Genre: RPG
Developer: Overhaul Games
Publisher: Beamdog

This reviewer never played the original Baldur's Gate titles back in the day, and it's somewhat difficult to evaluate the "Diablo"-like pre-rendered graphics through today's lens. By 2024 standards they look grainy and muddy, although some of that could be due to incorrect pixel scaling in the collection-- undoubtedly the games benefitted from being played on CRT VGA monitors of the day, at their intended resolutions. The user interface is somewhat ugly with its plain-Jane fonts and crude borders-- but it's functional and conveys what the player needs to know.

The game's high point is undoubtedly its voice acting. Like real-time strategy games of the period, when you click on a character in the Baldur's Gate titles, they throw out a one-liner. This reviewer's favorite character is a musclehead named Minsc: "Squeaky wheel gets da' KICK!" The game's music is orchestral but actually well composed, which is usually not the case for that style: the title theme and battle song are both very memorable, and set the mood. Some of the ambient noises, like the distant sounds of yells and shouts in the various towns, are quite believable.

This modern rendition's control scheme works like this: L and R cycle through the characters; ZL opens a character selection wheel; ZR opens a wheel for the various menus; Y zooms the stage way in and way out; X activates the action bar for whichever character is selected, so that spells can be cast and items used; and most importantly, the + button pauses, so that orders can be issued. It's all very fluid in action, and performs the miracle of making an old mouse-driven game like this playable on a contemporary controller.

Where modern RPGs are highly guided experiences with guard rails all over the place, these original two Baldur's Gate games actually feel like adventures, where good loot pieces serve very specific purposes; and where every NPC or recruitable party member is in the game for a reason. These games are such classics, and are so open-ended, that there are droves of people who have played through them each a dozen times, in a dozen different ways. Of course, that freedom means that the games can be cryptic, and require either a guide, or a ton of patience. But for the right player, this collection of both games with all of their expansion content will provide hundreds of hours of play.