Can somebody explain to me why Baldur's Gate is such a revered classic?

[GiantRaven]

Here is my experience with Baldur's Gate:

I go through the game as normal. Create character, meet Gorian, see him get killed and venture out on my own towards my next objective, two characters I assume I can recruit into my party. So far so good. It's enjoyable and the story setup is vaugely interesting and I'd like to see where it leads.

Upon reaching said objective (a large inn) I'm greeted by an assassin (though I only know this because I read that he's an assassin via google) who evades and eludes every attack my companion and I make, whilst offing me with a single flick of his wrist. I should also mention he completely blocks the way to where I need to go, crucially cutting me off from the backup I so desperately need.

After repeating this a dozen or so times with no success I stubbornly head off to search how to beat this bastard, finding out that this assassin is way out of league for my characters and should be dispatched by the nearby guards. The same guards that ineffectually wail on him to no avail.

Going through another dozen or so futile attempts to beat this sucker (the guards killed him once, right after he'd magic missile'd my scrawny Dwarven buttocks) I give up in frustration and took to google again to find out more information. I was shocked to find people lovingly recalling how much they enjoyed this bullshit, loading the game over and over until the dice-rolling RNG gave them the great rolls they needed to pass this completely over the top obstruction.

How do people like this piece of shit? Even Fallout wasn't this bastardly in it's opening hour.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

It gets more tolerable once you level up a few times and are less at the mercy of the random number gods. I don't really get it either. It's such a grind and never really got interesting for me. Everything is better in BG2 however.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Not a clue, never played them. The Dark Alliance games, however, have acquired many days of my life.

 

[The Madman]

Yeah, that first assassin is can be tricky if you don't know he's coming just because he's got an ideal one-two knockout spell combo for low level groups: Fear and Magic Missile. He's not actually that tough however as those spells are pretty much all he's got, and being a low level himself, he's easily disrupted while casting and extremely squishy. That's really the trick for a low level group to beat him: interrupt his casting if you can and get the Inn guards to help out as well. Considering it seems you've got Xzar, Montaron as well as Imoen at your side I'm kind of surprised you find him so difficult.

As for what makes Baldur's Gate such a brilliant overall experience? Well it's just an all-round great game that does very little wrong. Story is great, characters are great, music is great, combat is great, tons of diversity, good voice work when it's there, and hell it even still looks good. Both Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 are also absolutely mind-blowingly BIG experience. The entire series is just big, it's a story of grand fantasy in the greatest sense. You start off as a little bookworm weakling (As you well know) and by the end of the series you're literally calling down the wrath of the gods as entire nations tremble in fear at your approach. I can think of no other game that offers a similar sense of progression.

So while it might be difficult at first I'd say that works out for the better. I like games with some challenge and when that's accompanied by a suitable sense of character growth and progression it's just a fantastic roleplaying experience. I personally much prefer that to the more typical modern approach where everything is always around the same level as you making almost every encounter one and the same.

I don't mind when a game gets a bit frustrating as long as I know there's some payoff. Indeed I encourage it, makes that moment when you begin to excel feel all the more incredible and again that's annoyingly rare in modern games or really even just games in general.

 

[LookingGlass]

I pretty much hated it until I leveled up. Everything would kill me without breaking a sweat and I was pretty convinced that I was just doing it wrong.

After doing a few easy quests and getting that first level up though... I just couldn't get enough hours of BG into my days.

 

[The Madman]

I pretty much hated it until I leveled up. Everything would kill me without breaking a sweat and I was pretty convinced that I was just doing it wrong.

After doing a few easy quests and getting that first level up though... I just couldn't get enough hours of BG into my days.

Luckily there are a log of BG hours to give. Taking one character from the beginning of Candlekeep to the Throne of Bhall is easily a hundred hour plus adventure!

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Baldur's Gate is a nearly perfect video game version of 2nd edition D&D, which held great appeal to many nerdy types, myself included. It's also probably the only time I've enjoyed The Forgotten Realms.

 

[The Madman]

Baldur's Gate is a nearly perfect video game version of 2nd edition D&D

If only it had turn based combat (like ToEE) and some real choices ans consequences.

I'd say it has plenty of choice and consequence, just not perhaps where you'd expect. The main story is fairly inflexible: You *will* go the same places and fight largely the same people no matter what. But when it comes to roleplaying the best aspect is how much freedom there is in interacting with your companions, and that can have some serious consequences. Characters will bicker with one another and yourself, they'll form their own relationships, ask for your help in their own quests, even leave the group or outright turn on you should you go to far with something they disagree with.

I like that. I like that a lot actually. I like playing a game and knowing what I say to my companions will make a difference as opposed to the silly 'approval' bars of recent Bioware games or the companions that outright don't care like in the Elder Scrolls games. It's a fantastic way to add some depth and role-playing into a game while still telling a more heavily narrated story.

 

[Zayle79]

I'm pretty sure you can run past him to get to Khalid and Jaheira. Much easier if you have them with you.

 

[-Drifter-]

After doing a few easy quests and getting that first level up though... I just couldn't get enough hours of BG into my days.

Sounds sort of like Fallout (1) in that regard.

 

[T_ConX]

Here is my experience with Baldur's Gate:

I go through the game as normal. Create character, meet Gorian, see him get killed and venture out on my own towards my next objective, two characters I assume I can recruit into my party. So far so good. It's enjoyable and the story setup is vaugely interesting and I'd like to see where it leads.

Upon reaching said objective (a large inn) I'm greeted by an assassin (though I only know this because I read that he's an assassin via google) who evades and eludes every attack my companion and I make, whilst offing me with a single flick of his wrist. I should also mention he completely blocks the way to where I need to go, crucially cutting me off from the backup I so desperately need.

After repeating this a dozen or so times with no success I stubbornly head off to search how to beat this bastard, finding out that this assassin is way out of league for my characters and should be dispatched by the nearby guards. The same guards that ineffectually wail on him to no avail.

Going through another dozen or so futile attempts to beat this sucker (the guards killed him once, right after he'd magic missile'd my scrawny Dwarven buttocks) I give up in frustration and took to google again to find out more information. I was shocked to find people lovingly recalling how much they enjoyed this bullshit, loading the game over and over until the dice-rolling RNG gave them the great rolls they needed to pass this completely over the top obstruction.

How do people like this piece of shit? Even Fallout wasn't this bastardly in it's opening hour.

I'm REALLY sorry, but it's hard for me to read that without calling you a Ca**** and suggesting that you to go back to playing Call of Duty.

But I'll try to be nice instead...

Basically, Baldurs Gate has a pretty steep learning curve. The game is built on the assumption that you have a strong understanding of AD&D rules AND tactics. You have to start thinking about min-maxing and optimizing EVERYTHING the moment you press the 'New Game' button. This is not a game that you can just 'stumble through'...

I know it LOOKS like your fate is in the hand of THE RANDOM NUMBER GOD, but part of playing BG (or any old school PC RPG) is understanding what's going on behind the scenes, and figuring out how best to improve your chances. Your attacks are missing? That means your hit bonuses aren't high enough. Make sure your characters using weapons they're proficient in. Need a quick way past his Mirror Image spell? Imoen has a Magic Missle Rod in her inventory, so use that IMMEDIATLY!

So how is all of this fun? It's called challenge. When you beat BG I or II, you feel like you've achieved something. It's something that a lot of games are missing, which is why some gamers fall so in love with games like Demon's/Dark Souls or Dwarf Fortress. "Finally, a game that isn't going to coddle me with checkpoints or a 'can't go wrong'-leveling system!"

Bioware managed to tone down the difficulty in future releases. Neverwinter Nights (still my favorite game of all time) was a little softer, and I really think KOTOR managed to nail the difficulty sweet-spot.

Then Mass Effect came out... then ME2... and things have been going downhill since. I blame EA...

Hell, it's not just Bioware games, but any major RPG studio. Skyrim and Oblivion are pretty easy to get into. Morrowind is a little harder, while Daggerfall and Arena will outright laugh at you. You almost have to play all these games BACKWARDS, just to get the most out of them.

So stick with it. Baldurs Gate can be beat (I did it when I was 15), and when you do finish it, you'll look back at that Mage and LAUGH.

Or you could just install the Jennifer Hepler Mod. You know, the one that gives you a special 'skip combat' button.

 

[Akytalusia]

-snip-

I'm REALLY sorry, but it's hard for me to read that without calling you a Ca**** and suggesting that you to go back to playing Call of Duty.

-snip-

just a random lurker passing through. but... what is that censored part? i can't figure it out for the life of me. o.o;;

OT: couldn't say. haven't played them myself. i hear it has memorable characters though. that point has a general tendancy to leave lasting positive impressions on people. that's all i can tell you.

 

[Joccaren]

Because the game hands nothing to you there, in fact, it actively works against you. It expects you to know what your doing and do that to make it through the game, rather than teaching you everything and saying "This is what you need to be doing". It expects that when you see something you're not hitting, you say 'I need to increase my hit bonus, or kite this bastard to the guards and get them to kill him, whilst dodging his attacks if possible', not 'FFS, I should be able to kill this guy. Why do I keep missing? Gah, RNG I hate you!'.
Its the sort of game where you will either look on a wiki to find out the best builds, or calculate your build in your classes at school instead of doing work, just to make sure you are perfectly suited to your task in the party and stand a chance at finishing the game.

 

[Right Hook]

How do people like this piece of shit? Even Fallout wasn't this bastardly in it's opening hour.

haha, my only experience with Baldurs Gate was at a friends house back in high school, a few of us sat around while another friend and me went through it, basically all night. We were up playing it till like 8am, so 24 hours with no sleep, we didn't have too much of a problem playing it, except I took basically 90% of all the loot and then we fought a beholder or whatever it is called. My friend died in the first ten seconds and I proceeded to jump around and kill it over twenty minutes and again take ALL of the loot. I don't know if I would call it good but it was not hard at all for me, especially considering I basically bullshitted my way through it.

 

[Puddleknock]

Well BG1 is simply just damn hard. Especially if someone is used to modern games and also has little understanding of the old D&D system then I could well imagine that the game is nearly impossible to begin with.

I'd advise new people to start with BG2 (which to me is the better of the two games anyway). You start BG2 at level 7 meaning you don't die as easily as you do in BG1. The game will still smack you around if you're not careful, but a new player could play as a mage of a thief and not get killed by a single blow.

Regardless if you start with BG1 and on to BG2, or just BG2, then game really is an epic (one of the few games that the word really applies to). The story of the bhaalspawn is to me of the best stories in all of gaming, wouldn't want to say any more as it should be experienced not told. Add to that the fantastic characters, both good and evil, and the BG games are a must for any RPG player.

 

[Vegosiux]

How do people like this piece of shit?

Because we do not tie our enjoyment of the game to instant gratification. You don't like it, fine, but don't call it a "piece of shit", because just you being unable to appreciate it for what it is does not make it a piece of shit. So yes, I'm almost tempted to tell you to go to something more streamlined if BG is too much for you to take.