I was a little girl when Baldur’s Gate I and II released on the PC; my family didn’t play many non-educational games at the time, so it (like a lot of geek culture at that time and pop culture in general) passed me by. In the evangelical Christian culture I was brought up in, we were taught that Pokemon, which I did play, and Dungeons and Dragons, which I didn’t and wanted to, were gateways to the occult and sin and all kinds of spooky stuff. I only bring up this context to explain that I don’t have the twenty years of nostalgia everyone else does when it comes to this game. This is our Baldur’s Gate I & II review for Nintendo Switch.
I guess you can say this was my first exposure to Dungeons and Dragons. When I first got my hands on Dragon Age ten years ago, it was being described as a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate and you can see the influence on the later title. The story is standard if compelling fantasy fare and like in Dragon Age you recruit various party members in the quest of finding your true heritage. Sounds fun, right? Well, it would be if playing it handheld weren’t as much of a technical issue as it has been for me. (I prefer to keep my Switch in handheld mode.)
Right off the bat, I had to do a lot of technical tweaking before I could immerse myself in the game properly, which was a slight letdown. You will be reading a lot of text, although there’s the occasional voice acting which makes it slightly better on a gamer’s eye strain, but not by much. If you played this game two decades ago, it’s exactly as you remember as far as graphics are concerned; nothing has really been remastered and these are just simply Switch ports, which we have been seeing a flurry of lately. Occasionally very important things happen in the plot but due to the way it’s been ported at times it can be barely visible if you’re like me and tend to take your Switch on the go. I can’t tell if that’s the fault of the game itself, the way it’s been ported or the Switch hardware.
If you’re like me and have never played these classics before, this is an excellent time to pick them up, especially if you want to play these classics on-the-go. I have yet to try it in docked mode but recommend handheld mode with some caveats regarding the graphics and general presentation. Venture forth and give it a shot yourself.
Disclosure: I received a game key from the publisher for the purposes of this review.
Games It Plays Like: Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition