving the save over to the single player save folder.

I think the relative emptiness of the world, unintentional though it may be, is probably one of the biggest reasons why this is my favorite game ever. I roll my eyes so hard at games like Skyrim, where you have opposing factions literally within eyesight of each other, bandits hiding in their camps that are right outside a major settlement, and stuff like that. The emptiness of the world means that you actually travel around the world, instead of bouncing from sidequest/encounter to sidequest/encounter. You walk around for long stretches of time, then suddenly stumble upon a group of wizards engaged in some strange ritual, and get dragged into combat. You actually explore the world, instead of going from this to that content. Sure, the game could have done a lot more with this, but I think the game would have been far less well-remembered if it wasn't for this emptiness allowing players to experience the world.

I remember using a game mod from gibberlings that was a banter pack for BG1 NPCs. It really fleshed out the characters and added lots of new interactions between characters. I can't remember the "fan fiction" level vs cannon tone, but I remember liking it at the time. It really brought the BG1 characters up to the BG2 level of interaction. The siege of dragonspear was pretty fun for me, I know it might be sacrilegious to say, but it just seemed like more adventures with my crew. For some reason I never have the will power to finish Throne of Bhaal. I think I'm usually just burned out after playing BG2 and ready for a change of pace.

Definitely agree with the new characters being tonally different. I think only Neera would fit. The others are Edgelords written for Grimdark audiences. But not more mature for that. Gaider is also on record saying he thinks the kits unbalance BG1. But I remember being able to wreck difficulty in anything but Durlag's Tower by level 5 just be being thorough. And that's not doing silly things like kill Drizzt or steal everything that isn't nailed down.

Thank you. This really helps me understand people's perspective those who played it.

Looking forward for your review of Dragonspear and the new companions Also no wonder you forgot about the multitude companions, you can pick core crew relatively quickly, they grow on you and then you don't want to change your team (and that's without going into team balance/composition issues) Regarding empty spaces, I think it's just age as you said. We are used to more packed areas nowadays. 5CD base + 6th for ToSC

One of the best games ever. I played it for years so I could discover every secret, best character build and so on and so forth.

This game definitely holds up today. Never played it before. BGEE is the game I'm playing it now, first time playthrough, on the heels of Elden Ring. I'm loving this game

This is one of my favorite CRPGs of all time (BG2 and a couple Ultima games just barely edge it out). Been a few years since I've played it, might dust off the EE and give it another go. You're not wrong about the massive and mostly empty spaces! It's fun to explore, though, IMO.

You think you might wanna play the Dark Sun games? They are the predecessor series to BG and I'd personally love to see some coverage of them by you some time! Either way have you ever played either of them? I'm really enjoying the first one.

i think regular edition is bundled when you buy the enhanced one on GOG

The reason for the 30+ NPCs is because in the OG game, it was MUCH easier for party members to perma-die. Basically if a character takes too much damage, or is dropped to a certain negative HP value, they make a save. If they fail that save, they EXPLODE into gibs, and cannot be Raised at a temple. At low levels, all it takes is one good crit by the enemy to make that happen, and suddenly you're out a party member. So you have multiple versions of every character class to fill in the holes that will inevitable appear as your characters get chewed up and spat back out. BG2 (which BGEE is based on) made that more difficult (but still possible). BG2 and the EEs made this less likely to occur.

I only subbed recently after (finally) playing D:OS2, and I have to think about this every time I see one of your videos: I managed to get through the entire game without ever hearing Jahan say "May you wander in Wisdom" Other than D:OS2 I have only played Divinity 2 so far, so I didn't know where that line came from and I found it a bit strange, tbh. But when I heard Jahan say it on my 2nd playthrough, I finally got it; it was veery surprising ^^

At this point in your game it’s always a good idea to go after that Manual of Bodily Health. The sooner you can get your character up to 19 Constitution helps ensure you get massive gains in hit points, because this will drop off in higher levels. So if you wait, you’re not able to get 12hp for leveling up, it’ll only give you 3. Durlag’s Tower has always been interesting, Watchers Keep also a good challenge. Carsten (Lord of the Level) was always one of my favorites. I am… CARSTEN THE MAGNIFICENT! LOL. Have fun!

One of my all time favourite games. And having the combined EE playable on console is a delight!

I still have and play my original copy of BG 1 and 2 and I saw no need to buy the EEs.

Durlag’s Tower is my favorite crpg dungeon

Half-Orc Fighter/Rogue will be my pick to play BG: EE and BG2: EE as I love that mix of fighter and rogue and it will be great to start out with 19/18/19/xx/xx/18 and I think that with all the permanent stat upgrades I can end with something like 23/21/23/xx/xx/20 :D He will start as Neutral Good but Tears of Bhaal Choices will corrupt him into being evil. Also focusing on using 2 daggers will be fun as with Neutral Good and 18 CHA you can get a +1 dagger in BG1 at the start of the game and you can also try to use throwing daggers in both games for some fun ranged options.

What are the names of the new companions? It's my first time playing it and I don't want them in the party. Keep up the good work. Great Content. .

Beamdog Neverwinter Nights is great as well. You can even add mods.

I really love the Enhanced Edition but to be fair I never played the original.

Im fine with archtypes hd ui and playing as a blackguard is fun, I do not like the changes to the cutscenes and the change to intro for dragonspire. x64 is also really nice

I have all the old un-enhanced copies on GoG and was considering which to play these 20-some odd years later. I have to say I don't like that new font style whatsoever.

Looking forward to seeing the full review, I love what Beamdog did but I know a lot of people didn't like them, especially their writing.

I had one issue with dragonspear. SPOILER The girls soul being taken by the hooded man is never resolved.

Loved originally but downloaded a multiple of times but just struggle with the sprites graphics wish it didn't bother me

Hey! I really like your content but is it possible for you to fix your microphone ? This static sound in background is really really annoying :/ otherwise, good video as always

GOG has the og baldurs gate

Played both, experience was near identical. My main criticism for EE: Higher price for near-identical experience. Other criticisms: removal of CG cut-scenes (can be reinserted with mods, highy recommended), no environmental sounds for creatures and characters (i.e. grunting of hobgoblins, skittering of spiders in the fog etc...). Pluses: Some neat quality-of-life improvements that make the game less of a "hassle" to play. There are more classes because the EE tries to replicate how most players would mod the OG to run in the BG2 engine, hence BG2 classes. Conclusion. The EE is great, get it on sale (never full price) and you'll have the OG BG experience more or less in tact flawlessly run on modern PCs.

Unpopular take but whenever i boot up dragon age origins i immediately start thinking "Baldurs gate is so much better than this. I should go play that" I think the 2d sprite based aesthetic works alot better for a game like this. Not to mention spellcasting in BG2 which is completely fucking broken

Siege of Dragonspear really shouldn't be thought of as a new expansion pack for BG1. It's more like Beamdog's own CRPG and isn't all that long (about 30 hours) compared to other CRPGs. You'll probably enjoy it more if you think of it as a modern game rather than as more Baldur's Gate 1. The main issues are general problems like violating "show, don't tell," dialogue options are typically only good/evil/funny (not so much lawful/chaotic), and aspects of the story are a little "meh" at times. BTW if you care about the stupid controversy, Forgotten Realms is not a high magic setting. You can't just walk into a magic shop as a normal person and swipe your debit card to get someone to cast more "involved" spells like the spell that changes someone's sex. You need to find a high-level mage who knows the spell. WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW FOR MULTIPLE GAMES There's one character people complained is a type of Mary Sue fanfiction-ish character and the entire story is structured around her. I'm not sure she counts as a Mary Sue because she's very similar to Lianne Sandlot in the Trails series (blonde girl fighter with special powers, she's well educated, you fight her, she has complex reasons for doing what she's doing). My guess is that she isn't really a Mary Sue, but that some of the writing is poorly executed and the writers relied on 2010s modern fantasy tropes as opposed to something that sounds like a medieval fantasy story written in 1998. It's a bit similar with the Enhanced Edition companions like Neera---the character writing is different in a way that doesn't really fit the tone of the original games.

Never played this but I might try it out haha!

Jaheira is soooo OP in BG. Fighter/Druid mix in AD&D2.0 is broken as fuck.

As someone who played a ton AD&D2e in high school and early college, the original Baldur's Gate is as close as you can get to the tabletop without Cheetos and Mountain Dew. EE adds in a lot of stuff that became core in 3/3.5.

I would prefer BG3 to be more like Pillars rather than DOS. Hopefully Obsidian will continue with POE 3 with a better story.

Some day Id love to play BG 1&2 but the interface is pretty rough for me to grasp.

If you are playing on PC, my advice for you is to use the Dragonspear UI Mod. It's much, much, much better than the old and clunky UI.

You can die on story mode.

Siege of Dragonspear is a waste of time the biggest problem is it ignores Baldur's Gate 2 Storyline. It became Political & has a major SJW plot in it. Also if you use your original party in it from Baldur's Gate 1 some of your team will leave without giving reason forcing you to except the new NPCs that are not good