izigame.me

The game of my childhood, one of the best RPGs in history (not the only one! and this is my personal opinion, I do not pretend to be true), an excellent embodiment of D&D 2.5 edition, thac0! :) I think the game does not need a special introduction for those people whose end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries were associated with this game, and BioWare had just set foot on the throne of legends, which eventually crumbled to ashes...
But let's not talk about sad things. I would like to briefly dwell on some features of the game that can attract or scare away a new audience that is not yet familiar with the Forgotten Realms universe.
First of all, I want to note that the review is intended to a greater extent for new players, and not for veterans who have gone through the main story more than once.
Well, if you have never heard of this game and by the will of fate got to this page — the information is for you.
First of all, you should understand that the original game was released a very long time ago. The first game was released back in 1998, the second — in 2001. Accordingly, the game is a so-called old-school action RPG with an active pause. Old school in this case incorporates both positive and negative (for a number of people) moments.
Assistance to the player from the game system is minimal: spells cause damage to allies, so a random cast can multiply the lives of party members by zero. There are no quest markers — you will have to carefully read the quests if there is no desire to get into a situation of "blind wandering" around the world. The characters are dying. And they do not fall "unconscious", but seriously die. You have to resurrect them in temples if you do not have a cleric with the appropriate spell in your arsenal, or a scroll. And if the game takes place on high difficulty, then death can end in the destruction of the body so much that resurrection will not be possible and the character will die forever, you will have to load if such an outcome is undesirable.
Inventory is limited by slots and weight, arrows are spent when shot. And magicians do have a limited number of spell slots for a conditional game day, which will not allow turning them into a death machine, non-stop pouring fire on enemies, even at high levels — at some point, the prepared spells will run out and you will have to "rest" in order to regain access to them. A lot of reading is required :) For players more accustomed to the current trends in the RPG genre, this may seem like an unnecessary complication. However, if such moments do not scare you away, I strongly advise you to familiarize yourself with the game.
Moreover, if you have never played, you should start from the first part. Both games are one story, where the second directly continues the first. Of course, it is possible to start playing immediately from the second part, but in this way you will deprive yourself of a huge part of the story and it is unlikely that you will fully experience the rise and fall of the protagonist, whose role you will play.
The game is a party RPG, which means that you have to control several (up to 6) characters at the same time. At the same time, it is not necessary to play with the largest possible group, you can even play with one character if you "grow up" the corresponding hero. At first, playing with fewer heroes may seem more difficult, but over time, they can outperform a full party in combat capability — the experience here is divided by the number of characters in the group, and is not issued as a fixed value for all.
Mages, warriors, thieves, monks — the game provides a wide field for experimentation, and if you like to think through leveling in advance, test combinations of many classes / skills, choose spells to cast from a wide list of spells — the game will definitely not disappoint you.
If tactical difficulties do not excite you, you can play the game on a low difficulty level, which will allow you to easily win battles of any complexity, focusing on the story. Which I would not advise doing — the game is a port of D&D and is heavily focused on battles.
At the same time, the story should not leave you indifferent — it does not shine with narrative delights a la Planescape Torment, but no less interesting. there is a lot of text here, and the feeling of "narrative impotence" does not arise throughout the entire narrative. At least it was interesting for me to replay the game and read the dialogues with the characters every few years, despite the fact that I remembered the main dialogues quite well. Although all this is individual, of course.
Summarizing: a lot can be said about the game. the game is multifaceted, but all this will result in a huge ocean of text, which is unlikely to be read by anyone here.
Why did I write all this? I wanted to express my commitment to the title, with which I have many wonderful memories from my childhood/early youth, and once again remember how wonderful it was. I played most of the time in the original BG 1/2, as well as in the BG Trilogy project, so please do not evaluate the amount of time spent according to steam statistics.
If you decide to dive into this story, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the guides for beginners, because. many things may not be clear at first sight. At a minimum, it's worth understanding what thac0 is and why a negative armor value is better than a positive one.
I definitely advise you to purchase both parts of the game, if you are a beginner and have never played BG, you are not afraid of "old school" and you want to immerse yourself in the world of interesting and rather complex game mechanics. If you are attracted by a fascinating plot and stories of the forgotten realms of the good old time-tested model!