I've noticed when reading reviews of this game, that many who seem to be very positive about it, those who gush about the game, identify with those kinds of political persuasions. I think that is a fair statement.
I don't think my political persuasions have anything to do with how I feel about this game, but then I'm not entirely sure what a "social justice warrior" means in this context. I don't have an issue with anyone who follows the Golden Rule, regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, religion or any other characteristic I can think of.
That said up front, there was one NPC character with whom you interact briefly, whose dialog felt odd. Not because the substance of the conversation offended me; it was more that I had just encountered this person, who is not really involved in your character's storyline, and she was suddenly telling me very personal things. It was not very elegantly done, but at the time I thought, "huh, that was odd," and went back to playing.
A few days later I went online and saw that there was a big brouhaha about this character. I think it was overblown, but I am old and more concerned about the teenagers on the corner with their baggy pants and rockin' roll music than with the politics of gaming. What I know about "SJW" vs. "GG" I have learned in the last week or so, and that ain't much, because I can't muster the energy to care.
I have a few criticisms of the game: The last hour or so feels a bit rushed, in that there is a twist which doesn't feel organic. I can't explain without spoiling the ending, but to me it felt too abrupt; characters who'd treated you one way suddenly treated you differently, and the ostensible reason didn't ring true for me.
There is one NPC in Baldur's Gate whose voice actor seems to have been dropped in from a stoner comedy. I'm sure some people found it amusing, but I ended that dialog as quickly as I could and moved on. It is entirely optional (as is the NPC who overshares, for that matter), and I was past it in about 3 minutes. I'm sure I had a few other quibbles with the content while I was playing, but those are the only things that come to mind immediately.
As far as "bugs," on a couple of occasions towards the end, my game reset the difficulty to "story mode" from the setting I'd chosen (core rules), and until I realized it was easy to switch back, I was most annoyed. (You can change the difficulty using a slider, usually, but if you check the "story mode" box, the slider is disabled. Un-checking that box brings it back. "Story mode," incidentally, is intended for people who don't want to be bothered with combat, and just want to advance the story, or, I guess, if you run into a combat that's simply too hard even on easier difficulty settings. Personally, I prefer to reload and figure out better tactics, but…)
I had one (or maybe two?) crash(es?) to desktop but both were pretty early on, and it didn't happen again. (For reference, I'm playing on an early 2015 Macbook Pro, running OS 10.11.1).
I understand from the Beamdog forums that other people have experienced more bugs than I did, particularly in multiplayer. I can also see how some people criticize the game as being too linear, but I never got the sense that the main story line was any more time-sensitive than it was in Baldur's Gate. It's definitely not as "open" as BG2. I'd say it's closer to Throne of Bhaal than the other games in the series, as far as linearity goes.
I've also read criticism that the events in Siege of Dragonspear are too significant not to be mentioned in Shadows of Amn. Without spoiling the story, what transpires is a pretty big deal in the sense of how it would be perceived by residents of the Sword Coast and neighboring regions, and of course nobody in BG2 says anything to you about what happened. I don't see how Beamdog could have written a game that would capture a player's interest without breaking continuity between the games to
some extent, but I suppose they could have made the story a bit less… epic? It didn't bother me while I was playing. In retrospect, I guess they could written a story that didn't involve a region-affecting crusade, but it would likely have been more like Tales of the Sword Coast - a dungeon crawl without much actual plot, I think.
The good things: I think Beamdog did a very good job of capturing the spirit of the series. It was great to hear new dialog from characters like Minsc, Dynaheir and Viconia. Hell, I even enjoyed the few lines I heard from Khalid, and I
never liked that guy.
I could be mistaken, but it seemed to me that there's a good bit of new art, particularly in the wilderness areas. There's a greater variety to the trees and rocky areas, for example. I know that sounds like a minor thing, but to me it spoke to the effort Beamdog put into the details. There are a fair number of new monsters, and it was nice to see some of them for the first time in an Infinity Engine game. I thought the story was interesting up to the last hour (and the actual end of the game, at least the part over which you have control, worked ok for me). There were enough side quests, and I probably missed a few, particularly in the first two "chapters" of the game. Again, I didn't really play with the new NPCs, and I think each of them have some sort of minor quest/storyline.
Speaking of which, the new NPCs were fine; I used a three of them for a while, but ended up going back to recruit NPCs with whom I was familiar from Baldur's Gate (and one from BG:EE). When I play through again, I'll likely switch that up and use mostly the new folks. The main reason I went with "old" NPCs was that I was playing a mage-thief, and the older NPCs fit my party better. That and I have a soft spot for Jaheira and Minsc, and decided not to send Dynaheir into combat by herself… Viconia and Neera roudned things out.
I have read that certain returning NPCs have been given a personality makeover, but I really didn't see it. Specifically, I didn't notice any
real change to Jaheira or Viconia; I can't speak to Safana, because I never really used her in past play-throughs, and didn't keep her around long this time either.
I really don't think I can pay the game a higher compliment than that it truly felt like I was returning to the original game world, and I hope Beamdog get the chance to make additional content with the engine/world/ruleset. The game isn't perfect by any means, but I must have played through the originals a dozen times - we're talking hundreds of hours in real time - and I honestly wasn't expecting Siege of Dragonspear to measure up. It did.
If you liked the original games, I think you'll like Siege of Dragonspear, though of course your mileage may vary if you are more attuned to the sort of criticism that some of the reviews linked in the original post make.
