/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5197135]

What's your opinion of Throne of Bhaal?

After the frantic criss-crossing of quests in SoA I initially enjoyed the linear dungeon crawling, but eventually got tired of one boss fight after another and no town or village locations to just dick around in. The art wasn't as good as BG2, either.

The Viconia romance is epic though

[Anonymous No.5197156]

Beamdog is guilty of a number of different crimes. Here are the major ones.

1. The Enhanced Editions are herp dee derp ung derpa ding derp a berp la derp herp derp derp herp herp derp herp herp and derp.

2. The games didn't derp ahperp palaperp derp sherp perp derp herp derp merhp herp derp herp hurr durr herr.

3. The infamous 600+ derp derp herp derp derp durr dunkaderpadeedoordeedoodaperdeerreeedepeereenoderp durr hurr durr herp herpa herp

4. This is where we get to herp durr hurr durr herp herpa herp aherp durr hurr durr herp herpa herp durr hurr durr herp herpa herp derp durr durr hurr durr herp herpa herp herpa derp durr herp derp.

5. Siege of motherfucking Dragonspear.

[Anonymous No.5197201]

>>5197156
You. I like you.

[Anonymous No.5197245]

>>5197135
>What's your opinion of Throne of Bhaal?
It's a good ending to the saga and is primarily tailored for fans of combat. The definitive way to enjoy it nowadays is with the Ascension mod, though, because it includes the lead writer's (David Gaider, before he became a keyboard warrior) personal fixes to the plot that make it more interesting, and also includes much more tactically interesting combat so the first member of the Final Five isn't a literal tutorial that you shouldn't need at this point. With Ascension, the final confrontation truly feels epic.

[Anonymous No.5197257]

>>5197156

c r i n g e

[Anonymous No.5197296]

>>5197135
I agree with you completely. High-end D&D combat just isn’t that good IMO. There’s really nothing to look forward to progression-wise anymore, just another insane spell or HLA as you cruise from one empty encounter to the next. Can’t relax anywhere because there’s just fireballs coming down non-stop. The story and villain aren’t compelling like in SoA. I skip it most of the time and the 2 times I played ToB I felt no sense of accomplishment.

[Anonymous No.5197303]

>>5197135
It gave us Watcher's Keep, which is a good dungeon.

[Anonymous No.5197309]

Beamdog is a guilty of a number of different crimes. Here are the major ones.

1. The Enhanced Editions are essentially a collection of free mods that had existed for nearly twenty years. Beamdog gathered them all up, slapped "Enhanced Edition" on it and resold it as a new product. There's very very little in the Enhanced Editions that wasn't already out there, and most of it is stuff you don't want (like obnoxious character outlines).

2. The games didn't sell so well and the originals were still far outselling them, even twenty years after their release, so Beamdog had EVERY digital distributor stop selling the originals and ONLY sell the Enhanced Edition. If you want to buy a digital copy of the originals now, they're "bundled" into the Enhanced Edition. Now these scumbags can claim sales from people just wanting to buy the originals as their own.

3. The infamous 600+ bugs on launch. The game is still riddled with bugs (as even a perfunctory glance over their forums show) but the fact that it took nearly two years for them to get a game that had been working fine for 20 years to reach playability after launch is telling of their wild incompetence.

4. This is where we get to the ones that really piss people off. Beamdog couldn't just remaster the game, they had to fuck with the content too. New dialogue for existing NPCs like Jaheira, Viconia, Safana, Kivan, et cetera was written in to make the characters more progressive and leftist friendly. Beamdog shills will argue that "adding content isn't changing content XDDD" but it is when the new content changes the core personalities of the existing characters. This is in addition to adding a slew of their own LGBT (hitherto there were none in Baldur's Gate) NPCs, all flooded with OP attributes and magic items to encourage people to play them despite their cancer.

5. Siege of motherfucking Dragonspear.

[Anonymous No.5197319]

>>5197156
kys you fucking fag autist, just to let you know, im a nigger with lots of money and each time i see one of these i purchase and gift a copy, while you fucking masturbate to anime and keep a wacth on 4chan for any related thread to post your faggot pic. kek

>>5197135
ToB is too linear for my taste, it's just an excuse to fight powerful bosses and tackle dungeons with overpowered gear/characters, the story concludes ok I guess, but to me the game loses its charm.

[Anonymous No.5197323]

>>5197135
I enjoyed it. Anything is better than the structure of SoA really.

[Anonymous No.5197365]

>>5197319
buy me a copy of bgee pls

[Anonymous No.5197441]

>>5197323
The structure of SoA feels almost exactly like playing an actual table top game. Not saying that makes it good but I never really appreciated until I tried the real thing.

[Anonymous No.5197643]

>>5197135
The writing and game design feel like post BG bioware. You can definitely see how this turns into something like Kotor, whereas SoA feels like it is from a different developer.

AD&D2e is not designed for levels above 20, and combat boils down to popping ultimate moves, which is kind of fun for a bit, but definitely less satisfying than the previous titles.

It is well above average for an RPG game, but not nearly as good as BG1 or SoA, and I rarely replay it.

Worth it for Watcher's Keep though, that is a great dungeon (I clear it as part of SoA before the endgame)

[Anonymous No.5197650]

I really didn't like it. What I enjoyed about Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 was its open world and non-linearity. Although they were combat-heavy games, there was a lot of exploring to do as well. There's no exploring in Throne of Bhaal, and it goes from one boring high level battle to the next. I just found it so boring and bad.

[Anonymous No.5197653]

>>5197650
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 are combat heavy, but the approach to encounters is extremely open ended (being in combat doesn't change much and allows you to find creative solutions) or just cast invisibility 10' and skip encounters you don't like.

ToB is full of unskippable gotcha fights that are fun for a bit then get real old.

[Anonymous No.5197660]

>>5197653
As an example, a huge number of encounters in ToB involve your party automatically moving up into a group during a in-game cutscene, a bad guy talking to you, then GOTCHA enemies spawning in.

In the real BG games, you can approach almost every "boss" battle by murdering them instantly out of stealth before a dialogue prompt even comes up, if you built your party that way.

[Anonymous No.5197692]

High level D&D falls apart quickly, especially if you're one of those poor souls like me who doesn't enjoy playing a full caster for whatever reason.

I didn't think the antagonist was very compelling, they're even more boring than Irenicus IMHO, and it largely just feels like one massive dungeon crawl through samey environments, when at least SoA and SoD have more variety in that department even though SoD is admittedly super linear.

[Anonymous No.5197829]

I don't like how there's throngs of mooks with full +3 gear.

[Anonymous No.5197874]

>>5197319
>each time i see one of these i purchase and gift a copy
I'll take one

[Anonymous No.5198010]

>>5197309
Based pasta poster, keeping the Beamdog shills salty.

[Anonymous No.5198351]

Parts of TOB I did enjoy:

- The Fire Giants fortress. That was very hard, but offered lots of options (I cheesed it by making a wall of invisible party members in a corner with my archer in the centre sniping giants that couldn't reach)
- The story, mostly
- the initial exploration of the keep which felt a bit like SoA did
- Watcher's Keep

things I didn't like

- finding assembling weapon parts. FUCK this game mechanic, just gimme a god damn sword
- spamming HLAs to win fights
- story doesn't make you feel like you are making a difference. A shit ton of people die and no choices you make can impact this

[Anonymous No.5198562]

>>5198010
>Based pasta poster
>shills

awwww, you "fit in" in 4chan little child :)

kys paranoid faggot

[Anonymous No.5198817]

>>5197156
based and redpilled

[Anonymous No.5199029]

>>5198562
t. Amber Scott

[Anonymous No.5199745]

There's no way anyone was ever going to top the villain Irenicus. His backstory, his voice acting, his lines, his personality, his plan, etc. TOB's villain actually wasn't TERRIBLE but just pales, full on shrinks, compared to Irenicus. Their backstory is lame and boring and too simple, etc.

TOB was necessary to wrap up the story though and had good character writing otherwise. They didn't have time to write a decent villain or to even come up with one, I don't believe. The Plot of ToB makes sense because its just SoA but its wrapping up the prophecy whereas SoA was in the middle and BG1 was the beginning.

It was rushed, it was short, it wasn't as good as SoA, it was much more faced paced story-wise and character advancement wise. It should still be loved for what it is.