blatantninja
Resident Redneck Facist
I'll probably avoid the Beamdog NPCs when I do my EE run prior to BG3, but I'm thinking of using the Ascension mod. Despite not wanting the harder boss battles, I like what I've heard about the options it adds to the final chapter.
Neera was the only NPC that was in my party for most of the game. I figured out that if you've logged enough hours on each part, you can pick up Rasaad and Hexxent (probably Neera too) and immediately go into their quests, then ditch them when they're done (until the next portion of the game). That way I was able to play all the new areas. I did this with a lot of the original NPC's too. Basically had one spot that I rotated through NPC's. For the Beamdog NPC's, I found the new areas in BG1 to be pretty meh, but I thought they did a much better job with the quests and areas in SoA and ToB.
BG1: Nature.
BG2: City.
That's basically it. Oh, and low vs high level, obviously.
I love the open world part of BG1. That's really what sold me on the game years ago when it came out. I just kind of wandered around exploring. Felt a lot like the old Ultimas to me. I also prefer the brighter color pallet and well less gritty version of the world. Again, reminds me of Ultima. Ohh and I'm terrible at tactics, so the higher level battles of BG2 don't hold as much for me. I fully recognize that the story is significantly deeper, better written and just better overall, but I prefer the overall feel of the first game. Would love a total conversion or something that replicated that.