Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear | A History of Isometric CRPGs (Episode 3.5) 

Just to let you know, what you perceive as an AI bug (your characters not auto-attacking despite having the correct scripts set) is propably the result of you not actually having the AI active at all (it is toggled by the middle button on the lower right side of the screen, and it should be glowing if active, which isn't the case in your gameplay). You propably accidentally deactivated it at some point.

"Next episode is Planescape Torment", and now I will proceed to freeze myself so I don't have to wait for that.

I never felt the "gap" between BG1 and 2 to be of any problem. In BG2's prologue you get everything you need in a few sentences. You were celebrated as a hero, but over time rumors about your origin started to spread. This slightly soured mood along with your drive for adventuring made you go out to adventure again. Then a fog surrounded you and you - along with your party - were captured by unknown beings. And then you wake up in BG2. Fair warning since you seemed to mind this thing in Dragonspear: The game only imports the main character. No other character will remember how your past meetings with them went, unless you select it via a comment in the course of the conversation. But I guess it was not possible with the technology of back then. That's one of the nice things about Mass Effect, that events carry consequences through to the sequels if you port a savegame over, but then they came out more than a decade after BG and take up waaaaay more hard-disk space. Dragonspear is entirely irrelevant and not mentioned even once throughout BG2 or Throne of Bhaal.

Just had finished a second watch of your previous video on Baldur’s Gate, fantastic timing Mr. Davis! Thank you again for your work on these videos, great stuff. Hope the world of jurisprudence is treating you well!

great video as always!

Caelar is angelic like entity leading army of followers who wants to see their fallen kin... wait a minute. That's not Baldur's gate, that's Griffith from Berserk!

19:32 ...or you could've just used Safana to scout ahead instead of flipping a con :) It's like Sun Tzu said: "If you know yourself but not your enemy, you will reload 50% of the time".

The character creation music from this was some of the most epic I've heard in probably....decades. I get the feels when I'm in character creator. Also I was very impressed they got nearly all the original voice actors to re-do their characters. The voice of Irenicus especially. It was charming to hear khalid's voice actor aged 20 years later.

I love your reviews....so detailed, well thought out.....i have mad respect for your work.....

17:41 "the enemies appeared in such large numbers that I couldn't handle them." 19:33 "The challenge of this fight was entirely dependent on whether I guessed the right direction" Casters are going to be your best friends in SoA and ToB. Entangle + Stinking Cloud with Archer Support. Summoners like Shaman Dance, Totem Druid, and Animate Dead Hold Person/Mammal/Undead/Monster Command And Sleep for non-Legacy Of Bhaal difficulties Reconnaissance is a huge time-saver (Invisibility / Sanctuary / Hide In Shadows + Move Silently) You can have a mage cast invisiblity on 3 party members, rest for 8 hours, cast invisibility on the other 2 and the mage, and just walk without performing any actions that will break invisibility.

I'm not usually a "get good" type of person, but while he was complaining about how hard it was I noticed how often he just stood there while enemies hit his characters without their AI on.

The "difficulty spikes" seem to be your fault, from what I've seen in the video. You never cast any spells with your spellcasters? Jaheira can basically spam Summon Insects, one of the best spells in the game (she also has plenty of uses of Call Lightning, provided you're fighting outdoors.) Dynaheir is an invoker and can spam improved (i.e. hard to save against) fireballs and cloudkills... The BG games are balanced around using the insane crowd control that mages and clerics/druids can do, SoD is no exception. Apart from that, I largely agree with the review!

The problem that often arises from LGBT characters for most people isn't always a case of 'how dare they push gays into my games! Damn liberals!' but more often a case of a lot of writers often using a character being LGBT as an excuse for shallow character writing in the belief that a character being trans/gay/bi etc. is characterization in and of itself and that any criticism of such characters can only come from a position of bigotry, an insulation from criticism that just encourages further laziness with writing. Are there people who just hate gay/trans people and don't want to see them? Sure, but to limit the opposing argument to just that is, ironically enough, actually proving the people who claim it is about agenda pushing to be absolutely correct, it's a willful ignorance of an actual flaw with the writing that I'm sure you'd be willing to acknowledge for any other character but when they have that special combination of sacred words stitched to them you must defend for reasons outside of anything even remotely related to the game (in other words, because you have an agenda). Ultimately, we'll probably never get well written LGBT characters while their inclusion and characterization are shielded from scrutiny under the benevolent guise of advocacy, you need to be able to divorce what you feel about those issues politically when it comes to looking at them as a character, stop wrapping the issue in the proverbial cotton wool of 'what it says about the trans community' and address them as an individual character, otherwise all you're gonna get are cookie-cutter, tepidly positive characters with inoffensive personalities who's only memorable feature is that they were trans or gay, the only reason they ever stick with you will likely be as a half-hearted punchline to token inclusivity.

These videos are great.

Discworld is entirely different kind of fantasy world when compared to Forgotten Realms. It is parody of both modern world and generic fantasy worlds like Forgotten Realms.

You had AI turned off, mate. See the lamp on the lower right? When it's lit, AI is turned on. When it's out (as it is in the shot at 20:40), it's off.

Now when people ask me my political affiliation I'll say heavy sarcasm.

Noah Caldwell-Gervais told really well why Mizhena is a problem - those 20 seconds where she explains that she's transgender was her only characterization. Which is not even bare-minimum to describe character. Also, she's just the easiest to pick. Other "new" characters are just as bad. To be honest, I ended up skipping about half of Siege of Dragonspear going straight to BG2 instead. That game has way better writing and WAY more options for playthrough. Simple as that.

welcome back

Wondered about this one. Great review. You mentioned the coin flip branching directions thing. While I do agree the design is awkward you might be able to scout the area first with a stealth'ed character. Planescape Torment will probably be a fun one for you.

I still absolutely love the art design of Siege. Beam may have dropped the ball in pretty much every aspect, but damn the maps look good.

Persoanally Im really looking forward to seeing you get to some of the more wack crpgs like Planescape or Arcanum

I played the original Baldur's Gate games for hundreds of hours back in the day and recently replayed them with the enhanced editions. A game set between them felt strange and unnnecessary, so I didn't get Siege of Dragonspear when it launched, but was sufficiently interested in following the news around it. The impression I got from the drama about the trans character was that literally three or four guys with blogs nobody reads and a couple of 4chan types cared about it, but some of the devs dug them up to deflect criticism about the game as a whole ("They don't like out game because their transphobic!") and a number of gaming news websites ran with the story without looking into it at all. Basically what happened with the new Ghostbusters movie. For the first couple of weeks the game had mostly negative reviews on its Steam page and vast majority of complaints were about the multiplayer not working, other technical issues, recurring characters acting out of character and other plot inconsistencies. You had to go to the second page to find "forced SJW writing" listed amongst the complaints and even further than that for review bombing attempts about only that. I also recall some calmer criticism about how instantly telling a stranger who might be a well known psychotic mass murdered about being trans is not really a part of the typical trans experience and it's weird to be forced into replying "yeah, cool" when your character might be a psychotic mass murderer who kills almost everyone they meet, and likes to enslave the souls of innocents for minor stat boosts. So I dunno, felt like a big non-story turned into internet drama just for the sake of it to me.

I have quite different memory of BG1 the original edition. When exploring the wilderness squares it was usually a heavy onslaught of trashy enemies, and they respawned in real time in the fog of war. Hardly just running into a solitary wolf. I remember it was quite annoying if you wanted to fully explore each map.

I wanted to point this out because not many people realize this: you don't have to kill Skie. If you run around in that area for a while the guy kills her for you. It doesn't make any difference in the end but it's a cool touch. I think this is a major issue with this game. While you have some cool choices to make they don't affect anything in the end.

it always pains me to see how some people play these isometric RPGs kind of like a hack and slay game. of course the combat gets tiring and feels like it has massive, seemingly random difficulty spikes because youre literally not using the actual combat system at all, lol. combat encounters in a game like baldurs gate are set up in a way that makes you hit pause - assess the situation - issue orders to your party members individually to move here, start preparing this spell, attack this enemy, yadda yadda - unpause - let the actions happen - pause again - reassess the situation - repeat. i understand that this type of gameplay isnt for anybody and its the main thing that turns especially younger generations of gamers off, even more than antiquated graphics, as they are simply not used to playing games that way as they didnt grow up doing it. but it just pains me to watch anyone play a cRPG by running into a mob of enemies and just clicking on one of the red circles with the entire party selected. that is not how the game is supposed to be played at all. even with the AI enabled, that will get you nowhere on anything other than easy difficulty id presume. you might as well try to play an FPS without aiming your gun. of course its gonna be a frustrating and tiresome experience. that said, i am totally with you on most of the other points. like the quality of the dialogue added vy beamdog, the quest structures and the lack of overall meaningfulness of the endeavor within the greater baldurs gate story arch. having played baldurs gate 2 countless times in the past i thought it was maybe just a consequence of already knowing the whole story in and out but if it is that obvious to correctly predict for someone who hasnt seen how the story progresses then that it is pretty damning, i suppose.

I wonder if this game is why Larian got the contact to make Baldur's Gate 3 instead of Beamdog.

Dude, you were using viconia to fight barehanded. And if you're going to have a thief in your party, use them to scout ahead.

I know I'm years late, but regarding the dragon guarding the door, I believe it's a reference to a bit in Baldur's Gate 2 where you encounter a Spectator Beholder guarding a chest. He's pretty fed up with guard duty and disinterested in fighting you, so a high WIS character can persuade him that he's only been tasked with guarding the chest, not its contents. He will then let you take the item inside and conclude that there's no point to him guarding an empty chest so considers his duties fulfilled and leaves.

i fucking love that summary of the mizhena shit, mann

Dragonspear had a lot of flaw but I really liked it. The more focused campaign gave us a very different experience and we had some large scale battles which was satisfying. Also you didn't mention the Goblin shaman companion, but I just loved her so much! Her VA was great, her lines were great, and her shaman class is badass.

The thing that broke me. Was the dialogue options. I tried playing it 3 times. 1st time i saw that all dialogue options are 3... Good neutral bad... Completely ignoring lawful and chaotic. Using basic Mass Effect paragon system in a way. Yet to me it somehow felt even worse then Mass Effect. IT FELT LIKE FALLOUT 4. A game i tried to mod for my enjoyment,... Then Talked to Piper realized that there are no dialogue options and vowed to never touch fallout 4 again. Been 7 years since then and i might play it if there is a mod that deletes every Bethesda NPC or creates a new campaign. And there even was one at the time i vowed not to touch Fallout 4. It was quite a fun survival mod called FROST. It made the game much better then it was in every possible way. Oh god i'll stop here cause i feel like i could rant on about Fallout 4 for 2 decades.

When I played SoD, the first thought I got was : "it's Neverwinter's Nights in the Baldur's Gate setting".

first game has a girdle of masculinity/femininity that can change the gender of a party member , and bg2 is quite infamous for one of the most popular NPC (edwin) turning into a woman for a while during his quest , and being turned permanently in his epilogue after having the bright ideea of challenging Elmister. If a character wants to change his sex , that;s easily achivable in baldur's gate , without having to explain or differentiate a born woman from a turned woman , which makes you wonder why is a character like mizhena stands out...even more so when the dialogue presented to you is all supportive , even if you are a chaotic evil character...which makes no sense. Like....you can murder , steal and burn kittens , but god forbid you insult a character for his sexuality , cuz beamdog is going to smite you down... Personally , i care very little about her , and i've somewhat enjoyed siege of dragonspear , but that stuff breaks immersion and has no place in a dungeon and dragons game.

A suprise but a welcome one

The main complaint about the trans character was that Beamdog made such a huge deal about it to generate free publicity and then it turned out to be a minor character. Like Marvel claiming to have a gay character and then it turns out to be one line of dialogue. It’s not being inclusive, it’s using identity politics and trans people to sell a very mediocre game.

never played this one but always considered it an unnecessary expansion. I think i'll carry on with that opinion. Loving this video series of yours

There are a vast amount of ways to manage combat in these games, both what other players often say, and otherwise, depending on what you have and how you use it. But having the AI on is probably a good start

Damn Chris, I was already enjoying this series around Baldur's Gate as a nostalgia trip for myself but bringing Terry Pratchett into the mix gets me all hot and bothered. What a fantastic writer. The guards series will remain my favourite -although Colour of Magic will have a special place in my heart as the first book of his I read. Anyway, back to the video...

Didn't know much about Baldur's Gate or this game before these videos, I started watching because I'm a fan of the Fallout series and have been looking for a new isometric to play, I certainly didn't expect a trans character to be brought up or that there would be a controversy around it, but I deeply appreciate the way you handled it and the way you explained things, that detail made me ready to subscribe.

Pretty interesting. I kind of liked this 'expansion' but more as a novelty than an actual game. Very often i'd have the thought 'Huh, I can't remember the last time a game did X" or "Hey Y is pretty neat" and even though there's a lot of those moments, I think that's pretty much it, and EVERYTHING I liked can be put in that category, and yeah pretty much every criticism in the video is completely valid. I enjoyed the 1 connection between BG1 and 2 but since you said you haven't played the 2nd game yet, it would be a bit of a spoiler I think, but you have to know what happened in 2 to get any satisfaction from those conversations, so I doubt this game was made to be played by anyone who doesn't already know the other games. I did get a bit of joy from seeing how much I can break the game and have it desperately TRY to pretend like nothing happened. There a quite a few times you can just ignore important events and the game is almost designed to state things in such a way as to imply you 'probably' did them.

How did you have so much trouble fighting Korlasz? As soon as the game paused for her dialog, I noticed she was surrounded by baddies, so I trained two wands of fire and one of the fireball necklaces on her and she surrendered instantly. I thought it was a joke.

You had AI turned off, ....

Considering that you spent a few minutes talking about the Mizhena thing, and the overall lack of quality in the writing for the story, Mizhena’s backlash wasn’t exclusively because they were trans. They patched in an actual quest for them, rather than having a complete stranger just give you their whole life story in a very deeply, personal way. To some degree, the developers agreed with the criticism. There’s still no way to give them the girdle, unfortunately, which seems like an oversight. But you said it yourself: the writing feels like something out of Twitter, more than Baldur’s Gate.

I think Imoen was not available in SotDP since canonically she should have started SotDP as a 7lv thief / 1 lv mage, which would have made all her thief skills unusable. So basically throughout the majority of the campaign she would have been severely underpowered compared to your other party members.

I know this is years late but I finished SoD for the first time and it bugged me hearing you be confused about the Wardstone when Jaheira tells you about it when you run into her.

I did enjoy this expansion overall, but do feel it fell short of the rest of the series. Mainly was the ending and lack of effect of decisions was what brought it down. I did love the new characters, though. Especially Glint. And I also enjoyed them making use of better system.

On Safana, the rouge that "ooh, do love a man with big, strong, arms..." is basicly looking for a meat-sheeld to ocupe the monsters while she getts away with the loot❗️ She is not a wett dreem, she is a serial killer❗️🫣

"...I can now confirm it's just a bunch of whiny babies..." I just choked on my coffee

Also, you might want to turn AI on if you're going to complain about the AI not doing anything. Your BG video shows the lantern/AI on and people attacking, your SoD video shows it off and them not... seems working as intended

I enjoyed it. It was nice to have the gaps in the story between BGI and BGII filled in, and the whole thing was a pleasant enough distraction. Some of the writing was less than stellar but when you're inevitably going to be compared to the juggernaut that is BGII, that's to be expected. Also, the over-reliance on combat was more Icewind Dale than Baldur's Gate and did get a little tedious toward the end. It wasn't mind-blowing by any stretch, but I don't regret my purchase. To be honest, I think Beamdog cop a lot of flak for some fairly dubious reasons. I'm just happy I can play these games on modern systems with a bunch of quality of life enhancements to boot. That's got to be worth something.

When you run into large groups of thrash mobs use fireballs and staffs of fireball to kill them all. Or web them and kill them with range attacks (there's that captain of the guard lady, she's pretty good with a bow)

Just to add a little more context to the Mizehna thing, I'm pretty sure I remember the writer who was responsible for her openly stating that pushing her agenda came before quality writing. I can't find it now, but I swear it was there at the time. At any rate, while I did not participate in the outrage, I attempted to understand it, and there is a lot more to it than your representation of it, which came off as being pretty close to the standard response that any critique of anything that involves women or minorities is down to bigotry, as they should be beyond reproach in all their dealings. Edit, that aside, this is a good series, I'd just suggest you steer clear of politics in the future if you don't intend to fairly represent the positions of the parties involved.

Web, cloudkill, sleep, color spray, fireball etc.. Use crowd control and aoe if there are packs of enemies..

About your rant about trans people in bauldurs gate: the question about trans characters isn't "does being trans serve a purpose" for the story or anything but rather "was it important that I know this", same goes for gay people in games. If the character is transgender because it is transgender and tells me this solely for the purpose of me knowing that this random bunch of pixels has the property "transgender" then it is a bad addition to the game, after all I don't see other videogame characters going around being like "hey im cis gendered" and then just reverting to being a vendor with 0 dialogue. On the other hand, if for instance a gay npc wants me to find his "love" then the information that this character is gay is a vital information for completing the quest, maybe even revealing it only halfway through could be a fun and interesting twist playing on the fact that most people will just assume that said character is looking for someone of the opposite gender. My point: Their sexuality or gender identity does not need to serve a purpose, unless the game tells me it.

Some of your criticisms will be in BG2 too

It felt like writers had list of basic things and did not play OG games. Like Edwin - Evocation Wizard, Evil, a lot of spell. And then they said: "Spellslinging numbskull is his personality." Instead of his plotting to overthrow you he now goes pew, pew, pew. This is even worse, because he goes back to his original personality in BG2. Writers really made it seem like returning NPCs have mental disorder.

Hey new guy catching up on past episodes and I know this is a little late but I didn't find any me tion in the comments. The LGBT controversy wasn't really about the character. It started with them but the easiest way to boil it down was a few people from the LGBT community called the npc bland which got a developer angry. Said developer then made disparaging remarks that angered more and the cycle went on for a bit till people got bored and beamdog's reputation was tarnished. In essence it was a Twitter shit

Accidentally hitting A on your keyboard enable and disables the AI man.

I loved BG1 and 2. I bought this one but never played it. What an expensive mistake.

"Plays a cRPG like a random hack&slash" "The combat is boring and somewhat random"

The eternal debate- "Ball"-dur's vs "Bal"-dur's. Or "Bhaal-dur's"? o.O

You are so spot on on this one you don't even know man. And all that without even playing bg2 yet. Respect. To me SoD was an abomination in basically every respect - especially the story revolving around cookie-cutter characters mingled with beloved bg1/2 characters, often transformed beyond recognition. They literally did everything wrong.

While it's safe to say there were plenty of anti-trans sentiment in the criticism of that character, I feel like there were plenty of people who pointed out that in a world with magic, there's countless ways to transition. I even think there's an item that let's you swap genders in the first game, or something.

omg i love terry pratchett

I only mind how the character was presented when I played it. It felt very forced and unnatural. I was hoping for a proper presentation, like in the patch where you have to do a quest first (still a band aid fix and not really proper, but better than how it was). From the people I talked to this about, they had the same thoughts. I just don't think beamdog knows how to write properly enough to tackle such important issues well enough. Btw, the Edwin quests on BG2 are some of the best quests in the game. :D

Played it, had fun with it. Was mildly annoyed by how social issues that appear to have little to do with the Forgotten Realms were shoehorned in, but, meh. Most of the banter is amusing, I like the hooded man, especially (good for Beamdog to get a hold of David Warner again!) , many of the the battles are really nice, the game is just long enough. And, honestly, quite replayable. Three stars from me. Would play again (just not as a standalone game)

First of all Thanks for the Content. Please do like 3+ hours about Planescape:Torment everything below 2 hours would be just an offense ^^

As a big RPG fan (traditional namely) I have to check this Franchise out. Somehow I missed it from the beginning even with owing and playing early classic RPGs like D&D, Eye Of The Beholder, Blades Of Exile and Fallout 1 and 2 (even with owning and playing traditional RPGs since the mid 80s CRPG and otherwise). Im not bothered by a single Trans character because if its just one I find it difficult to see it as a case of Forced Diversity and if it is its just for one character. I will check Balders Gate out having heard great things about it.

Only just finished BG 2 after failing to do so when it fist came out. Played through 1 and 2, also I don't recommend the " expansion ".

The Discworld series...

Imoen training to be a mage is a very big deal. It's her magic use that spurs much of the plot of the sequel. But I won't say more than that. That part of SOD makes sense, and I'm okay with that. It was an okay dlc, but I never actually finished it. I got a little bored of it 3/4 of the way through.

Chris Davis - Joseph Anderson if he didn't turn to shit

Just a heads up. I posted this on the original Baldur's Gate vid. But I feel it's also relevant here; Personally I didn't have too big of an issue with the writing of Baldur's Gate EE as a lot of RU-vidrs did. Seriously the amount of immature fandom nerdrage was too much for me to stomach, and I'm old enough to remember getting a 4 disc copy of Baldur's Gate 2 when I was seventeen. But I felt overall, it just felt unnecessary. It didn't add anything to the plot that was really needed and what was added felt too out of place. This game came out in 1999, so in order for the extra stuff to feel part of the world, it had echo a lot of the sentiments. As for the 'controversial stuff' I didn't have a problem with the writers adding in a trans character. It's just that it was added in so badly. The head writer, Amber Scott, has a history of adding in LGBT characters into her work (from her work with Paizo) and she's not the most subtle of writers. The problem I had was that the trans character felt shoved in to fill a quota. They didn't feel like an organic part of the world. For one thing Mizzema was a merchant, so their presence in the world was already superfluous. Then you add in the fact that you have to actually ask about her name to find out she's trans. Wouldn't a better way to do would be to get her to have you say....undertake a quest? There's a belt of gender swapping in the game. Why not have her ask you to find it? Then her trans status comes out more fluidly. it also allows the player to form a deeper bond with her. But we got what we got and at the end of the day, I can always skip those parts and just play the parts I like. Not the end of the world. Nothing I played broke the experience for me and at worst some of it felt more like a chore to get through. But I'll still gladly go back to it in the future.

Game is awesome ..like this old school feel

tl;dr Always keep a Rogue in DnD CRPG's. Game suggestion at the end I'm going to combine your first BG vid and this one, as I tend to type novels and really want to get back to playing Wastelands 3 (which had to release right when I was closing in on the end of Horizon Zero Dawn and it's expansions...erg); anyway, here goes. First, I dual classed Imoen too, but not until she was already a level 9 Rogue, so in BG 1, she was a typical thief, which as you found out, is invaluable. Nothing like a 100 damage backstab to start a battle. So there was mistake # 1. Rogues are essential in DnD, and especially DnD CRPG's since there is no on the fly DM to adjust for the variables you may come across. #2. You always want to hit the level/XP cap before going up against the final bosses (so 8 for BG 1 unless you are a Rogue in which case it was 9? if memory serves me correctly). I could see this being a huge problem in Tales of the Sword Coast. I'd been playing DnD since 1rst grade and the Werewolf fight drove me nuts. I had the stereotypical dual-wielding Ranger who was also an ace shot with bows, Jaheira was by far the strongest party members at that point with Entangle and Ice Storm, Minsc tanked of course while Boo went for the eyes, Imoen backstabbed and ran, then rinsed and repeated, while my Mage just kept using MM and fire spells. I can't even recall who I was using as a Cleric but I'm sure they just cast "Hold Person/Monster" and healed for the most part. I had silver swords, so Imoen may have snuck in and gotten the Werewolf blade beforehand, as we are going back 20 years here, it's difficult to remember every detail. lol, I do recall finding a ring Wizardry that let me use 1 extra lvl 2 spell very early on, outside the first "Boss" you fight in the base game. He was only lv 3 or 4 if memory serves, but wow was he a beast for my lvl 2 party. It's absurdly difficult to find, literally needing you to pass over a 2x3 pixel area with the cursor in an area that appears to be covered by trees and brush. 1 spell may seem like a small thing to people now-a-days, but as you well know from playing these, good grief were they unforgiving back then. Lol, having to carry your dead companion back to town so a cleric could rez them, often having to leave half of your equipment behind and walking at a snail's pace bc you're encumbered. Back on point, I had to lower the difficulty on the werewolf fight to the setting below core rules bc I couldn't hurt him fast enough, and that was with everyone at the BG1 cap or 1 lvl above. Lastly, I found Dragonspear to be a pale comparison compared to BG1 and BG2/ToB, but about the same quality as Tales of the Sword Coast. It somehow just kept missing the mark. In addition, I have no idea why you were having crashing issues, but that really sucks. i played it in 98, maybe 99, and the crashes and bugs were next to nil. That was on a P4 with 128kb sdRAM and an 8MB Voodoo 2, so it has to be a porting issue which is inexcusable since the original still works fine on my current PC, albeit with awful resolution. Anyway, that's about it from me. Also, I'm not sure what video I saw you mention it in, but in one of them you said that you couldn't find a copy of the original Pool of radiance to play? They have what I consider the original Gold Box games on GoG (Pool od radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Hillsfar ((waste of time imo)), Pools of Darkness along with the Desert of Desolation Trilogy) under gogdotcom/game/forgotten_realms_the_archives_collection_two (just change dot to a . ). They aren't long games since there are no longer 3-minute loading screens between each battle and are pretty damn fantastic considering they used to run great on hardware from the 80's. It may have taken 4 double-sided floppies per game, but I'll be darned if they didn't cram a ton of information in there. Pro tip. feel free to hire then kill mercs for their gear, and make sure you "Search" the area you'd assume would be filled with hay and poop.

Nah they were mad because she could have gone to wizard school for 2 semesters, then snapped her fingers and been whatever she wants to be, or pay someone who did that $100 for the same deal. It's something someone who had never even heard of the setting would write. Hell people would pay you to transition, because they have a cursed ring they don't want because it changes their gender, and they can only lift the curse by getting someone to take it from them.

Annnnnd right down the shitter this video went lol.

Imoen training to be a mage is a medium deal at most. Spoilers from this point on: In the sequel she starts automatically as a dual class mage/thief in a city when casting magic without a license cast you in jail. That part is mandatory and she always will be in jail and you have to find her or your main villain who is also a mage and get's captured with her. SPOILERS end. I didn't play this since I own 3 copies of BG already because I was playing this when it was new, so the enhanced edition is a poor mans deal when compared to just playing baldur gate on mods, but the mod "baldurs gate trilogy" combines part 1 and 2 in a much more elegant fashion with just a cut scene than this whole dlc/new game. Generaly speaking I like your video for a fresh perspective to something that was always a part of my life for the last decade or so (your planscape review was very good, even if I have very hard nostalgia googles for what I consider the best rpg of my life). I would say that Baldurs gate on mods > baldurs gate enhanced edition, but I do understand how the enhanced edition is an easier way to introduce new people (like you) to this masterpiece. Keep up the good work, I'm waiting on your thoughts on BG2, which is considered the superior game for a reason, but will have the "chosen one" gimmick far harder than the first part. Anyway, you earned a sub.

Also about Mizhena. This character is just stupid and shows how Beamdog doesn't really understand Forgotten Realms nor DnD for that matter. Why? She is a cleric of Tempus, an honourable deity of warriors, barbarians fighters, there was a great potential for a story, transgender characters can be so much fun! We didn't get any of that. And do you know what is the silliest thing? Spell of gender reversal is a fairly low level (2 I think) spell of a... Cleric. Also, potions of gender reversal are also not too uncommon. She could have an epic story of how she always wanted to be more feminine than she was but being a cleric of a fucking TEMPUS (like the manliest of the deities), she couldn't really be as such. But after proving herself in a valorous battle, Tempus himself granted her a new name, along with an encouragement to be who she wants to be, as long as she remains courageous and honourable, because he is an honourable god, whose disciples matter to him. Or something like that. It's a wasted potential and that's what angers me the most. Also Mizhena? How Mizhena is any weirder than Dynaheir? Or Branwen? That is just stupid. [EDIT] Also, Elminster himself was cursed to be a woman for some time and he often played pranks on his students by turning them into women and forcing them to find the cure themselves in order to appreciate a different point of view.

So from this review and Fallout 2 I gather @Chris Davis hates combat? Serious question: do you preffer walking simulators?

This expansion really went under-appreciated as there was effort put into it. I’m not saying Beamdog didn’t make stupid mistakes like getting the game directly involved in Gamegate but there are things this expansion does right. I’ll give examples. - Pushing the technical capacity to its limits, large scale battles and cities really feel large scale (Something never seen in the originals). - Soundtrack, nobody ever mentions the soundtrack. - Companions. They feel like they would fit into BG. A lot of people say they didn’t like the social politics but the originals was riddled with them. - Maps are just gorgeous. Beamdog knows how to make this game look good. - There is writing to be appreciated in this game. I’ll give details, IF you paid attention in the starting dungeon, that’s where Caelar is introduced as the shining lady with a crusade and the rest of Sarevok’s followers are thinking about joining her. From there the story begins unfolding as we see more perspective. The thing I liked is how the player is constantly perceived as a villain, more specifically as Sarevok successor, and Caelar is the perceived hero. It’s frustrating but makes sense and the way it’s used connects the 2 games very well. - Quests feel pretty consistent with what the BG series had to offer. There is also a good amount of enemy variety. - Rewards feel rewarding. If you haven’t played the expansion, give it a try. There are lots of things this expansion gets right. Beamdog already made changes to criticism so it’s not the same disaster as it was when it released.

I definitely had issues with the trans character - not for them being trans but for the character being ham-fisted in their inclusion. It shows that BD made the character for reasons other than story or making an interesting character. And this is coming from a fella whose fav relationships in TV's Spartacus & True Blood were between gay couples. IMO everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. And characters/stories should be treated with honest effort rather than including a weak character for what looks like the sake of inclusion. IMO that's not real inclusion, looks worse than not including someone and just feels dishonest. Just how I feel. Anyway, this is a great review. I only found your channel today and this is only my third video but I'm definitely enjoying your content.

Where's my fireball spell for the comments section.

AI closed through the game... enough said...

I liked Siege of Dragon Spear. I thought it was a treat to get more BG.

We need more games with badass dragons.

Why would u expect the encounters in the first dungeon to be easy lol. Good job on the video though

it said 25 seconds ago

If your complaining about difficulty turn it down, i recommended 1st time players do there first time play though on easy, your gonna get your ass kicked in BG2 if you still havent got the combat down. Fights cant be won by just auto attacking like i noticed you doing and certain characters can only fit certain roles cause stats are mega important in combat role

I did siege of dragonspear on hard and had no problems. the secret is I was a wizard and I had dynahier in my party as well. so 2 fireballs at a time 4-6 fireballs per fight used. you do that and any fight is easy

If you havent played BG2 I'd recommend finishing the saga than moving on to other games. On a side note, I will never buy this game because I feel it's such a shitshow that it'd take away from the amazing experience that was the original two games and their expansions.

You really should've played BG2 and ToB before this.

Engagement, ho!

The main issue with the trans thing is that it SHOULD be a non-factor. The annoying thing with these virtue signals is how much they want to be singled out as "special", nobody should care if you're just a regular person like anyone else. Non-trans people don't go around telling others that they are their natural sex, expecting some sort of praise for their bravery and how special they are. If you want to be accepted as normal, then why single yourself out as not? Same argument for homosexual people, nobody cares who you're sexually attracted to unless you're hitting on someone, don't make it part of your identity. You don't meet other game characters and have them say at some point "Hey, by the way way, I'm a man and I have a dick, and I was born with it." Nobody cares, nobody wants to care, it feels like a forced addition to "celebrate" people that say they want to be treated as normal but do everything to not be.

Mass Effect 2? I hope you played 1. You are in for a treat with ME2, I finished that game 8 times (and replaying ME1 agian now to get to ME2 properly). EDIT: Ah, you did play it before. ME2 is for me probably top 5 single player games and probably top 10 of all games I ever played. Ill await your video with patience.

Some significant problems in this review. Seems a lot of problems with combat tactics you had came from playing with party AI turned off and not using spells/wands/whatever. No this game doesn't teach you anything, it's a relatively new expansion for a game that came out in 1998 and expected you to read a very large manual or be familiar with 2e DnD. Could it have taken that opportunity? Maybe, but it doesn't start from a tutorial place, but continuing chapter 7 of the original game. Many of your problems with quests seem to come from failures in exploration/ reading the logs. Remember too, there are different outcomes based on your stats. I messed up a quest with the singing menhirs early due to a mix of successful and failed checks with the pc and safana. As for the wardstone and Bridgefort quest complaints, you find out about that from at least two different sources, one in your camp and one if you try to get into the crusader camp. If you either help or kill the trapped crusaders in the temple of cyric you can leave and get into the crusaders camp and mess around, potentially fighting the whole camp if that's how you want to die. Not liking the game for any reason is fine. Playing through it like a hack 'n slay and knocking for your own failure to explore, steal, charm, and generally experiment is poor form. For what faults Beamdogs addition the baalspawn saga has, I am actually impressed with the new companions they have added, Glint, Corwin, and M'Khiin are all treats, and how much the game let's you play your way, be that devious, just, murderous, or comedic. I also found Caelar a nice lawful good villian to act as a counterpoint to Saeverok.

The real value out of Siege of Dragonspear, as far as bridging the gap between Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, comes down to three major things it provides: 1) Tone Shift. If you were to play Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 back-to-back, the tone-shift from the end of 1 to the shocking start of BG2 is really bizarre without SoD. That's why I like playing this campaign as it slowly moves from the Hero of Baldur's Gate to the start of BG2. 2) It introduces the antagonist of the next-game as well as his importance in the story of BG1, though his role here is minimal, which I think is fine for what Beamdog was attempting to do. 3) XP rewards that give players an extra level, maybe two, if they import their saves across these games, which will make the start of BG2 a little less frustrating. Given how stingy XP is in the first game, and some players may finish the game around Level 5 or 6, I think the expansion serves a practical benefit to making sure players get around Level 7/8 for BG2. (It's not something I think breaks the game; it simply helps the start of the sequel.)

Feel like you approached the complaimts of that npc with bad faith by just focusimg on the more obtuse arguments

Me: "SoD's overall story was written poorly." Others: "Mmhmm." Me: "Some of the encounters were written poorly." Others: "Indeed." Me: "A lot of the dialogue was written poorly." Others: "Go on." Me: "A lot of the characters were written poorly." Others: "Of cour--- wait a second..." Me: "Particularly Khalid..." Others: "Don't you dare..." Me: "...and Caelar Argent..." Others: "Don't you say it..." Me: "...and Mizhe---" Others: "STFU YOU TRANSPHOBIC MISOGYNIST WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY BIGOT DIE DIE DIE"