Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Ive always hated the romance options in BG2. I only ever lead Anomen on so that he'd kill Aerie, then Minsc will kill Anomen. But this new monk is sexy AF. He looks like he bit someone and their blood is dripping down his chin. I like that in a man.

This game is one of those things that are a cultural touchstone that innovated a genre into what it is. Yet, when you come back to it, so many years later, it simply doesn't hold up. I respect Baldur's Gate for what it was. A pioneer of the genre in many ways.

I've tried time and again to get into this game but simply couldn't. It's a marvelous example of a pioneer of a genre. But, for me, it just doesn't offer anything that newer games in this genre don't do better.

I hate that I have to say I can't recommend it. I want to. I really do, but I'd be lying if I did.

Ive played this game once a year at least since I was 11. Still finding new things, builds, consequences and paths to completion all these years later. The pinnacle of RPGs from an era I miss and what BG3 should of looked and played like really.

The true godfather of RPGs. The UI is a little clunky and old school, and the combat takes some getting used, but once you figure it out the game is still such a gem.

10/10

One of the best RPGs ever made, and arguably The Best RPG Franchise. It's a classic that still holds up all these years later. An absolutely epic story with unforgettable characters. 'Nuff said - just buy it.

A masterpiece of gaming, certainly difficult for a modern/current gamer to hop into but give it a little bit of time and once you begin to understand and get accustomed to it this game along with Baldur's Gate 2 will be
a companion of yours for life providing you with a coziness and comfort which rarely is found easily these days. Crpgs Are great !

Fantastic classic of the genre, though brutally difficult at times XD

This story is still great even if the graphics are dated.

Old-school D&D fun, have to run through it again every now and then. :)

There are moments where I wish it wasn't so lengthy. Perhaps the ability to teleport to a city quicker. It gets frustrating to have to travel so far form one place to teh next.

I appreciate this game for all its complexity, and how this gives rise to so many different ways of experiencing this game that 26 years later people can still be enjoying it. I can see the lasting influence that this game has had on every topdown. isometric, CRPG and RPG that came after it (especially the Bioware ones that are my all time favorites), and with the acclaim the 3rd one has gotten I thought I would start from the beginning....but I cannot for the life of me get into this game.

Perhaps it's a slow burn, and stopping this early is doing the game a disservice. But it's not the difficulty (it's easy to re-load from a bad roll, or bad strategy, and run away if you're not ready), like I said, I appreciate the complexity of DnD for how many options it gives you. It's not the learning curve, which isn't that bad, but doesn't hold your hand. It's the immense boring slog that I know finishing this game is going to be.

I had the same kind of issue when I played the first Fallout: I was impressed with the game, the depth, the writing, the world building, recognized it was a seminal work in the canon of gaming, but the actual experience of sitting down and playing was so incredibly dull that I can scarcely bring myself to endure more than an hour before I get up and do something else.

I think the biggest flaw of classic CRPGs like Baldur's Gate is that the nature of this type game makes them intrinsically dull to play, at least for me. And this isn't really a criticism of this game, more so a statement of my personal taste in games. Despite all the things it does well, it's nevertheless boring to play, and I can't recommend spending your precious free time doing something that isn't fun.

Baldur's Gate is definitely my favorite game series. I'm so glad for Enhanced Edition as the old version of BG doesn't work on my PC anymore and I like to get back to this game once in a while. With lots of bugs fixed, some quality of life updates it's really a pleasure to replay this game once more. There are two expansions added beyond the original one: Black Pit and Siege of Dragonspear. Black Pit is series of arena encounters, while Siege of Dragonspear is a big expansion that is almost as big as the original game. It was a really nice treat to get some extra to the original game - more adventures, more companions, more magical items. I loved every playthrough and will be back for more for sure.

I really enjoy playing this game.

Great platform to create six characters and level them up through different games. Played it when it originally came out and now I am enjoying it all over again.

I played Baldurs Gate years ago and decided to go through again through the Steam option. Also played Baldurs gate II. I struggled to get computer working for further add on's so looking forward to Baldurs Gate 3. A great adventuring D and D style game where the rolls and calculations are done for you.

Great game! I'd highly recommend it if you're looking for an old-fashioned RPG. The world is very well developed, and the story is great.

A lot less content, but a lot more fun than Divinity: Baldur's Gate 3

I've been playing this since 1998. It has never let me down, never gotten dull, so many different ways to play. This game is one of my favorite escapes from reality.

Looks like the developers never tried to play their "creation".

Absolutely useless in coop. Game mechanics is horrible.

Still rolling my character, trying to get an 18/00 strength, heard the gameplays fun though

I played this game in the 90s when it first came out. I got it from Beamdog's website when the enhanced edition was first released. I own it, and have played it extensively on xbox. I've even played it a fair bit on my iPad. At this point I am conviced that I will never grow tired of playing and replaying this game. This game with it's sequel Shadows of Amn are among the greatest games ever made!

im sure im just retarded and newgen but this combat is the worst slog ive ever tried to stomach. how does anyone love, or even tolerate this.

Great classic, still very playable. Options like scaling for modern screens, autopause and etc should be enabled for comfort play.

After owning the game for the better part of a decade, I finally beat it. So I figure I should leave a review.

The game came out in 1998 and it shows. That said, Baldur's Gate is still a solid CRPG that has earned its reputation. YMMV as the system is clunky, and you really should read the PDF manual while you make your character. If you enjoy old school TTRPGs and CRPGs, then this game is for you.

BG is a CRPG, which means: It has a niche.
This game is entirely different to the modern BG3. Don't come with the same expectations.

Why play this?

• You want a complex game system (Magic, combat)
  
• You like to experiment with character builds
  
• The story is really good
  
• You like DnD and have that scratch to play a DnD-like game (Check for more games in the CRPG tag, if this is a check for you)
  
• Replayability. The variety of classes and companions make for an entertaining game to replay, where you can test your knowledge of the game, and making op builds, or meme builds
  
• You like to roleplay in-game: The game makes you feel part of the story, it makes a good job to feel relevant to the plot
  

Why avoid this?

• Too much information, it has a high learning curve on the combat system (all class' abilities, spells and system properties like THAC0, may be too much information)
  
• You don't like turn-based ARPGs. Even though the game is real time, all events happen in rounds of 6 seconds, and the pause makes it still a turn-based game.
  
• Art, I understand that as much as I may like the art and look & feel, it is outdated by today's standards and may not be popular.
  
[*] You don't like dying. In this game you will quicksave often, because you will die often, it is nothing bad, as you will learn and develop ways to deal with situations, but if that stresses you, well... CRPGs may not be for you

Recommendation for a first run

Just choose a race that sounds cool or you want to roleplay as. Choose a class that sounds fun (Spellcasters like wizards or sorcerers may have a lot of information for a first timer, if you want to play as a spellcaster. If you want to use magic, I'd recommend half casters like Clerics, it hits hard with melee, and will give you time to adapt to the magic system). Spin the stat die until you get 86+ stat points. SAVE YOUR CHARACTER (Or you will need to respin that die and waste your time). And once you start, just roleplay as your character, learn the system at your pace, it will take time, but if you have patience, you will find a really complex and interesting game, that will entertain you for 100+ hours. Save often (Quicksave with Q).
Any unoptimized build can beat the game on normal/core rules, so there is no need to feel pressured because you aren't min-maxing good enough (And if you feel the game is easy or hard, you can change the difficulty at any moment).

A classic masterpiece with excellent voice acting, fun encounters, challenging combat mechanics and a fantastic soundtrack.

I wanted to wait until I've completed everything before reviewing, but nothing new really needs to be said here. This is one of the best RPGs of all time. Definitely has an intense learning curve people unfamiliar with D&D and/or old-school RPGs might find difficult to deal with. This game lacks all the handholding and ease of just grinding levels to make the game easier that basically every other RPG has.

There is a story-mode which makes it impossible to die though, so if you really just want to experience some of the best storytelling and character interactions, then that is absolutely a viable option too.

I really need to play BG2 and then finally get back to BG3 and beat that as well. From what I've played though, BG3 is absolutely one of my favourite RPGs of all time. It's amazing that Larion managed to maintain the quality of such a legendary series.

The beginning of an epic series. The combat initially takes some getting used to but with the right party balance can make a big difference.

I purchased this game while it was on sale while saving for a new gaming PC for Baldur's Gate 3.

First of all, this game brings back memories of gaming in the late 90s and early 00s, which are great memories.

Coming from playing 5E D&D, it took me a while to adjust to the 2E system used in Baldur's Gate. While I never got to understand the specifics, I did get to the level of understanding where I could enjoy the game and it scratched that D&D itch.

The combat is both fast, and with the ability pause, allows for a lot of tactics. There is a wide variety of spells, abilities, and items to customise the characters to your liking.

The story is incredible, including the Siege on Dragonspear, with interesting support NPCs. This game has me looking forward to playing Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate 2.

When you have no friends to play D&D with, this is the next best thing. The problem is this is based on very old and complex rules, so even though the computer does the calculating for you, you can't really tell how your stats compare to others. Gameplay is peculiar. You can pause any time, so you can tell your characters what to do. But since the game moves so fast, you end up pausing so often the game becomes stop-and-start, so you miss all the visuals in lieu of playing strategically. The story is limited to simple dialogue options that I can't tell how they affect the game or your relationships with characters. I kind of wish this was transformed into a more of a Final Fantasy style RPG.

Enhanced edition made it much more pleasant to play on a modern PC.
Game feels like a decent RPG with a rich story, thoroughly written dialogs and quest options, cool atmospheric sound, which accompanies whatever is happening right now and affects the mood of quests.
Gameplay is also nice, though the game is more than 20 years old, it feels and plays better than some modern titles.

If you played other RPGs, like Divinity original sin or Pillars of eternity and liked it, then you should definitely give a try to this game .

Three play-throughs and 100 hours in to the game and I still do not feel I have seen close to everything this game has to offer.

Classic D&D RPG. Good story, characters & villians. Create-your-own character. Cool weapons & gear. Funny, compelling dialogue. Not super linear, good amount of freedom to explore. User-friendly mechanics & intuitive HUD. Easy combat & magic system. Various difficulties. Not frustrating at all. Very high replay value. Good enough graphics. Very polished. This started the Baldur's Gate series. Every entry is solid, if not spectacular.

genuinely one of the coolest games i have ever played. absolutely holds up and is still worth playing: i was a late adopter, playing it for the first time in 2020 or so, and i still thoroughly enjoyed it. definitely has a bit of a learning curve, but it's worth sticking with. look up a guide or two for builds if things aren't clicking. utilize the pause button in combat.

there are so many cool characters and interactions in this game, and it's got an incredible depth to it.

(maybe mod in a teleport key. as with old games like this, traveling across maps is *slow*.)

This game is decades old, but still is one of the best around. Many developers have try to match the atmosphere, characters, and story depth have have yet to.

Old but golden. Getting to second level is tough especially in multiclass gets a lot easier after that... most enemies can one shot you before that if they get lucky

Not sure what to put in this review, its critically acclaimed for a reason. I have been putting off this play-through for a while, because like others it was very difficult to get into when I was younger. However I knew I would get around to this after playing Icewind dale & Pillars of Eternity. I can fully understand why this game was loved by my brothers growing up. It still holds up today if you like DND. Story is excellent, very cool map filled with interesting characters. Onwards to BG2!

Great classic game. Doesn't have the bells and whistles for graphics or game play of modern games. But I'm glad to play it again.

Baldur's Gate is a GREAT game . It's so HUGE . Ive enjoyed many MANY hours of FUN and ADVENTURE . I would Gladly recommend it .