Siege of Dragonspear Review Thread - Feedback for Devs and Information for Prospective Players
Purudaya
Member Posts: 816
I've seen quite a few people on this forum who are frustrated at not being able to get decent information about the game's content because of all the hubbub going on. Similarly, I've seen developers express frustration that they're not getting as much helpful constructive feedback as they would like for the same reason.
So if you've played or are playing the game, feel free to use this space to write your own review of SoD and give it a 1-5 star rating below. It can be a page or three lines - just let the devs and prospective players know what your *experience* has been in the game thus far. And if you feel so inclined, don't hesitate to leave a copy of your positive, negative, or mixed review on GoG, Metacritic, or Steam. If you haven't played the game and want to know more about its content, this might be a good place to consolidate your questions.
Finally, an idea to keep this thread civil: if you see a review that you disagree with or feel is intended to provoke, don't reply to it. Let's stick to the facts so that prospective players and devs can get some detailed information and constructive feedback.
So...how would you rate the game?
Note: keep an eye on which ratings actually have reviews that go with them
So if you've played or are playing the game, feel free to use this space to write your own review of SoD and give it a 1-5 star rating below. It can be a page or three lines - just let the devs and prospective players know what your *experience* has been in the game thus far. And if you feel so inclined, don't hesitate to leave a copy of your positive, negative, or mixed review on GoG, Metacritic, or Steam. If you haven't played the game and want to know more about its content, this might be a good place to consolidate your questions.
Finally, an idea to keep this thread civil: if you see a review that you disagree with or feel is intended to provoke, don't reply to it. Let's stick to the facts so that prospective players and devs can get some detailed information and constructive feedback.
So...how would you rate the game?
Note: keep an eye on which ratings actually have reviews that go with them
- Siege of Dragonspear Review Thread - Feedback for Devs and Information for Prospective Players33 votes
- 5 Stars/All the Stars21.21%
- 4 Stars63.64%
- 3 Stars  3.03%
- 2 Stars  3.03%
- 1 Star/No Stars  6.06%
- Other: 6 quasars, 2.7 nebulas, etc.  3.03%
3
Comments
Although there were some exceptions (I didn't care so much for Corwin's VO), the new characters were varied and had enjoyable banters, especially Glint (who also had the most talented voice acting, imho). As for the existing characters, hearing Minsc, Imoen and others for the first time in 15 years has been surreal.
The gameplay offered some unique encounters, though occasionally the respawns made things a little tedious - I found myself abusing the rest system a little more here than I have in other parts of the series. Large-scale battles, however, were a blast and presented a whole new set of challenges.
As for player options, I really liked the new race and class-specific dialogues. This came into play in the very first dungeon, where my Mage was able to bypass a fetch quest with his arcane knowledge. Very cool.
Bugs: I've only really encountered one, which had to do with an item that lacked a permanent drop flag. I've had two crashes to desktop in roughly 20 hours of play, and one of those was when I was playing around with the new real-time UI editor (which is awesome, btw). Other than that, my experience has been smooth sailing. I'm playing an unmodded version, but I've heard mods are not affected. Multiplayer, on the other hand, is apparently pretty buggy.
What most struck me about this expansion, despite its flaws, is how much it felt like Baldur's Gate. It really does feel like coming back home to the game, if that makes any sense - something that the previous Beamdog original content (while decent), didn't achieve 100%. Beamdog has expanded its team and resource pool significantly since then, and it shows - this really feels like a fitting addition to the series. All in all, I feel more confident in Beamdog's caretaking of this franchise than I have since joining this forum 3 years ago. Can't wait to see what they do next.
Plot:
Its like a non-epic level but more involved throne of bhaal meets Icewind Dale. Sure it can be a tad linear at times but its ground well within the confines of the expedition. You cant spend a week out in the wilderness because the expedition needs you.
The tie in to BG2 is fantastic. My only criticism is they maybe got a teensy bit carried away because there is a surprising amount of this forshadowing for BG2. However that is forgiveable because firstly -David Freakin Warner - and secondly BG2 is actually rather light on its villain outside of dreams so this in a way beefs it up some.
The antagonst is great. She had me switching from one thing to the next and I just struggled to pin it down. Is she a charismatic leader or an unwitting pawn? Righteous and arrogant or selfish and scared?
The gameplay
This one isnt too hard. The AI improvments are great as are the enemy adjustments for difficulty. The massed combat was excellent too. Its just more BG combat but with extra dimensions added.
The music was great and perfectly blended old tracks with new elements as well as some awesome fresh new music too.
Those voice actors who returned did briliantly as did a few returnees from BG2 and Icewind Dale who played prominant roles in them. So did the new arrivals. Also the character writing was great too especially when written to take into account what comes in bg2.
Im extremely lucky in that my experience has been free of nearly all major bugs and technical faults. The only significant issue is a minor annoyance in that a few areas have fluctuating frame rates for some odd reason. Yet when I played the titular "Siege" with nigh on a hundred or more sprites nuking eachother the game ran superbly.
In short nostalgia helped but its much more than that. Its now an inseperable part of the saga for me. BG2 can no longer be started anymore unless Siege of Dragonspear has been finished. 5 stars - I loves it!
+ Story. I only used custom chars so can't judge the NPCs, but I found it really good. Hearing Imoen and Irenicus again was awesome. Caelar was really well-done, realistic and believable, far from your run of the mill villain. Especially the ending was amazing, both the "journey" and the "judgment." Really felt like they captured some of that grim uncomfortable feeling in BG1, when you were on the run from the law and people despised you, questioning who you really were.
+ Combat. In a time where every single game gets dumbed down so immensely that even my blind, senile grandmother can beat "hard mode" in the first try, they stayed true to having challenging content, even for veterans such as myself who ran a fairly OP party setup. Especially the dragon and final boss required me to reload a few times and execute the fights correctly, and felt very rewarding to beat.
- Linear. While they didn't fall for todays pitfall of easy gameplay, they fell for a really linear story, prefering to tell their own story over giving people the tools of telling their own. First of all, that's strictly against what the BG series is about, which is open world exploration and you deciding when to move the story forward, and it also gives it very, very low replayability. SoD is very unlikely to become a part of my playthroughs for this reason alone. Maybe once or twice more, but far, far from everyone.
- Buggy. Don't really need to go into this I feel.
Overall, my current score is 3/5, but I'm assuming the bugs will be fixed asap, which will raise it to 4/5 imho. I would love to give it 5/5, but the fact that it carries so very, very little replayability makes me unable to. In order to get 5/5 in my book, with a game that linear and strict, it'd have to be a true masterpiece like Planescape Torment. And as much as I liked the story, it was nowhere near that.
Ok, that wasn't quickly. At all. :P
Problems:
1) graphics seem degraded. Game looks like a cartoon now.
2) AI is still stupid as ever.
3)some encounters are silly. Bunch of undead around a tomb (dinner table)?
4) screen scroll doesn't work nicely.
5) everything seems blurry. Like someone spilled smoke over the game. Original game was far more crispy and clear.
6) new class is supposed to dance. No animation....why? So hard to add some non 1pp stuff in the game? Hire that Sentrizeal guy, do yourselves a favour.
7) while rather nice, new areas don't really look as BG. So people pls stop writing nonsense line in the course of "it feels like old BG" because it doesn't. Some may like it, some may not; but new areas have nothing to do with original, for bad or for worse.
8) crashes. gotta love ctds.
9) Options menu. Click a red box, I can barely tell if an option is now on or off - it's still red, just mildly less. If this is a game for handicapped people, I don't want to know what it would look like if it weren't.
10) LUA options. Is this so impossible to implement in game, rather than keeping a seperate file that looks like this:
SetPrivateProfileString('Game Options','Journal Popups','0')
SetPrivateProfileString('Game Options','Classic Selection Circles','0').........................
This is awful. Clumsy, lame, seems more like WiP than something a proper game would endorse.
11) Portraits. Where to begin? What happened to Imoen? Did Sarevok beat her up ? there were supposed to be some new ones. I found 2 male and 2 female, both of fairly low quality looking as they just arrived from Arcanum of Steamworks; a quick google search will net you several dozen better ones.
12) LoB mode is nothing more than a very simple mod can do - unlike the game implementation, mod actually works properly.
Good stuff: yeah, there is good stuff there. Disab.le cosmetic attacks is great feature, new areas really look good - imo even better than those used in original game.
Mass battles are nice. Too bad Chaos is so good.:)
I liked new undead abilities, new items are also fairly nicely balanced. I'm not too sure how I feel about some kits gaining more benefit from an item than others, but it's a novelty one will get used to.
Additional point to note- game feels much more alive than it's older brother. It's a nice change, far more meaningful than GUI changes (it isn't as awful as people say).
In all respect to devs - fix this game proper, it has potential and I'll probably buy it. AFTER it's fixed and smoothed out to a profesional level. BG deserves nothing less.
As it is now - it's a T-down; sorry.
I haven't played the game yet, but it's good to see real fans taking the initiative and giving helpful information to the devs and new players where it seems to be pretty scarce at the moment. It's a much brighter community when we are all sharing our wisdom.
I believe this game is doing everything it went out to achieve. One of the complaints about the game is that it is too linear. I am not here to argue against that but rather, I believe that it actually makes the game run smoother. For a bit, I actually felt rushed in the game and then I realized that it was on purpose. There is an attempt to take your life. You have to gather some near by allies and reach the Coalition. You have to confront the Crusade in one way or another. Realistically, there isn't much time to hang around. I was so immersed in the game; getting caught up in the emotion, that I forgot that I could pause and walk away from the game. I believe that this was the goal of the game.
That being said, there are additional areas that can be explored and side quests that can be completed that still give SoD that classic Baldur's Gate feel.
I cannot comment on the new joinable NPCs as I have only played with Corwin for awhile but I did enjoy my time with her.
The one thing that I have enjoyed the most was reconnecting with old characters. Hearing new lines from Minsc never gets old. I have to admit, I smile every time Minsc recites his fatigue line. Not to mention, yelling at my monitors to tell Khalid to shut up every time he shows his lack of confidence, brings up some old memories.
Overall, I believe that if you're considering getting this game and have played BG and BG2, you owe yourself to get this game.
I must admit I am not extremely wild about the new content on EE, so managed my expectations quite low as not to be disappointed, but I'm genuinely enjoying the campaign. It essentially extends the BG gaming joy, and I would take any amount of that.
+ Old friends! Very impressed and thankful that so many of the original, well loved voice actors are back
+ I actually find the new NPCs quite interesting, and personally will have replay value there (wanting to ultimately bring everyone along)
+ Combat is quite challenging in a good way. Have needed some reloads on "core rules"
+ I'm genuinely keen to see how the story ends! I've already raved how much I love Irenicus story device, but really enjoy all his appearances. Love that Imoen gets major attention and backstory.
+ Small AI improvement, but I like that healers heal you without prompted
+ Your main antagonist is a character one can respect, I find her interesting character
- It's quite linear but that's pretty much norm for expansions and DLC
- Due to linearity, the replay cycle will be that much longer
- Maybe that's bit kitchy but I was dying for a merchant in the starting dungeon as my gembags and scroll cases did not import!
- I've not encountered big bugs, some equipment not exporting, and only a few game impacting ones, e.g. one where I think a given torch in a cave just was bugged and could not be interacted with
(Simply a quite unusual creature, just fyi. First time I've seen one in a game thus far, I think!)