They're well conceived and written for both games, but I feel a much stronger affinity for BG1's gameworld and story than BG2's. So no doubt that affects my appreciation of the characters in both worlds.
They're well conceived and written for both games, but I feel a much stronger affinity for BG1's gameworld and story than BG2's. So no doubt that affects my appreciation of the characters in both worlds.
Same.
Also, other than the lack of dialogue/quests, I just like how the BG1 NPCs were handled. There's a lot of them so there's a lot of alignments and classes covered, a lot of them have individual characteristics such as Kagain's 20CON, Faldorn's Summon Dread Wolf, Yeslick's Dispel Magic, Alora's Lucky Rabbit Foot, Xan's Moonblade etc. This combined with their biographies, soundsets and rivalries was enough to give them an appeal beyond being simply tools of combat. Also they aren't just standing around in the early, hard to miss places waiting for your PC to pick them up, they can be found all throughout the game and in places both unmissable and also quite cryptic, which I think gives the game a bit more flavour.
Hard to answer, BG1 NPCs were threadbare and BG2 NPCs very well developed. So it's easy to form an opinion about the BG2 guys, wheras with those in BG you have to kind of imagine what they are like for yourself.
As many said before me: BG1 had more NPCs and some of them were very good (maybe even better than BG2's), but some were just plain and a bit shallow. In BG2 all of them had great stories and deeply written personalities.
BG1. I haven't seen any other game so far in my long, long years of gaming with cooler evil (and batshit insane) characters than Monty and Xzar. there were a few wannabes here and there, but they either turned out to be morons (Jack in ME2), boring (mr. oh-i'm-so-evil ranger in NWN2, can't even remember the name), or just plain not cool enough. let's just say I was a bit... pissed about what happened with them in BG2. (at least we'll always have Edwin.)
I like the fact that all bg2 npc's (including the ones who had come from bg1) have been through some hard experience and must learn from it:
-Jaheira becomes a widow -Imoen is kidnapped by the cowled ones -Minsc loses his witch -Edwin loses his status as a red wizard. -Viconia is hunted by lolth's servants
-Aerie must learn to cope with the loss of her wings -Anomen must endure several trials and find his sister's murderer. -Cernd must bring balance to trademeet and later you discover that he's been neglecting his family -Keldorn must remain lawful good despite the fact that his wife cheats on him -Haer D'Alis is leaves Sigil for good. -Jan's family is threatened by a rival -Korgan murders his previous party -Mazzy loses her party to the shade lord. -Nalia loses her father and her keep -Yoshimo, well, *spoilers*
With BG2, the NPCs had backgrounds and interactions that didn't involve constant pestering to pursue that character's side quest. NPC banters were quite fascinating in BG2, especially when NPCs would bicker amongst each other. The romances were a cool little feature, though (as I have said in other threads) I wish there was a little more variety. I also really like the inclusion of some of the NPCs from BG1 as random people in BG2 (Faldorn in the druid grove, Quayle in the circus tent, Garrick in an homage to Cyrano, and of course our favorite little ruler Tiax in the loony bin).
Not that I have a problem with the BG1 NPCs, because I thoroughly enjoy the responses from Xan, Edwin, Minsc, and the others.
It's difficult, there were some BG1 NPCs I really liked that didn't make a reappearance, but on balance BG2 was better, since the NPCs were much more involved, with their own quests and more dialogue and so on.
I can't choose, because they're both awesome. I was going to vote for BG1, because I think it has more characters with that "cool" factor, but then, I would almost give it to BG2 for Jan Jansen alone.
Plus, my favorites are really the canon characters, and they're in both.
While BG2 had more interaction, I found many of the characters annoying and there seemed to be fewer options for each class/alignment than in 1 (this might not be true, it just felt like it to me). Also BG1 had Tiax.
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Also, other than the lack of dialogue/quests, I just like how the BG1 NPCs were handled. There's a lot of them so there's a lot of alignments and classes covered, a lot of them have individual characteristics such as Kagain's 20CON, Faldorn's Summon Dread Wolf, Yeslick's Dispel Magic, Alora's Lucky Rabbit Foot, Xan's Moonblade etc. This combined with their biographies, soundsets and rivalries was enough to give them an appeal beyond being simply tools of combat. Also they aren't just standing around in the early, hard to miss places waiting for your PC to pick them up, they can be found all throughout the game and in places both unmissable and also quite cryptic, which I think gives the game a bit more flavour.
BG2 NPCs talked too much and had no sense of timing.
Jaheira is now really the time to ask me to massage the cramp in your leg? I've just drunk a potion of Storm Giant Strength.
I agree with what @Schneidend said though.
-Jaheira becomes a widow
-Imoen is kidnapped by the cowled ones
-Minsc loses his witch
-Edwin loses his status as a red wizard.
-Viconia is hunted by lolth's servants
-Aerie must learn to cope with the loss of her wings
-Anomen must endure several trials and find his sister's murderer.
-Cernd must bring balance to trademeet and later you discover that he's been neglecting his family
-Keldorn must remain lawful good despite the fact that his wife cheats on him
-Haer D'Alis is leaves Sigil for good.
-Jan's family is threatened by a rival
-Korgan murders his previous party
-Mazzy loses her party to the shade lord.
-Nalia loses her father and her keep
-Yoshimo, well, *spoilers*
You see, there's so much depth to NPC's in bg2.
Oh, also in the tutorial for BGII, with INT 25! Go Xan!!11
Not that I have a problem with the BG1 NPCs, because I thoroughly enjoy the responses from Xan, Edwin, Minsc, and the others.
Plus, my favorites are really the canon characters, and they're in both.