Baldur's Gate ToB is worse than SoD, change my mind

[Devastator]

Motivation: I decided to write this after finding the Monk in Abazigal's lair. I couldn't help but sigh (again!) and think,You've got to be kidding me. It’s absurd that this guy is guarded by 900 puny mobs who just stand there, only to immediately die after I stop talking to him.

Background: I'm replaying the entire Baldur’s Gate series, including BG1, BG2, and BG3, along with all expansions, as a mage character.

My Experience So Far:

1. BG1: I found it to be surprisingly fantastic. Despite a lot of wandering outdoors, it remains enjoyable, a solid 9/10. ToTSC was good overall, with Durlag's Tower being my favorite dungeon in the series.
2. SoD: It was mostly mediocre, about a 7/10. It did provide decent filler between the two main games. I found Caelar to be too cringey, making me roll my eyes whenever she spoke. The writing was mediocre, and it was frustrating how much they tried to inflate my ego (cue the endless "hero" praise). However, the Irenicus parts were well-executed; I genuinely hated him for his betrayal, so the story succeeded there. The campaign felt far too linear, though.
3. BG2: This one surprised me with how well it holds up. I enjoyed it even more than expected, rating it 9.5/10. The pacing is a bit off, as you do almost everything in CH2 and then rush to the end, but it was still a blast. It improves on BG1 in several ways, like attention to detail in locations and plenty of banter.

The Problem: ToB

I’m struggling to keep playing without taking breaks. The only redeeming feature is the equipment that makes my characters godlike. The writing feels uninspired, the pacing is terrible, and everything is overly linear. There are too many trash mobs; I sometimes feel like I’m playing Icewind Dale (which I’m not a fan of).

A part of me thinks this is worse than SoD, but another part disagrees. Still, I find ToB more frustrating than SoD. I guess SoD felt more cringey, but SoD feels more boring? Maybe SoD felt more tolerable because I had just finished BG1 and was excited to get into the even better BG2. By the time I reached ToB, I was perhaps already fatigued from the long journey through all the previous titles. I might just be out of patience.

Maybe Watcher's Keep is its only redeeming quality but it's not as good as Durlag.

It's been so long since I last played ToB that I can’t even recall when it was, but I definitely don’t remember it being this underwhelming. In my next replay (which won’t be anytime soon), I think I’ll just skip SoD and ToB entirely.

 

[Glop_dweller]

TOB has the resolution of the Pantaloons quest.

This spoils the surprise loot...

It's a Fallout Easter egg

You get a PA suit with a laser rifle/grenade launcher/ flamer weapon.

It's called the Big Metal Unit, and reuses the Iron Golem sprite instead of original art.

 

[Butter]

Does anyone even pretend to like ToB?

 

[Erebus]

I still vividly remember how excited I was when I started playing Throne of Bhaal. Finally, the conclusion to the Bhaalspawn saga !

In retrospect, the intro was probably the part of the game I enjoyed most.

The flaws of ToB have already been mentioned countless times : it's too short, its characters and story are weak, the surprise villain is very obvious and completely unimpressive compared to Sarevok or Irenicus, etc. Also, high-level D&D is seldom enjoyable for long.

BG2 is probably the CRPG I've replayed the most times, but I just skip ToB at least half of the time.

 

[Volourn]

Tob is awesome. FUKK OFF.

 

[Poseidon00]

BG2 gives some companions a bit of development time, and the only thing I really like about TOB is witnessing the payoff. Nalia sounds more confident and has grown up, Anomen is less (or more) juvenile, Viconia is less cruel, etc. etc.

 

[Fargus]

I don't really enjoy playing through ToB as much as original games, but at the very least it's a conclusion to the story. Not sure what purpose SoD serves, so i'd rather play ToB than Beamdog's magnum opus.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Wasn't the inventory baby you get with Aerie a TOB thing?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Excellent fight you started. First, let's get some of the lesser points out of the way.

• Plot: ToB by a landslide. It's the culmination of the Bhaalspawn Prophecy, not some mary-sue fan fiction. It's pulpy, yes, but it's supposed to be. This is pure power fantasy.
• General Writing: ToB without question. SoD is reddit level cringe. While ToB can have the Aerie delivery scene cringe extravaganza, SoD takes that vibe and extends it through the entire module.
• NPCs: ToB without contest. Not only do you have access to the whole (sorry Yoshimo) BG2 cast and cannon BG1 NPCs, but they're written by the original creators. Beamdog NPCs were pure cringe.
• Music: While SoD as a respectable soundtrack, ToB's score is basically son of Conan the Barbarian. It is absolutely excellent.
• Art: SoD has some advantages here too with higher textures, but it also has a floaty quality to it. ToB is nothing to shake a stick at and has some fine vistas. Overall I will call this a tie.
• Area Design: SoD wins by a hair, but I don't consider it fair. Both are fairly linear. SoD benefits from the modernized engine to have large areas. It also benefits from two decades of lessons learned on dungeon design. I think most set piece fights in ToB are still better, but overall area design in SoD is generally excellent.
• Itemization: ToB without question. It benefits not merely from epic scale, but from carrying over most everything from BG2.

Combat. The big show. In the ToB's corner we have epic combat. Clash of the titans. It's AD&D turned to 11. The entire breadth of your characters are at your disposal and you're going to need it. In SoD's corner we are entering AD&D's sweet spot where lower level spells are still vital and fights don't become a rocket tag soup. SoD also has the benefit of a modernized engine that allows battles on far larger scale and has AI that is functionally SCS-lite. This one may come down to preference, but since I use SCS anyway I'm going to give it to ToB. ToB has some extraordinary boss battles and set pieces and push your tactics to the extreme. ToB is an exceptionally difficult barrier to an ironman run, which to me is the signal that it's ultimately got better combat. Dragons, demons, giants, and exotic monsters galore. Epic wizard duels. ToB is the fabric of a legendary adventure. While they are very close here, I will give combat to ToB.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah ToB sucks

 

[octavius]

ToB has the only non-optional set encounter in any CRPG that I've played that I could not beat. But it was with both Ascension and SCS, plus a rather non-optimal party and a very non optimal CHARNAME (single class Cleric with "normal" stats, IIRC).
So definitely a good challenge.
I think ToB works best if you treat it more like a set of combat encounters, since the story is too much ruined by the same problem that ruined the Tribunal expansion for Morrowind; the obvious villainess that you can never confront.

 

[sebas]

In SoD you go to a temple of Bhaal that's been overrun by Cyric followers. Cool! When you get to the entrance you find out it's guarded by a mature feral Green Dragon just laying there, I guess it stuck around because it liked candles. Anyway you kill him, get in and then find some caves with Bugbears with no way out other than through the dragon or the temple of the god of murder. Some real fuckboi bugbears what can I say. Onward there's the temple itself where you have a half-dragon Blackguard wondering around like grandpa on crack. You kill him too. Aaaaaand then find out the temple is infiltrated by a band of Illithids. One hell of a DnD bingo card, that's for sure.

Or how abount when you're level 10 and kill a lich by throwing some magical vegan stones that a random dwarf gives you?

But no you are right, the issue is that a Dragon would have 900 underlings doing shit for him. Do tell us more, in colors if possible. So we can establish if you are fucking retarded in both hemispheres.

 

[Konjad]

I recently replayed BG series, but not EE (which I disliked after playing BG EE when it came out), I only replayed the 'classical' versions.

BG: As good as I remember, very enjoyable exploration, silly but fairly fun dialogs, plenty of fake 'choices' in dialogs though, quests and finding them were kinda like a cool low-level D&D campaign, you go to a house, you get a quest, sometimes with some minor C&C, sometimes not, but the entire atmosphere is of that 'ADVENTURE & EXPLORATION' game.

BG: TotSC: More of the above, but even the mediocre main story here is removed, so it's even better, MORE ADVENTUROUS EXPLORATION, fuck yeah.

BG2: Hurr durr you are poor victim of an EVIL wizard (who is also a VICTIM but actually NOT because he's EVIL), fuckton of dialogs but overdramaticized which makes them tl;dr, no I don't care about your family history and how poor victims of evil they were, give me a fucking quest and leave me be. Not much exploration, you can't just fuck off and do whatever you want to do, areas only unlock if you have a related quest. Here instead of that adv & expl we have completely changed topic to 'DRAMA & QUESTING'. By the way, almost all dialog choices are fake, even if you choose 'evil' option they always go back to as if you offered "yes,m'lord, I will help you with everything I can!" unless they say they will wait until you say so.

BG2: ToB: MORE DRAMA, but this time with little questing, instead we've just got hack'n slash garbage.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I've never played SoD and the main part of ToB is p meh, but let me put it this way: if SoD had anything that would come close to Watcher's Keep quality, it would be the biggest surprise I've ever experienced.

 

[Necrensha]

Why would anyone play SOD? Just knowing that Beamdog made it should be enough to stay away.
And yeah, TOB is kinda like a shitty Diablo wannabe expansion, it's all nonstop combat the whole way through.

 

[octavius]

BG2: By the way, almost all dialog choices are fake, even if you choose 'evil' option they always go back to as if you offered "yes,m'lord, I will help you with everything I can!" unless they say they will wait until you say so.

Turning Anomen to the dark side is a notable exception.

Why would anyone play SOD? Just knowing that Beamdog made it should be enough to stay away.
And yeah, TOB is kinda like a shitty Diablo wannabe expansion, it's all nonstop combat the whole way through.

Well, from what I've heard, the encounter design (by aVenger, IIRC) is supposed to be pretty good.

 

[Peachcurl]

The saddest thing about ToB is that it concludes the saga. I could be more forgiving about its qualities if it was independent of that.

 

[Storyfag]

ToB was a letdown, but SoD... agh, keep it away!

 

[Gargaune]

Think I've said it before, people crap on SoD relative to BG or SoA, but the closest apples-to-apples would be ToB. And that's a closer race - ToB gets points on the plot, partly because it's the conclusion to an epic saga and partly because SoD's writing is dodgy, but SoD plays better thanks to its combat and dungeon design.

 

[Serus]

BG2: By the way, almost all dialog choices are fake, even if you choose 'evil' option they always go back to as if you offered "yes,m'lord, I will help you with everything I can!" unless they say they will wait until you say so.

Turning Anomen to the dark side is a notable exception.

Accusing BG2 choices as being fake, which they obviously are, as are vast majority of "choices" in almost all CRPGs. At the same time going over the same thing in BG1 as it didn't matter there for some reason, is hilarious on its own. At that time it was the specialty of the studio as we all know. Unfortunately it spread into the whole genre. However it certainly wasn't BG2 fault, it was the sequel to first part that started it.

 

[Shin]

ToB is dogshit compared to BG1/TotSC/BG2SoA. But its still a lot better than SoD, if only for the reason that ToB serves a purpose (closing the BG saga, fuck you Larian) while SoD simply doesn't need to exist. It wasn't offensively bad, it was just unnecessary.

 

[Drowed]

TOB is truly uninteresting and has various problems. Some you mentioned, others I would add, but the general point is that, yes, as a continuation of Baldur's Gate 2 it leaves much to be desired. Most people will agree with this, although for many, even with its flaws, TOB is still above the overwhelming majority of the garbage that came out in the following years.

That said, Siege of Dragonspear is an aberration. The only two things vaguely interesting are the new renders, which I have to admit that some are visually quite pleasant, and the size of some battles, where you have a number of enemies that did not exist in the originals even because of the processing power of PCs at the time. But that's it, and only that.

The story is an aberration. Several characters simply had Alzheimer's and completely changed their personalities for no apparent reason. Several points of current-day politics appear to punch you in the face without warning. Nothing comparable to Veilguard, obviously, but much more than acceptable. A final boss that simply breaks the continuity and logic of the setting. And the battles themselves, after the novelty of the number of enemies passes, you realize how irrelevant and boring everything is.

Essentially, SoD only impresses you a little in the first moments, especially because it is a new experience with several new things that you have not seen before in the series. I think sometimes you are caught up in the excitement of seeing something new in the Baldur's Gate series that really looks (at least initially) like something that could have been made as a sequel to BG. But then, everything falls apart.

 

[Peachcurl]

ToB is dogshit compared to BG1/TotSC/BG2SoA. But its still a lot better than SoD, if only for the reason that ToB serves a purpose (closing the BG saga, fuck you Larian) while SoD simply doesn't need to exist. It wasn't offensively bad, it was just unnecessary.

I prefer to let things rest, rather than poorly executed closure.

Consider this: I'm forced to go through ToB if I'm interested in the saga's end. SoD is better because I can skip it.

 

[Devastator]

Your responses have been very informative. I think I may have been too harsh in labeling ToB worse than SoD. It frustrates me more, but it’s probably not worse overall. While SoD might be considered an abomination, ToB has its own issues that stand out more to me, likely due to recency bias since I’m playing it now. If that makes sense?

The departure from exploration and varied quests isn’t the main reason for my frustration, since SoD also shares this flaw. I might just be feeling fatigued with the game and have less patience for its linear and combat-heavy approach, especially at high-level D&D. The latter is awesome, don't get me wrong... Still, it sometimes feels more tedious, especially if you use all the available buffs, not to mention ToB abilities themselves. I just can’t believe that ToB is the only part of the original saga where I need to take breaks. Maybe I’m just getting old.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Devastator BG1 is a big game that is fairly self contained. BG2 is a massive game that ends with a crescendo and could easily be its own self-contained adventure. You could very well be 250 hours deep by the time you get to Throne of Bhaal. Some fatigue is understandable. I think the biggest problem are the hubs. Neither Saradush nor Amketheran or particularly good locations. They're kind of annoying to get around and lack the compelling quests for BG2 or the believable inhabited quality of Baldur's Gate itself.