Does perfection exist? Maybe not, but Baldur's Gate 2 is really close to it.
Even if some of its mechanics could feel old to younger players, its weird and horrific atmosphere and writing have not been surpassed by Baldur's Gate 3. Shadows of Amn is a dive into the more strange and alien aspects of the Forogotten Realms, and the entire Chapter 5 is a masterclass in rpg game design. Sometimes the game can feel too hard or too unapologethic, but to me this makes it even better. 10/10. Together with Ocarina of Time, Half-Life and so on, Baldur's Gate 2 stands tall into the history of videogames.

I can carry no more. I have left your item on the ground
Make way villainy! Hero coming through!
Yoshimo is willing
Yes?
Whatcha want?
Yes, Abil?
Surface dwellers can be so stupid
Make way villainy, hero coming through!
Be doubly careful. I'm sure all manner of stupid mousetrap await our toes in the dark
For the fallen!
Boo says 'what?'
Trust is for the foolish...and the dead.
Jump on my sword while you can, evil! I won't be as gentle!
A'dos quarth!
You require my counsel, yes?
I shall follow your strength.
Armored, sharpened, and raring to go.

I love this game dearly. My love for role-playing games was founded here, I even played it before the first part. I remember my friend showing me this masterpiece and burning it (legally of course^^) on several CDs. I love the interactions in the group, the story, Irenicus as a villain, the writing in general...Everything I would criticize in the predecessor has been fixed here. Throne of Bhaal is very linear but still a glorious conclusion. One of the best games of all time. I used to play it every year.

I liked this game waaaaaaaaaay more than the first one, but I don't think it would've been as good as it is were it not for the first one setting it up, so there's that

damn if I didn't get attached to gorion's ward and their relationship with imoen... poor girl... also minsc/jaheira/viconia were absolutely delightful in this game (even if I had to use a mod to get viconia to stay in the same party as the other two LOOOL)

jon irenicus is fucking baller as hell and it felt genuinely satisfying to FINALLY thwart this dude who has been a step ahead of us the entire fucking game

sarevok will always be special, but jon's voice acting is just too fucking good

Baldur's Gate 2 makes Baldur's Gate 1 feel like a tutorial for itself. The tantalizing story that BG1 only truly bothered to touch in its final act at last comes to fruition in an adventure that keeps the audience compelled for their entire run, even if they pursue every sidequest.

BG1 isn't just a low-level campaign, it's a FIRST campaign, run by a junior DM who is so excited about the bare traditional essentials of Dungeons and Dragons that they reproduce every cliché without a shred of creativity, and bore experienced players to tears.

BG2 feels like it was produced a good ten years down that DM's personal timeline, after they've grown up, read some books, and gotten that newbie cringe all the way out of their system. In its writing and scenario design, it feels strikingly modern, or at least as modern as something like Pillars of Eternity can be. It's enough to make me wish that the actual game systems has received a similar overhaul.

It's not that the DM hasn't learned some lessons since BG1. There are far, far fewer enemies who instantly throw out interminable entangle and web spells, and thus at least the player's ears are spared their constant, deafening noise in most situations. That said, the late-game DOES suffer a cornucopia of wizards whipping out Time Stops and guzzling potions that essentially render them invincible. While I'd certainly give heavier consideration to playing Baldur's Gate 2 without Story Mode enabled, it still would not be what I would call a pleasant experience.

Even with the actual combat experience brushed aside, there are simply too many annoyances with the interfacial experience of BG1 and 2 for the topic to go unraised. Innumerable are the times that I have been unable to recognize that I can interact with an object, and after pixel hunting, when I do have this realization and make my clicks, I'm met only with "You're too far away." I sigh, select my individual character, and move him out of formation. Similarly numerous are the times I simply could not see a staircase or could not find a key for a lock that my thief should be able to pick anyway. Even when bypassing the combat and RPG systems, I encountered plenty of irritations.

Be that as it may, after opting out of about 90% of BG1's side content, I did virtually every sidequest in Baldur's Gate 2, and had fun doing it. It makes me long for a big-budget, honest-to-god remake of both of these games, but as things stand, Baldur's Gate 2 is a great experience hamstrung mostly by age and circumstance. I'm glad I cruised through BG1 to get to it, but I don't expect to be revisiting either any time soon.

Baldur's Gate 2 é longo. muito longo. do ranking de jogos que eu mais joguei (registrados no backloggd), a única run que eu fiz do jogo base se encontra na 4ª posição, atrás de Team Fortress 2 (que é online), Metal Gear Solid V (que eu fiz 100% - também foi o único jogo que eu tive no meu X360 por um bom tempo) e Fallout New Vegas (múltiplas runs). uma aventura massiva desse jeito obviamente não vai ser inteiramente perfeita, mas as coisas boas são muito boas.

o primeiro Baldur's Gate foi acompanhado pela expansão Tales of the Sword Coast que introduziu a masmorra Durlag's Tower, que chama a atenção pelo seu contraste com as outras masmorras do jogo base, que não possuem charadas tão cerebrais e elaboradas quanto as introduzidas pelo conteúdo extra, então foi bem gostoso ver como a sequência incorpora essa complexidade na estrutura de suas masmorras de maneira mais abrangente: Umar Hills e Windspear Hills prenderam a minha atenção ao ponto de ignorar as missões principais pela maior parte do meu tempo no capítulo 2, Spellhold tem momentos muito bons apesar de sua linearidade e aprecio como o The Abyss tenta incorporar consequências interessantes à dilemas morais, por mais que de uma forma um tanto básica. eu também gostei da missão especial para protagonistas druidas, por ter me dado oportunidades para realmente sentir na pele as conexões à natureza que definem a classe.

uma boa parte desse jogo é boa, mas acho que algumas partes poderiam ter sido podadas para que a experiência fosse mais consistente. em nenhum momento eu me deparei com algo que eu considero "muito ruim", mas algumas locações acabam não sendo muito interessantes em termos de variedade de quests e recompensas úteis, e a qualidade dos primeiros 3 capítulos é bem superior à dos 4 seguintes. dou destaque para a seção que se passa em Underdark, a locação do capítulo 5, que eu não gostei muito apesar de seu conceito interessante. eu também odeio as batalhas que envolvem algum otário jogando um feitiço de morte ou um Mind Flayer paralisando um personagem e comendo seu cérebro. enquanto jogava essas partes comecei a imaginar o quão engraçado seria uma boss de um JRPG que durante uma longa e complicada batalha pode ativar uma mágica chamada "Load State", que arremessa sem cerimônia alguma o seu alvo para o último lugar em que o jogo foi salvo. se esse conceito parece ser enfurecedor, é efetivamente isso que ocorre quando um desses dois eventos acontecem aqui. a introdução de itens e mágicas de ressurreição mitigam levemente esses momentos, mas o item tem uso limitado e as mágicas são para níveis mais elevados, e eu não gosto de ter que ficar catando todo item do inventário que é derrubado quando um personagem morre.

também não sou muito fã de que a única opção romântica para garotas é apenas um cara que eu nunca tive interesse nem de manter no meu grupo, mas eu já entrei nessa reclamação quando falei da Enhanced Edition. ah e os retratos dos personagens são tão feios. eu não tinha problema com os do primeiro jogo mas nesse aqui foi ruim. eu baixei um pack de retratos baseado em artes que a mangaká Ryoko Kui (leiam Dungeon Meshi!) fez dos companions do jogo para mitigar esse problema. recomendo se você for fã de Dungeon Meshi. se não for, porque você não lê Dungeon Meshi? a autora se inspirou em dungeon crawlers como BG e Dungeon Master para a construção do mundo! tem até um momento onde uma personagem menciona que magias de cura podem ser usadas em tortura, o que é algo que acontece em Baldur's Gate 2! leia Dungeon Meshi.

olha. eu passei 96,6 horas nisso. se eu não tivesse me divertindo eu teria parado. por mais que eu goste mais da simplicidade e a atmosfera rural do primeiro jogo, eu prefiro esse pelas masmorras, charadas e a variedade de interações entre os personagens. por mais que uma dessas interações fosse a Mazzy empatando a minha foda com uma vampira lésbica malvada MAS TANTO FAZ. EU NEM TÔ BRAVA. FILHA DA P

Baldur's Gate II brings everything one can ask for in an RPG. It's bigger and better than the first installment, expanding in roleplaying opportunities, not only in sheer size. Even my previously useless, painfully uninformed build found a chance to shine in the myriad of approaches this game presents, and I've barely scratched the surface in terms of exploring its content.

Still, SoA retains all elements from the previous entry, even the not-so-great ones, namely the sometimes obtuse combat and janky pathfinding and navigation. That and a minor lack of outcomes through dialogue—it's not bad like the first one, but I still felt like I should've been able to get out of some situations merely through my 18 Charisma. It's not a golden RPG standard in that aspect, like Fallout, but it is in pretty much everything else.

This marks the end of a playthrough that lasted years, with my first attempt being lost in laptop transition at around the 50-hour mark and with me taking breaks between chapters to play shorter games. Given that I barely understood how the combat mechanics worked going into this, even with the first Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment behind me, and also given how difficult things got in the expansion, beating Baldur's Gate II on just the normal difficulty truly feels like an immense accomplishment for me.

It's hard to know how to even go about reviewing something I've put so much time into, so instead I'll just vomit out a few key words and phrases: ambitious, dense, detailed, creative, archaic, personal, reactive, tedious, ludo-narratively resonant, total cheese. That'll do.

This is easily Bioware's best game that I've played. There's jank, it's old, it is paced in an insane way, but this game is also some of the best cRPG style gameplay I've experienced. Every sidequest in Chapter 2 (which is 60% of the game minimum) was as good as the best quests in games like New Vegas or KOTOR 2. Absolutely killing it to release a game with this level of quality by 2000.

The biggest negatives are you can feel the cut-for-time edges, pre-fight party buffing becomes a huge chore, and that 2nd Edition D&D is an insane person system.

Note: I used the Tweaks Anthology to speed up out-of-combat movement and casting by 50%, but if I had known how much time I'd spend buffing before walking into the next room I'd have done 100%.