I will never forget how happy I was in the late 90s - first, we had Baldur's Gate in 1998, then Planescape Torment in 1999, then Baldur's Gate II a year later, not to mention Fallout before that and Fallout II in 1998. It indeed was a golden era for isometric CRPGs. My friends and I were entirely into D&D and Forgotten Realms, we were devouring manuals and any D&D-related materials we could get our hands on, and then, all of a sudden, Baldur's Gate came out. I was utterly mesmerized by it, I came home every chance I got just to finish my first run, I can't remember any other game that completely changed me in such a profound way at that time. What made it even better was the fact that at the time I was totally into the Forgotten Realms setting. Every aspect of this release was next-gen: the plot, storytelling, the art style, the beautiful realistic design of the Infinity Engine characters and NPCs, this game had such a profound impact on me, it got me into reading even more books and novels, I started drawing, designing my own maps, heraldry, armour sets etc. An excellent review as always - I particularly loved the pre-production info about Bioware and Interplay at the time. To conclude, I especially want to compliment you for dedicating a segment of your review to the soundtrack. One other significant and lasting impact this game had on me was Michael Hoenig's fantastic soundtrack. This soundtrack got me into researching and collecting soundtracks, not just from movies and TV shows, but from video games, especially RPGs. This was an introduction to Jeremy Soule, Inon Zur, Mark Morgan and others. One quote which I still remember to this day is the one you used at the very begging "I will be the last, and you will go first". Too bad they decided to discard the original animations for the enhanced edition, that intro stays with you forever. #StillGazingIntoTheAbyss
Thanks! Sadly Hoenig doesn't seem to have really talked about the OST in interviews (compared to Inon Zur et al). maybe he saw it as "just another job" akin to the TV work since his true passion was "legit" music ☹
I never played AD&D but we did spend many nights playing Blood Bowl, Space Hulk, Advanced Hero Quest etc back in the early to mid 90's. I was always into art and drawing, so I bought a few AD&D books, especially anything related to Dragonlance, and also Games Workshop manuals. Anything with great artwork. In 1999 I managed to find an FTP in the USA on an obscure warez forum that had HUNDREDS of high quality scans of pretty much every AD&D rulebook and module out there. The file sizes were somewhat mental, took forever to download, but I grabbed anything that looked like it had great artwork. In terms of video games, Fallout 1 + 2 were amazing. Still replay them to this day. But I never liked Baldurs Gate. Far too slow and talky for me. Obviously, that puts Planescape Torment as my LEAST favourite isometric CRPG of all time. But the IceWind Dale series is up there with Fallout.
I've been binging your content for the past few days and I'm loving it; the RUclips algorithm did something right for once. I never played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, but I'm a huge D&D fan so your videos have been a great way to learn about CRPG history. Thanks for the great work, man!
I didn't expect this Retrospective to be so informative about the development background and societal expectations of the time. This is amazing and gives so much context, I love it.
This is the best review of BG I've watched because it actually teaches me new information, unlike those other BG reviews where they only talk about game mechanics and how the story unfolds, things that I already know.
I've basically watched all the Baldurs gate reviews and retrospectives. I don't know how I missed yours. I don't watch these to learn anything I basically know everything there is to know about this game. Until I watched yours. I learned new stuff and was thoroughly entertained. I have subscribed and if there is anyway to pay you let me know. This video is definitely some of the best baldurs gate content out there.
Thanks! Yeah I didn't really intend to do a video on such well-known titles because they're already well-covered, so I really had to go out of my way to learn new stuff (Computer Gaming Yesterday's video, which came out less than a week before this one, covered 90% of the same material though lol). And there's still interested tidbits I stumble across in magazines and such, like how Bioware were trying to program an anti-savescum feature that gave less xp depending on how often you reloaded.
First game influenced a Renaissance for games of it genre now the 3rd game is doing the same for modern games as it has no mini transaction and is still beautiful
These long deep dive retrospectives are great. I’m always on the lookout for more channels doing this kind of stuff. Excellent job with this one. Hope you do more of the Infinity engine games in the future. Just saw you’ve got IWD I&II. Checking those out next
Me too. And sometimes they have criminally low view counts like this one. Neverknowsbest is one of my favorites that thankfully now has a but more viewers. His second channel about real life stuff is great too.
Exceeded my already high expectations from the earlier IWD retro-review. It's the definitive ensemble video of the classic BG1 out there. As far as videogames go, I'd say, there's actual scholarship here. Surprised but delighted to hear tidbits I wasn't even aware of. Broadly agree with most what you say (especially about aesthetics, story, and roleplaying). Even when there's some disagreements, they are not exactly about errors or misinterpretations, but differing preferences and priorities. Especially nice touches with particulars, even with throwaway facts, which are there just to give some context. Like about the eighties moral panic against D&D, which is often attributed to mainly or even solely to Evangelicals and Christians. Granted, they were usually the wackiest and most outlandish out there, like the infamous Chick tract. However, it's often totally underplayed how huge the media and expert role was in all that, because it doesn't fit conveniently to any overarching narrative beyond sensationalism and laziness. I've seen quantitative data about the media coverage about D&D and RPGs being over 90% negative during the entire 1980s. Not like just in Kansas City Star or something like that, but just as well in the international prestige press like NYT and TWP. The person who wrote Mazes and Monsters was Cosmopolitan writer from Broolyn. 60 minutes special with Pulling, Gygax and Radecki was about suicide, mental health. and criminality, not demonic possession, and so on. That was what gave it so much more plausibility and credibility, not Billy Bob protestants or snake handlers. Before CDC and other credited institutions produced actual studies at early 1990s, which did clip wings of the media hysteria. It's glad to see even small touches like that to be properly presented, even in passing. Unlike typical hearsay and Discord campfire stories one mostly encounters, while watching gimmicky and half-assed assembly-line manufactured YT videos about (C)RPGs. Hopefully, this overall excellent video won't get totally sidetracked and overshadowed by your somewhat controversial stance on EE versus OG. It just tends to be that all nuances gets thrown out immediately overboard with these usually tedious debates. A lot of people just pigeonhole you to whatever unflattering stereotype or caricature they have about the opposing side, when your arguments even slightly approximates something they associate with the bad Other (nostalgia! Grognard! Entitlement!). Doesn't make any difference what you actually argue for or how. It often is totally enough, if it just sort of looks like some morally suspect and baad position they've seen before (or imagine devious people holding). Regardless, I agree that EE is a different game than the classic. It shouldn't be seen just as an update, but as different interpretation of the same source. I have to admit, it has a lot going for it. I am not annoyed that they exists, but certain things were lost in translation. In some domains it just performs worse. Dorn, Neera and Rashad (and Hexxat) are so flagrant and self-evident, that it feels like too much of a low-hanging fruit. As they are totally unfitting by the tone and content even for BG2, little alone alone to BG1. They might as well be interplanar or time travelers transgressing upon untouched and humble countryside and wilderness of Sword Coast. Plus, their encounter and quest design was mostly mediocre to bad. Somehow at the same time underwhelming but inappropriately grandiose and bombastic. Szass Tam finale might be the worst encounter in all of Infinity Engine games (more so than even Modron Maze, even if it was inbefored by being so meta). Writing is annoying and sophomoric. However, EE companions are so thoroughly litigated, and basically anyone familiar with them could just go on and on. Like you said eloquently, BG1 has this very grounded and rustic feel to it through and through. It's not simply backdrop or aesthetics, but all elements from gameplay to narrative support it. They create a coherent and pleasing whole, as these separate elements are much more in harmony with each other. They reinforce each other even down to small details, such as class selection. Let's take kits as an example. Not only they break the balance way too much in favor of a player at BG1 (why ever take regular bard when you have skald or jester? Why vanilla Paladin when there's cheese kits, or mage when there's sorcerer? Priest kits are just extra special abilities with zero downsizes, etc.) More than that, a humble ranger or a mage apprentice is something one might imagine coming out of gates of a cloistered monastery of Candlekeep, which is located at barely settled frontier land. A kensai or tribal shaman protagonist doesn't sit as well into the location of BG1, with its bandits, commerce disputes and farmsteads. OG BG1 reinforces this very well. All elements are geared towards this low level, low stakes, rooted and grounded fantasy adventure akin to earlier D&D modules like Temple of Elemental Evil or Keep at Borderlands. EE pulls each of these elements into opposing directions, creating more schizophrenic and muddled whole. Ludonarrative dissonance is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but its appropriate in this instance. Whereas OG is more intact for what kind of a story it tries to tell down to gameplay and aesthetics complimenting the narrative and overall design.
Hey Aleks, thanks for your lengthy response. Re: the Satanic Panic stuff, I was indeed trying to be fair in noting the importance of the media and the role of media-appointed "experts" (psychologists, law enforcement etc.) rather than focusing solely on the usual "crazy christian fundamentalist" angle. It's ironic that I was using the NYT doc on the topic, since the paper engages in similarly sensationalist reporting on subcultures to this day. I was reading about related topics such as the McMartins trial, and it's striking how many of the publications sneering about the satanic "moral panics" of the 80s were directly involved in them at the time. Virtually none of the bad actors involved - journalists, editors, social workers, prosecutors et al - suffered the slightest repercussions for their actions. Unfortunately, the TSR Code of Ethics did not apply to real life ;P
There was a whole lot of kids that felt like outcasts because of the Satanic panic. They just wanted to play a game they enjoyed and were treated like there was something wrong with them.
This is an amazing video you produced! It's amazing how little I knew about the history of development, even though I played the game over and over again since 1999. Thank you for uploading this! 🙂👍👍👍
Interesting to see you play the original game instead of in the BG2 engine. The old sprites definitely look better and there's a charm to it. Also very good in-depth breakdown.
I always preferred the old sprites, I always thought the redesign is because Amn has a different culture and fashion to Baldurs Gate so they tried to reflect that But I liked the medieval european fantasy style of the first game even if it was a little more plain
I don't really know about graphics, but I did played through the original at the beginning of this year, inspired by this video, and there's a lot of differences between BG1 and, for example, Enhanced Edition. I only wish my laptop liked the game more, I had to mess with 3rd party software so much to have a comfortable experience it's unbelievable, next time I'm touching the original is on a Windows XP era PC :V
Thanks for a great video. Having just started an EE playthrough as a BG3 inspired nostalgia trip, I'm glad to see this video recommended; one of the best reviews I've seen. I guess I had better watch your BG2, Icewind Dale and Torment videos now. There are a lot of points I'd love to comment on this, but I fear it move prove longer to type than watching the video. However, of particular interest was the information on the production as at least some of that was new to me. The discussion points around storytelling, roleplaying and world building was also of interest particularly in contrast to BG3. The final points on BG's legacy is also interesting. I don't think it's that surprising to see so few imitators post 2010 in spite of Obsidian's efforts - the modern hybrid games that incorporate more twitch mechanics like the Witcher, or the partial platformer/adventure game style of Larian's games (including BG3) seem to be of a greater appeal than the RTS/RPG hybrids of the BG era. Even Owlcat, whose Pathfinder games I very much enjoyed, have gone turnbased only for the Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader RPG. Of greater curiousity is why there were so few similar games in the earlier 2000s. My guess here is the pivot to realtime 3D rendering and online gaming (in the form of MMOs). I'm not sure there was ever quite enough of an audience in the CRPG gaming community to support all the different sub genres so the developers stopped pursuing what they believed to be those with the least financial opportuinity in the longer term.
Dynamic scaling is the scourge of modern crpgs. Having the foes level up with you ruins the sense of progression, having every area be relatively safe ruins the sense of adventure and having every battle be fair ruins the sense of accomplishment. That being said Bauldur's gate, especially the beam dog version has difficulty modes so if someone just wants to see a story rather than play a game they have the option.
I finished your bg2 review and am now watching through this one. You do an incredible job of talking through the games and really voice reasonable praises and criticisms of both games. I have played both games since I was around 6-8 years old, and love hearing such an in depth discussion about them. Keep up the good work man. Really high quality content.
Nothing better on RUclips than to hit the THC vape a few too many times, then sit back and listen to this dude give a masters dissertation on my most beloved classic games.
tldr; Bioware was incredible, making genre defining games for hundreds of millions of people in *THREE* different decades. Very, very few studios can say that, and with the resurgence of CRPG's over the last 7 years or so, hopefully the next _"grand Adventure"_ is around the corner. Just remember to _"*...gather your party before venturing forth."*_ Most people who didn't play this in 1998-2002 have no idea how big a deal this game was. I started playing D&D in 1rst grade with a neighbor and his friends whom were a few years older than myself, and bought the Gold Box games with some money I'd gotten for my 7th birthday which was inteded for comic books. I played the first 3, but unfortunately _"Pools of Darkness"_ never came out for the C64. Like a lot of kids who played D&D, I may have been _advanced,_ but my mother's paycheck was not so a better computer was out of the question for about a decade. That decade went by, and I believe there were literally zero games that came out for the Genesis or Playstation even came close to the immersion and D&D feel I'd gotten from the Gold Box games. I'd also gone from a short fat kid to an average height/athletic cool kid in the interim and had little interest in computers at all anymore, even though I'd taught myself to code in BASIC, then went straight to machine learning by 9, won my 8th grade science fair with a program...too off topic. Anyway, time moved on, I moved out for about 9 months after high school, declining a scholarship to deliver pizzas and party with my friends instead. Yep, I was _cool_ alright. So back at home my mother now had a hand-me-down PC from her work, and it was pretty darn decent for a non-gaming home computer at the time (1999). It was a P3 with a Voodoo 2 12MB and 64 MB sDRAM. I'd just finished Final Fantasy VII and King's Field (One of FromSoft's first games, and yikes was it fantastic) and was looking for another RPG to play. I picked up a D&D classic games boxed set which let me play the Gold Box games again, and found I still knew and learned code relatively easily, having to write a custom moslo variant to play the games at a speed that was tolerable as the things just went way, way to fast. The set had an add for a new _"Pools_ of Radiance" game. Needless to say, I was thoroughly interested, so off to their website I went. It wasn't coming out for a few months after some delays, but this weird game called "Baldur's gate" was already out. Real Time with pause didn't seem awful comapred to turn-based, I mean I made it through King's Field and that was a First person action die constantly puzzle ARPG, so I was ok with that. Not being able to make my own party bothered me though. Sure it was fine in FFVII, which I'd almost enjoyed as much as the Gold Box games, but FFVII also had tons of CGI movies, full 3d graphics, and BG had...wtv the screenshots were showing me with their simple sprites and what looked like water color painted backgrounds. Still, options were limited, and besides beer and gas I didn't have a tom to spend my money on, so I gave it a shot, and oh my goodness did things change. I started going out less and playing BG...a lot. I found that stupid ring fo wizardry under that tree on my own bc someone on a forum said it was there. No real info, just a great ring you could get early on under a tree and the general location with landmark descriptions. I found that Imoen could pick Drizzt's pocket for Icingdeath along with a ton of other little secrets. To say that I became a fan would be a drastic understatement. With BG 2 coming out soon and Planescape:Torment bogging my computer down a bit I learned to upgrade the basics of it, adding RAM and buying a used CD/DVD drive, met a bunch of people on various message boards, flew out to GenCon to meet a bunch of the devs in 2k, ended up with a character in BG2 named after my previous online forum tag (which I had to change bc I everyone thought I was one of those weird super fans who thought they were an in game character). GenCon was actually a blast, meeting a bunch of the people from the forums irl, hooking up and later moving one of the _"Booth Babes"_ in with me on the other side of the country, playing D&D with Ed Greenwood, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman (Whom I'd thought was a girl and embarressed the heck out of myself when I asked when _she_ was going to be there; *HE* was standing right in front of me), and numerous other events. I ended up staying for 4 weeks even though the con was only 4 nights/5 days if memory serves, but I had plenty of money and new friends I could stay with so I only paid for 3 nights in the hotel, and only slept in it twice. That game, "Baldur's Gate", had a great deal to do with me actually getting a _real_ life back, since I was pretty much just drinking and getting into trouble for the previous two years, with literally no goals except working as much as I could then blowing the money on parties. I ended up back in school, with a live-in girlfriend who also enjoyed video/table-top games and the _occasional_ partying. I built a new computer for Neverwinter Nights, another for SKotOR, took a job at a local PC shop I'd interned at while in school, bought it from the owner when he was going to retire, turned it into a Home and Small Business Network focused company, and have never stopped playing C/A/RPG's since. I went from daily drinking and drugging, fighting and Breaking and Entering, parties and...a lot of girls with a handful of arrests thrown in for good measure, to sitting at home playing video games and fixing/building/networking compuiters. I'm not one of those people who would say a video game saved their life, but almost every person I hung out at the time has either spent their life in and out of jail or died before they were 30; so I will say that the game certainly gave me a nudge in a more positive direction and reminded me there were a lot of other things I enjoyed; heck I didn't like fighting at all and had been in well over 100, real life street fights at that point, and after the age of 16 or so, they are not all that much fun anymore, as even when you win, you usually still get hurt, even if it's just a broken hand or some bruised ribs. Baldur's Gate? Chop people up or take out a group with a fireball and the worst repercussions were being tired the next day at work! Unfortunately, since Bioware's decline after Mass Effect 3, besides _"The Witcher 3"_ no other C/ARPG has gotten to that same tier _for me._ The Deus Ex series came close as did the Divinity games, which much like Baldur's gate 1, I bought on a whim. Oblivion, Skyrim, TW 1 and 2, Kingdome Come Deliverance, Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk 2077, Solasta and a plethora of others have come in at ier below that, but yeah, though I've given just about every dev, both popular and niche a shot, that _"Baldur's gate 1/2"_ *magic* has remained elusive. It was such a breakthrough in story telling at the time, with voice acting essentially being a requirement on today's 27"+ displays along with that great story and pacing, I'm not sure when we will see that type of groundbreaking game out again. The talent in that group, especially by BG 2 was stupefying. They had the 2 Docs who were brilliant admins with a ton creative talent. They had Ohlson, Gaider, Laidlaw, Karpyshyn, Derek French and people like Avellone and J.E. (Josh) Sawyer to help out with storylines along with some very talented fans assisting with everything from testing to dialogue trees. I'm pulling for BG 3 to jump into that magical mix, but the verdict is still out. I ran through the pre-release once and it was...good, but had a long way to go, at least when it initially became available over a year ago. I decided not to play about 10 hours after hitting max early access level since I'd rather play the game in it's entirety so as not to spoil the experience. Nailing the NPC's will be the key. They added so much to the first two games it was incredible. I was sad when Gorion died and that was like 2 hours into the original. To establish a relationship that a player cares about that fast and take it away just as quickly is not only a testiment to the writing chops they had, but it's also unheard of! DragonAge Origins also pulled off something similar...wow I miss that group of people and the games they pumped out at an insane pace. BG1, BG2, ToB, NwN, KotOR, Jade Empire, Me1, DA1, ME2, DA2, ME3, DA3. 12 games in 16 years, with the 2 weak links, _imo,_ being Jade Empire and DA 3, which were still pretty damn good games; I can't think of *ANY* other studio that has done that. Ever. That would be like CDPR coming out with a Witcher 3 quality game less than every year and a half while pushing the genre forward in the process. And some people wonder why they got burnt out. Great vid and trip down memory lane. Thanks for that.
Thats awesome.my man there are alot.pf.passionate devs and i die devs that definately have some charm you can try to look into on steam, :) its easier than ever for someone to wprk on their passion projects and several have came from wat i heart
Wanna know what's crazy? The pc specs needed to play this back in the day, i had a gaming compact back then (as much as you could have a 'gaming laptop, compared to today) that could play it and my roommate had a desktop, we could both run it but his chugged pretty hard and wasn't that old Now, you can run it on anything, but to remember that this was a detailed game running tons of strings of data to the cpu and needed only 16 megs of ram, but it ran pretty slow on most computers, from what i remember? I swear i remember quick saving taking at 10 seconds and quick loading taking a good minute, which is why i quit in the naskal mines way back in 1999, as much as I loved the game, i had no idea how to handle traps :P
@@Bjorick sadly you must have had a poor computer because I had an Amiga 500 upgraded to 1000 (which was a really cheap PC to be honest) and it took all of the CDs and Tales of the Sword Coast so I didn't have to change any CDs during play, quick save took literally 2 seconds, and reloading a game took, like, 10 seconds.
This vídeo of yours is a wonderful source of enterneinement and information about a game that i've come tô love in the past couple of minha. Thank you só much for your work!!
This is the best Baldur's Gate video that actually captured the essence of the game and what it meant at the time. It truly was a one of a kind RPG experience that combined wit, fantasy music, fantastic story, and DND turn based combat in the best package to date. Even as I play Baldur's Gate 3(and enjoy), I can't help but feel how much more it has a dating sim quality to all of the companions which is obnoxious, to say the least.
That was an amazingly informative video. BG1 remains one of my most intense gaming memory ever. The immersion feeling was absolutely overwhelming for the young RPG fan I was. One year later Planescape : Torment would once again blow my mind to bits. Good times !
I find these retrospective reviews of yours to be EXTREMELY thorough. Very well done. Going into not just the origins of the game, but also the gaming landscape at the time really filled in some gaps regarding why evil playthroughs were so unfulfilling. I have easily played this game 30+ times, and the second one almost as many, and I am seldom surprised with new information. Listening to this review made me really question whether or not you enjoyed going back to the game. After watching your rough review of IWD2, I definitely thought that was the direction you were going and was ready to jump at BGs defense. Glad it didn't come to fisticuffs 😉 On the matter of Obsidian Entertainment and their "bgate inspired IRPGs" - I agree that something doesn't add up. I was content with PoE and Kingmaker. Slightly less so with Deadfire (and The Outer Worlds for that matter as well..) and really disappointed by Tides of Numinera. I cannot, for the life of me pin down why. When playing those games, there is just a strange feeling of apathy regarding the worlds, or the plights of the characters that doesn't really kick in until late game. Sort of a weird, apathetic burnout that I never felt with IWD, Planescape, BG, The Witcher, Dragon Age etc. Hell, I played Betrayal at Krondor about 10 years ago and got immediately pulled in. Again, if you set this up as a list of checkboxes, all of those games would have clocked the boxes but there was still something missing... I do think that Tyranny, was likely one of the best games to come out in the last decade, and I am at a complete loss as to why it did so poorly. I really looked at that game as a spiritual twin to the BG saga and my head cannon is that it is a "What If" scenario of Sarevok (Kyros) winning and just failing to notice a fellow Bhaalspawn in his ranks.
Unfortunately there's not much you can really do with it, visually, due to all the original assets being lost. BGtutu mod with tweaks like Infinity Animations can make it look nice enough - I think the main problem with the original, vanilla game is that the text can be difficult to read at 640 x 480, though that's probably worsened now due to not being on a CRT.
@@MrEdders123 I don't think they have to keep the old Engine but the optics should stay somewhat close to the original and the setting as well. It would be a work for a few years per game. They also could add stuff that was excluded from the original and they could fully voice the game.
The based and down to "earth" style of the original Baldur's Gate is THE selling point for me. As much as I like the new one, Part 3, it feels so exaggerated and Marvel super hero like compared to the medieval swordcoast of 1998!
It is fun seeing some of the suggestions you make actually happen in Baldur's Gate 3. This was a super nice and informative video, i played the games for the first time around 5 years ago, but could still definitely see how big of a deal they could've been when they first came out, especially with the huge jump in quality (imo) the sequel has.
Wew lad, that was the bestest most comprehensive Baldur's Gate retrospective I've seen. I knew it would be good as soon as you started complaining about the "enhanced" edition.
What an incredible video and underrated channel. I was 4 years old at the time of these games releasing and wasn’t old enough to adventure into genre until about 2010 which was a time when real time first person action and 3rd person shooting were the means of combat and interaction. Something about a top down camera has always been off putting and un-immersive to me, but Baldur’s Gate 3’s sheer ambition, detail, and depth has won me over and I’m binge learning everything I can about the series, D&D and CRPG’s in general. Thank you for this awesome video.
Amazing video, I'm playing BG since 1999 and it was a pleasure to watch this, many interesting facts that I was not aware of. Regarding Northern Tales of the Sword Coast mod - actually this is a mod which was originally developed for classic Baldur's Gate, not TuTu / BGT / EE, although I am not sure if that version was translated into English (it is a Polish mod and original version is non-WeiDu). It included DSotSC, which was translated into Polish language and contained abundance of fixes for TeamBG mod, many more than 1.04 version has.
I hardly ever watch retrospective videos on any games as I was there and I played them myself. But for the legend of Baldur's Gate, I made an exception, and I am glad I did. You really filled in a lot of things that I never knew and this was a fantastic video. I'll definitely check out your other ones. I see you have one on Icewind Dale too.
Yeah this game was ambitious as hell. Constant publisher pressures at a time when everyone wanted their game to be like Blizzard's, multiplayer that had to be shoehorned in at the last minute, a need to satisfy both the real time and turn-based crowds, and so much more craziness. It's a miracle it came out at all! I'm only 20m into the video but I'll be watching the whole thing for sure as I grew up on Black Isle games, cheers
1:18:23 The tavern music track might not have been copied directly from that earlier game - it's a variation on a real Renaissance era composition, althought I cannot find the original for the life of me at the moment. PS: Your plot summary is ridiculously well-written and gives me that reinstall itch all on its own.
That's really interesting, I had no idea! I assumed it was just a generic "medieval-esque" tune a sample library commissioned. If you remember anything further about that point leave a follow-up comment 😁
I think most of the Tavern themes are antique compositions, though the actual recordings I'm pretty sure were mostly third party ones which Bioware licensed. This is probably why they were not licensed again for the Enhanced Editions, which is why they only feature one of them.
I finished my first playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 1 the other day. It was an absolute blast! It was exciting to see all of the plot hooks that my character didn’t fallow up on because of her alignment, seeing everything that I can dig into on my next playthrough is awesome. It was also interesting to realize I did almost all of the chapter 7 quests out of order.
This is an awesome review! In depth x10! That said looking through the comments what is the hate over the EE editions? I still have the original release BG1 6 disc set w/expansion and the boxed BG2 set with ToB (in fact it was one of the first games I bought with my own money as a kid). But I love the EE editions, I think true fans can appreciate the fact that such an amazing game has been taken up yet again a decade later and advertised, and brought new players into the mix who maybe weren't even alive to experience the game back when it was new. Embrace all the BG series! New and old, this is one of, if not THE pinnacle of RPGs ever made.
The booga-boo with the satanic panic of the 80's is pretty interesting...unfortunately people were too quickly appeased by being handed boardgames as a suitable whipping boy. DnD was a scapegoat to cover the actual weird stuff going on in one California town and the activity of the seekers cult(and the ties both incidents had with a certain letter agency). Wish the games based on TSR properties could have been freed to present compelling stories no matter the alignment. Especially when real life doesn't neatly punish evil actions or reward good people.
Loved the video, some really good insight into the production and solid commentary, even if I disagree with some of it. One point I will openly disagree on is the Enhanced Edition. I say this as someone who played the original game religiously when it came out - The Enhanced Edition is the superior choice for newer players and even I play the EE nowadays. While there is value in playing the original in a historical context to see how things were back there, for people just wanting to play a good RPG in 2021 the EE's ease of use, compatibility, mostly improved pathfinding, smoothed-out visuals, etc. all combine into a more pleasant and welcoming package while still maintaining the core of the experience. Yes, Beamdog's additions to the game are dubious (the new companions are mostly overwritten piles of cringe), they are also easily ignored. Other than that, great video, gonna go watch the rest of your stuff now. Cheers!
Thanks for your thoughts! I'll probably do a 15m "broad strokes" video on EEs vs. Original after all the other IE games have been covered, as a lot of them share the same problems in terms of art direction, "quality of life improvements" and such. Otherwise I'd be spending an extra 5-10m per IE title going over the same complaints. I can't promise anything, as making a video on something I don't like doesn't really fit my philsophy for the channel. It is a common point of contention though, so we'll see. :)
@@mostlydead3261 I don't. It has many more new bugs and I'm not even a fan of the "improved" visuals. The only thing it has going for it are ease of use.
Great video man,it was big pleasure to watch it,also loved "Behind the scenes" section,it is a pity you have so little subscribers you deserve more,much more! Waitng for Baldur`s Gate 2 and Planescape:Torment and Temple of Elemental Evil and Siege of Dragonspear😀
Thanks! :D I'll probably do BG2 sometime around summer next year, then Planescape Torment a few months later. Siege of Dragonspear I don't know, I haven't really decided whether to do a video on the EEs as a whole. ToEE...uhhhh I dunno. I will do the notorious RTwP Pool of Radiance remake at some point after the Infinity Engine videos though. Not that anyone asked for it! :p
@@MrEdders123 Take your time,I appreciate your approach and ready to wait until vid is done. Regarding EEs,I think you should show differences between original and talk about it's pro and cons in your next video, that's all.
One thing you said in the review hit home about how Baldurs Gate is more grounded than say Baldurs Gate 3 and I appreciate that, it's something I really don't enjoy about modern DnD is the way it's lost the more down to earth quality of how it was in the 80s and 90s. Baldurs Gate 1 is much more relatable for me and much more atmospheric of what I like about classic fantasy and DnD.
The rise of CRPG related RUclips channels as well as the amount of recent reviews of CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and especially Baldur's Gate itself is a testament to this great title. I have watched a lot of these modern reviews and some of them are incredible awesome but your review must be the most throughout video about the development, history and background of Baldur's Gate and Bioware I have ever seen. Thanks a lot for this incredible effort. I played several different versions as well as mods of BG over the last 24 years but this video motivates me to play the vanilla version of the game after more than ten years again. And the best is yet to come, I've seen you have several reviews like this one about similar classics as well as some other Infinity Engine games which means I'll have plenty of content to watch over the next couple of weeks. This was less of a review and more of a history lesson and analysis of the game. Great video!
This is really, really well done. Great job, man! A shame it doesn't have more views, it certainly deserves them. Keep on the grind, maybe you get into the algorithm one day.
@@MrEdders123 Sure, I get it. I just find it regretable because I'm a BG fan from hour 0 back in the day and whenever I find really well done content about BG I wish everybody would see it and maybe discover a love for this great game. Its the oldschool nerd in me, I guess. xD
@@PsychoWedge There's a good channel called Computer Gaming Yesterday that does very well-made documentary-style retrospectives on older games. I enjoyed his Everquest videos (never played it myself), you might want to check him out.
DnD health works better when you get a little boost at level 1 but the increase in health diminishes with levels to prevent getting too munchkin. Randomness in character development doesn't really help when there's so much randomness in dice rolls already
I don't honestly know how i ended up on this side of youtube because i was never interested in baldurs gate but i'm glad i clicked on this video, it was very interesting and well made content that has earned you a like and a sub. I am very excited to check out more of your videos in the near future
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 stars out of 5! This was a pleasure, indeed, to listen to. I've played this game innumerable times and I'll ignore it for a few years and then take it up and fall in love with it, all over again By the way, I'm playing this game, as I write this and .whilst listening to your most excellent retrospective. Cheers!
Baldur's gate is out of my wheelhouse. I despise RTwP and consider it to be a detriment to every RPG it's used in, at least the ones I've played. For example, I loved both Tyranny and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, but that was in spite of their combat rather than because of it. (WotR does have turn based mode but the game is obviously designed for RTwP 95% of the time.) But BG is a piece of RPG history, which means I want to learn about it. It's always good to take in different perspectives, too. Even if I want to defend Turn Based Combat every time someone says something poor of it, lol. I wonder why the two methodologies seem to have a relatively clear divide. From what I've seen, there are few people who like both RTwP and Turn Based, it's usually a preference for one or the other.
I'm replaying this trilogy again after at least a decade since the last time I played it. BG1 has aged quite well and I'm enjoying the solo run. It's so nice to see there's a community for these golden gems of games
Always wanted to play these games when they came out, didn’t have a PC. Finished my first run of BG1 today. Amazing game. Glad I fought through the initial frustrations lol.
Baldur's Gate was the game that got me into games. I have been obsessed with anything D&D since then, too, even though I barely ever played D&D, I am completely obsessed with the Forgotten Realms world. It would be hard to overstate the importance of Baldur's Gate in my life.
Recently finished a playthru as a druid and wow they really got the short end of the stick in the 1998/TotSC edition. The Enhanced Edition is fine, but the Complete Edition on GOG has that crunchy movement goodness.
By the way, MrEdders123, I got some more interesting fun facts and lore details centered around Baldur's Gate that you might be interested in knowing since you liked the interesting lore facts about Icewind Dale. Fun fact #1: First, I want to say something about the Baldur's Gate novel. I had no idea that the author Philip Athans wrote the game based on a buggy alpha version of the game, not the finalized version, but it explains why the companion characters like Jaheira are not like how they are depicted in the game, and why some parts of the novel's story barely make sense. A lot of people hated the novel because the protagonist Abdel Adrian is a "Gary Stu", a character that is already strong and experienced without needing much character development (Like Rey from the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy), and characters like Khalid and Jaheira were unrecognizable in the novel, Khalid being a unfaithful married man to Jaheira, and Jaheira being submissive to Khalid and cowardly when facing a frightening foe. In the games, Khalid comes from Calimshan, Jaheira comes from Tethyr, but in the novelization, they both come from Amn, and instead of worshiping Silvanus like all Druids, Jaheira in the novel worships Mielikki, which is not the right god for a Druid to worship. With this new info you gave me, I find it more appalling than ever knowing that there were people who used to argue that the novel and the novelizations of Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal is more canon than the games. How could they say that when the final version of the game is more lore accurate than the novel? For example, the Baldur's Gate game hints that everyone believes the Zhentarim are behind the Iron Crisis in the Sword Coast when in truth it is the Iron Throne who are behind it all, and passing the blame to the Zhentarim to cover their tracks. But the novelization claims that the Iron Throne is a splinter group of the Zhentarim. But the 3rd edition sourcebook "Lords of Darkness" refutes the novel's lore entirely. The Iron Throne was actually founded by a tiefling woman named Sfena. She was the daughter of Glasya (the devil princess who rules Malbolge of the Nine Hells), which makes Sfena the granddaughter of Asmodeus himself. Sfena was born in the year the Icewind Dale game's story happened, 1281 DR, and she founded the Iron Throne 21 years before the Baldur's Gate game's story in 1347 DR (which might be the year Gorion's Ward was born, because the chapter narrator said that Gorion's Ward has spent 20 years of his/her life in Candlekeep), and Sfena had absolutely NO connections to the Zhentarim. During the year 1347 DR, when she arrived to Faerun from the Nine Hells, she was somehow captured by storm giants and they prevented her from escaping into the Nine Hells by transforming her body into a crystalline substance. The reason why she created the Iron Throne is because she needs to produce a very rich mercantile organization and then trade the organization and its employees off to a devil in exchange for a cure for her condition. These details perfectly correspond to the reason why she would sanction Rieltar's plan to make the Iron Throne rich by instigating a shortage of iron in the Sword Coast and keeping all the pure iron to themselves so people will buy their stock of iron, because if you read Sarevok's journal in the game, there's an entry that states a couple years ago, the Iron Throne were banned from Cormyr, and that caused the Iron Throne to lose a lot of money. Fun fact #2: Another severe contradiction in the Philip Athans' Baldur's Gate novel is that Sarevok runs the Iron Throne alone. His foster father, Rieltar, and the other two guys, Brunos and Thaldorn are absent in the novel. The game makes it clear that Sarevok has no interest in the business practices of the organization, and that the Baldur's Gate branch of the Iron Throne fell to ruin under his control with the Iron Crisis leaders dead near the end of the game, but in the novel, the Iron Throne somehow stayed strong under Sarevok's solo leadership. And ironically, in the part of the novel that is based on the chapter of the game where Gorion's Ward must return to Candlekeep to spy on Rieltar and Brunos, Abdel goes back to Candlekeep even though as I pointed out before, Sarevok's foster father and the other two Iron Throne leaders do not appear in the novel, Sarevok is the sole leader, and technically there is no Iron Throne meeting in Candlekeep even though Abdel goes back to Candlekeep for the same reasons Gorion's Ward does from the game. No wonder why the novel is a mess, basing it on an incomplete version of a game not yet officially released... Also, a certain corrupt Flaming Fist officer named Angelo is one of the Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate in the Baldur's Gate novelization instead of a Flaming Fist officer. That is seriously wrong, because sourcebooks like Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast (which details the Sword Coast lore from 1366 to 1367 DR, two years and less before the year the Baldur's Gate game is set in) have no record of ever having a Grand Duke by the name of Angelo, there was only Entar, Liia, Eltan and Belt (Belt and Liia never appeared in the novelization, they were both replaced by Angelo). A novel giving a D&D character who only appears in the D&D games a title that should make him/her noteworthy in the canon of the source books is a terrible idea and seriously hurts that novel's credibility as a canon story. Fun fact #3: I noticed in your video that the NPC Aldeth Sashenstar appears several times. Did you know that according to the Forgotten Realms lore, he is officially dead? There is a side mission in the Cloak Wood forest where you have to choose between helping a man named Aldeth Sashenstar and his fellow hunters slay a group of druids, or help the druids slay Aldeth and his hunters. If you choose to aid the druids and kill Aldeth and his hunters, Dabron Sashenstar shows up in Baldur's Gate hunting for "Gorion's Ward" to avenge his "brother". The truth is, according to the source book "Power of Faerun", Aldeth and Dabron are NOT brothers, Aldeth is Dabron's uncle, and though it is canon that Aldeth gets killed, the source book does not say who killed him, so it is debatable on whether Gorion's Ward or the Shadow Druids of Cloak Wood forest are responsible for his death. But one thing for certain is Dabron learns about his uncle's death from a divine vision by the deity known as Shaundakul, and Dabron returns to Baldur's Gate around the year 1372 DR, the year the Neverwinter Nights game happens, because he was too far away from the Sword Coast to arrive days, weeks or months, or even a year after his uncle's death. My only explanation is the Dabron Sashenstar looking to avenge Aldeth is not the real Dabron, but an impostor, a mercenary hired to kill Gorion's Word, only an impostor would make the mistake claiming Aldeth is Dabron's brother instead of uncle. When the real Dabron returned to Baldur's Gate, he tried to rebuild the Merchant's League after all the ruin they've gone through, trying to cope with Aldeth's death and being financially ruined by doppelganger creatures working for the Iron Throne during the iron crisis four years ago. Later in 1374 DR, the year Neverwinter Nights 2 and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance happens, Dabron is tasked by the Grand Dukes of Baldur's Gate to go out to Sembia (the nation on Faerun where the Iron Throne originated), hunt down and arrest the remaining bosses of the Iron Throne. And believe it or not, Dabron finds and arrests Sarevok's foster father, Rieltar Anchev, who should have been killed off in the Baldur's Gate game. I can only assume that the Rieltar that died in the game was a doppelganger, not the real man, which means Rieltar likely had secretly arranged a contingency against Sarevok if he ever did something to prove his disloyalty, because according to Sarevok's journal in the game, Rieltar allowed Sarevok to play some small role in the iron crisis, but he warned Sarevok that if he ever betrayed him, he will end up like his foster mother, choked to death by garrote wire. Fun fact #4: The two knights who fight alongside the Rieltar Anchev impostor and Brunos in Candlekeep if you choose to fight them, Tuth and Kestor, are important figures of the Knights of the Shield. Kestor is a half-elf like Khalid, Jaheira and Neera from the Enhanced Edition version, who sells silks, textiles and spices as a merchant in Baldur's Gate, he is not just an agent of the Knights of the Shield, and he has had a tense rivalry with Aldeth Sashenstar in the past. Tuth is a higher ranking agent than Kestor. The reason why you gain more EXP for defeating him is because Tuth is no common agent of the Knights of the Shield, he is part of the Shield Council. Fun fact #5: Greywolf, the bounty hunter who goes after Prism outside the Nashkel Mines is mentioned in the "Lands of Intrigue" source books. Greywolf is a half-elf man who is a fallen Ranger, like Bishop from Neverwinter Nights 2. Greywolf became an evil aligned Ranger because of his desire for riches and fame. He is a member of the Shadow Thieves guild of Amn as a bounty hunter, his primary job is usually tracking prey in the Forest of Tethir or spying on the local druidic circles.
Core is the default difficulty in the original saga so I didn't really go into difficulty differences. I think all difficulty options had permadeath in BG1 (not EE, which uses the BG2 system), but I've never actually checked the lower difficulties.
This is so great. Now I really wonder how much influence Baldur's Gate had on how we perceive forgotten realms today because as an old BG player but relatively very new DND player I always thought the sword coast is like the most important part of the setting
Amazing video. @1:21:50 you talk about you dont like widescreen mods because they zoom out too much. But that is only if you choose a too big resolution. I play BG TUTU on a 4k monitor which can handle 3840x2160 and have widescreen installed with X=1280 and Y=720. It looks amazing! That is about a third of the resolution my monitor can handle. Indeed i tried bigger resoltions first but then everything is zoomed out too much. I will choose this over EE any day.
For BG1 imo the ideal resolution would be something close to the original 640 x 480. Didn't really notice as a kid but BG2's 800 x 600 feels less intimate.
I will never forget how happy I was in the late 90s - first, we had Baldur's Gate in 1998, then Planescape Torment in 1999, then Baldur's Gate II a year later, not to mention Fallout before that and Fallout II in 1998. It indeed was a golden era for isometric CRPGs.
My friends and I were entirely into D&D and Forgotten Realms, we were devouring manuals and any D&D-related materials we could get our hands on, and then, all of a sudden, Baldur's Gate came out. I was utterly mesmerized by it, I came home every chance I got just to finish my first run, I can't remember any other game that completely changed me in such a profound way at that time. What made it even better was the fact that at the time I was totally into the Forgotten Realms setting. Every aspect of this release was next-gen: the plot, storytelling, the art style, the beautiful realistic design of the Infinity Engine characters and NPCs, this game had such a profound impact on me, it got me into reading even more books and novels, I started drawing, designing my own maps, heraldry, armour sets etc.
An excellent review as always - I particularly loved the pre-production info about Bioware and Interplay at the time. To conclude, I especially want to compliment you for dedicating a segment of your review to the soundtrack. One other significant and lasting impact this game had on me was Michael Hoenig's fantastic soundtrack. This soundtrack got me into researching and collecting soundtracks, not just from movies and TV shows, but from video games, especially RPGs. This was an introduction to Jeremy Soule, Inon Zur, Mark Morgan and others.
One quote which I still remember to this day is the one you used at the very begging "I will be the last, and you will go first". Too bad they decided to discard the original animations for the enhanced edition, that intro stays with you forever.
#StillGazingIntoTheAbyss
Thanks! Sadly Hoenig doesn't seem to have really talked about the OST in interviews (compared to Inon Zur et al). maybe he saw it as "just another job" akin to the TV work since his true passion was "legit" music ☹
I never played AD&D but we did spend many nights playing Blood Bowl, Space Hulk, Advanced Hero Quest etc back in the early to mid 90's. I was always into art and drawing, so I bought a few AD&D books, especially anything related to Dragonlance, and also Games Workshop manuals. Anything with great artwork. In 1999 I managed to find an FTP in the USA on an obscure warez forum that had HUNDREDS of high quality scans of pretty much every AD&D rulebook and module out there. The file sizes were somewhat mental, took forever to download, but I grabbed anything that looked like it had great artwork.
In terms of video games, Fallout 1 + 2 were amazing. Still replay them to this day. But I never liked Baldurs Gate. Far too slow and talky for me. Obviously, that puts Planescape Torment as my LEAST favourite isometric CRPG of all time. But the IceWind Dale series is up there with Fallout.
yeah, also diablo, arcanum and neverwinter Icewind dale II and Dungeon Siege in 2001-2002 What a time to be alive.
@@Otto-WebbGreat times!
Videogames were for nerds, now they are for normies who watch tiktoks and only want interactive movies
I've watched a lot of videos on BG over time but this is by far the most informative and insightful. Excellent video, you should be proud
Thanks!
Hell yes ..great channel and I know this will do numbers
I've been binging your content for the past few days and I'm loving it; the RUclips algorithm did something right for once. I never played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, but I'm a huge D&D fan so your videos have been a great way to learn about CRPG history. Thanks for the great work, man!
I didn't expect this Retrospective to be so informative about the development background and societal expectations of the time.
This is amazing and gives so much context, I love it.
This is the best review of BG I've watched because it actually teaches me new information, unlike those other BG reviews where they only talk about game mechanics and how the story unfolds, things that I already know.
The Story and Roleplaying segment was so good I watched it several times.
how many times?
I love Atom RPG!
Several
@@Drakuer11 surpising how few views there are, dude has a great voice for this and he does his homework and keeps it interesting
Yeah, it shits all over Larian's childish idea of pushing all these exotic alien races to the forefront of a Swordcoast adventure with BG3.
I've basically watched all the Baldurs gate reviews and retrospectives. I don't know how I missed yours. I don't watch these to learn anything I basically know everything there is to know about this game. Until I watched yours. I learned new stuff and was thoroughly entertained. I have subscribed and if there is anyway to pay you let me know. This video is definitely some of the best baldurs gate content out there.
Thanks! Yeah I didn't really intend to do a video on such well-known titles because they're already well-covered, so I really had to go out of my way to learn new stuff (Computer Gaming Yesterday's video, which came out less than a week before this one, covered 90% of the same material though lol). And there's still interested tidbits I stumble across in magazines and such, like how Bioware were trying to program an anti-savescum feature that gave less xp depending on how often you reloaded.
First game influenced a Renaissance for games of it genre now the 3rd game is doing the same for modern games as it has no mini transaction and is still beautiful
These long deep dive retrospectives are great. I’m always on the lookout for more channels doing this kind of stuff. Excellent job with this one. Hope you do more of the Infinity engine games in the future. Just saw you’ve got IWD I&II. Checking those out next
Me too. And sometimes they have criminally low view counts like this one. Neverknowsbest is one of my favorites that thankfully now has a but more viewers. His second channel about real life stuff is great too.
Thank you taking the time and effort to make such a comprehensive video on one of my favorite games!
Awesome job on finding information and presenting them in a 2h material that felt like 40 minute one. Excellent video.
Thanks! I wish it had taken 40m to make hehe
I'm at 41 min and I'm blown away how good the script is. I'm so happy I found your video.
I started binge-watching your content from the beginning and let me tell you , this was one of my wisest moves for 2023 😁😁
Exceeded my already high expectations from the earlier IWD retro-review. It's the definitive ensemble video of the classic BG1 out there. As far as videogames go, I'd say, there's actual scholarship here. Surprised but delighted to hear tidbits I wasn't even aware of. Broadly agree with most what you say (especially about aesthetics, story, and roleplaying). Even when there's some disagreements, they are not exactly about errors or misinterpretations, but differing preferences and priorities.
Especially nice touches with particulars, even with throwaway facts, which are there just to give some context. Like about the eighties moral panic against D&D, which is often attributed to mainly or even solely to Evangelicals and Christians. Granted, they were usually the wackiest and most outlandish out there, like the infamous Chick tract.
However, it's often totally underplayed how huge the media and expert role was in all that, because it doesn't fit conveniently to any overarching narrative beyond sensationalism and laziness. I've seen quantitative data about the media coverage about D&D and RPGs being over 90% negative during the entire 1980s. Not like just in Kansas City Star or something like that, but just as well in the international prestige press like NYT and TWP. The person who wrote Mazes and Monsters was Cosmopolitan writer from Broolyn. 60 minutes special with Pulling, Gygax and Radecki was about suicide, mental health. and criminality, not demonic possession, and so on. That was what gave it so much more plausibility and credibility, not Billy Bob protestants or snake handlers. Before CDC and other credited institutions produced actual studies at early 1990s, which did clip wings of the media hysteria.
It's glad to see even small touches like that to be properly presented, even in passing. Unlike typical hearsay and Discord campfire stories one mostly encounters, while watching gimmicky and half-assed assembly-line manufactured YT videos about (C)RPGs.
Hopefully, this overall excellent video won't get totally sidetracked and overshadowed by your somewhat controversial stance on EE versus OG. It just tends to be that all nuances gets thrown out immediately overboard with these usually tedious debates. A lot of people just pigeonhole you to whatever unflattering stereotype or caricature they have about the opposing side, when your arguments even slightly approximates something they associate with the bad Other (nostalgia! Grognard! Entitlement!). Doesn't make any difference what you actually argue for or how. It often is totally enough, if it just sort of looks like some morally suspect and baad position they've seen before (or imagine devious people holding).
Regardless, I agree that EE is a different game than the classic. It shouldn't be seen just as an update, but as different interpretation of the same source. I have to admit, it has a lot going for it. I am not annoyed that they exists, but certain things were lost in translation. In some domains it just performs worse.
Dorn, Neera and Rashad (and Hexxat) are so flagrant and self-evident, that it feels like too much of a low-hanging fruit. As they are totally unfitting by the tone and content even for BG2, little alone alone to BG1. They might as well be interplanar or time travelers transgressing upon untouched and humble countryside and wilderness of Sword Coast. Plus, their encounter and quest design was mostly mediocre to bad. Somehow at the same time underwhelming but inappropriately grandiose and bombastic. Szass Tam finale might be the worst encounter in all of Infinity Engine games (more so than even Modron Maze, even if it was inbefored by being so meta). Writing is annoying and sophomoric. However, EE companions are so thoroughly litigated, and basically anyone familiar with them could just go on and on.
Like you said eloquently, BG1 has this very grounded and rustic feel to it through and through. It's not simply backdrop or aesthetics, but all elements from gameplay to narrative support it. They create a coherent and pleasing whole, as these separate elements are much more in harmony with each other. They reinforce each other even down to small details, such as class selection.
Let's take kits as an example. Not only they break the balance way too much in favor of a player at BG1 (why ever take regular bard when you have skald or jester? Why vanilla Paladin when there's cheese kits, or mage when there's sorcerer? Priest kits are just extra special abilities with zero downsizes, etc.) More than that, a humble ranger or a mage apprentice is something one might imagine coming out of gates of a cloistered monastery of Candlekeep, which is located at barely settled frontier land. A kensai or tribal shaman protagonist doesn't sit as well into the location of BG1, with its bandits, commerce disputes and farmsteads.
OG BG1 reinforces this very well. All elements are geared towards this low level, low stakes, rooted and grounded fantasy adventure akin to earlier D&D modules like Temple of Elemental Evil or Keep at Borderlands. EE pulls each of these elements into opposing directions, creating more schizophrenic and muddled whole. Ludonarrative dissonance is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but its appropriate in this instance. Whereas OG is more intact for what kind of a story it tries to tell down to gameplay and aesthetics complimenting the narrative and overall design.
Hey Aleks, thanks for your lengthy response. Re: the Satanic Panic stuff, I was indeed trying to be fair in noting the importance of the media and the role of media-appointed "experts" (psychologists, law enforcement etc.) rather than focusing solely on the usual "crazy christian fundamentalist" angle.
It's ironic that I was using the NYT doc on the topic, since the paper engages in similarly sensationalist reporting on subcultures to this day. I was reading about related topics such as the McMartins trial, and it's striking how many of the publications sneering about the satanic "moral panics" of the 80s were directly involved in them at the time. Virtually none of the bad actors involved - journalists, editors, social workers, prosecutors et al - suffered the slightest repercussions for their actions. Unfortunately, the TSR Code of Ethics did not apply to real life ;P
Hey Alexander, Great comment!
I wonder, what's your day job and how old are you, if I may ask? Just curious.
@@AlexGorskov Thanks for saying so. I am youngish, and studying history at an university.
@@aleksanderstromfors183 I'm impressed :)
There was a whole lot of kids that felt like outcasts because of the Satanic panic. They just wanted to play a game they enjoyed and were treated like there was something wrong with them.
This is an amazing video you produced! It's amazing how little I knew about the history of development, even though I played the game over and over again since 1999. Thank you for uploading this! 🙂👍👍👍
Interesting to see you play the original game instead of in the BG2 engine. The old sprites definitely look better and there's a charm to it. Also very good in-depth breakdown.
I always preferred the old sprites, I always thought the redesign is because Amn has a different culture and fashion to Baldurs Gate so they tried to reflect that
But I liked the medieval european fantasy style of the first game even if it was a little more plain
No
I don't really know about graphics, but I did played through the original at the beginning of this year, inspired by this video, and there's a lot of differences between BG1 and, for example, Enhanced Edition. I only wish my laptop liked the game more, I had to mess with 3rd party software so much to have a comfortable experience it's unbelievable, next time I'm touching the original is on a Windows XP era PC :V
The original sprites in no way look better than
Love your videos. I'm replaying the BG series at the moment and this thorough review really hit home for me.
Thanks a lot for your comment, I'm glad people find it interesting :)
Such a fantastic game. Truly a classic. So many nights spent up way too late, playing this, two, and Bhaal.
Thanks for a great video. Having just started an EE playthrough as a BG3 inspired nostalgia trip, I'm glad to see this video recommended; one of the best reviews I've seen. I guess I had better watch your BG2, Icewind Dale and Torment videos now.
There are a lot of points I'd love to comment on this, but I fear it move prove longer to type than watching the video. However, of particular interest was the information on the production as at least some of that was new to me. The discussion points around storytelling, roleplaying and world building was also of interest particularly in contrast to BG3.
The final points on BG's legacy is also interesting. I don't think it's that surprising to see so few imitators post 2010 in spite of Obsidian's efforts - the modern hybrid games that incorporate more twitch mechanics like the Witcher, or the partial platformer/adventure game style of Larian's games (including BG3) seem to be of a greater appeal than the RTS/RPG hybrids of the BG era. Even Owlcat, whose Pathfinder games I very much enjoyed, have gone turnbased only for the Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader RPG.
Of greater curiousity is why there were so few similar games in the earlier 2000s. My guess here is the pivot to realtime 3D rendering and online gaming (in the form of MMOs). I'm not sure there was ever quite enough of an audience in the CRPG gaming community to support all the different sub genres so the developers stopped pursuing what they believed to be those with the least financial opportuinity in the longer term.
This is the best and most thorough video I've seen on BG. Thank u for your work!
Dynamic scaling is the scourge of modern crpgs. Having the foes level up with you ruins the sense of progression, having every area be relatively safe ruins the sense of adventure and having every battle be fair ruins the sense of accomplishment. That being said Bauldur's gate, especially the beam dog version has difficulty modes so if someone just wants to see a story rather than play a game they have the option.
Why is that the exact opposite of I heard eveywhere else?
Love the detail you go into. I'd never heard of the PSX version. Great job!
I finished your bg2 review and am now watching through this one. You do an incredible job of talking through the games and really voice reasonable praises and criticisms of both games. I have played both games since I was around 6-8 years old, and love hearing such an in depth discussion about them. Keep up the good work man. Really high quality content.
Just discovered your content ,you have almost overnight become my favorite channel.
Nothing better on RUclips than to hit the THC vape a few too many times, then sit back and listen to this dude give a masters dissertation on my most beloved classic games.
This is so well made! Watched the whole thing 3 times already just to take all the information in. Great Job!
lol I can't imagine listening to me for 6hrs straight!
tldr; Bioware was incredible, making genre defining games for hundreds of millions of people in *THREE* different decades. Very, very few studios can say that, and with the resurgence of CRPG's over the last 7 years or so, hopefully the next _"grand Adventure"_ is around the corner. Just remember to _"*...gather your party before venturing forth."*_
Most people who didn't play this in 1998-2002 have no idea how big a deal this game was. I started playing D&D in 1rst grade with a neighbor and his friends whom were a few years older than myself, and bought the Gold Box games with some money I'd gotten for my 7th birthday which was inteded for comic books. I played the first 3, but unfortunately _"Pools of Darkness"_ never came out for the C64. Like a lot of kids who played D&D, I may have been _advanced,_ but my mother's paycheck was not so a better computer was out of the question for about a decade.
That decade went by, and I believe there were literally zero games that came out for the Genesis or Playstation even came close to the immersion and D&D feel I'd gotten from the Gold Box games. I'd also gone from a short fat kid to an average height/athletic cool kid in the interim and had little interest in computers at all anymore, even though I'd taught myself to code in BASIC, then went straight to machine learning by 9, won my 8th grade science fair with a program...too off topic. Anyway, time moved on, I moved out for about 9 months after high school, declining a scholarship to deliver pizzas and party with my friends instead. Yep, I was _cool_ alright.
So back at home my mother now had a hand-me-down PC from her work, and it was pretty darn decent for a non-gaming home computer at the time (1999). It was a P3 with a Voodoo 2 12MB and 64 MB sDRAM. I'd just finished Final Fantasy VII and King's Field (One of FromSoft's first games, and yikes was it fantastic) and was looking for another RPG to play. I picked up a D&D classic games boxed set which let me play the Gold Box games again, and found I still knew and learned code relatively easily, having to write a custom moslo variant to play the games at a speed that was tolerable as the things just went way, way to fast. The set had an add for a new _"Pools_ of Radiance" game. Needless to say, I was thoroughly interested, so off to their website I went. It wasn't coming out for a few months after some delays, but this weird game called "Baldur's gate" was already out. Real Time with pause didn't seem awful comapred to turn-based, I mean I made it through King's Field and that was a First person action die constantly puzzle ARPG, so I was ok with that. Not being able to make my own party bothered me though. Sure it was fine in FFVII, which I'd almost enjoyed as much as the Gold Box games, but FFVII also had tons of CGI movies, full 3d graphics, and BG had...wtv the screenshots were showing me with their simple sprites and what looked like water color painted backgrounds. Still, options were limited, and besides beer and gas I didn't have a tom to spend my money on, so I gave it a shot, and oh my goodness did things change.
I started going out less and playing BG...a lot. I found that stupid ring fo wizardry under that tree on my own bc someone on a forum said it was there. No real info, just a great ring you could get early on under a tree and the general location with landmark descriptions. I found that Imoen could pick Drizzt's pocket for Icingdeath along with a ton of other little secrets. To say that I became a fan would be a drastic understatement.
With BG 2 coming out soon and Planescape:Torment bogging my computer down a bit I learned to upgrade the basics of it, adding RAM and buying a used CD/DVD drive, met a bunch of people on various message boards, flew out to GenCon to meet a bunch of the devs in 2k, ended up with a character in BG2 named after my previous online forum tag (which I had to change bc I everyone thought I was one of those weird super fans who thought they were an in game character). GenCon was actually a blast, meeting a bunch of the people from the forums irl, hooking up and later moving one of the _"Booth Babes"_ in with me on the other side of the country, playing D&D with Ed Greenwood, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman (Whom I'd thought was a girl and embarressed the heck out of myself when I asked when _she_ was going to be there; *HE* was standing right in front of me), and numerous other events. I ended up staying for 4 weeks even though the con was only 4 nights/5 days if memory serves, but I had plenty of money and new friends I could stay with so I only paid for 3 nights in the hotel, and only slept in it twice.
That game, "Baldur's Gate", had a great deal to do with me actually getting a _real_ life back, since I was pretty much just drinking and getting into trouble for the previous two years, with literally no goals except working as much as I could then blowing the money on parties. I ended up back in school, with a live-in girlfriend who also enjoyed video/table-top games and the _occasional_ partying. I built a new computer for Neverwinter Nights, another for SKotOR, took a job at a local PC shop I'd interned at while in school, bought it from the owner when he was going to retire, turned it into a Home and Small Business Network focused company, and have never stopped playing C/A/RPG's since.
I went from daily drinking and drugging, fighting and Breaking and Entering, parties and...a lot of girls with a handful of arrests thrown in for good measure, to sitting at home playing video games and fixing/building/networking compuiters. I'm not one of those people who would say a video game saved their life, but almost every person I hung out at the time has either spent their life in and out of jail or died before they were 30; so I will say that the game certainly gave me a nudge in a more positive direction and reminded me there were a lot of other things I enjoyed; heck I didn't like fighting at all and had been in well over 100, real life street fights at that point, and after the age of 16 or so, they are not all that much fun anymore, as even when you win, you usually still get hurt, even if it's just a broken hand or some bruised ribs. Baldur's Gate? Chop people up or take out a group with a fireball and the worst repercussions were being tired the next day at work!
Unfortunately, since Bioware's decline after Mass Effect 3, besides _"The Witcher 3"_ no other C/ARPG has gotten to that same tier _for me._ The Deus Ex series came close as did the Divinity games, which much like Baldur's gate 1, I bought on a whim. Oblivion, Skyrim, TW 1 and 2, Kingdome Come Deliverance, Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk 2077, Solasta and a plethora of others have come in at ier below that, but yeah, though I've given just about every dev, both popular and niche a shot, that _"Baldur's gate 1/2"_ *magic* has remained elusive. It was such a breakthrough in story telling at the time, with voice acting essentially being a requirement on today's 27"+ displays along with that great story and pacing, I'm not sure when we will see that type of groundbreaking game out again.
The talent in that group, especially by BG 2 was stupefying. They had the 2 Docs who were brilliant admins with a ton creative talent. They had Ohlson, Gaider, Laidlaw, Karpyshyn, Derek French and people like Avellone and J.E. (Josh) Sawyer to help out with storylines along with some very talented fans assisting with everything from testing to dialogue trees.
I'm pulling for BG 3 to jump into that magical mix, but the verdict is still out. I ran through the pre-release once and it was...good, but had a long way to go, at least when it initially became available over a year ago. I decided not to play about 10 hours after hitting max early access level since I'd rather play the game in it's entirety so as not to spoil the experience. Nailing the NPC's will be the key. They added so much to the first two games it was incredible. I was sad when Gorion died and that was like 2 hours into the original. To establish a relationship that a player cares about that fast and take it away just as quickly is not only a testiment to the writing chops they had, but it's also unheard of! DragonAge Origins also pulled off something similar...wow I miss that group of people and the games they pumped out at an insane pace. BG1, BG2, ToB, NwN, KotOR, Jade Empire, Me1, DA1, ME2, DA2, ME3, DA3. 12 games in 16 years, with the 2 weak links, _imo,_ being Jade Empire and DA 3, which were still pretty damn good games; I can't think of *ANY* other studio that has done that. Ever. That would be like CDPR coming out with a Witcher 3 quality game less than every year and a half while pushing the genre forward in the process. And some people wonder why they got burnt out.
Great vid and trip down memory lane. Thanks for that.
Thats awesome.my man there are alot.pf.passionate devs and i die devs that definately have some charm you can try to look into on steam, :) its easier than ever for someone to wprk on their passion projects and several have came from wat i heart
I woukd like to add that bioware was being messed up before and during mass effect 3
tldr
Wanna know what's crazy? The pc specs needed to play this back in the day, i had a gaming compact back then (as much as you could have a 'gaming laptop, compared to today) that could play it and my roommate had a desktop, we could both run it but his chugged pretty hard and wasn't that old
Now, you can run it on anything, but to remember that this was a detailed game running tons of strings of data to the cpu and needed only 16 megs of ram, but it ran pretty slow on most computers, from what i remember?
I swear i remember quick saving taking at 10 seconds and quick loading taking a good minute, which is why i quit in the naskal mines way back in 1999, as much as I loved the game, i had no idea how to handle traps :P
@@Bjorick sadly you must have had a poor computer because I had an Amiga 500 upgraded to 1000 (which was a really cheap PC to be honest) and it took all of the CDs and Tales of the Sword Coast so I didn't have to change any CDs during play, quick save took literally 2 seconds, and reloading a game took, like, 10 seconds.
Snuggling down into my blankets with a Mr. Edders123 video 😌
Woah, this is quality! Thank you so much, MrEdders!
This vídeo of yours is a wonderful source of enterneinement and information about a game that i've come tô love in the past couple of minha. Thank you só much for your work!!
Thanks!
No other video has actually gotten me to be interested to sit down and go through this archaic and monolithic video game than yours.
Archaic? :P
Great video. Even after so many years. So much nostalgic of my teen years playing all weekend.
Excellent!
Really appreciate the use of old PC games magazines and forums and old imagery.
Very well researched!
This video is amazing. It brings so many wonderful memories from BG. Thank you for this.
This is the best Baldur's Gate video that actually captured the essence of the game and what it meant at the time. It truly was a one of a kind RPG experience that combined wit, fantasy music, fantastic story, and DND turn based combat in the best package to date. Even as I play Baldur's Gate 3(and enjoy), I can't help but feel how much more it has a dating sim quality to all of the companions which is obnoxious, to say the least.
Why is bro so good at talking about this game?
Probably the best BG video out there.
Ive been watching all BG1 and BG2 stuff before 3 comes out....this is one of the best videos ive found yet
1:13:25 Oh my God! The guy who played Dr. Silberman from the first three Terminator movies voiced Montaron?!?! I had no idea!!!
He's in Icewind Dale 2 as well
I haven't gotten far in Icewind Dale 2 yet
This is now 3rd video from you that I'm watching today and this is good shit. I hope you get more viewers as you make quality stuff.
What an in-dept story and video here. Great job
I grabbed some popcorn and watched on the big screen. Great work.
Not sure I'd want to see 640x480 on a big screen haha
That was an amazingly informative video.
BG1 remains one of my most intense gaming memory ever.
The immersion feeling was absolutely overwhelming for the young RPG fan I was.
One year later Planescape : Torment would once again blow my mind to bits. Good times !
I find these retrospective reviews of yours to be EXTREMELY thorough. Very well done. Going into not just the origins of the game, but also the gaming landscape at the time really filled in some gaps regarding why evil playthroughs were so unfulfilling. I have easily played this game 30+ times, and the second one almost as many, and I am seldom surprised with new information. Listening to this review made me really question whether or not you enjoyed going back to the game. After watching your rough review of IWD2, I definitely thought that was the direction you were going and was ready to jump at BGs defense. Glad it didn't come to fisticuffs 😉
On the matter of Obsidian Entertainment and their "bgate inspired IRPGs" - I agree that something doesn't add up. I was content with PoE and Kingmaker. Slightly less so with Deadfire (and The Outer Worlds for that matter as well..) and really disappointed by Tides of Numinera. I cannot, for the life of me pin down why. When playing those games, there is just a strange feeling of apathy regarding the worlds, or the plights of the characters that doesn't really kick in until late game. Sort of a weird, apathetic burnout that I never felt with IWD, Planescape, BG, The Witcher, Dragon Age etc. Hell, I played Betrayal at Krondor about 10 years ago and got immediately pulled in. Again, if you set this up as a list of checkboxes, all of those games would have clocked the boxes but there was still something missing... I do think that Tyranny, was likely one of the best games to come out in the last decade, and I am at a complete loss as to why it did so poorly. I really looked at that game as a spiritual twin to the BG saga and my head cannon is that it is a "What If" scenario of Sarevok (Kyros) winning and just failing to notice a fellow Bhaalspawn in his ranks.
this is excellently dove. thank you for making this!
Honestly this game deserves a proper remaster. The modders try their best but they should keep the ruleset.
Unfortunately there's not much you can really do with it, visually, due to all the original assets being lost. BGtutu mod with tweaks like Infinity Animations can make it look nice enough - I think the main problem with the original, vanilla game is that the text can be difficult to read at 640 x 480, though that's probably worsened now due to not being on a CRT.
@@MrEdders123 I don't think they have to keep the old Engine but the optics should stay somewhat close to the original and the setting as well. It would be a work for a few years per game.
They also could add stuff that was excluded from the original and they could fully voice the game.
@@darthrevan5200 I like the fact that the game isn't fully voiced.
The based and down to "earth" style of the original Baldur's Gate is THE selling point for me. As much as I like the new one, Part 3, it feels so exaggerated and Marvel super hero like compared to the medieval swordcoast of 1998!
Absolutely. BG3 didn't need to exist, and feels more like a Dragon Age sequel then Baldurs Gate.
@@AtlatlMan I wouldn't go so far, I had and still have so much fun with BG3, but it doesn't feel like the Sword Coast, yes.
It is fun seeing some of the suggestions you make actually happen in Baldur's Gate 3.
This was a super nice and informative video, i played the games for the first time around 5 years ago, but could still definitely see how big of a deal they could've been when they first came out, especially with the huge jump in quality (imo) the sequel has.
Watching this after Baldur’s gate 3 came out and it’s amazing to see history repeat itself with all the high ratings
Wew lad, that was the bestest most comprehensive Baldur's Gate retrospective I've seen. I knew it would be good as soon as you started complaining about the "enhanced" edition.
What a great video, really glad I found your channel
Nice Justice League reference! I enjoy these small jokes you put in the middle of the videos haha
What an incredible video and underrated channel. I was 4 years old at the time of these games releasing and wasn’t old enough to adventure into genre until about 2010 which was a time when real time first person action and 3rd person shooting were the means of combat and interaction. Something about a top down camera has always been off putting and un-immersive to me, but Baldur’s Gate 3’s sheer ambition, detail, and depth has won me over and I’m binge learning everything I can about the series, D&D and CRPG’s in general. Thank you for this awesome video.
Ah yes, the sound of a trap being triggered and that inevitable fireball coming down the hallway
The sound effects have made me jump sometimes it's so sudden and really loud lol
Amazing video, I'm playing BG since 1999 and it was a pleasure to watch this, many interesting facts that I was not aware of. Regarding Northern Tales of the Sword Coast mod - actually this is a mod which was originally developed for classic Baldur's Gate, not TuTu / BGT / EE, although I am not sure if that version was translated into English (it is a Polish mod and original version is non-WeiDu). It included DSotSC, which was translated into Polish language and contained abundance of fixes for TeamBG mod, many more than 1.04 version has.
Ohh, I mixed them up. I always mix up Darkest Day and other stuff too.
I hardly ever watch retrospective videos on any games as I was there and I played them myself. But for the legend of Baldur's Gate, I made an exception, and I am glad I did. You really filled in a lot of things that I never knew and this was a fantastic video. I'll definitely check out your other ones. I see you have one on Icewind Dale too.
Thanks! Although the Icewind Dale video was my first for the channel, so it's not as in-depth.
An outstanding video on an outstanding game. Well done, Sir.
Yeah this game was ambitious as hell. Constant publisher pressures at a time when everyone wanted their game to be like Blizzard's, multiplayer that had to be shoehorned in at the last minute, a need to satisfy both the real time and turn-based crowds, and so much more craziness. It's a miracle it came out at all!
I'm only 20m into the video but I'll be watching the whole thing for sure as I grew up on Black Isle games, cheers
1:18:23 The tavern music track might not have been copied directly from that earlier game - it's a variation on a real Renaissance era composition, althought I cannot find the original for the life of me at the moment.
PS: Your plot summary is ridiculously well-written and gives me that reinstall itch all on its own.
That's really interesting, I had no idea! I assumed it was just a generic "medieval-esque" tune a sample library commissioned. If you remember anything further about that point leave a follow-up comment 😁
I think most of the Tavern themes are antique compositions, though the actual recordings I'm pretty sure were mostly third party ones which Bioware licensed. This is probably why they were not licensed again for the Enhanced Editions, which is why they only feature one of them.
Good stuff, thanks mate.
lol.. fancy seeing u here.. what's ur KKKodex handle?
Excellent review. Thanks a lot
Superb video, thank you for this!
I finished my first playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 1 the other day. It was an absolute blast! It was exciting to see all of the plot hooks that my character didn’t fallow up on because of her alignment, seeing everything that I can dig into on my next playthrough is awesome. It was also interesting to realize I did almost all of the chapter 7 quests out of order.
This is an awesome review! In depth x10!
That said looking through the comments what is the hate over the EE editions? I still have the original release BG1 6 disc set w/expansion and the boxed BG2 set with ToB (in fact it was one of the first games I bought with my own money as a kid). But I love the EE editions, I think true fans can appreciate the fact that such an amazing game has been taken up yet again a decade later and advertised, and brought new players into the mix who maybe weren't even alive to experience the game back when it was new. Embrace all the BG series! New and old, this is one of, if not THE pinnacle of RPGs ever made.
I'm at 13 min and already learned a few things! I can't wait to watch it all
The booga-boo with the satanic panic of the 80's is pretty interesting...unfortunately people were too quickly appeased by being handed boardgames as a suitable whipping boy.
DnD was a scapegoat to cover the actual weird stuff going on in one California town and the activity of the seekers cult(and the ties both incidents had with a certain letter agency).
Wish the games based on TSR properties could have been freed to present compelling stories no matter the alignment. Especially when real life doesn't neatly punish evil actions or reward good people.
A two hour BG retro you say? Like commented and subscribed 👍
Loved the video, some really good insight into the production and solid commentary, even if I disagree with some of it. One point I will openly disagree on is the Enhanced Edition. I say this as someone who played the original game religiously when it came out - The Enhanced Edition is the superior choice for newer players and even I play the EE nowadays. While there is value in playing the original in a historical context to see how things were back there, for people just wanting to play a good RPG in 2021 the EE's ease of use, compatibility, mostly improved pathfinding, smoothed-out visuals, etc. all combine into a more pleasant and welcoming package while still maintaining the core of the experience. Yes, Beamdog's additions to the game are dubious (the new companions are mostly overwritten piles of cringe), they are also easily ignored.
Other than that, great video, gonna go watch the rest of your stuff now. Cheers!
yup.. I think that EE is an objective improvement over the original..
Thanks for your thoughts! I'll probably do a 15m "broad strokes" video on EEs vs. Original after all the other IE games have been covered, as a lot of them share the same problems in terms of art direction, "quality of life improvements" and such. Otherwise I'd be spending an extra 5-10m per IE title going over the same complaints. I can't promise anything, as making a video on something I don't like doesn't really fit my philsophy for the channel. It is a common point of contention though, so we'll see. :)
@@mostlydead3261 I don't. It has many more new bugs and I'm not even a fan of the "improved" visuals. The only thing it has going for it are ease of use.
Great video man,it was big pleasure to watch it,also loved "Behind the scenes" section,it is a pity you have so little subscribers you deserve more,much more!
Waitng for Baldur`s Gate 2 and Planescape:Torment and Temple of Elemental Evil and Siege of Dragonspear😀
Thanks! :D
I'll probably do BG2 sometime around summer next year, then Planescape Torment a few months later. Siege of Dragonspear I don't know, I haven't really decided whether to do a video on the EEs as a whole. ToEE...uhhhh I dunno. I will do the notorious RTwP Pool of Radiance remake at some point after the Infinity Engine videos though. Not that anyone asked for it! :p
@@MrEdders123 Take your time,I appreciate your approach and ready to wait until vid is done.
Regarding EEs,I think you should show differences between original and talk about it's pro and cons in your next video, that's all.
Such a great game. It's so sad we will never get to see a third installation.
Is this a jab at the third game, or you don't know it exists?
Half life 3. Portal 3....@@biostar4
@@biostar4 The third game sucks
The "third game" has nothing to do with this series
@@williamburch4809mald more
Gameplay break down was explained really well.
Forgot how good Baldur's Gate main theme song was, an absolute classic in any medium
One thing you said in the review hit home about how Baldurs Gate is more grounded than say Baldurs Gate 3 and I appreciate that, it's something I really don't enjoy about modern DnD is the way it's lost the more down to earth quality of how it was in the 80s and 90s. Baldurs Gate 1 is much more relatable for me and much more atmospheric of what I like about classic fantasy and DnD.
53:12 where can I see Minsc's original character sheet? That is so cool!
blog.beamdog.com/2017/12/six-siders-space-hamsters.html
Amazing review. Thank you for this.
a man of considerable girth..
The rise of CRPG related RUclips channels as well as the amount of recent reviews of CRPGs like Baldur's Gate and especially Baldur's Gate itself is a testament to this great title. I have watched a lot of these modern reviews and some of them are incredible awesome but your review must be the most throughout video about the development, history and background of Baldur's Gate and Bioware I have ever seen. Thanks a lot for this incredible effort. I played several different versions as well as mods of BG over the last 24 years but this video motivates me to play the vanilla version of the game after more than ten years again. And the best is yet to come, I've seen you have several reviews like this one about similar classics as well as some other Infinity Engine games which means I'll have plenty of content to watch over the next couple of weeks. This was less of a review and more of a history lesson and analysis of the game. Great video!
This is really, really well done. Great job, man! A shame it doesn't have more views, it certainly deserves them. Keep on the grind, maybe you get into the algorithm one day.
It's ok, I try make the videos for myself first and foremost - key to staying sane :D
@@MrEdders123 Sure, I get it. I just find it regretable because I'm a BG fan from hour 0 back in the day and whenever I find really well done content about BG I wish everybody would see it and maybe discover a love for this great game. Its the oldschool nerd in me, I guess. xD
@@PsychoWedge There's a good channel called Computer Gaming Yesterday that does very well-made documentary-style retrospectives on older games. I enjoyed his Everquest videos (never played it myself), you might want to check him out.
@@MrEdders123 Will do, thanks for the tip.
Very detailed, great video
Nicely done bruv!
DnD health works better when you get a little boost at level 1 but the increase in health diminishes with levels to prevent getting too munchkin. Randomness in character development doesn't really help when there's so much randomness in dice rolls already
Great video. I'll might try to find my original disks somewhere now...
Nice work Ed!
I don't honestly know how i ended up on this side of youtube because i was never interested in baldurs gate but i'm glad i clicked on this video, it was very interesting and well made content that has earned you a like and a sub. I am very excited to check out more of your videos in the near future
Thanks :)
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 stars out of 5! This was a pleasure, indeed, to listen to. I've played this game innumerable times and I'll ignore it for a few years and then take it up and fall in love with it, all over again By the way, I'm playing this game, as I write this and .whilst listening to your most excellent retrospective. Cheers!
Baldur's gate is out of my wheelhouse. I despise RTwP and consider it to be a detriment to every RPG it's used in, at least the ones I've played. For example, I loved both Tyranny and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, but that was in spite of their combat rather than because of it.
(WotR does have turn based mode but the game is obviously designed for RTwP 95% of the time.)
But BG is a piece of RPG history, which means I want to learn about it. It's always good to take in different perspectives, too. Even if I want to defend Turn Based Combat every time someone says something poor of it, lol.
I wonder why the two methodologies seem to have a relatively clear divide. From what I've seen, there are few people who like both RTwP and Turn Based, it's usually a preference for one or the other.
I'm replaying this trilogy again after at least a decade since the last time I played it. BG1 has aged quite well and I'm enjoying the solo run. It's so nice to see there's a community for these golden gems of games
Always wanted to play these games when they came out, didn’t have a PC. Finished my first run of BG1 today. Amazing game. Glad I fought through the initial frustrations lol.
@@chriszimmerman9737 For some reason youtube flagged your comment as hate speech lol, sorry about that.
Just found this. Really great retrospective.
Baldur's Gate was the game that got me into games.
I have been obsessed with anything D&D since then, too, even though I barely ever played D&D, I am completely obsessed with the Forgotten Realms world. It would be hard to overstate the importance of Baldur's Gate in my life.
Very impressive! You are talented.
Man I remember loving this game as a kid😎
Recently finished a playthru as a druid and wow they really got the short end of the stick in the 1998/TotSC edition. The Enhanced Edition is fine, but the Complete Edition on GOG has that crunchy movement goodness.
I think the EE is much better than Tutu/trilogy which has the BG2 style for everything. But you need to ignore those new companions.
Wow, funny how history repeats itself. Baldur's Gate 3 just released to much the same popularity.
By the way, MrEdders123, I got some more interesting fun facts and lore details centered around Baldur's Gate that you might be interested in knowing since you liked the interesting lore facts about Icewind Dale.
Fun fact #1: First, I want to say something about the Baldur's Gate novel. I had no idea that the author Philip Athans wrote the game based on a buggy alpha version of the game, not the finalized version, but it explains why the companion characters like Jaheira are not like how they are depicted in the game, and why some parts of the novel's story barely make sense. A lot of people hated the novel because the protagonist Abdel Adrian is a "Gary Stu", a character that is already strong and experienced without needing much character development (Like Rey from the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy), and characters like Khalid and Jaheira were unrecognizable in the novel, Khalid being a unfaithful married man to Jaheira, and Jaheira being submissive to Khalid and cowardly when facing a frightening foe. In the games, Khalid comes from Calimshan, Jaheira comes from Tethyr, but in the novelization, they both come from Amn, and instead of worshiping Silvanus like all Druids, Jaheira in the novel worships Mielikki, which is not the right god for a Druid to worship. With this new info you gave me, I find it more appalling than ever knowing that there were people who used to argue that the novel and the novelizations of Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal is more canon than the games. How could they say that when the final version of the game is more lore accurate than the novel?
For example, the Baldur's Gate game hints that everyone believes the Zhentarim are behind the Iron Crisis in the Sword Coast when in truth it is the Iron Throne who are behind it all, and passing the blame to the Zhentarim to cover their tracks. But the novelization claims that the Iron Throne is a splinter group of the Zhentarim. But the 3rd edition sourcebook "Lords of Darkness" refutes the novel's lore entirely. The Iron Throne was actually founded by a tiefling woman named Sfena. She was the daughter of Glasya (the devil princess who rules Malbolge of the Nine Hells), which makes Sfena the granddaughter of Asmodeus himself. Sfena was born in the year the Icewind Dale game's story happened, 1281 DR, and she founded the Iron Throne 21 years before the Baldur's Gate game's story in 1347 DR (which might be the year Gorion's Ward was born, because the chapter narrator said that Gorion's Ward has spent 20 years of his/her life in Candlekeep), and Sfena had absolutely NO connections to the Zhentarim. During the year 1347 DR, when she arrived to Faerun from the Nine Hells, she was somehow captured by storm giants and they prevented her from escaping into the Nine Hells by transforming her body into a crystalline substance. The reason why she created the Iron Throne is because she needs to produce a very rich mercantile organization and then trade the organization and its employees off to a devil in exchange for a cure for her condition. These details perfectly correspond to the reason why she would sanction Rieltar's plan to make the Iron Throne rich by instigating a shortage of iron in the Sword Coast and keeping all the pure iron to themselves so people will buy their stock of iron, because if you read Sarevok's journal in the game, there's an entry that states a couple years ago, the Iron Throne were banned from Cormyr, and that caused the Iron Throne to lose a lot of money.
Fun fact #2: Another severe contradiction in the Philip Athans' Baldur's Gate novel is that Sarevok runs the Iron Throne alone. His foster father, Rieltar, and the other two guys, Brunos and Thaldorn are absent in the novel. The game makes it clear that Sarevok has no interest in the business practices of the organization, and that the Baldur's Gate branch of the Iron Throne fell to ruin under his control with the Iron Crisis leaders dead near the end of the game, but in the novel, the Iron Throne somehow stayed strong under Sarevok's solo leadership. And ironically, in the part of the novel that is based on the chapter of the game where Gorion's Ward must return to Candlekeep to spy on Rieltar and Brunos, Abdel goes back to Candlekeep even though as I pointed out before, Sarevok's foster father and the other two Iron Throne leaders do not appear in the novel, Sarevok is the sole leader, and technically there is no Iron Throne meeting in Candlekeep even though Abdel goes back to Candlekeep for the same reasons Gorion's Ward does from the game. No wonder why the novel is a mess, basing it on an incomplete version of a game not yet officially released...
Also, a certain corrupt Flaming Fist officer named Angelo is one of the Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate in the Baldur's Gate novelization instead of a Flaming Fist officer. That is seriously wrong, because sourcebooks like Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast (which details the Sword Coast lore from 1366 to 1367 DR, two years and less before the year the Baldur's Gate game is set in) have no record of ever having a Grand Duke by the name of Angelo, there was only Entar, Liia, Eltan and Belt (Belt and Liia never appeared in the novelization, they were both replaced by Angelo). A novel giving a D&D character who only appears in the D&D games a title that should make him/her noteworthy in the canon of the source books is a terrible idea and seriously hurts that novel's credibility as a canon story.
Fun fact #3: I noticed in your video that the NPC Aldeth Sashenstar appears several times. Did you know that according to the Forgotten Realms lore, he is officially dead? There is a side mission in the Cloak Wood forest where you have to choose between helping a man named Aldeth Sashenstar and his fellow hunters slay a group of druids, or help the druids slay Aldeth and his hunters. If you choose to aid the druids and kill Aldeth and his hunters, Dabron Sashenstar shows up in Baldur's Gate hunting for "Gorion's Ward" to avenge his "brother". The truth is, according to the source book "Power of Faerun", Aldeth and Dabron are NOT brothers, Aldeth is Dabron's uncle, and though it is canon that Aldeth gets killed, the source book does not say who killed him, so it is debatable on whether Gorion's Ward or the Shadow Druids of Cloak Wood forest are responsible for his death. But one thing for certain is Dabron learns about his uncle's death from a divine vision by the deity known as Shaundakul, and Dabron returns to Baldur's Gate around the year 1372 DR, the year the Neverwinter Nights game happens, because he was too far away from the Sword Coast to arrive days, weeks or months, or even a year after his uncle's death. My only explanation is the Dabron Sashenstar looking to avenge Aldeth is not the real Dabron, but an impostor, a mercenary hired to kill Gorion's Word, only an impostor would make the mistake claiming Aldeth is Dabron's brother instead of uncle. When the real Dabron returned to Baldur's Gate, he tried to rebuild the Merchant's League after all the ruin they've gone through, trying to cope with Aldeth's death and being financially ruined by doppelganger creatures working for the Iron Throne during the iron crisis four years ago. Later in 1374 DR, the year Neverwinter Nights 2 and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance happens, Dabron is tasked by the Grand Dukes of Baldur's Gate to go out to Sembia (the nation on Faerun where the Iron Throne originated), hunt down and arrest the remaining bosses of the Iron Throne. And believe it or not, Dabron finds and arrests Sarevok's foster father, Rieltar Anchev, who should have been killed off in the Baldur's Gate game. I can only assume that the Rieltar that died in the game was a doppelganger, not the real man, which means Rieltar likely had secretly arranged a contingency against Sarevok if he ever did something to prove his disloyalty, because according to Sarevok's journal in the game, Rieltar allowed Sarevok to play some small role in the iron crisis, but he warned Sarevok that if he ever betrayed him, he will end up like his foster mother, choked to death by garrote wire.
Fun fact #4: The two knights who fight alongside the Rieltar Anchev impostor and Brunos in Candlekeep if you choose to fight them, Tuth and Kestor, are important figures of the Knights of the Shield. Kestor is a half-elf like Khalid, Jaheira and Neera from the Enhanced Edition version, who sells silks, textiles and spices as a merchant in Baldur's Gate, he is not just an agent of the Knights of the Shield, and he has had a tense rivalry with Aldeth Sashenstar in the past. Tuth is a higher ranking agent than Kestor. The reason why you gain more EXP for defeating him is because Tuth is no common agent of the Knights of the Shield, he is part of the Shield Council.
Fun fact #5: Greywolf, the bounty hunter who goes after Prism outside the Nashkel Mines is mentioned in the "Lands of Intrigue" source books. Greywolf is a half-elf man who is a fallen Ranger, like Bishop from Neverwinter Nights 2. Greywolf became an evil aligned Ranger because of his desire for riches and fame. He is a member of the Shadow Thieves guild of Amn as a bounty hunter, his primary job is usually tracking prey in the Forest of Tethir or spying on the local druidic circles.
Incredible documentary!
Pernadeath is only a thing on Core difficulty or higher BTW. Important to note.
Core is the default difficulty in the original saga so I didn't really go into difficulty differences. I think all difficulty options had permadeath in BG1 (not EE, which uses the BG2 system), but I've never actually checked the lower difficulties.
@@MrEdders123 oh, I see. Come to thinks of it, my most complete playthrough of BG used the Trilogy mod and thus the BG2 engine so that explains it.
@@zanmaru139 yeah I've had a few comments like this hehe
This is so great. Now I really wonder how much influence Baldur's Gate had on how we perceive forgotten realms today because as an old BG player but relatively very new DND player I always thought the sword coast is like the most important part of the setting
Amazing video. @1:21:50 you talk about you dont like widescreen mods because they zoom out too much. But that is only if you choose a too big resolution. I play BG TUTU on a 4k monitor which can handle 3840x2160 and have widescreen installed with X=1280 and Y=720. It looks amazing! That is about a third of the resolution my monitor can handle. Indeed i tried bigger resoltions first but then everything is zoomed out too much. I will choose this over EE any day.
For BG1 imo the ideal resolution would be something close to the original 640 x 480. Didn't really notice as a kid but BG2's 800 x 600 feels less intimate.