Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition
Baldur’s Gate is truly a masterpiece. Despite it’s beauty, tactical depth and great story, the game does not take itself too seriously. This cannot be said of many other leading RPG titles, which I soon begin to find rather corny. If you like RPGs and have not played Baldur’s Gate, then this is an absolute must, you do not even need to waste your time reading this review but of course you are welcome to. If you have played the original BG and are curious about Beamdog’s boob job, I share with you my opinion.
– Real player with 425.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dungeons & Dragons Isometric Games.
Classics are often thought to be timeless for future generations to enjoy, but the same cannot be said for Baldur’s Gate—and it’s not because CRPGs are uncommon. To go blind into BG in 2016 is practically impossible because how modern expectations are at odds with the brutal accessibility of ’90s computer games.
Baldur’s Gate, simply put, is an sarcophagus; it is a coffin of a bygone time of design philosophies and of late ’90s player expectations, immersed in the counter-culture of D&D and of fantasy-fiction that is written in its code like hieroglyphics to modern eyes. The game’s reverence is both a nostalgic call-back as well as an appreciation of BG’s systems as a traditional role-playing experience.
– Real player with 203.9 hrs in game
Low Magic Age
TL;DR: The game is a fun grind, but it is not well balanced.
I have about 90 hours in the arena and about 10 in the adventure mode. I have raised a party to around level 100 in the arena. I am recommending this game with some suggestions for the devs. I hope the devs will implement some change so the player feels like they are growing more powerful as they level up, instead of feeling like they are barely holding on and crawling towards the inevitable moment when they will no longer be able to beat a single encounter.
– Real player with 136.4 hrs in game
Well as of the date of this review we are still awaiting the Campaign Mode to be implemented. I am hopeful from what the developers have shown recently that it will be at least released sometime this summer. It might even be close to Fall before we see the full game come to be. Even so for $6 I still recommend this game.
Right now we have what is called “Arena Mode”. You take a pre-made party or create a custom party to be placed (by the game) as a group on a random map to fight one wave of monsters at a time. These waves are chosen by you as the player and can contain random kinds and numbers of mobs. The waves range from easy to difficult. You get to choose what difficulty you are comfortable fighting against which is nice. After each battle, if your party prevails, you get a certain amount of gold based on how your characters did in the battle. If no one in your party dies you get bonus gold. You also may get a piece of loot or two. After each battle you are also given a chance to buy and upgrade equipment for your party, which is randomly generated, if you have enough gold. You can also level your characters once they have achieved enough XP to do so. The rules mainly try to follow the 3.x DnD ruleset. And it does a pretty decent job of doing so. With each of your characters gaining higher Feats and Talents as they progress. The magic system is different as there is no mana involved for any spells that are cast. Instead you have a cooldown period for each spell. Some do not like the way this mana-less sytem plays but I love it personally. There will also eventually be crafting available which is nice.
– Real player with 64.0 hrs in game
Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition
This is Baldur’s Gate 2. You wouldn’t need something else to say.
But 2.0 update came out.
It did bring some improvements with it. Some spells and abilities were tweaked, a new class was added, some bugs fixed. Changes were made into a save system - now there are 4 slots for quicksaves. Cloudsaves and achievements were enabled. Off-hand weapons became equippable with launchers and two-handers, preventing constant jumping into inventory. Further zooming is enabled. That’s a good thing.
Some of the graphics was changed. Outlines were added for sprites, for instance. This gave the game a cartoonish look, turning them off replaced thick lines with thin ones thus retaining cartoon style.
– Real player with 325.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dungeons & Dragons Story Rich Games.
Baldur’s Gate II is the best role-playing game ever made.
It is everything that so-called RPGs of more recent times have forgotten: not defined by skill trees, vapid dialogue, time-wasting errands or how big the world is, but by its unparalleled depth, insane replay value through class variety and actual choice and consequence throughout the world.
“Ah, the child of Bhaal has awoken."
Awakening to a cold cell deep beneath the city of Athkatla, far to the south in the nation of Amn, you find yourself in over your head once again. It seems that no matter where the Bhaalspawn goes, fate and the latent power in your blood has a way of catching up in the end. After escaping, your path is set to figure out just what brought you into contact with this “Irenicus” you keep hearing whispers of… and what exactly the powers that be have in store for you.
– Real player with 225.9 hrs in game
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
I hesitated honestly to recommend it, but Beamdog has been doing bugfixes still in 2020-2021 (!), so that certainly deserves respect and appreciation as such! (Beamdog is the company responsible for the Enhanced Edition. The original was developed by Black Isle Studios [Fallout 1-2, Planescape].)
Though it looks like Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 (same engine, though not the same designers), the design and story are very different. I highly recommend playing BG1 and 2 in priority. IWD is much more linear (though I like the ambiance), with very little choices, and the AD&D rules used in BG1 and BG2 were butchered a bit in IWD. Although the rules are very similar, many of the character statistics have changed. The game balance (difficulty) is sometimes very odd in IWD. Many creatures can hit -15 AC easily (beyond rolling natural 20 which are always automatic hits in all those games). In terms of being linear, it is more of a dungeon crawl, from point A to point B, and so it is not a region to explore in an uncertain order à la BG2 or Fallout. And, really, sometimes your party is crawling forward under waves of creatures to slay.
– Real player with 155.9 hrs in game
Having never played neither D&D or an Infinity engine game before, I was pleasantly surprised by just how much value was put on the table in Icewind Dale: EE, not just as a videogame, but also as an introductory of sorts to D&D for new players.
Right of the bat you’re given the option to create a party of six (though you can choose to roll with a smaller party, or even solo the whole game) with a ludicrous amount of customization at your fingertips. For those new to the whole thing such as myself at the time, the options available might seem too overwhelming at first with all the different races, classes, weapon proficiencies, etc. Needless to say I’d spent the first few hours just to setup my party. This is a good thing.
– Real player with 129.7 hrs in game
Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance
16 hours between Wulfgar / Drizzt Solo and Multiplayer before deciding to put my 2 cents.
First I’ll start by saying that two main complaints are legitimate but pretty exaggerated.
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Netcode does need work and diminishes the value of twitch mechanics which otherwise work flawlessly Solo but at the same time you’re in a group so unless you’re the type to scream “But I pressed the button!” and rage. It’s mostly an annoyance right now and not bad enough to kill enjoyment of the game.
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Enemy AI is indeed a bit derpy taking “Action Movie” turns to attack the player. This is most notable Solo. At the same time if the enemy were to aggro stick the player all at once I doubt it would be Solo’d above 2. Hero difficulty. Far as I’ve seen the issue with hitting enemies from range, esp bosses is generally fixed and in the end this isn’t a competitive game. I’ve seen 5/5 star games where the AI is still easily exploited. Just play the game and stop trying to break it.
– Real player with 207.5 hrs in game
To start this review, many of the first negative reviews, and highest rated ones, are both much too critical and based off of a low amount of hours.
This game is marvelous, but it would be ignorant to write this review and say there are no issues. Of course, there are some glaring issues. But many of them are no where near as detrimental as some of the high rated negative reviews make them seem.
The worst issue in my opinion is the lackluster AI. Many of the enemies, simply won’t attack you, if you don’t start attacking them. And you get warmed up to that very fast. However, there are some AI, who are very aggressive, and being warmed up to AI not generally attacking you, it makes it feel like… a normal game. However, if you’re playing with a team, I have not yet encountered an enemy who will actively attack you whilst reviving a teammate.
– Real player with 89.0 hrs in game
Fantasy Grounds Unity
The Skinny:
Easily one of the best programs on my computer and just keeps improving itself. More detailed below.
The Thick of thing:
I began looking for an online resource to start playing Pathfinder remotely, as I only knew a handful of people who played and they lived all over the place. I started with Roll20 and stayed there for a year. During my tenor there I had to keep restarting things on every new game I made. I could not use the same assets without bringing them in again to the new map, and eventually started paying subscription to gain abilities to automate and utilize the feature that made life easier. Content creators were great (independent artists and such) but I began to realize the subscription model was going to make me pay more than any other game I owned. So I started looking at ‘competitors’ which I learned there were many.
– Real player with 794.0 hrs in game
Fantasy Grounds Unity (FGU) is a special case. It has a lot of downsides; however, FGU is the only product that provides flexibility, official support, automation, and most importantly regional currency support.
On the bright side; FGU runs on the local machine. The GM can use whatever maps and props he likes. It is also possible to make modules and share them. I can make an entire adventure including images and tokens and just send the file to a fellow GM or move characters between campaigns. I can run 50000 different campaigns and the best of it, once I purchased FGU, it is mine to keep. The official support is also great. You just buy the system once and it is yours. Most of the settings are updated with new features. If you are following a rather popular system, there are tons of adventures and if you are a DIY person you can make your adventures. The FGU also comes with 11 RPG systems and starter info for the most popular syste. Unofficial support is also plenty, there are a lot of unofficial RPG system files out there. You can also port or make your own system. With FGU, the sky is the limit.
– Real player with 549.5 hrs in game
Baldur’s Gate 3
Recommended only if you are willing to accept that it is not complete and is still yet a while away from being done. Very similar to Larian’s previous two games but with just enough tweaks to make it feel fresh and closer to DnD ruleset. Some say it may as well have been called DOS3. While true, it’s also not a bad thing. Those games IMO are responsible for the resurgence of the old-school CRPG genre. Personally, this is my dream game. Huge fan of the originals and huge fans of the DOS games. Actually had the out-loud thought back in 2014…“what if Baldur’s Gate made a comeback and these Larian dudes were the ones to do it?” Wish granted. People will nitpick and complain, but I’m beyond impressed with what I’ve seen so far. The RTWP argument has been done to death and if you want to cry about it, go play Pillars of Eternity. It’s so close a copy to the old Infinity engine games that it honestly got stale and lost its nostalgia shine real fast. I would have been disappointed if a new game bearing the BG name turned out to be the same stuff I played to death 20 something years ago. The scope of what Larian is going for here is extremely ambitious and I’m 110% rooting for them to pull it off. With all of the possible dialogue options and minor little attentions to detail, its like a real tabletop in that everyone who plays will be working through the same “module” but everyone is going to experience that story differently depending on the player or groups decisions. Obviously, proper tabletop DnD cant be played solo, but just like the original Baldurs Gate games, this is/will be the best possible way for a solo player without and IRL group to play with to experience its universe.
– Real player with 198.7 hrs in game
This is a pretty amazing game the best DnD based game I have ever played it is very good. There is still a lot of development needed would not recommend this game if you do not have a high performance PC with an SSD they definitely still need to do some work on the performance. When the game leaves early access it will be well worth it I can assure you. For right now once you get bored of the waiting for new content check out what the modding community has done there has been some really great player content.
– Real player with 114.3 hrs in game
Mystery at Morgoth
Mystery at Morgoth is set on the world of Qaedon, a thousand years before the Great Cataclysm and is the follow-up to The Curse of Feldar Vale . Known as the Age of Chaos, humans, greenskins, and all manner of monsters fight to survive these troubled times.
The peoples of Morgoth are living in fear of the shadowy organization known as The Cabal. But who controls them, who are their leaders? Nobody wants to find out as unpleasant things happen to those who are too inquisitive.
Build a party of 4-6 characters to adventure in Morgoth, to seek fame and fortune, or more likely find just enough coin to put food on the plate. Mystery at Morgoth delivers old-school gaming with hand-drawn 2D graphics throughout.
If you completed The Curse of Feldar Vale import your party to continue the adventure or solve the mystery stand-alone with a new party of your choice.
Unravel the Mystery at Morgoth and export your party to the next adventure - The Dark Tower (in development, coming Late 2022).
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Hours of gameplay with multiple locations to visit and numerous quests to undertake.
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Build your party from traditional D&D races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Half-Elf, or Halfling).
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Use your Warriors to batter the enemy, your Rogues to sneak up unseen, or your Clerics to Turn the Undead.
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Get power and magic with your Battlemages or pure magic with your combat-weak Mages.
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Recruit single or multi-class units like the Warrior/Rogue.
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Tactical turn-based encounters on square grids where every decision counts.
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Adventure in overland locations, explore buildings, or battle in dark dungeons.
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Keep your party supplied (hungry heroes do not fight as efficiently as well-fed ones!).
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Hundreds of items for your party to find.
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Dozens of spells for your Battlemages, Clerics, and Mages to blast the enemy or help your party.
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Fill your coffers with Qaedi (the global currency) by looting your enemies.
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Permanent death for units unless you can afford Resurrection!!
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Dozens of options to customize gameplay.
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Optional advanced rules to change the way you play.
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Customize each member of your party as they level up through combat experience.
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Dozens of attributes for each unit covering their physical quality, abilities, movement, protection, and combat modifiers.
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Equip your units with all manner of goodies using a variable inventory with up to 23 slots per unit.
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Build spellbooks for your spellcasters from three Schools of Magic - Arcane, Divine, and Planar.
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Battle dozens of foes, many of them based on original D&D creatures.
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Deal with Traps both mechanical and magical.
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Detailed In-Game Player Guides (Item Directory, Spell Compendium).
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Help System for every spell, item, and ability.
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Customizable Tooltip System.
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…and so much more!
New rules/improvements from The Curse of Feldar Vale:
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New rule: Advanced Flyers - flying units can ascend and attack from afar or descend into melee.
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New rule: Chance of Critical Hit - do extra damage by striking a vital area of the enemy.
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New rule: Combat Accuracy - sometimes fighting units are just going to miss!
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New rule: Static Encounters - improved AI gang-rushes if turned off.
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High definition maps throughout.
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Interactable containers (cupboards, chests, etc.)
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Items with Abilities (Necklace of Missiles, Brooch of Healing, etc.)
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Improved AI spellcasting and combat (with new Veteran AI personality).
Last Blossom: Roleplaying tabletop based scene
IN A WORD: MAYBE
IN A NUTSHELL:
WHAT TO EXPECT: Proof of concept or partial tutorial of RPG rule-set. Single scripted encounter given digital form. Made using Unreal Engine 4. Uses 8-bit audio. Simple turn-based ranged, melee and magic combat. Pre-determined characters and NPCs. Low replayability. Limited teaching instrument. Stylized low-poly graphics. Mired writing/translation. Singleplayer only.
ACHIEVEMENTS: NONE.
STATUS: COMPLETE. YET INCOMPLETE.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
I Loved It. It’s one encounter, 3v4, but it was so much fun. Really helped fill that D&D itch I’ve been having. If you like table top and want a combat situation then get this and play it!
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition
Kingmaker is rough around some edges, with a few changes to the tabletop rules that aren’t clearly stated to the player. (If you’re unfamiliar with Pathfinder, it is a variant of Dungeons and Dragons.) A large number of frustrations I have often come from either the interface not being great at explaining when something is different, or not explaining anything at all until you’re in another menu. (A game like Pathfinder really demands a character creation/level up screen that lets you preview your whole build from levels 1-20 just to get an idea of what you’re doing.)
– Real player with 255.9 hrs in game
As a cRPG this is an excellent game - great characters, great companions, great stories - main plot and companions - and a combat system that works.
As a game, it’s a mish mash of systems, ideas and a rigidly enforced ruleset that sadly overwhelms that content a little. It is a massively long game with 6 distinct acts that do not flow one after another, but intersperse themselves with a poorly explained Kingdom building mechanic that ultimately just doesn’t work and really, really gets in the way of the rest of the game. Making numbers get bigger doesn’t really make for a compelling experience, but if you don’t do it you’ll get yourself in a right mess and the game will end. It has no respect for your time as a gamer at all, and will test the very limits of your patience.
– Real player with 209.4 hrs in game