I’m continuing my replay of Baldur’s Gate 2, with the theme of this run being, “I mostly know what I’m doing this time”, playing on core rules difficulty instead of having to resign to story difficulty. I also didn’t realize how canon the expansion would be, so I skipped it last time before playing BG3. I also need to get back to Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Last I left off, I had just been…made…king…and started getting into those mechanics. Sometime this year, I’ll make it around to Zero Parades. I didn’t like Disco Elysium for the character writing, but a reviewer I trust told me in no uncertain terms that if that was my hangup with Disco, there’s a good chance it won’t be a problem for me here.
Unfortunately Throne of Bhaal is… not super great. It was originally intended to be a full third game, but had to be monstrously cut down and made into an expansion instead. There’s just so much cut content and so many missing threads to a lot of the content, so much railroading instead of actually giving options on how to do things. Main plot of it is kinda bad, the villain can’t hold a candle to Irenicus, it’s a bit of a grind with all the combat, overall it has a bit of a “slapped together” feel to it.
It does have its moments, but it pales in comparison with BG2 proper in my opinion. I think the people that enjoy it are power gamers who like playing around with High Level Abilities, or like the tactical challenges (especially with mods like Sword Coast Stratagems and Ascension).
Watcher’s Keep is a very cool dungeon though, that’s the best part of the expansion. And it’s nice to get some closure and companion epilogues, even though WOTC and Larian retconned a lot of those. But skipping it altogether and considering the end of Shadows of Amn to be the end of BG2 is honestly valid.
There’s at least one character in BG3 act 3 that was alive that shouldn’t be if the base game was where you stopped, and I found out that was in the expansion. There’s another that I see a lot of people freaking out over how they were portrayed in BG3, seemingly specifically if you romanced that character in BG2, but so far in this run, that character’s representation in BG3 still makes sense to me.
Let’s agree to disagree with that one. BG2 Viconia is a complicated and traumatised character, not a one-note cartoon villain. I don’t particularly see the throughline. And her whole romance arc, especially in ToB is that she’s capable of change.
Well, we’ll see how I feel after Throne of Bhaal, but she sure spends a lot of the base game being that character, and she worships a cartoon villain of a goddess.
Been meaning to try Pathfinder: Kingmaker (reviews seem like I would enjoy it), but again, so little time and such huge backlogs…
I have mixed feelings about Kingmaker tbh. Some parts of it I really liked, some parts I kind of hated. The encounter design towards the end of the game especially is very questionable and reduced my enjoyment a lot. The kingdom management can also be hit and miss at times. There is a very cool story arc in the middle of the game though with its own semi-standalone tie-in DLC that I absolutely loved.
But most of all I think the game is just way too long. Part of it is that I’m a slow player and like fiddling around a lot with builds and stuff. But still, my first (and only) playthrough of the game + DLC was about 200h. That’s just too much.
I haven’t played a CRPG in quite a bit, but I did snag Roadwarden on the summer sale and install it. Might play it after I’m done with Road 96. Or I might play The Drifter first. But it’s in the pipeline.
I also grabbed Citizen Sleeper for free on Epic so might finally dig in to that one this summer.
Roadwarden and Citizen Sleeper are both top tier games! These kind of productions are why I love video games.
Road 96 is on my backlog (unfortunately it’s been their for a while).
I’m enjoying Road 96, but partly because it was just the right vibe and style of game for me at the moment. Road trip vibes, pretty mellow, not too stressful and not mechanically challenging.
I do kind of wish it was just… better. It’s a really cool concept for a game and it has some great ideas, and it’s occasionally funny and charming, but it’s not always super well written and the voice acting could definitely be better. The recording quality isn’t amazing either.
Still worth playing though if you already own it, or for a couple of bucks like in my case. It’s not a huge investment time-wise either.
The concept was why I picked it up, I am big on “non standard” game design stuff, genre fusions and so on. I feel I got my money’s worth with such purchases and in many cases I got hooked (finished Citizen Sleeper in two long sessions).
But Aether and Iron is definitely my next new game to play. Not trying anything else (but I do need to start it before Nivalis Nights releases later in the summer).
So many games, so little time. :)
I’ve honestly not had much time for gaming these last few months due to work and some other personal responsibilities.
I am hoping to continue my run of Colony Ship and start Aether & Iron; a game that I am really looking forward to playing.
I’ve also been meaning to finish the UnderRail DLCs.
