There is little doubt that Baldur's Gate was a pivotal game in CRPG development. Its successor, Baldur's Gate 2, is still considered by many gamers to be the best CRPG of all time. When Bioware released Dragon Age: Origins, it was heralded by critics as the spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate and won a number of rewards. However, many fans of Baldur's Gate were disappointed. Last year Pillars of Eternity was released. It was designed to be a spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate and won a number of awards. However, many fans were again disappointed. The moral is that it's pretty difficult to reproduce a classic, and even if you create a great game in its own right, it may not fit into what any individual fan liked or remembered fondly about the classic in question. Beamdog recently released Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, another Baldur's Gate style game. They had the great advantage of being able to use the infinity engine, meaning they inherited the combat, creatures, the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons mechanics, and many of the characters of Baldur's Gate. Still, it's hard to walk in the footsteps of giants, especially when it's your first full length game.

On Writing and Agendas

Siege of Dragonspear got bombarded with negative reviews upon release, because of the supposed "liberal agenda" of the game's writers. Detractors used two examples: an interview by writer Amber Scott, where she said two of the companions she got to write for, Safana and Jaheira, were sexist in the first Baldur's Gate. Safana represented a woman who tried to use her sex appeal to get her way,  and Jaheira was portrayed as a nagging wife. The other example was the transgender character Mizhena. Moreover, these were held up as examples of the game's bad writing. I'd like to talk about these characters to show some things Siege of Dragonspear does right and wrong in terms of its writing.

I'll first say that you have ample opportunity to have Safana in your party, and you even get a quest from her later in the game if you chose not to add her (which I didn't). I personally never was all too fond of Safana, and didn't add her into my party this time either. I did add Jaheira, one of my favorite characters from the Baldur's Gate series, when I found her, which was actually quite late in the game. Jaheira is a great exception in this game in many ways. Her barks and general comments are carried over from Baldur's Gate ("If you die, Kahlid, you'll never hear the end of it!"), but unlike the other great characters from the original series such as Edwin, Imoen, Khalid, Minsc, Viconia, and Jon Irenicus, she is not voiced by the original actress. In fact, she is one of the only companions whose new dialogue is not voiced at all. I'm convinced that Beamdog decided to include her nevertheless, because of her important role in Baldur's Gate 2, but the results are less than spectacular. I didn't see any agenda, because Jahiera has little to say in general, and when she does banter with other party members, the results come off as if a character is talking to themselves. She also appears relatively late in the game and can only be recruited just before the halfway point.

Three way conversations like this show how much work Beamdog invested in Siege of Dragonspear's companions

While this at first sounds especially negative, it made it apparent to me how much work Beamdog put into all of the game's other companions. In fact, most of what we learn about Jaheira comes from the mouth of her husband Khalid. Not only do you have many of Baldur's Gate's original companions, but also many of the enhanced edition's characters, as well as a number of new ones.  The new companions seemed especially well done to me, not only in their voice acting, but also in their variety and their depth of character. The gnome Glim fits in with the rest of Baldur's Gate's gnomes.  He's an oddball who can't stop talking and is anything but serious.  On the other side of the spectrum is Captain Corwin, a humourless, prejudiced, and brooding archer, who is nonetheless trying her best to serve the greater good. There's also the deadpan Goblin Shamaness M'khiin, who I regretted not being able to add to my party, since I had decided to play a Shaman as a main character. The banter between your companions was one of the things that made the original Baldur's Gate great. Beamdog seems to have understood this, and one of the highlights of Siege of Dragonspear are your companions and how well they banter.

It's hard to imagine that so much anger has been directed at a vendor who has only a handful of dialogue options and a few lines of text. Mizhena is an army camp healer, and a priestess of Tempus, lord of battle. You can ask her about her odd name, and she'll tell you she invented it, because her parents raised her as a boy, and then she discovered that she was actually a woman. While some players complained about the very presence of a transgender character, others have attacked her awkward presentation. Beamdog answered the latter complaint, saying they had a three line text limit on minor characters. As opposed to the wonderfully written and voiced companions and antagonist, a number of the minor characters come off as awkwardly written, one-dimensional, and in addition some are poorly voiced. One wonders if the three line limit for minor characters was a good idea. It does work for some of the minor characters, like a hobgoblin chieftain who thinks himself especially clever when asking for a toll. It works much less for a theme that runs throughout the game, namely whether the ends justify the means (whether it's your battle against the antagonist Caelar, or her crusade). Unfortunately this theme is presented through a number of minor characters, and the rather complex theme just isn't often presented well.  

The writing comes across as uneven. Some of it is very good. Some of it seems like it desperately needs a more comprehensive treatment and comes across as awkward.  Beamdog does well to capture the tone of both Baldur's Gate games. In general it's light hearted, and can even verge on being silly, depending on your companions, but there are also very serious moments. As far as agendas go, I didn't see much in the game. Personally I consider myself a moderate, live-and-let-live person. I don't like political extremes. I'm white, male, heterosexual, religious, 43 years old, and married. One of my best friends from my university days is homosexual, and as a teacher, almost all of my colleagues are women. I'm telling you this, so you know where I'm coming from when I tell you I just don't see much political content in this game itself (certainly no more than in any Bioware game since Jade Empire). Still, I have some conservative friends and can see them being offended by having a bisexual companion (which only came out in my playthrough when I decided to romance her and she talked about her past romantic failures), a homosexual companion (I was surprised to discover this near the game's end, and it only really comes out that he was jealous of the character I was romancing) or a trans woman medic, even if this is extremely minimal content in the game itself (and completely avoidable). If you don't want these things in a game, then do yourself a favour and don't buy Siege of Dragonspear, since a number of reviews show that other people with this standpoint couldn't enjoy the content or judge it on its own merits, because these very small elements ruined the whole game for them.

On Linear Levels

There's no getting around the fact that Siege of Dragonspear is more linear than Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate 2. This does cleverly fit into the story, which has our character marching with an army, clearing obstacles out of its way, and advancing towards a seemingly inevitable showdown with Caelar, our antagonist. It's at its worst at the beginning, when we spend about an hour in an introductory dungeon, and then another half hour traveling about the city of Baldur's gate, but only being able to access small maps which look like they've been cut out from the original game.

The dungeons are well thought out. I particularly liked this one.

Once we leave the city, things improve. Depending on where we stop our march, we usually get access to two or three wilderness areas, which are strongly reminiscent of the areas we get to explore in the original Baldur's Gate. Each area is large, and chock full of things to do, even more so than in the original Baldur's Gate. That's a real positive. On the other hand we only get access to two or three maps, so the game never seems very open, and the areas themselves have much less variation than the areas in either Baldur's Gate games.

What really impressed me about Siege of Dragonspear was the quest and level design. Maybe I've played too many modern RPGs recently, but Beamdog really came up with some interesting quest ideas, and there are also a decent number of puzzles and areas which require you explore carefully. The battles are also for the most part well organized and just like in both of the original games. I ran into some nasty surprises in some battles and had to replay them. There are also a number of large scale battles where you fight alongside your troops. Like the original Baldur's Gate, Siege of Dragonspear is full of side quests, interesting places, and lots to do.

A typical outdoor area. Forest, mountains, dungeon.

While each wilderness area is well designed, most of them are woods with caves and mountains. Some have very distinctive features, but in general the variety of either Baldur's Gate game is not there. There are no coastal areas, grasslands, etc. Also you will encounter a lot of the same opponents (especially spiders) outside. Most wilderness areas have one or more caves, which open into dungeons. These tend to have more variety, especially in the kinds of opponents you face. The dungeons are the highlight of the game, with their puzzles, NPCs, and side stories.

The main plotline of Siege of Dragonspear is in general well done, though there are minor weaknesses here and there. In many ways it's at its weakest, when it tries to anchor itself between Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. The inclusion of many of the old NPCs and the weak epilogue seems at times very forced. However, the main plotline, the struggle against Caelar Argent's crusade, is for the most part well written and thought through. I played Siege of Dragonspear for some 27 hours, 25 hours to finish the game, and another two hours to fiddle around with the various companions.    

On Bugs and Balance

Many people complain that this game is really buggy. That seems to be a standard complaint with new releases these days, and often justified. Before the first patch I came across two minor bugs. The first was the game crashed once on me when trying to add two new companions simultaneously to my group. The second was an item once disappeared temporarily when trying to pass it between two party members. Since the patch I haven't noticed any problems. Apparently people are still having big problems playing cooperative multiplayer. For that reason, if you're thinking of buying this game to play co-op, I'd hold off for now and check the Steam Forums from time to time to see if they've got it running smoothly. Also some people had problems importing their characters from Baldur's Gate EE. Since I haven't played the Enhanced Edition before and created my character from scratch in this game, I obviously didn't run into this problem at all.

Siege of Dragonspear offers a pretty incredible numbers of difficulty levels. I played on classic, but apparently on the higher levels some bosses can dispel your buffs, which can make battles extremely difficult. There is also a story mode, which is nice if, like me, you want to play together with someone younger.

We meet a lot of old friends on our journey. Perhaps too many.

While the game offers you a good number of companions of all classes and alignments, how it's done is pretty interesting. Three of the four most resilient melee characters are only available close to halfway through the game. You get Misc and Corwin at the beginning as fighters, but Corwin is an archer, and you lose out on most of her potential if she gets stuck in close combat. On the other hand there is no shortage of priests early on. The result was that I played very differently than in most of my playthroughs of Baldur's Gate, and relied heavily on the web and entangle spells during the first half of the game.

While leveling up in Baldur's Gate was always infrequent (making it a big deal when it did happen), in Siege of Dragonspear leveling up occurs even more rarely. I'm sure this is to try make a smooth transition from Baldur's Gate I to Siege of Dragonspear to Baldur's Gate 2 possible. Personally it didn't bother me, but then again I didn't import a character, and started off at level 6, and probably advanced faster than a I would have with an imported character. Mostly though, I think characters between levels 6 and 9 represent the best balanced and most interesting levels of 2^nd edition Dungeons and Dragons. Spell casters have enough spells to let them use a variety of tactics, but haven't completely left fighter types behind in terms of power. I think this contributes to making the battles throughout most of Siege of Dragonspear interesting, but I can see how it could bother some players.

On Being a Phone Game

Beamdog reworked the graphics and UI of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, clearly (in my opinion) for Android. Characters have gained a black silhouette, which most certainly makes them more visible on a smaller screen. The reworked user interface is larger and clearer. I personally liked the user interface. At first I didn't like the new graphics, but by the time I realized they could be turned off, I had grown accustomed to them and didn't bother. Some players who hadn't yet experienced the Enhanced Edition hate the changes, so be warned. Personally I found them slightly positive, if unnecessary. I also have no problems with games that share a platform with IOS as I enjoyed all three Shadowrun games and the Final Fantasy 3 port. However, if you do, you should be wary and check out screenshots or video playthroughs of the game.

A lack of effective melee characters made me turn to unsual tactics early in the game

Conclusions

When Baldur's Gate 2 came out, I was a poor newlywed student, so I waited to buy it until the gold edition came out. After being blown away by Shadow of Amn, I immediately wanted to continue my adventures and play Throne of Bhaal. Back then I was disappointed. For me, Throne of Bhaal had a predictable story, worse characters, and felt terribly linear. I replayed it for the first time about three years ago and really enjoyed it. That's how expectations go. I had absolutely no expectations for Siege of Dragonspear. Quite honestly I expected Beamdog to completely fail. Perhaps that explains why I enjoyed the game as much as I did. I think if it wasn't a Baldur's Gate game, but the first effort from a small team, we'd all be discussing what a surprisingly good CRPG it is. But it is a Baldur's Gate game. Beamdog didn't have to create the mechanics, combat, monsters, or even most of the NPCs. I even think they went a little too far in trying to anchor it between Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and personally would have been happier with fewer cameo appearances by characters from the main games. I'd like to note now that my 4 star rating includes both the new material as well as the old engine, which Beamdog had nothing to do with. I personally can't separate the two, because without the Infinity Engine, there would simply be no game.  As a Baldur's Gate game, Siege of Dragonspear is about as good as a lot of the Infinity Engine expansions such as Tales of the Sword Coast, Heart of Winter, or Throne of Bhaal. That is to say, noticeably inferior to either Baldur's Gate 1 or 2. Nevertheless, Beamdog understood what made the Baldur's Gate games fun and tried their best to implement it in this expansion. That they didn't entirely succeed just goes to show why it's so hard to make a great game. It's also really hard for me to recommend this game per se, because there are quite honestly a lot of reasons that people have found to dislike it. If you can look past those, you'll find an extremely solid retro RPG in Siege of Dragonspear.