Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

This game definitely has a steeper leaning curve than the first game, but an excellent classic PC RPG for those of us who like that kind of thing. If you want a modern RPG, play BG3.

Both BG1 and 2 are very tough to get into in 2025 without any prior knowledge. 2 is better in that you get to the tools you might need in your build faster, but still rough.

Regardless, one of the best RPGs regardless. You just gotta drop a PhD amount of time understanding everything.

This is THE role-playing game to play.

one of the best games ever made

been playing BG2 on and off for over 20 years. glad they updated the graphics and made some quality of life changes. will live down as one of the greatest games ever.

This game is probably older than you

can't believe they made a sequel to bg3, weird that they named it bg2 though.

One of the great CRPG's, I spent 45 minutes at the beginning of the game just reading in-game books. As I am writing this I think I am not even done with %10 of the game.

had this game for 50 years never played it

best game ever, dont worry about the graphics you get used to it, also the graphics being older tech is actually better, because it doesnt give you a headache/hurt your eyes like newer games

Simply one of the best RPGs of all time. A must-play if you're at all interested in the genre.

Timeless classic.

Everything great about the first game but more and better!

Just a pain to play. The game is a classic and I don't think it'll ever not be good but do yourself a favor and leave this one in nostalgia land.

I originally played Baldur's Gate 1 which I completed and hated, hoping then that Baldur's Gate 2 would be an improvement. How wrong I was. Equally as bad as the first with no improvements and all the same issues. Poor inventory management system, with plenty of useless inventory such as arrows and gems and limited inventory capacity. Poor magic system. While there are plenty of spells, you can only use a select few at any one time meaning most spells are wasted. Poor companion system where you must constantly change out companions to have others tag along to complete quests. And the side quests are too many and too unrelated. I have played plenty of isometric games including Fallout !, Ultima, The Black Gate, which have been brilliant, but sadly, Baldur's Gates 1 and 2 are amongst the worst. There is no way I will be wasting my money on Baldurs Gate 3 after enduring the first 2. An absolute 'Do Not Buy'.

I used to play this when it first came out (non enhanced) years ago and it was my favorite and remains my favorite game. This is the pinnacle of isometric RPGs.

Many games have attempted to recreate Baldur's Gate I & II. Most fall short due to mechanics, disjointed story telling or painful voice acting. It is 2025 and you are still better off on your 8th play through of Baldur's Gate than trying anything new in the steam store. This game spirited me away to a time when graphics were terrible & story was king. Immerse yourself in a rich tapestry of voice actors who's emotion and pacing throw shade on the modern AAA pipeline.

Discover every room, unlock every chest & defeat every enemy. Truly, the adventure of a lifetime.

BG2 is a masterpiece.

best game. BG3 failed completely. This is by far better than bg3.

This game takes me back to playing D&D with paper, pencil, and dice!

The absolute classic. Been playing since early 2000's and come back every now and then

Send in the bears.

I played this over and over in my early teens. I was looking for a game to play while I wait what feels like another 20 years for patch 8 to arrive on BG3, so going back to replay my favorite RPG of all time!

The classics are the best.

Disappointing. Just boring tbh

I can turn into a rat!
Very cool :3

It's fantastic. I heard the opening music and flashed back to the joyous time I had last time I played. This time is just as good.

BG2 is the greatest game ever published. It's actually wild to me that all games aren't just Baldur's Gate 2. EE is fine if you turn off the Party AI.

One of my favorite RPG's. It has challenge, it has replay, and you get to kill beholders and dragons. Great game all around.

It's definitely a bit dated, but still a very good game with some very cool character builds.

Excelent remake of a wonder classical game. totally recomemnd this.

I love this series, strongly recommend it to all enthusiasts of the cRPG genre.

a good game

the game it is playable and fun in every way 9/10

It's classic D&D fun with many hours of fun

My dislikes:
Not fully voiced, some silly bugs, some banters really didn't age well, male romance for female PCs really did't age well, and personally, I can't do deep dungeons or manage inventory to stay alive so it has been a struggle.

My likes:
Great writing, villains are freaking cool and based most of the time, fun riddles, fun to interact with famous DND characters, world building is so cool.

Lastly, thank you BioWare for finally letting us romance a villain mage in DAI. You always did evil or depressed or anti-social mages so well.

a classic 2D top down rpg, make your party, explore and carry out quests! spend hours of fun solving puzzles, winning battles, collecting treasure and uncover mysteries

“Mobile vegetable peddling versus heroism, the eternal question.”
~Gorion's Ward

Making a sequel to Baldur's Gate was an impossible task. The original BG was the most anticipated CRPG of 1998 and guess what? It was one of them rare cases when game actually exceeded the expectations. While acting as fantasy take on Fallout (both heavily revolved around dialogues that originated in Star Control II), it also delivered a fantastic rendition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons tabletop rules, while looking and feeling like our usual real-time CRPG. More importantly, it gave us full control over our ethics. Like in those tabletops, our characters were free to be good, evil and everything in between. Should I say it felt awesome? There was nothing like it before and up to this day, it's one of the very best fantasy RPGs you can play. Yet somehow, its makers were supposed to make it even better.

Like I said, an impossible task, but guess what? They did it. BG II kept everything we loved about the original, but it was better in pretty much every way. The global map became a bit confusing (you can't just go, say, east to unlock new location that lies that way anymore), but BioWare fixed their D&D mistakes (rangers, for example, finally got their dual-wielding), made dialogues deeper, added romances and... Yeah. The story became much more dark and complicated. Again and again game wanted to remind us that life is unfair. We were to lose friends, make sacrifices and do our very best to shape our own future the way we want it. It was amazing. Rarely we get a game that feels like a good fantasy novel, yet BGII was exactly that.Good thing to have it in Steam, right? Well. About that...

As you can easily tell by looking at the title, what we have here is not the original version but so-called Enhanced Edition, heavily modified by Beamdog, a company founded by a couple of ex-BioWare employees – Trent Oster and Cameron Tofer. And if you've played the Enhanced version of previous game, you know just how butchered it felt. It had mobile-oriented enhancements (god mode included), it had features it wasn't supposed to have (like “press button to show secrets” thingy that allowed you to get one of the very best armors in game soon after prologue) and pretty much every new thing played against balance, which wasn't that great to begin with.

Thankfully, when it's about BGII, it was a little bit easier. For example, that “press button to reveal stuff” feature was planned this time and therefore there's nothing wrong with it. Same thing with dual-wielding rangers. Like I already mentioned, BGII was supposed to have 'em, no impact on balance. Yes, this version does have all the mobile-oriented crap too, but oh, well. Also, not all of it is bad. Old geezers like yours truly, for example, will sure appreciate things like bigger fonts. The problem is – while the first game had quite a lot of new content (including one heck of a new expansion), this here? It doesn't have much. It comes with a sequel to so-called “Pit” (which, pretty much, is just an arena with some basic excuse), there are new companions and quests, but that's it.

Moreover, neither of that feels good. Not like the new stuff felt good in the previous game, but here? It's a disaster. It's so easy to break things for yourself without even knowing it. Like, there's a new location with some new quests in it, but if you'll finish a certain one of them first? You'll render the others unbeatable. Or take another new quest for example. It lets you either agree to cooperate with one of the most infamous villains in Forgotten Realms or refuse his offer and fight him. Naturally, if you're a Lawful Good guy (like Paladin, for example), you'll want to take second option. Guess what? Bad idea. Just because it'll break your quest and left it unbeatable. Like... what? The game literally gives you an option that... leads to the dead end? And it's not like it's only one quest or somethin'. Wow. Just wow. Even arena I've mentioned, they've managed to mess up even that with bugs and overly confusing parts. And when there was a real need for a change? They didn't do a thing.

I'm talking, of course, about Throne of Bhaal expansion. I haven't seen detailed interviews about what exactly went wrong, but the general knowledge is – the big guys screwed us all again. Originally planned as much bigger thing, Throne of Bhaal ended up being a much smaller experience. It wasn't, by all means, bad, but it did commit one major crime – it took away our freedom. There were still choices, of course, but pretty much every major part? It was linear as F. And not in Shadows of Amn way (SoA made some peaceful solutions impossible on purpose to play with our ethics, like there was that certain quest, in which the only solution was to kill the poor guy's best friend, while knowing there won't be any punishment or penalty for doing so). Throne of Bhaal was just... linear. It needed you to do certain things because screw you and your wishes. It was about combat, OK? There was a lot of battles and you were able to reach very high levels, but... Let's just say it felt lacking. Even despite the fact that story-wise it was a perfect conclusion to Baalspawn saga and even came with Fallout-like postscript for your party members, it was hard not to feel disappointing a bit. Why must we give part of our soul to that evil sucker while being righteous Paladins? Why there's no alternative solutions to quests that are asking for at least a couple? Some mods did try to fix that. Beamdog did not. They had one in a lifetime chance to make arguable expansion shine and they didn't even bother.

What they did manage to achieve, though, is adding new bugs. Tons and tons of new bugs. Personally, I've experienced so much that... it didn't even feel like playing BGII, really. I mean, BGII was never the buggiest game out there. It sure had its share of bugs, but I was never annoyed by it. And I did play it on release. Beamdog? They brought bugs. And unlike some other guys, who kept working on their products until things finally became smooth, they didn't really care. I mean, they did release some updates, but at some point they've just stopped the support and called it a day. Which means that the game ended up being more buggy than it was originally. Again, wow.

K, I complained a lot, which may make you think that this here is a terrible release, but the truth is – it is not. BGII is a fantastic game and even in this form it's totally worth playing. Beamdog did quite a lot of good too. New characters and their stories are good, romances include some non-straight options now (not enough and for a lesbian lady, for example, the only option will be evil Vampire, but still, choices are there), and, of course, the fact that this version was made to work in modern environment is a good thing. The problem is – the Enhanced Edition doesn't feel like a commercial product. If something, it feels like a mod. Clunky, rough and buggy alteration. Something you may expect from ModDB, not Steam. The good idea will be to let us choose. To make fully customizable version that lets us switch between mint version, the new features and everything in between. Like Paul Reiche and Fred Ford did in their free version of Star Control II called Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters that allowed us to to combine features from the original DOS version and enhanced 3DO port. Beamdog thought they knew better. They did not. So make sure not to expect much here. Still, like I already said, BGII is a great game. And no matter what, you should play it at least once in your life. Dixi.

Love the combat system, needs strategic planning on attack, buff and debuff.

65/100 I recommend with a caveat - the Enhanced Throne of Bhaal is worse than the original (which wasn't great to start). At that point of the game, I'm 20 level - why am I herding cats for 400 xp? I stopped playing right there. That being said, Shadow of Amn is great.

best crpg ever. hands down. i played it when it first came out back in like 2001-2 something like that. i still remember it. best villian.

a legendary game, and arguably the best RPG ever made

A lot of content for a small price. All that for it's time and still great to play!

A fitting time to write a review for this classic game. I finished it many times as a teen, so it's safe to say this is one of my favourite old school CRPG's.

Pros
- Easy to pickup, a few extra class options come with EE and makes for a more interesting experience although I will admit I still have never played a Shaman character yet.

- TOB is a short but good experience, especially for this who are already familiar with BG2. Sometimes you don't want to play a 40+ hour adventure so it's perfect for this, that and being a high level means high level abilities.

- A quality cast of characters and it's also easy enough to play with mods or a custom party. In the past you had to make a party in multiplayer, export them to your singleplayer folder and it was just a lot of extra work.

- I know some OG fans hate the new UI but it didn't personally bother me, the general QOL added outweighs most of the problems.

- Meta builds aren't necessary to win unless you are playing no reload on Insane with mods like SCS and Legacy of Baal with a lower level party or lack of custom characters. There's many ways to break the game, that's half the fun! (at least for me).

Cons
- Early>mid game can be pretty frustrating for a first timer, thanks to some very powerful debuffs (Vampires level drain, Mind Flayers sucking your brain or Beholders killing you straight up).

- Lategame is pretty overwhelming on higher difficulties.

- LOB difficulty is for the masochists. While there are moments of fun, expect even basic fights to be a bit of a slog even with meta picks. At least this becomes much easier by lategame once you unlock HLAs and the top tier weapons, honestly feel like the first game on LOB is harder just because of the early to mid game being very unforgiving.

- Some rare bugs or pathfinding issues still plague the game (not as bad as some other Infinity Engine games like Icewind Dale but can be annoying).

Overall, this game is a classic for a reason and goes on sale regularly so it's never a bad time to pick it up. I recommend starting on Normal/Core Rules if you are a first timer or newer to the BG series, it has a very generous difficulty curve or story mode/easy if you don't want to worry about dying and status ailments.

Probably the best RPG ever, entertaining and challenging with a great story line without overdoing the combat aspects which some later RPG's tended to do.

I have played this game first long before BG1 and before my Steam account, so I have more to review about this one.

This game holds up very well despite being over 25 years old. The paint-style visuals still look pretty good these days, especially this EE version, the musics are awesome giving so much atmosphere to the varied game environments, and the UI serves it’s purpose with the icons and the hotkeys. The real-time system might be quite a hazzle with so many individual party members to control at the same time. Luckily you can always pause the game any time and you can also define the party AI.

As a RPG game, this game is not so open-ended nor does offer interactions with the game world, like climbing or smashing barrels. The game is too often about fighting over and over again, and the situations cannot be solved in different and in flexible ways, unlike in Fallout 1 and 2. And apparently stats like the alignments and charisma have no real impact to the dialogue choices. Luckily the combat is more versatile and tactical with lots of spells, enemy types, class abilities, equipments and items like wands, potions and such.

One of the things I really dislike is the obsolete AD&D system with the ridiculous weapon and armor restrictions. The D&D terms like THAC0, Sawing Throws, Hit Dice and AC won’t tell anything to those who are not familiar with the D&D rules. It’s funny that a small halfling can wear the same suit of armor as a big half-orc considering the weapon and armor restrictions. There are too many weapon proficiencies to choose from in the character creation, and not all of them are worthy. So a warrior can wield a longsword masterfully but a shortsword is too difficult to him. And I don't like how the actions are so binary, like door bashing or lock picking and such.

The real star of the game, besides the well-written story and the villain, are the followers with their dialogues, backstories, personalities and their side-quests. They are not just mute pack-mules,you actually start to care of them, and you can even have romances with some of them. The tons of NPCs with their dialogues make the game world more lively and believable. And not to mention the villain of the story with so much build-up, his motives and the personal connection to the player. And of course, there are nostalgia value and the multiplay.

I know there was Baldur's Gate I before this, but Baldur's Gate II is light years ahead of that game and I daresay after playing Baldur's Gate III, BG2 can easily give that game, 20 years its junior, a serious run for its money in scope and storytelling.

It might take people quite a while to get used to AD&D 2nd Edition but man this game is soooooooo fun. I replayed it twice and it is a super loooong game. Much longer than BG3.

Baldur's Gate II is a direct sequel to Baldur's Gate I, following on with the story line of your PC plus a number of recruitable party members, some from the earlier game.

The story is compelling, making you want to know what is going to happen next.

There are a lot of side quests, perhaps too many side quests that sometimes feel overwhelming. But there is always something to do.

The difficultly is a notch higher than the previous game, with some combat situations feeling near impossible without the use of a guide.

Overall, this is an amazing game!

Back in the day if the simplicity of Diablo bored you there was this. A deep open varied application of the D&D rules. Rich beautiful characters that make you fall in love with them, sometimes before their own plots take them away from you. Immersive and immensely enjoyable. If you enjoy 3/4 view RGPs you will love this one.

Steam says I've played this game for over 80 hours and would like to know if I'd be willing to write a review... Well first of all it's far more than 80 hours I've sunk into this game. I've only 80 hours into the steam version of this game. I had this game the day it came out in 2000.

Honestly? While it IS for certain the better of the first two Baldur's Gate games I found this one disappointing, not for any reason that would deter me from playing it like crazy, but because Jon Irenicus is literally the most effective antagonist that could possibly be tailor made just to make me hate him. And the way the game starts? I hate it so much. It's good mind you, objectively. It's a great start, but I absolutely hate Irenicus and he's already practically won in the opening moments of the game and he killed off two of my favorite characters from the first game. And then how he has left his scars on Imoen? I hate him. It was a horribly disappointing start to the game, it just sucked the life right out of me. The entire game I felt horrible for Imoen who had always been a bright spot no matter how bad things got in the first game.

But, that's how stories go sometimes and holding that against this game would be like holding the reaper invasion at the start of Mass Effect 3 against it, so there I was horrified by the beginning of BG2, and I started play anyways, and then I went on to play one of the best games ever.

Eventually I put my old dream team from the first game back together, or at least 5/6 of it. My character, Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, and Viconia. In the first game that 6th slot was filled by Xan the ever-defeatist, hopeless Elf-mage with the blue flaming sword. He made me laugh non-stop. In this game it was usually Yoshimo but sometimes Aerie.

The social interactions in this game were a huge step up from what had previously been seen, but these days it's still pretty primitive and very restrictive. Even so, if you follow a guide on that respect you'll unlock some truly great conversations. Jaheira and Viconia both are among my very favorite characters in any video game.

To those who might be reading this after having played BG3, just know Viconia was butchered in BG3. Instead think better Minthara, and then prepare to finish this game and be offended by how badly Larian ruined Viconia in their game.

BG2 is great. In 2025 it's obviously quite primitive compared to BG3 (a game I have clocked over 950 hours in and I still don't think I've played it as much as either BG1 or 2) but the roots are still there, you can see everything that made BG3 great exists in a more primitive form in BG2 (same with BG1) and honestly? There are a few things it does better IMO. At least in terms of allowing you to travel and explore other regions of the Sword Coast.

So if you've played 3 and want to see what all the fuss is about with the earlier games, you'll have to prepare yourself to lose a lot of quality of life improvements made over the last 25 years as well as production values and graphics, etc. But the freedom of storytelling roots are still there, the social game is still there, the combat is still pretty close to what you know.

But honestly? If you've played 3 and are going back? I hope you've already played 1, otherwise why are you looking at this game? Play 1 first.

And in which case? If you've played and beaten 1, this game is better in every way, but be prepared for a serious gut punch to start this game cause it'll hit you where it hurts.

This was one of my favorite games as a child, and it still holds a special place in my heart. And unlike many games that grow stale with age, BG2 is still a wonderful story-driven game that deserves, if not a next-gen remake, than at least the enhanced edition which is a worthy improvement to the original.