I’ve been trying for years to get into this game, but kept bouncing off it for various reasons. Mostly because it seemed impossibly hard, the systems and stats were confusing, and I was always worried that I was somehow playing it wrong. I came back to it a few weeks ago (inspired by the release of Baldur’s Gate 3) and decided I would do my best to push through to the end. And I did it!
Baldur’s Gate is a really cool experience, and even though it’s old as dirt it still holds up really well overall (I assume part of this is thanks to updates in the 2012 Enhanced Edition). I wasn’t wrong in my initial thoughts though. The gameplay systems are still pretty vague and confusing to me, but now that I have more experience with DND rules they made enough sense for me to get by. And the game is extremely challenging at times, especially early on and in some of the later boss fights. I had two realizations that made it possible for me to overcome that challenge: the first was that there are a ton of ways to approach any combat situation , and the second was that I could make extremely liberal use of the quicksave feature. Constantly loading quicksaves felt a little like cheating at first, but so much of the game is based on luck and dice rolls that it feels pretty much necessary a lot of the time.
Once I got into the flow of things it felt very exciting to use different spells and abilities and potions to overcome new challenges. I was developing new tactics right up until the end of the game. Even though some encounters kinda felt like unfair bullshit, they never felt truly impossible. I’m sure there are tons of ways to optimize your party and character builds, and I definitely missed out on some side quests so maybe my party was underleveled at times. But I actually enjoyed just going with the flow, taking whichever party members appealed to me and not pushing myself to fully explore every zone in the game. Playing it that way really worked for me, and I appreciate how the developers designed the game in a way that assumes the player won’t see everything in one play through.
Overall I enjoyed my time with Baldur’s Gate, and I’m very interested in seeing how they built on it in the following games.
Baldur’s Gate is a really cool experience, and even though it’s old as dirt it still holds up really well overall (I assume part of this is thanks to updates in the 2012 Enhanced Edition). I wasn’t wrong in my initial thoughts though. The gameplay systems are still pretty vague and confusing to me, but now that I have more experience with DND rules they made enough sense for me to get by. And the game is extremely challenging at times, especially early on and in some of the later boss fights. I had two realizations that made it possible for me to overcome that challenge: the first was that there are a ton of ways to approach any combat situation , and the second was that I could make extremely liberal use of the quicksave feature. Constantly loading quicksaves felt a little like cheating at first, but so much of the game is based on luck and dice rolls that it feels pretty much necessary a lot of the time.
Once I got into the flow of things it felt very exciting to use different spells and abilities and potions to overcome new challenges. I was developing new tactics right up until the end of the game. Even though some encounters kinda felt like unfair bullshit, they never felt truly impossible. I’m sure there are tons of ways to optimize your party and character builds, and I definitely missed out on some side quests so maybe my party was underleveled at times. But I actually enjoyed just going with the flow, taking whichever party members appealed to me and not pushing myself to fully explore every zone in the game. Playing it that way really worked for me, and I appreciate how the developers designed the game in a way that assumes the player won’t see everything in one play through.
Overall I enjoyed my time with Baldur’s Gate, and I’m very interested in seeing how they built on it in the following games.