"Melissan deals 137 Damage to Sarevok" "Sarevok- Death" "Slayer Shadow attacks Cernd" "Melissan: Minions of the Abyss, your Mistress summons your aid!" Spawns in like 2 Elder Orbs, a Alhoon, Cornugonski and Glabrezu.
To this song, my Paladin finally fell to evil. Man, what a ride, all the way from a naive Cavalier wanting to change the world to a broken and cruel man who only wanted to have the pain end. And end it did, in fire and destruction. He wrecked vengeance on the world and on its cruel and uncaring gods. And thus ended the tale of Marcus Percurius, Cavalier and Hero of the Heartlands. Son of Bhaal, lord of murder.
What a battle theme. Never have I felt so pumped and excited about a final showdown in game. Confronting Melissan with friends and her love aside felt so real. It may be a game but honestly it felt like I lived in it. And don't even get me started on the epilogue. I was proud and cried when the voice started to read the fate after refusing the taint. My sorceress settled down with Anomen, had a little girl and lived a long happy life...^^
I don't understand either... people complain about graphics not noticing the GREAT storyline, the GREATLY written characters, the thousands of posibilities and also... it's a good oldie, and for an oldie, the graphics rule. Even so, the graphics aren't the truly important stuff, it's the story, the characters and the voice acting which rules too.
Such excitement getting to Mellisan for the first time with the first character I ever completed the game with. This song made that long anticipated battle so much better as Jonas Solondor, high priest of Lathander defeated the taint of Bhaal and freed himself along with his companions Keldorn Firecam, Valygar Cortana, Jan Jansen, Jaheira and his lover Neera...
Probably my most replayed RPG of all time. The game's pacing is *perfect* Just pitch perfect. The exact correct proportion of side quest - main quest. It does a perfect job of giving you an open world to explore without sacrificing any urgency. Seriously, I'm shocked I don't see more games get the formula this perfect. BG2 is simply the perfect, quintessential CRPG. (It also helps that BG2 has an INTENSE modding community. You can get completely lost in infinity mods.)
Not only is the music insanely great, dialog written wonderfully, and gameplay fun as hell, but the best parts are the player's emotional ties to the charecters and their advancement in the story. When I get done with this game, I bet I'm gonna feel empty inside. To me, that is what an RPG should be... real emotional concern for the charecters.
the ascension-mod changes the fights and the story of throne of bhaal to be a better fitting end of the game and the last fight vs melissan is just INSANE difficult, first you have to fight the resurrected irenicus, bodhi, the slayes and sarevok all at the same time, then in phase 2 you have to fight all of the 5 bhaalspawns together and after you take out 2 of them amelissan joins the battle.
This soundtrack was epic when I finally fought Melissan, at like 2 in the morning and I was half-asleep, this was a fucking wake up call saying YOU`RE ALMOST FINISHED WITH THE BEST GAME EVER!!!! LOVE LIVE MINSC AND BOO!
The part at 0:53 always gets me feeling epic. Generally, all of BG saga had epic scores, but they really upped the ante during ToB. Very fitting for the ascendance of a god!
I had such an amazing experience playing this through (for the first time) with the Ascension mod. Beating the crap out of the Bhaalspawn with my "old-school party" (Imoen/Minsc/Jaheira/Xan (mod)/Sarevok), getting to Balthazar and successfully recruiting him to fight for me, watching Imoen freak out Slayer-style, Sarevok (while still evil) refusing godhood to spite Melissan, the craziest final battle I've ever taken part in and the final epilogues. Left me dead to rights.
You know, i was nearly crying hearing this too, remembering many great moments from all the saga ... when i read the Minsc part of your comment, i did cried tears of joy, thank you for that. And thank you Black Isle and Bioware, for the greatest saga i have ever played
This is the number 1 RPG ever made. I dont remember if I played any other RPGs that can be compared to this one. Maybe the Mask of the Betrayer expansion.
@Grigeral I think what you are talking about are the visuals with pixel shaders, HDR lighting, paralxing or what ever new features are used today with 3 dimensional graphics. Those cant be compared. But I am talking about the artistic side and style.
Maxed out Wizard Slayer, Silver Vorpal Sword. Wizards get 10% chance at spell failure when hit by a WS, so she's basically just mega-Sarevok after I hit her a few times.
You kidding? Ascension is merciless! I haven't even tried it myself (and I've played BG through like 50+ times by now), but I bet I'd get wiped out in seconds even with Spike Traps & Project Image + Summon Planetar -cheesing. Regular Melissan fight is just enough for me, thank you very much..
are you mad? Amelyssan the Blackhearted was the ultimate villain and evil npc in any game ive ever seen. a mortal, trying to become a god...what more do you possibly want!?
I just used Breach, Haste, Pierce Shield, then got Ravn (my character, a berserker), Sarevok, and Korgan up in his face. We took some big hits but he went down quick enough.
It's all about the story and the characters - sometimes they remember this, and sometimes they just want the thing out in December to make more greenbacks.
@60groszy well bg2 SoA was made as a requiem of one of the developers. that´s the heart in that game. that game was made for a friend and ToB ended the epic storyline they made to make their friend who died while working at SoA proud. read the manual of BG and i think it´s this heart which makes this game once in all times. seriously i´d love to see how it would looj with modern technics but maybe it wouldn´t be BG anymore for that game i sacrifice my eyes at free will^^
Simply great music, great gameplay. Many people complains obout graphics, generaly, but I dont get it. The fact that graphic part of the game was not that good meant, that the storyline and other important parts had to be better, cooler. Today?? Its just graphics, and then the rest...what a shame
@CrniWuk Some, yes, but pre-rendered flat images are too limited. Dragon Age? You can rotate the camera, survey they area from so many different directions, get a close-up view or a distant vantage however the mood takes you. Not to mention the advantages of having actual face graphics. =P But you do have a point. Thing is, the more advanced things get, the more expensive and time-consuming it gets. So designers wind up having to cut corners to make the deadline, or even to save space.
@parlante123 I resent that statment. I am a "lil kid". im 16 and I pretty grew up on this series and I dont think DAO could equal it but it made me understand more of how good this game was and it was plenty fun and plenty good. Dont make a general hate statement please. DAO IS good, its just not BG3.
The fifth bhaalspawn is balthasar, not gromnir ;-) Yagashura and illasera aren't so easy though, because they got improvements in ascension as well. I can't post a link in a youtube comment, but if you type "ascension mod" in google it should be the first hit. the name of the website is "weidu"
I also feel it's an issue of the graphics. Look at NWN and NWN2, visually speaking yes, they're 3D, but they're not as polished and comfortable to get into than the old infinity engine games were, with 2D graphics and all. I think there could be another RPG renaissance coming, if graphics get to the point where they can do precisely what games like torment portrayed, but in real time, and far, far more fluidly. Maybe with time and that unreal 4 engine... or maybe not.
@CrniWuk I agree about Dragon Age, it looked SO muddy. Fallout 3 on the computer, however, was a very high-quality piece of work. I will say this, though. BG2 kicks the hell out of NWN 1 and 2 any day.
@Grigeral I am not comparing simply the "visual" side of the graphic but the artistic as well. Take a closer look at the dungeons and locations of Oblivion which are generic fillers random content. Every ruin looks the same and you cant tell them apart. In BG the style for many places is unique Atkala doesnt looke like Waterdeep and many dungeons had a distrinctive look. Artistacly speaking. I love the elven ruins in Oblivion, but there are not enough uniquie locations.
@Tennie10 Minsc is epic isn´t he? no matter which class i play Minsc is a must be in every party i mean. he fits almost everywhere right at front (a good axe and that mace against undead and he fucks everything) or as Archer with composite longbow (not much Characters have the needed strength to use it i think it was strength 16) and a two handed sword for defence and then enjoy his comments^^ this man rules^^
nostalgia or not, since BG 2 all other RPG does not even came close to BG series, there were good rpg games here and there but still BG and BG 2 (and torment ofc.) are the best rpg games of all times if u ask me, those games just had a soul, not corrupted by the company greed for money. Those games were made by players for players, now games are made as a product for the croud, nothing more. I'm not saying making money is bad, but there has to be a line somewhere
Does anyone know whether this music is somewhere for download in decent quality? I've got the tracks released by Bioware but the best pieces including this one are missing.
Dunno what people mean with the graphics. I think the visuals shown in BG II and ToB are better then some "modern" RPGs with their 3D and flat textures. I mean Dragonage? Serously, get a bit closer and you see in many places a lot of bad visuals, same to Fallout 3, full of glitches and bugs anyway. For BG most of the graphic was "hand made" and you can see that. Atkatla and particuilarly the dungeons look very good. Only thing that comes close is the elven ruins in Dragonage eventualy
well it is the best of its kind so far....it doesnt need to look extra pretty...it just needs to be challenging, and have intuitive story and options and Drag your emotions into the game....Its a PC game...this game still have replay value up the ass...i just reinstalled it again after 5 years...and got a totally different experience and emotion from the game then i did before...the game does not do you injustice if you like RPG...it will mind F you in every way you try to reach your final chap
@CrniWuk i prefer dragon age graphics but because of the better graphics they seem to forgot to make a game which is nearly awesome and fun to play just like baldurs gate.....
This may be true for the unmodded game, but with installed ascension-mod amelissan is 1000 times tougher than abazigal. Sure, abazigal does some serious damage in human form, but amelissan is just insane and her "summon 50 demons in 1 round" spell has killed me countless times.
It feels like Shadows of Amn is kind of a side story to me. Baldur's Gate dealth with Sarevok trying to fulfil the prophecy of the Bhaalspawn, and Throne of Bhaal dealt with the last of the Bhaalspawn and the prophecy coming to pass. SoA was, and still is, a brilliant game, but was mostly about an insane former elf wanting revenge. And yet, it's probably my favourite of the series. Crazy, no?
@CrniWuk I love old games. They generally have more gameplay, better stories etc etc. But to say that modern graphics are no better? BG graphics were amazing for their time, but regardless of how close you look at it, they are not a touch on things such as Oblivion... You cannot compare graphics of a game some 11-12 years old. It simply wouldn't stand, which is natural. The difference is, graphics do not make a game. They only make a fraction of it.