GameBanshee Forums

1. Narrator - The narrator in BG is so much better than the rugged voice they had in BG2 it's silly. And for those of you who don't think this is a big deal, it is! The narrator carries the story forwards and has a vital part of the overall atmosphere of a game.

2. PC development part of the story - Maybe this is a personal thing, but I think that the narrator monolouges, accompanied by the very eerie and atmospheric music were FAR superior and added much more to the character development part of the story, than the bizarre dream sequences that take place in BG2 where Irenicus kills various creatures in front of the PC in a strange museum-like building accompanied by some disturbing sound effects. Those made no sense at all to me.

3. Story - Also personal preference maybe, but I think layout of slowly, little by little, learning who your ultimate enemy really is, beats the crap out of knowing everything from the start. Half the story in BG2 is simply centered around rescuing Imoen and the other half is centered around killing Irenicus. In BG, you're unfolding the story as you go by instead of having the entire story already unfolded for you from the beginning. Although I suppose it is always harder to come up with a good story for a sequel.

4. NPC voices -
"I AM THE LAW!" - Flaming Fist Guard - BG
"In the name of Amn, I'm here to keep order" - Athkatla Guard - BG2
The difference really is obvious, there are many more examples. Sure, BG2 does have some original voices that are convincing and . But in BG, every single vocal is just delivered spot on and really serves to give every single NPC in the game a strong and accurate personality. And let's not forget that 70-80% of the good voice jobs in BG2 are nicked directly from BG.

5. Character models - This remains a mystery to me, just take a look at these pictures
showing the differences. Looking at it this way, it's quite obvious that Bioware, and for no apparent reason at all, changed the character and armor models for the worse. I mean, Imoen looks more like the marshmallow man than her old self! And compare the clear contrasts and shapes that makes out the BG warrior and it's very shiny armor - with the grey clump that is the BG2 warrior. I might add that these wear the exakt same outfit, are of the same class and race, and the shots were also taken in the same resolution.

Well there's really plenty more that BG does a lot better than BG2. I in fact would totally consider it a vastly superior game to BG2 if it wasn't for the fact that it is a quite small and unchallenging game compared to the sequel, especially if you add TOB to the latter.

This subject was quite extensively coveredHere

Hmm, does that thread even take up anything at all that I've mentioned here? If so, I missed it.

I'm directly against that btw, if anything, BG2 would improve tremendously as a game if it had the BG interface and character models.

I disagree

I don't think so. The human male warrior (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger) model looked big and ugly. The elf warrior looked a lot better in the first one. Both have their good qualities, overall I think Baldur's Gate II was a better game.

The thing about Baldur's Gate was that you start at level one, you are starting out brand new. And it's funny to look back and remember about the time you had to reload twenty times when those wolves kept killing you. In Baldur's Gate II and especially in Throne of Bhaal, nothing stands in your way for longer than a Timestop or a Whirlwind. Not saying that BGII or ToB were bad games, because I absolutely loved them.

bg2 has no real wilderness areas to explore with a range of stuff dotted around it, as well as some decent enemies.

bg2 has fewer areas, less simple stand-alone quests, and you're at far higher levels. you don't get the areas to just wander in ,and nothing short of a pack of dragons gives you any trouble by ToB. bg2 is in some ways a better game, but it has far more rigid and defined objectives. not always a bad thing, but i do miss the times when a level-up was special, and could be achieved after a tough battle with some wolves

I agree

I missed those big open maps where you don't neccessarily have to do anything too, and level-ups were special back in BG. Two very good points.

Heh, in ToB the innkeepers were selling +3 stuff.

You rarely die in BG2 from enemies in the wild. It's only the main baddies. In BG1 you could die from wolves for crying out loud! In that sense in BG you were less powerful and that's a good thing.

Originally posted by The Z
You rarely die in BG2 from enemies in the wild. It's only the main baddies. In BG1 you could die from wolves for crying out loud! In that sense in BG you were less powerful and that's a good thing.

Also a lot of people had already used the interface in BG1 so when BG2 came there was no phase of getting used to new ideas, as the interface was almost identical. I'm sure if I had never played BG1 I would have been a goner when fighting the first merphit. But as u tag along in BG2 you'll get uber powerfull and nothing will stand in your way. This never happened in BG1. At highest level in TOSC it was damn hard to beat the deamon in Ulgothbeard after killing the deamon in Dyrlags tower.

Originally posted by The Z
You rarely die in BG2 from enemies in the wild. It's only the main baddies. In BG1 you could die from wolves for crying out loud! In that sense in BG you were less powerful and that's a good thing.

That's too true. Minsc recently had a dose of bravery and charged a group of black bears on his own, and got his arsed kicked! So much for a level 6 ranger with a Long Sword+2!!

I remember that black bear in the first map right out of Candlekeep, I usually took five - ten mintues trying to kill that punk with a little regular short bow.

Ooh the days when 175 experience was a lot!!

Originally posted by EvilEdwin
Ooh the days when 175 experience was a lot!!

Yeah those where the days.
I almost fell off my chair when i beated my first flesh-golem, and saw the amount of experience i got for that kill

LOL! You mean, you didn't get the agreement you wanted in the BG2 thread, and created the identical thread and opening post over here? I think you should have started over here; but even so, that doesn't mean there has to be a unanimity of view. For those who are interested, here's a link to that BG2 thread.

Just to summarize--what JackofClubs said over there:

2. I think you may be misunderstanding the dream-sequences. If you pay close attention, they are symbolic rather than narrative. The overall theme is your character's internal struggle with his/her supposed Bhall essence. Irenicus represents the will to power (the Id in pcychological terms) and Imoen your moral nature (SuperConscious or Conscience). I believe the entire story can be looked at in this way as an internal conflict rather than an external one, since the story begins and ends with a sort of surreal imprisonment where Irenicus is the chief opponent. (This doesn't apply to ToB which I haven't played.)

3. I am not sure that you really know more in BG2 than you did in BG1. Yes you know about the Bhaal-essence, but Irenicus' motivations are obscure and do not really unfold until Ch 5-6. The same could be said of Sarevok's in BG1.

And what I said, as well:

Personally, I much prefer the NPC voices in BG2. The only NPC paladin you can add to your party, Keldorn, sounds positive and commanding, whereas Ajantis in BG1 sounded like a caricature, a sort of stick soldier. BG1's Quayle has been fortunately reduced in BG2 to a very minor side part, so we don't have to hear his obnoxiousness. As for minor NPC players, at least we don't have attempts to make evil characters seem more so in BG2 by having them snicker over the smell of their own gas--as they did in BG1.

There's two more opinions, at least. As I said before, they're not better than any other POVs, but there's nothing wrong with hearing 'em.

Originally posted by fable
BG1's Quayle has been fortunately reduced in BG2 to a very minor side part, so we don't have to hear his obnoxiousness.

Hey don't insult Quayle, I was really dissapointed when he didn't make an appearence in BG2 as well.....

As for the rest....When playing BG1 u didn't even knwo the name of ur enemy, and if u thought u did it was jsut an underling. I remeber when I first fought daveorn I thought that a fight THAT hard had to be that last one and that nothing else would follow.... In BG2 u know from the start that teh game will end with u killing irenicus. You don't know that you ahve to do it twice but.....

Originally posted by garazdawi
Hey don't insult Quayle, I was really dissapointed when he didn't make an appearence in BG2 as well.....

I think what bothered me most about Quayle was that horrible, endlessly repeating bit of dialog of his: "Oh, you're so, so EVIL!" Of course, alignment didn't really derive from party NPC actions in BG1, so the line was pure nonsense. Whomever Quayle was addressing at the time was doing nothing at all.

Originally posted by garazdawi
Hey don't insult Quayle, I was really dissapointed when he didn't make an appearence in BG2 as well.....

As for the rest....When playing BG1 u didn't even knwo the name of ur enemy, and if u thought u did it was jsut an underling. I remeber when I first fought daveorn I thought that a fight THAT hard had to be that last one and that nothing else would follow.... In BG2 u know from the start that teh game will end with u killing irenicus. You don't know that you ahve to do it twice but.....

About Quayle: You do meet him in BG2..... Aeries step-father.... Circus....

You know the main bad-guy: When Gorian was killed in BG I KNEW I had to kill THE-GREAT-ARMOURED-GUY, in the end of the game.

Originally posted by Mikael Skiffard
About Quayle: You do meet him in BG2..... Aeries step-father.... Circus....

Yae I know but he isn't and NPC that you can play with like imoen...

Originally posted by Mikael Skiffard
You know the main bad-guy: When Gorian was killed in BG I KNEW I had to kill THE-GREAT-ARMOURED-GUY, in the end of the game.

Yes but do you know how to do it? Where are u sent? Friendly arms inn. Do you know where to go next? No, but in Friendly arms in you get to know about nashkel and... so on. you never know your ultimate destiantion but only one step in front of where u are.

In Bg2... you come out of the dungeon and then u know that you eventually have to come to spell hold but not how... then after 10 min u get to know how... Then when u reach spell hold you get to know that you have to follow Irenicus to suldenesalaar and you go there and kill him.

That make BG1 to become 7 ultiamte steps where you don't know where to go next and BG2 have 4. Getting out of dungeon,going to spell hold, going to suldenassealar and killing irenicus in hell.

Thsi makeing BG1 a much more story focused game IMO, and there are also alot of more side quests that the player can do then in BG2.

Thsi makeing BG1 a much more story focused game IMO, and there are also alot of more side quests that the player can do then in BG2.

I don't see how trying to find out who your great enemy is and confront them (as in BG1) is any more focused a tale than knowing who your enemy is and trying to confront them (as in BG2). What makes a story focused is how well it handles momentary or apparent lesser goals, linking them and leading up to a final confrontation. One of the more complex plots in gaming history, that of Betrayal at Krondor, was actually very focused, despite discovering that the actual conflict was completely different than what you suspected all along, and the villain was a well-meaning hero, and a friend. That's because of an over-arching theme, protection of the land, which ran throughout the game in many different guises.

From that perspective, BG2 wins out. The reoccuring dreams of the hero that depict a loss and tearing of self; the need to find the hero's friend, who turns out to be his sister--in effect, part of himself; the loss of the godlike part of the hero to Irenicus--all these show an element of continuing thematic focus that is missing from BG1, IMO.