Baldur’s Gate I Enhanced Edition Review

[Michael {United Critics}]

Good things:

Baldur’s Gate is an cRPG that is based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition and for many people like myself was the first cRPG game they ever played and was the game that made many people love cRPGs. It is also the first game in The Bhaalspawn Saga and it is great because it starts with mystery and it makes the players experience the D&D system from an early levels making them feel weak at start and really feeling more powerful with each level as they grow in experience and power and with time game unlocks new areas for the player with more powerful enemies so the player can test his new spells and weapons.

If you liked Baldur’s Gate as a kid you will love Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition even more thanks to quality of life improvements. You no longer have look for certain X and Y on the map or to click every chest and barrel and stone and everything just to be sure you didn’t miss any treasure – now you can have all the lootable containers highlighted, and you can pick items from defeating enemies without having to check each body separately as all items laying on the ground in a certain radius near your team are shown on a special interface that lets you loot them directly.

Enhanced edition also added half-orc race and classes from Baldur's Gate II like barbarian, sorcerer, wild mage and all the Kits for all classes so now you can play as berserker or kensai or archer etc. in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and import your hero to Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition to continue your story. They even added some new kits like blackguard – an evil paladin or dragon disciple – a sorcerer with dragon blood or Tyr and Tempus to Cleric kits selection and Shadowdancer for Thief or 2 kits to choose from for monks. They even added a completely new class available only in Enhanced Edition called Shaman that is a spellcaster that uses druid spells but learns them and casts them like a sorcerer and has a unique ability to dance during combat and summon spirits to attack his enemies for him.

And for you that did not ever played the original Baldur’s Gate the most important info is that it has great story. The main villain is someone you hate from the start but the more you learn about him the more you understand why he is the way he is and what made him be like that and that there was a big chance that you would be in his place and he could be in yours. The more books and letters you read in game the more deep the villain gets and that is what makes this villain great. He is not just some Mr. Bad Guy just for the sake of being bad – there are reasons behind his actions and he become who he is because of his upbringing. The more you learn about the game world and the villain the better the game gets. At the end of the game I almost felt sorry that I have to kill him. Also even side quests have different ways of solving them and things you can miss if you don’t pay attention to details so you can end up helping someone evil without even knowing it.

If you love cRPGs in general you will also like this one. It is older than many other cRPGs you played so far but it is great and this game is one of the reasons why cRPGs become popular. But this edition is full of improvements over the original game so if you really never played Baldur’s Gate then this is the version you should buy and play to experience what others have experienced because you are really really really missing out if you haven’t played and finished Baldur’s Gate in your life.

Bad things:

If you have any antivirus and I mean any at all even a basic one in Windows like Microsoft Defender you will need to google how to set everything in a way that it will let you make saves to the cloud and will read the saves from cloud otherwise it can jump between cloud saves and saves on your PC making playing the game difficult and it can even reset any changes in the setting you made.

There still exist a bug where party members can get stuck on each other and you have to pause the game and click the STOP button and move one of them away. In some locations it happens much more often than in others and it makes them more frustrating to play.

Baldur’s Gate I was never made with the intention of you playing as the bad guy so even when some quests can be finished in an evil way they most of the times give worse rewards and also drop your reputation increasing prices in all shops and if your reputation drops too low you will be even attacked by paladins and town guards all the time. Most of the time roleplaying as evil guys is just about doing quests in the evil way and then paying the clerics in temples money to fix your bad reputation so you won’t be attacked by paladins and guards. You can’t really be truly evil in this game and playing as evil is almost like playing as someone neutral. Enhanced Edition didn’t do anything to change that so you still will have to balance your reputation all the time to not make prices in shops be too high but also to not be too good and not make evil characters leave your party. In the end just playing as the good guy fits the game and whole story much more than being evil and is more satisfying.

Conclusion

You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Rating: 8/10

Reviewer: Michael
Editor: Zarddin