How does Pillars and Dragon Age Origins compare to BG2?

[La_Anarquista]

I see a lot of people give praise to BG2's story and amount of content. But many people will put qualifiers into their praise. Like they are playing it mainly out of nostalgia or because its available on iPad or because it was cheap. Shadowrun got me into RPGs and particularly into isometric ones, but do y'all feel like PoE or Dragon Age 1 are maybe funner RPGs overall for people new to the genre?

[bise241]

Bg2 is still amazing, and worth playing on its own merits. I'd say Bg1 doesn't really stand on its own anymore. It's a great game if you understand what makes it great, but to a newcomer it may be too much. But yeah, the second one, I believe every rpg fan needs to give it a go. That said, Dragon Age origins is fantastic. I've heard nothing but bad about its sequels though, so avoid those. As for Pillars, I personally didn't enjoy it that much, but many people did, so you may want to try it. Also, because you are coming from shadowryn (fantastic series btw, I think dragonfall is one of the best rpgs of all time) I would suggest the original 2 fallout games. They are turned based, and there's a lot of awesome choice and consequence.

[Armanz]

Pillars has its flaws, but one should keep in mind that Obsidian focused on doing sequels for other games. I think Pillars 2 might be to Pillars 1 what Baldurs Gate 2 was to Baldurs Gate 1.

[Coldhands]

Pillars hangs with BG2, no problem. In fact, it might even be better.
Dragon Age: Origins is ... a well made but boring game. Nothing about Origins is BAD, but nothing outside the world building lore is actually interesting either.

Both are worth a look, but I'd look at Pillars first. And maybe even Tyrrany before Dragon Age.

[fauxpas]

PoE's writting is just ... bland and dry and the ruleset feels balanced but 'meh' for some reason. ... The devs also made some odd pacing and story telling choices (such as pulling back the curtins and revealing the 'big secret' behind the campaign).


Dragon Age Origins/Awakening is a great game that with one notable exception (demon kid) forces the player to make hard grey on grey morality choices and as long as you stay away from "Retcon Gaidar's" theories, the "Bad Guy's" motivations are both realistic and believable.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

DA:O has been dumbed down too much with cooldowns, reduced party size and only few specific roles for the main character and companions. Combat is much too repetitive. It's fine for 1-2 playthroughs to experience the story.

Replayability factor of PoE and BG is much higher. More character/party building options. More choices that actually lead to something. More options where to go first. If I had the choice, I would start with PoE including The White March DLC, then the BGEE/BG2EE and IWDEE and a onetime look at IWD2 from GOG, too.

[Tembies]

I gave up on Pillars like an hour in. The mechanics are 'modern' which means overly balanced and utterly boring. The lore/text was boring and written like someone threw five thesauruses into a blender without even the courtesy of salt - it takes five times as long as it should to tell the story, or flavor text. Long writing does not make good writing (In fact it takes an extremely talented writer to turn long winded stuff into an interesting story.)

DA:O is slightly better, from a lore standpoint. But still suffers a little mechanically. It's worth a playthrough but I couldn't be assed to play through twice, even though I've tried.

[fauxpas]

Try Tyranny, most people who disliked PoE's enjoyed Tryanny's.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by Dymhsa:

I gave up on Pillars like an hour in. The mechanics are 'modern' which means overly balanced and utterly boring.

You cannot come to such a conclusion after just "an hour in".

Originally posted by Dymhsa:

The lore/text was boring and written like someone threw five thesauruses into a blender without even the courtesy of salt - it takes five times as long as it should to tell the story, or flavor text.

It's the opposite. The base game's story is told quickly. The game is light on text and low on mandatory reading requirements. What adds the most text are optional book pages, letters and notes, which cover the lore. And what confuses new players too much are the completely unrelated short stories that are shown, if interacting with kickstarter campaign backers' contributed NPCs, which have a golden/yellowish name plate. Those are to be avoided, unless PLAYER is into reading such short stories from, I guess, hobbyist writers.

[Berserk Breton]

She's right, though. I didn't give up after an hour in, and the game stayed dull with excessive and overthought rebalancing of the combat eventually making it dull and lifeless. A shame as the game was in many respects quite clearly a labour of love, and it was ten times better than anything Bioware has put out since the swan song of old, true BioWare, Dragon Age: Origins.

DA: O is the better game overall. Better story, better characters, better RPG mechanics.

Not that DA:O holds a candle to Baldur's Gate 2, but it is probably between that and BG1 in my opinion, and well worth a play. There is a poignant aspect to it in retrospect, however - as you approach the end you are sad the game will end, and as the end credits roll you reflect on the story in fully invested fashion - both as it should be with a good or great RPG - and most of all you can't wait for what's next, to see what happens to the characters.

Sadly though, nothing is next. The game is the shadow of BioWare fantasy rpg games that were, the last glint of the dying star before it winks out of existence. What followed was the excesses of their new owner that we all know and love. Meaningless episodic side story in the sequel to eek out the customers money, a switch to over the shoulder button mashing gameplay the mention of which was studiously avoided in about 90% of the marketing, DLC touting, the sequel was a short turnaround half game with all sorts of things unfinished, 90% reviews in the publications where the publishers advertised whilst it was getting 4/10 in user reviews, and employees (who shall not be named out of respect for this game) going on full attack mode against fans and accusing them of prejudices because of character or animation critique (on forums they have now deleted, but I remember these posts and took screenshots of some of them that are probably still around somewhere), they set that little industry precedent so I guess they were pioneers in that sense.

I'd play DAO, then Pillars. Give da2 onwards a miss if you want to save yourself some disappointment.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

PoE features better combat rules with more choices, higher replayability, more character/party building options, more ingame freedom (since the areas open up in a less linear way compared with DA:O), no extremely scripted romances (because there are no romance in POE 1 at all).

[Multihog]

Originally posted by La_Anarquista:

but do y'all feel like PoE or Dragon Age 1 are maybe funner RPGs overall for people new to the genre?

If you're allergic to games older than 2008, then yes. If not, then BG2 wins easily, though Dragon Age: Origins comes close. Pillars is far behind both. It features some of the dullest writing and companions in CRPG history. Its combat is decent, though, but isn't nearly enough to save it from eventually ending up as a forgotten mediocre RPG.

[abhaysinghsaini]

Baldurs Gate 2 is an extremely over hyped game
Dragon Age Origins and Pillars of Eternity are bith better than BG2 in a lot of aspects.
Cinematics, Narration and companions are miles better in Dragon Age and PoE. Dragon Age's 3D system and realistic and diverse personalities make for one hell of a ride. DAO companions, especially Alistair, Leliana, Morrigan, are pinnacles of Video Game Companions in history.
Pillars of Eternity is a rich and deep game with ingenious concepts and a rich atmosphere. Its inventory system and overtly complex statistics are not great, but its dialogue and atmosphere far outclass BG2.
BG2's key strengths are its diverse variety of locations and monsters. And the fact that you grow from a puny adventurer in Candle keep to a God, is what keeps people entertained. Its story is diluted, companions are very boring and clichéd, and the lore is very disconnected. Chapter 2 is all about random side quests with literally no connection to Irenicus and Soul.of Bhaal. Its a jumbled mess of side content. Even though I do appreciate the effort that went intimate making firkraags dungeon or the shade temple, there randomness and disconnectedness dilutes the story greatly.
Under dark is good but the elven forests and city are also clichéd. For some reason, Elven city of Sudanelessar didn't hold the same fascination with me as the Lord of the Rings Elven dwellings did. They seemed bland and boring.
ToB is extremely high.level and one long and sordid walk to beat your half siblings. Its well.made no doubt, but the story is bland again.
So to all newcomer, don't buy the BG2 hype. Its certainly not the greatest RPG by any means. Well.made world with diversity doesn't mean you have rich atmosphere, awesome companions and a tight, well made story.
Apply logic and a clear, unbiased mind. Icewind Dale, NWN2, Dragon Age, PoE have many things that they do better than BG2.
BG2 also has a very, movie like charm to its story, that BG1 creates. Although it completely takes the Bhaalspawn saga to a different direction, the connecteness of the two games made BG2 much more popular. Like Avengers Infinity War was a well made movie, but Endgame just cashed in on the hype.
If you like Atmosphere, play Witcher or PoE. If you like combat, try Divinity Original Sin. If you like cinematics and narration, try Dragon Age.