![]() And so, motivated by the urgency of this quest, I started to explore and look for someone that might help me. Unfortunately, my hero now has an illithid parasite inside her that I need to get rid off, and soon, or she will turn into one of the species. Unfortunately, it’s what happens after that that makes the strong introduction start to make the game look and feel like it doesn’t have another speed to settle into.Įventually, I succeeded in my first task and found myself thrown back into the land of Faerûn as the space ship crashed just a few clicks away from the iconic Baldur’s Gate. It’s intense and claustrophobic stuff, and certainly feels like a suitably blockbuster starting point to a sequel 20 years in the waiting. The goal was to take over and crash the ship, which was also being attacked by red dragons (evil creatures) and has somehow been teleported to the Abyss – the realm of demons ( very evil). My journey started out with me being a prisoner on an illithid spacecraft (Lovecraftian tentacled monsters of abject evil) and to escape, I partnered up with a githyanki, the illithid’s mortal enemy in an endless war across all the planes of existence (but actually every bit as evil by themselves). Even as you’re making enemies explode into chunks of gory meat and you’re being haunted by increasingly vivid dreams, recited to you in horrific detail when your character rests, there is also a full and complete indulgence of the absurdity of pen-and-paper RPGing reflected throughout Baldur’s Gate.īaldur’s Gate 3, by contrast, is incessant misery of the highest order. ![]() Just last month I treated myself to a shirt depicting a hamster, an eyeball, and text under it saying “go for the eyes” – if you’ve played Baldur’s Gate (and remember, this is a game that is over 20 years old), you recognise that quote without needing any further context or explanation, guaranteed. These are all beloved, memorable characters. There were NPCs like Noober, a hilariously annoying dude that follows you around a town quipping “heya” and asking you ad nauseam why no one in town likes him. It wasn’t just the party of heroes that added character and flavour to the world, either. There’s the charmingly nervous and insecure frontline fighter, Khalid. There is, of course, Minsc and his miniature giant space hamster, Boo. There’s an elven wizard who taints everything he says with nihilism so miserable that it comes across as self-aware and very funny. Baldur’s Gate was anything but endless pits of grimdark to struggle through.Īs the Baldur’s Gate quest kicks off in full, however you play and whatever direction you go (it’s really quite open), you will start meeting a broad range of joyfully eclectic characters. Sure, elsewhere in town there are assassins that come at my hero, but those moments are a contrast to the peaceful veneer, the idle lifestyles and the banter of most of the townsfolk. Every time I boot the game up for a replay I smile as I wander around the quaint little castle of Candlekeep, helping cure a cow of its malady and retrieving a sword for the member of the town guard who exists in a perpetual hangover. Back then, that was quite uncommon for grand fantasy adventures in video games, and Baldur’s Gate really broke some ground as a mature storytelling experience as a result.Īs dark as it was though, critically, the writers working on Baldur’s Gate also knew how to have fun with it. To further darken the themes it explored, it also had a morality system that meant that at any time, you could buddy up with the forces of evil and wreak some havoc of your own. ![]() I know it looks primitive to look at now, but the way it excited the imagination back then was in providing a grim Tolkienesque fantasy world with some truly sinister, clandestine, forces arrayed against you. Baldur’s Gate was a pretty dark game overall. ![]() To explain why, I’m going to need to talk about Baldur’s Gate (original) a little. To me, this doesn’t feel like Baldur’s Gate, and it lacks just about everything that has made Baldur’s Gate such a sentimental favourite of mine. These are just my first impressions, but with that context out of the way, my first impressions are that Larian has delivered almost exactly the opposite of what I wanted and was hoping to see. Now, I want to be careful and make the disclaimer that I’m only four hours into Baldur’s Gate 3, and that I am more than open to this game improving and meeting my expectations further in. ![]()
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