Why is the Baldur's gate series still the best fantasy rpg even today?
xLegionx
Member Posts: 197
Hey guys Legion here! Well in response to my "title" there are a great number of reasons why bg is still IMO the best rpg out there! For one, everyone whom has played bg should know very well that the game has had a very large popularity rate ever since it came out especially in Sweden where bg was by far very popular and may most likely be the talk of the century in that area again.
So to start things off I'd like to start off talking about its amazing gameplay! Let's face it every smart person loves a good game that is difficult in some ways "within reason of course" and Baldur's gate definitely fulfills that role. Unlike most fantasy rpg's today when you eventually get to a certain point you are able to just about to powerhouse through almost everything kind of like Skyrim for example. Skyrim was a really great game but it just didn't have that feeling that really draws you into the game's action that makes you want to play it over and over again the moment you start thinking about it. It's pretty much just run around hack n slashing at everything you run across but thats just it! It really doesn't have anything else to it other than feeling like a god amongst man since you are the dragonborn therefore nothing out there is really never ever supposed to kill you which can really make a game feel boring and dull after a little while.
In baldur's gate, however even though you are born with the essence of the god of murder it still gives you that feeling that you are "mortal and just another man in another world" no matter how powerful you are. On your own, you can die to pretty much almost anything when your enemies are in groups which is why you require a party and even in a party you can still die which means you have to use careful strategy and planning when heading on in to engage the enemy and not just running up in there hackin' an' slashing at everything...mostly.
One more thing that I'd like to quote on is also no matter how much you explore you are still just the same as everyone else in the world. And what I mean by this is that you have no advantageous abilites that you can use against your enemy which makes it fair and alot more fun! When a player goes against a party with almost the exact same composition and you beat them hardly unscathed you feel great, powerful, and proud of yourself because you used your own smartass brain!! In most rpg's today because you are the "chosen one" you have to have all these cool but op abilities that pretty much rule out the ability for someone to "think on their feet" when in a tough situation. IMO gaming companies do this because they are worried that players will feel so weak and start hating the game because it "seems" they can't do anything right. And eventually, they get so damn frustrated they break their tv (ok maybe "breaking their tv" is taking it too far in this case) or they take the game back to the gaming store requesting their money back for a crappy game and lets face it no one likes to feel like their on the other end of the stick when attempting to powerhouse their way through the rest of the game! See certain games like baldur's gate use this method but make it rich and fun rather than frustrating because in the end when you conquer your enemy with your creative strategy you feel so great and it puts a smile on your face!
Ok so next part I'd like to talk about is music!! I absolutely adore Baldur's gate music along with other franchise's music related to baldur's gate like Icewind Dale! Every soundtrack fits absolutely perfectly with the sense that your in a fantasy world and gives you the appropriate atmosphere no matter where you are. Even when in combat, Whenever I go up against someone or a group the combat music gives you that feeling that your in danger and that you need to act or else someone in your party might "unmistakeably" die. I mean as I recall when I was clearing out some trading company's building of doppleganger's this music played:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgfwq5SBQ3Q&feature=BFa&list=PL3B6029CF78FC6A74
I remember when I first heard this music I got serious goosebumps and I had my absolute full attention on the battle constantly pausing "Ok I need to cast hold person on his high dps warrior and dispel all enemy protections off his mage" I mean it just really added to the suspense and immersion that sadly I still have yet to feel in any other rpg game.
Ok so last part is the games immersive story (warning: If you have not played the bg game and beaten it yet there are spoilers ahead. You have been warned... :P). As you play the Baldur's gate game and quest on to Nashkel, destroy the bandit camp, etc. it really gives you kind of a...idk how to call it I guess like a "personal" flavor to the game. You are born with a mysterious essence or clearly something weird is going to be going on with my character so it makes you want to find out more about what happens. And lets not forget the armored figure whom slays your foster father mercilessly at the beginning. Why does he do that? ANd why does he want to kill you? Or does he want to kill you? See it really raises questions in your head that makes you want to progress through the game and find out what else happens in the story. And as you progress the antagonist constantly sends these obstacles your way in an attempt to stop you from ruining his plans such as these annoying bounty hunters to stop you, poisons your weapons that makes them brittle, frames you, all in an effort to kick you out of the picture so that he can progress to be the new god of murder. Also attempting to beat the story takes a good long while compared to other rpg games of today whose main quest last for about 12 hours or less.
These aspects in my opinion are what truly make a serious and epic rpg game and it's good to see that everyones favorite rpg "baldur's gate" is coming back brand-new and better than ever! Honestly, I am very much looking forward to seeing what Overhaul is going to be bringing our way!
So if anyone would like to post a comment on why you think bg is truly an rpg masterpiece (or why you don't think it is) feel free to do so!
edit: I'm sorry guys I should've made this clear hehe! >.<
I really mean the whole Baldur's gate series aside from the first one. THe first one was great but the second one really felt more alive in many ways than it did the first one. For one, the characters were not just there to just guard your character but they have their own story and background that they kind of lay out on your character which really brings out more story into the game. Or better yet, like other stories going on within a great story so as to make you wonder whats going to happen next aside from the plot of the main story.
So to start things off I'd like to start off talking about its amazing gameplay! Let's face it every smart person loves a good game that is difficult in some ways "within reason of course" and Baldur's gate definitely fulfills that role. Unlike most fantasy rpg's today when you eventually get to a certain point you are able to just about to powerhouse through almost everything kind of like Skyrim for example. Skyrim was a really great game but it just didn't have that feeling that really draws you into the game's action that makes you want to play it over and over again the moment you start thinking about it. It's pretty much just run around hack n slashing at everything you run across but thats just it! It really doesn't have anything else to it other than feeling like a god amongst man since you are the dragonborn therefore nothing out there is really never ever supposed to kill you which can really make a game feel boring and dull after a little while.
In baldur's gate, however even though you are born with the essence of the god of murder it still gives you that feeling that you are "mortal and just another man in another world" no matter how powerful you are. On your own, you can die to pretty much almost anything when your enemies are in groups which is why you require a party and even in a party you can still die which means you have to use careful strategy and planning when heading on in to engage the enemy and not just running up in there hackin' an' slashing at everything...mostly.
One more thing that I'd like to quote on is also no matter how much you explore you are still just the same as everyone else in the world. And what I mean by this is that you have no advantageous abilites that you can use against your enemy which makes it fair and alot more fun! When a player goes against a party with almost the exact same composition and you beat them hardly unscathed you feel great, powerful, and proud of yourself because you used your own smartass brain!! In most rpg's today because you are the "chosen one" you have to have all these cool but op abilities that pretty much rule out the ability for someone to "think on their feet" when in a tough situation. IMO gaming companies do this because they are worried that players will feel so weak and start hating the game because it "seems" they can't do anything right. And eventually, they get so damn frustrated they break their tv (ok maybe "breaking their tv" is taking it too far in this case) or they take the game back to the gaming store requesting their money back for a crappy game and lets face it no one likes to feel like their on the other end of the stick when attempting to powerhouse their way through the rest of the game! See certain games like baldur's gate use this method but make it rich and fun rather than frustrating because in the end when you conquer your enemy with your creative strategy you feel so great and it puts a smile on your face!
Ok so next part I'd like to talk about is music!! I absolutely adore Baldur's gate music along with other franchise's music related to baldur's gate like Icewind Dale! Every soundtrack fits absolutely perfectly with the sense that your in a fantasy world and gives you the appropriate atmosphere no matter where you are. Even when in combat, Whenever I go up against someone or a group the combat music gives you that feeling that your in danger and that you need to act or else someone in your party might "unmistakeably" die. I mean as I recall when I was clearing out some trading company's building of doppleganger's this music played:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgfwq5SBQ3Q&feature=BFa&list=PL3B6029CF78FC6A74I remember when I first heard this music I got serious goosebumps and I had my absolute full attention on the battle constantly pausing "Ok I need to cast hold person on his high dps warrior and dispel all enemy protections off his mage" I mean it just really added to the suspense and immersion that sadly I still have yet to feel in any other rpg game.
Ok so last part is the games immersive story (warning: If you have not played the bg game and beaten it yet there are spoilers ahead. You have been warned... :P). As you play the Baldur's gate game and quest on to Nashkel, destroy the bandit camp, etc. it really gives you kind of a...idk how to call it I guess like a "personal" flavor to the game. You are born with a mysterious essence or clearly something weird is going to be going on with my character so it makes you want to find out more about what happens. And lets not forget the armored figure whom slays your foster father mercilessly at the beginning. Why does he do that? ANd why does he want to kill you? Or does he want to kill you? See it really raises questions in your head that makes you want to progress through the game and find out what else happens in the story. And as you progress the antagonist constantly sends these obstacles your way in an attempt to stop you from ruining his plans such as these annoying bounty hunters to stop you, poisons your weapons that makes them brittle, frames you, all in an effort to kick you out of the picture so that he can progress to be the new god of murder. Also attempting to beat the story takes a good long while compared to other rpg games of today whose main quest last for about 12 hours or less.
These aspects in my opinion are what truly make a serious and epic rpg game and it's good to see that everyones favorite rpg "baldur's gate" is coming back brand-new and better than ever! Honestly, I am very much looking forward to seeing what Overhaul is going to be bringing our way!
So if anyone would like to post a comment on why you think bg is truly an rpg masterpiece (or why you don't think it is) feel free to do so!
edit: I'm sorry guys I should've made this clear hehe! >.<
I really mean the whole Baldur's gate series aside from the first one. THe first one was great but the second one really felt more alive in many ways than it did the first one. For one, the characters were not just there to just guard your character but they have their own story and background that they kind of lay out on your character which really brings out more story into the game. Or better yet, like other stories going on within a great story so as to make you wonder whats going to happen next aside from the plot of the main story.
Post edited by xLegionx on
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Comments
Then you mentioned skyrim, what an awfull game like oblivion was in 1hour from game start you can be invincible with right set of skills and guests so it became more like finding the next face to smash game than rpg (the game still looks AWESOME) but its too easy. baldurs gate was great because tactics are essential or you are dead in first 5minutes in game.
DA:O was nice game (still button smasher) but the skill system was just too minimal for my taste, only skill i can even remember from it is flurry that made you hit faster and that was nice but still too few skills and that cooldown takes most of the strategy away from playing it. In baldurs gate you really had to know what each skill/spell did and there were tons and tons of those at your disposal and you couldnt use them all in one battle or you couldnt do anything in next battle at all.
DA2 was also in a way nice game but those ncp characters were just boring cant even remember them exept that whiny emo elf chick. In baldurs gate you have more party options and the characters are just better in every aspect.
They helped me feel like my character so much more than the usual RPG reasoning and I was sorely dissappointed when DA2 took the Mass Effect route of making you play a set character. It's not a bad way to do it, but it was a step down from Origins (DA2 was in a thousand other ways also a step down from Origins but let's save that for another thread).
Baldur's Gate to me is a classic because of the excellent engine, numerous NPC's, many of which have excellent personalities (and not 2D cookie cutters like later games), giant and believable world, tactical gameplay, excellent plot, outstanding villains and while the 2nd Edition rules are incomprehensible when you're not familiar with them, they work well when you finally understand them.
It's just really, really good and perfectly bridges the gap between Ye Olde Turn Based RPG's and newer 3D games.
When you add a world with thousands of years of history, just the right amount of freedom to explore (never been a big fan of fullscale sandboxes), beautiful artwork with a great engine, enough difficulty, great strategic combat and of course those long long lines of dialog with memorable NPCs and great antagonists into the mix you've got a combination of total and absolute win.
It's not that DA games were bad or anything, but even today i have a better time playing BG than DA.
Anyway, today's RPGs tend to pit you against the great evil that will destroy the world blah blah.Or, create a world were "stuff happens" and you happen to be close to it to react. Well it doesn't work, it's too cliche, or maybe not engaging. You need to pit the player against himself, or a world that is after him, OR you need to engage him in a story full of mystery and regret like PS:T, something that involves his character.
I'm not obliged to work my ass off everytime to save the world while everyone is divided and egoistic with me trying to persuade them to help.
But if i needed to save myself or someone dear... Imagine having a game where you need to make a choice : Will you save yourself? Or a person dear to you? And what if you were forced to kill the person you love the most, out of love or a twist of fate?
The storylines today are... weak, for a lack of a better word, they leave no impact.
At least for me.
2. 'Dark' fantasy: BG had a believable and gritty story, even if it is one that included magic and divine intervention. The Sword Coast is actually being crippled by an iron shortage, not by Dragons, demons or karmic essence. The scale of villainy and conspiracy never got so high that it became ridiculous. There was a tragedy to it all, too. When people die, they die forever - like Gorion, Marl's son, or even Yoshimo.
3. Strategy element: BG requires careful planning and thoughtful use of each and every character's abilities. You are required to micro-manage people and inventories in and outside of battle. It's a faithful interpretation of 2nd edition.
4. The villain: Sarevok was a cool antagonist that was three-dimensional, but not so sympathetic that you no longer feared him. He was a genius and engineered complex plans to dominate the politics of the Sword Coast. At the same time, he was always a slave to his destructive nature.
Whats funny is when I played BG I was younger and so impatient.
Now I have a ton of patients but the games made now are a fraction of the depth of BG.
And yet I have beaten BG like 10 times over, and I never finish a new RPG.
I think its more or less the business part of game making that makes games lackluster.
They have to force their product out to meet deadlines.Then on top of that they assign teams to certain projects in bigger companies.If you work at one of these companies and assigned to work on a game that you may or may not like/love , then the work you do on it will show how much you really like what your working on.
I think that is why some mods/modders out preform original game content, 1st they dont have a deadline to meet, plus your working on something you love and want to improve.Passion in your work is something most companies dont care nor worry about, nor does the worker if the company forks over paychecks.
It's a simple question, but as has been touched upon in this thread, the answers are complex and varying.
If I am to try to condense something out of it myself, I'd say that BG1 and BG2 were like a 'perfect storm' of quality factors coming together and strengthening each other, such as:
- Technical aspects in terms of graphics engine, voice acting, music, gameplay system and the 2e ruleset. Each of these were either remarkably well-crafted or a retrospectively solid choice.
- A seemingly free creative reign to implement ideas based on fun and immersion rather than profitability. Hard to say for sure without detailed insight into the development process, but when you play BG, you get the feeling that the people making the calls were gamers rather than businessmen at heart.. something that's turned kind of rare since then. This is also seen in a lack of concern with being politically correct (fat townspeople talk about eating all the time, unequal romances) and in classes that don't all play the same and aren't balanced vs each other.
- Length and complexity of story, ties into previous point. By the time you reach the later stages of ToB, you can look back at the kid fresh out of Candlekeep and consider what a trip it's been, how much you've seen and done, and how it has changed you. And, unless you speedrun it, it will likely feel like quite a long time for you as a player as well - nowadays, single player games that you can't beat in 2-3 days of devoted playing are very rare. With the BG trilogy, it can take more time than that just to select and set up the mods you want, plan/roll/edit your character and start out. And then you may end up restarting after a few hours anyway, noticing there's something you want to tweak.
- Faithfulness to the gameworld - even for someone who was already well-versed in FR lore at the time of release, the BG games contain a rich and varied world that you get to explore and affect, and meet creatures from Elminster to an aboleth.
- A combination of a mostly mod-friendly format and a devoted playerbase, resulting in a vast number of compatible mods and game editors allowing players to tweak the game to suit their preferences, to tremendously expand on its story and immersion, and to contribute themselves. Whether you want to make yourself immortal, have a number of people you can seduce and sleep with, add some really tricky encounters, want to be able to carry 2000 arrows instead of 60, or get a short backstory on the lost minotaur in the Lilarcor sewer, you can.
1. Great plot and excelent writing
2. Great immersion through character interactions
3. Great art
4. And last but not least uniqe battle mechanics.
I REALLY love battle mechanics of the infinity engine games. Usualy you either get real time battles with control over a single character or turn based battles with a full party. BG combines the best of the two in my opinion giving us real time battles with control over entire party by using a handy pause function.
I really wonder at times why only an obscure rpg game Summoner ever recreated this wonderfull approach to battle mechanics.
Hovewer, how is it possible, that I used Pentium 166 MMX with 48 MB of ram and S3 virge 4MB VRAM and still had so much fun, i cant explain. (maybe I was 15 years younger
Morrowind still beats the pants off of Oblivion and Skyrim (to a lesser extent) because of the sheer amount of freedom you have in the character advancement system. With the Overhaul mod, it looks as good or better than Oblivion.
Daggerfall is awesome, that game needs a serious remake for today's standards. My one problem with that game is how repetitive the questing can get after a while.
The Magic Candle is an amazing game. If Wasteland is the spiritual precursor to Fallout, then The Magic Candle would be the spiritual precursor to Baldur's Gate. Some of the concepts in there were pretty revolutionary at the time with the complex NPC schedules, and the way you could split up your party to give them occupations to help raise money for the group.
I'm currently playing Temple of Elemental Evil (with co8 mod) while I wait for BGEE, and while it's pretty fun, it's still not nearly as good as BG mainly because of the bugs and shallow storyline. It sure does look beautiful though.
Just look at SWTOR; they decided to fully VO that game and not only was the budget astronomical, but the rest of the game suffered.
My PC was a fighter, but I stacked my party with as many clerics as I could find. When something goes wrong who better to fix it right? And then all of a sudden Branwen had had enough of... can't remember if it was Quayle or Tiax and attacks him, killing him in a single critical hit and storms off in a huff, leaving the party. Now I'm stuck in a dungeon down TWO healers! At first I was mad that the game would do that to me. Then I remembered the earlier arguments my party always had and said to myself 'should've really seen that coming'.
In BG2 it happened to me again. Having finished BG with the fighter (female human) I imported her. After recruiting Anomen I starting noticing he seemed to want to have more conversations with my character than anyone else did... and they had their own music and... is he flirting with me? My god he IS flirting with me! After yelling at him to leave me alone he tried talking to me one more time asking if he had said something wrong. It was so unexpected I had to laugh.
That party dynamic was something I have yet to experience in any other game. Somewhere it became taboo that there could be party members that despised and fought with each other and were so numerous that there was no way you could use them all in one playthrough.
It isn't. Its remarkable in many ways but its certainly neither perfect or 'the best' in every one of them. This can be easily proven by how the community is split almost 50/50 on which game, Baldur's Gate or Shadows of Amn, is the best: each one has a different focus and strenghts.
Personally I think Dragon Age 1 is better than BG1. But that's not really a fair comparison. BG came out 10 years before...But that's my preference.
First RPGish games I came in contact with and a couple of years before BG
Party:
More prevalent in Baldur's Gate 2 although it still shows up in a way, you get a lot of interesting and compelling characters. The game creators were willing to also sacrifice some in terms of hard core dnd in order to make an interesting character. Take Minsc or Korgan, (Minsc stats technically wouldn't allow him to be a ranger and Korgan's 20 Con). But more than that they're interesting. You always wonder just what Edwin IS planning behind the scenes. Plus there is the banter between some characters, (that I'm planning on replaying at least one time before BGEE to see), like Xan, Kivan and Viconia (I think Coran does too but I'm not sure) or Yeslick and Korgan.
While that back and forth barbing occurs in DA: O, you're limited by your party size limit of 4. Then you're further limited by the fact that if you want the best tank in game late game you're stuck with Alistair or Loghain. It's really hard to justify bringing Morrigan, because Wynne is such a better overall healer (but Morrigan makes up for that if you turn her into a CC bot). When you only have 3 other people, it greatly limits your own personal freedom party wise. I couldn't even really take my dog with me unless I wanted to challenge myself or install a mod.
But on top of the massive party interaction, there is also the story. In Dragon Age: Origins, I absolutely love playing through the Origins and Ostagar/Lothering but then after that I'm always left feeling "now what". Maybe this is further complicated by 3 DLCs worth of content easy enough to build off each other (Shale->Warden's Keep->Return to Ostagar) and gives great gear that makes it so that you really are going to spend the rest of the game going "Ya now I'm primarily going for the story."
In Baldur's gate though while the story is in many ways 'more linear' (FAI->Nashkel->Mines->Nashkel->Beregost->Bandit Camp->Cloakwood->Baldur's Gate (OMG This city is so awesome I'm finally here)->Back to Candlekeep (imagine a Human Noble having to go back to Highever)->End Game. Sure that limits TotSC but you always ahve an idea of where you're going next. You can explore all you want but I actually sorta think that in some ways DA: O suffers from the freedom you gain doing your armies. It basically turns DA: O into 7 games (Origin/Ostagar/Lothering, DLCs, Redcliff, Dalish, Mages, Dwarves, Denerim End-game) because the threads tying them together are so loose. Furthermore, the Fade makes me groan everytime I think about doing a playthrough.
So while BG and BG2 have a nice sandbox to play in, you also know where your going to be headed next. I know I'm not doing enough justice to this but I'm just kinda writing as I think it.
Combat-wise, it's inferior to IWD. It could be inferior to other games, too, depending on what sort of combat you enjoy in RPGs. If you like the old first-person style, for example.
Story-wise and dialogue-wise, it's inferior to Planescape: Torment
In terms of available choices and options and moral decisions, it's inferior to Fallout
In terms of overall freedom, it's inferior to TES (especially Daggerfall, as well as Morrowind which would have come out around the same time as BG2 if I'm not mistaken)
In terms of NPCs, it's (slightly, very slightly) inferior to DA:O
But what Baldur's Gate does is succeed in each of those areas. While Planescape has rubbish combat, Dragon Age has a horrifically bad plot, IWD and TES have basically no NPC interaction and Fallout isn't much for dialogue, Baldur's Gate does all of them extremely well. And that, in my mind, makes it the best RPG ever.