CaughtCross
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Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games
- Thread starter Lunis
- Start date
Rajaah
Honorable Member
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Would this be a good order for the CRPGs if I ever get to them:
-BG1
-BG2
-Pillars 1
-Pillars 2
-Planescape Torment
-Tides of Numenera
-Icewind Dale
-Neverwinter Nights
-Divinity 1
-Divinity 2
-BG3
?
Cause I might make them into a summer mission or something.
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DirkDonkeyroot
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Pool of radiance
Curse of the azure bonds
Secret of the silver blades
Pools of darkness
Secret of the Savage frontiers
Treasure of the Savage frontiers
Champions of Krynn
Death knights of Krynn
Dark queen of Krynn
Eye of the beholder 1-3
I'm sure I missed some.
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Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I would put Pillars 1 & 2 somewhere far at the end as they have no relation to BG (storywise), other than having some of the main devs making both games. Similarly, Tides of Numenera has 0 relation to Planescape, other than many of the same devs.
I also think combining BG1 into the BG2 engine is a better experience than playing BG1 standalone. The small improvements in the engine and UI are worth it. Similarly, the Enhanced Editions are probably worth it; you can skip Beamdog's (Studio that did the EE) main addition Siege of Dragonspear if you want a mostly vanilla experience (it isn't worth the price). The majority of their changes, from what I read on the BG1:EE, was incorporate quality of life, minor bug/dialog fix, and gfx mods into a base game package.
I have not played the Enhanced Edition of Planescape: Torment, so cant comment on it.
I would go with this (by era):
- Golden Age of Western RPGs (iso fantasy, mostly)
- Baulder's Gate Enhanced Edition Trilogy (EET tutorial at bottom) (Trilogy because you can add Siege of Dragonspear, if you decide to buy it)
- Planescape: Torment
- Neverwinter Nights 2 (This is a funny game, the Mask of the Betrayer xpac is, by far, the next best "classic fantasy RPG", and doesn't really need the base campaign. Storm of Zahir is good too, and a totally independent xpac. The base campaign is mediocre at best.)
- Icewind Dale
- Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (Steampunk fantasy RPG of similar storytelling quality to the rest. A non DnD ruleset, so combat is not as good as the infinity engine games)
- Neverwinter Nights 1 (I remember liking this game, and it has a shit load of extra content in xpacs and player made mods, but it aged the worst out of any classic RPG. A couple years ago, I tried to play the best rated player made story mod, and gave up after a few hours because it was so ugly.)
- Temple of Elemental Evil (This is a combat heavy dungeon diver using the most developed infinity engine. Story wise, it's lacking though, due to Black Isle financial problems. It's the last of the "Golden Age of Western RPGs" but probably skippable or moved to the end of the list, if you still have time after the modern games)
- Western RPG Renaissance
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker (The Pathfinder games are the closest spiritual successor to the classics)
- Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
- Divinity: OS (Divinity games are good, but they are going to be quit a bit different than the others. Still, if you want to see where Larian is coming from, on BG3, here is they are)
- Divinity: OS 2
- Tyranny (I liked this game better than Pillars, but it was rushed and missing some meat at the end, unfortuntatly)
- Pillars 1 & 2 (these games were ok, and when we were starving for similiar games, they were nice. Still, they are pretty far down on my list of games I would replay)
- Tides of Numenera (if you have time, and really need something to play, go for it. I found this game a bore and would rather play Temple of Elemental Evil 10 times over this again.)
Link to tutorial for combining the Baulder's Gate Enhanced Editions into one game:
Download links
Download links and installation instructions Download: https://github.com/Gibberlings3/EET Initialise EET (setup-EET) Core EET component requires "clean" BG2:EE installation with latest patch (currently v2.3.67.3). Translations and voice-overs are of course allowed but installing other (especiall...
www.gibberlings3.net
BG2:EE is currently on sale for $6 until March 6th (if you keep a watch on them all, you can probably pick up the others on sale in the next few months)
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Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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These games are an acquired taste and take a bit to get into. It is probably best to work backwards with blobbers. Say start with Grimrock and Might and Magic X, then jump back to Wizardry 8 and World of Xeen, then jump to the gold box games.
Also, I think he was wanting BG type games, or similar, in preparation for playing BG3.
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
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man, I just did pillars 1 and it was such a struggle to get through. I hated the ui, and gameplay. probably should have just storymoded that shit. Pillars 2 I'm getting to now. omg, such an improvement. I'm actually enjoying that one. shame it performed so poorly. pillars 1 does create a save file on completion, that can be imported to pillars 2. so deeds and actions carry over.
In terms of playlist, I'd recommend playing them in order of date released. it will help with the old u.i.s and game design etc. as well as jumping from system to system.
Going from pathfinder wotr to pillars 1 was brutal.
tides isn't well loved. but, its one I actually finished though. I would still recommend it. I would also recommend Disco Elysium in that trio. I've not played that, but everyone else seems to love it.
Icewind dale. personally one I liked back in the day. way more then most others, who discount it as more action fluff compared to baulders gate. Which is something to say. may not be really worth revisiting. its not an amazing story. decent enviroment/visuals.
NWN. 1 and 2. 2 is often cited as competitive with best story in rgs ever. the xpacs for NWN 1 and 2 are also amazing. should not be skipped. (heck even some of the MOD campaigns...)
Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. Wrath of the righteous I personally put as top 3 of all time.
theres also Tyranny. which I've not played yet to know if to recommend.
Genres. you already have 3 genres here. planescape/tides/disco elysum are kindof their own thing. Divinity: os 1/2 are Ultima successors. more in common with skyrm really..
But do we then also mention bards tale, wizardy? skyrim/morrowind/obliv?
those might be a stretch. but these should probably be on that list.
Shadowrun: dragonfall. (shadowrun returns, and shadowrun hongkong possibly. I only actually played Returns, it was first. but I hear great things about dragonfall.)
Wasteland 2/3?
Drakensang. def a mid game. but no one talks about it. so, I did.
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I only see NWN2 on GoG atm. I thought it was on Steam at one time too.
I haven't been keeping up with Beamdog; maybe they made an agreement with the rightholders to remove all the old games from Steam, and only sell thier new EE editions.
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Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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I try to play these games and never last very long.
I loved POR and various other gold box games, I loved baldurs gate 1&2 back in the day, just can’t seem get into these anymore. I played DOS1 until the 2nd chapter and was just burnt out by then. Have restarted DOS2 multiple times and never last long. POE1 I got burnt out really quickly and never tried 2. I did finish Tower of Time. I read that POE2 was a lot better but my lack of interest in others has made me out off ever trying it.
I’m not sure what happened to my gaming taste where I don’t like these anymore, perhaps I’m just not playing the right ones.
I loved POR and various other gold box games, I loved baldurs gate 1&2 back in the day, just can’t seem get into these anymore. I played DOS1 until the 2nd chapter and was just burnt out by then. Have restarted DOS2 multiple times and never last long. POE1 I got burnt out really quickly and never tried 2. I did finish Tower of Time. I read that POE2 was a lot better but my lack of interest in others has made me out off ever trying it.
I’m not sure what happened to my gaming taste where I don’t like these anymore, perhaps I’m just not playing the right ones.
Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
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I envy you. That will be glorious.
I'd like to erase my memories and go again like a sensate.
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Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
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hard to say. I largely LOVE divinity os2. and do love 1... but I never finished 2. theres quite a few crpgs I've never finished. crpgs that actually keep the fun/pacing up through the entire game are kindof rare. hell, I've never finished skyrim's main quests either..
modern gaming in general has this real issue of polishing the shit out of act 1 for demos, and EA. and the rest of the game is half finished at release. This combines on top of the "game opens up halfway through" issue. which kills pacing in the name of exploration and completionism. As a completionism, and explorer, absolutely I go of and do ever minigame/quest, and lose any interest in actually finishing the game.
Finding a good balance is tough. Either needs to go full sandbox like a skyrim/fallout4, and say, who gives a fuck about the main quest. the sidequests, and building a house, town, etc IS the main game for you. then great. or needs to keep you tethered a bit, like Wrath of the righteous does. never let you TOO far from the main quest. sidequests are divvied out slowly.
I find tactical depth in combat helps alot. why I like pathfinder, and parts of divinity. the more min/maxing, character building, progression, and theorycrafting, that keeps me engaged. crpgs where I've solved them, and theres little to no choice in actual build selection, leaves me unengaged. what the is the point of an rpg, if ever level up is just +1 to the obvious selection.
just FYI, tower of time company has a new game coming out soon. not sure if its a"secret sequel/prequel" or unrelated.
Tower of time I also, did not finish.
Harshaw
Throbbing Member
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Those gold box games were the best when they came out.
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Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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I’ve had Dark Envoy wishlisted, just because I enjoyed tower of time. I don’t believe they’re related at all in terms of in game stuff. They mention all the things they learned from feedback from ToT, so hopefully it’s just a more polished version but more steampunk/sci-fi or whatever that setting is.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Sure, but after going through BG1, BG2 and Throne of Bhaal I imagine just about anyone would want a breather and do some, I don't know, battle royale games before moving on to more isometric crpgs. That trilogy is like, 300 hours of game depending on the difficulty settings and how tryhard you get with sidequests.
I recommend getting the Enhanced Edition of BG1 (and sequels) and can't comment on the Gibberlings3 post that Burns posted except to say that I don't know why that mod exists. Before the Enhanced Editions I did a couple playthroughs of BG1 with a massive number of mods (including ones that brought BG1 into BG2's engine) and it seems like the default EE should be enough.
The last playthrough I did of BG1 I used a ton of mods and it's way easier to mod with EE than it was before. I don't recommend using them for a first playthrough unless you really like modding. Most of the mods I liked added a bunch of maybe-working content (ex Beamdog Forums - [MOD] Dark Side of the Sword Coast for BG:EE ) or turn the game into nightmarishly difficult slog that you really have to love the mechanics to enjoy ( ex Sword Coast Stratagems )
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Szeth
Trakanon Raider
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Wasn't on my radar, but if it releases prior to BG3 I will likely pick it up to co-op with some friends.
Burns
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Just using the BG2 UI for BG1 makes combining them worth it, as it is super simple to do with the Enhanced Editions. Here is what their stated goal for the mod is, though:
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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If it all works cleanly, that's great. Personally I view the distinction between BG1, BG2 and ToB so significant that the first goal of uniting them seems counter to the game. Trying to make BG1 areas accessible from ToB seems like it'd risk breaking a game. But if it works, that's really cool.
My modus operandi the handful of times I've played through BG is to stuff as many dumbass mods into the game as I could and then try to limp through somehow. Dealing with all the broken content was enough to keep the game fresh.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
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Thanks for all the input. The ones I listed are the ones I have, so I'm not that keen on getting a bunch of others. If I get through the ones I listed that alone would be a massive and unlikely achievement.
So BG1 to start? Cause normally in some situations like this it makes more sense to work backwards and start with like, Divinity. When it comes to computer games though I like to start with the earliest one to see the evolution, and also so that I don't get pushed away by QOL losses.
So BG1 to start? Cause normally in some situations like this it makes more sense to work backwards and start with like, Divinity. When it comes to computer games though I like to start with the earliest one to see the evolution, and also so that I don't get pushed away by QOL losses.