4th October 2004, 4:43 PM
Quote:To put it AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE (fucking AGAIN), you do not care to be immersed in games whatsoever while I DO. And Fire Emblem has far more engaging and difficult combat than Baldur's Gate, which is why I play it.
No, not true. You are simply defining 'immersion' in a very different way than I do. I certainly like to get immersed into games... you just define the term in completely different language. I find Baldur's Gate immersive by most ways I can define the term.
Quote:Baldur's Gate
Story: A very generic D&D story, and it's not told well so who gives a fuck.
Immersion factor: Distant isometric viewpoint, keyword being distant. You don't feel like a part of the world. Plus, I hate the bland D&D designs. The non-direct controls only add to the detachment.
Combat: Not bad, the best part of the games. But I can get better combat in many other places.
Can you guess that I'm going to strongly disagree? :) First I do not think of it as bland. The artwork is fine. Beautiful in places, merely good in others, but just fine... it depicts the world it is supposed to as well as I could possibly expect it to. If you want a complaint, it'd be that the other four Infinity engine titles didn't change the NPC sprites very much... yes they are all in the same world but the fourth game with very similar townsfolk gets a bit old. :)
Anyway... I like D&D's artwork. Though BG's depiction of it isn't the current one (when they did 3rd Edition they redid a lot of the style and artwork), it looks fine... I don't really understand why you call it so bland. It's better than most fantasy worlds, and the Forgotten Realms have plenty of depth (of backstory and how complex and detailed the world is, the Forgotten Realms are the most well fleshed out and complex D&D setting and it shows. Just look at all those books you can find in these games full of stories that don't directly relate to the game but show events in the Realms' long past!) to say the least!
Anyway, that perspective is worlds better than a 3d game would have looked like back then. I'd take that over Daggerfall or something any day... sure Daggerfall was 1996 and this would look better than that but still. This 2d looks far better than 1998 3d.
How well is the story told? Seems just fine to me... you start out knowing nothing (though there are clues to more of the story which you probably won't notice your first time through the series (and yes, I mean series, not game)) and it is slowly revealed to you as you progress. It is very easy to figure out where you are supposed to be next and as you do the main quest the story gets revealed to you. It's a bit thin in overall plot I guess in the first BG but it's hardly shallow and it's better than a whole lot or RPGs out there... and when you combine it with the huge depth you get from all the sidequests and exploration and how well they flesh out the world, I see no problems worth nothing. Well, except for that BGII has a more focused and much deeper (more to it) story, fixing that one weakness. :)
Oh, and it's not exactly a generic D&D story... I certainly don't know of many other D&D works where the main character is the child of a god! It's not the most innovative story ever, but it is not a pure cliche (lots of plot twists and plenty of depth are to be found, especially in the later games!). It only kind of seems that way before you get into the deeper part of the series. And besides, there is always the aspect of the world and the depth and complexity they have put into background for the setting... NPCs really flesh out the various places you go in great fashion.
Anyway, the deep history and backstory (most of which is optional reading and doesn't impact the game or your understanding of the plot but increases your knowledge about the world of the Realms and, IMO anyway, is quite interesting... not to mention all the NPCs in towns and everything they have to say! And that stuff actually DOES impact understanding of the game events and areas you're in.), great graphics (from the great character art to the perfect depictions of most of the classic D&D monsters to the beautiful scenery, there is nothing bad here to report), and great soundtrack make the game very involving and, yes, immersive. The BG games can do to me like few others can on the subject of losing yourself... there aren't many other games where I can find myself playing a game for six or eight hours straight without noticing much time has passed, but BG can and does do that. That's immersion. KotOR is good too but doesn't quite compare. BG I, and even more so with BG II / ToB, are some of the best and most immersive games I've ever played.
As for the combat you know my opinion.
Quote:KOTOR
Story: Decent. Interesting enough to keep you going, and it's told better than it is in BG.
Immersion factor: Great. Direct controls, over-the-shoulder viewpoint. Makes you feel like you're in the Star Wars universe. Only thing holding it back are unintersting city designs and some camera problems.
Combat: Not as good as BG's, but the first two things more than make up for it.
Story... there is a lot to it and it is interesting. One of the best aspects of the game. Having two completely different paths is also great. It also is a great depiction of the Star Wars universe. Bad points? The character stories seem to move so fast -- if you talk with people each time you can your major party members will have their personal stories done with a lot of game left. Yes, those deep personal backstories are great and one of the strengths of the game, but they could have been spaced out better. It should be more like the main story in BG or BGII -- spaced out across the game, or the portion of the game that that character is in. As it is you get a constant stream from that character for half the game and then it ends. That is not good pacing. Oh, and how about not letting you get stories from the people who aren't in your party? Okay, it might seem irritating. But honestly... why not? I'd improve replayability and make your party member choice (who is with you in missions) matter a lot more... I think that that would have been a great change. Make people actually choose between characters! KotOR doesn't force that issue much, and it's for its detriment. And how about more character-focused sidequests? That is, sidequests where one of yoru party members is the focus of what is happening in the story. Most characters in BGII have one. A few do in KotOR (like the Wookie character on Kashyyyk). It'd be nice to see more of those. And how about more inter-party interaction (that is between your party members and not just you and them)? I know with 3 person parties this is necessarially limited, but BGII has thisto great effect and I wish this game had more of it. Still, the story aspect of this game is quite good.
Comparing it to BG... comparing it to BGI is hard. BGI has virtually no character development... only your character has anything happen. No one else speaks to you or each other. This really is a flaw and it's something BGII fixed in a big way, with character sidequests and party interaction (though not party interaction you can start yourself). However, BG probably has better in-world story -- that is, the backstory you get from each town or area and the people in it. KotOR has this too and it's good, but it's just not as well done as the BG games, and there is less depth in each location. As I've said before, probably the price of trying to do too many too different areas.
Immersion... the graphics are nice. Limiting without up/down look controls, and not with the best art design ever (lots of similar looking areas, a pretty similar look to the graphical design of the whole game... the areas look decent, but they don't look great.), though. The artwork in BGI/II is definitely better from an artistic perspective as well as from a game design perspective (sure, BG has lots of tree-filled zones. But the major areas are quite unique. And BGII has every zone being unique. In contrast KotOR has lots of very similar areas that look like they were just copied and shifted around from other areas... originality, folks! Use some!).
Camera? The camera's okay. Though being able to move it around would be a badly needed improvement (both for up/down and in/out).
And as for combat, I'd agree that it's good but not as good as BG. Less repetition (as in having to re-tell people to continue to doing the action they are already doing) and more control over CPU control (as in being able to disable party AI completely -- only do actions I tell you and nothing more in combat!) would be welcome changes, if paired together (ie having a disable party AI button with this constant-refill scheme would never work). But overall it's pretty good. Less complex than BG combat, and with less special abilities and choices to make, but still deep enough to be pretty fun. BG wins for being more complex and strategic, overall, however.
Quote:You get the entire story through boring dialogue trees from NPCs and reading books and scrolls.
Most of the stuff on books and scrolls, as I said, is Realms backstory with no connection to the story of BG itsself... a few books and scrolls are actually about the game story, but only a few. Most of that comes from conversations and the chapter intros. Now I really like that they have so much added world depth with the books, but even I will admit that I don't read them all... there are so many in some areas of the game that it gets tedious and they are just there for interest, not for any effect on your understanding of the games.
As for conversations, of course! Conversations are the lifeblood of non-combat portions of RPGs and adventure games, after all, so I'd be pretty concerned if there weren't plenty of conversations and a reasonable amount of depth to them... RPGs with less conversations often end up as pure dungeon hacks, and while that is fun for a while it is ultimately boring.