Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)

My most likely most re-played game of all time. First time I played it I was around 10 years old probably, loved it, but didin't understand a lot of it. Then I replayed it as a teen a few time, and then as young adult again (often along with the first one).

There is simply no game that has ever matched this one. Even replaying it now, many years after initial release and many years after I can blame my love fo it on nostalgia alone, I cannot understand how they made it so good in so little time.

Story and characters are the biggest win for the game for sure, but it in the end it is how it all fits together. The painted environments, the music and sound design of all the effects, battles, ambients and background noises of cities, widlerness etc. They all contribute to the atmosphere of the game they are trying to build.

First BG game has a great setup. You get hints of mystery, personal motivation for pursuing the big bad guy (revenge, curiosity, fame, money, goodness of hearth, bloodlust) and you are dropped in wilderness, free to explore, make friends or enemies. Slowly getting experience to rise up to the challenges that await you in the main story. The game knows its limits, it never pits you as a world saving hero, remembering you were lvl 1 few weeks back in the game. It knows its scale.

The second game tones down the adventure atmosphere, raises the stakes a little bit (although the story is still mostly personal, rather than save the world against the big bad), but also introduces a new kind of feel for the game. For that feeling was often despair. You have lost part of your soul, you've lost your last member of family, your last link to the calming years of your past in Candlekeep, you have been wronged, hurt, your friends killed. You are against someone who has already won against you, and always seems a step ahead. Yet to have to pursue, to survive.

Shadows of Amn always manages to keep pushing you to the next challenge and those challenges can be great and complex.

Combat is what you might now from previous game with some tweaks, or Icewind Dale games. It does not change between those games, and is comples enough. Many, many build are valid, and no playthrough will feel the same if you don't want to, thanks to how you can customize your character and choose your companions.

Companions and story are the main reason to keep coming back. Try to take different choices, try different companions, try different combinations of companions. All of them are very distinct, written well, maturely (when needed) and thoughtfully. There is a lot of humor, grounded in the setting and always fitting.

This is pretty much my favorite game of all time, and I wanted to gloss over it once again, after finding a lot of dissapointments in what Larian did with the third installment. In my mind the story points and characters done in SoA remain untouched and I repress those elements from BG3 story, no matter how good that game is on itself, the writting and atmosphere of BG2 will apparently not be topped anytime soon.

I can understand why this game is so well revered. I do think it's a tad over hyped, but only a tad. This continues sometime after the events of the first game where you awaken imprisoned. Jon Irenicus is experimenting on you, and it is basically torture. His "experiment" is interrupted by a raid from a rival gang and the story begins. I actually enjoyed this tutorial dungeon. It certainly is complex if you aren't familiar with Baldur's gate. For this reason, I think it's a bad idea for a new player to the series to start with this game. Not only are you thrown into a relatively complex dungeon, which is honestly more complex than most dungeons in BG 1, but you also start at a higher level.

While that might sound appealing, AD&D is a very complex and dense system. BG 1, by starting you at level one, eases you into it. If you are playing a mage, and you start with Imoen who is a mage, you will find it overwhelming trying to pick your spells. The spell descriptions are about as good as they can be, but that doesn't make the potency or utility of a spell self evident. You will likely spend a lot of time googling "best spells" and reading through various forums where people debate. This game came out at a time before reddit and as a result there really isn't a central location to go for useful information. That said, I highly recommend this website: https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2021/01/Baldurs-Gate-2-BG2-Best-Mage-Spells-Best-Sorcerer-Spells-Ranked-Tier-List.html I included the subpage for best spells to make it easier for new players. That website does cover BG1 as well so it is a very useful source.

That all said, what has improved? The side content is a huge step up from the original BG. The side quests are varied, usually layered with sub-plots and can lead to surprisingly sprawling areas. Most companions will have a fairly intricate opening quest you get while recruiting them. I enjoyed all of these and spent the first 40+ hours just doing side quests. Yeah... there's a lot. But hey they are completely optional (mostly). The first major quest you get, once you escape Irenicus' folksy abode, is to fund raise 20k gold. One thing that may turn off some players, it took me aback briefly, is you are completely stripped of your equipment and gold from BG1. All that imports over is your characters stats and abilities. You get some items from your first playthrough, but only a few. I like this decision. This first major quest encourages you to go explore the world and side content. After doing two side quests I had enough funds, but I was so engaged with the questlines that I kept going until I completed all the quests I encountered.

Exploration is kind of a mixed bag this time around. On one hand, you no longer have to walk through adjacent locations to reach a new location. Instead, you can immediately fast travel to a new location. This removes a lot of the early game loop from the first game. You spent a lot of time walking from left to right, or top to bottom, vice versa. A lot of the map locations in BG1 were mostly empty with a few locations of interests or items. With the inclusion of fast travel, the maps are now more densely packed. There doesn't really feel like there is any filler anymore, in terms of locations. The reason why I think this is kind of a mixed bag, is you are essentially warping around which makes travel feel less like a mechanic. I don't hate it, but I can understand why someone may prefer BG1's system, where you need to traverse to a location first before you can fast travel.

Gameplay is mostly the same as the first, but... you are high level. This drastically changes how you approach encounters. The early phases of BG 2 are the hardest, which may seem counterintuitive. The reason for this is "power creep." After a certain point, when you get high enough level, and you have at least a few mages in your party (I had 3 mages) you become unstoppable. Mages are just so busted at high levels. As long as you are fine with tediously buffing your party with every buff and using a few spells in combat, you will blow over anything. A enemy mage or lich buffed himself to be invincible? No problem, Breach or Dispel. Now he falls over like a paper doll. The cheese tactic of setting a bunch of traps and skull traps still works here too. I killed every Dragon in the game (except for the Silver Dragon) with this strategy. They all died in one hit, but it took me 5 mins of spamming abilities and resting to prepare. Mindflayers can be challenging, but if you use Chaotic Command, you become immune to their crowd control effects and can smack them to death. So combat is more complex, but easier if you are willing to engage with it. My first playthrough I soloed as a fighter/mage/thief. For BG2 I decided to switch things up and use a full party. While I like a lot of characters in the game, companions are still fairly bare bones compared to bioware later games. After their initial quest and potential follow-up quest (most companions seem to have two quests) there isn't much engagement with them other than banter. That does add flavor and this banter can sometimes be between party members which is a nice detail. having Keldorn try to calm down Minsc was amusing.

The overall story I do think is weaker compared to BG1. While both Irenicus and Saravok have a very similar arc and goal (both basically committing genocide to become a God), I do think the plot of BG1 fits together in a more coherent fashion. BG2 feels more like a pulp novel in comparison. A greatest DnD hits, which is fun, but contrived. You will fight droves of Mindflayers, Behoulders, Vampires and Liches. While this is cool, it doesn't always make sense how often you find a Beholder and Mindflayer colony literally right next to each other and both underneath Amn which is strongly anti-magic... wtf. It is cool, but doesn't really make sense narratively. Like the Cowled Wizards are fucking up so hard with this large underground network of evil. Irenicus' motivation and goals are all pretty petty and simplistic. He basically tried to become a God, which almost killed his entire people, was banished for it (for good reason obviously) and was so made that he decided to do it again. He really isn't a complex character. To be fair, neither is Saravok but I think each plot thread feels less contrived compared to BG2. For example, it really doesn't make sense why Irenicus willingly let himself get captured by the significantly weaker Cowled Wizards. In the clip above he effortlessly kills most of them. The game "explains" it by saying he was testing the PC and using Imoen as bait. Needlessly complex and contrived IMO. Why not just recapture the PC and begin his experiments a new? Most of the plot is basically a case of Carmen San Diego globe trotting around and following Irenicus. Even Irenicus stealing your soul feels completely contrived and meaningless given when he enters the Elf city he still needs a priestess to connect and steal the Life Tree's essence... in addition, nothing really changes mechanically once your soul is stolen. You are as powerful as before but can turn into a berserking Demon. Irenicus was already powerful and the game doesn't do a good job of showing him being more powerful. It just seems like all he needed to do was get the drow to start a war and mosey on in to the Elf city to become a God. That said, each globe trotting subplot is good. I enjoyed each thoroughly. It's just a shame that the connection between them feel contrived.

In conclusion, a great sequel. I don't think it is as strong as the original, due to more plot contrivances and the power level of the PC. The power trip is likely appealing to a lot of people, but I find low powered DnD more enjoyable. Still worth checking out, but I recommend starting with BG1 first, otherwise you will be overwhelmed.

After 23 years, this still remains some of the most fun I've had while gaming and I consider it one of the best CRPG's ever made

The story and quests are intriguing. The gameplay is simple, but that's not to say it's easy. Many encounters require you to be highly tactical if you are to survive. In Jon Irenicus you have one of the greatest antagonists to be found in a video game. The characters you encounter and who join your party are interesting, but can also be hilarious and infuriating. The fantastic voice acting brings them alive. Also, they don't exist to do your bidding. They have their own agendas. They will pester you if you stray too far from the path they want to go. In fact, you can annoy them so much that they will just leave your party. They will bicker with other party members and there is also the chance to romance some of them. You'll find many of these elements in games that followed, but this was novel then for a video game

The game will allow you to be a complete jerk if that's what you want to do. You are free to NOT always do the right thing and you can totally flip off NPC's (or your party members) with hilariously rude and borderline cruel dialogue

Brimming with tons of main story and side quests (some feel there are too many!) you could lose yourself in countless hours of addicting gameplay