Yeah so when people say Baldur's Gate is an all-time great RPG that is still a benchmark for writing, atmosphere, memorable characters, and world design, they're actually talking about Baldur's Gate II. This one was a massive leap forward for RPGs, but it's so full of rough edges that the second game and later CRPGs successfully smoothed over that it hardly compares to them. It's also severely padded with repetitive encounters and uninteresting side quests--totally lacking in respect for your time.
What would become a defining element of Bioware's great games to come--the unforgettable companions and the choice-driven conversations the player can have with them--are barely here. Random party banter which lets you flesh out your relationship with them is practically nonexistent (interestingly, except for the new Enhanced Edition characters, which range from bland to neat), which makes the writing feel a bit sparse, especially when so many quests, despite the regular dialogue trees, ultimately devolve into killing a pack of enemies here or a horde of them there. It makes you wonder what your choices really added when it ended up in a similar combat scenario either way--and there are so many similar combat scenarios strewn a bit too liberally throughout the game. This becomes less of an issue in the dense, dialogue-rich city of Baldur's Gate, but it takes so long to get there that the wait doesn't feel justified. Meaningless fights pad too much of the open world and the dungeons, but experience points aren't meted out generously enough to make some of the tough required fights fair or fun if you rush past optional content.
The combat itself isn't a horrible system, but AD&D is simply too much of a slog at low levels--and this entire game is low level AD&D. While the real time with pause fights allow for a blend of strategy (when tougher fights demand planning, timing, and positioning) and speed (when the game throws wads of trash mobs at you to pad a forest or dungeon), it's ultimately one of the weakest parts. Again, it feels better in BG2 (or successors like Pillars of Eternity) simply because you're actually strong enough in that one to have some real power and flexibility, which is where RTWP combat feels the best. It's not horrible here, just a bit of a jumbled mess waiting for refinement. The pathing AI will have you and your companions enthusiastically running to their death, and the encounter design doesn't help to massage out the kinks in the combat. Enemies are frequently loaded with irritating powers like poison and petrification that will inevitably force reloads due to sheer bad luck, even if you bring antidotes or try to weave around them. Even Planescape: Torment, famous for having some of the weakest combat of the Infinity Engine games, was occasionally more fun precisely because it was rarely if ever that hard. Sure, it didn't demand any strategy, but at least you could click on some dudes or run away and it would be over shortly, and what little combat it demanded usually carried narrative weight or at least fit the tumultuous setting. Being tossed into unwinnable fights doesn't demand any strategy because "reload and come back later" or "turn on Story Mode difficulty for this fight" isn't strategy, it's something a Gamefaqs walkthrough tells you to do.
It's not an awful game, and there's a lot to love. It captures the feeling of wandering aimlessly around the Forgotten Realms at low level (complete with encountering Drizzt and Elminster in passing) where everything is dangerous fairly well, but that alone doesn't carry the game, and in fact starts to get tedious and frustrating well before you're done. Everything it does well is done better and sooner in Shadows of Amn. And some will tell you that it's necessary to enjoy its vastly superior cousin, but in my experience, that isn't the case, even if people who stuck with the first seem to have a stronger attachment to the returning characters. I shudder to think how many people in recent years have bought this game, tried it, and put it down when it got too boring, tough, or repetitive, then never tried the second game assuming it was more of the first.
What would become a defining element of Bioware's great games to come--the unforgettable companions and the choice-driven conversations the player can have with them--are barely here. Random party banter which lets you flesh out your relationship with them is practically nonexistent (interestingly, except for the new Enhanced Edition characters, which range from bland to neat), which makes the writing feel a bit sparse, especially when so many quests, despite the regular dialogue trees, ultimately devolve into killing a pack of enemies here or a horde of them there. It makes you wonder what your choices really added when it ended up in a similar combat scenario either way--and there are so many similar combat scenarios strewn a bit too liberally throughout the game. This becomes less of an issue in the dense, dialogue-rich city of Baldur's Gate, but it takes so long to get there that the wait doesn't feel justified. Meaningless fights pad too much of the open world and the dungeons, but experience points aren't meted out generously enough to make some of the tough required fights fair or fun if you rush past optional content.
The combat itself isn't a horrible system, but AD&D is simply too much of a slog at low levels--and this entire game is low level AD&D. While the real time with pause fights allow for a blend of strategy (when tougher fights demand planning, timing, and positioning) and speed (when the game throws wads of trash mobs at you to pad a forest or dungeon), it's ultimately one of the weakest parts. Again, it feels better in BG2 (or successors like Pillars of Eternity) simply because you're actually strong enough in that one to have some real power and flexibility, which is where RTWP combat feels the best. It's not horrible here, just a bit of a jumbled mess waiting for refinement. The pathing AI will have you and your companions enthusiastically running to their death, and the encounter design doesn't help to massage out the kinks in the combat. Enemies are frequently loaded with irritating powers like poison and petrification that will inevitably force reloads due to sheer bad luck, even if you bring antidotes or try to weave around them. Even Planescape: Torment, famous for having some of the weakest combat of the Infinity Engine games, was occasionally more fun precisely because it was rarely if ever that hard. Sure, it didn't demand any strategy, but at least you could click on some dudes or run away and it would be over shortly, and what little combat it demanded usually carried narrative weight or at least fit the tumultuous setting. Being tossed into unwinnable fights doesn't demand any strategy because "reload and come back later" or "turn on Story Mode difficulty for this fight" isn't strategy, it's something a Gamefaqs walkthrough tells you to do.
It's not an awful game, and there's a lot to love. It captures the feeling of wandering aimlessly around the Forgotten Realms at low level (complete with encountering Drizzt and Elminster in passing) where everything is dangerous fairly well, but that alone doesn't carry the game, and in fact starts to get tedious and frustrating well before you're done. Everything it does well is done better and sooner in Shadows of Amn. And some will tell you that it's necessary to enjoy its vastly superior cousin, but in my experience, that isn't the case, even if people who stuck with the first seem to have a stronger attachment to the returning characters. I shudder to think how many people in recent years have bought this game, tried it, and put it down when it got too boring, tough, or repetitive, then never tried the second game assuming it was more of the first.