I recently ordered the physical edition of Baldur’s Gate 3, and while I wait for it to arrive I decided to try the first game in the franchise, and although many aspects were very well done and still hold up, as a complete package Baldur’s Gate was boring and tedious to get through.
BG1’s legacy is undeniable, a legendary game that shook up and set the standard for RPGs going forward that also put BioWare on the map. So going in I expected to enjoy it, and at times I did, but by the end I was bored and ready to put the game down for good.
Let me back up a little bit, the game opens fine enough, I create my character, I get through the prologue, I grab Imoen as a companion and I set off on my journey. But it didn’t take me long to run into issues, firstly the combat, oddly the “real time with pause” (RTWP) system wasn’t what I necessarily had a problem with. Pausing the game at each combat encounter to let you strategize before the combat actually started was fine in my opinion, maybe it would have been better to go with a more traditional turn based system or fully lean into real time with no pause, I’m not sure, regardless I didn’t think that RTWP was inherently what I had a problem with.
What I did have a problem was the THAC0 system and how either slow every encounter was or how impossible to understand the larger encounters were. You’d either have 20 attacks miss stalling the fight to a ludicrous degree or have 50 enemies on screen where you can’t see where you and your party members are, let alone what’s actually happening.
Don’t even get me started on the early game and how unfair the combat feels, until you get a couple level ups under your belt (which can take hours) you’re constantly getting one or two tapped even on core rules or normal.
Luckily once you get past this early game hump, the game does feel like it opens up a lot, and that leads to my favorite thing about BG1, the exploration. The map is absolutely massive, with tons of unique locations, you really can spend dozens of hours going around the map, completing side quests, and discovering more new locations. It really blew me away considering the game is over 25 years old.
I brought up the side quests already, and although most of them are monotonous side quests that don’t really contribute much to the game, but the writing for a lot of them is usually pretty clever, and makes them worth doing.
That’s kind of where my big compliments for the game end though, as my complaints keep mounting. Another big one I have is about the companions, they have no character or personality, they barely ever talk outside of maybe one quest dedicated to them. It’s one of the most frustrating things about this game as I want to know more and get closer to the 5 people that will be traveling with me for 50+ hours but the game doesn’t let me.
I do have other gripes with the game but they’re all minor nitpicks compared to what I’ve laid out here. I understand what BG1 has done for the RPG genre, and I respect the hell out of the game and I get why people love it, I’m just disappointed I’m not one of them.
Overall, I give the game a 5/10
BG1’s legacy is undeniable, a legendary game that shook up and set the standard for RPGs going forward that also put BioWare on the map. So going in I expected to enjoy it, and at times I did, but by the end I was bored and ready to put the game down for good.
Let me back up a little bit, the game opens fine enough, I create my character, I get through the prologue, I grab Imoen as a companion and I set off on my journey. But it didn’t take me long to run into issues, firstly the combat, oddly the “real time with pause” (RTWP) system wasn’t what I necessarily had a problem with. Pausing the game at each combat encounter to let you strategize before the combat actually started was fine in my opinion, maybe it would have been better to go with a more traditional turn based system or fully lean into real time with no pause, I’m not sure, regardless I didn’t think that RTWP was inherently what I had a problem with.
What I did have a problem was the THAC0 system and how either slow every encounter was or how impossible to understand the larger encounters were. You’d either have 20 attacks miss stalling the fight to a ludicrous degree or have 50 enemies on screen where you can’t see where you and your party members are, let alone what’s actually happening.
Don’t even get me started on the early game and how unfair the combat feels, until you get a couple level ups under your belt (which can take hours) you’re constantly getting one or two tapped even on core rules or normal.
Luckily once you get past this early game hump, the game does feel like it opens up a lot, and that leads to my favorite thing about BG1, the exploration. The map is absolutely massive, with tons of unique locations, you really can spend dozens of hours going around the map, completing side quests, and discovering more new locations. It really blew me away considering the game is over 25 years old.
I brought up the side quests already, and although most of them are monotonous side quests that don’t really contribute much to the game, but the writing for a lot of them is usually pretty clever, and makes them worth doing.
That’s kind of where my big compliments for the game end though, as my complaints keep mounting. Another big one I have is about the companions, they have no character or personality, they barely ever talk outside of maybe one quest dedicated to them. It’s one of the most frustrating things about this game as I want to know more and get closer to the 5 people that will be traveling with me for 50+ hours but the game doesn’t let me.
I do have other gripes with the game but they’re all minor nitpicks compared to what I’ve laid out here. I understand what BG1 has done for the RPG genre, and I respect the hell out of the game and I get why people love it, I’m just disappointed I’m not one of them.
Overall, I give the game a 5/10