The most fun you’ve had playing this game.
Nimran
Member Posts: 4,875
What is the most entertaining moment in the game for you? This can either be a part of the game itself or a personal experience you had that may or may not have been experienced by anyone else.
For me, there was this moment during the final battle in SoA when Anomen got chunked. I was like “Welp, now I don’t need pick who
For me, there was this moment during the final battle in SoA when Anomen got chunked. I was like “Welp, now I don’t need pick who
Sarevok
replaces.” 4
Comments
The best part of BG2 was the ending cutscene with these creepy Illuminati-like robed guys. "Gorion's ward has become too powerful." Left me trembling with anticipation for the grand finale.
2. Getting to the final TOB SCS Ascension fight with a solo totemic druid.
3. Winning against the drow army in Improved Ust-Natha without using HLAs or post-3 mln XP abilities/spells.
It's just the freshest memory of a unique experience. I've never been able to participate in multiplayer, and watching a friend stream a difficult fight, trying to remember that I can't hit pause or scroll the combat log, trying to remember that shouting "watch out there!" won't be heard, the relief when it finally ended in such a surprising way, was as close to that shared experience of playing with others as I could get.
1. My elven berserker's survival after running an improved Drow gauntlet in Ust-Natha (same as @JuliusBorisov it seems!). That running battle was so harrowing, I still remember it after almost 15 years of on and off playing this game! He was a a dual-wielding longsword specialist and running practically solo most of the game. Observing the true neutral ethos, he was focused on making this mythical sword he had heard lore about, the Equalizer. Yes, I know the myth was greater than the eventual reality, but I did not know that then which was part of the allure!
2. My 1/2 elven blade finally getting the hang of using offensive and defensive spin with their cool graphics while all buffed up during the Unseeing Eye quest and totally owning his opponents one after the other. This was many years ago and was my first blade. I found the class very fresh and entertaining back then and superior fun to the F/Ms I played prior to this charname. I did the bard stronghold, romanced Viconia (or Jahiera, do not exactly remember) and generally played him as a failed actor that took up magic and sword-work to make a living for him and his familiar.
3. My current elven bounty hunter run has me fully engrossed in mid-game SoA. Since the EEs, I play much, much more BG than BG2 and have not gotten this far in BG2 in many, many years so it is practically like a brand new game, especially with SCS changing the fights and challenge difficulty and also with the new EE content (a shout out for that ring of duplication in the monk quest as an outstanding item for thieves!). I enjoy the traps and sneaky recon tremendously and also continually get a thrill from high backstab numbers (I just did 164 damage with the staff spear last night). He is a pragmatic neutral mercenary, so has hired party members he deems as the most skilled in their professions without regard to alignment or ethos, i.e. Korgan for his fighting skill and Edwin for his magic prowess, while Yoshimo is along as a fellow professional bounty hunter (and so I can focus on stealth and DI).
With the BH, Viconia just got rescued and has joined as the party healer (I play with Tweaks that removes romance racial restrictions so will also romance her and try and turn her towards neutrality in ToB), but am also considering replacing her with Anomen and then coaxing him towards failing his trial so he becomes chaotic neutral as it fits this group better than lawful good. It is a rough group!
As you can probably guess from the above, for me the most memorable and entertaining times are when charnames I am attached to do something new or outstanding, like my BH mazing enemies for the first time, or charname becoming a whirling dervish of magic-tinged steel as a blade, or that old berserker charname beating unsurmountable odds odds to emerge from the Underdark alive. Those moments are when the game is most entertaining for me.
2 other amazing moments were soloing LoB/SCS/Ascension Demogorgon and Amelyssan for the first time, that was some fun mind puzzles especially after posting my failures and receiving tips to push it through. Even if that was a personnal achievement, it felt like a group effort to me.
I'm not an OG player so i don't have any old memories but i have a 5 minutes of ''child during a christmas morning'' feeling everytime i discover something new, which still happens on every playthrough even on classes that i already placed and every success is a step further towards NR, which i am pretty close to achieve but still lack the knowledge of. Still great to find safe approaches by myself progressively. I always forget a lightning trap somewhere in BG1 or an acid trap in BG2 that end up one shotting me. The only two Solo LoB/SCS playthrough that i did are the most memorable to me as there is something special about writing your journey instead of only playing through it.
Absolutely. It's the true cure to restartitis.
1. Not a BG2 memory, but I still remember the first time I ever beat Sarevok back in BG1. This was back when Sarevok had 100% Magic Resistance, so my pure Mage PC was well and truly neutered in that fight... And then I had a brainstorm. I went back and bought up all the Wands of Monster Summoning I could find, and then proceeded to summon just so, so, SO many Hobgoblins. (This was back before there was a summon cap too.) I mobbed Sarevok with all those Hobbos ("SPARE NO ONE!") and then filled him full of arrows while he vainly tried to chop through my army. Cheesy, yes, but supremely effective!
2. For some reason most of the BG2 fights weren't terribly standout in my memory, but I do recall the first time I ever beat Demogorgon and just crowing in triumph that I did it.
3. One of the funniest moments I had in ToB came during the Solar Trial where you have to face your opposite copy. As soon as the fight started, Sarevok made a beeline for Evil Me and proceeded to insta-chunk it with a 200 point Deathbringer Assault.
Me: "... Soooo, I see you're still harboring some resentment about losing to me back in Baldur's Gate, brother."
4. Another hilarious moment came when Aerie had her baby... RIGHT as I was about to face Melissande for the final battle.
Aerie: "Oh, my love! The baby's coming!"
Me: "... NOW?!" (I literally said this in real life too. The icing on the cake was that I'd spent hours just traveling from map to map trying to get the birth to trigger, and then finally gave up and went to the final battle, only for this to happen.)
Even more amusing, because dialogues pause all game events, Melissande was nice enough to just sit there and let it happen. "No, no, it's alright. You just go ahead and birth your heir right there in front of me. I'll wait!"
Although cheese equipments and spells kill the fun for experienced players, first time finding them by oneself still feels hilarious. First time using feeblemind on Firkraag, first time using Reflection Shield to kill a mage casting Fire Arrow, first time casting Death Spell on mindflayers attacking Solaufein just because they have 0 MR… All these are actually fun until you find out it's meta and start challenge runs and using battle mods.
From role-playing perspective I generally enjoy having "family runs" with Imoen and Jaheira, and later Sarevok. I don't enjoy evil Charmane so these 3 feels like the "right" companions to finish the story.
A significant vacuum in NPCs is a melee thief that can live to the end, so an F/T Charmane is unreplaceable by NPC, and fits this party really well.
Too avoid leaving Imoen's exp behind I usually plan ahead so that Charmane reaches 1.25m exp when she joins. Trying to gather as much gp as possible while avoiding getting exp is quite fun, and leaving Askatla early also makes Spellhold and Underdark at least somewhat challenging.
Beating that lich in the Bridge District with the longsword from its own crypt, yay! Had a thief grab it first, then went in with my main character who was spezialized in long swords.
When I finally beat that adventurer group in the sewers. Was one of the hardest fights for me. Harder even than Firkraag or the Twisted Rune. Probably because I was at a relatively low level (was the original game, not EE).
That "I did it!" moment after I had beaten the Shadow Dragon. Relatively early.
I also loved the riddles and puzzles in both the temple of Amaunator and Spellhold.
Oh, and while my character hated it, I just looooved being in the Underdark masked as drow.
Already liked that in the old Menzoberranzan game.
Oh, and I liked the pocket plane. Nice feature.
All of this was a long time ago, but I still remember it.
There probably is more.
The vision of the torture chambers still haunts me, lol. The entire theme was so bizarre but fascinating; the pseudo-Egyptian sculptures and architecture with hieroglyphs, the blood fountain with the Mace hidden within, the gorgeously rendered canopied coffins of the vampires, and most astonishing to my warped adolescent mind was the spike trap room. That evening as I entered that room and the fog of war lifted only to reveal more and more traps with the pool of blood at the center, I was honestly afraid, which is embarrassing to share but is the truth. The confrontation with Bodhi itself utterly terrified me, because the buildup to it with the fledgling vampires and the horrific imagery all around, in particular Pai'Na's nest, made me so nervous in anticipation. After defeating Bodhi I had to take a break because I was that uncomfortable.
In retrospect my reaction is ridiculous, but it does reveal to me the greater power that art which is reliant upon imagination bears as opposed to the kind which is determined to present absolutely everything visually. Thus why I continue to replay these games 20 plus years and counting. When my avatar is a pixelated sprite with a portrait, I disconnect from the screen and engage with the environment behind my eyes, and my characters experiences feel that much more like my own.
Anyway, other memories that stand out for me as thoroughly enjoyable include my first time defeating the members of the Twisted Rune in their portal gated safe-house, or defeating Kangaxx after a determined effort to comprehend the combat possibilities and applied tactical strategies instead of using a convenient exploit. I also had a playthrough of the first Baldur's Gate (the original, not the enhanced edition) during which I kept my copy of Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast and the games manual at hand, and read about each location, NPC, item &c mentioned in the book as I encountered them in the game. I always wished that you could have expanded dialogue with Bentley and Gellana Mirrorshade after having read about them in the old book. Likewise I enjoy playing Baldur's Gate 2 with my copy of the AD&D Book of Artifacts and turning to the page wherein is described the several items present in the game, like the Machine of Lum the Mad and the Ring of Gaxx.
For instance, in Region of Terror at the three sleeping dragons, one did a cloud attack, killing half of my party (stronger dragons option was checked), but he also killed his other two (or one) of his dragon buddies. This was hilarious to me because the dragons almost would kill one another.
Other fun scenarios were Tactics Remix and the fall unconscious situation. A big golem nuked my party but unconscious people always woke up and managed to hit the golem, until the golem was finally dead.
Acifer's Call of the Lost Goddess mod also has some nice ideas with regards to the demon theme. It probably is the most entertaining singular mod too, with regards to humor. Some other smaller snippets in other mods could be fun too, like reactions between characters. Edwin being teased; or wielding his teddy bear (from one of Lava's mods). Or Viconia being abducted by the white queen (also Lava mod; I don't want to reveal what happens here, but that one mod is a lot more fun when Viconia is in the party).
Also some mods are quite hilarious, like the one where you have to fight down the killer rabbit.
This is now 25+ years ago.. I was a very different person back then, but it's stuck with me since.
Other then that, the magic of playing it the first couple of months.. getting to know the npc's, especially Keldorn impressed me and left a lasting impression. I wanted to be like him.. heroic, yet humble. Steadfast and bound to his word and tenets, yet reasonable.
A proper hero and I was young and impressionable