Baldur's Gate 1 Enhanced Edition: Review After 100%

Reviewing Baldur's Gate 1 plus all its dlc, after obtaining 100% on the enhanced edition.

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#BaldusGate #Review #EnhancedEdition

[johnreynolds]

I drove through a snow storm, a mini-blizzard, when my nearest Best Buy got copies in and I called and asked them to hold a copy for me. Ran outside, shoveled my driveway, but we lived off a half-moon circle, which hadn't been plowed, so I turned my Honda civic around in the driveway, backed up into the garage, reeved the engine, and shot down the driveway picking up enough speed to plow through the snow until reaching the street that had been plowed. Got stuck twice coming and going, but I got back home with that box and its six CDs.

[Leadbraw]

Currently about halfway through baldur's gate, my first experience with crpgs and the d&d ruleset as a whole, and I just can't stop playing, can't wait to start bg2 and 3 eventually

[jayrob]

This was literally a game changer when I played it in the late 90's, no one had seen anything like it - a real time fully animated high quality open world rpg. It blew me away at the time and I was super impressed by it as it was everything I had dreamed about as far as video games went. For all the graphical wonder of today's games none of them excite me or impress like this game did back in the day.

[RPGmodsFan]

I totally understand the frustration with BG1 & 2 lack of explanations and tutorials. However, this is what made them feel like playing D&D for real. When I got "stuck", I would "cheat" by breaking out my D&D books (especially the Monster Manual), and figure things out from there.

[dietermitplatten]

Personally I liked those open, almost empty areas. It feels natural and balanced. Not every area needs to be packed to the max with stuff. I also like those "long walks" giving you the feeling of actually going somewhere. I missed that a bit in BG2.

[chrispeng]

I never played D&D prior to Baldur's Gate so I didn't have the knowledge of what a round, a turn was. You can imagine my frustration when I saw things like "Last for 10 rounds + 3 rounds/level", "Last for 2 turns". It also took me a very very long time to figure out why my fighters just stood there not attacking even when their portraits showed that they were engaging combat. Also, to this day, I can't estimate whether my web will hit myself or my enemies. I blame Edwin, he must have done this on purpose.

[epyjacek]

Perhaps someone else mentions this in the comments, but 1gp for a night at the inn is actually a crazy price, unless it's a very nice inn. The game, because it's a CRPG, does have you accumulate a rather large amount of gold, but this is not the norm in the setting. In D&D a night at an Inn may actually be around 1sp (silver piece), which generally will include a meal if it's a good spot. A ratty inn may even just be 5cp or 7cp (copper piece), expect no meal and perhaps an STD in that Inn. This is why you see some equipment cost 10gp, like a sword, which is an amount a peasant cannot hope to afford.

Great video and a true classic of CRPGs.

[moltenbullet]

I think one thing missed but worth mentioning regarding companions, besides time, is that alignment matters for whether companions stick around. Like Edwin is the strongest wizard in the game, but if you cross 18 alignment, he leaves you. Also, some companions flat out cannot be placed with other companions. Regarding the achievements for starting area, my theory is that a lot of players bought baldur's gate on steam for nostalgia sake, since they probably own the CD that no longer works with most modern computers.

[Hitoshuratdn]

Glad to see Baldur's Gate being played even to this day.

[desdicadoric]

Playing thru BG1 again, no idea how many times I’ve played this. I love the wide open empty spaces. I have adult children younger than this game, mind blowing.

[karlklein]

Glad to see some longer form content on the channel. Found you earlier this year and have really been digging your stuff.

[SpartanWolf]

I've always preferred the "openness" of Baldur's Gate 1 versus Baldur's Gate 2. Reminds me why I love the Pillars of Eternity series because they embrace the same structure of BG1 while telling a (mostly) linear storyline with great villains.

[stofsk]

Interesting point about the 'lack of a proper tutorial' and clunky mechanics that aren't explained - they *are* explained, in the game manual. Baldur's Gate - and BG2 - came with chunky novella sized manuals that had detailed breakdown of game mechanics and D&D and the engine's implementations of them, with a tiny sprinkling of lore here and there. XP levels, class breakdowns, spells available per class and how many and how many per level, including what those spells did and how they worked etc. The game itself doesn't hold your hand, but the old school point of the game is it wasn't supposed to, you were supposed to read the manual, like when you were installing the game off of multiple cds onto an older hard drive that had to spin up, something that often took a considerable amount of time back in the day. Just something I thought I'd note for some of you younglings.

[thomasdoubting]

"Durkags tower" is... 🤔
...imagine if Howard Huge built a trapdoor mansion to keep the tax-man out but accidentally filled it germes, ghosts, and boogymen!

And trip wired shotguns
Trip wired shotguns everywhere...

[andrewelder]

I still have a game manual and map from the original boxed edition of the game! One of my fave of all time for sure. Dual-classing is honestly totally broken. You could simply take one level in fighter for example, to get the 18/XX benefits, open up all weapons, etc or one in Ranger to get favored enemy, and the like. Then take the rest in your new class and keep those benefits forever. You can even get high starting proficiency in a weapon as a L1 Fighter, then keep it as a Wizard, so long as it's in the Wizard tree. It even works with the sub-classes! I loved taking one level as a Fighter/Berserker with 18/00 STR, maxing out Warhammer or Mace, then switching to Cleric. You get fighter-only STR bonuses, higher proficiency than a Cleric ever could, plus the one-a-day Berserker mode forever! Fun stuff :)

[ScarlettDaleWoodall]

Here's the thing about Dragonspear. It has to be a mostly self-contained story so as not to interfere with bg2. It's a tangent, a side story. That said, I love me some Argent.

[chaosapiant]

Minor complaint with the review of Dragonspear: the ending is not the only thing tying it to BG2. The "hooded man, " who hounds and interacts with you quite a lot, is the real connection. You see how and why he began taking an interest in your character, and this is very important in the context of "why/how did we get captured" in BG2's opening. Mind you, it's still a very slim piece of the whole expansion, but it does link the games. All that said, Dragonspear is an absolutely fantastic and fun expansion and whenever I do a full trilogy playthrough, I never skip it.

[danielweis]

I was almost one of those people that never left the starting area. It wasn't until watching some guides on YouTube (yours included) that I truly understood how to navigate playing this game.

[kaiserschnitzel]

You know, when I started playing D&D in 1981 THAC0 made perfect sense to me. Now I can't even imagine why it was that complicated to begin with.

[zoolouthescrub]

I love this game. Had to laugh at the basilisk encounter at around 11:30. That map was always a pain when I was a kid and never used the protection scrolls or spells.