Baldur's Gate I & II - Gather your party before venturing forth

Played through Baldur's Gate for cheevos, and man, that dialogue was really something else. The interactions with the characters, the plot beats. Even using repeated maps didn't dull how fun the story was to play.

"Jahiera, must you be so"
"Bitchy?"

Some of the characters were one-note, but you could at least make up your own mind about them. The writers now demand you worship crap writing.

One hour of hardcore, no reload deaths by Davaeorn the Twitch streamer. Hilarious!

I've finally gotten around to playing the Enhanced Editions. I have to say it is quite surprising how well those games still play after more than 20 years. In almost every single aspect there are now games which do things better, but as a complete package Bg2/TOB still plays in the top league. The new content is a mixed bag though. SoD's story is nice and fits well between the two main games, and its quests are also ok, but man, the character dialogues are really terrible at times. It seems as if the writers were unable to put themselves into the shoes of a variety of players and wrote on the implicit assumption everyone would play more or less like they envisioned it. That extends to most of the new companions, which also come across as one-dimensional. Not that the original characters were necessarily more complex overall (some were, but most weren't), but the new ones talk more, and thus it is more apparent they always talk about the same thing. Main character responses are also, most of the time, too specific to appeal to all but a very small subsete of players I assume. The new companions also tend to be annoying on an unprecedented level. Sorry Neera, I really wanted to like you, but as weird as it may sound, I actually prefer Edwin's company to yours. His arrogance, as grating as it may be at times, at least demands nothing of me I am not prepared to give.

Having said that, I am now doing a second PT of the EEs (didn't yet finish the first one but there you are) with a Fighter->Mage, which, oddly enough, I never played before in spite of the many times I played these games, and I'm wondering which weapon I should specialize in when starting out in BG1. Katana seems the obvious choice because of Dak'kon's blade, but there are no good katanas in BG1 where I'll spend all of my early Fighter levels, and most likely that blade won't be much use as a secondary weapon since its special ability requires you keep it active all the time. Scimitars for Belm and Water's Edge, same problem IIRC. Longwords, opposite problem, the selection in SoA is extremely limited. As opposed to axes, of which again, there aren't any good ones in BG1. So...any recommendations? I prefer one-handed weapons since it's too valuable to be able to wield an additional item in the shield slot. I'd be willing to install mods for interesting weapons as long as they're not so grossly overpowered as to overshadow the original content.

I finally finished my bard playthrough of BG1! I didn't make much use of my bardiness except to cast Mirror Image on myself before fights, but hey, that was different! Getting ready to jump into BG2 soon. Should I go Blade or Skald for my subclass? PC has been an archer so far, but it looks like I'd want to switch to two-weapon fighting if I go Blade.

Also, does the Ascension mod play nice with the GOG download of the non-EEs? The final battle is a pain, but I love the enhanced story beats it includes.

Had an amusing moment playing BG2 last night. I'd been in the Planar Sphere for a while and finally emerged to give Lavok one last look at the sun. I thought it would be a nice, peaceful moment of reflection, but instead the tiny platform outside the sphere was crowded with NPCs. The following events took place in rapid-fire succession:

1. Isaea and a bunch of soldiers showed up to "arrest" Nalia
2. Lavok died
3. Some random guard told me how I can discredit Isaea (while Isaea and co. were still trying to figure out how to get off the platform)
4. Valygar asked if he could join my party permanently
5. Anomen apologized for being a jerk after I said I didn't want to join the Radiant Heart and said I should meet his sister sometime
6. A messenger told Anomen his sister had been murdered

The originals' charm is 100% still there! 2nd edition has its quirks, but the story and characters still hold up.

I'm finally in ToB for my bard playthrough! I decided to take Sarevok for the first time, and that has been very interesting so far. Nalia is the only one who seems to like him, which is one more party member than I anticipated, lol. Ascension mod seems much buggier than I remembered, though, which is a bummer.

SoA was a blast! Playing a bard was kind of meh, but the stronghold was tons of fun. And now that I finally have Bladesinger Chainmail, I can cast spells without taking my armor off! (still sucks that you can't do anything if you're using bard song. NWN was truly the best D&D game for bards) I also did the Anomen romance for the first time and was pleasantly surprised! If he was about 25% less annoying outside of the romance, I think he would be a much more popular companion.

Love Irenicus Lab! Some guys managed to use the DA:O modding kit to recreate it, which was fun. That's about as far as they got IIRC, at least with released stuff.

Did you do the trick to get all your BG1 gear? Does that trick even work any more?

To those that don't know: If you imported your BG1 gear and were fast enough on the Pause, before Irenicus comes in and starts his spiel you could Pause, drop all your gear on the floor and then pick it up afterwards as the game only deleted your gear at that moment, not as part of the import. It might still take the special items you could pick up later, I can't remember.

Just finished ToB today, and I am just so filled with admiration for how good these games are. I already want to start another playthrough!