I do not remember the exact date (around 2004?) when my sister told me that her friend has Baldur's Gate II and I was shocked, beacuse I did not know that there was a sequel. I could not wait to play it and wanted to know more about it. She only told me that he did not like it as much as the first one, but I thought that it is impossible, a sequel to such a game cannot be bad. Later I got my own copy of BG2 and was really nervous when launching it for the first time, I wanted it to be such a great game as the first one, if not better.
The menu itself caught me by surprise, it had a very different feel to it. It was not a medieval fantasy of the frist game that I loved so much. It was weird and together with the music had a creepy atmoshpere. The art style was not my thing, but I had to give the game a chance, the menu cannot destroy the game for me. I created the character and I have found that I did not like how the weapons categories were split up to individual weapons. The cutscene with Irenicus played out and my thought was "Oh, in the first game the bad guy was a fighter, now it's time for a mage, I do not like mages.".
It actually was not the fact that Irenicus was a mage that took me back, but the fact that I already knew who the villain was. the magic of discovery suddenly disappeared. Then Imoen joined me and I thought that her portrait was terrible and ugly as the rest of those from BG2, why so many piercings and stuff in their hair? Even Keldorn's armor looked like a metal frisbee got stuck in his neck. I was getting more and move convinced that the artstyle was just ugly for me. It did not have the simplicity and clarity of the first game. The plate mail icon from BG2 will always be a turtle shell in my eyes and those silly paperdolls, just plain awful.
Anyhow I did not give up I was exploring the Irenicus's dungeon and I thought that it was not what I exactly imagined sequel to Baldur's Gate look like. I felt that I was playing a mix between a medieval fantasy with sci-fi with weird tubes and clones. The character animations were laughable as well, especially the streching and 2-handed sword knees-to-the-ground swing. I was in denial at first, I could not believe that this was how Baldur's Gate II looked. After many annoying parts I finally was able to exit the dungeon and got what I thought was just a middle finger from the game. Not the fact tha Irenicus took Imoen, or that I could not cast spells in the city, not even annoynig constant screaming from Minsc. It was the city itself. It was just plain ugly and illogical. I thought that the promenade is the worst looking location I have ever seen in a video game. Am I somewhere in Saudi Arabia? Where is the medieval city of Baldur's Gate?
I still gave the game a chance thinking it should get better later on, it is still a Baldur's Gate game. I do not like the games that start you off inside the big city, immediately I get lost and discouraged (Neverwinter Nights still not finished to this day). One thing that I really disliked about Athkatla is that how fake it feels. Almost every building is connect to some kind of quest. This is not a city, it is a quest-web and I felt like people were almost running at me and slaming their quests into my face. Talk about freedom. My first playthrough ended on the Graveyard District, where I saw a giant mural of a Pharaoh on the floor. This was too much for me, the scenery and atmosphere of the game was just not my thing and I did not care for Irenicus and Imoen, so I had no reason to continue.
