My thoughts on SoD (WARNING: Possible spoilers. It's also very long.)
Papa_Lou
Member Posts: 263
Hey dudes.
So, to start out, the original Baldur's Gate was a huge part of my childhood. My dad used to play it, and I'd sit and watch him in awe. Eventually I figured out how to play it while he was at work, but I never did get much further than the Friendly Arm Inn.
I ended up forgetting about the game, until a year or so ago when I found it in our old computer desk an played the shit out of it. When I found out about Beamdog's Enhanced Editions, I went crazy and bought the entire saga, plus IWDEE.
I beat BGEE not too long ago and loved every second of it. I also just beat SoD with the same Berserker, and honestly? I loved it just as much.
After reading a ton of reviews saying the expansion wasn't worth my time, and after seeing so many people complain about things like "SJW garbage", I was really worried. So worried, that I opted out of buying the deluxe edition, and just went with the standard one in case I too was disappointed by it. Now, I'm disappointed that I didn't buy the deluxe edition.
I thought the writing was pretty well spot on for what I expected from a Baldur's Gate title. The quests were a great mixture of quirky, serious, sad, and everything in between. I loved the storyline, and I thought it introduced some really awesome and compelling characters, both as party companions, and otherwise.
Now, before I continue, I want to clarify that I've never played BG2, or BG2EE. As far as I know, my dad never had those when I was a kid, and finding a copy before the enhanced editions was hard to do. All I know is that my character and Imoen wake up in some sort of dungeon, kidnapped (?) by a Jon Irenicus fellow.
Beyond that, I have no idea.
So, with that in mind, SoD did exactly what I had hoped for- It made me excited to continue the story, and that's exactly what I plan to do when I finish writing this.
I understand some people have their gripes with SoD, some saying the ending doesn't make sense, and others saying the entire plot doesn't make sense. But as far as I can tell, Beamdog did an amazing job with this. Will my opinion change when I finish the second game? Maybe, but for some reason I highly doubt it.
That being said, nothing's perfect, and I do have a couple issues. Minor or major, depending on how you play the game I guess.
- As I played through BGEE, Coran and Dynaheir were major parts of my party. I like to think Coran and my character got along really well, and had built up a great friendship through their travels. Same goes for pretty much everyone in my party (Anjantis, Yeslick, Kivan, Dynaheir, and Coran). So I was excited to find out that both Dynaheir and Coran were in the introduction, but that excitement dwindled pretty quickly when Coran barely remembered my character, and then took off at the thought of questing with me again. I would have liked to see Beamdog maybe somehow implement some (even slightly) different dialogue for certain characters, perhaps ones you killed Sarevok with? I also was saddenned to find out that the beginning party was basically chosen for me, and that visiting Tiax, Coran, and Garrick was basically useless.
Granted, Safana became a huge part of my party, and a love interest of my character. But I would have liked to bring my homie Coran with me into the pits of Hell.
-That brings me to my next point, which I did sort of address in another thread a while back. The romancing in this expansion seemed either a little too forced, or just too easy. I was being a nice person to Corwin and honestly thought nothing of it. Then, out of the blue, I get a dialogue option in one of our conversations to tell her I'm interested in her. I didn't even realise we were flirting! It sort of broke the immersion for me. I expected Safana to be an easier romance, and it was, but that one I forgave because of the type of character Safana is.
I understand that this is likely because SoD is much shorter than BGEE, but I still feel like romancing in this game could be worked on a bit.
-My last point is pretty minor, but I still wanted to bring it up. In BGEE, it was rare to find a conversation that had any less than 4 dialogue options, many of them having around 6, maybe more. In SoD though, it seemed that a large portion of the conversations I was a part of gave me 3 options, maybe 4 sometimes. Mind you, all the options were very different, and all entertaining, I just felt like there could have been a few more sometimes.
BUT, that's really the only issues I had with the game. I genuinely loved SoD even though I seem to have written a lot more about my issues than what I liked about it. But it's easy for me to sit here and go on and on about how amazing it is.
Like I said, I'm disappointed that I never bought the deluxe edition, and actually listened to all the poor reviews. To anyone who hasn't played the game and happens to have read all this, do yourself a favour and pick it up.
Great job, Beamdog team. You did a terrific job, give yourselves a pat on the back.
So, to start out, the original Baldur's Gate was a huge part of my childhood. My dad used to play it, and I'd sit and watch him in awe. Eventually I figured out how to play it while he was at work, but I never did get much further than the Friendly Arm Inn.
I ended up forgetting about the game, until a year or so ago when I found it in our old computer desk an played the shit out of it. When I found out about Beamdog's Enhanced Editions, I went crazy and bought the entire saga, plus IWDEE.
I beat BGEE not too long ago and loved every second of it. I also just beat SoD with the same Berserker, and honestly? I loved it just as much.
After reading a ton of reviews saying the expansion wasn't worth my time, and after seeing so many people complain about things like "SJW garbage", I was really worried. So worried, that I opted out of buying the deluxe edition, and just went with the standard one in case I too was disappointed by it. Now, I'm disappointed that I didn't buy the deluxe edition.
I thought the writing was pretty well spot on for what I expected from a Baldur's Gate title. The quests were a great mixture of quirky, serious, sad, and everything in between. I loved the storyline, and I thought it introduced some really awesome and compelling characters, both as party companions, and otherwise.
Now, before I continue, I want to clarify that I've never played BG2, or BG2EE. As far as I know, my dad never had those when I was a kid, and finding a copy before the enhanced editions was hard to do. All I know is that my character and Imoen wake up in some sort of dungeon, kidnapped (?) by a Jon Irenicus fellow.
Beyond that, I have no idea.
So, with that in mind, SoD did exactly what I had hoped for- It made me excited to continue the story, and that's exactly what I plan to do when I finish writing this.
I understand some people have their gripes with SoD, some saying the ending doesn't make sense, and others saying the entire plot doesn't make sense. But as far as I can tell, Beamdog did an amazing job with this. Will my opinion change when I finish the second game? Maybe, but for some reason I highly doubt it.
That being said, nothing's perfect, and I do have a couple issues. Minor or major, depending on how you play the game I guess.
- As I played through BGEE, Coran and Dynaheir were major parts of my party. I like to think Coran and my character got along really well, and had built up a great friendship through their travels. Same goes for pretty much everyone in my party (Anjantis, Yeslick, Kivan, Dynaheir, and Coran). So I was excited to find out that both Dynaheir and Coran were in the introduction, but that excitement dwindled pretty quickly when Coran barely remembered my character, and then took off at the thought of questing with me again. I would have liked to see Beamdog maybe somehow implement some (even slightly) different dialogue for certain characters, perhaps ones you killed Sarevok with? I also was saddenned to find out that the beginning party was basically chosen for me, and that visiting Tiax, Coran, and Garrick was basically useless.
Granted, Safana became a huge part of my party, and a love interest of my character. But I would have liked to bring my homie Coran with me into the pits of Hell.
-That brings me to my next point, which I did sort of address in another thread a while back. The romancing in this expansion seemed either a little too forced, or just too easy. I was being a nice person to Corwin and honestly thought nothing of it. Then, out of the blue, I get a dialogue option in one of our conversations to tell her I'm interested in her. I didn't even realise we were flirting! It sort of broke the immersion for me. I expected Safana to be an easier romance, and it was, but that one I forgave because of the type of character Safana is.
I understand that this is likely because SoD is much shorter than BGEE, but I still feel like romancing in this game could be worked on a bit.
-My last point is pretty minor, but I still wanted to bring it up. In BGEE, it was rare to find a conversation that had any less than 4 dialogue options, many of them having around 6, maybe more. In SoD though, it seemed that a large portion of the conversations I was a part of gave me 3 options, maybe 4 sometimes. Mind you, all the options were very different, and all entertaining, I just felt like there could have been a few more sometimes.
BUT, that's really the only issues I had with the game. I genuinely loved SoD even though I seem to have written a lot more about my issues than what I liked about it. But it's easy for me to sit here and go on and on about how amazing it is.
Like I said, I'm disappointed that I never bought the deluxe edition, and actually listened to all the poor reviews. To anyone who hasn't played the game and happens to have read all this, do yourself a favour and pick it up.
Great job, Beamdog team. You did a terrific job, give yourselves a pat on the back.
Post edited by Papa_Lou on
10
Comments
I too envy you having played the game several times and I wish I could forget it just to be able to play it not knowing what will happen.
(They tended to all lead to the same reply anyway).
glad you liked it. For me it was interesting to see a review from someone who hasn't played Bg2, so there is somewhat less inherent bias. I agree, that SoD works really well as an extension of BG.
Unfortunately, it will probably take you some time, before you can evaluate how SoD feels and performs on the "bridging the gap" and "setting the stage" part. I also do vaguely remember some of this "fake"-dialogue options, especially with the witty ones. Sometimes the reply of the NPC was also clearly written for another dialogue option and so the reply felt rather off to me.
It was only occasionaly, but as someone who likes to pick the more opiniated dialogue options, I'd also like the NPC to respond accordingly.