I agree. I also think 2 of the 3 endings to B&W are sort of terrible, which soured me on it a little. And the one ending I liked is kind of hidden and obnoxious to get.
B&W was like a nice vacation as Geralt headed into retirement. Pretty landscapes and some fun new skills to play with (loved that you could finally make a crossbow build work).
HoS was just pure, spooky, tragic Witcher goodness. And like you say, the fact that it’s shorter and more focused lead to the writing being tighter and the storytelling working much better.
I have actually pondered a “classic gaming” or “old school games” type community for these types of (primarily) PC games from the era up to maybe 2010.
Retro Gaming communities typically focus more on old console and/or arcade type stuff.
I actually have some opinions on the Plus Patch. I want to phrase this really carefully as Wesp5 is a hero for his work and dedication through the years, but he started taking a lot of liberties the last maybe 5-7 years, and the Plus Patch now contains stuff that is more mod than patch/restoration.
It has gotten to the point where I wish there were 3 tiers of unofficial patch, not two. The vanilla patch is only bugfixes, and lots of the stuff added back in the Plus Patch was actually good but just missing due to poor code or not being completely finished but 90% there. I wish there was a patch with just the bugfixes and those most obvious content restorations.
In the Plus Patch as it exists today, though, you have a lot of stuff that was cut for a reason shoehorned in, like unused OST tracks Wesp5 has inserted according to personal taste, or areas (and a quest) that were barely started where he himself filled in the blanks. And even complete mod content that - while they could be argued to be improvements - are alterations to the game according to Wesp5’s vision.
You still need the basic patch to even run the game, of course, otherwise it’s literally unplayable. But these days I recommend the Plus Patch for a second playthrough. Playing as Malkavian is a good enough reason for a second playthrough, anyway.
Summons are a really powerful way to deplete enemy spells, just send them in one by one. Summon Skeletons is good for this.
As you move onto BG2, using spells to counter enemy protections becomes more important, like using Breach to deal with Stoneskin etc. Though as a caveat, I’ve been using Sword Coast Stratagems so long I barely remember what combat is like without it.
I love Disco Elysium but I’d never try to sell someone on it by saying it’s a CRPG. It’s literally an interactive novel, and it’s really only rewarding if you want that and approach it as such.
It rewards you for being weird and wacky, for failing checks and for clicking every dialogue option (as opposed to thinking certain ones are “traps”).
It’s a weird product that claims to be a CRPG detective game about a murder case, when in the end it’s really neither.
Yeah, these old games were kind of a wild west when it comes to design. I also love Fallout 2 to bits for example, but god damn can it feel cheap and frustrating at times. On the other hand there are loads of ways to cheese encounters, too, if you’re interested in making things easier. Backstabs, Snares, Cloudkill (and similar effects), abusing Fog of War. Almost all of BG1 can be cheesed with Skull Trap. And almost all of BG2 can be cheesed with Set Snare.
I’ve only started playing BG3, but so far it’s been a lot easier and simpler than both the old games and Divinity, which maybe is to be expected with it being based on D&D 5E rules. Compared to D:OS 2 combat has been a lot less complex and challenging. Granted I’m playing on medium difficulty. I didn’t want to start off on Tactician after the Divinity games, but maybe I need to here.
Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy BG2. It’s one of my all-time favorite games still, and I replay it every now and again. There are so many ways to set up fun parties with loads of interactions, especially if you use the Tweak that prevents companions from killing each other even if they hate each other. Some of the best interactions are from mixed-alignment parties.
narrow passageways that the AI pathfinding was not really able to adequately handle
I must confess that these days I always play with DebugMode=1 and one of the primary reasons is to be able to use Ctrl+J to teleport the whole squad when pathfinding acts up.
THAC0 is… yeah. I guess the systems take some getting used to. And it gets a little more complicated at higher levels with different layers of protective spells and counter-spells.
They are absolutely lovely, though undeniably very old school. BG1 is more action-adventurey with a bigger emphasis on exploration, BG2 is very story-heavy. They have aged remarkably well, considering they’re over 20 years old. The handpainted backgrounds still look pretty.
With potential increased interest due to BG3, I wonder if it would be an idea to create a community for the classic Baldur’s Gates 🤔
The final dream in Disco Elysium. After picking up clues all game about your past, your broken relationship and the reasons you are the way you are, the heart wrenching emotional impact had me reeling. Not mention it’s written and voice-acted beautifully.
Suddenly everything makes sense as Harry gets constantly dressed-down, his futile attempts to cling to the past denied and his insanity laid bare. The letter in the ledger, the little Headless FALN rider figurine, the obsession with Dolores Dei, that awful phonecall on the payphone, everything comes together in a beautiful climax of absolute sadness, ending on that devastating final line:
“This is real darkness. It’s not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry.
There is a way to change this via mods, if you’re still interested in Cyberpunk. I just finished my first playthrough and one of the first things I did was figure out how to rebind Dodge to Alt.
The Silent Silencers mod and Stealthrunnner also makes stealth much more enjoyable.
I have heard people like that one, and I have read roughly what it’s about, but I’m saving that one for my next playthrough.
I think which one suits best depends a lot on both how you played your V and how you felt about Johnny.
For me, V and Johnny became like best friends, and so The Sun ended up feeling mostly like a letdown and a nobody wins scenario, and it felt almost out of character for V, too.
Temperance felt perfect for the story as I had experienced it, and it was also really cool to see the final dialogues inside Mikoshi from both the perspective of playing as Johnny and playing as V. Highly recommended.
SPOILERSWhen playing as Johnny (the first time), I actually thought V would interrupt a fourth time on the bridge heading towards the light and forcibly kick Johnny back into his body and make the choice for him. At least that’s where it felt like the dialogues were going. I think that would have been a cool moment, if your relationship with Johnny is high enough.
Yeah, Judy made a big impression on me. I’ll wait a while after Phantom Liberty’s release until I’ll play again, but I’ll definitely play Fem V then so I can see the Judy romance.
I just played through another ending today, (Don’t) Fear the Reaper into the Temperance ending, and I much preferred that to the one I got at first (Rogue’s path into The Sun ending). I’m much more satisfied with the game now.