The game uses some solid time gates to check player progress

Dec 11, 2012 15:40 GMT  ·  By

As soon as I left the shop in Nasckel, my former faithful companion Minsc decided the time was right to attack me and the rest of my companions.

The fight was swift, with Imoen the thief getting killed first, which was reason enough to reload and try and avoid the situation, and my own character quickly following her into death after going up against the powerful barbarian and his two-handed sword.

I initially didn’t understand why Minsc went against his companions, but after reloading and suffering the same fate a few times, I caught a line he delivered before the attack, which blamed me for not moving fast enough to rescue his witch from the gnolls.

I am a very cautious player and tend to explore small quests and try to evolve my characters and get better equipment before engaging with the more important quests and that actually worked against me in Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition.

Minsc joins only after insisting on rescuing Dynaheir and the game actually tracks how long you take to do this and turns the characters against the player if you take too long.

This is a punishing mechanics that no modern role-playing game would include because it would draw criticism from the player base about unfair treatment.

But BioWare was not afraid to punish the player way back in 1998, not for any actual gameplay mistakes, but on moral grounds for the fact that he delayed helping a friend and keeping a promise.

Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition is a game that feels foreign in many ways, but once one let’s go of the frustration, it makes sense for Minsc to act as he does and it makes sense for another dwarf to suddenly leave my party when it takes me too long to achieve his goals.

The game has a fully developed world it can rely on and that part is what makes it special 14 years after I've first played it.