Final Fantasy 6 Final Fantasy 7 Final Fantasy 8 Final Fantasy 9 Final Fantasy tactics Persona 3 Persona 4 Kotor Jade Empire Mass effect Dragon Age Dragon Quest 5 Dragon Quest 8 Dragon Quest 9 Fallout 3 Skyrim Baldur's Gate 2 Parasite Eve Xenogears Diablo 2 Chrono Trigger Chrono Cross Pokemon Shining Force Tales of Symphonia Tales of Vesperia Breath of Fire III Fire Emblem Shining Force II Bioshock infinite is a hybrid... fps/rpg, but I still consider it a rpg.
I can name 50 more games.
I still liked Baldur's Gate 1 and I still think Baldur's Gate 2 is one of the best games EVER MADE - easily top 5 in my private list.
For the record, you can increase your frame rate to make characters move faster. Game's default is on 30. I usually play on 35 or 40. Though I heard some folk play it on 60.
Err... too many comments already so I'm too lazy to read through all. But I will add to the debate
Overall BG EE is an excellent game. Sure it's inferior to BG 2 (that is apparent to me after just 5-10 hrs into my BG 2 experience), but it's like foreplay before great sex. You can only get the most out of BG 2 if you play BG 1 first.
On a side note. Things I don't like (or wish could be improved in BG games in general).
1) Better reflection of good vs evil:
In BG 1 (and I suspect BG 2), doing the 'right' thing always pays off better than doing the selfish/evil thing. It would be nice if they balanced this. For examples choosing the evil option reduces your reputation, so prices are higher at shops, but you might get a powerful artefact or bounty of gold that choosing the good option would deny you. The only thing that I remember that comes close to this was the murder of Drizzt. But that was an Easter Egg as opposed to purposeful design. I only managed to kill him early-ish through ultimate cheese. (Also in that case, the reward for evil was too much, so that it was a no-brainer to try to kill him if you can).
2) Better enemy AI as opposed to uber-enemies.
It kinda bothers me that a lot of encounters are either very difficult or very easy depending on if you've prepared and/or use cheesy tactics. I suspect this will be an even bigger issue in BG 2 given the increased prevalence of magic. It just feels unrealistic that my party would randomly stop in the wilderness, sensing some great danger, send Imoen out to confirm the existence of a dangerous enemy, and then cast Bless, Chant, drink appropriate potions etc...
You can even get away with slowly pulling enemies one by one, as their comrades somehow ignore the fact that their party members keeps wandering off to their deaths one by one. When you are in a hostile dungeon, or about to face an obvious showdown (like Temple of Bhaal), pre-buffing is fine. But when you get jumped by assassins, or run into a rival party in the wilderness or a bar, it should be a surprise. I'd prefer if they made enemies easier and improved AI to maintain difficulty rather than just creating arbitarily difficult enemies.
3) Dungeons with narrow corrodors are REALLY fiddly and annoying, especially with the dodgy pathfinding system. Thankfully most such dungeons don't contain difficult enemies, so I just walked around with 2 or 3 archers/warriors and kept vulnerable characters safely behind.
"In BG 1 (and I suspect BG 2), doing the 'right' thing always pays off better than doing the selfish/evil thing. It would be nice if they balanced this. "
I can think of one in BG2.
The pantaloons, the pantaloons! Glorious silver pantaloons!
@zur312 - Wait, Diablo 2 is a better RPG than BG1? Diablo 2 is an RPG?
I personally loved KOTOR, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Mass Effect and Dragon Age:Origins/Awakenings and think they are all on some form of top 10 list, but I wouldn't consider any of them to be superior to BG1. Personal opinion, I know.
As for the rest, I am not a fan of Jap-RPGs like Final Fantasy, so I won't pass any sort of opinion on them. I am surprised that Planescape Torment isn't in the list anywhere.
Diablo wasn't better than BG1. I remember reading many gaming magazines back when BG1 was released and the mutual opinion of them all was BG1 did everything diablo did just better.
Diablo was advertised as a RPG, it's something that might not be true but they still put that title there to draw in more people. And as a RPG game Baldur's gate did everything better.
1.) More classes 2.) More customization 3.) NPCS that were actually alive. 4.) Many NPC's 5.) A huge alive world to interact with.
The only thing Diablo did better was the multiplayer part.
Diablo was advertised as a RPG, it's something that might not be true but they still put that title there to draw in more people. And as a RPG game Baldur's gate did everything better.
1.) More classes 2.) More customization 3.) NPCS that were actually alive. 4.) Many NPC's 5.) A huge alive world to interact with.
The only thing Diablo did better was the multiplayer part.
from players i know there non that would call diablo an "RPG" game they either call it h'n's or action rpg
the rpg aspects of diablo are minimal like you stated diablo has great h'n's values like leveling progressions good combat etc. but it is not RPG for me
oh and i wish there was RPG like diablo (not h'n's) for multiplayer
Diablo was advertised as a RPG, it's something that might not be true but they still put that title there to draw in more people. And as a RPG game Baldur's gate did everything better.
1.) More classes 2.) More customization 3.) NPCS that were actually alive. 4.) Many NPC's 5.) A huge alive world to interact with.
The only thing Diablo did better was the multiplayer part.
from players i know there non that would call diablo an "RPG" game they either call it h'n's or action rpg
the rpg aspects of diablo are minimal like you stated diablo has great h'n's values like leveling progressions good combat etc. but it is not RPG for me
oh and i wish there was RPG like diablo (not h'n's) for multiplayer
The point i was trying to get forward to is that Blizzard sold Diablo under the title of a RPG game to get more customers. So ofcourse the gaming magazines would review it as a RPG game and that would put it up against other RPG games like Baldur's Gate.
I don't think Diablo is a RPG game, it's just something they used to get more people.
Yeah I think there is a large pool of very nice games that allow for deep and/or complex character builds (min/max etc), and a smaller pool (generally a subset) of games that also allow for character interactions that have an impact on how the game progresses. Both are often referred to as RPG games, though I only think of the second category as really having any role playing. I'd put games like Diablo and Borderlands in the first category and games like Baldur's Gate and Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim in the second category.
-The non-plot maps were repetitive. They were all the same basic square with similar enemies with not much interesting going on. Occasionally, they had a small cave to go in, but that's about it.
Interesting. See for me, this is actually one of the more enjoyable things about Baldur's Gate 1. Said non-plot maps don't even exist in BGII, so you'll probably be glad to hear that.
-The plot had serious pacing issues. 45 hours into the game (beat the game in 56 hours), I knew only a paragraph's worth of actual plot about a not so intriguing iron shortage, and I still did not know who the main antagonist was. I think I found out the antagonist's name at 45 hours. The plot really only picked up in the last 5 hours or so
A lot of the plot is implied, foreshadowed, and in general requires the player to be observant. The plot is not thrown in the player's face. Now that said, yes, there is actually too little plot that is made entirely clear, I would agree.
-The plot did not exactly break any new ground in the fantasy genre (compared to say Torment). It was fairly well done, but nothing I'll be thinking about for years to come.
-The only thing that moved slower than the plot were the characters. There was not a run command, making haste a necessary spell to have on at all times.
Oh lawd ... man people have no patience. You're certainly not the only one complaining about this.
-Some dungeons had extremely narrow hallways, meaning your characters got blocked by each other and could not attack the enemies. These were also a pain to navagate because you had to click precisely inside the hallway boundaries to move.
Yep, absolutely. Especially bad is the Firewine Ruins, heh...
-Only the new characters like Dorn and Neer had plots that carried them throughout the game and actually chimed in once in a while. The other NPC had basic introductory plots/motivations, but then they shut up for the rest of the game and were pretty much interchangeable.
Yes. In original BG1 all of the characters were pretty silent, which I think actually adds to the charm of the game. With BG:EE they added NPCs that are much more talkative, so you have this incredibly awkward mix of talkative characters and quiet characters. Probably the biggest fail of BG:EE if you ask me. They didn't even attempt to make the new characters fit in amongst the rest. Anyway, if you liked their interactions, you will love BGII because they basically scream BGII.
-The music was standard fantasy fare and not very memorable, comapred to some other CRPG's like Morrowind or Icewind Dale (both by Jeremy Soule, but he's not the only good CRPG composer)
Yeah. I really like the end battle music and a couple others but apart from that pretty typical. Gotta agree IWD's score is AMAZING!
I mean, if you play BG1 and skip the story/dialoge and play it in co-op, you dont get more "rpg" then, eh , lets say co-op in Diablo.
You don't think this is a little... convenient? I mean, those are 2 fairly significant parts of the game, which I think many people would say are key aspects of what make an RPG. It's a bit like saying "if you ignore all the things that make it an RPG, it really isn't an RPG at all" (yes this is an exaggeration, but you see my point).
Personally, I feel as though RPGs can be divided into two broad categories: Before BG2, and after BG2. IMHO Baldur's Gate 2 is the most significant RPG of the last fifteen years or so because it was a commercially successful synthesis of western RPGs and JRPGs. How was it a synthesis?
Well, prior to BG2, western RPGs were pretty bare-boned in terms of plot and characters. In fact, there was often no character development whatsoever, because all the characters were made by the player. While there are a couple of exceptions (Betrayal at Krondor comes to mind), for the most part older RPGs were all about letting the player design a character or party, then setting that party loose in either a wide open world or a confined dungeon to do whatever they wanted. They were given a minimum in terms of plot and character development, and a lot of things were kind of just left up to the player's imagination. Might and Magic, Eye of the Beholder, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 1 and to an extent, Ultima are all examples of this.
In other words, western RPGs were basically a simulation of PnP RPGs. The devs craft a ruleset and a setting and let your imagination run wild with it.
JRPGs, on the other hand, were generally more linear, more plot and character-centric, and offered comparatively little freedom. Rather than allowing the player to tell their own story, JRPGs would instead use the game as a way of communicating specific ideas, topics and themes. I'm not quite as well versed in JRPG history, but Final Fantasy (starting really around VI but even before then), Chrono Trigger and Legend of Mana are some good examples of this. They give you an involving story and developed characters at the price of being very linear - often to the point where you can't even create a character.
In other words, JRPGs were in many ways a simulation of Japanese comics, anime, etc. They were there to tell a story and let you have fun along the way.
BG2 came along and combined elements of both. It took the open world structure of western RPGs, narrowed it down a bit, gave all the NPCs some character, gave a plot that was clear and immediate from beginning to end, and let the player explore it. It was a compromise, sure, which means plenty is left out - fans who prefer BG1 often bemoan BG2's lack of exploration, for example, while the NPCs don't receive nearly the same amount of attention as in many JRPGs. However, it also had a huge impact on the gaming industry at large. Since BG2's release, its formula has become more or less expected in many RPGs - for better or for worse.
The point of all this is that BG1 was pretty light on plot and characters, and that's just the way things were at the time. Today things are different - other than the occasional throwback like Legend of Grimrock.
For good and for bad, BG2 was the most influential western rpg ever.
Well, of the past fifteen years. Ever is probably Ultima. Ultima is like the Shakespeare of RPGs - every one made since then comes back to it in some way or another - Western or Japanese, as it was a massive influence on games like Final Fantasy (hence Ultima being the most powerful spell in many FF games) as well.
And then you've got Ultima Underworld creating a 3D interface. Not only is this huge for RPGs, leading to games like Eye of the Beholder, M&M 3 and up, Arena and Daggerfall, and more, but it also paved the way for games like Wolfenstein and Doom.
Diablo was advertised as a RPG, it's something that might not be true but they still put that title there to draw in more people. And as a RPG game Baldur's gate did everything better.
1.) More classes 2.) More customization 3.) NPCS that were actually alive. 4.) Many NPC's 5.) A huge alive world to interact with.
The only thing Diablo did better was the multiplayer part.
I don't consider Diablo 2 a RPG, but I actually disagree with you in there being less character customization in D2. If you're willing to stray from the cookie cutter builds, D2 has an insane amount of possible character builds due to stat points, skill points, and items that have particular abilities. On the other hand, 2nd edition is rather limited in what you can do once you create your character. For example, a fighter is just a fighter and will always play like one unless you dual class him later.
Personally, I feel as though RPGs can be divided into two broad categories: Before BG2, and after BG2. IMHO Baldur's Gate 2 is the most significant RPG of the last fifteen years or so because it was a commercially successful synthesis of western RPGs and JRPGs. How was it a synthesis?
Well, prior to BG2, western RPGs were pretty bare-boned in terms of plot and characters. In fact, there was often no character development whatsoever, because all the characters were made by the player. While there are a couple of exceptions (Betrayal at Krondor comes to mind), for the most part older RPGs were all about letting the player design a character or party, then setting that party loose in either a wide open world or a confined dungeon to do whatever they wanted. They were given a minimum in terms of plot and character development, and a lot of things were kind of just left up to the player's imagination. Might and Magic, Eye of the Beholder, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 1 and to an extent, Ultima are all examples of this.
In other words, western RPGs were basically a simulation of PnP RPGs. The devs craft a ruleset and a setting and let your imagination run wild with it.
JRPGs, on the other hand, were generally more linear, more plot and character-centric, and offered comparatively little freedom. Rather than allowing the player to tell their own story, JRPGs would instead use the game as a way of communicating specific ideas, topics and themes. I'm not quite as well versed in JRPG history, but Final Fantasy (starting really around VI but even before then), Chrono Trigger and Legend of Mana are some good examples of this. They give you an involving story and developed characters at the price of being very linear - often to the point where you can't even create a character.
In other words, JRPGs were in many ways a simulation of Japanese comics, anime, etc. They were there to tell a story and let you have fun along the way.
BG2 came along and combined elements of both. It took the open world structure of western RPGs, narrowed it down a bit, gave all the NPCs some character, gave a plot that was clear and immediate from beginning to end, and let the player explore it. It was a compromise, sure, which means plenty is left out - fans who prefer BG1 often bemoan BG2's lack of exploration, for example, while the NPCs don't receive nearly the same amount of attention as in many JRPGs. However, it also had a huge impact on the gaming industry at large. Since BG2's release, its formula has become more or less expected in many RPGs - for better or for worse.
The point of all this is that BG1 was pretty light on plot and characters, and that's just the way things were at the time. Today things are different - other than the occasional throwback like Legend of Grimrock.
I would say that Planescape: Torment did an even better job at melding character and story development with play freedom and role playing. It came out before BG2, but as you pointed out, BG2 was the first successful synthesis. Unfortunately, Planescape didn't sell well, which is why we're not seeing games like that these days.
I'd say that the BG2 influence is largely for the better. The JRPG genre has been stagnant for years and the old school CRPGs never interested me since I never played PnP. Western RPGs are the only ones worth playing anymore. One thing that bothers me though is that although many games now follow the BG2 formula, they have also simplified things far too much.
Diablo was advertised as a RPG, it's something that might not be true but they still put that title there to draw in more people. And as a RPG game Baldur's gate did everything better.
1.) More classes 2.) More customization 3.) NPCS that were actually alive. 4.) Many NPC's 5.) A huge alive world to interact with.
The only thing Diablo did better was the multiplayer part.
I don't consider Diablo 2 a RPG, but I actually disagree with you in there being less character customization in D2. If you're willing to stray from the cookie cutter builds, D2 has an insane amount of possible character builds due to stat points, skill points, and items that have particular abilities. On the other hand, 2nd edition is rather limited in what you can do once you create your character. For example, a fighter is just a fighter and will always play like one unless you dual class him later.
The only thing Diablo 2 has for customization are skill points. Baldur's gate has so much more.
1.) Stats 2.) The looks of your character 3.) Race 4.) Many more classes 5.) Sub classes 6.) Multi and dual class option 7.) Thieving skills 8.) NPC party
Not to mention the storyline and how you proceed with it. I have played Diablo 2 insanely much and for many years but no matter what you do a sorcerer is still a sorcerer and a paladin is a paladin, even with Niché builds like bear sorcerer and bowadin.
My only complain ...speaking of Baldur's Gate, was how common magic was. I always thought, even as a child playing BG2, that if magic was that common it would lead to anarchy or something. Dragon Age actually fixed this problem, by hunting down mages and locking them up. Thats what I had a hard time with Baldur's Gate, to think the world could actually exist in its state. WIth that said, I do realize that anyone talking about realism in a game with magic,dragons,elfs etc is out of their leauge.
But anyway, while Diablo is a "hacknslash/rpg" its still a RPG in my mind, just as some JRPG's are still "RPG's" but with a japanese twist on them.
One of the best rpg's lately is probably Persona 4. It had everything; You could multiclass like hell (through the demon spirits connections) you could be a mage,tanker,healer,buffer or a combination of them all 4. You had tons of dungeons in it You HAD to powerlevel and find better gear You could improve your social stats and date girls beside the story ( not saying I was into that but still ) The story itself took me over 60+ hours,
In fact, beside games such as Skyrim we don't see many successful rpg's today, sadly.
But even in our real history, people had a paranoia against "witches" now some feminist claims it was to push down women and other bs, but it was the fear of magic.
My point was, for anyone who "rp" ( ... and thats not me) its hard to swallow how people arnt in fear of mages in BG as much as they are in DA.
The most satisfying experience i had was when i played BG2 with BG1 graphics (Infinity Animations mod).
I loved BG1 art, and BG2 story a bit better, so you combine them and voila! There was a long time since i mentioned BG1 animations, so you can't blame me
By today's standards, BG is not supposed to be something extraordinary. So many RPGs came out after it, but still, for some weird reason i STILL enjoy it more, and when i play other games, i miss the thrill i felt when playing BG or BG2.
And i'm not THAT nostalgic, mind you, when i see the graphics up close i go ape, literally, that's why i was one of the most ftantic believers that BG:EE needed new graphics anyway. And not because by today's standards they look bad. They didn't look any better back then, in fact, they were criticized as dated even when it came out.
To each his own, though.
Some JRPGs are diamonds, and the Japanese have one thing going that many western developers could learn from. Dialogues and plot twists.
However, most of the times i feel like i'm playing an interactive movie, where everything is layed out in front of me, and i just watch and press "continue" or "stop and fight".
I can't even choose my protagonist in most of them, and, to add salt to my wounds, you can't have visible equipment on you in most JRPGs. Your attire is set in stone by the game designers. And if it's cool looking, ok, but most of them have the most weird outfits you can imagine. It's like Guybrush Threepwood went from fancy pants, to intergalactic goth clown.
Baldur's Gate 1 i still awesome, super awesome for me.
For what it's worth though, i prefer the vanilla over BG:EE. I didn't like the new NPCs so much, they actually don't fit with the rest of the characters, and the fact remains that i can't use BG1 animations in BG:EE, that i learned to love so much. It's also way easier than vanilla, and part of the fault is that kits appear that can cheese too much at lower levels.
One of the best things with the BGEE is the zooming function and how much more you can see. With unofficial widescreen mods the game makes numbers and certain object so tiny you can hardly see what it is. And the vanilla version is way too inzoomed.
The zoom is just a resolution change on the fly. It is nice, but no one(ok, almost no one) ever played above 1280 x 720 anyway, which is fine and all you need. There is no point to zoom out too much or in too much anyway.
1920 x 1080 is not in the true resolution in BG:EE, it's upscaled and blurred, unless you remove the upscale filter yourself in the ini file, which makes the game look tiny again.
-The music was standard fantasy fare and not very memorable, comapred to some other CRPG's like Morrowind or Icewind Dale (both by Jeremy Soule, but he's not the only good CRPG composer)
Nothing can be more personal preference than music. For me, BG along with BG2 and also IWD had the best OST I have ever heard. Yes, Morrowind title or Skyrim exploration/town music is great, but in BG every song sends shivers down my spine.
@MilesBeyond, I agree with most of what you say in your post about the history of western rpg's, but I think that you don't give Might and Magic enough credit for story and exploration. Especially its story, where, in Might and Magic 6, for example,
you start out knowing nothing but that your party was almost killed in Sweetwater, were saved and spirited away to New Sorpigal by Falagar, warned not to go back until they were much stronger, and then left to their own devices in the New Sorpigal area. As the game unfolds, the story evolves through several political intrigues, to permission finally from the High Council of Enroth to consult the Oracle about why demons and monsters are plaguing the land, and then, from swords and sorcery into full blown sci-fi.
You learn of an interplanetary war, and that the main bad guys are aliens. You have to survive a spaceship full of jackal-headed guardians, and another spaceship full of floating robots blasting you with disintegration rays. Then you have to blow up a nuclear reactor on a hive ship resembling a land-based Death Star, and if you do it wrong, the entire planet explodes. How's that for an ending?
I know it's not exactly Shakespeare, but I got immersed in that rpg world more than I ever have in any other, even Baldur's Gate. In fact, discussing it with you is making me want to start a new Might and Magic 6 run soon.
I understand all your points, however the game did come out in 1998...
The main problem is that the EE is not sufficiently enhanced. its really a "fixed some bugs and ported for modern hardware edition". It is a shame too because enhancement could have been made modular (ex: create banter for the NPCs with a "classic" toggle option which disables all new content) The thing I think is most missing from the EE is the HD graphics upgrade.
Anyways, the game itself can only be rated as "impressive for 1998". On the other hand, it is still way better than your awful "modern" games with their super linear narrow corridor with invisible walls railroading you in a single path onwards.
Comments
Overall BG EE is an excellent game. Sure it's inferior to BG 2 (that is apparent to me after just 5-10 hrs into my BG 2 experience), but it's like foreplay before great sex. You can only get the most out of BG 2 if you play BG 1 first.
On a side note. Things I don't like (or wish could be improved in BG games in general).
1) Better reflection of good vs evil:
In BG 1 (and I suspect BG 2), doing the 'right' thing always pays off better than doing the selfish/evil thing. It would be nice if they balanced this. For examples choosing the evil option reduces your reputation, so prices are higher at shops, but you might get a powerful artefact or bounty of gold that choosing the good option would deny you. The only thing that I remember that comes close to this was the murder of Drizzt. But that was an Easter Egg as opposed to purposeful design. I only managed to kill him early-ish through ultimate cheese. (Also in that case, the reward for evil was too much, so that it was a no-brainer to try to kill him if you can).
2) Better enemy AI as opposed to uber-enemies.
It kinda bothers me that a lot of encounters are either very difficult or very easy depending on if you've prepared and/or use cheesy tactics. I suspect this will be an even bigger issue in BG 2 given the increased prevalence of magic. It just feels unrealistic that my party would randomly stop in the wilderness, sensing some great danger, send Imoen out to confirm the existence of a dangerous enemy, and then cast Bless, Chant, drink appropriate potions etc...
You can even get away with slowly pulling enemies one by one, as their comrades somehow ignore the fact that their party members keeps wandering off to their deaths one by one. When you are in a hostile dungeon, or about to face an obvious showdown (like Temple of Bhaal), pre-buffing is fine. But when you get jumped by assassins, or run into a rival party in the wilderness or a bar, it should be a surprise. I'd prefer if they made enemies easier and improved AI to maintain difficulty rather than just creating arbitarily difficult enemies.
3) Dungeons with narrow corrodors are REALLY fiddly and annoying, especially with the dodgy pathfinding system. Thankfully most such dungeons don't contain difficult enemies, so I just walked around with 2 or 3 archers/warriors and kept vulnerable characters safely behind.
I can think of one in BG2.
I personally loved KOTOR, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Mass Effect and Dragon Age:Origins/Awakenings and think they are all on some form of top 10 list, but I wouldn't consider any of them to be superior to BG1. Personal opinion, I know.
As for the rest, I am not a fan of Jap-RPGs like Final Fantasy, so I won't pass any sort of opinion on them. I am surprised that Planescape Torment isn't in the list anywhere.
Again, personal and subject opinion on my behalf.
you like bg i like diablo and "likeing" is not comparable
1.) More classes
2.) More customization
3.) NPCS that were actually alive.
4.) Many NPC's
5.) A huge alive world to interact with.
The only thing Diablo did better was the multiplayer part.
the rpg aspects of diablo are minimal like you stated
diablo has great h'n's values like leveling progressions good combat etc. but it is not RPG for me
oh and i wish there was RPG like diablo (not h'n's) for multiplayer
I don't think Diablo is a RPG game, it's just something they used to get more people.
Said non-plot maps don't even exist in BGII, so you'll probably be glad to hear that. A lot of the plot is implied, foreshadowed, and in general requires the player to be observant. The plot is not thrown in the player's face. Now that said, yes, there is actually too little plot that is made entirely clear, I would agree. Agreed. Oh lawd ... man people have no patience. You're certainly not the only one complaining about this. True dat! Turn off every NPC's script so they're entirely under your control, that should fix your problem. Yep, absolutely. Especially bad is the Firewine Ruins, heh... Yes. In original BG1 all of the characters were pretty silent, which I think actually adds to the charm of the game. With BG:EE they added NPCs that are much more talkative, so you have this incredibly awkward mix of talkative characters and quiet characters. Probably the biggest fail of BG:EE if you ask me. They didn't even attempt to make the new characters fit in amongst the rest. Anyway, if you liked their interactions, you will love BGII because they basically scream BGII. Yeah. I really like the end battle music and a couple others but apart from that pretty typical. Gotta agree IWD's score is AMAZING!
Well, prior to BG2, western RPGs were pretty bare-boned in terms of plot and characters. In fact, there was often no character development whatsoever, because all the characters were made by the player. While there are a couple of exceptions (Betrayal at Krondor comes to mind), for the most part older RPGs were all about letting the player design a character or party, then setting that party loose in either a wide open world or a confined dungeon to do whatever they wanted. They were given a minimum in terms of plot and character development, and a lot of things were kind of just left up to the player's imagination. Might and Magic, Eye of the Beholder, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 1 and to an extent, Ultima are all examples of this.
In other words, western RPGs were basically a simulation of PnP RPGs. The devs craft a ruleset and a setting and let your imagination run wild with it.
JRPGs, on the other hand, were generally more linear, more plot and character-centric, and offered comparatively little freedom. Rather than allowing the player to tell their own story, JRPGs would instead use the game as a way of communicating specific ideas, topics and themes. I'm not quite as well versed in JRPG history, but Final Fantasy (starting really around VI but even before then), Chrono Trigger and Legend of Mana are some good examples of this. They give you an involving story and developed characters at the price of being very linear - often to the point where you can't even create a character.
In other words, JRPGs were in many ways a simulation of Japanese comics, anime, etc. They were there to tell a story and let you have fun along the way.
BG2 came along and combined elements of both. It took the open world structure of western RPGs, narrowed it down a bit, gave all the NPCs some character, gave a plot that was clear and immediate from beginning to end, and let the player explore it. It was a compromise, sure, which means plenty is left out - fans who prefer BG1 often bemoan BG2's lack of exploration, for example, while the NPCs don't receive nearly the same amount of attention as in many JRPGs. However, it also had a huge impact on the gaming industry at large. Since BG2's release, its formula has become more or less expected in many RPGs - for better or for worse.
The point of all this is that BG1 was pretty light on plot and characters, and that's just the way things were at the time. Today things are different - other than the occasional throwback like Legend of Grimrock.
And then you've got Ultima Underworld creating a 3D interface. Not only is this huge for RPGs, leading to games like Eye of the Beholder, M&M 3 and up, Arena and Daggerfall, and more, but it also paved the way for games like Wolfenstein and Doom.
If you want importance, nothing tops Ultima.
I'd say that the BG2 influence is largely for the better. The JRPG genre has been stagnant for years and the old school CRPGs never interested me since I never played PnP. Western RPGs are the only ones worth playing anymore. One thing that bothers me though is that although many games now follow the BG2 formula, they have also simplified things far too much.
1.) Stats
2.) The looks of your character
3.) Race
4.) Many more classes
5.) Sub classes
6.) Multi and dual class option
7.) Thieving skills
8.) NPC party
Not to mention the storyline and how you proceed with it. I have played Diablo 2 insanely much and for many years but no matter what you do a sorcerer is still a sorcerer and a paladin is a paladin, even with Niché builds like bear sorcerer and bowadin.
I always thought, even as a child playing BG2, that if magic was that common it would lead to anarchy or something. Dragon Age actually fixed this problem, by hunting down mages and locking them up. Thats what I had a hard time with Baldur's Gate, to think the world could actually exist in its state. WIth that said, I do realize that anyone talking about realism in a game with magic,dragons,elfs etc is out of their leauge.
But anyway, while Diablo is a "hacknslash/rpg" its still a RPG in my mind, just as some JRPG's are still "RPG's" but with a japanese twist on them.
One of the best rpg's lately is probably Persona 4. It had everything;
You could multiclass like hell (through the demon spirits connections) you could be a mage,tanker,healer,buffer or a combination of them all 4.
You had tons of dungeons in it
You HAD to powerlevel and find better gear
You could improve your social stats and date girls beside the story ( not saying I was into that but still )
The story itself took me over 60+ hours,
In fact, beside games such as Skyrim we don't see many successful rpg's today, sadly.
My point was, for anyone who "rp" ( ... and thats not me) its hard to swallow how people arnt in fear of mages in BG as much as they are in DA.
if there was 100 kobolds runing around with bows
and 1 mage
i think there is probably more to fear from kobolds
I loved BG1 art, and BG2 story a bit better, so you combine them and voila! There was a long time since i mentioned BG1 animations, so you can't blame me
By today's standards, BG is not supposed to be something extraordinary. So many RPGs came out after it, but still, for some weird reason i STILL enjoy it more, and when i play other games, i miss the thrill i felt when playing BG or BG2.
And i'm not THAT nostalgic, mind you, when i see the graphics up close i go ape, literally, that's why i was one of the most ftantic believers that BG:EE needed new graphics anyway. And not because by today's standards they look bad. They didn't look any better back then, in fact, they were criticized as dated even when it came out.
To each his own, though.
Some JRPGs are diamonds, and the Japanese have one thing going that many western developers could learn from. Dialogues and plot twists.
However, most of the times i feel like i'm playing an interactive movie, where everything is layed out in front of me, and i just watch and press "continue" or "stop and fight".
I can't even choose my protagonist in most of them, and, to add salt to my wounds, you can't have visible equipment on you in most JRPGs. Your attire is set in stone by the game designers. And if it's cool looking, ok, but most of them have the most weird outfits you can imagine. It's like Guybrush Threepwood went from fancy pants, to intergalactic goth clown.
Baldur's Gate 1 i still awesome, super awesome for me.
For what it's worth though, i prefer the vanilla over BG:EE. I didn't like the new NPCs so much, they actually don't fit with the rest of the characters, and the fact remains that i can't use BG1 animations in BG:EE, that i learned to love so much. It's also way easier than vanilla, and part of the fault is that kits appear that can cheese too much at lower levels.
Anyway, peace
With unofficial widescreen mods the game makes numbers and certain object so tiny you can hardly see what it is. And the vanilla version is way too inzoomed.
1920 x 1080 is not in the true resolution in BG:EE, it's upscaled and blurred, unless you remove the upscale filter yourself in the ini file, which makes the game look tiny again.
The upscale was ok though, to be honest.
You learn of an interplanetary war, and that the main bad guys are aliens. You have to survive a spaceship full of jackal-headed guardians, and another spaceship full of floating robots blasting you with disintegration rays. Then you have to blow up a nuclear reactor on a hive ship resembling a land-based Death Star, and if you do it wrong, the entire planet explodes. How's that for an ending?
I know it's not exactly Shakespeare, but I got immersed in that rpg world more than I ever have in any other, even Baldur's Gate. In fact, discussing it with you is making me want to start a new Might and Magic 6 run soon.
It is a shame too because enhancement could have been made modular (ex: create banter for the NPCs with a "classic" toggle option which disables all new content)
The thing I think is most missing from the EE is the HD graphics upgrade.
Anyways, the game itself can only be rated as "impressive for 1998". On the other hand, it is still way better than your awful "modern" games with their super linear narrow corridor with invisible walls railroading you in a single path onwards.