Baldur's Gate Confessions

May I say I did not care for it? It's not terrible, but it feels more like a sandbox RPG in Bethesda's style than anything story-driven. There's so much fluff and so much dicking around that it reminded me off *gasp* Inquisition, or ME1 if you actually bother with all of the side content. The plot has a weak, weak hook, as well as a lazy setup: "Do whatever you want, hero. I'm sure if you goof off enough you'll bump into the main plot somehow!" It sort of picks up when you arrive at the titular city, but it is too little, too late.

And it's amazing how little characterization there is in the whole game put together. I've heard people complain about the Hawke sibling dying too soon in the prologue, but Gorion drops dead literally after the first time you talk to him. Yes, I am very sad, game. Very, very sad. Sarevok is the closest to a complex character the story has, but his merit is in being two-dimensional whereas everyone else is flat. It's bizarre how much this game feels like the ancestor of Skyrim rather than of Origins.

And good God, the combat! Oh, no, it's not what you think. I was ready for the clunkiness, this being an old game with a D&D ruleset and all. I can tolerate that most of it consists of characters failing to hit each other. But at such a low level there is almost nothing my little army can do. Non-magical classes have little beyond the basic attack, and magical ones have two or three spells which get used up quickly, rendering them useless. There were battles which depended solely on me getting a hit through before the opponent did, making them nothing but a throw of the die.