Repost of my Baldur's Gate 1 updates:
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I'm still having choice paralysis on a BG1 class. Monk looks interesting now but I'm still leaning Fighter. Looks like this has both Mage and Sorcerer, thought Sorcerer wasn't until BG2. Maybe they streamlined classes too in this version?
Yeah, I have no clue what class I should pick here. Probably gonna make a big difference in overall enjoyment too so I better choose wisely.
I like how Paladin and Ranger get Cleric and Druid spells respectively at level 9. Sounds familiar...
Edit: Went with Paladin. Came down to that, Fighter, or Ranger. Decided being able to cast and heal would probably offset losing some power ground to Fighter. Then I compared Druid and Cleric spells and Cleric won. Character creation was a looooong process. Ended up going Cavalier with two proficiency points each in Two-Handed Sword and Katana. Hopefully those were good calls. Not really interested in wielding anything else besides those anyway. Hopefully Katanas aren't super rare in BG1. Str 18/83, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 9, Wis 13, Cha 17. Wish it woulda let me lower Cha a little to put more into Con, but it also says Cha is important for Paladins so maybe it's alright that the stat can't go below 17.
Wait, I can create a whole 6-person party at the character select? I probably shouldn't do that 'cause I want to recruit NPCs like Minsc, but it's also pretty tempting to just go ahead and make a party now instead of sorting it out later with NPCs. Maybe make four characters and leave two spots open?
Started this up pretty late after working for like 10 hours today, basically got through the character creation for one character and now I'm ded.
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I'm like 90% sure that the "Streetwise" male voice in the character creation is the same voice actor as Frank Fontaine from Bioshock. That was quite a surprise!
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I spent like 2 hours last night just creating characters. Eventually I deleted a lot of them and went with my Paladin and a Cleric/Sorc as backup. Then I realized I vastly prefer controlling one character versus controlling a bunch (at least for now) so I started over with just Paladin. Taking today off and I'm gonna hit the game pretty hard.
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A few hours in now, have a full party and I've gotten used to controlling this many people. I've got Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Neera, and Minsc. I think Neera is my favorite character at this juncture. Still on Chapter 1 and everyone's level 1, probably barely made any real progress cause I've been mostly micromanaging and wandering around to get more fast travel points for the map.
In Nashkel now and it looks like there are two dungeons I've got quests for: Nashkel Mines and Gnoll Stronghold. The latter is where Minsc's boo is (not Boo, his other boo) and the party is full, so I'm a little concerned he might take off if we don't have room for her. Should I downsize to five people (Khalid would get the boot) before going there? Don't even know how to put characters in storage yet and I'm still on Chapter 1 so maybe I can't. Doing the mines first in case. Hopefully this is like other games and if you get a new recruit while full, they automatically warp to the character storage location.
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Damn, I shouldn't have gone to the Mines first. Minsc went psycho and I had to kill him! WTF!
Just got his GF. I was super close to getting her when he attacked. No reload is gonna fix it either.
Apparently it also changed over to Chapter 2 recently, not sure when or why. Is that time-based? I still feel like I've barely done anything storywise yet. Getting Minsc's GF rescued from the Gnoll Fortress would feel like my first big accomplishment if I hadn't lost the guy in the process. Maybe I'll just start over.
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Started over, got back most of the way to where I was pretty quickly. Got Minsc and his GF, but had to boot Khalid, so I lost the hot druid. Was gonna boot Neela and invite them back, but I got Edwin so now I'm back to not really having room.
Gonna redo the Mines and get back to Chapter 2. Pretty fun first day of CRPGing
Edit: Is Xan worth recruiting? Was gonna boot Neela out for him. The boss fight with the guy south of him and the army of adds seems to have my number. Everyone's super close to finally reaching Level 2 (My God, this really is an 80 hour game)
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I have the hero and Minsc up front doing melee and 3 damage casters (Dynaheir, Edwin, Xan) in the background with slings. Also have Imoen doing archery damage. Seems to be working really well, the only time I die is when the hero runs out of HP.
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I pooled all my spells to Dynaheir and booted out the other two, getting a lot more exp now with hero/Minsc/Imoen/Dynaheir. Might just keep it like this, might go back and recruit Jaheira/Khalid again, unsure. Right now I'm farming Ankhegs for mega-exp up north, got a few characters at Level 3. Last story advancement I did was the bandit camp.
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On Chapter 6 now, everyone's at level 6-7 and finally kicking some ass. The Ankheg cave got me several levels, and you can also lug their shells back to Beregost to sell for 500 G each. Don't need to worry about money anymore after that.
Took Monday off, then yesterday was a snow emergency, so I basically plowed BG1 for like 20 hours between them. I couldn't seem to turn the game off and now it's almost done, I think. BG2 soon.
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I set aside a lot of time for it and then could not turn it off, was crazy. Been ages since that happened. Not sure what it is that's so compelling about this game, but I always wanted to finish a level up, or look into a side quest someone gave me, or check out a newly-appeared map location. It was so hard to stop playing to like, sleep.
I really like this game, but it's also very... proto? Like I'm looking forward to seeing how some of the others advance on the formula, especially visually. PoE1 is 60 FPS and BG1 is like 20 FPS which was rough after trying PoE1.
Looks like all I have left are a relatively short Chapter 6 and 7 that are basically two big dungeons. I'm surprised I made so much progress in the game because I didn't use a walkthrough at all and had to figure it out about 50% from scratch. Only even referred to the guidebook on things like classes and stats. Just totally winged it in the actual game progression outside of that and this board. Did a fair amount of side quests, but focused on the main quest, and the game was always pretty clear about where to go next and what to do.
Never got "lost" which I expected to a lot in an open game like this. Closest thing I can think of in console RPGdom is Romancing SaGa 2 and 3 on the SNES/SFC (now also on Switch I believe). They both have similar open world maps where new locations unlock as you go. I spent a ton of time just outright lost in those games though. Vague objectives and usually unlocking any of the important locations meant talking to the right person, who could be like 8 zones away. Baldur's Gate actually did this formula right with clear objectives and letting me unlock things by simple exploration.
Looking at the world map, I visited about two thirds of the locations on it and did a fair amount of side quests but probably nowhere near all of them. Didn't see any of the southeast side of the map (mountains etc). If BGII uses the same maps maybe I'll see those areas there.
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Alright, I'll make sure I do this before I finish the game. I don't think my Paladin needs Int but I'll get some of the others. Gonna finally use some guides for this. Next time I play (tonight probably if I don't get tied up) the plan is:
-Finish Chapter 6 dungeon (Tomes of Str and Wis here)
-Get Cha Tome from Gnoll Stronghold (a place I thoroughly plundered earlier, hope I didn't get it and sell it or something)
-Get Con Tome from Pirate Cave
-Chapter 7 dungeon (getting Dex Tome on the way)
Optional: Two other Wis tomes I could get and I could grind more Ankhegs (or better yet Sirens) for a couple more levels. Not sure what level you need to finish the game but I have everyone at 6-7 and they were taking a full-on beating in Ch 6 so far. I'd rather just finish the game rather than doing more grinding though, and grinding seems very unnecessary in this game. Only did it midway to catch-up (2-3 to 4-5) since the main story was outpacing the party levels.
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Gonna miss running around at bardspeed with the Cheetah Boots. Don't even remember where I got those but it was a real game-changer. Was zipping all over the place for the second half of the game. Not looking forward to going back to normal walk speed in future games. These boots are probably a lot of the reason why I booked it through the second half of the game so fast.
Annnd game beaten, everyone was at level 6. There were a few very nasty parts later on, like the spiders with AOE webs (unless you bring the Spider's Bane 2HS), and the twin basilisks at the end of Ch 6 (unless you bring a bunch of anti-petrify scrolls from a temple). Got most of the stat tomes, everything except Int and some Wis.
The final chapter was pretty hard, particularly several of the group battles (the one outside the final boss temple and the one in the temple, right before the final boss). Had to pull the foes out one at a time to have a chance and it took a while. I thought the final battle was straight-up impossible for a few minutes, then realized the thing that was annihilating me were room traps around the giant floor face, not the actual fight.
Beat the game on Normal. Have Golden Pantaloons and that one good helm and a few other things to hopefully bring into the next game. I should skip the Siege of Dragonspear inter-quel, yeah? Since it's newer Beamdog content and would eat up a bunch of time. Kind of tempted to play it anyway just to get the "full picture" so someone tell me it's unnecessary!
Starting BG2 RIGHT NOW
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I think I'll give SoD a run and switch it down to Story Mode, just to get the story without struggling with the actual gameplay portion. This'll also make it take a lot less time. I'll turn it back up to Normal for BG2.
I checked out the beginning of both of them already, and while BG2 is definitely higher-quality, SoD's story is interesting enough that it grabbed me quickly. Going from being a wandering hero/outcast type in BG1 to a hero of the realm and worshipped war leader with throngs of people turning out to see you in the first chapter of SoD was a trip. Main thing that makes me want to play it though is that you go to Avernus (Hell 1) at some point and a whole chapter takes place there. Been wanting to see a D&D game (module or video game) that goes into the Nine Hells pretty much forever.
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One more note on BG1: I think people are short-changing Neera a bit. For a Beamdog character, she was pretty awesome. A lot of fun dialogue-wise and I ended up inadvertently romancing her. Never really went anywhere but it added a lot to the game.
