Before we begin, I’d like to give a shout-out to all of you beautiful people saying nice things about my posts, you’re one of the major reasons that keeps me going in this site.
Today we’re going to be talking about a very very old game by the name of Baldur’s Gate. All three of them. Because I’ve been playing them recently and they’re some really good stuff.
Apologies for these screenshots having hard to read letters, but the game wasn't really cooperating.
But since writing about one of them will make the post very long I’ll just do this as another episodic thing. Today we'll talk about the first game in the series, the one that started it all:
Baldur’s Gate is a series of RPG games taking place in the Forgotten Realms, a D&D setting which most people are familiar with (It’s like the “vanilla” option, and also the biggest setting). Basically, a world of magic and fantasy races (like elves, orcs, gnomes, short people, dark elves…) where adventures are plentiful and bandits are everywhere.
I’ll be using the enhanced editions of Baldur’s gate to make these posts, because the original ones were released all the way back to 1998 and because the enhanced editions contain all of the expansions that came later for the original games.
There MAY be some spoilers below about the game, but I’ll make sure to mark them and put a big SPOILER ALERT in big letters to make sure you’re not spoiled of anything important if you feel like you want to play the game.
As I’ve previously stated in this post, Baldur’s Gate takes place in a D&D setting which obviously means that it’s a Dungeons & Dragons game, it’s basically like the first ever Dungeons & Dragons simulator ever created, it replicates the way the game plays in real life (or at least, replicated since the game’s changed since then). The only downside to this is that there’s actually a manual that comes with the game explaining all of the mechanics and how everything works.
Even then, the game comes with a tutorial level that teaches you all of the basic stuff which lets you work from there and learn things your own way, so it’s not like you have to read the entire manual before playing, it just helps.
There are some mechanics that will help you understand the game a little more and not get lost if for some reason you decide to not read the manual (like me), for example when going through a character’s inventory selecting items they can equip will sometimes cause for the portraits of party members to “shine” which indicates that the specific item you’re clicking will change the stats of those party members positively. If you pay attention to what changes and what doesn’t you may eventually learn why is good to have certain things.
But let’s talk about the actual game now, ok? As soon as you boot up the game you’re welcomed by a rather ominous cutscene where what most people will assume to be the “Big Bad Evil Guy” kills a random NPC, at simple glance it just feels like it’s an evil person killing for the sake of killing, but it’s the words the words that come out of his mouth that set the tone for this scene.
“I will be the last… And you will go first”
And then we’re greeted with the title screen.
When you decide to start a new game, you’re met with the most difficult of all tasks; creating a character. And if you’re like me, you’ll spend like 2 hours (minimum) trying to make them not suck. Remember people, this game is old so there’s not a lot of character customization (at least in physical appearance).
If you’re not like me, you’ll pick a premade character and start playing, because the devs know character creation can take a long time.
The Character creation screen.
The same screen, when the character is done. All that is missing is a name.
After you're done making your character(s) you’re given a little introduction to where you are, who you are supposed to be, and some important people in your life, like your character’s father figure: Gorion.
As of right now, you stand in the town of Candlekeep and Gorion has asked you to gather supplies saying that you must leave the city as soon as possible and telling you to prepare for the journey ahead. You can either follow the big pointy red arrow saying “here be the plot” or mess around in the town to get some experience points and money.
When you decide to advance the story, you proceed to leave Candlekeep with Gorion, and a couple of hours later he dies. More specifically, he gets killed by the Big Bad Evil Guy.
Here lies Gorion, the first time I played his body was torn in half.
…
It isn’t a spoiler if it happens right as you start playing.
Just before the BBEG kills Gorion you manage to escape and after the cutscene is done you find yourself alone and scared in the middle of a forest. Your childhood friend, Imoen, comes to your aid at that moment and after this, the world is your oyster.
This is the world map, what a new character sees.
The same map, but what a character that has almost completed the game sees.
No words I can put here can explain how much freedom you have in this game, seriously, right after Gorion is killed you can go do whatever you want, just pick one direction and start walking and you’ll probably find one or two quests in the way. Keep an eye out for enemies though, they can kill you easily if you’re not careful.
Since you’re given so much freedom the game world feels like a sandbox, in that you can pretty much travel through a bunch of places at your own leisure, the only limits to as to where you can go to and when you can go there is your level and equipment; dangerous areas have dangerous enemies that will probably kill you and/or any party members with you if underleveled.
How do you get better gear and level up? Easy, just keep doing quests and you’ll get some pretty good stuff sell what you don’t need and keep whatever makes your characters stronger, just like any other RPG.
I will say however, that while other games I’ve played in this site (Like Kotor or Fallout) are somewhat easy to play through and that you can definitively finish those games without having an in-depth knowledge of the mechanics, you WILL need as much knowledge of the game's mechanics for Baldur’s gate.
For example, some enemies will require you to wield stronger versions of weapons and it’s somewhat difficult to understand how to make a decent mage character the first time you play (or any type of character, if you don't understand completely what ability scores are and what they do), so if you’re having difficulties in combat or in progressing the story do yourself a favor and read the manual, you’ll need it. Or even better, just google some advice and google whatever terms you find confusing, it won’t make you succeed immediately but It will help you in the long run.
Combat is... a little weird. On one side it’s pretty much automated and dependent on dice rolls (made by the game) to determine if an attack is successful or if it fails and this leaves a lot of place for “micro managing” your party members. Things like “drinking a potion” or “activate this skill now” or “cast this spell!” or even moving them away from danger (or to lure an enemy away) can be done in the middle of a battle.
On the other hand, all of those numbers that affect dice rolls depend on several factors that you could possible ignore, or not even know about, which is where the manual helps. Of course, you can play the game without paying attention to that but in the end you'll spend more time loading a previous save and trying to win against a certain enemy over and over again, until you get it right.
Don't be like me and actually give it a read, if you want to play the game that is.
This brings me to the party members, the people who fight alongside you because… reasons and will, probably, end up dying for you.
There’s a decent amount of them, all of which have their own unique voices and portraits, some of them have unique quests that must be completed before those characters are allowed to permanently stay in your party, otherwise they’ll leave forever and ever. Unless you’re playing Baldur’s Gate 2 and they pop up again, but this is a story for another post.
Companions can (and will) die every now and then but don’t worry, they can come back to life.
Something to keep in mind is that if a companion of yours dies in the beginning under no circumstances must you get rid of said party member (by this I mean retiring him from the party) because if you can get to a temple you can spend some money to revive them, they get to keep their levels and stats but their inventories are dropped and can be found in the same grounds they died on.
Alternatively, you can use a party member’s skills to revive them. So long as the body is intact (it didn’t blow up or something) they can be revived.
Wish someone had told me this when I started playing… So many dead people…
If you’re too lazy and/or greedy to buy the revives or you just need the extra muscle immediately I recommend save scumming, the practice of saving every 5 seconds and reloading when something goes south.
Some people think of this as cheating but the game is practically designed around this but remember that the outcomes of a battle depend on a virtual dice, this even helps you with bugs that could always pop up.
One thing I have to complain about when it comes to companions is that some of them are "package deals" and by that i mean that they come in pairs of two. Examples of this are the famous Minsc and Dynaheir, Jaheira and Khalid... etc. This makes it somewhat difficult to create your party of adventurers if you like one of those characters more than the others because when you recruit one of them the other one follows and if you dismiss one of them the other one follows.
The only way to recruit only one of them would be to kill ahem have one of them (preferably the one you don't like) suffer a terrible accident and then you'll have one more slot in your party and a somewhat sad party member who just lost an important friend.
Let’s just talk about the story now, okay?
Baldur’s Gate story begins with your foster parent dying in front of you, leaving you there alone and scared. As I said before this is where you’re given the option to either wander aimlessly OR follow the actual story and head over to the “Friendly Arm Inn”, which will later give you the quests you need to progress the story.
In usual D&D fashion the party goes from solving “minor” problems to eventually finding out that everything was a conspiracy all along made by the BBEG and they now go after him trying to kill him.
Really it's not anything special, there’s some high points here and there… you learn some pretty cool stuff about your character… etc.
If you want a more detailed version though i'll have to give some spoilers:
Spoilers start from here.
After Gorion's been murderized the most sensible thing to do is visit the Friendly Arm Inn, where the player meets two more party members and is then told to head to the town of "Nashkel". It's here where you're given your first big "mission" in the game, to check on the mine and see if the rumors of demons being there are truth or just paranoia.
Completing this mission immediately gives you a series of quests that lead you to the next: finding out who the hell put a bunch of kobolds (little lizard people that may or not may look like demons sometimes) in the mines. It's here where you eventually find out about a conspiracy where the same guy who ends up killing your foster father is the one who is causing all of this stuff. For what reasons you don't know, you just know he's evil and that his butt needs kicking.
Eventually, in the search of this guy, you reach the city of Baldur's Gate (which is where the game gets its name from) and it's here that the final part of the game begins, it's also here where you will probably find a trillion sidequests while trying to complete another. This is where you find out that the name of the Big Bad Evil Guy is Sarevok, and also where he brilliantly hides his identity by using the name "Koveras", if you didn't get it just read both names backwards.
After you find out that Sarevok is the big bad of the game the rest of the story becomes "pursue sarevok in x" and "sarevok escaped x, go to y". It becomes somewhat difficult to do so around the end of the game where everyone wants you dead for some reason, oh and there's also a giant maze, make sure you're ready to fight the final boss when crossing that thing because backtracking after that is going to be a pain.
I'm skipping a bunch of stuff, in case you want to play the game, but the story can be pretty much ignored since there's no real sense of urgency (unless you have companions with timed quests). I would recommend putting the story in the back burner while you level up your party and get some game-breaking gear, usually obtained through entertaining side quests.
Doing this not only allows you to grow stronger, but to get more enjoyment out of the game. Don't be like me and rush to the end of the game because "i have nothing better to do", you'll regret it.
Spoilers stop here.
Now I’m not saying the story is not good, because the story’s good, I’m trying to say that it’s not the only reason why you should play Baldur’s Gate. Most of the enjoyment you’ll get out of this game will come from just messing around on the other side of the world doing side quests or wasting time killing some stuff.
Simply rushing through the story won’t entertain you as much as actually traveling the world and interacting with NPCs. In this case the journey is more important than the destination.
Baldur’s gate is a really good game, but I can’t really recommend it to a lot of people since it requires a little bit of effort on their part, it’s a D&D game so it has quite a decent amount of rules and most people prefer games that are easy to pick up.
In my personal opinion if you're a person who likes role-playing games then this is one you can't miss playing. It's very likely that you'll enjoy it.
If you can try it out and actually put the time to learn the rules (which will definitely help you along the way) then I totally recommend this game, it’s a great role-playing experience.
If you’re looking for a casual gaming experience however, you’ll probably be disappointed. It takes some time to learn the ropes and to understand how to make every party member as effective as possible, without that understanding some encounters can become frustrating.
I probably said this multiple times before, but if you really want to play the game i totally recommend you take your time and explore because otherwise you will miss a lot of content and possible companions that could join your party. You never know if you just missed the next big side quest simply because you decided that exploring that little corner of the city isn't worth it.
In my opinion, this game has to be the definition of "sometimes the real treasure is the journey".
Keep an eye out for the next "episode" of this when we'll talk about the expansion connecting Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Siege of Dragonspear.
As always thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day!