Baldur enhanced

Two of the most seminal western RPG’s of all time have made their way to console with the release of the Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 Enhanced Editions on Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. These supercharged versions of the original Bioware classics are running on an upgraded version of the original engine and pack in additional content, new potential party members, and improvements to the graphics (backgrounds especially) to support modern televisions instead of your classic CRT monitor. The package also includes a brand-new adventure, built on the same engine, called Siege of Dragonspear which picks up only weeks after the end of Baldur’s Gate 1 and bridges the gap between the two games.

For those of you who haven’t played the games before, Baldur’s Gate 1 takes place in the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms universe and puts players in the shoes of a young person forced to leave the only home they’ve ever known along with their foster father. Quickly all hell breaks loose and they find themselves in the middle of a very tense situation regarding the iron supply in the region. The area is on the brink of war between Baldur’s Gate and the Kingdom of Amn due to rumors and insinuations regarding the reasons for the iron shortage. Players quickly discover the real source of the issue and set about ending the threat. Baldur’s Gate II is a continuation of this story, delving deeper into the connections at play between the player and the main antagonist of the first game. Siege of Dragonspear fits nicely in between these two adventures and tasks players with taking down another commander with a mysterious origin whose crusade threatens the region.

MSRP: $49.99
Platforms: XB1 (reviewed), PS4, Switch

I don’t want to go into too much detail around the plots, as I don’t want to spoil any undercurrents for folks who haven’t played the series before, but suffice to say there is a reason these games are classics and it is almost completely because of how incredibly well told their stories are. The characters in the party are dynamic and interesting, and aren’t afraid to abandon players in the woods if they don’t like the tactics or if they dilly dally on the personal quest they joined up with the party to complete. The series features some of my favorite characters of all time (especially Minsc and Boo) and the writing is superb. Even the new characters feel like a seamless fit into the existing world. In fact, without knowing who the new characters are I’d be willing to bet most new players wouldn’t even notice who was originally there and who was added later.

This series really is Bioware at their best, and all the hallmarks of their later games (characters with feelings about the decisions, romance options, branching quest lines with decisions that make a difference later down the line) are here in all their glory. Players can import their character from Baldur’s Gate 1 into Siege of Dragonspear and then into Baldur’s Gate II as well which is tremendous.

This package includes all of the additional expansion content available for the original game (the Baldur’s Gate 1 expansion “Tales of the Sword Coast” is inserted into the standard Baldur’s Gate game because of the nature of the content). It also includes new Arena Combat modes (The Black Pits and the Black Pits II) as well as a multiplayer element.

Visually the games look the way your nostalgia remembers them looking, not the way they actually looked. The backgrounds are generally very good looking (particularly in Siege of Dragonspear), even on a large TV, but the characters share the same mismatched somewhat low-quality pixel-based sprites of the original game (which was also criticized on original release). That said, the games ¾ perspective overhead view means that the dated characters still hold-up ok and didn’t really detract from my experience. That said, if you’re someone who didn’t play these games back in the day and you’re looking for a visual powerhouse of a remaster you won’t find it here.

The series has adjusted its controls to adapt to console and I’m pleased to report that the adjustment was relatively seamless. Players can use the left stick to control whatever active group member they have selected at any given time, or to control a group of characters if they have more than one selected. The path finding can be an issue at times (something that was a problem in the original games as well) but it isn’t overly distracting. Left Trigger pulls up the character select menu, right trigger the menu selection and the bumper/shoulder buttons allow players to quickly switch between party members. The set-up is similar in many ways to the control scheme of Divinity: Original Sin on console. The one flaw that I ran into was difficulty selecting the various interactive objects that are around on a constant basis. I found the stick was often a relatively finicky way to select which object I was interested in interacting with. Thankfully pressing right on the d-pad allowed me to switch to a mouse like cursor style control which I could use for more detail-oriented work.

Combat is intricate and, at times, punishingly difficult. Baldur’s Gate was a pioneer in the area of using an active battle system that allows players to pause during combat to give specific orders to each of their party members (something that later Bioware games like Dragon’s Age have carried on the legacy of). Players will absolutely need to use this function on any difficulty level higher than the Story difficulty. For those who just want to experience the story without any frustrating clashes with enemies, this difficulty setting removes nearly all of the challenge of the battle system and allows them to basically just click “attack” and let the game mow down everyone in their path. It also eliminates the ability for party members to die in combat, making things even more accessible for those who are put off by the demands of the combat engine. Thankfully the narrative at play throughout these games is so good that players can play on Story difficulty and still have a very enjoyable experience.

Performance of the games is mostly solid but does have its issues. Players will get slowdown on occasion, which speaks more to the legacy and underlying age of the engine than anything else. It varies from minor to major depending on where they are and what’s happening on screen. I didn’t have this happen frequently but it did pop its head up more frequently than I would have liked for a 20 year old game on modern hardware. I did also run into a major bug during the beginning of Siege of Dragonspear (a bug that was apparently also present in the original PC release of the expansion) where a major character who is necessary to progress out of the starting area can disappear, causing you to be trapped in the prologue. Thankfully a restarted save allowed me to get the character back, but I still lost around 2-3 hours of progress to this bug. The good news is I haven’t run in to any other bugs of this type during my time with the game.

All in all it’s hard to argue with the value you’re getting in this package. For $50 you get two of the best western RPG’s of all time, along with all of their additional content and the new arena modes. We’re talking hundreds of hours of classic Bioware goodness for just less than the price of a new game off the shelf. I think this package is perfect for gamers who’ve never experienced these games before and want to see what all the fuss is about (and where many RPG staples they see in modern games originated). While I wish the control scheme was more perfectly implemented and that the performance were consistently fantastic, those things don’t overwhelm my opinion that this is a package worth having for any fan of western RPG’s or classic gaming.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.