@Zhan Fang it's one of those rare performances that make you forget it's a performance until it's over, his rage and frustration were tangible in a way that made that cutscene in the crater feel more real than any cutscene from a modern game that could be mistaken for an actual video clip
It's unbelievable how incredibly well the handdrawn graphics have passed the test of time ... compared to, say, early 3d graphics.. it's just so beautiful!
3D graphics need time to flourish. Imagine VR games and how good the graphics look on there, but... indeed, I think as well nothing can compare to 2D in essence. It's really true and tried but the most boggling thing about them is at least related to the medium of computing is how well they work on there, but admittedly 2D has been around for ''eons'', still. It was and still remains very memorable time in gaming and I am part glad I got to live that era and part sad that in essence... There aren't more of such games around because honestly? I can't get enough of them, and Baldur's Gate and other Infinity Engine games are the testament to this.
dont forget that this "small aquatic adventure" that you can take when you go the sea route, will enable you to find the best item in the game - the robe of spellturning. This item was later nerfed because it was just ridiculous. If you put that robe on a berserk fighter, he was basically immune against all spellcasters as their spells would either be ignored (because of rage), or thrown back at them due to the robe. Beholders had no chance what so ever against such an equipped fighter. A single guy would be able to basically wipe a whole dungeon of beholders as the robe would reflect their eyebeams back against themselves.
I love your stuff, channels like yours is what make youtube great, seeing this when I am going through tough times makes me feel like I can cope a little better
The exploration cut could also be seen as a by product of the higher level of the party. In BG1 we are low level travelling is a constant danger where a small group of goblins or wolves could wreck you, so travel needed to be slow and careful. While in BG2 we are so strong that basic wilderness is no longer a danger. Travel then become much faster and having to deal with a pack of wolves or goblins would just be a nuisance.
What I like about BG 2 more than BG1, is that the quests feel like quests, as opposed to fleshed out random encounters. Add to that the enhanced character interactions, the most memorable villain in game history, and the added tactical options during combat.
While I totally agree, there's one thing that I miss in BG2 compared to BG1 atmosphere of loneliness and fear you could feel on road from Candlekeep to Friendly Arms inn, when rain in the game could make you feel cold down to your bones irl :)
1:28:00 - I would also argue that the sense of being a more accomplished adventurer and not having quite so much trouble every time the cards fall in a slightly unlucky way is part of the natural mid-to-high-level experience. You're up against more dangerous threats but you're also more capable of handling dangerous threats and better-equipped to deal with them. That's a form of escalation that is especially satisfying to experience over the long haul of the Baldur's Gate saga, I believe.
My #1 game of all time still to this day, and not just through sheer nostalgia. I’ve played through it fairly recently, 175 ish hours in 2018. If anyone reads this and loves modern CRPG’s please give this one a chance. It holds up amazingly! Thanks for the retrospective I’m really enjoying my watch of it!
I think a big factor in BGIII not happening was Shadows of Amn getting too big and taking up the character levels that 3 would have used. With the original cap you would go into Throne of Bhaal with around 3M XP and the game balance was already collapsing- the Five and Amelyssan are all covered in immunities because you have so many ridiculous spells and abilities you'd just tear through them. I don't see how you would make a full-length game at that power level.
You do an amazing job with these retrospective videos There's a common trap many youtubers fall into when trying to review games, especially CRPGs: They tend to Describe every single pixel the game has to offer, in effect making a video style encyclopedia of the game. But I played the game too, why are you going quest by quest reading through all the dialogue or having a 1 hour section about every single bug. It doesn't feel like i'm getting anything out of watching the video and it's even more tedious than just replaying the game. On the other hand, the videos you make are incredibly well put together, this video is almost 5 hours long and yet at no point am I bored. You have managed to hit the sweet spot between describing the game, putting it into context, and giving your point of view. This review in particular, not only am I getting a clearer picture about the development and the sentiment around the game at the time, but also every single section you have selected to talk about is relevant and doesn't overstay it's welcome. You can clearly see the work that went behind it. Well done, I hope you continue to make these!
I really enjoyed your approach to this retrospective. It goes in depth on a lot of aspects you wouldn’t normally think about like the game’s development, and generally goes for more of an analytical approach to discussing the game. I think a lot of retrospectives fall into the trap of basically just summarising the game, which is boring if you’ve played it and basically just spoils it if you haven’t.
Yeah I try to structure these videos so that there's something for both people who actually want to learn if it's worth playing, and also people who played it but maybe weren't aware of the background or context to it.
Once again, I got some more interesting interesting facts about the lore surrounding Baldur's Gate 2. Fun fact: If you are trying to romance Jaheira, you'll notice there is a personal side quest of hers involving a rogue Harper boss named Galvarey who wants to imprison potentially dangerous people like "Gorion's Ward" to promote himself and become a local herald of Athkatla, making him and those working with him traitors of the Harpers, though they try to play mind games on Jaheira to make her believe she is the traitor for siding with a dangerous person like "Gorion's Ward". According to the Lands of Intrigue sourcebooks (Which I have), in 1370 DR, the true Harpers promoted a young bard named Ankem Nhrill to be the local herald of Athkatla, most likely to prevent the rise of other dangerously ambitious Harpers like Galvarey and Jaheira's former mentor Dermin Courtierdale, because a true Harper does not violate the freedoms of an individual for the sake of a promotion or gaining power of any kind. Fun fact #2: Drizzt and his friends Wulfgar, Cattie-Brie, Bruenor, Regis and Guenwhyvar show up in the game during Chapter 6, which is problematic in regards to canonical events because in 1369 DR, they are still going through R.A. Salvatore's "Sea of Swords" novel's story by the time Shadows of Amn starts. Plus, they come nowhere near Amn in any month in the year 1369 DR during the Sea of Swords story. The only way Drizzt and his companions could come to Amn and have an encounter with Gorion's Ward and his/her companions without contradicting the stories and timelines of ANY of R.A. Salvatore's novels is if the final half of Shadows of Amn and all of Throne of Bhaal take place in the year 1370 DR, sometime after Sea of Swords ends and before The Hunter's Blades Trilogy novels begins since Shadows of Amn begins on Mirtul (May) of 1369 DR, and there are TONS of side quests to kill time on until the year ends, and locations like Athkatla and Trademeet are actually further apart than the game depicts, meaning instead of taking a day or two to reach Trademeet from Athkatla on foot, it would actually take 20 days to get to Trademeet on foot (unless you have a horse) because you'd have to pass through cities Crimmor, Purskul, Imnescar which are miles apart, and then The Small Teeth mountain range to get to Trademeet, so it is possible for a lot of time to canonically pass between the start of Shadows of Amn and the start of Throne of Bhaal. Plus, if you talk to the town criers in Athkatla at any point in Shadows of Amn, they mention exiled Amnian families coming back to Amn in the Year of the Tankard (That's the name of the year 1370 DR, and Book #2 of the Lands of Intrigue sourcebook which details Amn's lore in 1370 DR states the exiled Amnian families came back to Amn on Hammer (January) of 1370), even if the journal that keeps up with your progress on side quests and the main quests is still in the Year of the Gauntlet, 1369 DR, which means the Shadows of Amn story is supposed to extend to 1370 DR, rather than stories of Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal all being crammed in 1369 DR, which wouldn't make sense. In other words, it actually took Gorion's Ward six or seven months to complete Chapter 2. Fun fact #3: Trademeet is located on the crossroads of the Trade Way Road just south from the Small Teeth Mountain Pass in between Murann to the east and Brost to the west in the official map of Amn, not the in-game version. Fun fact #4: According to Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate 2, Volo states that the de'Arnise family have been professional warriors for some generations, and they are one of the few rich Amnian families who are known for their hospitality and well prepared food, and they allow adventurers and common folk to stay as guests in their fortress home for two silver pieces each day. Fun fact #5: In the Adventurer's Mart in Waukeen's Promenade, there are portraits of Hank and Bobby from the 1982 Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show. The portraits reveal that Hank, Eric, Bobby, Sheila, Diana and Preston were recently killed by the Forgotten Realms version of Tiamat. It disappoints me that they never managed to return to the Earth Realm. Fun fact #6: Viconia DeVir sometimes uses extremely vulgar words in the Drow language that can't be said in English in a rated "T" for Teen computer game. When she scores a critical hit on an enemy, she says "Vith'os", which means "F*ck you" in the Drow language. But if she makes a critical miss, she exclaims "Vith'ir", which means "F*ck off" in Drow. How do I know this? There is a Drow-English dictionary website that I frequently look up called "Chosen of Eilistraee" to translate some of Viconia's Drow spoken dialogue for my own novelizations of the Baldur's Gate series based on the Enhanced Edition versions. She is also the romance interest of my male human Gorion's Ward despite him being Chaotic Good aligned. Fun fact #7: Did you know that in the original draft of Shadows of Amn, BioWare was going to have Yoshimo and Tamoko (Sarevok's girlfriend) be siblings? And that Yoshimo's original reason for coming to Amn was to look for his sister, and the reason why he allied with Irenicus taking the geas is because Irenicus told him that Gorion's Ward killed Tamoko whether that is true or not? If they kept Yoshimo's relation with Tamoko in the game, it would make a lot of sense given Tamoko's backstory written in Dragon #262. Before she met Sarevok, while she still lived in Kozakura, Tamoko was trained to be a ninja, and she was tasked to assassinate a high ranking "wu jen", which are Kozakuran sorcerers. Tamoko's target knew she was coming and during their fight, the sorcerer sent her flying into a portal that transported her to Athkatla in Amn. Coincidence? I think not! Fun fact #8: 3:01:47 It's very interesting you brought up that particular war in Tethyr. Jaheira was a little girl during the Ten Black Days of Eleint (Eleint is the Forgotten Realms calendar's September), which happened in the year 1347 DR, the year when the Iron Throne was founded, when Drow Ranger hero Drizzt met Bruenor and Catti-brie during R.A. Salvatore's Sojourn novel, and possibly when Gorion's Ward was born. Her human parent was a loyalist of King Alemander IV's regime, and everyone related to or loyal to Alemander IV were killed during the conflict, and Jaheira was adopted by druids to escape the conflict. Fun fact #9: According to the "Grand History of the Realms" book, eight to seven years ahead from the time Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal are set in, in the Year of the Haunting (1377 DR), a minor earthquake off the coast of Amn will disrupt Spellhold on the island of Brynnlaw (where the Cowled Wizards took Irenicus and Imoen during this game). Several of the deviant magic-users inside manage to escape, vowing vengeance on the nation that imprisoned them. Fun Fact #10 Tethyr had the Bhaalspawn crisis to deal with, while Amn had problems of their own. In Throne of Bhaal, when you drink at a tavern, the bartender NPC might tell you about a rumor that Sythillis or Sothillis, the ogre mage leading the Sothillisian War against Amn is a Bhaalspawn and crossed paths with Bhaalspawn fire giant Yaga Shura and got killed by him. Again, that is just a tavern rumor in the Throne of Bhaal game, and rumors are not always true. Truthfully, the game was wrong about Sothillis. Officially in Forgotten Realms lore, Sothillis was NOT a Bhaalspawn, and he and Yaga Shura never crossed paths because Sothillis lived to see the year 1374 DR, holding the city Murann, which is directly west from Trademeet captive even after the war ended. Sothillis, the ogre mage the Throne of Bhaal's lore mistakenly labeled as one of the children of Bhaal started a war against Amn during the events of Throne of Bhaal with the goal of recovering the lost Armory of Nedeheim, that lasted over four years, from 1370 to 1374 DR. Fun fact #12: The game's map of Tethyr is very odd. Tethyr's geography is slightly different from the official canon. The map's point of view is placed from the west, rather than from the south, meaning that Castle Tethyr, Myratma, Memnon, the Trade Way Road and the ocean is out of the map's view, many miles west (or from the game map's point of view, south) behind "The Oasis" and Amkethran. But that's not the only discrepancy in the map. The Marching Mountains should be where "Sendai's Enclave" and "Abazigal's Lair" is located! The Marching Mountains in the game is placed where the Alamir Mountains should be! In the Throne of Bhaal novelization, Abazigal's Lair is actually located in the Alamir Mountains, which is where the game's map mistakenly placed the Marching Mountains, and Amkethran was nowhere near the desert of Calimshan, it is 6 days south from Saradush (From the game map's perspective of Tethyr, 6 days east from Saradush), between the Forest of Mir and the Alamir Mountains. But since Amkethran looks to be a town very close to the deserts of Calimshan in the game version, this error can be forgiven. Besides, the Throne of Bhaal novelization and its prequels is no longer considered canon. Fun fact #13: According to the "Grand History of the Realms" book which covers events in Faerun not revealed in novels, comic books or games, in 1346 DR, baseless rumors spread that some 80,000 drow dwelled in the Forest of Mir, both surface and underground, triggering massive panic in Calimshan and Tethyr. Folk from Calimport ventured into the Muzad under the city, aiming to wipe out any drow they could find there. Others entered into slave-trading deals with actual drow agents and grew rich. Based on this information, I believe that Bhaal in mortal form must have been among the folk from Calimport who went to the Muzad and met the drow woman he would impregnate, giving birth to one of The Five, the half-drow Sendai as the result.
Great work. I listened to this whole thing. Especially loved the designer notes and their ideas about why they did certain things. Thank you for making this!
Hello! I played the IE games at similarly formative years as you, and I think you've had the best public retrospectives on that era of gaming that I've seen. Excited to see what things you do next!
Best retrospective on this game I've seen before. I've played every D&D computer game from Pools of Radiance onwards and absolutely loved BG2 from start to finish, but your constructive criticism of the game and explanation of the game is very fascinating
I'm thinking about doing a PoR video one day but it's a tough call. First problem is that it's really before my time and it's harder for me to get a good idea of the context of CRPGs/the industry. Second is that there are extremely in-depth retrospectives, or at least written ones, already out there (e.g. digital antiquarian SSI articles). The main reason I might cover PoR at some point is that I do want to cover the PoR reboot from 2000, and I think the reboot video would be better if I could actually make some comparisons to the original game. So we'll see what the future holds :D
@@MrEdders123 sounds good 👍 I loved them because they were such a change from eye of the beholder style games, but they would be seen as pretty archaic now, or even to people who grew up on infinity engine titles
Clearly a labor of love. Not sure I’d describe your vids as “sleeping aids” … fascinating stuff! I’ll probably never have time to replay huge games like BG2 that I loved 20 years ago, but gaining additional context/historical perspective and taking a vicarious trip down memory lane is just as satisfying. Very much appreciated. Keep up the good work 🙂
lol I'm just pre-empting accusations my videos are bit slow/dull. I did experiment with jauntier, cleverly-edited videos early on but I don't really have any talent for that, so I try to focus on documentary-ish videos. :D
One of the best games ever made deserves a special treatment for sure. Glad to see MrEdders understanding this. A very special video for a very special game. Fitting. Glorious. Classic.
Jesuse, can't believe i've watched 2 hours of this and still going. BG2 was the most amazing game ever, more so cause it came in the time it did. I was a child but I remember every single part of the story or side quests. Amazing.
Went to these videos after playing BG3 to learn abit more about the originals, and these videos are amazing! I love detailed video essays that delve into all the details from the plot, development, gameplay, all of it! Amazing work!
This was a fantastic retrospective, and really brought some new perspectives to think about regarding my all-time favorite RPG. One thing I have always thought about this era, compared to modern RPG design, is that I believe a lot of the developers were TTRPG gamers/fans first, trying to bring that to life with the tools they had. With a primarily text-based delivery, they were able to write so many more options for quests, stories, etc. While I have little evidence to back it up, I feel like modern devs were video game RPG fans first, and design with that in mind. Everything is voiced, animated- so every branching path increases costs on an exponential level for content, as you say, that will only be seen by a certain percentage of people. Really great analysis.
Amazing work! Hope you get to the EE as wel, since I recently completed BG 1 + 2 EE, and I’m currently playing icewind dale EE. I’m actually blown away at how much I’m enjoying these old games, as opposed to more modern titles.
Minor correction: Gromnir is not actually a member of the Five; Illasera is the first of the Five, and Gromnir is just another powerful Bhaalspawn drawn into conflict.
I just want to thank you for making this. Nostalgia aside, it also answered some of my own questions about what happened to the game series. Wish more people can enjoy this.
I would've liked the exploration to be somewhere in-between 1 and 2. I did find BG1 to be very tedious, but I never complained about the areas being empty. A bit bland, sure; some were hiding good loot or a small quest or special interaction. I was curious to explore them all. My issue was my own goal of full completion in games, made hard by playing in 480pixels, small screen, overly complex topography at times and the characters moving significantly slower than BG2. All of these made mapping out the fog of war very slow and tedious, and I got overwhelmed when I reached the city in chapter 5 (returned later with bg1ee and finished the game). All the while BG2 could have used more outdoors but who knows, maybe was too much work not enough time. I enjoy the same section of the Bhaalspawn Battle music. I like how in the interviews they tried to stick as close as possible to the music that came before them, which ... is not something I can say about BG3. More so when Siege of Dragonspear, 16 years later, tried to sound as close as possible and for the most part I think it succeeded. Evidently so, the new game doesn't seem to care much. Then again not many players care to analyze music in games, or have it be a big deal of why they liked the game.
Yeah I imagine some players find BG1 outdoor exploration more bearable due to the zoomed out camera, so they're not scrolling all the time. When I played the EE for the BG1 video I found it broke the immersion though, as it was much more obvious you were just mapping a giant square or rectangle.
1:40:00 - I'm halfway convinced that the absurdity of Baldur's Gate players being "chronic daytime nappers" was half the reason D&D 4th Edition introduced the Short Rest mechanic. It did very much seem like it was trying to be a ruleset that was geared toward being adapted into a video game.
A pretty interesting video. There’s a lot to think about. I appreciate your old-school perspective on the gameplay; clearly you had a lot on your mind considering how long you spent discussing the companion characters! It’s great to be validated; I always imagined all the old BioWare writers as a bunch of weird nerdy boys. Those file photos you shared were delightfully 90s. ;)
Another problem with Irenicus is that his plan is to get you to Spellhold so he can steal your soul. Yet has Bodhi demands you get 15,000 gold enough though you might die while getting this money. You're also not told how to enter Spellhold even though Saemon is working with Irenicus and could just give you the Wardstone. He could also have the Cowled Wizards transport you for free once he gains control of them. Also if you don't care about Imoen and don't try to follow him then his plan instantly fails. Bodhi is trying to gain control of this city and the thief's guild has a ground that splits off from the main branch but Bodhi isn't involved with this in any way. It just seems like a missed opportunity. Finally you fight Irenicus 3 times: in Spellhold Irenicus is at full power, in the Elf city he is at full power because he lost the tree's power, and in hell he has the Slayer's power. However only the Elf city is necessary since it's the culmination of Irenicus' arc. Also the 5 trials in hell would have been better if added to the pocket plane in Throne of Bhaal so you'd have something other than fighting challenges.
I guess Bodhi is just trying to make the most of the situation, secure more funding for her vampiric takeover of the Amnian underworld. Seemed like she and Irenicus weren't entirely on the same page when it came to The Plan; she was enjoying doing her own thing, and is mostly content being a vampire, but if her brother manages to figure something out that helps her condition, cool.
@@smartalec2001 "I guess Bodhi is just trying to make the most of the situation, secure more funding for her vampiric takeover of the Amnian underworld." But why? Irenicus is no longer in Amn and eventually gets a powerbase in Spellhold. I guess she could be less interested in getting revenge on the elves than her brother. I guess if Irenicus gained control of Spellhold part way through chapter 3 then the story would make more sense.
@@uanime1 Yes, exactly that - she's doing her own thing. She seemed content being a vampire, and living night to night doing evil stuff without much more of a goal than that. She doesn't seem to think too much about her brother's grand plans. While Irenicus is making his final plans to assault Suldanesselar, she's still doing her own thing in Athkatla, and in the Ascension version of Throne of Bhaal, she's happy to turn against Irenicus and fight alongside an evil PC, if it gets her what she wants.
Took me 3 days but I've watched the whole video and enjoyed every minute of it. The amount of work you must've put in is unfathomable. You're a legend. I've no choice but to binge the rest of your content now
I found you right as I started a playthrough for the first time in at least 5 years. This was very thorough and informative, and doesn't resort to stupid RUclips tropes. I will certainly be checking out the rest of your channel.
This was an amazing video! I love how you managed to dig up so much info regarding the development of the game! As I game developer I love hearing about the trials and tribulations of what is one of my all time fave games! I'd love to see similar vids for a few of the other infinity engine games as well! Or perhaps one of the modern remakes (Pillars of Eternity?) as it would make for some interesting comparisons :-)
Hmm, that game looks familiar somehow...Anyway, modern CRPGs is a tough one. It certainly makes sense to cover them, especially since my BG/IWD videos involve a lot of complaining about the lack of such :P It's difficult to approach a modern game the same way though - people look at these kind of reviews as more like product reviews (quite reasonably) rather than historical curiosities, and the format would have to be very different. I might consider covering some of the early kickstarter titles that aren't so well known, like Serpent in the Staglands...
One of my best friends re-introduced me to this game a back in about 2007 or so. Before that I remember having played a demo of IWD. He told me what my companions should be (Korgan, Keldorn, Edwin, Viconia and Minsc) and report back to him when I had finished it and he'd lend me the expansion. I enjoyed the chaos a lot!
I watched descent ibto ubdermoutain and now im here your baldurs gate videos truly a great set of videos that anybody interested in gaming history or fans of the gaming systems invovled need to watch bravo
My first instinct was to nitpick some things I disgree with, but mostly I'm struck by how professionally done the complete video feels. Nice mix of fact and history, and opinions that at the very least show you've played and understand the game well. RUclips has started recommending your stuff to me, so I hope you start getting the views you deserve.
Fantastic video (the whole channel is great and very informative) about Baldurs Gate and the making of. After 4 hours and 41 Minutes I still want more :-) Thank you so much for this retrospective!
He's grown on me. I didn't like him at first, but my last playthrough earlier this year I really took the time to read his dialogue and quite enjoyed him. It certainly helps he fulfills a valuable thief slot and a mage slot. His usefulness certainly helps.
4:35:37 "Western RPGs seem to be inferior copies of older titles..." Could you explain this a bit? I would like to know your thoughts on current trend of Wrpgs (DOS, Witcher, Pillars, KCD, Pathfinder).
Pillars/Pathfinder are the gold standard for "Infinity Engine but worse" for me. DOS is kinda its own thing (I preferred it to PoE, probably because I went in with zero expectations). KC:D I view as more in the vein of old-school Bethesda, unfortunately I don't think the combat system ever really worked as it should have. Witcher 3 I liked but it's light on RPG, more in the vein of an Ubisoft game - can't imagine replaying it. It's not like back in the early 00s when it seemed like western CRPGs were suddenly going in a lot of exciting new directions.
Another banger! Well done. All the research you put into your videos really is impressive and so much more than most of the professional game "journalists" do. I salute you, good Sir.
Great analysis! regarding your point of map design and random exploration (or lack thereof in second half BG2 and ToB): For me it always made a lot of sense as a way to match the experience of playing with the story progression. In BG1, Gorions Ward is a noob, so stumbling through the wilderness and retelling random encounters with wolves and Ogrillons made you (as the player) feel that. In BG2, I always assume that the same is still happening, but since Gorion`s Ward has become a competent adventurer he doesn`t struggle with it anymore, so we just fast forward through it and get the outdoor map with just the dungeons. Like when you learn to drive, you very consciously experience doing every turn, but when you are a mature driver you only remember the challenging mountain road and not the commute to work. In later BG2 and especially ToB, we get to epic levels and killing rats in the basement or finding the lost journal in the sewers is nothing we would bother with - and if we wanted to, probably summon a djinn or whatever to take care of it in 5 secs. The more streamlined experience reflects the more streamlined character progression: We are pulled towards the Throne and battle for ascendance, whether we want to or not. So, for me, this increasing linearity actually feels very fitting to the story being told.
You are the only reviewer who mentioned that Athkatla has South-European look, and I appreciated this. So many people on RUclips didn't understand the point of referees for this city. It's amazed me.
Lovely to see such research and passion in this production. Great mention of FF7 influences too. Listening to this will help form my own cRPG design choices in the years to come. Well done good sir.
I really hope you get around to Neverwinter Nights someday. In particular I hope you try the multiplayer, as it's really why the game still has a solid population even twenty years later. The Aurora toolset is easily the most comprehensive set of modding tools ever released, and the true focus of the game was always on user-made content.
Unfortunately I don't see myself ever doing a NWN video. I could do a singleplayer-focused video but there's already a 4hr Noah-whatshisname vid on those. To do NWN justice you need to have experience of both tabletop roleplaying (especially as a GM imo) and NWN online mode, and I have very little of either. I might do short videos on individual modules (like with the BG and IWD ones for NWN2) in the future though.
What a ride! Played this series as a teen in 2016 and am now enjoying BG3 with my brother. It’s always held a special place in my heart, although I’ve never gotten anyone else in my circle to try it 😭 Thanks for your incredible dedication to and thorough coverage of this amazing game!
Great vid. Having sank 100 hours so far into BG3 I can confirm it has carried on the high standards set in BG2 and is quite an astonishing achievement in terms of content and consequences of action.
Around 1:30:00 the need to re-memorize spell slots after being restored from a level drain is just them being being faithful to the TTRPG rules. You get slapped around by undead at the table, you're going to have empty slots when the drain is repaired. Whether that's really something you need in a CRPG is debatable, but it's certainly a design decision rather than a tech limitation.
Great video, I remember seeing something about the original Baldur’s Gate 3 being called “Baldur’s Gate 3: The Black Hound” which was going to use the 3rd edition rule set and also use the same engine as the cancelled original Fallout 3
It wasn't really the "original" BG3, just another Black Isle game that got the brand slapped onto it by Interplay. Chris Avellone said something to the effect of it probably being a good thing it wasn't released in the end.
@@VoidSmoker97 not really. i mean, BG is a city on Faerun. you would be getting a new campaign with a different DM. that's about it doesn't help WotC is not flexible with the realms. I wish there was Chessenta game. Basically high magic ancient / medieval Greece.
A video of four and a half hours is a *brutal* amount of work that in most cases bears no proportion to the amount of views it receives, as is the case here. This mammoth of a video deserves so much more. Hats off to you, good sir!
Must have played through the game from start to finish more than any other. Loved it with all my heart. First time I played through it was with after school every day with a chum in the year of its release. Something absurd like 400 hours of playing through it we loved it. Great job on this documentary Also... Jaheria can get in the bin.
57:05 companions can definitely be perma-killed, for example through disintegration, or flesh to stone and then smashing the resulting statue. They can also be "as good as dead" if they are hit by imprisonment, since you need to cast "freedom", a lvl9 spell, in the same spot where your companion disappeared, without any visual indication of where that spot is, in order to save them. It's just that in BG your level was not high enough to have access to resurrection spells. Also the reason why in BG there were so many disposable companions
On "Normal" difficulty, which is the default on retail and GoG copies, I believe those spells still just kill them in the regular way. It's just a lot of people play on "Core Rules", which is as you said.
Hello Nice retrospective, I am really enjoying it. Just 1 small correction (so far), at 3:02:54 Gromnir was not of the five, and at this point in time they hadn't turned on each other, they were planning to, but Gorion's ward did that for them. The five were the assassin, the giant, the drow, the dragon and the monk.
Amazing comprehensive video. I can't look at BG2 quite as objectively as you seem to be able to -- to me it is an absolute masterpiece that has had immeasurable influence on the genre. I'm happy to see now, a year after this video, that what you said is clearly no longer the case -- with BG3 selling millions and winning Game of the Year, BG2's legacy and influence is clear and cemented.
@@MrEdders123 if RTWP was BG2's only legacy then I would agree. People make the valid case that BG3 is more overtly influenced by Divinity:OS than BG, but they forget what a profound influence BG had on the OS series -- more than the original Divinity games. I would argue the entire CRPG for the last 15 years owes a tremendous debt to both BG1/2 and Torment -- everything from Pillars, Pathfinder, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Disco Elysium; too many to count that would have likely never existed if it hadn't been for the Infinity legacy. But I respect your objective take -- it's not a perfect game, it's perfect for me though.
Excellent video, as was the Baldur's Gate one. This is probably my favorite game of all time and I never learned about the development so that part of the video was very exciting for me, thanks
Looking good. I repeat myself, that retrospective reviews should be something like this. Giving info about development history and all that. Mostly these long videos are about explaining game's story
2:11:50 - This talk about how reviewers where going on about how the games needed to make the switch to 3D really does make me laugh, because the Infinity Engine games have aged more gracefully than most of the 3D games released around that time, warts and all.
1:31:00 - Ahahahahaha, yeah, re-memorizing spells for the extra spells slots and remembering which ones you needed is a pain in the butt. I honestly just gave up trying to remember after a point and started physically noting my spellcaster loadouts down in an actual pen-and-paper notebook.
It's too bad you don't have a donate button. This has to be the first video I've ever watched where I immediately thought this person deserves some of my money for all the hard work and research put into this.
Thanks! I'm mostly working from what people have done before though - archive.org, old gaming magazines, fansites and such. And obviously fansites, forums, people pestering Chris Avellone etc. Matt Barton's videos and David Craddock's "Beneath a Starless Sky" (which can be found in full online) are good sources if you're interested in Black Isle and Bioware.
No. You don't have to gather companions and you don't have to forge relationships. I have played the game many times as a solo mage. IIRC it was at level 13 where I obtained the Staff of the Magi and not long after that the Ring of Gaxx. For those who know, it is the winning of the Ring of Gaxx from it's namesake evil lich that is the proof of the power of the Staff of the Magi. With it, you don't need any companions. Even the mighty Firkraag will fall once your level gets high enough to achieve Alacrity in your spell casting. Of course you must remove the experience cap to do this last test. But having an EXP cap is against nature and flies in the face of reason, so I have no problem with using the file.
I think the real strength of the P&P system like D&D and Pathfinder in CRPGs comes to the forefront if you aren't able to rest anywhere and anytime. Resource managment thus making important deceision is what a game makes fun
Thank you! I have to say the Computer Gaming Yesterday video was also very extensively researched - I believe the only major stuff they missed is the BG3/Trilogy topic, which is hard to research due to mostly being confined to throwaway lines in old magazines and archived websites. If a couple of the old Bioware devs hadn't replied to my emails I probably would've skipped that entire section due to how much it relied on speculation.
What bothered me immensely was the whole railroaded arrival at Spellhold thing. It was an exercise in powergaming, simply declaring the party did something that the player may actually see as uncharacteristic for the PC.
After listening to you describe the development process of BGII the decision to just make an expansion finale become clear to me. Faster and Easier and let them move onto a new game a new license etc etc, and avoided the fact the engine was old. There's too many little things that all add up to 'let's just push this out the door' let's never forget Interplay was always 3 months away from someone swinging by to break some kneecaps.
R.I.P. David Warner, the voice of Jon Irenicus, probably one of the best villains voices ever.
Yeah...although Irenicus was a monster, the moments of heartbreak in his voice were so profound.
"YOU WILL SUFFER! YOU WILL ALL SUFFER!!"
-- One of the most memorable villain lines of all video games
@Zhan Fang it's one of those rare performances that make you forget it's a performance until it's over, his rage and frustration were tangible in a way that made that cutscene in the crater feel more real than any cutscene from a modern game that could be mistaken for an actual video clip
I wasn't charmed by the character himself, but his voice.
It was, so memorable...
And I wanna go back to the game again after watching this.
Let's not forget, he was also the scientist in Ninja Turtles 2! 😂
It's unbelievable how incredibly well the handdrawn graphics have passed the test of time ... compared to, say, early 3d graphics.. it's just so beautiful!
I still think it can surpass full 3D sometimes, Pillars of Eternity looks pretty.
forget early... compared to modern computer made ones, the OG portraits still look better
I agree with every word you said, except for "unbelievable".
I believe it.
I think Early 3d graphics will get a resurgence sooner or later. It's not quite 16bit, but it is a style of its own.
3D graphics need time to flourish. Imagine VR games and how good the graphics look on there, but... indeed, I think as well nothing can compare to 2D in essence. It's really true and tried but the most boggling thing about them is at least related to the medium of computing is how well they work on there, but admittedly 2D has been around for ''eons'', still.
It was and still remains very memorable time in gaming and I am part glad I got to live that era and part sad that in essence... There aren't more of such games around because honestly?
I can't get enough of them, and Baldur's Gate and other Infinity Engine games are the testament to this.
dont forget that this "small aquatic adventure" that you can take when you go the sea route, will enable you to find the best item in the game - the robe of spellturning. This item was later nerfed because it was just ridiculous. If you put that robe on a berserk fighter, he was basically immune against all spellcasters as their spells would either be ignored (because of rage), or thrown back at them due to the robe. Beholders had no chance what so ever against such an equipped fighter. A single guy would be able to basically wipe a whole dungeon of beholders as the robe would reflect their eyebeams back against themselves.
I don’t remember that item at all
Was it just removed?
@@Merknilashnope, still there, I've picked it up a few days ago in EE.
It's nerfed
This was an incredible retrospective and I’m sure it took you ages to research, write, and produce. Thank you for this, I listened to all 4+ hours!
Thanks :D
Agreed. Amazing videos like this get me through so many shifts of work.
I massively appreciate your research on history of the series/development and the devs intentions.
Really transported me back to that era.
I love your stuff, channels like yours is what make youtube great, seeing this when I am going through tough times makes me feel like I can cope a little better
Perspective is determined by self acceptance. High acceptance equals high level perspective which is where we all need to be. ❤️
_"Jaheira's romance soon ballooned into an unwieldy beast which sucked all of Jansen's time."_
JUST LIKE IN THE GAME
*AAAAAAAAAAAH*
These retrospectives are unreal. Thank you so much for giving so much time and effort into telling the story of these amazing games.
The exploration cut could also be seen as a by product of the higher level of the party. In BG1 we are low level travelling is a constant danger where a small group of goblins or wolves could wreck you, so travel needed to be slow and careful. While in BG2 we are so strong that basic wilderness is no longer a danger. Travel then become much faster and having to deal with a pack of wolves or goblins would just be a nuisance.
What I like about BG 2 more than BG1, is that the quests feel like quests, as opposed to fleshed out random encounters. Add to that the enhanced character interactions, the most memorable villain in game history, and the added tactical options during combat.
While I totally agree, there's one thing that I miss in BG2 compared to BG1 atmosphere of loneliness and fear you could feel on road from Candlekeep to Friendly Arms inn, when rain in the game could make you feel cold down to your bones irl :)
I don't find Irenicus memorable at all, he's just a mad someone who interrupts my journey with his nonsenses.
@@sergiopitarch4364 Agreed, Irenicus was like a mere child meddling in affairs of gods. Edgy and forgettable.
exactly. Exploration was better in BG1@@bojannisic2906
1:28:00 - I would also argue that the sense of being a more accomplished adventurer and not having quite so much trouble every time the cards fall in a slightly unlucky way is part of the natural mid-to-high-level experience. You're up against more dangerous threats but you're also more capable of handling dangerous threats and better-equipped to deal with them. That's a form of escalation that is especially satisfying to experience over the long haul of the Baldur's Gate saga, I believe.
By far my favourite game of all times, I play it on repeat since the release. Can´t get enough.
@@lolroflkartoffel123 Dipshit moment.
"how did you got thru whole video" easy, it's a good listen, thank you for making it!
Thanks!
My #1 game of all time still to this day, and not just through sheer nostalgia. I’ve played through it fairly recently, 175 ish hours in 2018. If anyone reads this and loves modern CRPG’s please give this one a chance. It holds up amazingly!
Thanks for the retrospective I’m really enjoying my watch of it!
I think a big factor in BGIII not happening was Shadows of Amn getting too big and taking up the character levels that 3 would have used. With the original cap you would go into Throne of Bhaal with around 3M XP and the game balance was already collapsing- the Five and Amelyssan are all covered in immunities because you have so many ridiculous spells and abilities you'd just tear through them. I don't see how you would make a full-length game at that power level.
2nd Edition was barely built with Epic levels in mind. Mythic and Paragon levels break it into confetti.
You do an amazing job with these retrospective videos
There's a common trap many youtubers fall into when trying to review games, especially CRPGs:
They tend to Describe every single pixel the game has to offer, in effect making a video style encyclopedia of the game. But I played the game too, why are you going quest by quest reading through all the dialogue or having a 1 hour section about every single bug. It doesn't feel like i'm getting anything out of watching the video and it's even more tedious than just replaying the game.
On the other hand, the videos you make are incredibly well put together, this video is almost 5 hours long and yet at no point am I bored. You have managed to hit the sweet spot between describing the game, putting it into context, and giving your point of view.
This review in particular, not only am I getting a clearer picture about the development and the sentiment around the game at the time, but also every single section you have selected to talk about is relevant and doesn't overstay it's welcome. You can clearly see the work that went behind it.
Well done, I hope you continue to make these!
Outstanding work my friend. I look forward to watching your other retrospectives in the coming weeks.
A mighty Baldur’s Gate documentary is very much appreciated. Thank you for making this!
I really enjoyed your approach to this retrospective. It goes in depth on a lot of aspects you wouldn’t normally think about like the game’s development, and generally goes for more of an analytical approach to discussing the game. I think a lot of retrospectives fall into the trap of basically just summarising the game, which is boring if you’ve played it and basically just spoils it if you haven’t.
Yeah I try to structure these videos so that there's something for both people who actually want to learn if it's worth playing, and also people who played it but maybe weren't aware of the background or context to it.
Once again, I got some more interesting interesting facts about the lore surrounding Baldur's Gate 2.
Fun fact: If you are trying to romance Jaheira, you'll notice there is a personal side quest of hers involving a rogue Harper boss named Galvarey who wants to imprison potentially dangerous people like "Gorion's Ward" to promote himself and become a local herald of Athkatla, making him and those working with him traitors of the Harpers, though they try to play mind games on Jaheira to make her believe she is the traitor for siding with a dangerous person like "Gorion's Ward". According to the Lands of Intrigue sourcebooks (Which I have), in 1370 DR, the true Harpers promoted a young bard named Ankem Nhrill to be the local herald of Athkatla, most likely to prevent the rise of other dangerously ambitious Harpers like Galvarey and Jaheira's former mentor Dermin Courtierdale, because a true Harper does not violate the freedoms of an individual for the sake of a promotion or gaining power of any kind.
Fun fact #2: Drizzt and his friends Wulfgar, Cattie-Brie, Bruenor, Regis and Guenwhyvar show up in the game during Chapter 6, which is problematic in regards to canonical events because in 1369 DR, they are still going through R.A. Salvatore's "Sea of Swords" novel's story by the time Shadows of Amn starts. Plus, they come nowhere near Amn in any month in the year 1369 DR during the Sea of Swords story. The only way Drizzt and his companions could come to Amn and have an encounter with Gorion's Ward and his/her companions without contradicting the stories and timelines of ANY of R.A. Salvatore's novels is if the final half of Shadows of Amn and all of Throne of Bhaal take place in the year 1370 DR, sometime after Sea of Swords ends and before The Hunter's Blades Trilogy novels begins since Shadows of Amn begins on Mirtul (May) of 1369 DR, and there are TONS of side quests to kill time on until the year ends, and locations like Athkatla and Trademeet are actually further apart than the game depicts, meaning instead of taking a day or two to reach Trademeet from Athkatla on foot, it would actually take 20 days to get to Trademeet on foot (unless you have a horse) because you'd have to pass through cities Crimmor, Purskul, Imnescar which are miles apart, and then The Small Teeth mountain range to get to Trademeet, so it is possible for a lot of time to canonically pass between the start of Shadows of Amn and the start of Throne of Bhaal.
Plus, if you talk to the town criers in Athkatla at any point in Shadows of Amn, they mention exiled Amnian families coming back to Amn in the Year of the Tankard (That's the name of the year 1370 DR, and Book #2 of the Lands of Intrigue sourcebook which details Amn's lore in 1370 DR states the exiled Amnian families came back to Amn on Hammer (January) of 1370), even if the journal that keeps up with your progress on side quests and the main quests is still in the Year of the Gauntlet, 1369 DR, which means the Shadows of Amn story is supposed to extend to 1370 DR, rather than stories of Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal all being crammed in 1369 DR, which wouldn't make sense. In other words, it actually took Gorion's Ward six or seven months to complete Chapter 2.
Fun fact #3: Trademeet is located on the crossroads of the Trade Way Road just south from the Small Teeth Mountain Pass in between Murann to the east and Brost to the west in the official map of Amn, not the in-game version.
Fun fact #4: According to Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate 2, Volo states that the de'Arnise family have been professional warriors for some generations, and they are one of the few rich Amnian families who are known for their hospitality and well prepared food, and they allow adventurers and common folk to stay as guests in their fortress home for two silver pieces each day.
Fun fact #5: In the Adventurer's Mart in Waukeen's Promenade, there are portraits of Hank and Bobby from the 1982 Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show. The portraits reveal that Hank, Eric, Bobby, Sheila, Diana and Preston were recently killed by the Forgotten Realms version of Tiamat. It disappoints me that they never managed to return to the Earth Realm.
Fun fact #6: Viconia DeVir sometimes uses extremely vulgar words in the Drow language that can't be said in English in a rated "T" for Teen computer game. When she scores a critical hit on an enemy, she says "Vith'os", which means "F*ck you" in the Drow language. But if she makes a critical miss, she exclaims "Vith'ir", which means "F*ck off" in Drow. How do I know this? There is a Drow-English dictionary website that I frequently look up called "Chosen of Eilistraee" to translate some of Viconia's Drow spoken dialogue for my own novelizations of the Baldur's Gate series based on the Enhanced Edition versions. She is also the romance interest of my male human Gorion's Ward despite him being Chaotic Good aligned.
Fun fact #7: Did you know that in the original draft of Shadows of Amn, BioWare was going to have Yoshimo and Tamoko (Sarevok's girlfriend) be siblings? And that Yoshimo's original reason for coming to Amn was to look for his sister, and the reason why he allied with Irenicus taking the geas is because Irenicus told him that Gorion's Ward killed Tamoko whether that is true or not? If they kept Yoshimo's relation with Tamoko in the game, it would make a lot of sense given Tamoko's backstory written in Dragon #262. Before she met Sarevok, while she still lived in Kozakura, Tamoko was trained to be a ninja, and she was tasked to assassinate a high ranking "wu jen", which are Kozakuran sorcerers. Tamoko's target knew she was coming and during their fight, the sorcerer sent her flying into a portal that transported her to Athkatla in Amn. Coincidence? I think not!
Fun fact #8: 3:01:47 It's very interesting you brought up that particular war in Tethyr. Jaheira was a little girl during the Ten Black Days of Eleint (Eleint is the Forgotten Realms calendar's September), which happened in the year 1347 DR, the year when the Iron Throne was founded, when Drow Ranger hero Drizzt met Bruenor and Catti-brie during R.A. Salvatore's Sojourn novel, and possibly when Gorion's Ward was born. Her human parent was a loyalist of King Alemander IV's regime, and everyone related to or loyal to Alemander IV were killed during the conflict, and Jaheira was adopted by druids to escape the conflict.
Fun fact #9: According to the "Grand History of the Realms" book, eight to seven years ahead from the time Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal are set in, in the Year of the Haunting (1377 DR), a minor earthquake off the coast of Amn will disrupt Spellhold on the island of Brynnlaw (where the Cowled Wizards took Irenicus and Imoen during this game). Several of the deviant magic-users inside manage to escape, vowing vengeance on the nation that imprisoned them.
Fun Fact #10 Tethyr had the Bhaalspawn crisis to deal with, while Amn had problems of their own. In Throne of Bhaal, when you drink at a tavern, the bartender NPC might tell you about a rumor that Sythillis or Sothillis, the ogre mage leading the Sothillisian War against Amn is a Bhaalspawn and crossed paths with Bhaalspawn fire giant Yaga Shura and got killed by him. Again, that is just a tavern rumor in the Throne of Bhaal game, and rumors are not always true. Truthfully, the game was wrong about Sothillis. Officially in Forgotten Realms lore, Sothillis was NOT a Bhaalspawn, and he and Yaga Shura never crossed paths because Sothillis lived to see the year 1374 DR, holding the city Murann, which is directly west from Trademeet captive even after the war ended. Sothillis, the ogre mage the Throne of Bhaal's lore mistakenly labeled as one of the children of Bhaal started a war against Amn during the events of Throne of Bhaal with the goal of recovering the lost Armory of Nedeheim, that lasted over four years, from 1370 to 1374 DR.
Fun fact #12: The game's map of Tethyr is very odd. Tethyr's geography is slightly different from the official canon. The map's point of view is placed from the west, rather than from the south, meaning that Castle Tethyr, Myratma, Memnon, the Trade Way Road and the ocean is out of the map's view, many miles west (or from the game map's point of view, south) behind "The Oasis" and Amkethran. But that's not the only discrepancy in the map. The Marching Mountains should be where "Sendai's Enclave" and "Abazigal's Lair" is located! The Marching Mountains in the game is placed where the Alamir Mountains should be! In the Throne of Bhaal novelization, Abazigal's Lair is actually located in the Alamir Mountains, which is where the game's map mistakenly placed the Marching Mountains, and Amkethran was nowhere near the desert of Calimshan, it is 6 days south from Saradush (From the game map's perspective of Tethyr, 6 days east from Saradush), between the Forest of Mir and the Alamir Mountains. But since Amkethran looks to be a town very close to the deserts of Calimshan in the game version, this error can be forgiven. Besides, the Throne of Bhaal novelization and its prequels is no longer considered canon.
Fun fact #13: According to the "Grand History of the Realms" book which covers events in Faerun not revealed in novels, comic books or games, in 1346 DR, baseless rumors spread that some 80,000 drow dwelled in the Forest of Mir, both surface and underground, triggering massive panic in Calimshan and Tethyr. Folk from Calimport ventured into the Muzad under the city, aiming to wipe out any drow they could find there. Others entered into slave-trading deals with actual drow agents and grew rich. Based on this information, I believe that Bhaal in mortal form must have been among the folk from Calimport who went to the Muzad and met the drow woman he would impregnate, giving birth to one of The Five, the half-drow Sendai as the result.
Great work. I listened to this whole thing. Especially loved the designer notes and their ideas about why they did certain things. Thank you for making this!
Hello! I played the IE games at similarly formative years as you, and I think you've had the best public retrospectives on that era of gaming that I've seen. Excited to see what things you do next!
For some reason my brain broke and I kept reading your comment as "the best public transportation of that era", I was very confused lol
Best retrospective on this game I've seen before. I've played every D&D computer game from Pools of Radiance onwards and absolutely loved BG2 from start to finish, but your constructive criticism of the game and explanation of the game is very fascinating
I'm thinking about doing a PoR video one day but it's a tough call. First problem is that it's really before my time and it's harder for me to get a good idea of the context of CRPGs/the industry. Second is that there are extremely in-depth retrospectives, or at least written ones, already out there (e.g. digital antiquarian SSI articles).
The main reason I might cover PoR at some point is that I do want to cover the PoR reboot from 2000, and I think the reboot video would be better if I could actually make some comparisons to the original game. So we'll see what the future holds :D
@@MrEdders123 sounds good 👍
I loved them because they were such a change from eye of the beholder style games, but they would be seen as pretty archaic now, or even to people who grew up on infinity engine titles
What can I say, almost five hours of such quality content, I feel spoiled.
Clearly a labor of love. Not sure I’d describe your vids as “sleeping aids” … fascinating stuff! I’ll probably never have time to replay huge games like BG2 that I loved 20 years ago, but gaining additional context/historical perspective and taking a vicarious trip down memory lane is just as satisfying. Very much appreciated. Keep up the good work 🙂
lol I'm just pre-empting accusations my videos are bit slow/dull. I did experiment with jauntier, cleverly-edited videos early on but I don't really have any talent for that, so I try to focus on documentary-ish videos. :D
Can't believe you've made it. It will take me a week to watch it whole. But it looks like MONUMENT. Amazing work, thank you.
One of the best games ever made deserves a special treatment for sure. Glad to see MrEdders understanding this. A very special video for a very special game. Fitting. Glorious. Classic.
@@misterkefir so true...
After burning through the BG1 video, I found myself unable to stop this one once I started it. This is a fantastic overview of BG2 (and ToB)!
Jesuse, can't believe i've watched 2 hours of this and still going.
BG2 was the most amazing game ever, more so cause it came in the time it did. I was a child but I remember every single part of the story or side quests. Amazing.
Went to these videos after playing BG3 to learn abit more about the originals, and these videos are amazing! I love detailed video essays that delve into all the details from the plot, development, gameplay, all of it! Amazing work!
Great work as always! your reviews are some of the best on this platform :)
This video is extremely well researched and scripted! Nicely done man!!!
This came out earlier than I expected. But, I've been eagerly waiting for this video.
This was a fantastic retrospective, and really brought some new perspectives to think about regarding my all-time favorite RPG. One thing I have always thought about this era, compared to modern RPG design, is that I believe a lot of the developers were TTRPG gamers/fans first, trying to bring that to life with the tools they had. With a primarily text-based delivery, they were able to write so many more options for quests, stories, etc. While I have little evidence to back it up, I feel like modern devs were video game RPG fans first, and design with that in mind. Everything is voiced, animated- so every branching path increases costs on an exponential level for content, as you say, that will only be seen by a certain percentage of people.
Really great analysis.
Amazing work! Hope you get to the EE as wel, since I recently completed BG 1 + 2 EE, and I’m currently playing icewind dale EE. I’m actually blown away at how much I’m enjoying these old games, as opposed to more modern titles.
MAGNUM. OPUS. HAS. ARRIVED.
An absolute gem. Fantastic work, my man.. thanks a lot!
Always pleased to see your avatar pop up haha
@@MrEdders123 Haha.. Yeah, fitting. Cheers!
Minor correction: Gromnir is not actually a member of the Five; Illasera is the first of the Five, and Gromnir is just another powerful Bhaalspawn drawn into conflict.
oops
I just want to thank you for making this. Nostalgia aside, it also answered some of my own questions about what happened to the game series. Wish more people can enjoy this.
I would've liked the exploration to be somewhere in-between 1 and 2. I did find BG1 to be very tedious, but I never complained about the areas being empty. A bit bland, sure; some were hiding good loot or a small quest or special interaction. I was curious to explore them all. My issue was my own goal of full completion in games, made hard by playing in 480pixels, small screen, overly complex topography at times and the characters moving significantly slower than BG2. All of these made mapping out the fog of war very slow and tedious, and I got overwhelmed when I reached the city in chapter 5 (returned later with bg1ee and finished the game). All the while BG2 could have used more outdoors but who knows, maybe was too much work not enough time.
I enjoy the same section of the Bhaalspawn Battle music. I like how in the interviews they tried to stick as close as possible to the music that came before them, which ... is not something I can say about BG3. More so when Siege of Dragonspear, 16 years later, tried to sound as close as possible and for the most part I think it succeeded. Evidently so, the new game doesn't seem to care much. Then again not many players care to analyze music in games, or have it be a big deal of why they liked the game.
Yeah I imagine some players find BG1 outdoor exploration more bearable due to the zoomed out camera, so they're not scrolling all the time. When I played the EE for the BG1 video I found it broke the immersion though, as it was much more obvious you were just mapping a giant square or rectangle.
They was an incredible video, very well researched and thoroughly informative. Well done!
1:40:00 - I'm halfway convinced that the absurdity of Baldur's Gate players being "chronic daytime nappers" was half the reason D&D 4th Edition introduced the Short Rest mechanic. It did very much seem like it was trying to be a ruleset that was geared toward being adapted into a video game.
holy crap the depth of this! phenomenal research, down to earth analysis, excellent points. 5 hours that passed like minutes, thank you sir!
The spells bit around the hour mark was hilarious too :D
A pretty interesting video.
There’s a lot to think about. I appreciate your old-school perspective on the gameplay; clearly you had a lot on your mind considering how long you spent discussing the companion characters!
It’s great to be validated; I always imagined all the old BioWare writers as a bunch of weird nerdy boys. Those file photos you shared were delightfully 90s. ;)
Yeah, a lot of them ended up back working in DnD, e.g. at Arcanum Worlds.
What a great series of retrospectives (BG1 and 2). I listened to all 6-7 hours.
Another problem with Irenicus is that his plan is to get you to Spellhold so he can steal your soul. Yet has Bodhi demands you get 15,000 gold enough though you might die while getting this money. You're also not told how to enter Spellhold even though Saemon is working with Irenicus and could just give you the Wardstone. He could also have the Cowled Wizards transport you for free once he gains control of them. Also if you don't care about Imoen and don't try to follow him then his plan instantly fails.
Bodhi is trying to gain control of this city and the thief's guild has a ground that splits off from the main branch but Bodhi isn't involved with this in any way. It just seems like a missed opportunity.
Finally you fight Irenicus 3 times: in Spellhold Irenicus is at full power, in the Elf city he is at full power because he lost the tree's power, and in hell he has the Slayer's power. However only the Elf city is necessary since it's the culmination of Irenicus' arc. Also the 5 trials in hell would have been better if added to the pocket plane in Throne of Bhaal so you'd have something other than fighting challenges.
I guess Bodhi is just trying to make the most of the situation, secure more funding for her vampiric takeover of the Amnian underworld. Seemed like she and Irenicus weren't entirely on the same page when it came to The Plan; she was enjoying doing her own thing, and is mostly content being a vampire, but if her brother manages to figure something out that helps her condition, cool.
@@smartalec2001
"I guess Bodhi is just trying to make the most of the situation, secure more funding for her vampiric takeover of the Amnian underworld."
But why? Irenicus is no longer in Amn and eventually gets a powerbase in Spellhold. I guess she could be less interested in getting revenge on the elves than her brother.
I guess if Irenicus gained control of Spellhold part way through chapter 3 then the story would make more sense.
@@uanime1 Yes, exactly that - she's doing her own thing. She seemed content being a vampire, and living night to night doing evil stuff without much more of a goal than that. She doesn't seem to think too much about her brother's grand plans. While Irenicus is making his final plans to assault Suldanesselar, she's still doing her own thing in Athkatla, and in the Ascension version of Throne of Bhaal, she's happy to turn against Irenicus and fight alongside an evil PC, if it gets her what she wants.
Another masterpiece of a video. but why someone wouldn't love Jan Jansen and his rambles about turnips or cousins is beyond me.
Took me 3 days but I've watched the whole video and enjoyed every minute of it. The amount of work you must've put in is unfathomable. You're a legend. I've no choice but to binge the rest of your content now
Loved the detail in these videos, I learned more about these games than I ever knew.
Hope you will get more attention here on YT as your content is very well made.
Hands down my favorite game ever made :) this video rocks
I found you right as I started a playthrough for the first time in at least 5 years. This was very thorough and informative, and doesn't resort to stupid RUclips tropes. I will certainly be checking out the rest of your channel.
This was an amazing video! I love how you managed to dig up so much info regarding the development of the game! As I game developer I love hearing about the trials and tribulations of what is one of my all time fave games! I'd love to see similar vids for a few of the other infinity engine games as well! Or perhaps one of the modern remakes (Pillars of Eternity?) as it would make for some interesting comparisons :-)
Hmm, that game looks familiar somehow...Anyway, modern CRPGs is a tough one. It certainly makes sense to cover them, especially since my BG/IWD videos involve a lot of complaining about the lack of such :P It's difficult to approach a modern game the same way though - people look at these kind of reviews as more like product reviews (quite reasonably) rather than historical curiosities, and the format would have to be very different. I might consider covering some of the early kickstarter titles that aren't so well known, like Serpent in the Staglands...
One of my best friends re-introduced me to this game a back in about 2007 or so. Before that I remember having played a demo of IWD. He told me what my companions should be (Korgan, Keldorn, Edwin, Viconia and Minsc) and report back to him when I had finished it and he'd lend me the expansion.
I enjoyed the chaos a lot!
Really good video. You've obviously put a lot of work into this. Good luck with the channel.
I watched descent ibto ubdermoutain and now im here your baldurs gate videos truly a great set of videos that anybody interested in gaming history or fans of the gaming systems invovled need to watch bravo
My first instinct was to nitpick some things I disgree with, but mostly I'm struck by how professionally done the complete video feels. Nice mix of fact and history, and opinions that at the very least show you've played and understand the game well. RUclips has started recommending your stuff to me, so I hope you start getting the views you deserve.
I already saw the first message in my notifications, my day is ruined! :D
@@MrEdders123 yeeah, it occurred to me I'd barely played EE thus it was silly to try and defend it.
Fantastic video (the whole channel is great and very informative) about Baldurs Gate and the making of. After 4 hours and 41 Minutes I still want more :-) Thank you so much for this retrospective!
Cheers!
Absolutely phenomenal work, man. You truly did this brilliant game proper justice.
Man, I love Jan, I actually really liked his far fetched stories and such, made one DnD character inspired by that bit.
He's grown on me. I didn't like him at first, but my last playthrough earlier this year I really took the time to read his dialogue and quite enjoyed him. It certainly helps he fulfills a valuable thief slot and a mage slot. His usefulness certainly helps.
4:35:37 "Western RPGs seem to be inferior copies of older titles..."
Could you explain this a bit? I would like to know your thoughts on current trend of Wrpgs (DOS, Witcher, Pillars, KCD, Pathfinder).
Pillars/Pathfinder are the gold standard for "Infinity Engine but worse" for me. DOS is kinda its own thing (I preferred it to PoE, probably because I went in with zero expectations). KC:D I view as more in the vein of old-school Bethesda, unfortunately I don't think the combat system ever really worked as it should have. Witcher 3 I liked but it's light on RPG, more in the vein of an Ubisoft game - can't imagine replaying it. It's not like back in the early 00s when it seemed like western CRPGs were suddenly going in a lot of exciting new directions.
@@MrEdders123 Thanks
Any modern RPGs (apart from these) that you feel are worthwhile playthroughs
Yeeees, YEEEEES! Another multi hour retrospective channel. Bless you
A Mr Edders essay on BG II ??? awesome! here goes hours of my day :)
This was an extremely well-documented, structured and argued retrospective.
Not the first about this game I've seen, but by far my favorite so far.
Another banger! Well done. All the research you put into your videos really is impressive and so much more than most of the professional game "journalists" do. I salute you, good Sir.
Thank you for this , this whole research and time spent amazing !!
You must gather your party before venturing forth tho
Gorion would be proud of you.
Excellent video, please do not ever stop
That Matt Barton + his book reference was unexpected. Respect!
He lets me use footage from his interviews so I'm trying to keep on his good side hehe
Great analysis! regarding your point of map design and random exploration (or lack thereof in second half BG2 and ToB): For me it always made a lot of sense as a way to match the experience of playing with the story progression. In BG1, Gorions Ward is a noob, so stumbling through the wilderness and retelling random encounters with wolves and Ogrillons made you (as the player) feel that. In BG2, I always assume that the same is still happening, but since Gorion`s Ward has become a competent adventurer he doesn`t struggle with it anymore, so we just fast forward through it and get the outdoor map with just the dungeons. Like when you learn to drive, you very consciously experience doing every turn, but when you are a mature driver you only remember the challenging mountain road and not the commute to work. In later BG2 and especially ToB, we get to epic levels and killing rats in the basement or finding the lost journal in the sewers is nothing we would bother with - and if we wanted to, probably summon a djinn or whatever to take care of it in 5 secs. The more streamlined experience reflects the more streamlined character progression: We are pulled towards the Throne and battle for ascendance, whether we want to or not. So, for me, this increasing linearity actually feels very fitting to the story being told.
Yeah I agree...I don't like it though :D
This channel deserves more subscribers. Excellent videos.
This review is unbelievable - what a great man MrEdders is :)
You are the only reviewer who mentioned that Athkatla has South-European look, and I appreciated this. So many people on RUclips didn't understand the point of referees for this city. It's amazed me.
Lovely to see such research and passion in this production. Great mention of FF7 influences too. Listening to this will help form my own cRPG design choices in the years to come. Well done good sir.
Don't forget the romances!
@@MrEdders123 haha indeed!
This channel is a treasure trove, thanks for your hard work :)
I really hope you get around to Neverwinter Nights someday. In particular I hope you try the multiplayer, as it's really why the game still has a solid population even twenty years later. The Aurora toolset is easily the most comprehensive set of modding tools ever released, and the true focus of the game was always on user-made content.
Unfortunately I don't see myself ever doing a NWN video. I could do a singleplayer-focused video but there's already a 4hr Noah-whatshisname vid on those. To do NWN justice you need to have experience of both tabletop roleplaying (especially as a GM imo) and NWN online mode, and I have very little of either. I might do short videos on individual modules (like with the BG and IWD ones for NWN2) in the future though.
What a ride! Played this series as a teen in 2016 and am now enjoying BG3 with my brother. It’s always held a special place in my heart, although I’ve never gotten anyone else in my circle to try it 😭 Thanks for your incredible dedication to and thorough coverage of this amazing game!
Excellent job as always.
Great vid. Having sank 100 hours so far into BG3 I can confirm it has carried on the high standards set in BG2 and is quite an astonishing achievement in terms of content and consequences of action.
Around 1:30:00 the need to re-memorize spell slots after being restored from a level drain is just them being being faithful to the TTRPG rules. You get slapped around by undead at the table, you're going to have empty slots when the drain is repaired. Whether that's really something you need in a CRPG is debatable, but it's certainly a design decision rather than a tech limitation.
Great video, I remember seeing something about the original Baldur’s Gate 3 being called “Baldur’s Gate 3: The Black Hound” which was going to use the 3rd edition rule set and also use the same engine as the cancelled original Fallout 3
It wasn't really the "original" BG3, just another Black Isle game that got the brand slapped onto it by Interplay. Chris Avellone said something to the effect of it probably being a good thing it wasn't released in the end.
@@MrEdders123 true seeing as it wasn’t going to have anything to do with the previous 2 games so it would’ve been a glorified spinoff at that point
@@VoidSmoker97 not really. i mean, BG is a city on Faerun. you would be getting a new campaign with a different DM. that's about it
doesn't help WotC is not flexible with the realms.
I wish there was Chessenta game. Basically high magic ancient / medieval Greece.
A video of four and a half hours is a *brutal* amount of work that in most cases bears no proportion to the amount of views it receives, as is the case here. This mammoth of a video deserves so much more. Hats off to you, good sir!
No worries, I'm happy if my videos get 1k views, let alone 100k+ lol
BG3s success must be interesting to you because of your conclusion here.
Must have played through the game from start to finish more than any other. Loved it with all my heart.
First time I played through it was with after school every day with a chum in the year of its release. Something absurd like 400 hours of playing through it we loved it.
Great job on this documentary
Also... Jaheria can get in the bin.
57:05 companions can definitely be perma-killed, for example through disintegration, or flesh to stone and then smashing the resulting statue. They can also be "as good as dead" if they are hit by imprisonment, since you need to cast "freedom", a lvl9 spell, in the same spot where your companion disappeared, without any visual indication of where that spot is, in order to save them.
It's just that in BG your level was not high enough to have access to resurrection spells. Also the reason why in BG there were so many disposable companions
On "Normal" difficulty, which is the default on retail and GoG copies, I believe those spells still just kill them in the regular way. It's just a lot of people play on "Core Rules", which is as you said.
Hello
Nice retrospective, I am really enjoying it. Just 1 small correction (so far), at 3:02:54 Gromnir was not of the five, and at this point in time they hadn't turned on each other, they were planning to, but Gorion's ward did that for them. The five were the assassin, the giant, the drow, the dragon and the monk.
😶🌫
Amazing comprehensive video. I can't look at BG2 quite as objectively as you seem to be able to -- to me it is an absolute masterpiece that has had immeasurable influence on the genre. I'm happy to see now, a year after this video, that what you said is clearly no longer the case -- with BG3 selling millions and winning Game of the Year, BG2's legacy and influence is clear and cemented.
If its legacy was cemented, BG3 would be RTwP :D
@@MrEdders123 if RTWP was BG2's only legacy then I would agree. People make the valid case that BG3 is more overtly influenced by Divinity:OS than BG, but they forget what a profound influence BG had on the OS series -- more than the original Divinity games. I would argue the entire CRPG for the last 15 years owes a tremendous debt to both BG1/2 and Torment -- everything from Pillars, Pathfinder, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Disco Elysium; too many to count that would have likely never existed if it hadn't been for the Infinity legacy. But I respect your objective take -- it's not a perfect game, it's perfect for me though.
Excellent video, as was the Baldur's Gate one. This is probably my favorite game of all time and I never learned about the development so that part of the video was very exciting for me, thanks
Yeah a lot of it was new to me - I wasn't that involved with internet communities at the time.
That is such an amazing work put in this video for such a great game, watch all of it in one go and didnt see the time pass.
Looking good. I repeat myself, that retrospective reviews should be something like this. Giving info about development history and all that.
Mostly these long videos are about explaining game's story
2:11:50 - This talk about how reviewers where going on about how the games needed to make the switch to 3D really does make me laugh, because the Infinity Engine games have aged more gracefully than most of the 3D games released around that time, warts and all.
Your main issue with BG2 - forgetting spells after death and level drain was fixed in EE.
Excellent retrospective my dude
1:31:00 - Ahahahahaha, yeah, re-memorizing spells for the extra spells slots and remembering which ones you needed is a pain in the butt. I honestly just gave up trying to remember after a point and started physically noting my spellcaster loadouts down in an actual pen-and-paper notebook.
This is amazing thank you so much for making this!
It's too bad you don't have a donate button. This has to be the first video I've ever watched where I immediately thought this person deserves some of my money for all the hard work and research put into this.
Thanks! I'm mostly working from what people have done before though - archive.org, old gaming magazines, fansites and such. And obviously fansites, forums, people pestering Chris Avellone etc. Matt Barton's videos and David Craddock's "Beneath a Starless Sky" (which can be found in full online) are good sources if you're interested in Black Isle and Bioware.
No. You don't have to gather companions and you don't have to forge relationships. I have played the game many times as a solo mage. IIRC it was at level 13 where I obtained the Staff of the Magi and not long after that the Ring of Gaxx. For those who know, it is the winning of the Ring of Gaxx from it's namesake evil lich that is the proof of the power of the Staff of the Magi. With it, you don't need any companions. Even the mighty Firkraag will fall once your level gets high enough to achieve Alacrity in your spell casting.
Of course you must remove the experience cap to do this last test. But having an EXP cap is against nature and flies in the face of reason, so I have no problem with using the file.
I think the real strength of the P&P system like D&D and Pathfinder in CRPGs comes to the forefront if you aren't able to rest anywhere and anytime. Resource managment thus making important deceision is what a game makes fun
Just want to praise how much effort clearly went into this video. So much research.
Thank you! I have to say the Computer Gaming Yesterday video was also very extensively researched - I believe the only major stuff they missed is the BG3/Trilogy topic, which is hard to research due to mostly being confined to throwaway lines in old magazines and archived websites. If a couple of the old Bioware devs hadn't replied to my emails I probably would've skipped that entire section due to how much it relied on speculation.
What bothered me immensely was the whole railroaded arrival at Spellhold thing. It was an exercise in powergaming, simply declaring the party did something that the player may actually see as uncharacteristic for the PC.
After listening to you describe the development process of BGII the decision to just make an expansion finale become clear to me. Faster and Easier and let them move onto a new game a new license etc etc, and avoided the fact the engine was old. There's too many little things that all add up to 'let's just push this out the door' let's never forget Interplay was always 3 months away from someone swinging by to break some kneecaps.