Battle of Wyvernsword

I usually cite Baldur’s Gate 2 as my all-time favorite game. It’s a little hard to define exactly what that means. Was it the original story I played back in 2001? The heavily-modded versions I’ve played since then, which add their own variations to the original’s backbone? Am I giving it partial credit for the other games that followed in its wake, ushering in an era of character-centric narrative RPGs?

As with many experiences in life, it’s interesting to look back at it now across a span of MANY years and wonder how much of what I like is inherent in the thing itself; how much is due to my memories of the first time I played it (which is loosely but inextricably bound up with memories of college and young adulthood); and how much is due to the significance I’ve given it over the years (giving it credit for video-game romances, etc.). That’s part of why it’s such a gift to get to play something that’s of a piece with the original game, but still wholly original and surprising to me. I experienced that back when I played the Ascension mod for the first time, and experienced an even longer version of it over the last two weeks as I played Siege of Dragonspear.

 

SoD is a new expansion created by Beamdog, the company that created the EE versions of the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale games, which bridges the gap between the end of Baldur’s Gate and the start of Shadows of Amn. In their previous games, they have added new scenes and characters to the older games, weaving them into something new. In SoD, virtually everything is completely new: the entire main plot, all new maps, and major new NPCs.

What I was most surprised and gratified by, though, wasn’t the new: it was the old. Beamdog managed to hire back many of the original voice actors from the original games, playing their old characters in new situations. That means that, for the first time in 15 years, we have new dialogue from Minsc and Boo, Dynaheir (Jennifer Hale!), and many others who I will talk about in spoilerville down below. I never expected to get to spend more time with these characters, and felt surprisingly emotional at the extension of our journeys.

So, how is the game itself? As with every time before when I’ve returned to the Infinity Engine, it takes some time for me to re-acclimate to the old-school interface and design. Many of my biggest pet peeves are still around, and will forever be an inherent part of these games. Spending ages in inventory screens, shuffling around items, dodging encumbrance limits and trying to decide whether an item with THAC0+2 and +2 damage is better than one with THAC0+1 and +1D6 damage. Needing to guess in advance which spells will be useful for upcoming fights. Getting ambushed and wiped out, then reloading and buffing and floorstomping your opponents.

The latter especially stands out for SoD: for people who have replayed the originals so many times, we already know in advance what’s going to happen, and so don’t think much about the preparations we’re taking with our foreknowledge of the battles to come. SoD puts us back into the shoes we wore in 2000, and the same shoes that new players to those games need to wear. They can be frustrating shoes! AD&D 2nd edition is fairly notorious for its brittle difficulty, where mistakes get brutally punished and small setbacks snowball into large disasters. I’ll always love these games, but I have to concede that, if I hadn’t played them so long ago, I would almost certainly find them intolerable today.

Again, much of that trouble is inherent in the underlying mechanics and will never be able to be changed. However, Beamdog has done a fantastic job at updating the user interface and certain aspects of the ruleset, significantly improving quality of life. Here are some of my favorite upgrades; I think some of these may have been previously added to the EE versions, but at least some are brand-new for SoD (though my understanding is that they’re also being added to BGEE and BG2EE).

You can equip weapon sets! This is HUGE. That means a character can wield both a 2-handed sword, and a longsword plus a shield, and easily switch between the two in combat. Previously, you would need to unequip your shield to pick up a two-hander and vice versa, which in practice was such a pain that characters would exclusively stay in a single style even if they had the proficiency points available to switch it up.

Spells are still remembered even when you lose their slot! This almost drove me to quit back when I played BG2: if you suffer level drain, then are restored, you need to remember all of the spells you had memorized and manually add them back in, only to have them wiped back out again after the next vampire attack. Now, you still lose the slot, but not your spell selections; once you get your Lesser Restoration, you’ll immediately be back in business.

When you drag items around, party portraits highlight to indicate who can use the item. If they show up in yellow, it’s better than their current equipment; if it’s lit up, they can equip it but it’s equal to or worse than their current loadout; if it’s dim, they can’t equip it.

Active actions are shown on the party portraits. I think this might have been added before, but it was extremely useful in the bigger and more complex battles of SoD. You can see at a glance what ammunition people are using, whether they’re about to chug a potion, which spell they’re preparing; more importantly, you can see when they’ve finished doing what they’ve done and are ready for their next orders.

Several game mode options have been decoupled from difficulty settings. I prefer playing on Core Rules, but will totally abuse save and reload to get the HP I want on level-up. Now, “Max HP on Level Up” is a separate setting that you can toggle in Options, independently of the overall difficulty settings. Hooray! (Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent toggle for “Spell scribing always succeeds”, which is the one remaining case where I still abuse save/reload.)

The NPC AI scripts are much improved. They aren’t as detailed as the Tactics slots in Origins and Dragon Age 2, but are much better than the stock “Archer”, “Defender”, etc. options. You can now toggle individual abilities on and off depending on the character’s needs. For most of my companions, I leave selected “Attack nearest enemy”; this is nice since, once an enemy dies, party members will automatically select a new target without me needing to select them. However, I’ve disabled this for my cleric, since she sometimes needs to keep Turn Undead active. The nicest thing might be the way that Detect Traps automatically turns on as soon as my thief exits combat.

Changes in combat stats are now surfaced early on when comparing equipment. Instead of putting on the new item, than flipping over to the Character Record to see what happened, you can now easily see the delta in your THAC0, damage per hit, etc. right on the inventory screen.

I’m sure there are a lot more that I’m overlooking. These are all great updates, and make the game more usable and enjoyable than ever before. Ever since the old Ease of Use mod first allowed arrows to stack up to 80 per slot, players have been looking for ways to make the game more playable without affecting its underlying difficulty, and the latest EE updates feel like a culmination to those enhancements.

Let’s see… before I get into semi-spoilery plot stuff, here are a few mechanical notes that may be of interest to players, especially munchkins. No spoilers here, but you still may want to skip if you want to be completely surprised.

You can either create a new character in SoD, or import a save from BG1EE. If you create a new character, you’ll start off at a decent XP level and receive an initial party based on your alignment. If you import, you’ll get your PC and everyone who was in your party in your save.

In my case, I imported my post-game save from the end of BG1; in that game, two of my party members died in the final battle. They imported correctly, but since they had dropped all of their gear when they died, they arrived without any equipment. It wasn’t a huge deal, since I was able to re-equip them in the tutorial dungeon; but if I had to do it over again, I probably would have just imported the save BEFORE the final battle and kept their gear. As far as I can tell, the game doesn’t import any plot flags (other than maybe the BG1EE NPC quests), so there isn’t any particular significance to selecting the post-game save.

After the tutorial dungeon is complete, your party will leave you. Some of the party members can rejoin later, in which case they will keep all of their equipment and have the same items when they come back. Everything in their inventory gets dumped into a common storage chest, which is accessible throughout the rest of the game, so you don’t need to worry about handing everything to your PC prior to exiting the dungeon. However, I think that equipment which people are WEARING will go with them; so if there are any enchanted items that you especially want, you should strip them off before ending the intro. (You get plenty of advance notice before this happens.)

And, final mechanical note to super-munchkins: you lose all of your gold after the tutorial dungeon, so feel free to stock up on any healing or stuff you want.

Okay! Let’s get into the story!

MINI SPOILERS

The overall game design also feels like a bridge between BG1 and BG2. You tend to progress linearly through chapters, gaining access to new areas and losing access to older ones, just like in BG2. However, individual map exploration feels a lot more like in BG1. There are large areas of wilderness to explore, lots of random quests scattered around, plenty of stuff to find and plenty of stuff to miss. There’s a meta-plot driving you forwards, but I spent a majority of my time on (fun) side-quests.

They do a good job at making your character feel powerful and significant; honestly much better than the big reset button at the start of Shadows of Amn. Crowds gather to cheer you as you leave the city, powerful nobles courteously ask your opinion, military leaders look to you for direction. There’s still good narrative justification for you heading into the wilderness with your party - you hold no official rank, you’re just an incredibly powerful individual who people want on their side.

I’d mentioned before that they bring back many of the original voice actors for the NPCs. There aren’t as many available party members as for BG1, but I think the overall selection is better: less redundancy (seven thieves?!), while still offering choice for each major party role and much more content for each individual. People become available throughout the game, with narratively-distinct reasons for joining. My final party was:

Raenir: My Cavalier PC. She specializes in two-handed swords. She’s Lawful Good, but as I’ll address below, she gained some additional nuances and layers throughout the story.

Corwin: Human archer, and a new NPC. She’s a member of, uh, either the city guard or the Flaming Fist, I forget which. Her bare stats are mediocre, but with the proper equipment she’s an absolute beast on the field.

M’Khiin: Goblin shaman, a new NPC and new class for SoD. Shamans are to druids what sorcerers are to mages: they don’t need to memorize individual spells. She has a fantastic personality, with a mixture of resignation and stubbornness and taciturnity that I absolutely love.

Viconia: Drow priestess, fortunately much closer to her BG2 persona than her minimal BG1 presentation. In BG2 she can become a decent frontline fighter; in SoD she’s still squishy enough that I kept her on the back line, but she’s still very useful and has a compelling story.

Safana: Human thief. Not really my favorite, but one of the few thieves available in the expansion. She’s a decent archer and has good thief skills, but otherwise isn’t too remarkable.

Neera: Human wild mage. The last addition to my party, she was added in BG1 as a new NPC and has her story extended here. Not as strong as a PC-designed arcane caster would be, but still extremely useful to have around. I already liked her in BG1, and I think she’s even better here, with terrific dialogue and voice acting.

Other people I had in my party at various times include:

Minsc! Human “ranger” who plays like a berserker. One of the most beloved NPCs of all time, and a true joy to have back.

Dynaheir: Human Invoker, voiced by the terrific Jennifer Hale. A solid all-around spellcaster; I kept her around until picking up Neera later in the game.

Jaheira: Half-elven fighter/druid. The longest-serving companion in the BG franchise, she has a notoriously prickly personality and a complex, fully-developed personal arc. She’s extremely useful and I would have loved to keep her if I had one more slot, but I eventually and reluctantly dropped her so I could fit in the new NPCs.

And some others who I ran across but never traveled with:

Khalid: Half-elven fighter. As usual, a nervous but very decent man, who in SoD gets thrust into a new position of responsibility.

Rasaad: Human monk. Another new NPC from BG1EE. I enjoyed his quest in the earlier game, but, well, no room this time around, especially for a squishy melee fighter.

Dorn: Half-orc blackguard. The final new NPC from BG1EE. I actually wanted to get rid of him, but missed the earlier dialogue choice to tell him to get lost, and so he hung out at camp and glowered.

Edwin: Human conjurer. One day I’ll play an evil party! Maybe!

Baeloth: Drow Sorcerer. Apparently he’s a returning character, although I don’t remember meeting him in BG1.

Glint Gardnersonson: Gnome thief/cleric. Interesting multiclass! I actually really liked the little I heard from him, and will likely pick him up if and when I replay the game.

Voghlin: Human skald. When we first met, he was like “Hey, you saucy wench!” and I was like NOPE! Apparently he’s actually a good character, but I wasn’t inclined to give him a chance.

There are a bunch more cameos and such from older NPCs. Imoen doesn’t journey with you after the opening dungeon, but is a major part of the story, as is Skie. Tiax gets a great, if much shorter (heh), cameo. And there’s one particular returning voice actor who just FLOORED me. I'll avoid spoiling it, even though it's revealed early on.

The new voice actors are really good. My favorite is definitely M’Khiin, followed closely by Caelar Argent. I wasn’t initially a fan of Corwin’s voice, but it really grew on me and I ended up loving it. Weirdly, the weakest voice of the entire cast belongs to the final boss, even though he/it is supposed to be the most powerful of all the characters. I suspect that they had intended to put a filter on it but neglected to do so.

Overall build strategy for party composition and loadouts will be very intuitive for anyone who has played the other games. Missile weapons are still very useful, as they were in BG1; as you may have noted, my final party consisted of a single melee fighter and a whopping five ranged fighters; it isn’t ideal, but worked perfectly fine for most fights. Turn Undead comes in very handy on a couple of maps. Having a thief is very handy. Traps tend to be clustered in logical places, so if you find yourself thinking “There might be traps here”, you’re probably right and should focus on scouting. That said, many traps can be stepped around, so you could probably survive with a Detect Traps spell and occasional tanking.

There are quite a few battles against large numbers of enemies with low HP, so having AOE options comes in very useful; I still had some Wands of Fire left over from BG1, and picked up a couple more throughout this game, and used them fairly liberally as the situation demanded. You finally get the Raise Dead spell at the new XP levels available in SoD; before that, don’t forget (as I did) that you can get Scrolls of Resurrection for pretty cheap; there’s no Rod of Resurrection, sadly, so you should probably have at least two divine casters available for post-battle raising. Must-buys for me included the Bag of Holding and lots of +2 ammo and fire arrows. Pretty much everything else can be found through drops. I thought the money curve was handled really well. I only bothered looting and selling magical equipment (including precious stones but excluding un-enchanted weapons and armor); I kept a close eye on my money for the first couple of chapters, but felt free to spend recklessly nearer the end, and finished the game with well over 100,000 pieces of gold.

There’s a lot of nice equipment that you can pick up. Here are a handful of highlights; this is just based off of what I had equipped on my party near the end, I remember selling a lot of other great stuff that we couldn’t use.

• The Sword of Ruin: +2 THAC0, adds 50% or 100% to your crit chance, deals an extra 1D6 on a crit.
• Sundermaul. +3 Warhammer, 15% chance of inflicting -1 AC on the target... but wielder has a 2% risk of triggering a quake centered on themself.
• Daeros’s Full Plate: Ridiculously low AC, plus an extra 40% fire resistance and bonuses to Breath saving throws. 
• Ring of Wizardry: Doubles the number of first-level arcane spells you can memorize. This stacks with Evermemory, with a multiplicative effect! You now have more Identify and Magic Missile spells than you’ll ever need!
• Cloak of Minor Arcana: +1 to caster level for mages.
• There are a lot of pieces that give boosts to stats (like +1 to WIS, +1 to CON, etc.). Other than strength belts and one or two dex items, I don’t remember seeing many other attribute-boosting items before.
• There are quite a few items that can be worn by many classes, but have additional bonuses for a specific kit. For example, Stalker Gauntlets give a boost to everyone, but also increase a Stalker's backstab multiplier.
• Many items that are unique to particular characters; especially M’Khiin (which makes sense, given goblin physiology), but Corwin also has several.
• Multiple summoning items: no longer just monsters, but also ankhegs and stone golems and more! I often forgot I had these, and they turned the tide whenever I deployed them.

Let’s talk about plot now!

MEGA SPOILERS

I’ve been playing as a Lawful Good paladin. For the most part, this had made things very simple from a role-playing perspective: never lie, never cut deals with evil forces, always do good, and always uphold the law when it does not interfere with the above. This bypasses the moral judgment I usually struggle with when playing my more typical Neutral Good alignment, which can sometimes make things a little boring.

In Siege of Dragonspear, though, I found myself periodically questioning myself in-character, even from the Lawful Good angle, which made things much more interesting. One early example: the crusaders (your putative enemies) have seized control of a bridge that you need to cross, and have laid siege to an adjacent fort that has some of your sympathetic forces trapped inside (led by Khalid). The defenders are outnumbered, but now that you have arrived with the Flaming Fist, you have a chance at breaking the siege.

After I finally gained access to the fort, I talked to everyone, and was surprised to see multiple lines of dialogue that dealt with the possibility of surrender. I was reassured that surrender would not be a disaster: they could destroy the supplies before exiting, which would deprive Caelar’s forces of their primary goal. I made sure to disavow any chance of surrender: I was a holy warrior, fearless in the face of adversity, and would defeat the enemies no matter what.

But… as the time for a decision grew nearer, I found myself second-guessing my course. Yes, I could fight off Caelar’s forces, but what would be the gain? This was not our main objective; we only needed to secure crossing, and then would immediately proceed to Dragonspear. Caelar’s army was my enemy, but the more I learned about them, the more convinced I became that they weren’t “evil”. They were misguided, and had caused a great deal of harm, but were ultimately fighting in the service of what they believed to be the greater good.

And, furthermore, what would the cost be? I was confident in my own ability to survive, thanks to my mastery of the meta-spells of Save and Reload. But the defenders were another story. If I negotiated a surrender, they would all join the coalition army and be of use in the final battle. If we fought, then many of them would die, and for what? My pride, I realized. There was no strategic reason for this battle, and no moral reason, so its only purpose would be to prove my own power. Not the best reason in the best of circumstances, and definitely not the best reason for a child of Bhaal, the God of Murder.

So, I was astonished to find myself doing the thing I was so certain I would not, and negotiating a surrender of Bridgefort. Much like the British soldiers in Last of the Mohicans, we marched off, holding our weapons and carrying our colors with pride. It was a supremely satisfying moment.

The next point where I questioned my actions came during the titular Siege of Dragonspear. The plot requires you to plant some explosives underneath the castle walls (the wonderfully-named Barrel of BWOOSH!). There’s an optional additional objective: to poison the defenders’ supplies. I instantly turned down that mission, and didn’t really second-guess it. But, once I reached the castle, I started to wonder just how far I should go.

As a Paladin, I made it a point to say “Hi, I’m Raenir!” whenever I met someone, even if they were a Crusader. Most of the peons aren’t too aware of larger issues, and won’t turn hostile. Later on, I saved some crusaders who were afflicted by a fungal infection, and in return I received a crest that identified me as a crusader myself.

This, then, posed a quandary. By presenting the crest, I could gain peaceful access to the castle basement. This would allow me to carry out virtuous missions (freeing a captured ogre, rescuing hostages, etc.), without causing additional loss of life. However, it would mean mis-representing who I was. What’s a Lawful Good paladin to do?

I ended up turning into a scrupulous lawyer. I avoided lying outright, while also allowing others to make erroneous assumptions about my identity. This allowed me further access to carry out my work. I’m somewhat happy with this, while still feeling conflicted; it felt a bit like “the ends justify the means,” which is not the most Lawful Good policy, and also felt dangerously similar to Caelar’s rhetoric. I got as far as I could without bloodshed, then reloaded to the point just before and headed back to camp. (In addition to my moral qualms, I also had practical considerations: the whole purpose of this venture was to secretly plant a bomb, and if the Crusaders discovered that the Hero of Baldur’s Gate had popped up in their basement, surely they would have searched my route of entrance and discovered the explosive?)

This stuff was good for roleplaying; I’m looking forward to playing again as a Chaotic (or at least Neutral) alignment, since it seems like there are a lot of opportunities for espionage and manipulation and backstabbing and such. There are some trees where you’re allowed to cut deals with enemies, only to turn around and trick them. That stuff is really fun, and will make for a nice change of pace on my next replay.

Roleplaying decisions are good on their own, and I was happy to see that it seems to have some ultimate impact on the end of the game. One of the very last scenes sees you put on trial for a crime, and in your defense you can cite instances of your moral character. It felt great to be able to say “Hey, I didn’t poison that stuff, even when YOUR commander asked me to! Poison is a murderer’s tool, and I’m no murderer!”

I’m a little unclear on exactly what impact the trial has, but looking back at it, I suspect that it affects the circumstances of your departure from Baldur’s Gate. As it was, the Grand Dukes banished me from the city, but I was allowed to leave with my own equipment; I imagine that, if you “fail” the trial, you instead escape from prison (perhaps with the assistance of the same sympathetic guard, perhaps with Imoen).

And, as a sidebar, it was a little funny/weird/odd to see that transition into Shadows of Amn, since both Minsc and Khalid had died in this game. So we were just a foursome heading out, but I’m pretty sure that this will not carry over to the start of BG2. Anyways, that’s definitely not a new problem, just interesting to see it again.

The plot of the game as a whole was really enjoyable. I found myself frequently thinking of Mask of the Betrayer, one of my favorite RPGs; there are many similarities between Kaelyn the Dove and Caelar Argent, and Caelar’s crusade to rescue the unjust dead of the Dragonspear Wars reminded me of Kaelyn’s crusade against the Wall of the Faithless. The final assault on Avernus kind of reminded me of the climax to Hordes of the Underdark, the final expansion to the original Neverwinter Nights.

Some of the specific plot developments didn't make a lot of sense to me. I particularly had trouble understanding the tactical situation at Dragonspear. Caelar's forces are under "siege" by, apparently, 450 soldiers, until your additional 100 soldiers swell the ranks to 550. When negotiations fail, SHE attacks YOUR camp. You beat her back, and then assault the castle. I mean... I guess it may make a slight amount of sense if her main goal is to capture you, but since you're going to attack her anyways, why on earth would she not just wait for your assault? And if she really just wants to capture you, why not send some spies/assassins to do the work instead of foot soldiers? This would all make more sense if you had chosen to poison her supplies, since that would put more time pressure on her plans, but as it stood in my game it seemed like a rare illogical development.

My biggest disappointment in the game was the romance, or more specifically, my lack of one. I’d deliberately avoided researching available options, which ended up thwarting my ability to pursue one… I didn’t recruit Corwin until Chapter 9, and temporarily kicked her out of my party while shuffling members, which may have broken the kickoff. Alternately, it MIGHT have been because I imported a character who had used the “Neera Expansion” mod to romance Neera in BG:EE; that romance didn’t continue either, so I’m guessing that it re-checks your eligibility instead of just relying on the romance flag.

As is usually the case, I ended up fiddling around in CLUAConsole and save game editors to try and get things back on track, but this time around did not have luck, mostly because the expansion is so new and there isn’t much info out there yet about how the new romances work. I’ll probably come back to this in a couple of months to reload my old saves and cheat my way back into one. My tentative plan is to look for an updated Neera mod so Raenir can continue that romance. Beamdog has indicated that, if SoD does really well, they may make updates to BG2EE to continue some of the new companions’ storylines as well; if they bring Corwin forward, I’ll probably start a fresh character at the start of SoD and then do a Corwin romance through SoD, SoA and ToB.

All right, there’s a ton more to say but I’ll do it in my album as usual. In the meantime, some summing-up:

THE GOOD

Significant UI/UX improvements. It’s still the same fundamental game, just with a lot of unnecessary annoyances removed.

Fantastic voice acting across the board.

New stories with beloved old characters.

Strong tactical challenges.

Varied combat, including major fights alongside allied factions and against enemy armies.

Gorgeous maps.

Decent money curve.

Terrific music! (Composed by Sam Hulick, the same guy who created the Mass Effect score! This is seriously some of the best fantasty music I’ve heard.)

Player choice. There are the expected “good or evil” choices we’re used to in this series, and also some good nuanced options for reaching your goals.

New goodies. The Shaman class is a great addition (one I’d be tempted to pick for a new PC thanks to the ease of casting), and the new items are useful without feeling ridiculously overpowered.

Sense of humor. It feels like Baldur’s Gate always has: against the macabre and dark backdrop, there’s a lot of silliness and terrific quips. Neera’s banter in particular stands out, as does CHARNAME’s dialogue options.

NPCs. Again, it feels like Baldur’s Gate. It’s not as nuanced as, say, Dragon Age, but these are still interesting people with unique backgrounds and unique perspectives on the world, who can be fun to love or to hate.

THE MEDIOCRE

Some bugs. I only ran into one that really affected me, where Khalid died during the magical attack on the fort. Apparently that’s already been fixed in a new patch, and I was able to CLUAConsole my way back on track without too much trouble.

Graphics. The new environments look gorgeous, and animations are still attractive, but the character sprites look increasingly dated.

THE BAD

Inherited game quirks. We still need to live with encumbrances, spell memorization, and other things that felt fine back in 2000 but seem archaic now.

Pathfinding is still awful. Get used to watching the party member with Boots of Speed eternally bumping into the person in front of them.

Difficulty. This is probably my own fault for playing on Core Rules without reading any guides, but there are massive difficulty spikes at a few points. I’ll be able to prepare for them in the future, but it annoys me when games require foreknowledge. (Again, this is more of an inherent issue with BG that I’m freshly reminded of.)

END SPOILERS

This was a lot of fun! I wasn’t necessarily expecting to pick this up so soon; my standard MO for new RPGs is to wait a few months for the initial round of patches to come out and the most essential mods to be created before picking it up. Given the ridiculous harassment that this game has received, though, I wanted to show my support for people carrying the torch, and am glad I did. For all my frustrations about the romance, I’m really glad that I went into this cold with no expectations of the plot or characters. I haven’t experienced a “new” Baldur’s Gate in 15 years, and I’ll treasure the memories of this new journey.

As is my wont, I have assembled an album of only the finest screenshots from my playthrough of this game. It is approximately 180 photos long. A majority of those photos were selected due to the text in the dialogue, which is small to begin with and rendered unreadable when viewed on the web: for this I apologize. The vast majority of photos are annotated with my pedantic, rambling thoughts about the game. So, uh… enjoy!

Enhanced... enhanced... enhanced...

My most recent run through Baldur's Gate was by far my fastest yet. It wasn't specifically a speed run, or a solo challenge, or anything like that. However, with so many games on my immediate docket, and the relative familiarity of the game's rhythms, I felt comfortable bypassing my usual OCD approach to completing every single sidequest in an RPG, and instead focused on exploring the new content available in the Enhanced Edition and other aspects of the game that I hadn't previously experienced.

To be honest, I'd kind of resisted starting this game for a while. This is largely because I had just finished a replay merely two and a half years ago, so a lot of it was still very fresh in my mind. However, that has turned out fine, largely because the old game was a fresh enough memory for me to recall its old appearance, and recognize the improvements made with the enhanced edition.

Speaking of which, let's run down the good, bad, and same. The changes I liked best were:

• Zero effort to run on modern machines. A lot of what BGEE does was possible before, but it required spending a great deal of time reading online guides, downloading unofficial mods, and installing and troubleshooting patches. My recent plays of the classic game have required spending multiple hours before even starting the game to set them up, and some ongoing bugfixing throughout. That time saved alone makes BGEE's sticker price worthwhile to me.
• The journal is vastly improved, with related messages now grouped by quest, compared to the original's endless sprawl. This is nice at any time, and seems particularly useful for most non-obsessed gamers who might let quite some time pass between starting and finishing a quest. (It's worth noting that they don't seem to have updated any of the journal text, though, so you're still often left knowing that you need to turn in a quest but not knowing where you need to go to do it. By this point in my BG career I'm perfectly willing to run a Google search for fiddly things like this rather than tromp all over six maps looking for a particular NPC.)
• Redistributed items. Tutu also let you run BG1 with the BG2 engine, but that led to some oddities, like being able to pick weapon specializations that didn't really have any good weapons available until the second game. Almost all of your character creation choices will result in a viable game. (But, as I noticed to my chagrin, it still does not warn you if you pick a weapon specialization whose weapons require a higher STR than you rolled. More on that later.)
• Speaking of rolling: your pointroll total is now displayed during character creation! I'm not at all obsessed about this, and didn't spend a ton of time to get an optimal roll, but it was a really nice convenience to hit the particular minimums I wanted.
• The recreated movies were really nice. I've read some complaints about the art style, but honestly, the originals have aged very poorly, and I thought this was a great approach to communicating the same content in a much more palatable way.
• The new NPCs are great. I hardly used Dorn at all, but it seems like he would be a solid addition to an evil team. (Though I am a little curious why they didn't pick an evil thief, since that's a notorious gap in BG2's NPC roster, but they were probably reluctant to add yet another thief to BG1's already-overrepresented population.) Rasaad was pretty cool, maybe a bit more interesting mechanically than narratively, but still worth picking up. Neera is awesome, one of my favorite BG1 NPCs now and at the same level of quality that I associate with the superior offerings in BG2.
• The romance is nice. It has a bit of an arc, while still leaving plenty of time for further development in BG2. (Considering that all other romances start essentially from scratch in BG2, you wouldn't want this one to get too far ahead, but it still has a nice resolution.)
• There are a couple of new areas, which all are as good or better than fan-created areas. Some of them very nicely match the flavor of existing regions, making them seem like something that might have been created back for the original. One major new area has a really cool look that doesn't look like existing areas, but is a very plausible expansion to the world.

Changes I was rather indifferent to included:

• The new kits didn't do much for me, one way or another. The existence of kits at all was a neat innovation that's been around since BG2 and Tutu, but I wasn't terribly excited by the new ones they added like Dwarven Defender and Red Dragon Disciple (which seem to have backported from Neverwinter Nights). 
• The window experience, while improved from the original, are still pretty awkward. Playing in fullscreen was too blurry for me, so I needed to use a window. Unfortunately, scrolling in a window is really awkward; it's still mouse-based, but since your mouse isn't locked to the game screen, you have basically a 1-pixel zone to hover for scrolling. I ultimately ended up scrolling using the arrow keys on my keyboard, which worked but was annoying. I play a lot of strategy games in windowed mode, and this is the only one I've had trouble with; it would have been really nice to, for example, be able to drag the map by holding down both mouse buttons or the center button.

And, while I was overall very happy with the enhanced edition, in a few ways it did fall short of my last experience playing with Tutu and mods:

• Mod support in general is somewhat lackluster. Only a few seem to have maintainers actively supporting BGEE, and some of my favorite ones aren't fully supported for BGEE. In general, it seems like mods that affect gameplay by adding new weapons, monsters, items, etc. are fairly successful, while old quest and NPC mods have been lagging. I'm curious if this will continue. I kind of suspect that a lot of modders may prefer to prioritize their work for BG2EE, since that tends to be the more popular game.
• Specifically, I found myself really missing the Unfinished Business mod and the BG1 NPC Project. The former restored and fixed a bunch of incomplete or disabled quests that BioWare had written but cut from the final game. It was weird to find stuff like, say, Yeslick's rage towards the Iron Throne conspirators totally gone; I've grown so accustomed to beats like that that I have assumed they were always part of the game.
• Banter in the game felt very lacking. This is very true to the original game, which didn't have much banter at all, but I've grown accustomed to the chatty, involving NPCs of BG2 and the BG1 NPC Project, so it made me a bit sad to have such quiet followers. From what I've heard, Beamdog didn't have permission to modify existing NPCs, so they couldn't write their own banters; and they can't just take the mods that others have written and include them in their own. The one bright spot is banters with the new NPC followers, who chat with you about their history and life and feelings and stuff. However, these are strictly PC-on-NPC affairs, without  intra-party banter, my favorite kind of all. I think there was a single time that Rasaad said something like, "I must do what is right," and Ajantis interjected, "Yeah, you're awesome!" (note: not exact words), but that was pretty much it. I was a little surprised that they didn't even have inter-NPC banter among the new companions; I had Rasaad and Neera for virtually the entire game, and they never spoke to one another. (I should haste to point out that I totally sympathize with this. There are just so many NPCs in the first game that it would be a nightmare to try and write content for all possible pairings.)

My overall recommendation would be for folks to wait until there's a smidgen more mod content available, but absolutely to play with BGEE once they can. I don't think I'd ever be able to return to fiddling with Tutu after this, even with the vast amounts of content it offers.

Mechanical stuff out of the way, here's a fairly brief summary of how my last game went down. I don't think that Baldur's Gate needs spoilers after being out for fifteen years, but I suppose the Enhanced Edition additions qualify, so I'll treat those separately in a spoiler section waaaaay down below.

As is usually the case for any new RPG session I start, I spent a fair amount of time planning out my character long in advance of actually starting the game. My prior games had been with Cirion, a half-elf male Chaotic Good bard, and Sebrina, an elven Neutral Good sorceress. I keep claiming that I'll do an evil character, but I never do; particularly for these games, which last for so long, I don't like occupying that headspace. So, after some consultation with my brother, I landed on a new approach: playing as a Lawful Good paladin (human, natch). I've never played Lawful Good in any BioWare or Obsidian game, so it would be relatively new territory for me; I typically eschew fighter classes, with the notable exception of my recent outing as Toman Benton in NWN2; and I also tend to avoid humans (again, except for Toman Benton). Since my last long RPG was a somewhat similar character, I decided to mix things up a little and roll my paladin as a woman this time.

Rolling Raenir took a little effort, though she wasn't too fiddly. Paladins have really high minimum requirements, including a mechanically useless 17 CHA. As a frontline fighter and the one essential character on my team, I would need to max out my DEX and CON at 18 each. WIS could stay at its minimum of 13. Many people take INT as the dump stat, but I'd read that this can cause huge problems when fighting mindflayers in BG2 (each hit drains 5 INT, and going below 1 kills your character), so I knew I wanted at least 11 here. That left STR as the dump stat, which seems bizarre, but nobody uses their natural STR once you hit BG2 since you can find Belts that boost it much higher than you can naturally make it.

For my kit, I picked the Cavalier, a really fantastic subclass. You get a permanent resistance to acid and fire; are permanently immune to fear and charm; get many casts of a special ability to remove fear in companions (which is very useful in BG1 where low morale is often a problem and enemies love casting Fear); and are permanently immune to poison. Nice! Unlike many other paladin kits, you get to keep all of the standard Paladin abilities, including Turn Undead, Lay On Hands, and divine spellcasting at high levels. The only downside to the kit is an inability to use ranged weapons, and frankly that isn't a problem at all since your role is to be a melee tank. If you do want or need to use ranged weapons, there's even a workaround available: just take an Axe proficiency, and use throwing axes; these are ranged, but since they aren't in your missile slot, they aren't blocked. There's even a boomeranging axe if you're concerned about the weight.

The one thing I messed up on was my weapon. I picked Two Handed Swords with the long-term plan to wield Carsomyr in BG2. Of my initial 4 weapon skill points, I maxed out this skill completely, putting two dots into Two Handed Swords and another two dots into Two Handed Weapons. However! I had only taken the minimum 12 STR (again, with the idea of making this up with equipment), and had completely forgotten that two handed swords require a minimum 13 STR to wield! Aaaaaaa!

In retrospect, I probably just have just gone back and re-rolled, but I did kind of like the idea of having a sense of urgency to drive me through the game. I knew that I would need to reach Baldur's Gate in order to get the Gauntlets of Ogre Power that could boost me to 18/00 STR. Baldur's Gate isn't available until Chapter 5. Fortunately. I could describe the plot of BG1 in my sleep, and so I knew exactly what I would need to do to get there as quickly as possible. So, I semi-glumly started whacking bad guys with my quarterstaff while I built up my team and raced through the main plot.

This might be a good point to observe what's probably my favorite aspect of BG1: the exploration. BG1 would also be the last BioWare game to have actual exploration; everything from BG2 onwards has focused on creating hotspots that you quick-travel between. From what I hear, it sounds like Dragon Age: Inquisition will finally be bringing exploration back, and that makes me tremendously excited. Anyways, a typical game of BG will involve moving from map to map, gradually scouring the entire contents to remove the fog of war, reaching the endpoints to discover what lies beyond, and then continuing to explore the new territory you've opened up. That's still mechanically what I was doing, but I knew exactly where I needed to go, and so I completely skipped many of the wilderness areas, particularly in the early part of the game. (This isn't at all to say that these areas are boring or not worth doing; pretty much every place in the game has fun side-quests, interesting personalities, and/or valuable equipment. But, when you have a date with a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power, you learn to streamline your experience.)

Roleplaying Raenir was pretty fun. In some ways, it simplified and streamlined my gameplay. I remember how in my initial playthrough as a Chaotic Neutral Bard I attempted to pickpocket everyone in the entire game, up to and including Duke Eltan himself. As a matter of course I would also break into every house, rifle through barrels and drawers, amassing a petty fortune for myself on the way to saving the Sword Coast. Raenir was far too virtuous for that sort of nonsense, and never took anything from a non-hostile source. She also kept Imoen and Alora in line; among other things, this meant that they had a good in-character reason to focus entirely on skills like Find Traps. She was also very straightforward in her conversations: friendly, but blunt. She refused to ever disguise herself or pretend to be someone she wasn't; this meant that, for example, infiltrating the Iron Throne was a far more direct and straightforwardly violent affair.

While Raenir is Lawful Good, she certainly prioritizes the Good aspect over the Lawful. This meant that, for instance, in cases where a vanquished opponent yielded before her, she always spared their lives. This sometimes had negative repercussions, as with Mulahey in Nashkel, but generally worked out for the best. She had a way of shutting down her opponents early on when they would try to corrupt her, in contrast to Cirion or Sebrina who would try and play along to gain an advantage.

All in all, it was a fun new approach for me. I think I still prefer my "deceitful kleptomaniac with a heart of gold" archetype, but there's certainly room for variations like Raenir in my repertoire.

Besides changing up my character, I also wanted to roll with a different party this time around. Fortunately, even though this would be the third time I've played this game as a good character, there are still so many NPCs that I could make an almost completely new party this time around. I knew that I wanted Neera, so she was my one Neutral companion. Rasaad was the other new Beamdog companion I recruited. I'd been tempted to pick up Dorn as well, and had a brief encounter with him, but ultimately felt uncomfortable including such a clearly evil character in my party and so gently let him go.

Raenir was my main frontline fighter, but I also picked up Ajantis, another Lawful Good paladin. I'd run into him before, but had never had space in my party, so it was a nice change of pace to have someone new. Like many of my classic party members, he's a bit lacking in stats compared to canon party members (few people can match Minsc), but he was decent enough, and knowing the game as well as I do probably lets me get by with sub-optimal characters. Anyways, Ajantis has good strength and constitution, and was pretty effective as a co-tank. His one weak point is his DEX, but I eventually got some Gauntlets of Dexterity, after which he was nearly as effective as Raenir; considering his sword-and-shield style, he even had some advantages in absorbing damage.

Rasaad was a weird addition. I had to chat with Andrew a bit before figuring out the best way to use him. He's very quick, can get a high number of attacks, and has decent STR; but his CON is very low, and like all monks he can't use armor. I ended up moving him further back in my party formation so he wouldn't be targeted as often, then either had him join a fight late to start whaling on the bad guys, or else had him flank the enemy and strike their rear archers or spellcasters. He has very fast movement, which makes him very well suited for this sort of thing. You can get Rashad's Talon fairly early, which is a +2 Scimitar; Rasaad is better off with melee weapons over his fists in the early part of the game. By the time he reached level 6-7, his fists had gotten strong enough, plus he had extra hits, to make them superior; however, his fists aren't considered magic weapons until BG2, so you should still keep an enchanted weapon on hand for enemies that require it. The most important thing, though, was getting him Bracers of Armor. I tend to associate these with spellcasters, but they're hugely helpful in getting him a decent AC. I think that after a few levels in BG2, his natural AC will drop low enough that they can be discarded, but adding those bracers was the single most important factor for me in keeping him alive.

The cleric slot was the one part that was a repeat from last time around: Jaheira for a little bit in Chapter 1, then Branwen once I reached Nashkel, then finally trading to Yeslick in the Cloakwood Mines. I like clerics, and Yeslick is a great addition to a Good-aligned team. As noted above, though, I was a bit sad to see that much of Yeslick's dialogue was actually part of the mods I was used to playing with, so he didn't have a personal arc in this play-through.

Finally, the thief! This one is always tricky. Imoen is a no-brainer; she has the best stats of any thief, can (and arguably should) be dualed to mage, is with you from Level 1 and so can be customized as you desire, is totally loyal to you (will always rejoin regardless of your actions or reputation), and has a fun, upbeat personality. Still, I've always kept her through both parts of all my prior games, so I knew I wanted to try substituting her for one of the many sub-par thieves available. I eventually traded her in for Alora once I finally reached Baldur's Gate. Alora was really fun, though I doubt I'll pick her up on future games. Alora is a Good-aligned halfling thief. She's notable for having a natural 19 DEX, and she also has a very useful personal item that gives +2 to Luck (which means +2 to all rolls!) and bonuses to many thief skills. Most of her other stats are pretty bad, though, particularly her CON which makes her very squishy. For some reason she has skills in Two Weapon Fighting, but you'll definitely want to keep her far in the rear. Also, because you get her so late, she has spent her Thief Skills very poorly, dumping them into useless skills like Pick Pockets. I felt fine about using EE Keeper (the update to the venerable Shadowkeeper) to re-allocate her thief skills; I don't consider it cheating, since it's just doing what I would do if I could level her up myself. In terms of personality, Alora is absolutely a stereotypical D&D halfling, practically to the point of satire: relentlessly cheerful, smiling, encouraging, and upbeat. It would be grating to go through both games with her, but the period from Chapter 5 until the end of the game is a nice enough stay with her.

Oh, and speaking of potentially grating dialogue: whenever I revisit Baldur's Gate, I'm always re-surprised at just how corny some of the dialogue can be. There's a lot of jokey stuff in there like pop culture references, fourth-wall-breaking lines where they yell at you for clicking on them with the mouse, etc. Alora's selection prompts include the Ren & Stimpy line "Happy happy, joy joy, happy happy, joy joy!" and the classic folk song "Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now!" It's surprising the first time you hear it, funny the next few, then gradually grows more and more annoying. BioWare has clearly turned strongly away from this stuff in their recent games, to the point where Isabela's "I like big boats, I cannot lie" line stands out as the single bit of referential humor I can recall across both major Dragon Age titles.

But, the flip side is that I'm also surprised at how dark and macabre the story can be. I tend to think of Dragon Age and Mass Effect as the first "mature" BioWare games. I suppose that's technically true in terms of ratings, since the BG games and KOTOR were both rated "Teen" by ESRB, but they fit a surprising amount of blood and anguish into the story. Which is an interesting thought on its own; you can get away with much more violence in text than you can in video, as has long been apparent when comparing our restrictions on books to our restrictions on movies in American culture as a whole. Anyways, stuff like the dream of drowning in blood and the nightmarish slaughter below Candlekeep are fairly horrifying, even though they're communicated entirely in words.

Back to my game: I raced to the Nashkel mines, then immediately started exploring east of the Friendly Arms Inn to locate the base of the Chill mercenaries. There's a longish trek to the Cloakwood Mine, but I made sure to stop by the spider den to pick up Spider's Bane. Once I got this, I was delighted to find that, unlike all other two-handed swords, this one only required a STR of 9 rather than 13, so I could actually wield it! I suspect that this may have been so non-fighter characters would have a higher chance of taking advantage of its unique Freedom ability, but hey, I'll take it. I immediately noticed a huge improvement in my entire team's effectiveness, now that Raenir was hitting at full strength, in addition to her ability to crit 10% of the time.

With this sword in hand, reaching Baldur's Gate was less urgent, but I was still far enough along that I decided to press forwards. On the whole, I was really surprised by just how effective I could be with almost no breaks for leveling. I think I needed to reload twice in my fight against Mulahey at Nashkel, and thrice in one of the fights soon after where we were ambushed by Iron Throne assassins, but otherwise it was very smooth sailing practically until the end of the game. This is mostly because I know the encounters well enough to go into them with solid strategies from the start, but I think it's also due to the nature of XP gain and leveling in the game. Gaining a new level usually requires roughly twice as much XP as the level before, so almost all characters will end the game with about the same amount, regardless of how much grinding they do. I finished the game with shockingly low XP, somewhere between 75-80k; however, this took me to Level 7, and going all the way to the level cap of 161k XP would only have gained me a single additional level.

I also had ample opportunity to consider the sources of XP. BG seems somewhat unique in its strategy for gaining significant XP to advance. In typical grindy games like classic Final Fantasy games, the most important factor is the sheer number of battles you do: quickly fighting a large number of moderate enemies is the best way to level up. In many modern RPGs and MMOs, XP rewards tend to be more quest-oriented: your best way to quickly level up is to accept and complete as many side quests as you can. Both of these approaches are pretty poor in BG1. Many common weak enemies like gnolls and xvarts give 35 or fewer XP, so even a swarm of 10 will only give ~350 XP. Sidequests are also not particularly lucrative; it's common for a quest to require visiting multiple maps, slaying enemies, completing conversations, searching for an item, and returning to the quest giver, only to end up with ~750 XP. Instead, the best way to gain XP is by focusing on a few high-level enemies. For example, spiders are relatively easy to kill, and can give 1400 or 2000 XP for a single enemy. So, the bulk of your XP ends up coming from fights against significant enemies, and this is by far the most time-efficient way to quickly level.

Once in Baldur's Gate, I quickly grabbed the Gauntlets of Ogre Power; even though I would keep wielding Spider's Bane, I still wanted the STR to increase my THAC0 and damage; plus it was nice to FINALLY have a single party member with a high enough encumbrance to handle the absurdly high number of dead corpses you're required to lug around for various quests. After securing the gauntlets and recruiting Alora, I could finally relax a bit, and set about doing the optional quests on my agenda.

By this point, I'd crunched the numbers and figured out that I didn't need to do all the side-quests, so I could just focus on the ones that I remembered as being most fun. Since you lose all your equipment at the start of BG2, and I already had the most critical gear to finish the game, the only stuff that actually felt important to building my character was acquiring the various Manuals and Tomes that boost your stats. These are scattered around, but by Chapter 5 you can get all but two of them, so I did. The important effects here were boosting my CON and DEX to 19, which pretty much made me the Ultimate Tank; after this point I would gain 15 HP on each level up, and would end the game with 105 HP at just Level 7. The DEX gave me a straight -4 to AC, and as a paladin I can wear any armor, which means that despite foregoing a shield I could tank pretty effectively with a final AC of -5. Boosts to WIS and INT didn't really matter, and STR definitely doesn't matter (except for Irenicus's dungeon) since I'll be artificially setting that with belts in BG2. (I would have been very tempted to give the WIS and INT tomes to Neera, since she would be much better with an INT of 18, but I'd learned from my brother that Neera's stats don't transfer to BG2 and so it would essentially be wasted.) CHA wouldn't really matter that much, but having a natural 18 here does free up a ring slot in BG2 since I won't need to rely on the Ring of Human Influence.

It was a bit funny to look at the map and see all the places that I'd never even visited in my entire game: I never set foot in High Hedge, or the Firewine Bridge, or Gullykin, or Ulcaster. And these aren't boring places, either: I remember each of them having fun or funny quests, and decent rewards within the context of BG1. Their very existence is indicative of one of the things I love most about BG1: its extremely open ended and non-linear design. It's a bit of a truism that western RPGs tend to be less linear than their Japanese counterparts, but even by those traditionally relaxed standards, BG1 stands out for its lack of direction at the start of the game. Most games will typically start the plot with an immediate quest to start work on right away, and a glimpse at the end-game storyline. You don't really get either of those at the start of BG1: you're free to wander pretty much anywhere along the Sword Coast, just stumbling into various quests and adventures and building up a party along the way. The plot starts picking up steam after you visit the Nashkel Mines, but it's an incredibly organic thing that's driven by the world itself, with various rumor of tainted iron vaguely pointing in that direction but no artificial system pulling you there.

Along the same lines, I think that the plot for BG1 doesn't get the credit it deserves for being so unique. I love that the villains of the game aren't trying to conquer the world: they're a merchant cartel, trying to build a monopoly and manipulate politics in order to increase their profits. Sarevok obviously plays a large role, but I think he becomes more significant in the context of the plot arc in BG2/ToB; if you look at BG1's story strictly on its own, it's this really weird, fascinating, twisty plot that's mostly about greed, and even Sarevok's strange role as a demigod avatar of wrath can be viewed as a twist within that larger story (Rieltar was too driven by his ambition and greed to recognize the threat posed by his son, and the chaos he sought to sow for his own advantage ended up overwhelming him). Anyways, for all the complaints about major fantasy RPGs having formulaic plots, I think that BG1 really stands out as doing something different. (I might even go so far as to say that, strictly comparing one plot to another, BG1's is better than BG2's. What I love most about BG2 is the overall story, including much better developed characters and relationships. Its plot deserves praise as well, but hews much more closely to the traditional tropes of fantasy.)

All right, now let's talk about the new NPCs!

MEGA SPOILERS for Beamdog NPCs in Baldur's Gate 1

First up, Rasaad. He felt like a perfectly solid, though not extraordinary, character. His voice acting was good, and manages a convincing accent that doesn't come across as cheesy (which can't always be said for the original BioWare NPCs). His personal story felt a bit heavy on the "Let me tell you about the significant events of my past!" side of things, along with some relatively vague pseudo-philosophy around the Sun Soul Monks.

As you get to know him better, you start to dive into his past, particularly a painful childhood incident where his brother Gamaz was killed by Shadow Thieves. Rasaad is Lawful Good and generally serenely confident in his beliefs; Gamaz's death is a rare sore spot and an occasional source of doubt for him.

Rasaad's personal quest kicks off after you arrive in Baldur's Gate. They somehow managed to integrate nicely with the existing map, opening up a legacy building into a new space containing villainous Dark Moon Monks who are trying to kill Rasaad for some reason. This leads to discovery of a monastery they have captured in the Cloud Peaks, so off we went! (Most of the dialogue choices with Rasaad felt a bit ho-hum to me, but I did like this part, where you help to determine his motivations in pursuing his attackers. Is he seeking revenge? Justice? Closure?)

The actual monastery is the largest new area created for BGEE, and looks fantastic. It's a snowy mountain, which I'm guessing is somewhat familiar to people who have played the Icewind Dale games, but it's the first time I've seen something like it in an Infinity Engine game. Anyways, it looks cool and is very well designed, with snowy banks, tracks along heavily-traveled routes, and then "climbs" up a large number of "stairs" to reach the actual structure. It's a really nice way of evoking 3D space in a strongly 2D pre-rendered background. Passing through the monastery takes you to an outcropping at the very peak, which includes a very pretty and very unusual background showing the mountain range drifting off towards the horizon. It's a kind of perspective that's unique to the game, and is visually striking, while also being slightly awkward; since everything is still really a 2D background, the same fog of war rules apply to this background as a regular flat one, leading to some effects that don't look right. Regardless, it's still cool, and probably the best visual addition to BGEE.

(Oh: I guess those images don't directly link to the web album. It's there if you want to check it out; fortunately I was much more restrained this time around when it came to pressing F12.)

Rasaad's story has a bit of a twist: it turns out that Gamaz hadn't died after all, but was instead recruited by the Dark Moon Monks, the evil counter to his virtuous Sun Soul Monks. The monks surely held much of the blame, but Gamaz also was corrupted by his pride: Rasaad was always the better fighter, and Gamaz felt humiliated by the knowledge that Rasaad would secretly hold himself back and not commit to his sparring matches against Gamaz. Rasaad goes through some soul-searching during this segment and after Gamaz is defeated; I chose to buck him up, keep him on the virtuous path, to mourn Gamaz's death while remaining confident in his own righteousness. There were several other conversation options available that felt more like "turning him towards the dark side", and I'm curious what would have happened if I'd pursued that route: would he start to abandon his faith? Or just get mad at me? Either way, it was a nice arc; not my favorite storyline, but I think that's just due to my own personal tastes.

Next up, Neera! Neera was wonderful! She was a very well-realized party member, with a different play style and a super-interesting personality and background. The Wild Mage class has been around since classic BG2, but like the Monk class, we haven't had any NPCs in that mold before now. Wild Mages are a bit like Specialist mages since they get an extra spell at each level as soon as they unlock their first one, which means that for almost the entire game they have double the normal of their most powerful spells compared to a vanilla mage. Unlike specialist mages, they aren't locked out of any opposing schools, which makes it much more viable to run with a single mage in your party.

The most obvious impact of a Wild Mage, though, is the uncontrolled nature of their magic. Quite often, when you cast a spell, it will end up being cast at a level higher or lower than normal. This doesn't have any effect on spells with a flat impact like Armor, but can make a difference for spells like Magic Missile that increase (or decrease) in power with your level. Less often but more spectacularly, a Wild Surge can sometimes occur, which can have spectacular effects. In one of my climactic battles against the leaders of the Iron Throne at the end of Chapter 5, I had killed off two of their leaders and was struggling against the rest, when Neera attempted to cast Magic Missile and ended up healing everyone in the battle. Not my party: everyone. Anyways, stuff like that occasionally happens, sometimes good and sometimes bad, but it can force you to rethink your strategy on the fly to respond to the unexpected, which made fights more fun.

I suspect that wild magic will become more interesting and feasible in BG2. The tempting-but-dangerous hook of the class is the Reckless Dweomer, a Level 1 spell that lets you cast any spell in your book. Any spell. Any spell. Meteor, Time Stop, Summon Planetar... you name it. The catch, though, is that you always cause a Wild Surge. In BG1, the odds of successfully casting a spell seem so low that it isn't worth trying. However, higher levels increase the odds of a favorable outcome, and higher level spells like Improved Chaos Shield can also boost your chances. And, frankly, even if only 1/3 of your Level 1 spells were converted to Level 9 spells, that's still insanely powerful. So, in BG1 wild magic was mostly a flavorful burden to endure, but I can see it becoming a keystone for Neera's gameplay in the future.

There's a ton that I like about Neera's dialogue - she's funny, and independent, and engaging - but the thing that impresses me the most is probably how closely tied her character is to her conversation. She isn't just a bundle of stats connected to a set of lines; her identity as a wild mage is a single force that drives both her personality and her gameplay. So when she talks about how she's driven away friends in the past as a result of the disastrous spells she's cast, it's a touching character moment that's amplified by your memories of the times similar things have happened to you in your own battles. And her quest to find a mentor that will help her control her wild magic isn't just interesting for character-development purposes: it's a dream that you can totally buy into and see how it would benefit your entire team.

Neera also has a very well-designed romance. I felt just a tiny bit guilty about installing the Neera Expansion mod to allow my female PC to romance her; this is standard operating procedure for the straight-only original BioWare NPC romances in BG2, but Beamdog had included both straight and bi characters as romance options, meaning that Neera's straightness is an artistic decision. My greed won out over my guilt, though, and I was thoroughly pleased with the experience. The mod did a great job at slightly tweaking the romance dialogue to be gender-neutral; I think there's a single line where she says something like "Hey, mister!" but that was the only slightly jarring moment. Also, the mod adds flirts similar to the classic flirtpack, for which I've always had an irrational fondness.

Anyways. I'd been a bit curious about exactly how the romance would play out, given that she would also be an NPC in BG2 and would presumably have an arc there as well. It feels very natural here, maybe roughly equivalent to the first third or so of a romance arc in BG2. Like all the best conversations, these tend to drift into her background and outlook, not so much focusing on your immediate quest as exploring her as a human (er, half-elf! sorry!) being. She's funny and sharp-tongued; I initially started out being very earnest and encouraging of her, gradually shifting to a more playful and humorous approach as the relationship deepened. It can sometimes be a little hard when reading text to figure out whether a particular line is meant to be tongue-in-cheek or not, and I was occasionally unsure whether she was playing along with my jokes or reacting in horror. However, it certainly helps that Neera's voice actress is so terrific. She has a great tone, and done a fantastic job at selling her personality: young, impulsive, very aware of the difficulties she has caused in the past, to the point where she's become inured to them and has developed some effective emotional armor to protect herself.

Her personal quest was pretty good, though the graphics weren't as striking as Rasaad's, and completing it helps you feel like you're cementing your connection. Late in the game, you continue to learn more about her background, and at one point run across a dwarf who claims she stole money from him. (I feel lucky to have clicked on this guy; he's one of the only plot NPCs on the streets of Baldur's Gate who doesn't automatically initiate conversation with your party, and one of the only ones I specifically spoke to. I could easily have missed him, which might have locked out some of the later content from Neera.) She initially denies this, then admits to it, then says she was going to pay him back, then makes it pretty clear that she won't. There were a couple of options here; I chose to back her up, which started a fight with the dwarf. We killed him, which made me feel bad, and the journal entry made some very ominous comments that seem to imply Neera may attempt a similar betrayal on me in the future. I want to deny this - it feels like I've shown enough trust in her that she would be reluctant to abandon it - but it could certainly be effective foreshadowing for more twists and turns in her romance for BG2.

END SPOILERS

Finally, here's something I've barely been able to contain my glee over: an uber-cute drawing of Raenir and Neera!

This was created by the incredibly talented and friendly Choco-Minto. She's a fan of BioWare games, and has made a ton of particularly adorable Mass Effect doodles over the years. She recently accepted some fan commissions, and I was stoked to see her take on my character.

Phew... I think that's it! I have to say, I do really enjoy this less-comprehensive approach to replays of RPGs, and think I might do it more in the future. I'll probably hold off for a bit on BG2EE even though it's already installed; in the short term, I need to wrap up my NWN journey with Mask of the Betrayer, and I think I'll want to make sure that my favorite mods are in good shape before I embark on BG2EE. Still, curiosity about what happens with Neera is making me very motivated to continue the story, and I look forward to experiencing a fresh take on my all-time favorite game.