[SPOILERS] My personal thoughts on SoD

Buttercheese

First of all:



THAT WAS SO AMAZIIIING!!!
LIKE HNNNNNNNNG AWESOME!!!!!

*Takes a deep breath* Okay. I'm okay.

This was SO much fun! I am truly impressed with what you guys managed to do with this old as dirt engine. The background art was amazing, easily on par with IWD and PoE. Overall, the visuals, so good, mh mh! (Sorry, I know this is not the most important aspect of the game but that's the beef I always had with BG2 and the EE backgrounds). My favourite area is by far the underground river, especially because I played a Svirfneblin druid ❤

I am not gonna lie, I was sceptical. But you pulled it off. SoD is fantastic. I really love it.

Now, to the actually important aspects: The story and the characters.

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The story, while at times confusing, was great and captivating. Even though I of course knew right from the start how it would end (because, well, BG2 :P ) there was actually a lot of stuff I did not see coming. My personal favourite is the scene where Charname crosses the bridge and we then get so see that AWESOME cutscene.

Though, there are some concerns I have with the story, and that would be the over all scale.
SoD has a BIG story. With encounters so colourful, it feels like you are taking a tour through all the Monster Manuals. While I do need to do another playthrough of BG2 first to be sure about this, I fear that now SoA might be outshined by SoD in certain ways. Though of course I have not played the newest version yet, so we shall see.

I LOVE THE ENDING.
A LOT LOT.

While playing I often thought to myself that I probably wouldn't want to move on to BG2 afterwards, but no! I am super pumped to play it again (for the ~20th time)! Well done!

The animted cutscenes where all amazing, like I said, the bridge scene especially.
More like this, please.

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Now, my favourite part, the characters ~

Here my team: Charname (female, true neutral, svirfneblin, druid [yes I modded, sue me :P ]), Rasaad, Glint, M'khiin, Dynaheir and Minsc (and Boo!)

This was my first time romancing Rasaad and having him with me as a proper party member.
Not gonna lie, I wasn't too interested in him (because he's a lawful monk, eh) but BOY WAS I WRONG.
He was SO charming, during his romance talks I became super flustered and I swear I squeed a few times.
I am infatuated and can't wait to see how this will unfold in BG2 and ToB ❤

Next up, Glint. I didn't really expect anything from Glint but I learned to love him right away, he is so charming and funny and he is now one of my favourites. For my next playthrough I am gonna make a HUGE exception and actually play a male character so that I can romance him. This is gonna be great! #TeamShorties
Also, he is such a goofy smartass, it's like looking into a mirror

M'khiin was a huge surprise. I had no idea what she was going to be like, but just like Glint, she grew on me immediatly. Might have also helped that she and my Charname have a lot in common Either way, she was lovely and experimenting with her class was a lot of fun as well.

Dynaheir and Minsc (and Boo!) where, hm, different? Not in a bad way necessarily, it just took some getting used to. Sadly I must say, some of Minsc's voicelines got pretty old pretty fast, especially the one about the well scrubbed evil. It was funny at first but he said it too often, might have been better to use it in an actual dialouge instead of the random voice lines. Dynaheir was Dynaheir, not much too say :P Her new voice took some getting used to but that was fine after a while.

Caelar Arget is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand lady knight, on the other she was kinda ... stupid? Lawful stupid I mean, that was obviously the point as we see in the finale, but still, her motivations and the way she acted made her look rather incompetend as a leader if you ask me. Also the thing about her serving all gods was confusing? Why not just Lathander? Either way, I like it that she is such a flawed hero, that makes her more intersting.

Hephernan was, hm ... he felt kinda generic. Though at first I thought he was a direct servant to Ire....... the hooded man. Either way, he was too one dimensional for my taste. Also, how come Caelar didn't notice he was evil? Isn't she a Paladin and should be able to tell? I mean, yes, she was blinded by her own motivations, but still.

The hooded man was delightfully creepy. I loved every second he was on screen.
I even wish my mind had been wiped blank before playing so that I wouldn't have known who he later turns out to be :'D Either way, top. Moar please.

The other non-joinable NPCs where sadly not very memorable. The only ones I remember are those with the really stupid names (Fenster :I ) and the Barghest. I think the problem was, that there where to many named NPCs? Or rather the important ones didn't stick out? I can't really pin point it, but I often forgot who my questgivers where and the likes.

Which leads me to my next point ...

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The biggest beef I have with SoD, is that it's confusing at times. The journal doesn't keep proper track of quest progression. Very often I found myself wondering wether or not I was doing my quest right because of the lack of hints. For example, during the "Halfling Treasures" quest I had no idea that the shield was in another area, so I kept checking the house over and over and checked with the NPCs that where close. That quickly got frustrating.

Another one of those cases was Neera's personal quest where you have to gather the ingredients for the potion.
Sadly my journal didn't tell me which items I had already delivered and which where still needed.

But yeah, that is really a small complaint to be had with an otherwise amazing experience.
I mean, I ran into my shares of bugs and glitches, but those are to be expected with fresh releases by now.

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In conclusion, I had a lot of fun with SoD and I will play again and again (just like the rest of the series ).
Siege of Dragonspear is a more than worthy new addition to my favourite game all of time and I can't wait to see what you guys are gonna do with your upcoming projects.

Thank you, Beamdog ❤

And a very special thanks goes to my dear friend @Troodon80 who served as my personal travel guide and who had to suffer through my annoying fangirling and debugging via Skype the entire time :'D

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Last but not least, here a few screenshots of my favourite dialouge snippets, because I can

Buttercheese

Ok, so by now everything had a bit of time to sink in and I got to reflect a bit more, so here is a list of things I would personally like to have changed/ added:

- This is crucial: At SoD specific stuff in BG2:EE. I went right to replaying BG2 after finishing SoD and it's as if SoD never happened. Especially in regards of the blamed murder and the romances this is super jarring for me. I don't even expect much in case of the romances, but Rasaad treated my Charname like nothing ever happened between them which stung reeeeaaaally hard. (I think this was rather elegantly taken care of in @jastey 's Sir Ajantis mod for BG2, just as an example.)

- More dialouge options for a wider range of characters. I often found myself at the point where I was like "my character wouldn't say any of this". Given, it's not pheasable to have any possible option in there, but a few additions wouldn't hurt (in this specific case I played a character who really didn't care much about the war going on and was mostly dragged along. It's not like BG2 where even the most indiferent Charname has a motivation to go on this adventure).

- Add an option so that the screen doesn't scroll past the black boarders of the maps.

- Fixing those bugs, naturally.

- As mentioned in the first post, make the journal more useful.

- Give the last talk to your lover in prison more weight. Rasaad simply abandoning Charname felt rather ooc for me. Here's a suggestion. Let him (or any of the romance options, really) help Charname with with the escape and then they get split up during it. Maybe he creates a diversion to make the Flaming Fist go after him instead.
I don't know about the other romances, but it would of course have to be in character.

- Make Hephernaan more interesting, Caelar a bit smarter and her motivations less confusing. There is also that plothole about Caelar still being a paladin even though she knowingly commited evil acts which would have made her a fallen paladin.

- During the festivities in Dragonspear after the portal has been closed, I expected Rasaad to make up on this promise. There was nothing Would have been nice if there would have been at least another romance talk.

PS:
- Give female Charnames the option to get in on the joke with Voghiln. Let her being able to treat the stuff he says like a joke. @DaggerXIV suggested to me, ad an option to this dialouge where you can call him a "son of wench" jokingly. Curently you can either just ignore his behavior or be offended by it, which doesn't make for a good range of roleplay

- I was just told that Caelar apparently is "just" a fighter, not a paladin, but it certainly feels very strongly throughout the game that she still is a paladin. Maybe make it clear that she isn't one?

illathid

Caelar isn't a paladin, she's a fighter. If you go to the last fight with less than 6 members and redeem her she will join your party and you can check her stats, equipment, etc.

Buttercheese

@illathid Yes, I was told in private right after posting this, but during the entire game everything about her just screams PALADIN. So it should be made clear that she indeed is not a paladin, because I am pretty sure that a good chunk of players won't ever get the opportunity to personally check her stats in game.

Aedan

Buttercheese said:

Dynaheir was Dynaheir, not much too say :P Her new voice took some getting used to but that was fine after a while.

In SOD, Dynaheir has the same VA she had in BG (Jennifer Hale). Her voice does not sound different to me.

That said, I am glad you enjoyed the game.
Glint is fantastic and I am sure you will appreciate his romance. The problem is that now I cannot import my character in BG2 without Glint in the game. My CHARNAME needs his toy-gnome

Buttercheese

I did not notice it's the same o.o
I mean, the actors all have aged, I mean just listen to David Warner (he even sounds more menacing now, I love it) and the sound quality is better. So that is probably the problem.

Aedan said:

My CHARNAME needs his toy-gnome

That sounds so dirty, I love it >:D