I actually feel the game itself is an 8. Very enjoyable, no bugs that I noticed and a freedom of choice you don't find elsewhere. I'm giving it a 10 because the way Larian went about this game is the least-scumbag thing I've seen in the gaming industry in at least a decade. Thank you for this game and your moral compass.
The story, characters, and locations in this sequel are more interesting and exotic than those in the first Baldur's Gate game. Indeed, this game excels in these regards. Unfortunately, the combat and inventory management components of the game are burdensome, with an excessive amount of time devoted to necessary pre-combat buffs and mid-combat pauses. Furthermore, there are some game balance problems because some spells and advanced abilities (such as Greater Whirlwind) are so powerful that they utterly invalidate other strategies.
I think this is a pretty good rpg and I recognize it to be an influential game that has also impacted so many rpgs after this. However, I would think that the enhanced edition would at least kink out some of the bugs that plagued this wonderful game. I am not going to criticize anything with the gameplay or it's story because there is nothing to criticize over. It maintains its own style that elevate the rpg style it tries to imitate. However, the bugs were just horrendous with making this gameplay as awsome as it should be. Good Luck and Merry Adventures!!
The original is superb, but this re-release does little to expand or improve.
The good news is the graphics are slightly improved. Better inventory screens and paper dolls, and you can zoom in/out more. There's also widescreen support. Some new content, 4 NPCs come included with the PC version.
The bad news: The game itself is buggy, and the new content is simply not worth the price. This is a $25 game, and is not worth that value. I found the game crashing periodically, which simply did not happen with the original.
An example of the rather slipshod work, the import/export characters option is broken, every time I import my character, the game re-calculates the bonuses each character gets due to strength, dexterity, etc. So if my character should start with +2 to hit, becomes +4 if I import it since the game re-does the calculations. It becomes +8 if for some reason I need to import her again! Unlike the original game, the Enhanced edition does not allow you to "Pre-Generate" characters and import them, I suspect that they knew that importing a character into an existing game was broken..
The new NPCs are pretty atrocious and the dialogue that my character has been given sounds like a comedy routine. When I was chatting with Hexxat, my character was given dialogue option A) "I"ll help you without question" or option B) "Some jerky 3-line comeback that was out of place in this game" or option C) "Too bad for you. Goodbye". Pathetic choices. And the voice acting was amateurish for most of the new characters.
Go get the **** version, take some time to mod it if you want (you would have to do this anyway to the Exhanced version if you wanted tougher enemies or more challenge), and enjoy the game at a much lower price. The GOG version is often on sale too, for 50-75% off, you can't go wrong! And the original version is compatible with more mods, and with more custom portraits, that the enhanced is not able to use.
SummaryYou have been kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured. The wizard Irenicus holds you captive in his stronghold, attempting to strip you of the powers that are your birthright. Can you resist the evil within you, forge a legend of heroic proportions, and ultimately destroy the dark essence that haunts your dreams?