@Messi: I was referring to the "core" Ascension mod - per the readme:
The mod mostly affects the end part of the game, starting at the very end of Chapter 9 when you meet with Balthazar and climaxing at the site of the ascension in the Throne of Bhaal.
There are a few minor changes introduced earlier - you can give Sarevok back his Sword of Chaos and power it up to +4, and the Slayer form levels up at 2/4/6 million XP. But the real changes, the ones that make "Ascension" so memorable, kick in during the final confrontation with Amelyssan:
1. She conjures up Irenicus and Bodhi (but if your PC is evil, you can convince Bodhi to side with you).
2. If Sarevok is in your party, Amelyssan will try to turn him against you. She'll succeed if you geased him to serve you; if you didn't and your alignments are the same (Good/Good or Evil/Evil) he'll stay with you.
3. If Imoen is in your party, Amelyssan will trigger her transformation into the Slayer.
4. When the three pools have been disrupted, Amelyssan will summon the Five for the grand finale. Those of you who've complained about how godlike you feel at level 30 may be singing a different tune when Yaga-Shura, Sendai, Illasera, Abazigal, Gromnir il-Khan and Amelyssan are ganging up on you.
I don't like it, but if I'm doing a playthrough I'll go all the way. ToB is EXTREMELY linear, and has very little in the way of choice. The most you get is deciding which place to go first out of 2 sets of two...and there's no real major choices till the very end. Everything feels extremely rushed (which it was), since they had to try and finish the game's story before their DnD license ran out, cause WotC wouldn't let them renew it for usage of 2nd edition (otherwise ToB would've been a 3rd edition game as NWN, which had been on the back burner in early development since BG1, ended up being forced to be).
It was supposed to be a full 3rd game, with at least as much exploration as SoA, and there was so much planned content that was cut I really can't hardly stomach to play it, save for completion's sake.
And the extremely high levels are actually pretty boring (that's probably why BG1 is my favorite)...you're basically a nigh invulnerable god of destruction by the end of SoA...most of the enemies in ToB can simply be batted aside like gnats, and unless you use Ascension to pump everything up to it's originally intended difficulty, all the bosses, including the final are boring and easy as hell.
As earlier stated, the crazy powerful god levels are not my cup of tea. I play ToB for a few reasons, but I rarely play it: - I love fighting giants (one reason I enjoy Icewind Dale so much I am sure) - I love fighting dragons (who doesn't?) - Sarevok is awesome - Some mods have NPCs with interesting ToB stories - The Sendai fight is very interesting
Things I don't like about ToB: - Too high of a power level, my same issue with Mask of the Betrayer. Not for me, though I respect that some people like it. - Plot twist/ final villain is...awful at best... - A city that has +3 weapons of every variety (INCLUDING KATANAS) readily available for purchase, but can't seem to fend off fire giants (ignore the Bhaalspawn leader). - No Yoshimo :-( - Cespenar's voice
So I'll play it sometimes. I have beaten it twice: once with my Cavalier who I played through Tutu and SoA, once with a bounty hunter-->dual-->fighter who decided black razor was worth becoming evil.
I will most likely play it a few more times, for some mod NPCs and once or twice for EE (multiplayer maybe too).
If there are no warriors to wield the swords, even if they are +3, they can't overthrow the giants ^^
But I shall confess that I was also "shocked" by the amount of godlike weapons available when speaking to a innskeeper. ;-)
The challenge is to stay alive (and keep her alive) long enough for her to regain control and shift back. Which, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be that difficult, except that you've got Irenicus, Bodhi and possibly Sarevok to contend with as well. Quite a task.
For Imeon, you just have to not kill her until her slayer form runs out, and she returns to normal.
@Calmar there's a mod that adds Teleport as a 7th level spell (Supposed to be 5th, but it has no chance of error (as the 9th lvl version), so they met in the middle with 7th), that allows you to return to any area you've visited at least once. And it keeps track, so if you import later into ToB, its allows you to teleport back to SoA locations if you wish to and cast again to teleport back. (but you can't enter the world map from SoA areas or the game will crash. So if you want to flit around Athkatla, you'll need to teleport between each district.
There's a few checks in place to prevent teleporting while in Spellhold (warded against non-portal teleportation), the Saguhin city (it's too close to the Underdark), the Underdark (Faerzress disrupts long range teleportation), Watcher's Keep (Warded vs teleportation) into or out of Saradush (wards the fire giants have set up), nor can you leave The End, or pocket plane as teleport only allows travel on the same plane.
I didn't like how certain NPCs like Abazigal, Balthazar etc replied the same things no matter what you told them. What's the point of having dialogue options if the person you talk to is speaking to himself? Storywise, the ending was anti-climatic as it happened on a space platform like those of star trek.
In contrast, some of the toughest battles were in TOB, such as against Sendai, Draconis, Nalmissra, the Ravager, and I load then when I want a tactical challenge and I'm bored to start a new playthrough. For BG1 I can say this for one fight only (against Zhalimar Cloudwulfe) while in BG2 only for the dragon fights.
@Bhaaldog Yeah... would be a good idea to tag it very spoilery. It's already in General where spoilers happen, but tagging the title and the top OP would be nice too. People can still vote, but choose to read further at their own spoiler risk.
Throne Of Bhaal has some great things (The Watcher's Keep is one of these) and a few not-that-great things (The linear progression)
But the feeling of godhood you get from battling hordes of giants, drows, dragons and the ending climatic battle against Melissan always makes me love it.
That, and the few music masterpieces (Marching Mountains, Bhaalspawn fight, melissan fight... these are just almighty great)
The closing of the romances, the Wraith Master, that Saemon Havarian bastard... There's a lot of memorable moments in the extension.
While the vanilla version had some issues (IE.: Not beeing able to side with balthazaar), Ascension just makes it a great closing to the series.
Oh, and the epilogue of Minsc, It always makes me shiver. It's just... perfect " The two would never be separated, and some say they are together still, up amongst the stars where hamsters are giants and men become legends."
".... In Balthazar's advanced years, his work finished, it was said he could be found most often gazing at the night sky and remembering -CHARNAME-. Later, Balthazar would leave Amkethran forever on a pilgrimage to Candlekeep ...... to give a final thanks for the peace he had found and to see for himself the humble beginnings of a legend."
I don't enjoy ToB, partly because I don't find epic level combat to be that satisfying and partly because I just don't think it lives up to what came before. Dialogues with the illusion of choice, a villain so transparent I honestly thought it was a Mulahey-esque lackey initially, linear go here kill that no sidetracking gameplay. I don't feel like I'm actually playing a BG game but rather something more like Icewind Dale, except with worse combat, worse locations, worse music and a worse story. That's usually what I do actually, complete SoA, play ToB for a few hours and then just load up IWD instead.
I always play it simply because the journey doesn't feel completed without it. I like the ending, the final choice, those epilogues. My every playthrough must end with that.
As for the most epic fight, I really enjoyed beating Yaga-Shura's army, with some improved tactic mode installed (dont remember exactly what), where they just kept spawning and spawning and I kept killing them. That was epic.
I rather like Throne of Bhaal, but know that it is very unpopular. The problems I generally see listed are unbalanced combat, a weaker plot, brevity, and linearity.
Sure, the combat is absurdly unbalanced at high levels, but it was always unbalanced. Why should that start bothering fans now?
The main problem with the plot was that the villain was weak. But despite a lackluster Big Bad, the story does have plenty of good stuff. Sarevok is a great addition. Many of your companions get some character development, especially Aerie, Nalia, and Viconia. Balthazar is a genuinely great antagonist. In fact, I think the plot might have been much better received if he was the Big Bad as opposed to Melissan. It was also nice to return to the Bhaalspawn storyline. In ToB, your character's heritage is central to the whole story. In SoA, it was basically a MacGuffin and the story was more about the villain than the protagonist. Finally, the epilogue texts are universally excellent and provide all the closure you could want.
As for it being short, it probably lasts 20-30 hours if you do everything. That's longer than most games. It's not as long as SoA, but SoA was long even by RPG standards and it was a full-blown game instead of an expansion pack. For an expansion pack, ToB is very large. For a game, it's still pretty long.
As for the linearity complaint, it does basically amount to a series of dungeon crawls and boss fights with minimal sidequesting. However, this is to be expected in an expansion pack and not a full-blown game. Despite this, those dungeons and boss fights are easily the best in the series. I tend to view this as a matter of quality over quantity. Plus, the minimal sidequesting kept the focus on the main plot, greatly alleviating the pacing issues SoA had.
I think the real reason people hate ToB is that they incorrectly judge it as a Stand-alone game rather than an expansion. The series is even commonly called a trilogy despite only consisting of two games. As far as expansions go, ToB is a great one. If it had been released as a stand-alone game, it would have been a pretty good one that was disappointing in comparison to SoA. If instead, you (correctly) view it as an extension of SoA instead of a sequel, ToB just makes an already great game even better.
I think ToB really pulled the story through for me, i mean yeah there were a few places i thought... well that dousnt make sense... but mostly i thought it was a good conclusion to the whole story, i mean the whole point of you being a Child of Bhaal is so that you can eventually become a God or choose not to, still... i would of liked it be longer, it all seemed to happen a little too fast. Yay i killed Irenicus! time for a rest, huh? Army of Bhaalspawn out to get me? well...that sucks. They proberly could of got away with a Baldur's Gate 3 where the Bhaal Spawn armies of doom start appearing about mid way through instead of being thurst straight into another battle where each of these Bhaalspawn managed to amass any army unknown to the rest of Faerun. A little more detail would of been nice but overall it still works well.
I think ToB really pulled the story through for me, i mean yeah there were a few places i thought... well that dousnt make sense... but mostly i thought it was a good conclusion to the whole story, i mean the whole point of you being a Child of Bhaal is so that you can eventually become a God or choose not to, still... i would of liked it be longer, it all seemed to happen a little too fast. Yay i killed Irenicus! time for a rest, huh? Army of Bhaalspawn out to get me? well...that sucks. They proberly could of got away with a Baldur's Gate 3 where the Bhaal Spawn armies of doom start appearing about mid way through instead of being thurst straight into another battle where each of these Bhaalspawn managed to amass any army unknown to the rest of Faerun. A little more detail would of been nice but overall it still works well.
IIRC, the idea is that the Five were rampaging across Tethyr the whole time you were busy with Irenicus; unfortunately, by the time you finish him off, there are only about a dozen Bhaalspawn left alive, which means they finally turn their attention towards you.
This is a classic glass half full/empty situation. Either enjoy the it as the great expansion it is or "mourn" what could have been. Also as others have said it is kinda ridiculous to call 20-30 hour expansion short when that is longer than many full games.
ToB is typically the point where I get bored of a character. It's not that its bad, but it has that problem where you have to do a whole bunch of things in a certain order with little freedom. That sort of linearity is fine the first time but it tires after a while.
Also, the fact that all fights go in one of several ways is a bit tiresome: -Fight with lots of the same enemies where all you do is attack with your +3 weapons for 10 minutes. -Spam AoE > Win battle -Fight is too hard and takes 20 tries each playthrough to get right. -Pre-Spam Traps because I'm lazy
Its great a couple of times and the high-level content is neat but the way the game throws enchanted stuff at you feels like its trying to maximise your power in minimum time. My opinion is mixed and weird.
@Mathmick Yeah, I can agree with that ... so I usually go for Good party roleplaying it and concentrate on that. Imoen, Sarevok, Keldorn and Minsc. I like the banter between Sarevok and Keldorn... and getting Sarevok to change alignment is a super sweet feeling. Minsc is just not powerful enough for ToB... but he feels like family, so I keep him. Sarevok and Keldorn are super tanks. Immy is my sister... so gotta keep her. Sometimes I take Viconia too... and get her to switch to the good side. She is the most powerful cleric, imho.
.Also as others have said it is kinda ridiculous to call 20-30 hour expansion short when that is longer than many full games.
DA2 comes to mind... hmmm.
DA2 actually took me longer than DAO the first time I played. I'm not entirely sure how that happened. I as playing on Nightmare difficulty, admittedly, and I think the saves were bugged so that quick-loading didn't reset your play time, so the 7 hours it took em to defeat the Rock Wraith actually counted as 7 hours, not the 1:15 it took me when I actually defeated it.
Years ago, back when I played a lot (had more time for this) I tended to play BGT games and completed the whole saga. But I have to say, as others have noted, I too began to weary of the what feels like a neverending succession of battles by then--and just how ridiculously high level ToB is. You're an epic level character on par with Elminster in ToB. And I guess that's appropriate enough for the child of a god. But it's not really my cup of tea. I much prefer lower level play.
It takes me about 3-4 months to complete the entire saga. And there is definitely a burnout factor there for me.
I think moving forward I will likely play just BG:EE, BG2:EE and standalone adventures such as the Black Pits, all by themselves; and I think I'll do that more frequently than playing the entire saga, or SoA+ToB. I may still play the whole saga again one day, after the EE versions are tied together officially, or via BGT:EE, or what have you. But I expect that will be the exception rather than the rule.
I didn't like how certain NPCs like Abazigal, Balthazar etc replied the same things no matter what you told them. What's the point of having dialogue options if the person you talk to is speaking to himself? Storywise, the ending was anti-climatic as it happened on a space platform like those of star trek.
A deleted cutscene after the ending movie orginally revealed that 'Charname' is in fact Wesley Crusher who was playing the "Baldur's Gate" holodeck programme. It was sort of meant to serve as a bridge to a cancelled ST game by Bioware. :P
I didn't like how certain NPCs like Abazigal, Balthazar etc replied the same things no matter what you told them. What's the point of having dialogue options if the person you talk to is speaking to himself? Storywise, the ending was anti-climatic as it happened on a space platform like those of star trek.
A deleted cutscene after the ending movie orginally revealed that 'Charname' is in fact Wesley Crusher who was playing the "Baldur's Gate" holodeck programme. It was sort of meant to serve as a bridge to a cancelled ST game by Bioware. :P
This is a classic glass half full/empty situation. Either enjoy the it as the great expansion it is or "mourn" what could have been. Also as others have said it is kinda ridiculous to call 20-30 hour expansion short when that is longer than many full games.
BG is a game of the old times, when you were not finishing them in 6h... so your argument is irrelevant ^^
Comments
So basically it renders Imoen useless ?
You can only finish the fight with 5 people ?
If so, quite crappy I think..
It was supposed to be a full 3rd game, with at least as much exploration as SoA, and there was so much planned content that was cut I really can't hardly stomach to play it, save for completion's sake.
And the extremely high levels are actually pretty boring (that's probably why BG1 is my favorite)...you're basically a nigh invulnerable god of destruction by the end of SoA...most of the enemies in ToB can simply be batted aside like gnats, and unless you use Ascension to pump everything up to it's originally intended difficulty, all the bosses, including the final are boring and easy as hell.
If there are no warriors to wield the swords, even if they are +3, they can't overthrow the giants ^^
But I shall confess that I was also "shocked" by the amount of godlike weapons available when speaking to a innskeeper. ;-)
@Calmar there's a mod that adds Teleport as a 7th level spell (Supposed to be 5th, but it has no chance of error (as the 9th lvl version), so they met in the middle with 7th), that allows you to return to any area you've visited at least once. And it keeps track, so if you import later into ToB, its allows you to teleport back to SoA locations if you wish to and cast again to teleport back. (but you can't enter the world map from SoA areas or the game will crash. So if you want to flit around Athkatla, you'll need to teleport between each district.
There's a few checks in place to prevent teleporting while in Spellhold (warded against non-portal teleportation), the Saguhin city (it's too close to the Underdark), the Underdark (Faerzress disrupts long range teleportation), Watcher's Keep (Warded vs teleportation) into or out of Saradush (wards the fire giants have set up), nor can you leave The End, or pocket plane as teleport only allows travel on the same plane.
In contrast, some of the toughest battles were in TOB, such as against Sendai, Draconis, Nalmissra, the Ravager, and I load then when I want a tactical challenge and I'm bored to start a new playthrough. For BG1 I can say this for one fight only (against Zhalimar Cloudwulfe) while in BG2 only for the dragon fights.
But the feeling of godhood you get from battling hordes of giants, drows, dragons and the ending climatic battle against Melissan always makes me love it.
That, and the few music masterpieces (Marching Mountains, Bhaalspawn fight, melissan fight... these are just almighty great)
The closing of the romances, the Wraith Master, that Saemon Havarian bastard...
There's a lot of memorable moments in the extension.
While the vanilla version had some issues (IE.: Not beeing able to side with balthazaar), Ascension just makes it a great closing to the series.
Oh, and the epilogue of Minsc, It always makes me shiver. It's just... perfect
" The two would never be separated, and some say they are together still, up amongst the stars where hamsters are giants and men become legends."
Oh, and romanced Viconia epilogue.
Gaaah.
I WANT TO PLAY TOB:EE NOW
".... In Balthazar's advanced years, his work finished, it was said he could be found most often gazing at the night sky and remembering -CHARNAME-. Later, Balthazar would leave Amkethran forever on a pilgrimage to Candlekeep ...... to give a final thanks for the peace he had found and to see for himself the humble beginnings of a legend."
As for the most epic fight, I really enjoyed beating Yaga-Shura's army, with some improved tactic mode installed (dont remember exactly what), where they just kept spawning and spawning and I kept killing them. That was epic.
Sure, the combat is absurdly unbalanced at high levels, but it was always unbalanced. Why should that start bothering fans now?
The main problem with the plot was that the villain was weak. But despite a lackluster Big Bad, the story does have plenty of good stuff. Sarevok is a great addition. Many of your companions get some character development, especially Aerie, Nalia, and Viconia. Balthazar is a genuinely great antagonist. In fact, I think the plot might have been much better received if he was the Big Bad as opposed to Melissan. It was also nice to return to the Bhaalspawn storyline. In ToB, your character's heritage is central to the whole story. In SoA, it was basically a MacGuffin and the story was more about the villain than the protagonist. Finally, the epilogue texts are universally excellent and provide all the closure you could want.
As for it being short, it probably lasts 20-30 hours if you do everything. That's longer than most games. It's not as long as SoA, but SoA was long even by RPG standards and it was a full-blown game instead of an expansion pack. For an expansion pack, ToB is very large. For a game, it's still pretty long.
As for the linearity complaint, it does basically amount to a series of dungeon crawls and boss fights with minimal sidequesting. However, this is to be expected in an expansion pack and not a full-blown game. Despite this, those dungeons and boss fights are easily the best in the series. I tend to view this as a matter of quality over quantity. Plus, the minimal sidequesting kept the focus on the main plot, greatly alleviating the pacing issues SoA had.
I think the real reason people hate ToB is that they incorrectly judge it as a Stand-alone game rather than an expansion. The series is even commonly called a trilogy despite only consisting of two games. As far as expansions go, ToB is a great one. If it had been released as a stand-alone game, it would have been a pretty good one that was disappointing in comparison to SoA. If instead, you (correctly) view it as an extension of SoA instead of a sequel, ToB just makes an already great game even better.
Also, the fact that all fights go in one of several ways is a bit tiresome:
-Fight with lots of the same enemies where all you do is attack with your +3 weapons for 10 minutes.
-Spam AoE > Win battle
-Fight is too hard and takes 20 tries each playthrough to get right.
-Pre-Spam Traps because I'm lazy
Its great a couple of times and the high-level content is neat but the way the game throws enchanted stuff at you feels like its trying to maximise your power in minimum time. My opinion is mixed and weird.
It takes me about 3-4 months to complete the entire saga. And there is definitely a burnout factor there for me.
I think moving forward I will likely play just BG:EE, BG2:EE and standalone adventures such as the Black Pits, all by themselves; and I think I'll do that more frequently than playing the entire saga, or SoA+ToB. I may still play the whole saga again one day, after the EE versions are tied together officially, or via BGT:EE, or what have you. But I expect that will be the exception rather than the rule.