Am I the only one that liked BG1 more than BG2?????????
TheRaven476
Member Posts: 44
I played both games when they first came out as a young lad (early teens). I never finished BG1 as a kid, I always stopped just before Baldur’s gate city. I managed to finish BG2 and its expansions though but was mostly just cheesing through the game. So I played through both enhanced editions after they went on sale this summer…….. and I gotta be honest…. I like BG1 better…….
I played through BG1 finishing about 90% of the side quests and all of the expansion content. Took me about 40 hours and I couldn’t stop playing. Then playing through BG 2 wasn’t quite as smooth. I stopped a few times and took a break for a week or so at a time. I would even take breaks from playing through BG2 to go back and play more BG1!
Now I still think BG2 is absolutely amazing. The story is still phenomenal the gameplay is great, and BG1 & BG2 work perfectly together. The power pacing is so amazingly perfect. The fact that by the end of the expansion you are… literally… godlike in your powers is all the more meaningful because you remember leaving Candle Keep with pitiful weapons and then having your party get cut down to half health after the first wolf you face!
But for me BG1 had perfect pacing. Things made sense, you had clear short term goals that perfectly flowed into long term plot development. Like any good story the micro existed to serve the macro level plot. Even the side questing felt natural along the way of the main story. I’m in Berogast… I have to go to Nashkel….. I have a bunch of side quests in my journal…… as I’m going from point A to point B I’ll explore all areas in between them. Everything was paced perfectly and seemed to flow naturally. Even the expansion felt amazing, like a fantastic epilogue.
Meanwhile BG2 had such erratic passing through it’s first 20 hours. It started with an opening dungeon that took WAY TOO LONG in my opinion to get through. Then you get out into the open and get given a grand important goal…….. and then the side questing starts……… This game felt like it started the Western RPG “A.D.D.” approach to questing. I would go to the bar to get quests to get money I would think “all right. I have this one I want to focus on it.” As soon as I leave dialogue starts with another quest. Then I go to another zone and see a scripted even and get another quest, then when I’m traveling to the zone I want to go to I get stopped mid travel with a scripted encounter, I then have to go BACK to the city with an item, then more quests get thrown at me while I’m going to the new districts. THEN my part starts complaining ‘Oh we should check out this lead sooner than later’. Before I knew it this “BIG” macro level plot element is far in the back ground, I haven’t even gotten to the first area I wanted to go before I watched plot trees exponentially expand. I just wanted to sit the game down and say “YOU”RE INTERESTING ENOUGH! You don’t need to keep throwing things at me 100 miles an hour! Calm down and take some Ritalin!”.
Eventually the game does come back together and calm down. But I was just jarred by how all over the place the pacing was. The high level story didn’t seem to flow as naturally. After 90 minutes you get the “State of the plot” but then you need to faff about another 20 or so hours before you move that plot point to the next level. BG1 felt like it was gradually unravelling as you progressed, with a constant mix of side questing and overall plot being portioned out to you.
I also thought the combat was a bit tighter in BG1. BG2 it became easy to start getting OP and relying on your super abilities. The amount of buffs and dispels you need to manage also became a bit daunting and I stopped remembering what specific buffs even did, it just became “A.B.C.D.E…….” before tough fights, there’s also a lot more wizard battles in BG2 where you needed to memorize the right way to strip defensive buffs. The epic feel was still kind of nice, but I like the more compact tighter feel of a narrower set of variables. The last boss of the BG1 Vanilla and then Tales of the Sword coast were both legitimate “Bugger my britches this is interesting….. how can I do this”, whereas late BG2 & expansion there were few fights that didn’t just melt to the correct application of buffs/debuffs and then Stop Time/Dragon’s Breath.
So anyways…. LONG rant there I guess. But I am really alone on this? Did anyone else enjoy BG1 more than BG2? I still love BG2 still one of my favorite games of all time, but I just felt like when it expanded into the epic behemoth it became it lost a bit of detail and polish (Kind of like how I feel Portal 1 is better than Portal 2 for similar reasons). Maybe I’m just alone…..
I played through BG1 finishing about 90% of the side quests and all of the expansion content. Took me about 40 hours and I couldn’t stop playing. Then playing through BG 2 wasn’t quite as smooth. I stopped a few times and took a break for a week or so at a time. I would even take breaks from playing through BG2 to go back and play more BG1!
Now I still think BG2 is absolutely amazing. The story is still phenomenal the gameplay is great, and BG1 & BG2 work perfectly together. The power pacing is so amazingly perfect. The fact that by the end of the expansion you are… literally… godlike in your powers is all the more meaningful because you remember leaving Candle Keep with pitiful weapons and then having your party get cut down to half health after the first wolf you face!
But for me BG1 had perfect pacing. Things made sense, you had clear short term goals that perfectly flowed into long term plot development. Like any good story the micro existed to serve the macro level plot. Even the side questing felt natural along the way of the main story. I’m in Berogast… I have to go to Nashkel….. I have a bunch of side quests in my journal…… as I’m going from point A to point B I’ll explore all areas in between them. Everything was paced perfectly and seemed to flow naturally. Even the expansion felt amazing, like a fantastic epilogue.
Meanwhile BG2 had such erratic passing through it’s first 20 hours. It started with an opening dungeon that took WAY TOO LONG in my opinion to get through. Then you get out into the open and get given a grand important goal…….. and then the side questing starts……… This game felt like it started the Western RPG “A.D.D.” approach to questing. I would go to the bar to get quests to get money I would think “all right. I have this one I want to focus on it.” As soon as I leave dialogue starts with another quest. Then I go to another zone and see a scripted even and get another quest, then when I’m traveling to the zone I want to go to I get stopped mid travel with a scripted encounter, I then have to go BACK to the city with an item, then more quests get thrown at me while I’m going to the new districts. THEN my part starts complaining ‘Oh we should check out this lead sooner than later’. Before I knew it this “BIG” macro level plot element is far in the back ground, I haven’t even gotten to the first area I wanted to go before I watched plot trees exponentially expand. I just wanted to sit the game down and say “YOU”RE INTERESTING ENOUGH! You don’t need to keep throwing things at me 100 miles an hour! Calm down and take some Ritalin!”.
Eventually the game does come back together and calm down. But I was just jarred by how all over the place the pacing was. The high level story didn’t seem to flow as naturally. After 90 minutes you get the “State of the plot” but then you need to faff about another 20 or so hours before you move that plot point to the next level. BG1 felt like it was gradually unravelling as you progressed, with a constant mix of side questing and overall plot being portioned out to you.
I also thought the combat was a bit tighter in BG1. BG2 it became easy to start getting OP and relying on your super abilities. The amount of buffs and dispels you need to manage also became a bit daunting and I stopped remembering what specific buffs even did, it just became “A.B.C.D.E…….” before tough fights, there’s also a lot more wizard battles in BG2 where you needed to memorize the right way to strip defensive buffs. The epic feel was still kind of nice, but I like the more compact tighter feel of a narrower set of variables. The last boss of the BG1 Vanilla and then Tales of the Sword coast were both legitimate “Bugger my britches this is interesting….. how can I do this”, whereas late BG2 & expansion there were few fights that didn’t just melt to the correct application of buffs/debuffs and then Stop Time/Dragon’s Breath.
So anyways…. LONG rant there I guess. But I am really alone on this? Did anyone else enjoy BG1 more than BG2? I still love BG2 still one of my favorite games of all time, but I just felt like when it expanded into the epic behemoth it became it lost a bit of detail and polish (Kind of like how I feel Portal 1 is better than Portal 2 for similar reasons). Maybe I’m just alone…..
15
Comments
I do agree that the pacing of BG2 is inferior but it does many things better than BG2. More involved and interesting quests, creatures magical and mysterious to do battle with. All things magic are better in BG2.
I think it's only ToB where the wonderful details and rich side quests start taking a back seat for the epicness . On it's own that makes ToB a good but not great game. If you've played your character all the way through BG1, though, it's fitting final chapter to an epic journey.
But it's a close call. I love the wide open exploration of Bg1, and I just generally prefer the lower to mid level game play. I often find BG easier to jump into when I have less than an hour to play.
And I know you're not alone. Many fans prefer 1 to 2.
Practically speaking, I consider both games to be the same thing. When people ask what I'm playing I most often just say "Baldur's Gate", and give little thought to exactly where in the saga I currently am.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/33321/bg1-vs-bg2/p1
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/32657/ive-come-to-feel-that-bg2-is-very-overrated-as-an-rpg
Whenever I talk about it to my friends I always bring up my first post candle keep encounter with BG1EE where I would basically go "Magic Missile!" watch a little pink ball fly towards a wolf for like 3 damage and then go .... "Ummmm...... Immoen....... You got this right?"
And I honestly couldn't' tell you when any significant power bump occurred from then to when I would cast Time Stop and bring the PAIN with Wild Mage shenanigans (Thank you enhanced edition for letting me chose those sweet character kits in BG1)..........
In the end it's really like comparing War and Peace to Crime and Punishment. These are 2 amazing classics...... War and Peace may definitely be "More Epic" but I thought Crime and Punishment was more detailed.
Good to know I'm not a freak for enjoying my time with BG1 more.
Plus, the original BG graphics are great. I love the stone interface, I love the item icons, and I love the non-mirrored avatars. I'm still miffed that Beamdog overwrote that.
Getting that first "Weapon +1" just made you feel like a million bucks! And if you found a Weapon +2 then you really went nuts! (Especially since I think there were only a few weapon types that ever had better than +1 in the whole game).
BG2 did an amazing job keeping that curve. Going from +2s to +3s with a few "Legendary" items mixed in there was the majority of the game. ToB kind of went off the chains a bit at the end but by that time you're approaching close to 100 hours in BG1&2 and the entire game is pretty much going nuts at this point.
But, I love BGEE (or EasyTutu) BG1. I just love low level campaigns where everything is a struggle and you have to explore everything.
BG1 also has way more characters, even if they're more shallow. Xzar, Montaron, Tiax and Khalid are classic NPCs.
There's also the issue that DnD was not made for characters over 10 or so level, because then the balance and the ridiculousness of the encounters are all over the place.
That's why in ADnD, you have races that have capped class levels. Because the creators were giving bonuses to Demi-humans and didn't expect many to get over level 8-12.
And that's why BG1 felt more simple and natural. Because it's low-level, low-magic, low-loot and more survival and tactics to survive than simply being warded with a thousand spells and hope that Finger of Death or Imprisonment doesn't kill you in the first round.
Of the three (BG1, BG2, ToB) I would say BG1 is my favorite, but only with EasyTutu/EE and the NPC Project/new NPCs to make the comparison more even.
I have to say that I too like BG1 more. Maybe it's because of the adventure and open-world feeling, maybe because of low-level parties and I like to develop my characters from 1xp to getting Cloudkills. Maybe it's because of Czar and Monty, my favourite pair. Maybe it's because of legendary Sarevok appearance and his sorry for the old man.
The fact is I like to start at the Candlekeep. To me, it's essential that a character in the Irenicus prison is the one who once defeated rats to help Reevor.
But I see these games as the one. To me, the path from the elven arse to another elven arse (and I mean Joneleth is an elf) is the one, nonstop adventure.
Mainly, I just prefer the play balance of levels 1-9 more than epic level play. And for spellcasting abilities and enchanted items to feel more precious at that level (for me anyway).
I have various reasons for preferring BG1 over BG2.
(1) Magic and magic items are special rather than ubiquitous. This applies with even greater reason with the Item Randomizer and Hard Times mods installed.
(2) The game offers a wide open world full of wilderness areas with many optional sidequests, most of which can only be discovered by actually going there. To me this feels like a very natural and realistic way of adventuring/exploring and gaining XP.
In BG2 otoh most of the sidequests are huge quests in large dungeons, and even the quest areas outside Athkatla are reached by directly traveling to them rather than via surrounding wilderness areas. Besides, it's like you say: you get a number of huge "optional" sidequests thrown in your face in Athkatla in Chapter 2, and it's likely that from an honest RP vantage you never really have the time for them. I mean many Charnames are in a hurry to find and save Imoen in Chapter 2/3 and their souls in Chapter 6. In BG1 Charname is clueless for a long time regarding the plot, the relation between the iron crisis and the bounty hunters and assassins that are after him, so to me it's much less counterintuitive to go on exploring surrounding areas after you've slain Bjornin's Half-Ogres than to decide to investigate the animal troubles in Trademeet when you already have the coin to go after Imoen.
(3) In BG1 there are countless minor (non-joinable) NPCs often with mini-quests attached to them. To me these NPCs and mini-quests add a lot of flavor to the game. It's true that there are also smaller sidequests in BG2 that help bring the game world to life, but those are relatively few and far between, if you compare with BG1 (probably because there are less areas to explore). Examples are Sarles, the orphan girl, and Wellyn in Athkatla, and Imnesvale is actually well done in that respect imo. Btw, speaking of NPCs, the number of joinable NPCs in BG1 is also larger than that in BG2.
(4) An argument pro BG1 I haven't heard mention before, but to me a very compelling one, is the Charname premise of this innocent, hapless young whelp with zero life experience being thrown into a wide open world, full of dangers, and pretty much without a clue of what's going on. This is superappealing to me, more engaging and easier to identify with. And this goes not only for Charname but also for their companions and I can even understand enemies like Neville, Vax and Zal, or Neira. In BG2 you've already made a name for yourself in the past and you turn into this godlike being (if not literally a god) especially if you play a Mage (which is why I rarely play Mages). Basically Charname becomes something I wouldn't want to be in real life, where I identify more with the humble than with the ambitious and where I regard powerful people and institutions with suspicion.
Having said all this, I do consider BG2 to be an excellent game and a fun continuation of BG1. Besides I'm aware that BG2 actually improved upon BG1 with the introduction of kits and with banter that fleshes out the NPCs a lot more. Nowadays these two things can also be had with BG1 if one plays the enhanced edition (or BGT/Tutu) and uses the BG1 NPC project mod. I also acknowledge that BG2 has the better, more sophisticated combat of the two games, but I find that I give less weight to that than to the arguments I mentioned above in favor of BG1.
I'd say that people who have a preference for BG1 are a significant minority among BG players.
But I suspect the sentiment will be the same I have with other cRPG's. I have a fondness for those early to mid levels. Level 1-2 are brutal in AD&D, but by the time I crack lvl 3 where you can actually take more than one hit but are still ever in danger I find the most enjoyment.
As in other RPG's I would quit playing them because many seem to become a slog of combat micromanagement after leveling so far.
In BG1 terms its always meant I quit after about lvl 6 or so, chapters 5-6 usually seems to be about when I burn out. Might and magic 6 it was in the late teen-late twentie levels it became a grind for me.
It doesn't help I'm a completionist doing every side quest so it makes these games pretty long for me.
I expect BG2 power gaming to be somewhat difficult for me to slog through, but gollygoshdarnit, I will complete it when the patch is out with my current bg1ee character to see the grand finally of this story.
Don't worry, I started an even longer, rantier thread in the link that meagloth posted. ;-)
In a nutshell, I agree that while BG2 is unquestionably more detailed and elaborate than BG1, it sacrificed some of the more fundamental aspects that made BG1 a benchmark among RPGs.
Ironically, I was actually blown away by BG2 the first time that I ever played it, and felt that it had basically eclipsed BG1. But my estimations of it plummeted rapidly upon successive playthroughs, to the point that I'm now very much frustrated by the game. By contrast, BG1 still manages to feel largely fresh and original even though I've played it many more times.
Actually I never finished BG2 - I stopped once i got to the final battle, bec at that point I had seen the entire story arc and lost interest: the battles are so drawn out and complicated, it reaches a point that the required management of it all approaches tedium. ("First i'm going to simulacrum, the i'm going to project image, and time that with all my buffs and that guy has to stand there and this guy over here" and on and on. Maybe it's just me.)
I remember the disappointment of standing in the Athkatla gates and unable to move on to actually explore the outside other than already marked locations, such a waste of colorful huge map.
Also in BG1 you start the wilderness and visit desolated and small towns ( I especially liked to search for the taverns in each place, if they had more than one ) and the climax of it is entering the big city, Baldur's Gate, probably added more for me to the game experience and overall feeling.
I can identify with Charname; starting out with meagre life skills, having to overcome greater and greater obstacles whilst honing my natural talents and travelling wherever necessary to achieve my objectives and arrive at my goal.
In BG2 however I find it difficult to imagine how I could have got into Charname's situation in the first place without being spectacularly inept in some way, did he/she learn nothing from BG1?
So to me the difference is in the starting scenario, especially as in BG2 the plot is set up for you and you have to go in a certain direction rather than stumbling across a conundrum and trying to unravel it as best you can.
Basically (and to oversimplify terribly) I see it as a la carte vs. set menu.