BG1 vs BG2
Sliceofhell
Member Posts: 85
While the result is pretty obvious, I would like to see the actual numbers how our community is divided.
1. 32% (51 votes)
2. 40% (62 votes)
3. 3% (5 votes)
4. 23% (37 votes)
1. 32% (51 votes)
2. 40% (62 votes)
3. 3% (5 votes)
4. 23% (37 votes)
- BG1 vs BG2159 votes
- I first played BG1 and I think BG1 is a better game33.33%
- I first played BG1 and I think BG2 is a better game39.62%
- I first played BG2 and I think BG1 is a better game3.14%
- I first played BG2 and I think BG2 is a better game23.90%
Post edited by Sliceofhell on
5
Comments
I prefer level 1-9 play balance. Epic level play has some facets that are great fun. But I find lower level play to make magic and enchanted items feel more special.
Though truth be told it might just be because while I might start dozens, if not hundreds of characters I've only completed the game 4 times, and maybe 2 of those times were Candlekeep-to-Throne runs. >_> For whatever reason though I always strategize the character with the base assumption it will hit Throne of Bhaal (and thus wait to dual-class, etc.).
If you play only BGI you'll end too soon, at a low level, even if what happens to you during these 8/10 levels are quite a challenge for your CHARNAME;
If you play just BGII you'll miss many important plot infos in BGI that would let you enjoy BGII better, you'll miss all the NPCs so you'll not enjoy the feeling when you'll meet them again as joinable NPCs or simply as encounters, you'll miss the feeling of importing a character that you raised from the very first level and seeing him becoming a demigod.
I could go on much more, but I'll stop here and I'll just say that the best gaming experience in my opinion is felt when the BG saga is played from its very beginning (BG) to its very end (BGII:ToB), looking your CHARNAME growing from a scared orphan to a great adventurer to a mighty demigod, or at least a mighty mortal who even gods have fear of, smiling and crying while his adventure develops better - or worse.
Who doesn't remember when every +1 item was a joy, a priceless treasure and then the feeling after assembling your first powerful artifact, or your first time throwing a fireball and then when you realise that you can throw 3 of them in a row and more plus many more deadlier spells while you stop time?
Looking your own CHARNAME to grow is one of the best emotions granted by the BG saga.
BG2 shows a much better designed and executed story in my humble opinion. It's a lot more focused, the areas are of much higher quality and it guides you along the story line the devs wanted without TO much force. You can still wander and do side quests as you like but the world feels a lot smaller and lesser scale wise then BG1 did. I was a little annoyed sometimes when it literally RAINS +3 and +4 enchanted items and massively powerful armour at every opportunity. That being said, difficulty had to scale.
This is a really difficult choice for me, really difficult indeed! But I think, on the whole, I enjoy BG2 a TEENY bit more then BG1.
BG2 can be explored just as randomly as BG1, just because you are given a more direct course of action shouldn't really bother people that much, but I understand the minor malaise it can cause in comparison to BG1.
Offtopic. I've made this poll after that post where a guy said he couldn't like BG and for 4 pages everyone was trying to change his opinion. Nostalgia is a driving factor when it comes to personal preferences. For younger players who already got spoiled by very decent 3D RPGs (KotOR, ME, DAO) I think it will be very hard to enjoy older isometric games.
At low levels (i.e. BGI), the DM has to give you a bunch of different hooks to get you interested in the campaign, while still baiting you on the path to the story the DM wants to tell. As you become more experienced, the hooks start being more and more deeply connected to the DM's chosen story. At higher levels (i.e. BGII), the hooks are almost entirely related to the larger plot, and even the side quests that aren't related are in some way important in order to complete the main campaign's objective (whether it's raising 20,000 gold pieces, enlisting the help of a local paladin order, or building a base of operations to plan your next course of action).
By the time you reach epic levels (i.e. ToB), literally everything you do is serving your party's immediate goals, because at that point the campaign is influencing world events on a grand scale. You arrive in a city that's under siege, and--guess what--it has to do with your heritage.
The games are different because the story demands that they be different. It would make very little sense for the protagonist at the beginning of Shadows of Amn to say "I think I'm going to mess around in an empty wilderness for five days". It would make even less sense for the same protagonist, in Throne of Bhaal, to go off and help someone save their castle from trolls when literally the balance of the planes hangs on the protagonist's actions.
One reason I still prefer BG1 over BG2 is the more medieval feel about that game, with the open wilderness areas, bandits, the threat of wild animal, idyllic villages, and the walled rustic city of Baldur's Gate. BG2 on the other hand is more Science Fiction in my view, with places Irenicus' Dungeon, the Planar Sphere, the Astral Prison, and with superadvanced magic. It's not for nothing that the areas I like best in BG2 are Trademeet/Druid Grove, and Imnesvale/Umar Hills. This isn't a criticism of the second game though, just my personal preference.
Edit: the big amount of NPCs in BG1 also help.
If we were to compare the games standalone, however, then the first game would definitely win. Without the story and fun of the first game, I don't think BGII would be anywhere near as entertaining. Having played the first game first, however, I can thoroughly enjoy the continuation of the story and game progression in BGII much more than if I had played it first.
If 2 had just a few more wilderness areas to explore, and the first dungeon cut down in size a bit, it would be the perfect game.
if bg2 had some more characters i liked and a better representation of classes id probably say its better but the character set and lack of exploration hurts bg2 a lot for me
Off topic: Games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, were released in a time and era that 3D games had already been established as the "norm", and not only overshadowed them by far, not only they got better scores, public acclaim, fame and rating, but won over most, if not all, 3D titles of their time, and maybe one or two eras' next ones...
Also, the fact that baldur's gate enhanced edition sell like crazy, as well as those original revamps at GoG, is proof enough by itself, that isometric still rocks, even at modern players. And there is quite a number of newcomers who found nice and interesting, the style of the past (and apparently, either prefer it over, or embrace it together with, new games and graphics priority).
With ee its alot closer but bg2 is much better
Npcs banter, gameplay, quests etc
I suppose I just feel that something like this,
...conveys a lot more emotion and uniqueness than this:
in a full 3D game (not that I dislike astounding graphics) you're able to see every single particular realized with great detail and generally this fills you with pleasure, but in the long period doesn't satisfy you completely for two reasons:
1- at this time 3D graphics isn't 100% photorealistic so you can see flaws everywhere and they're immersion breaking;
2- everything is already fully pictured so this will leave you little space for imagination.
That's the case, F.I., of a movie production inspired to a well known book (now I'm speaking mostly for myself): let's take LotR movies: they're amazing and they depict very well the Middle Earth -let's not consider plot cuts etc. for the moment- BUT(!) when I read the book before the movies, my own imagination depicted all the characters in a different way, so I was not completely satisfied watching them looking like that in the movies, even if they were greatly depicted.
In the case of a person watching that said movie and then reading the book, in 99,9% of the cases he will imagine the world and the characters as depicted in the movies, and in my opinion this takes away some of the enjoyment. ( I hope you'll understand why I've made this example)
In an old style Isometric game, landscapes are more than often fully "hand designed" so, even if these landscapes are fully static, perspectively speaking, they're more alive, warm and dynamic because they're more picturesque, vivid, and you're much more stimulated to let what you see to live just with your own fantasy, and in your own unique way.
The same could be said for the characters: in game you have stylized paperdolls and low definition 3D models (or 2D sprites in many cases), and a simple drawn portrait... simple, but full of details.
That only portrait is sufficient to let you imagine the whole personality of that character (that and the whole load of banters, an amount of banters and dialogues that most of the modern games lack of), this in your own personal and unique way too, granting you a much better immersion. (want we to talk about text games?)
Retrieving the precedent example of the book, you read it, there are few pictures or none at all, maybe a cover art, but a full detailed tale, with plenty of characters and places descriptions but, even if something is described with plenty of details this can't prevent you to imagine it in your unique way.
Said that, I believe that who in the first time experienced something that let him enjoy it in his own personal and unique way because it gives you the spark to start your imagination (a book, an old 2D videogame but full of text and details) will hardly enjoy a modern high detailed movie inspired to a book or a modern 3D game at the same level.
I'm not saying that he will not enjoy them, on the contrary he will, but he will surely feel that limit that is represented by the inability to (or the few chances to) use his own imagination that could grant the uniqueness of his experience.
EDIT: typos corrected but surely there are more here around...