The hours following your escape from Candle Keep, the tutorial area, will see you wandering the wilderness and beginning to gather a party of fellow adventurers out of the predictable archetypes: mages, warriors, thieves etc.
Believe me, I didn’t think it would either. If you set aside the time to learn the game and the rhythm of combat, it’ll soon feel natural. The myriad of D&D specific systems, roles and contexts combined with the lack of streamlining that comes with being an older RPG means that you’ll need to do a bit of homework to get the most out of the experience. Short on friends, money and experience, you must brave the dangers of The Sword Coast to make a name for yourself and get to the bottom of the mysteries surrounding your past and the previous few days’ events.Įarly on, Baldur’s Gate is a slog to play for the inexperienced player.
#BALDURS GATE ENHANCED EDITION REVIEW SERIES#
A series of surprising and mysterious events leave you separated from Gorion and alone in the world for the first time. One day, amid rising regional tensions and what seems like inexplicable attempts on your life, Gorion orders you to join him in fleeing your lifelong home. The hero, (you) a young, inexperienced orphan of unknown origin, lives a sheltered life in the grand scholarly settlement of Candle Keep, under the care of wise old sage Gorion. With a hero finely crafted or -in my case- chosen almost completely at random, you can finally begin the adventure. As mentioned before, I couldn’t have less experience with D&D or creating characters within its rule-set, so I opted for a premade Ranger and gave him the title: “Dirk Thruster”. If you were so inclined, you could painstakingly assign attribute points and lay the groundwork for the precise class, build and backstory of your hero. Upon starting Baldur’s Gate, you’ll be asked to make a character under the D&D framework. If anything, it helps to draw attention to the stellar writing, but more on that later. That sounds harsh, but the dated graphics soon become irrelevant as the game gets its hooks into you. It looks very much the same as it did in 1998: which is to say, like something you’d clean off the sole of your shoe. Make no mistake, this isn’t a remaster in the same vein as the glossy Crash Bandicoot N.
This re-release serves as a way to preserve the game so current and future generations can play it while adding quality of life improvements, tweaks, resolution upscaling and some new content including the Black Pits adventure and a few new characters. Baldur’s Gate -the original- came out way back in 1998, needless to say, it isn’t easy to get running on modern hardware. (Played on an Xbox One X)īefore we jump into the game itself, let's discuss what “Enhanced” means in this game’s title. Don’t feel too bad for me though, because Beamdog has polished up and re-released Baldur's Gate, a videogame simulation of an epic D&D campaign for PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Switch and Mobile -basically anything with a screen- and I’ve had the chance to play through it! Here’s the layman’s review of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Unfortunately, I have neither willing friends nor the patience to learn D&D, and likely never will.
The idea of gathering some pals, forming characters and taking them on endlessly dynamic, shared adventures sounds fantastic. Reviews // 30th Nov 2019 - 2 years ago // By Jamie Davies Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Reviewĭungeon Masters, 10-sided dice and complex character sheets the world of Dungeons and Dragons ( D&D) is one that intrigues as much as it intimidates me.