Stasgard said:
Right. So I've recently picked up Baldur's Gate 2, as I have been going through the Codex's favourite RPG's on Jaesun's awesomly helpful list. Only in the last couple of years have I started playing proper, non-shit, cRPG's after finding the Codex. I used to love Oblivion, Fallout 3 all that shit, yeah, I hate myself too, thanks. Long story short, been working through that list, love PS:T, Arcanum, Fallout, the works. Loved them all more or less of the very get go.
But not Baldur's Gate 2. I've tried several times, unsuccessfully to get into this game, but I am very clearly missing something. The dialogue and interaction with Jan Iranicus is quite sweet, but everything else is just... mediocre. Setting is bland as fuck, party members make me want to rage quit, and combat is, at least at this point... decent at best. I've spent 3, 4 hours on this thing so far, and it just isn't doing it for me, I just really can't get into it.
So, what the fuck am I missing?
inb4 Volourn
inb4 "Joined: 20 Mar 2011"
Ok, the first dungeon is infamously overlong and dull, unless you've just come from playing BG1 (which I don't really recommend - wiki the plotline, so that you know why Irenicus is interested in you, and which dead and evil god just might be speaking to you through another character or two, llater on). You're rescuing characters from the first game, finding dead ones from the first game, and finding the first NPC (your adopted sister) of BG1 seriously experimented upon and fucked up. It's an important dungeon, in that it foreshadows a LOT about who Irenicus is, so unfortunately it shouldnt really be skipped on your first game. Or your second (because then you'll slap yourself when you see just how obvious some of the foreshadowing info is that you probably overlooked the first time around). But for someone coming straight into the BG plotline, the combo of characters you don't know and foreshadowing info that you don't recognise, just isn't enough to make the dungeon decent.
BUT....once you leave the dungeon, the game opens up bigtime. It is no longer linear (it will grow more linear for a period much later on, but most of the game is very open), and the variety of classes, massive variety of NPCs, and sheer goddamn amount of content (and I mean detailed, designed, proper quest content - not 'kill x foozles' or sandbox mapping) is what makes the game memorable. Well that and two (possibly 3 if you think about it once you've finished the game) decent villains - decent more in the way they are are designed and voice-acted, rather than the game's plot being spectacular. My biggest complaint with computer game villains has always been their passivity - you typically meet them at the start of the game, and then only again at the end boss fight, as though they've just been waiting for you to come kill them. Not in this game. You'll have running fights against these two, sometimes with you having the situational advantage/numbers, sometimes them, throughout the game (I think you have about 7-8 encounters with one or the other in total). It should have set the standard for how crpg villains are handled, but unfortunately it's almost unique, with virtually every other crpg that followed (even Bioware's) going the 'start and end' villain design (notable exceptions: KoTOR2 by Obsidian with the restoration patch, VtM:Bloodlines by Troika).
I'd definitely play it through until chapter 3 - that will have given you a taste of the 'open content' of the game, rather than the starting dungeon (which isn't typical of the game). But if you don't like it at that point, don't force yourself - BG2 is a controversial high-ranking game in Codex popularity lists. Lots of folks love it, quite a few hate it. Personally, I'm on the 'pro-BG2' side, and find it to be easily the best Bioware game (and by a massive margin at that). It's also the only Bioware game that doesn't have the same plot as all the others (you know, you're the chosen one/Specter/champion/whatever on your way to fulfill your destiny, with a twist near the end). In BG2 it's like someone wrote the typical Bioware plotline, and then someone else decided to change it so that a couple of characters come in, fuck over both the champion and the guy ('thing') that would ordinarily be the villain, and write their own destiny over the top of it.