Baldurs Gate 2: Capstone to the Golden Era of crpg's?

Andhaira · Jan 18, 2008

IMO the 90's can be constituted as the golden era of crpg's. We had gems like RoA series, lands of lore,ultima 7,elder scrolls, wizardry 7 etc games.

Baldurs Gate 2 was in my opinion, a capstone to that era. It didn't do anything truly unique per se, but it was a VERy polished and slick game that brought together everything good of all the rpg's before into an amazing package. (fantastic grafics, amazing music, etc)

Concurrently, the mid-late 80's could be considered the silver era of rpg's, with games like zork, bards tale, EoB, ultima 5, wizardry 6

Thoughts?

abstract · Jan 18, 2008

Zork?

JoKa · Jan 18, 2008

Hory · Jan 18, 2008

Andhaira said:
IMO the 90's can be constituted as the golden era of crpg's. We had gems like RoA series, lands of lore,ultima 7,elder scrolls, wizardry 7 etc games.

I'd take the end of the 90's and the beginning of the 00's over the whole of the 90's any day. That's when the best of the best came.

Baldurs Gate 2 was in my opinion, a capstone to that era. It didn't do anything truly unique per se, but it was a VERy polished and slick game that brought together everything good of all the rpg's before into an amazing package. (fantastic grafics, amazing music, etc)

BG2 is miles ahead of anything pre-Fallout, and I'm not talking about graphics or music.

I'd say the best era started with Fallout and ended with the death of Troika.

Zomg · Jan 18, 2008

BG2 is hot garbage. It's a JRPG's face grafted onto a Gold Box game modded to make the combat more boring.

Jasede · Jan 18, 2008

Sounds like Torment, when you say JRPG and boring combat.

Disconnected · Jan 18, 2008

Since I spend most of those decades deprived of computers, my opinion is somewhat suspect. But for what it's worth, I agree with Hory

Lumpy · Jan 18, 2008

(fantastic grafics, amazing music, etc)

"etc"?

yellowcake · Jan 18, 2008

Zomg said:
BG2 is hot garbage. It's a JRPG's face grafted onto a Gold Box game modded to make the combat more boring.

True. I hated lack of open exploration that made original BG appealing. It felt like the longest journey or sth to me.

Andhaira · Jan 18, 2008

etc as in NPC's with personalities, quests, goals and motivations of their own, unique dialogue based on which npc's you have in your party, interparty banter, dragon battles which are truly epic, magic items that actually have their own unique history and backgroudn instead of just being tossed out there (like they are in games such as wizardry) fun tactical combat that actually requires strategic planning (yes TB would have been better but hey).

fastpunk · Jan 18, 2008

I guess the 90s could be called the golden era of CRPGs but not without mentioning the Fallout series and Planescape: Torment. And although Baldurs Gate 2 was a polished, generally good game, it sure as hell isn't the capstone of the era. It's fun to play but it doesn't particularly shine in any facet: the writing is nothing special, the dungeon crawling experience is fun but I played better and the exploration is pretty limited.

Naked Ninja · Jan 18, 2008

Agreed with OP.

Section8 · Jan 18, 2008

BG2 is hot garbage. It's a JRPG's face grafted onto a Gold Box game modded to make the combat more boring.

What he said.

Otherwise, Baldur's Gate 2 as a capstone is like throwing a fossilised dinosaur turd with a RA Salvatore novel nailed to it onto the magical Fallout sandcastle.

abstract · Jan 18, 2008

Wasn't Zork a text adventure game that came out around 1980? Or am I confusing things?

MetalCraze · Jan 18, 2008

BG2 is not a capstone or anything. But it's a great game (currently playing it with BG Trilogy btw - wonderful mod/conversion), Bioware really did added some life to Faerun and Faerun wasn't overused at that time. Yes it's too biowarishly romantic but I would prefer it to any post 2001 game anytime. And also the gameplay seemed more alive because of party members interacting with you and each other.

Actually some people wondered if there are any mods that add new territories. There are - I'm testing them right now btw, but so far most of them are too... uninspired and ruined by awful voice-acting of the modders. like with shadows over soubar - I simply couldn't take it anymore and uninstalled it - btw it killed my whole BGT installation upon uninstalling.

Naked Ninja · Jan 18, 2008

Pretty apt comparison, Fallout had about as much narrative as your average sandcastle.

Also, dinosaurs are pure awesome, and anything derived from them, even fossilized excrement, is also awesome. Just like BG2.

Raapys · Jan 18, 2008

Although many bad things can be said about BG2, for me it's easily the first choice if I could only pick one RPG to own. Fallout and PS:T both offers a better first-play-through experience, but BG2 lasts far longer. It also offers better character development, the best spell selection I've seen in any RPG, a fair magic-items selection, memorable fights, etc.

It's also one of the few RPGs were the mage/sorcerer class is, if anything, overpowered, which is a refreshing change.

ghostdog · Jan 18, 2008

I'll agree that BG2 was really good in every aspect. There are other games of that time that managed to do better in specific areas, but as a whole, BG2 is an achievement. It stands somewhere between BG1 and Torment and that's a combination I really like.

Disconnected · Jan 18, 2008

Uh, vaguely related question: does the (pink?) tutu mod fix the menu mega-glitch of BG2/ToB? And if not, is there some other way to fix it?

ghostdog · Jan 18, 2008

Uh, vaguely related question: does the (pink?) tutu mod fix the menu mega-glitch of BG2/ToB? And if not, is there some other way to fix it?

Eh? tutu is for playing BG1 with the updated BG2 engine it's not a mod for BG2. And what mega glitch are you talking about?

Disconnected · Jan 18, 2008

I should've been more explicit, sorry. The Iron Man thread made me want to play through the BG series again, and tutu looks like a great way to do it.

Problem with that is that BG2/ToB is unplayable in resolutions above 8x4 brick-sized pixels, because the menus don't scale.

MetalCraze · Jan 18, 2008

there is mod for large screen resolutions for BG Trilogy. but I think I've forgot it's name (I still prefer my Baldur in 800x600) and not sure if it works for Tutu (but it should as both use WeiDU scripts)

ask at gibberlings3.net forums
or at shsforums.net

hakuroshi · Jan 18, 2008

I agree with OP. BG2 could represent the "golden age". As a tombstone perhaps.
Was fun to play it once, though. And I know people who played it much more. It was not an art piece, but very good and polished commercial product.

Lonely Vazdru · Jan 18, 2008

I have fond memories of playing through BG1&2 the first time. I bought a box containing BG1, TotSC and BG2. No throne of Bhaal. I played like 3 weeks non-stop and had tremendous fun. Everything was exactly what I expected (and had been expecting a long time) from a D&D game, except real time combat. But even that grew bearable and even enjoyable after a time. Because you deal with a 6 members party. The same real time combat in NWN is pure shit though. So BG2 along with M&M6 left me with the most intense "let's turn off the real world and play some" memories. But they are not the best CRPGs I've played. Those would be Fallout, PS:T and Daggerfall. But, as with many other things (music, girls, movies, etc,) the best, even if I do love them, are not my personal favorites. :wink:

Disconnected · Jan 18, 2008

skyway said:
there is mod for large screen resolutions for BG Trilogy. but I think I've forgot it's name (I still prefer my Baldur in 800x600) and not sure if it works for Tutu (but it should as both use WeiDU scripts)

ask at gibberlings3.net forums
or at shsforums.net

Thanks

Baldurs Gate 2: Capstone to the Golden Era of crpg's?

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