Baldur's Gate II: Review

Chaos will be sown in their passage. So sayeth the wise Alaundo

Knud stands on the precipice of eternity, burgeoning with the destiny of forever barely concealed beneath a pudgy Gnomish body, hard-won through countless impossible trials and dire duels. Behind stands a cadre of veterans, friends, each with the power of demi-gods in their own right, without whom Knud might not have made it this far, although he did still have a couple special tricks all-of-his-own up his sleeve. With a breathless chuckle he thinks back, and remembers a time fresh out of Candlekeep where his greatest threat were a pack of wolves hounding at his feet, or a surprise ambush from a murder of Red Wizards. That seems so far away now, like the squabbles of ants beside the behemoths who duel for supremacy now. A grim resolve grips him, he can dawdle no longer. Destiny, and something wholly more terrible, awaits him just beyond the pale and Knud know he will have to call upon the darkest of his arts if he is to have any hope of breaking the bounds of his ken and ascending further than his kind have any right to. Taking one last moment to hold onto the sweet of innocence, he charges forward, ready and doom-bound to rise, thrive, and save-scum his way to his rightful place inside the history books.

That, in a nutshell, was my feeling entering the final moments of the Fourth campaign in the Bhaalspawn sage, Throne of Bhaal; (Knud being my Neutral Evil Cleric, for clarities sake) and I must say, I don't know if another Bioware game, or RPG in general, has ever made me feel quite that way before. And I say with the experience of quite a few under my belt, mind you; from all walks of life. I've played almost every single major Bioware, Bethesda, Square Enix and just about everyone else's fantasy RPG that I can get my hands on. I'm an addict for the genre, greedily scooping them up like a junkie. I live for these experiences. And some of my favourite moments are sitting at the end, reflecting on my journey, and feeling that massive chasm between who I was then and who I am now. (Bonus points if the distinction is apparent on who my character is, beyond their abilities) And Baldur's Gate 2 put those other comparisons to shame, and made me feel a mountain unlike any other before; for that alone I know that Baldur's Gate is going to enter my list of favourite RPGs of all-time. (Where has this series been all my life?)

For all intents and purposes, Baldur's Gate II is a direct continuation of Baldur's Gate in such a way that there's no real significant difference in the way that they play. They're both infinity-style CRPGs and and as such both feature real-time combat with your spellslots that need to be queued up and replenished on 8 hour rests, which does mean that a lot of dungeons play out with the character clearing a difficult encounter and then falling to sleep for 8 hours. It's unnatural perhaps within the fiction of the universe, but Bioware wanted a game as close to DnD rules as possible and so that's how the whole thing works. Combat encounters still feel a little messy and as though some just chuck hordes of enemies at the player without really considering how this will challenge them, and once again I found myself particularly incensed by the system which randomly interrupts rest periods with spawned ambush enemies. It was always just a tedious stopgap between getting my characters back into fighting from and I hated the game always putting me in that position.

And yet Baldur's Gate II does something which I've never seen any other RPG like it do, and that's move the player from a position of being the large fish in a small pond to being the exact same size fish in a bigger pond. What I mean be this, is that Baldur's Gate allows players to import their character at their exact level from the last game to the next one, with the threat level of the game itself continuing on from that point, so that endgame threats from the first game are start-game threats for this one. It's an incredibly clever system which I can only think would have been nigh-on impossible to achieve without the guidance of the DnD system to lean on. By the end of Baldur's Gate the typical player will be around level 8 (or 10-12 with the Siege of Dragonspear), and from there Baldur's Gate II picks up like some sort of huge expansion tacked onto the end of the game, which helps make the entire journey feel like this one huge ultra campaign during which you achieve a whole story from beginning to bitter end.  

As for the first campaign of Baldur's Gate II, Shadows of Amn, I actually found it to be quite an interesting evolution from the way the first game handled itself. For one, the exploration system was changed so that instead of wondering map-to-map, maybe finding something of note inside one of them, you travel specifically to points of interest that are guaranteed to have some sort of quest or purpose for being there. It certainly fits the pace of the story, in that now you're an adventurer who doesn't have time for idle wanderings, but I feel part of the innocence of aimless exploration was lost in the transition. I no longer felt as though I could pander around the countryside without a care in the world finding my inner adventurer. (which I suppose was the point)

The artistry of Baldur's Gate II certainly kicked things up a notch with the move to Amn, with the almost middle-eastern aesthetic paving the way for a visually distinct city that shone leagues more interesting than Baldur's Gate (the city) ever did. I particularly loved the unique shape of Wuakeen's Promenade, and the various Cleric temples, as well as Hexxat's quests to various tombs all over the world that even introduced a little Chinese design influence here and there. Baldur's Gate II does a distinctly superior job of building it's world in terms of lore as well, with the purpose of Amn, the Underdark and various other ports of call being made very abundantly clear to the player so that they can reflect on the significance of the places they're questing through. I just thought it ironic that in a series called 'Baldur's Gate', the city of Baldur's Gate is the least interesting setting.

Narratively I quite enjoyed Shadows of Amn in that it followed a formula which Pillars of Eternity later would, having the player hunting a mysterious figure of interest to them that is powerful through his enigmatic anonymity. Actually, I found Jon Irenicus to be a better executed villain than Thaos, with Jon's presence in the narrative particularly burning a hole of curiosity into everything I did to the point where I desperately wanted to dig out who he was and why I was involved. However, in almost direct contrast to Thaos, once I found all of it out, Jon immediately becomes degrees less interesting as his motivations were pedestrian at best. In fact, all of Baldur's Gate's main antagonists seem to have shades upon the exact same motivation, and that feels like a shame when these stories felt on the cusp of so much more. Be that as it may, I enjoyed the story just fine.

'Throne of Bhaal', the second campaign, kicked things into high gear in a manner I wasn't expecting, dispensing with a lot of mystique of Shadows of Amn and throwing the player into the middle of chaotic struggle for supremacy where demi-god-like enemies are roaming around. Some were disgruntled with Throne of Bhaal and the way it sort of feels like a boss rush, but when you look at the entire series as one unit and Throne of Bhaal as the grand finale, I think it fits perfectly for Throne of Bhaal to throw it's worst at you and often. Many of the fights in Throne of Bhaal require you to totally rethink strategies that have worked just fine up until now, and for the first time in the series I felt the absolute need to perform kiting manoeuvres! (Especially in that Demogorgon duel) High level encounters that force you to expend every ounce of your tricks and tips are the name of the game for this half of BG2, and the consequence for myself at least was that I came away from a lot of these fights feeling that same contended relief as after a Dark Souls duel. Yes, Bioware managed to tap into that primal release of victory and it tickles just as many, and the right, endorphins.

In terms of story Throne of Bhaal is certainly weaker, pretty much putting it's cards on the table right off the bat, but I think that pure presentation makes up for that alone. The breakneck pace of events makes great room for set-piece moments and showdowns that make it feel like the weight of the world is forever resting on your shoulders. Some of these make for great gameplay moments too, like the assault on Sendai which will have fighting a literal army of constantly spawning small enemies just to reach her, or the Abazigal Boss fight, which throws you against a fully-powered Blue Dragon. Any one of these could make for stand-out conclusions to their own campaigns, and the fact that you're doing these one after the other I think accounts for a lot of player's fatigue with this campaign, yet also fuels my excitement for it. Getting creative with the boss fights themselves is just the icing on the cake.

Coming through the Baldur's Gate series I was unsure whether the whole thing would hold up for me, in that I was worried that I may not find these 'classics' to be as great as many others do; but due to unique charm and situations that no other RPG has managed to replicated in the twenty years since, Baldur's Gate easily manages to hold the throne of one of the best RPGs ever made and with the whole series now enhanced you simply owe it yourself to play through it if you've any serious interest in the genre. Does it come with frustrations? Of course. And some of the antiquated systems can ride one's nerves (such as the lack of fast mode or the occasional long monologue before a tough fight that is then unskippable) but the overall experience is totally unforgettable. Baldur's Gate II was really the glue here, taking my decent experience with Baldur's Gate 1 and making it worthwhile with a great followup and a worthy conclusion. I even think BG (as a whole) might enter my top 10 favourite games of all time, I enjoyed myself that much. All that being said, I think it's fair enough to say that when judging this game as an RPG I have to grant BG 2 with an A Grade on it's own, and an A+ Grade with Baldur's Gate 1 attached. Of course, that is providing you understand that this game is tough, to the point where those who aren't willing to learn the systems might struggle and not have as good of a time as they could. But if you give yourself that rope, enjoy being challenged and are open to an epic journey, then look no further than the Baldur's Gate Trilogy. Truly, this series deserves it's place as a standard to which other other RPGs are held and a must play across the Role playing game fandom. (If only the games themselves weren't so darn long.)