Why do you people keep failing to understand this?!
Maybe because your "explanation" makes Irenicus seem like a complete idiot for setting up a situation he had no control over, and no way to ensure the outcome would be to his favor. Defeating Caelar proves CHARNAME's divine essence is strong enough, which is what Irenicus wants; "surviving" a mock trial against a biased Grand Duke has nothing to do with any of that.
was a happy with the overall game and thought beamdog did a great job, the intro with wrapping up with sarevok cronies and ending was pleased with and having "hooded" man throughout was well thought of.
You mean the hooded man that frames you for murder that almost ends with you getting killed? Despite the hooded man actually needs you alive so he can have your soul? Not well thought out, no. Kind of like trying to blow someone's head off with a shotgun because you need the person alive in a year.
My assumption is that if Charname couldn't escape Baldur's Gate, Irenicus would ensure that an opportunity opened up, even if he had to take matters into his own hands.
My PC is a mage, and this seems to be acknowledged a lot more in SoD. Being a magic user seems to provide alternative ways to solve problems which I found pretty cool. Examples: - Pretending to cast an 'anti-ageing spell' on the noblewoman in the Three Old Kegs so she'd give you her necklace.
I never finish this one side quest in the Three Old Kegs with that noblawoman 'cause I dunno how look the anti-ageing spell/scroll and maybe the problem was that Dynaheir can't cast this spell.
I disliked the journal system, which I found confusing. Why include the quests from the base game? It's not like they are going to be used again in this game. Also, the way the journal updates for the tiniest little thing, and basically spoon-feeds you what to do, feels condescending.
The eight million quick save slots make no sense either. Confusing?! If you want more than one save slot just do it the long way, otherwise what is the point of having a quick save slot to begin with?
I finish this game today and I agree about with journal system and lost of quick saves. I was accustomed with old journal system from original game. When you click on journal or press "J" you have on whole display journal with big fonts and easier is read. On newest version you press "J" and it was open really small journal. About quick saves I was annoying when I started play from BG:EE and I had some more quick saves. So I download mod with one quick save and now is better.
Finished it today and I absolutely loved it. I feel the writing coming off as amatuerish is mostly due to its time apart from the rest of the series. I fully believe we are cynical enough that if he had Throne of Bhall now we would call that a glorified fan mod.
The linear nature of it as much as I thought I would be against it I really loved. It had a nice mox of Baldur's Gate II focused areas with Baldur's Gate grt lost exploring some wilderness. The reactions in quests really made me feel there were mutliple ways to go through the game especially with the final battle. I used all the new companions and Dorn and I'm really looking forward to trying some of the others in another run through.
The companions interjecting gave quite a good BG2 vibe about the whole thing and the various little remarks make me feel a replay will add all that more and they are always welcome. M'Khilns however seemed the most off, some of her text seemed to just mumble to herself about some nonsense observation. The best lines are when she is interacting with others.
New characters...love them. Want more of them.
Story. Does a great bloody job dropping an epic quest in the middle of the saga and i was hooked with the hooded man and the first obvious demon behind the scene pulling the strings.
Some very unique approaches to situations. Set up explosives, sneak around the enemy camp. I was a Shadow Dancer and found stealth insanely useful at times.
The extra quick saves. Welcome as all hell. Not asked for but love it.
Voice acting, narrations, characters...all spot on. Irenicus dialogue was amazing and felt very in character.
Ultimately I think you guys tried to create something that felt in the spirit of the original games with a few extra naunces thrown in to make it your own and in my case you have definetly exceeded yourself. For me this expansion rests firmly in the BG Saga and you should all be proud of yourselfs, it is sufficiently epic and it actually makes me sad that you will probably never visit BG again.
Some of the writing was laughably bad. And the worst of the writing was unecessary anyway.
You are the hero of BG and a year later you get captured by Irenicus. Has anyone ever had a problem with this considering that since leaving Candlekeep you have become an "adventurer/dungeon crawler/mercenary ect." with a motley crew of random companions?
Caelar wanted to save her UNCLE?????? Are you kidding me?
Irenicus wandered around with a leather mask on and nobody ever saw him? Where was Bodhi (if you are going to go down that road)
You apparently kill Skie, you know that Skie who was going to run off with Eldoth. And in fact you can facilitate that by taking her into your party, but hang on, she's now so desperate to get away from her father she joins the FF incognito. After hanging out with Eldoth, chances are her father would have sent her to a nunnery or disowned her himself, or she was pregnant, and definitely disgraced, no noble family would have allowed her over the threashold. So the idea that the city, or any of the nobles, would give two hoots was ridiculous. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
The dungeons were good, as the OP said in particular the meeting with the priestess in the Bhaal temple . If they were going to shoehorn Irenicus into this game, that should have been the springboard.
And one thing at the end, wasn't the Soultaker Dagger the one the cult destroys in Ulgoth's Beard after you have retrieved it from Dulag's Tower?
The writing is a tricky subject, because there's details and then there's the big picture of the whole thing. For the most part, I really liked the detail, with the dungeons and the backstory and the wars going on. Much more options and much more creativity than the original games, for sure. The big picture, however, is quite a mess.
I'd say one big problem is that they decided to change up the formula by making Caelar a sympathetic antagonist, but they didn't realize the extent to which this wrote them into a corner. Now, Baldur's Gate, like most RPG's, necessarily has a large degree of railroading built into it. But you know, some parts of that are more excusable than others. The big thing here is that the original games never needed to make excuses for why the player couldn't simply join the antagonists. Sarevok didn't want your allegiance, simply your head. Irenicus saw you as a gnat who had some temporary use before getting swatted. Mellissan needs you dead to take your power. Caelar is different, though, since she doesn't want to be your enemy and just wants your help with her own quest. The PC can't simply say okay at the Coast Way crossing and join up, though, since that would throw the narrative out of whack. The result leads into another way that the potential of an ambiguous foe like Caelar is wasted: you can discuss things with her, but there's very little you're allowed to say. Siege of Dragonspear is ordinarily a lot better than previous games in terms of flexibility in quests and in dialog, but here, you're boxed into the same two or three dialog options, despite the fact that the intricacy of the situation means that you should, by rights, be able to have more different takes on the whole situation. If there was ever occasion for a Planescape: Torment style dialog tree with twelve different options at a time, it was when you conversed with Caelar. Yes, this would have meant a ton of additional work for the writers, but you know, good writing is worth it, and the conflict between Caelar and Gorion's Ward could have made for some excellent writing had it been used to its full potential.
The second issue is the twist with Belhifet. I didn't like it because it made him seem too, well, small. I actually think he's one of my favorite things about Icewind Dale, simply because of his sheer cunning and ambition, rivaling Sarevok, but with law and seduction instead of chaos and betrayal. He was sent to the Prime Material plane as a punishment, exiling him from the Nine Hells, but he immediately saw the opportunity to seize the souls of everyone in Faerun and use them to win the Blood War. The sheer audacity of that makes even Bhaal's resurrection plans seem tame. To see him go from that to simply lusting after a few juicy Aasimar and Bhaalspawn souls for his own is really disappointing, to say nothing of how he goes down like a punk to a much weaker adventuring party than defeated him before. He should have been a threat to rival Irenicus, but that would have been overwhelming for this point in the Bhaalspawn saga. It's a clear case of wanting to tie things together and give fans a cool twist, but without thinking it through the whole way.
@ThacoBell I would say so.. All she wanted to do was save her uncle who sacrificed himself for her if I'm not mistaken.. She kinda used religion to get a bunch of people to follow her that she wasn't sure she could help but I kinda wanted to help her.. not enough to actually side with her but the first encounter on the bridge made me think about it.
I see and understand that thinking, but her actions to fulfill her goal are not justified. She technically is responsible for more deaths and destruction than Sarevok. Her actions alone are enough to condemn her, regardless of intent.
You can interpret Caelar as sympathetically or not as you want, but it's pretty clear from the writing that she's intended to be viewed as such. Beamdog can make some pretty detailed writing when they want to, but I wouldn't call them subtle. I swear, just one dialog line about how if she wanted Charname's assistance, she could have just sent a summons instead of assassins. Oh, and your advisor looks and sounds like a parody of a Zhent, maybe pay closer attention to him.
When confronted about the price on your head, she seems surprised by it and Hephernan deflects her question about it. I wouldn't be surprised if she intended to ask and her subverted her wishes for his master's gain.
I think we should mention that Caelar is a celestial, not a mortal (if I am not mistaken). So, she considers mortals expendable as much as many humans consider rabbits expendable.
Her quest of doing a crusade to save "just" an uncle, seems reasonable writing.
P.s.: don't get me wrong, I love rabbits, It was just for sake of example.
Aasimar's are *usually* just extra-goody goodies, but virtually every edition of D&D that has included Aasimars have noted that *sometimes* grandpa/ma celestial's blood causes weird things to happen and then they end up being decidedly *not* goody-goodies lol.
I just finished SoD finally myself - restarting constantly hung me up for the longest time.
I liked it. In a cruel way, I'd say that SoD was harder for me than BG1 or BG2 presently is - maybe that's just a feature of it being a new game I haven't played hundreds of times. But it could also be the sheer number of extraordinary abilities your enemies have. It felt good to really struggle again and took me back to when I was playing BG1 as a clueless 12 year old lol.
The story was fine. The central antagonist was well written, and her *belief* that she was doing the right thing, and manipulation of thousands of people to fall in line, was great.
I also enjoy the really nit-picky types who get upset the introduction of the soul-taker dagger. There's no rule that only one soul-taker dagger was ever made. In fact, if it was created to deal with a Alec'tec, you would assume there's actually quite a number of such daggers scattered around.
I was happy with the writing, and ultimately the narrative space that SoD occupied was too constricted to be anything, but linear on the macro scale - micro scale you *do* get some choices of course - which is basically how BG always was. You kill Saervok regardless to complete the game no matter your motivation, and your having flooded or not flooded some mines somewhere really doesn't influence that at all.
The game also looked glorious very nice art direction on the level design and I liked the new NPCs and banters. Some of the visual moments in SoD are really remarkable. That's what *really* stuck with me.
My only real criticism is that I felt a lot of the levels were *too* big. A lot of the "dungeon" excursions could've easily been broken up into smaller more manageable chunks and the game would've been slightly more easy as a result. As it stands several of the levels are just so big it's virtually impossible to get through them without resting - and if you choose not to you're going to expend quite an amount of GP on potions to get through - I was flat broke at the end of SoD lol. Granted, we have more PC power now, so perhaps part of the smaller level design in BG1-2 was space/hardware limitations, but SoD's levels are some of the biggest/longest in both games and that results in a party of the 8-11 power level really getting worn down.
I was happy with the writing, and ultimately the narrative space that SoD occupied was too constricted to be anything, but linear on the macro scale - micro scale you *do* get some choices of course - which is basically how BG always was. You kill Saervok regardless to complete the game no matter your motivation, and your having flooded or not flooded some mines somewhere really doesn't influence that at all.
The difference being there was never an option to join Sarevok dangled in front of you and even if there was you know he would never accept so the path was clear and made sense. In SoD not only are there clear hints in the writing that joining her could be possible but there is also no reason why you couldn't have joined Caelar, the end result is the same whether you help her or not. In fact joining Caelar and preventing the fighting between her forces and that of the aliiance' would actually have potentially saved many more lives.
Well Caelar is hell bent on opening the portal regardless which would put everybody at risk anyhow (and she would still need your blood to do it) - although interestingly enough apparently in 4th edition they forgot about the demon portal and went purely with undead for Dragonspear, and I guess they're now back to demons for 5th ed? You do however get some dialogue to try to get Sarevok to join with you to murder everybody, but he says no At least for a little while lol.
Most of the potentially friendly dialogue I recall with Caelar also comes before you really understand what she's trying to do - when everybody thinks it's just a crusade led by a paladin of Lothander sure maybe you could join. Once you figure out what it's really all about it's hard to come up with a consistent motivation for joining - you'd still have to open the portal for her with no way to seal it. Pretty big risk just to do somebody a favor - and most of the armies would probably die in hell anyways - since a child of a God had enough trouble as it was lol.
I'm just going to use this thread to share my personal thoughts on SoD, as I also have just finished it for the very first time.
Story and companions: Overall, I think the story the game decided to tell was relatively well executed, though the goals of the crusade should've been made more obvious early on (this is a mass movement where hundreds of random people join, finding out why they're doing what they're doing shouldn't be very hard). The story device of being part of a moving army makes this game a little bit too linear for my tastes.
When it comes to sidequests, I think the sidequests in the city of Baldur's Gate were kind of... terrible. They improve a lot once you leave the city, but most of them are relatively average in quality. I did like the dwarves of dumathoin, though that's the only one that stood out to me.
The characters in the story were okay for the most part. Caelar is a somehwat unusual antagonist, but she also has some annoying Mary Sue qualities - and she kind of feels like a less sympathetic and less well written version of Kaelyn the Dove from MotB. The inclusion of the hooded figure was nice, but felt a bit random at some times. As for the companions: Not a fan of suddenly having Safana forced into my party at the beginning. The overall choice of companions is good enough - when it comes to the new ones, I only had Corwin and Glint in my party. I didn't think Corwin was very likeable (though as an archer, she was quite useful in terms of gameplay), but Glint was great - in my opinion the best thing about the entire game. His classes, his stats, his dialogue, his voice acting, I like all of it, and he quickly managed to become one of my favorite companions in the entire series.
The writing for the other ones I took along was mostly fine, though a bit too focused on their quirks for my taste (I'll admit that the main games are sometimes guilty of this as well). Jaheira kind of felt like a non-entity, which doesn't fit her character at all, and the lack of voice acting is really strange in context.
On average, I think the story and companions are on a comparable or higher level than BG1, but slightly below the standards of BG2 (though BG1 has a better villain, and BG2 also has some unfortunate railroading in its story, despite being less linear than SoD).
Gameplay: I played on insane difficulty without extra damage, mostly to get the best AI possible. I expected an SCS-like experience, but it felt more like I was playing IWD (with better AI). The hordes upon hordes of enemies tend to get boring for me (not a big fan of IWD combat) - and the boss fights were mostly just incredibly easy (I even killed the dragon on my first try without any significant preparation, while I had to reload multiple times for random trash groups). The main problem with the way SoD does difficulty is that pretty much everything can be solved by throwing massive numbers of fireballs at it - most encounters, I just had Dynaheir and the PC spam wands of fire, two other party members use necklaces of missles and the other ones potions of explosion (sometimes with a fire-immune tank in front to keep enemies busy). An easy, but kind of boring way to solve almost every problem, and almost all of my reloads were the result of not just sticking to that way of playing.
Honestly, the only fight that felt somewhat different and still challenging was the final battle, where the main difficulty involves buffing the party with key spells as quickly as possible while under fire after you get all of your buffs dispelled at the beginning.
Well, if you like IWD, what I described is propably not a negative for you, so - I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer the more tactical BG2 combat with smaller groups and fewer encounters.
With these two things combined, I would say that in terms of enjoyment, SoD for me was like playing IWD with more story and BG2-style companions (though IWD has a more impressive atmosphere). Like IWD, I'm not very likely to play it a lot (since gameplay is the most important thing for me, even in roleplaying games), but I might get back to it at some point. And I'd really like Glint to be available in the main games!
Particularly agree about the combat. Playing through for a third time at the moment, frankly it's boring. Now I suppose I could drop the wands and casters but that would simply force me to ensure I had at least two heavy hitters which is just another restriction.
Overall i liked the game, but i do have a lot of things i did not like. First and foremost the Railroadedness and the inability to go back and explore is an absolutely horrible decision from Beamdog, even BG2 with its railroaded underdark chapter would let you have a chance to go back and clear whatever sidequests and exploring you missed before.
I absolutely loathe the part when the camp is under attack at you are given a choice of what troops to send where. I mean seriously??... uh if i have a bunch of wizard slayers should i maybe send them against wizards?!?... That part reminded me of the toy you give babies, the box with the different chaped holes, and then bricks that have those shapes.. We are not babies or new to the game at that point in the game! Stop treating us as imbeciles!
It is not really possible to make an all evil party, why the ....... would you put a cool (and evil) NPC as Tiax in the game and then pull the possibility to have him join your party from under our noses. That is just another finger in the players face!
This has been a very negative post, wich wassent the point, from the start. Im just a very passionate fan (ans as you all know passionate fans are the most annoying!)
well the thing is why would you want to go back? there are not that many side quests in each area and you'll everything done by the time you move on anyways.
this may be why the railroading does not bother me as much as it did my first run.
atlest it's better then tob which barely had any side content unless you had an ee npc or a mods.
well the thing is why would you want to go back? there are not that many side quests in each area and you'll everything done by the time you move on anyways.
Just because you managed to exhaust your side quests before clicking the point of no return doesn't mean everyone else did. It's the exact type of thing that leaves a bad taste in your mouth on your first playthrough.
well the thing is why would you want to go back? there are not that many side quests in each area and you'll everything done by the time you move on anyways.
Just because you managed to exhaust your side quests before clicking the point of no return doesn't mean everyone else did. It's the exact type of thing that leaves a bad taste in your mouth on your first playthrough.
your never gonna do all the side quests in your first run anyways. heck there are alot of side quests in bg1 and 2 i still have not done.
your never gonna do all the side quests in your first run anyways. heck there are alot of side quests in bg1 and 2 i still have not done.
You might want the opportunity, though. I know I felt gypped when I realized there were more sidequests in Baldur's Gate than just the break-in at Sorcerous Sundries on my first run.
After couple of runs through SoD, I'm full of contradicting and disturbing emotions about the writing, mostly things that stir inside me making me painfully uncomfortable after playing SoD, revolve around 3 things - Bhaalspawn in campaign, Caelar Argent behaviour and Hooded Man. I need to write my frustration down to get rid of it, so bear with me (spoilers ahead).
1. Bhaalspawn in campaign
Why the hell is my Bhaalspawn serving the Dukes and serving in the military? Saving one duke and making sushi from Sarevok doesn't oblige the Bhaalspawn to serve Baldurs Gate on official level.
You had one job, Beamdog, for Bhaal's sake. There are evil parties, normal parties and good parties. There are lawful parties, neutral parties and chaotic parties. That's the foundation of the setting you were working with. Serving the Dukes and serving the military is only lawful, and either neutral or good. I felt pushed into the situation my character would not be in for this game setting. There are so many roleplay patterns that would have absolutely nothing to do with BG government or military that the moment you decided to make those dialogue lines with choice between serving the Dukes in an affermative way and serving the Dukes in a grumpy or smartass way, you've bothered about half of players who would play your campaign, at minimum. How hard was it to make an option to follow the coalition in our own independent way? It would be more work, but it wouldn't feel so damn limiting and alien to many players. It's clear as day that any - any! - chaotic or evil party would not tolerate Dukes or military command giving them orders and bossing them around.
Completing the SoD campaingn two times I also can't see if it was required. The story is about covert operations against Crusade and breaching into Avernus, messing with devils and demons, and getting framed of something in the end. What part of this requires serving anyone in the process?
For any non-lawful charactes there is zero reason to go against Crusade and Caelar Argent at all. I suspect that asassination attempt should have been that reason, but my character gets asassination attempts on any random encounter when travelling between locations of Sword Coast by bandit bowmen, wolves, wyverns, ghouls etc. Also, an asassination from a Lawful Good Aasimar that needs cooperation from Bhaalspawn, WHAT???
A good writing would be giving some Bhaal-related reason to set on adventure. Something to learn about the prophecy, to meet another powerful Bhaalspawn, to meet someone who might know what to do with this, etc. - that would interweave with the Crusade vs Coalition buisness. What I feel like playing SoD and meeting Caelar Argent on the bridge - "I have no buisness with you, I have no buisness with Crusade or Coalition, or Avernus and its devils, so let's be done with it so I can collect useful spells and begin SoA campaign asap". Fail.
2. Caelar Argent
Oh where do I even start. Is she lawful good or chaotic neutral? Her true reasoning, methods chosen and actions are NOT lawful. Her treating of people as expendables and means to her end are NOT good. Her motive to serve the devil after being beaten is absolutely chaotic (and ridiculous for an Aasimar). Does she want Bhaalspawn to join her in her assault on Nine Hells or does she want to kill them, sending asassins in BG and attacking coalition camp? I would join her 10/10 immediately and happily spend all SoD campaign battling in Avernus, sending all Dukes, Crusade, Coalition and friggin poisoning and mass murder of innocent people on both sides up the SoD writer's arse.
3. Hooded Man
The letter in random encounter's cave and dialogues pretty much tell that this is Jon Irenicus trying to figure out if he will use Bhaalspawn or an Aasimar for... something. Never ever did I feel that the Hooded Man is Irenicus by what he is telling, doing and for whose sake, so only more or less direct hint from developer told me that this is SoA Joneleth, which is really inconsistent with his character from SoA.
Let's recollect the Jon Irenicus we know:
- he's an egoist seeking godhood, not valueing anyone else' interests, life or souls for his own goals
- he's suffering memory loss and face issues from godly curse, made by Ellesime
- because of love-hate to her, he's torturing her clones with absolute sadism
- preferes torture and forceful magical experiments on Bhaalspawn to figure out how to use his divinity to avert his own curse, to achieve his own goals of seeking his own godhood by sapping power from Suldanessar tree.
Ok now let's talk about the Hooded Man:
- he is interested in progress of Bhaalspawn's powers in a natural free way
- isn't in any kind of a hurry
- is chilled and in good memory
- hints to the future struggles of Bhaalspawn in Throne of Bhaal campaign
- is in COMPLETE CONTROL of Bhaalspawn, playing him like a puppet at times needed, having ZERO NEED in sending Shadow thieves to subdue Bhaalspawn, easily getting into bedchambers and cells, psy-shocking, dominating, inducing hallucinations etc.
Do those two characters seem completely different to me alone? The first time I saw Hooded Man, he was looking like someone from the Bhaalspawn meeting in ToB intro movie. The only other powerful creature who was interested in Bhaalspawn's own progress and fate was Firkraag, may his fireproof Carsomyr-holding arse Rest In Pepperonies.
4. Ashatiel
Yes I said there were 3 points, but this one was unexpectedly painful and off-putting. NI says she's a F/M/C 9/10/9 lawful good and has no dialogue except the duel to death. I'm checking because I could not believe that my Bhaalspawn neutral good priest of Lathander one-shotted her with Slay Living vs a failed saving throw, and that was the only content for her. How bad is it? She's an angelic being with prejudice for Bhaalspawn, SoD campaign is for lawful and/or good parties and it would be fitting to have a way to change her mind, for an obvious example, best her in a duel and capture, make her see what kind of psychopatic treacherous idiot Caelar Argent is, and release her unconditionally, making her see that it's not blood that makes good or bad choices. That's the good way, for a good PC. That would be, if there was good writing and fitting choices for main alignments. As I sat back in shock and disbelief after slaying her, not being able to resurrect her, and as the plot moved forwards, casting her corpse away into oblivion, I felt like my character would never do that, given any freedom not to, and that I don't want to replay this encounter ever again.
What I liked in SoD:
- M'Khiin
- Keyring container
- two lich battles, timestop + abi-dalzims vs a PC party of noobs
- Breach, Spell Immunity and Lower Resistance to be memorized for SoA
Rest is very very questionable to the point that I'd prefer to skip SoD in EET playthrough.
p.s. I've completed my first playthrough with World's Edge from Durlag Tower and in Tamoko's Full Plate +1. Yay great loot thanks game.
Comments
anti-ageing spell/scroll and maybe the problem was that Dynaheir can't cast this spell.
The linear nature of it as much as I thought I would be against it I really loved. It had a nice mox of Baldur's Gate II focused areas with Baldur's Gate grt lost exploring some wilderness. The reactions in quests really made me feel there were mutliple ways to go through the game especially with the final battle. I used all the new companions and Dorn and I'm really looking forward to trying some of the others in another run through.
The companions interjecting gave quite a good BG2 vibe about the whole thing and the various little remarks make me feel a replay will add all that more and they are always welcome. M'Khilns however seemed the most off, some of her text seemed to just mumble to herself about some nonsense observation. The best lines are when she is interacting with others.
New characters...love them. Want more of them.
Story. Does a great bloody job dropping an epic quest in the middle of the saga and i was hooked with the hooded man and the first obvious demon behind the scene pulling the strings.
Some very unique approaches to situations. Set up explosives, sneak around the enemy camp. I was a Shadow Dancer and found stealth insanely useful at times.
The extra quick saves. Welcome as all hell. Not asked for but love it.
Voice acting, narrations, characters...all spot on. Irenicus dialogue was amazing and felt very in character.
Ultimately I think you guys tried to create something that felt in the spirit of the original games with a few extra naunces thrown in to make it your own and in my case you have definetly exceeded yourself. For me this expansion rests firmly in the BG Saga and you should all be proud of yourselfs, it is sufficiently epic and it actually makes me sad that you will probably never visit BG again.
...Maybe BGII though?
Some of the writing was laughably bad.
And the worst of the writing was unecessary anyway.
You are the hero of BG and a year later you get captured by Irenicus.
Has anyone ever had a problem with this considering that since leaving Candlekeep you have become an "adventurer/dungeon crawler/mercenary ect." with a motley crew of random companions?
Caelar wanted to save her UNCLE??????
Are you kidding me?
Irenicus wandered around with a leather mask on and nobody ever saw him?
Where was Bodhi (if you are going to go down that road)
You apparently kill Skie, you know that Skie who was going to run off with Eldoth. And in fact you can facilitate that by taking her into your party, but hang on, she's now so desperate to get away from her father she joins the FF incognito.
After hanging out with Eldoth, chances are her father would have sent her to a nunnery or disowned her himself, or she was pregnant, and definitely disgraced, no noble family would have allowed her over the threashold. So the idea that the city, or any of the nobles, would give two hoots was ridiculous. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
The dungeons were good, as the OP said in particular the meeting with the priestess in the Bhaal temple . If they were going to shoehorn Irenicus into this game, that should have been the springboard.
And one thing at the end, wasn't the Soultaker Dagger the one the cult destroys in Ulgoth's Beard after you have retrieved it from Dulag's Tower?
I'd say one big problem is that they decided to change up the formula by making Caelar a sympathetic antagonist, but they didn't realize the extent to which this wrote them into a corner. Now, Baldur's Gate, like most RPG's, necessarily has a large degree of railroading built into it. But you know, some parts of that are more excusable than others. The big thing here is that the original games never needed to make excuses for why the player couldn't simply join the antagonists. Sarevok didn't want your allegiance, simply your head. Irenicus saw you as a gnat who had some temporary use before getting swatted. Mellissan needs you dead to take your power. Caelar is different, though, since she doesn't want to be your enemy and just wants your help with her own quest. The PC can't simply say okay at the Coast Way crossing and join up, though, since that would throw the narrative out of whack. The result leads into another way that the potential of an ambiguous foe like Caelar is wasted: you can discuss things with her, but there's very little you're allowed to say. Siege of Dragonspear is ordinarily a lot better than previous games in terms of flexibility in quests and in dialog, but here, you're boxed into the same two or three dialog options, despite the fact that the intricacy of the situation means that you should, by rights, be able to have more different takes on the whole situation. If there was ever occasion for a Planescape: Torment style dialog tree with twelve different options at a time, it was when you conversed with Caelar. Yes, this would have meant a ton of additional work for the writers, but you know, good writing is worth it, and the conflict between Caelar and Gorion's Ward could have made for some excellent writing had it been used to its full potential.
The second issue is the twist with Belhifet. I didn't like it because it made him seem too, well, small. I actually think he's one of my favorite things about Icewind Dale, simply because of his sheer cunning and ambition, rivaling Sarevok, but with law and seduction instead of chaos and betrayal. He was sent to the Prime Material plane as a punishment, exiling him from the Nine Hells, but he immediately saw the opportunity to seize the souls of everyone in Faerun and use them to win the Blood War. The sheer audacity of that makes even Bhaal's resurrection plans seem tame. To see him go from that to simply lusting after a few juicy Aasimar and Bhaalspawn souls for his own is really disappointing, to say nothing of how he goes down like a punk to a much weaker adventuring party than defeated him before. He should have been a threat to rival Irenicus, but that would have been overwhelming for this point in the Bhaalspawn saga. It's a clear case of wanting to tie things together and give fans a cool twist, but without thinking it through the whole way.
So, she considers mortals expendable as much as many humans consider rabbits expendable.
Her quest of doing a crusade to save "just" an uncle, seems reasonable writing.
P.s.: don't get me wrong, I love rabbits, It was just for sake of example.
I just finished SoD finally myself - restarting constantly hung me up for the longest time.
I liked it. In a cruel way, I'd say that SoD was harder for me than BG1 or BG2 presently is - maybe that's just a feature of it being a new game I haven't played hundreds of times. But it could also be the sheer number of extraordinary abilities your enemies have. It felt good to really struggle again and took me back to when I was playing BG1 as a clueless 12 year old lol.
The story was fine. The central antagonist was well written, and her *belief* that she was doing the right thing, and manipulation of thousands of people to fall in line, was great.
I also enjoy the really nit-picky types who get upset the introduction of the soul-taker dagger. There's no rule that only one soul-taker dagger was ever made. In fact, if it was created to deal with a Alec'tec, you would assume there's actually quite a number of such daggers scattered around.
I was happy with the writing, and ultimately the narrative space that SoD occupied was too constricted to be anything, but linear on the macro scale - micro scale you *do* get some choices of course - which is basically how BG always was. You kill Saervok regardless to complete the game no matter your motivation, and your having flooded or not flooded some mines somewhere really doesn't influence that at all.
The game also looked glorious very nice art direction on the level design and I liked the new NPCs and banters. Some of the visual moments in SoD are really remarkable. That's what *really* stuck with me.
My only real criticism is that I felt a lot of the levels were *too* big. A lot of the "dungeon" excursions could've easily been broken up into smaller more manageable chunks and the game would've been slightly more easy as a result. As it stands several of the levels are just so big it's virtually impossible to get through them without resting - and if you choose not to you're going to expend quite an amount of GP on potions to get through - I was flat broke at the end of SoD lol. Granted, we have more PC power now, so perhaps part of the smaller level design in BG1-2 was space/hardware limitations, but SoD's levels are some of the biggest/longest in both games and that results in a party of the 8-11 power level really getting worn down.
Most of the potentially friendly dialogue I recall with Caelar also comes before you really understand what she's trying to do - when everybody thinks it's just a crusade led by a paladin of Lothander sure maybe you could join. Once you figure out what it's really all about it's hard to come up with a consistent motivation for joining - you'd still have to open the portal for her with no way to seal it. Pretty big risk just to do somebody a favor - and most of the armies would probably die in hell anyways - since a child of a God had enough trouble as it was lol.
Story and companions:
Overall, I think the story the game decided to tell was relatively well executed, though the goals of the crusade should've been made more obvious early on (this is a mass movement where hundreds of random people join, finding out why they're doing what they're doing shouldn't be very hard). The story device of being part of a moving army makes this game a little bit too linear for my tastes.
When it comes to sidequests, I think the sidequests in the city of Baldur's Gate were kind of... terrible. They improve a lot once you leave the city, but most of them are relatively average in quality. I did like the dwarves of dumathoin, though that's the only one that stood out to me.
The characters in the story were okay for the most part. Caelar is a somehwat unusual antagonist, but she also has some annoying Mary Sue qualities - and she kind of feels like a less sympathetic and less well written version of Kaelyn the Dove from MotB. The inclusion of the hooded figure was nice, but felt a bit random at some times. As for the companions: Not a fan of suddenly having Safana forced into my party at the beginning. The overall choice of companions is good enough - when it comes to the new ones, I only had Corwin and Glint in my party. I didn't think Corwin was very likeable (though as an archer, she was quite useful in terms of gameplay), but Glint was great - in my opinion the best thing about the entire game. His classes, his stats, his dialogue, his voice acting, I like all of it, and he quickly managed to become one of my favorite companions in the entire series.
The writing for the other ones I took along was mostly fine, though a bit too focused on their quirks for my taste (I'll admit that the main games are sometimes guilty of this as well). Jaheira kind of felt like a non-entity, which doesn't fit her character at all, and the lack of voice acting is really strange in context.
On average, I think the story and companions are on a comparable or higher level than BG1, but slightly below the standards of BG2 (though BG1 has a better villain, and BG2 also has some unfortunate railroading in its story, despite being less linear than SoD).
Gameplay:
I played on insane difficulty without extra damage, mostly to get the best AI possible. I expected an SCS-like experience, but it felt more like I was playing IWD (with better AI). The hordes upon hordes of enemies tend to get boring for me (not a big fan of IWD combat) - and the boss fights were mostly just incredibly easy (I even killed the dragon on my first try without any significant preparation, while I had to reload multiple times for random trash groups).
The main problem with the way SoD does difficulty is that pretty much everything can be solved by throwing massive numbers of fireballs at it - most encounters, I just had Dynaheir and the PC spam wands of fire, two other party members use necklaces of missles and the other ones potions of explosion (sometimes with a fire-immune tank in front to keep enemies busy). An easy, but kind of boring way to solve almost every problem, and almost all of my reloads were the result of not just sticking to that way of playing.
Honestly, the only fight that felt somewhat different and still challenging was the final battle, where the main difficulty involves buffing the party with key spells as quickly as possible while under fire after you get all of your buffs dispelled at the beginning.
Well, if you like IWD, what I described is propably not a negative for you, so - I guess its a matter of taste. I prefer the more tactical BG2 combat with smaller groups and fewer encounters.
With these two things combined, I would say that in terms of enjoyment, SoD for me was like playing IWD with more story and BG2-style companions (though IWD has a more impressive atmosphere). Like IWD, I'm not very likely to play it a lot (since gameplay is the most important thing for me, even in roleplaying games), but I might get back to it at some point. And I'd really like Glint to be available in the main games!
Good review.
Particularly agree about the combat.
Playing through for a third time at the moment, frankly it's boring. Now I suppose I could drop the wands and casters but that would simply force me to ensure I had at least two heavy hitters which is just another restriction.
First and foremost the Railroadedness and the inability to go back and explore is an absolutely horrible decision from Beamdog, even BG2 with its railroaded underdark chapter would let you have a chance to go back and clear whatever sidequests and exploring you missed before.
I absolutely loathe the part when the camp is under attack at you are given a choice of what troops to send where. I mean seriously??... uh if i have a bunch of wizard slayers should i maybe send them against wizards?!?... That part reminded me of the toy you give babies, the box with the different chaped holes, and then bricks that have those shapes.. We are not babies or new to the game at that point in the game! Stop treating us as imbeciles!
It is not really possible to make an all evil party, why the ....... would you put a cool (and evil) NPC as Tiax in the game and then pull the possibility to have him join your party from under our noses. That is just another finger in the players face!
This has been a very negative post, wich wassent the point, from the start. Im just a very passionate fan (ans as you all know passionate fans are the most annoying!)
this may be why the railroading does not bother me as much as it did my first run.
atlest it's better then tob which barely had any side content unless you had an ee npc or a mods.
1. Bhaalspawn in campaign
Why the hell is my Bhaalspawn serving the Dukes and serving in the military? Saving one duke and making sushi from Sarevok doesn't oblige the Bhaalspawn to serve Baldurs Gate on official level.
You had one job, Beamdog, for Bhaal's sake. There are evil parties, normal parties and good parties. There are lawful parties, neutral parties and chaotic parties. That's the foundation of the setting you were working with. Serving the Dukes and serving the military is only lawful, and either neutral or good. I felt pushed into the situation my character would not be in for this game setting. There are so many roleplay patterns that would have absolutely nothing to do with BG government or military that the moment you decided to make those dialogue lines with choice between serving the Dukes in an affermative way and serving the Dukes in a grumpy or smartass way, you've bothered about half of players who would play your campaign, at minimum. How hard was it to make an option to follow the coalition in our own independent way? It would be more work, but it wouldn't feel so damn limiting and alien to many players. It's clear as day that any - any! - chaotic or evil party would not tolerate Dukes or military command giving them orders and bossing them around.
Completing the SoD campaingn two times I also can't see if it was required. The story is about covert operations against Crusade and breaching into Avernus, messing with devils and demons, and getting framed of something in the end. What part of this requires serving anyone in the process?
For any non-lawful charactes there is zero reason to go against Crusade and Caelar Argent at all. I suspect that asassination attempt should have been that reason, but my character gets asassination attempts on any random encounter when travelling between locations of Sword Coast by bandit bowmen, wolves, wyverns, ghouls etc. Also, an asassination from a Lawful Good Aasimar that needs cooperation from Bhaalspawn, WHAT???
A good writing would be giving some Bhaal-related reason to set on adventure. Something to learn about the prophecy, to meet another powerful Bhaalspawn, to meet someone who might know what to do with this, etc. - that would interweave with the Crusade vs Coalition buisness. What I feel like playing SoD and meeting Caelar Argent on the bridge - "I have no buisness with you, I have no buisness with Crusade or Coalition, or Avernus and its devils, so let's be done with it so I can collect useful spells and begin SoA campaign asap". Fail.
2. Caelar Argent
Oh where do I even start. Is she lawful good or chaotic neutral? Her true reasoning, methods chosen and actions are NOT lawful. Her treating of people as expendables and means to her end are NOT good. Her motive to serve the devil after being beaten is absolutely chaotic (and ridiculous for an Aasimar). Does she want Bhaalspawn to join her in her assault on Nine Hells or does she want to kill them, sending asassins in BG and attacking coalition camp? I would join her 10/10 immediately and happily spend all SoD campaign battling in Avernus, sending all Dukes, Crusade, Coalition and friggin poisoning and mass murder of innocent people on both sides up the SoD writer's arse.
3. Hooded Man
The letter in random encounter's cave and dialogues pretty much tell that this is Jon Irenicus trying to figure out if he will use Bhaalspawn or an Aasimar for... something. Never ever did I feel that the Hooded Man is Irenicus by what he is telling, doing and for whose sake, so only more or less direct hint from developer told me that this is SoA Joneleth, which is really inconsistent with his character from SoA.
Let's recollect the Jon Irenicus we know:
- he's an egoist seeking godhood, not valueing anyone else' interests, life or souls for his own goals
- he's suffering memory loss and face issues from godly curse, made by Ellesime
- because of love-hate to her, he's torturing her clones with absolute sadism
- preferes torture and forceful magical experiments on Bhaalspawn to figure out how to use his divinity to avert his own curse, to achieve his own goals of seeking his own godhood by sapping power from Suldanessar tree.
Ok now let's talk about the Hooded Man:
- he is interested in progress of Bhaalspawn's powers in a natural free way
- isn't in any kind of a hurry
- is chilled and in good memory
- hints to the future struggles of Bhaalspawn in Throne of Bhaal campaign
- is in COMPLETE CONTROL of Bhaalspawn, playing him like a puppet at times needed, having ZERO NEED in sending Shadow thieves to subdue Bhaalspawn, easily getting into bedchambers and cells, psy-shocking, dominating, inducing hallucinations etc.
Do those two characters seem completely different to me alone? The first time I saw Hooded Man, he was looking like someone from the Bhaalspawn meeting in ToB intro movie. The only other powerful creature who was interested in Bhaalspawn's own progress and fate was Firkraag, may his fireproof Carsomyr-holding arse Rest In Pepperonies.
4. Ashatiel
Yes I said there were 3 points, but this one was unexpectedly painful and off-putting. NI says she's a F/M/C 9/10/9 lawful good and has no dialogue except the duel to death. I'm checking because I could not believe that my Bhaalspawn neutral good priest of Lathander one-shotted her with Slay Living vs a failed saving throw, and that was the only content for her. How bad is it? She's an angelic being with prejudice for Bhaalspawn, SoD campaign is for lawful and/or good parties and it would be fitting to have a way to change her mind, for an obvious example, best her in a duel and capture, make her see what kind of psychopatic treacherous idiot Caelar Argent is, and release her unconditionally, making her see that it's not blood that makes good or bad choices. That's the good way, for a good PC. That would be, if there was good writing and fitting choices for main alignments. As I sat back in shock and disbelief after slaying her, not being able to resurrect her, and as the plot moved forwards, casting her corpse away into oblivion, I felt like my character would never do that, given any freedom not to, and that I don't want to replay this encounter ever again.
What I liked in SoD:
- M'Khiin
- Keyring container
- two lich battles, timestop + abi-dalzims vs a PC party of noobs
- Breach, Spell Immunity and Lower Resistance to be memorized for SoA
Rest is very very questionable to the point that I'd prefer to skip SoD in EET playthrough.
p.s. I've completed my first playthrough with World's Edge from Durlag Tower and in Tamoko's Full Plate +1. Yay great loot thanks game.