Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

I picked up my paused Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition run again. Actually beating the game took longer than I recall it taking back in the day, though -- I could swear I used to get through it from start to finish over one weekend. Maybe due to not playing it for years I had forgotten the best routes to take for optimal time saving.

Mostly a great remaster of an absolute classic

Beamdog was smarter with this second game's enhanced edition: the original 3D cinematics are intact; there are no half-assed replacements like in the previous one. The three entirely new companions are unfortunately in this one too though. I ignored them (to the best of my ability) but I probably should've used a mod to remove them entirely. I noticed immediately one of them standing in the Copper Coronet tavern. I hoped she would be happy just idling there but of course she had proximity-triggered dialogue -- it was so jarring. I just wanted to play the cherished game without unwelcome additions.

The item renames from Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition continue in this one too. I also noticed that some magical ranged weapons had gotten self-supplied infinite ammunition like the Shortbow of Gesen always had. Brynnlaw had foggy weather, which I am not entirely sure was a thing before. At least I don't ever recall seeing it -- pretty cool.

In the starting dungeon, I briefly wondered if dialogue had been altered because I didn't remember the riddling djinn using the gender neutral they in the sibling-prisoner dilemma. I dug up a video of someone playing the original game and apparently it was there back then too. I know the singular they is not that recent of an invention but it definitely wasn't in as common usage back in the year 2000. Magic: The Gathering cards at that time for instance said 'his or her hand' instead of 'their hand'.

I discovered that I didn't really recall much at all of Baldur's Gate 2's dialogue outside the highlights of the main story. There was a lot of party banter -- even with voiced lines -- I had no absolutely recollection of. I like the partial voice acting of these games: you get an idea of how someone sounds like without there being needlessly voiced paragraphs you read much quicker yourself. Baldur's Gate 2's voice acting is generally better than in the original. Particularly noteworthy is the performance of David Warner (1941 – 2022) as Jon Irenicus, the antagonist of Shadows of Amn (the original subtitle of the game). Warner was so convincing in his role that he elevated the rest of the cast with him.

Like in Beamdog's Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate releases, the message box in this one too is oddly fiddly. The current message and possible dialogue options are in a separate scrollable area from the past messages log. I'm pretty sure they were originally in the same and that was much clearer. It's a weird change. Entangle spell's sound effect is glitched too, being way too loud. And finally, way too often your party members get stuck on top of each other -- sometimes even the whole party. They do eventually manage to free themselves though. But that's about all the entirely new issues I noticed in the Enhanced Edition.

Unevenly spread goodness

If I recall correctly, in Baldur's Gate 2's post-mortem, BioWare's developers were not too happy how unevenly the game's content got spread over its chapters. Once you get out of Irenicus's dungeon, the city of Athkatla and the surrounding Amn open up -- so many locations to visit and dungeons to crawl through. Chapter 2 and 3 are so open and full of optional things, only for the rest of the game to become quite linear in comparison after you set off to Brynnlaw.

Chapter 2 can be quickly over too. Your goal is to gather 20,000 gold pieces to get the city's Shadow Thieves to aid in your chase for Irenicus and your kidnapped half-sister Imoen. 20k gold is nothing in this game, to put it frankly, and you even need only 15k because competition causes the price to go down. I usually have that already when I'm done with the slavers quest in the Slums district you start the chapter in.

I, however, like to linger in the second chapter because once you start Chapter 3, you're no longer neutral in the guild war encounters around Athkatla. If you choose to go with the thieves guild -- like most good-aligned parties probably will -- the hostile faction will be vampires. I have in the past found their charms and level draining melee attacks to be problematic at lower levels, especially if the vampires manage to hit someone with spellcasting abilities. Memorized spells will be lost and require resting after a Restoration spell. I'm not entirely sure, but I think Beamdog may have changed level drain behavior in that regard: after Restoration, the uncast memorized spells seemed to be still there, ready to go. But even then, if the Restoration is cast by a party member, they will become fatigued and you need to rest anyway lest you want to listen to the complaining. I like going through the game with as few rests as possible because it feels more immersive.

Another thing I like to do, is never buying a spellcasting license. As players quickly discover, the Cowled Wizards have banned unlicensed magic use in Athkatla and will come after anyone continuing to do so after a warning. I came to the conclusion (on my very first playthrough, probably) that I don't really need to use arcane magic in the open anyway on the Core Rules difficulty setting I play. You can buff up for a street brawl if you go indoors to do it and back alley ambushes are not regulated by the wizards either. You can decide to fight the enforcers too and apparently they will stop coming once you've defeated the toughest ones. I guess I've always gotten so used to avoiding arcane spells in the city that I never ended up fighting them.

Challenging for the uninitiated

In addition to vampires, Baldur's Gate 2 has nice a selection of other tricky enemies that weren't in the first game: trolls, beholders, and mindflayers among others. The most iconic troublesome enemy, however, are spellcasters. I have yet to play another roleplaying game in which it is as important to take mages out first. Simply focusing your attacks on the casters is not enough either: the game's protection spells can make casters completely immune to your attacks.

In practice, the equation is not complicated (most of the time): a single dispel of the correct type will be enough to open a physically weak mage's defenses long enough for your brutes to shred them to pieces. But then there are the liches, who come with inherent resistances. They are immune to weaker magical weapons and supposedly up to level 5 spells too. Of the latter I'm not convinced because Breach seems to work against most of them in my experience. It may just be the short, 4 rounds lasting Protection from Magical Weapons expiring though.

I sometimes used to kill a certain tough lich when I didn't even yet have weapons that could harm him. Ring of the Ram from the Planar Sphere deals some sort of unstoppable damage. While it has only 1 use per day, in the original game you could recharge it by placing it in a gem bag. That particular exploit has been fixed in the Enhanced Edition. Finding a +4 weapon is not that difficult though -- the bug-fixed Daystar from the Gate district for instance. Another thing you need is Protection from Undead scrolls which make the lich completely ignore the protected characters. In the original, one party member would need a rare Protection from Magic scroll instead because the lich's second phase transition wouldn't trigger if it couldn't talk to anyone due to the scrolls. I don't know if that's the case in the Enhanced Edition.

The original developers were rather merciful in how they didn't make any enemy utilize spell protections to the degree what the game would allow. For instance, Protection from Normal and Magical Weapons combined with Greater Invisibility and Spell Immunity: Divination & Abjuration would make a caster completely immune to physical attacks and dispel magic. (Chain) Contingency and Spell Trigger are so unique to this game too, allowing casters to become instantly protected or launch multiple spells at once. I love the depth Dungeons & Dragons spellcasting is implemented in Baldur's Gate 2.

I was dismayed to discover that in the Test of Selfishness in the Hell Trials, Contingency'd Dispel Magic on self on helpless condition would no longer remove the hold effect. I had always thought that a clever use of game mechanics. I really didn't fancy the -1 Dexterity penalty and had to read up if there was some alternative way to avoid it. Evidently Maze on the person being kidnapped will prevent the hold effect from applying and another Maze on your main character while the kidnapped character opens the doors will prevent the penalties being applied. That felt more of an exploit than the original trick.

Another exploit that had been removed was the final boss of Watcher's Keep being accessible even if you chose to read the ritual scroll: there used to remain a sliver of a clickable area next to the sealed door to get back in. However, you can still do both routes by first killing the boss and then reading the scroll upon exiting before the script to delete it kicks in.

Familiar faces

I imported my paladin from Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Siege of Dragonspear for yet another run I had basically done in the past. I don't think there's as much of a canon party in the second game but obviously Jaheira and Minsc need to come along. Imoen/Yoshimo are practically essential for the story too. Aerie I like to pick for a priest: she's not as annoying as Amoen (though your mileage may vary) and not evil like Viconia. I didn't recall how bad Aerie's mage side was, though. Even at the end of the Throne of Bhaal expansion, she had only a single level 9 arcane spell slot. But that's why Imoen's there.

In addition to being a mage, Imoen retained/retook her place as the party's thief once in Spellhold. She needs few items to boost her skills but she will then be good enough to find and disarm every trap and open every lock even in the expansion. Not having an active thief class in the party will cause you to miss out on the powerful and occasionally very cheesy thief high level trap abilities though.

The sixth party member I usually take, even as a paladin Bhaalspawn, is another paladin: Keldorn. I like his attitude and his quick-to-use Inquisitor True Sight frees your casters from having to cast the spell. Keldorn usually gets Carsomyr the Holy Avenger but because my character had called dips on it, Keldorn became a dual-wielder. Minsc and Jaheira too I made use two weapons: it's just better for damage and you get to use utilize more weapons. Imoen and Aerie used bow and sling when they were not casting spells.

In expansion, I swapped Keldorn for the secret party member (and immediately started wishing I still had Keldorn's True Sight). The expansion companion starts evil but via dialogue you can change their alignment and I had never done that. It turned out to be more difficult than expected. Party banter is on a realtime clock and it is easy to not get all the required triggers during your playthrough. I had to resort to using console commands to pass the timer because the expansion doesn't take long enough for me to get through.

Jaheira's romance in the base game is infamously easy to fail, and not just because of time counters. I had trouble completing merely her Harper questline now because I had forgotten you need to rest in the wilderness at point for an event. The romance, should you choose to pursue it, is tied to the quest and gets easily delayed with it. Originally some triggers were even bugged but they are hopefully fixed in the remaster -- like they used to be with a community fix patch.

If your romantic interest doesn't get kidnapped when entering the Graveyard district in endgame by a villain, you should go back to a previous save: trying to fix the romance afterwards with console commands is simply a nightmare and maybe even impossible.

Baldur's Gate and its sequel don't allow that much character customization -- largely due to the AD&D 2nd Edition rules. Once you have a character, there aren't many choices to be done at level-ups. I think I prefer it. It avoids analysis paralysis that more recent RPGs offer: in Pillars of Eternity II you choose your companions class(es) from few options upon recruitment, in Pathfinder: Kingmaker there are very few multiclass restrictions (and a huge number of classes), and in Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 you can respec people even out of their starting class, practically destroying their identity.

I like that there's no camp or the like in this game for companions to tag along either. There's no burden of having more companions than can fit into your current party. Less is more and makes replays more unique experiences. Although you can keep switching people around if you really want to.

Full plate and packing steel

I love the itemization of Baldur's Gate 2. There is a large selection of unique weapons and gear pieces. The limited inventory space makes the variety problematic -- at least until you get a bag of holding. Before that, it's sometimes a tough triage to decide what you want to carry with you just in case. Also, when you replay the game repeatedly, you tend to use the same armor and weapons every time because some of them simply perform the best. I feel in the expansion, it is not as easy to pick a weapon over others. Power level is so much higher; everything has more effects and buffs.

It's inconvenient that Throne of Bhaal gives you only four additional pairs of boots of speed, in addition to the single pair you had in the base game. In a full 6-member party that means one has to be a slowpoke, dragging behind. I had had enough of that and chose to use Gromnir's armor on my main character due to its speed effect. It's a sacrifice of 3 AC compared to the best plate but I'd say it's worth it.

I used to think that Throne of Bhaal was a tightly packed nice expansion -- and I still do -- but there are definitely signs showing that not everything got properly realized. After Saradush arc and Watcher's Keep, the path to the rest of the powerful Bhaalspawn is pretty straightforward -- a lot of linear fighting.

One thing that is indubitably high quality in the expansion is its music, composed by Inon Zur. Michael Hoenig's soundtrack for Shadows of Amn is good too but I think the commonly played combat tracks get old and annoying. Throne of Bhaal's music is great all around. It is thematically coherent too; creates rather a uniform atmosphere. The Five boss battle theme fits perfectly a clash of demigods fighting for the heritage of their dead divine father.