Just started playing this and honestly I'm underwhelmed.

>>379006653
yeah well what did you expect from such an old game?

>>379006653
video games don't age retard

First dungeon sucks. And you won't feel much attachment to your party members if you skipped the first game.

Make sure you have plenty of clerics/druids/mages, the combat is all about casting.

>>379006653
what did you expect?

it is an old school rpg. if that's not your cup of tea then why bother playing it in the first place?

>>379006653
it just have a very long period of learning, especially if you don't even have the physical guide from the past.
i played it back in 2011 along with the first bg1 and had no problem finishing both game.
you really got to read at least the digital game book to understand what you're doing.
i'll never get why people go in blind when they play old CRPG

>>379006750
I loved Planescape Torment and could deal with the jank there but BG2 feels even worse for some reason and the combat is just mind numbing.

>>379006823
I hated the first dungeon exactly because I played the first game. Grimdark out of fucking nowhere, and motherfucking canon party. It didn't even account for player alignment. How utterly retarded it is to force Minsc and Dynaheir on an evil Bhaalspawn?

Took me a while to warm up to it, but once you begin exploring Athkatla things get better.

>>379006750
>>379006958
Curious, does Baldurs gate 2 have a genuinely good/intriguing story?

or is it more of an epic save the world sort of story. i.e. like how skyrim is epic.

No, but you did

>>379006653
Not at all, it is excellent. If you havent played Bg1 or dnd second edition i suggest u read the guide online. I restarted bg1 atleast 5 times to get a grasp of everthing first. I must say that i also felt underwelmed at the start of bg2 and that was right after i finished the first game. The game is lots of fun if you give yourself the time to learn its mechanics.

If you dont understand something try to google it out. I havent read the physical guide myself but i found googling what i didnt understand really usefull. Like if u dont ubderatand thaco just google it or something. Just avoid any spoils or min/max tricks thats going to break the game for you.

Sorry for my english and have a blast

>>379007315
No, the writing is good, you meet fun character and party interactiins are godly, but the story itself is generic evil-dude-tries-to-achieve-godhood-gets-rekt-in-hell

>>379007617
Understand**

>>379006653
It aged pretty well, there's just nothing modern that really does what it does. PoE and Numenera both work off video game systems rather than modifying DnD to kind-of work in a video game, so they both feel very different from BG.

I loved BG1, but the amount of quests being inserted into my anus is kind of overwhelming me in this game.

>>379007315
>>379007681
It's a generic evil-mage-wants-power plot but the mage in question is really charismatic and entertaining thanks to the solid writing and phenominal VA.

dont go kensai mage

>>379006653
it's really nothing special

>>379007304
>force

you're not forced to speak to them at all. Imoen however is forced on you even if you dropped her in the start of the first game.

When you play on Hard it becomes a decent strategy game. I thought BG was a poor mix of combat/plot though so I play PS:T if I want immersive writing (seriously I could play that game a hundred times) or ID I-II if I want good combat (the design is much better in all ways).

should i play the original or enhanced edition?

>>379009298
That's not what I mean, Dynaheir for example is already dead. I just hate how the game treats that party set up as canon. Even if you have an evil PC they still all act like you've been leading a heroic party saving people left and right.

>>379009523
I agree it's badly handled but I don't remember the game bringing anything up if I simply ignored Minsc and Jaheria in their cages and pretended they weren't there. I was more annoyed about Imoen. I haven't played it in maybe 10 years though.

>>379007681
>>379008381
so basically, characters and writing is good.

but plot is, meh?

>>379009857
yeah

>>379007117
As someone who thinks PS:T was better I find it ridiculous how you find it less clunky than BG2. BG1 is slow as shit and I never really liked it much but BG2 is a fucking amazing game in terms of gameplay at least. It's not very well balanced but I found it really enjoyable to look for new characters or strategies to use + the banter between the party members is still very good.

The story is not overly interesting if you just dumb it down to one sentence but it has some nice moments and the possible endings in ToB are fairly memorable in my opinion.

Boat ride or underdark?

>>379011454
Don't remember too well but wasn't taking the underdark portal exactly the same as boat only you skip the fun shark people section? Either way you end up in the underdark.

Roleplay harder.

>>379011613
Yep. Taking the portal is a shortcut through the story, nothing else.

>>379011454
the portal means no cloak of laughing at magic or gloves of make monks good

Hold on, if the general consensus is that he story isn't very good, why is this considered one of the greatest games of all time?

>>379012923
The main quest is nothing mindblowing, but the side-quests are great. Think of it as an anthology of DnD short stories with some overarching plot.

>>379012923
because the writing and voice acting is fantastic and lets the characters rise above the mostly by-the-numbers plot

>>379012923
You can put it on an axis with combat on one end and story on the other. IWD is the one with best combat but has a very simple story and literally no character banter. Planescape Torment is the one that is 100% story oriented and it shows. BG is the middleground - it has good combat and ok main plot with a lot of interesting sidequests (a very big plus for BG2 is that it's very open and lets you do whatever the fuck you want in whatever order excluding a few things) and really good characters.

Even if the main plot is average, everything else BG2 does it does at least well and the story could be a lot worse. Irenicus, despite his very unoriginal motivation, is a very entertaining and charistmatic villain with 9/10 (still not Tony Jay) voice acting.

>>379006653
>tfw intelligent enough too realize that it's the player not the game that aged poorly

>>379009523
Before the godawful novels came out and made Abdel Adrian the canon bhaalspawn, the canon party was Neutral Good Human Male Fighter PC/Imoen/Jaheira/Khalid/Minsc/Dynaheir, as this is the setup which works for the story the best in BG1. It's always been a bit harder to be evil in BG, the rewards are generally inferior, and some scenarios are just awkward and don't work as well for an evil group.

>>379006653
Please be kind and direct me to a party-based RPG game with better encounters and boss battles.

>>379009485
Depends on how much you want to tinker around modding the original. If you can't be bothered with the extra effort, the EEs are decent substitutes, and most of the new content can be avoided, from what I understand.

>>379009857
While the story is meh, individual arcs and subplots can be great. One of the characters unwittingly becomes a girl (male):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6j-kbVKLk0

>>379017812
The fucking cutscenes though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIVsIEt4u5g

I especially love how halfway through Beamdog decided even janky slideshow animation was too hard for them after all, and simply cut like half of the cutscenes from the game.

You are supposed to play BG1 first

With BG2 and through ToB the main story is merely "ok" but it has some of the best dialogue between NPC and player and NPC to NPC.

It also does not coddle you. Doing BG2 without having done BG1 mean you have no understanding of what is going on or who all these people you meet are.

Why is Jaheria so torn about a random body found in the first dungeon? Without the back story it doesn't make sense. However if you had both of them in your party in the first game...you are a little more attached.

There has been no RPG since BG2 that has done as good a job with NPC, also the fact you could have a 6 man party meant for a lot more interaction.

I still use Bg2 as the standard by which RPGs are measured. Nothing in the last 15 years has really overwhelming topped it.

As for the combat, it was the first time I had to micromanage every part member actions, Dragon Age came close, but with only 4 party members it was not as hard. BG2 is a dungeon crawl and maybe in the modern game movement that turns many people off, but it when it came out it did everything it does well and people loved it.

My issue with it is finding a class that's fun to play. I know the game basically boils down to "throw as many mages as you can at it" but that just doesn't seem interesting to me.

>>379021069
Try Fighter/Mage or Fighter/Thief. Both are good combinations

>>379009857
No the plot isn't meh, it just isn't anything unique in the fantasy genre.

>>379021381

How badly does heavy armor affect the thief part? I may or may not have an armor fetish

>>379012923
The main story isn't bad, it just isn't anything amazing as it's main purpose is to move the characters into interesting locations and circumstances.

>>379021069
>I know the game basically boils down to "throw as many mages as you can at it"

That's for faggots who are powergaming. You can beat Baldur's Gate 2 with a party of 6 bards if that's what you want to play.

>>379021991
There are penalties to the thief skills if you attempt them in heavy armor. Usually you won't be using your thief abilities while in battle other than backstabbing, but that's what potions of invisibility are for.

>>379006653
it's a game with literally SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF GAMEPLAY you ADHD ridden 2002 born toddler fagglet.
What in the word of fuck did you expect the first hours to be, a Marvel capeshit rollercoaster ride?

>>379022774
>literally SEVERAL HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF GAMEPLAY

It's like 120 hours to 100% it. 50-80 hours if you don't do many side quests.