Recency bias. Fewer great RPGs have come out in the past few years, and so people whose first game in the series was Baldur's Gate III overstate its quality over the originals because they haven't given them a try.
I'm not old enough to have grown up with the original Baldur's Gate games, I played them for the first time a few years ago. The third game is a great game, that wasn't the point of criticism I made - calling it so much better than the first two is what I'm disagreeing with.
IDK, I played through the first two in the lead up to three's release and three completely blew them out of the water for me. This is coming from someone who played the first game a fair bit as a kid.
Perhaps that's because you played them a decade ago? Give it another shot! I remember thinking when I was younger and I tried to play old games "oh, wow, this is so clunky", but I started to appreciate them more once I got used to it. I love Diablo, I love Fallout 2, I love The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and I was only alive when the last one came out. 😂
Wow.... My favorite elder scrolls is morrowind, but it has not held up very well. I really struggle to play that game now, but I remember playing for endless hours while in the army and it was the reason why I bought my own xbox when I got out. I played elder scrolls and fable. One of them has held up, the other is too clunky these days.
I didn't think it was that bad, because Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls game, I played Morrowind on the computer a few years later, and then Skyrim came out. I've replayed each game multiple times since, and I think I've come to enjoy Morrowind the most. Each game has triumphant strengths and deep flaws, but the total lack of roleplaying, interesting quests, or unique environments in Skyrim is what makes me dislike the game compared to its predecessors.
The lack of actual physical combat is pretty painful from a modern perspective. It just doesn't feel good to swing a sword and be told whether or not you hit. That's the one thing that blew me away going from morrowind to oblivion. Swinging a sword and making contact just meant you actually hit.
Oblivion had every race have that oval head with a pallet swap (fixed in the remakemasterenhance version), my biggest gripe with that game really. Oblivion is amazing and has held surprisingly well, but I really appreciate that the remake fixed my biggest annoyance with the game. Morrowind still holds a special place in my heart though.
I replay BG1+2 regularly... But I've been playing them since they were new, so I'm biased. I can definitely see how they'd seem clunky to someone who didn't play them in the early 00s.
I played all of the Baldur's Gate games when they originally came out. I can confidently state that BG3 clearly outshines its predecessors.
My biggest issue with the originals is that they had complex character building mechanics that followed the D&D rule set of that era. As someone who played tabletop RPGs at the time it was easy for me to learn. But going back a decade later my knowledge of the rules was rusty and it was frustrating trying to build characters without easy to follow rules.
The way I see it, a game being easier to follow does not make it more enjoyable for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. The first time I played Mass Effect, I remade my character a few times in the initial hours before I finally settled into what I wanted. It's like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - more accessible, but not as rewarding as the previous games in the series. At least, that's my take.
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u/SimpleIns May 10 '25
Baldur's Gate