Should I pick up Baldur’s Gate after this, or am I going to be seriously annoyed at how much better the second game is when compared to the first? – Because I know that happens. I get the vague impression it might have happened here, too.
Moe Lane
PS: Morganey Griefstar, Paladin Queen of the Girl Scouts who is steadfastly trying to deliberately not notice the uber-hot and uber-skilled thief’s minor little personal issue.
I believe that the first one was superior.
But at this point, I’d mostly be hard-pressed to say which memories are associated with which game.
I do recall that I got very cross about the opponents in the second one seemingly operating with entirely different rules as you approached the end.
And that both games expected you to cheat. (There were encounters in both that you could not win without using cheat codes or a guide. Which would have been less of a problem if there had been a way to avoid them.)
That said…
Planescape blew both of them away. (Even without Minsc.) If you haven’t played it, you need to.
PS. I think there might be dynamic threat scaling.
I munchkined the hell out of a dwarven cleric of Tempus, and it left me with absolutely no desire to replay the two games with a less “optimized” character. My reaction to you running a Paladin was, “Well, you’re :($;ed.). Even with determination to accrue “the most pluses”, the games were hard as nails.
Play all the Black Isle RPGs. They are all dangerously addictive. I second Luke’s recommendation for Planescape: Torment. That was an incredible game.
Icewind Dale is another great RPG from that time period. They are all excellent and well worth the time.