To the Hills!

By Feminina O'Ladybrain on July 23, 2024

Spoilers for some side stuff in Baldur's Gate 2

Loothound:

Man, this game seems to have something against me having a mage in my party. So, got Nalia's stuff figured out and now everything's smooth to ride, right? Wrong! Her ex fiancé, who she lorded me so that I can keep him away from her, just showed up and arrested her. Had to go get her back immediately. Fortunately, it wasn't super complicated to do. But, man, what another pain in the ass. I want to go get Imoen back, since I've got the money, but of course that's not at all straightforward.

Then I realized that I still had the dryads acorns from the very beginning of the game, so I'm off trying to do that. Got tricked into killing some knights along the way, and now I'm sidetracked again trying to challenge some lordly asshole who kidnaps kids.

This fricking world is bonkers.

Butch:

Oh shit, right, the acorns! I still have those! Where was I supposed to take those?

The gnome is a pretty kick ass mage and a better thief than Nalia. Gnome power!

Loothound:

Haven't met any gnomes. When Anomen gets knighted, you will definitely know it.

Butch:

The gnome was down in the southeast corner of the government district. He came up to me and tried to sell me illegal stuff. Maybe it had to be at night.

He's cool. A bit chatty, but cool.

Feminina:

I haven't met that gnome either. But I did return the acorns – not really on purpose, I just stumbled on the place where they go while looking for something else. Which it turned out was not on that particular map at all, but hey.

Butch:

You gotta get the gnome. I kind of love the gnome.

What the hell was with the djinn? What was the quest? I killed a good guy, didn't I?

Feminina:

I don't know, man – I haven't killed anyone in relation to that quest! (Yet.)

I'm sure it'll all turn out…some way…

Butch:

But what even WAS the quest? I got two whole lines of dialog in it. Two!

Loothound:

Djinn? Are we talking about the one from before again, or is there a new one?

I DID meet that gnome! No room in the party at the time, though. I have a hard time changing up the batting order at this point. I like my current crew. I'm going to be really torn when Imoen comes back and it's her or Nalia.

JK, no it isn't. It's going to be both…

Feminina:

This is a djinn you meet outside of a town called Trademeet. The one being attacked by wild animals, that someone tells you about in the city and you say "yeah, OK, I'll be sure to check that out sometime."

You may not have been there yet.

But we've all been to the Umar Hills by now, right? So how about them there hills? Did we solve the mystery of the Umar Hills Witch? Ha.

And Butch, you probably killed the right person. I haven't found that person, though! I thought that person was way the hell somewhere else on some other map! Where I am now looking for them!

Siiiiiiigh…but yeah, you're fine. Just one of those "hey, yeah, I got your quest item right here!" moments.

Loothound:

Well, I did. I'm sorry I brought it up earlier, it sounded like everyone had done it. Did you find all the books?

What I liked about that quest was the double head-fake of possible culprits. Then the real culprit turned out to be a kind of head-fake, too.

Have not been to Trademeet. I still technically haven't been to the Windspar Hills because of all the tedious side-tracking!

I always appreciated the simplicity of City Names in Forgotten Realms. Trademeet. Neverwinter. Waterdeep. Myth Drannor. Just really tells you what the place is about.

Feminina:

Yes, it was fun that you come in and have "maybe these ogres? Or these wolves? or this witch?" and then it's not really any of the above since the guilty ones were under the malign influence of another force and so weren't really responsible.

I did find the many caches of books. Nice touch. Good luck with the tourist trade there, 'Vincenzo.'

Butch:

This is where my "turn undead to other side of lava" happened.

I liked that, yet again, you could do some puzzling and get a doodad that avoided a fight later. Or, you could not and just fight. I, for one, am glad to have avoided a shadow dragon, but hey. To each their own.

What I am digging less is how this game sticks with one kind of monster throughout levels. Nalia's place? Trolls for days. This place? Shadows. OK, sometimes there's a giant troll or shadow fiend, but still. I get why they do that in terms of narrative, but it would be nice to mix it up a little.

Feminina:

Yes, I figured it was about that lava pit. It was kind of entertaining, also, having to move people one by one around the edges of the pit, and then later on the letter tiles, so they wouldn't just maintain the normal marching formation and wade into lava/set off a fearsome trap.

I also found it entertaining that this was the ONE TIME I decided not to loot something weird--the prophet's bones--and then of course it turned out those ghosts wanted the prophet's bones and I had to send Anomen, who at the time was the healthiest of the party, back across the lava and through some additional shadows to fetch them.

The moral is, always take the bones.

Except for all the times I wound up carrying a bunch of skulls I took from tombs, and spoiler, no one wants to buy tomb skulls. At least, I haven't met them yet.

Also they're probably horrendously evil, not that this would NECESSARILY stop me from selling them tomb skulls.

Loothound:

I think I know just the place. That one room with the lava in it?

Totally agree about the monsters, on both points. Like, each big bossy area has just one or two kinds of minions. Narrative sense, yes, but D&D has such an amazing variety of baddies that it feels a bit cheap to be seeing the same ones over and over again.

Then again, there may be a technical reason. Back when this game came out it might not have been as easy to run lots of different enemy behavior programs at the same time. Like, each kind of monster has a program that defines its behaviors, and I think they all have to be running at the same time in each enclosed map areas. May have been trickier to do.

Yeah, the having to manage party member individually bits. The trapped room with the letters was a good puzzle challenge, but with the lava it was just kind of annoying. Like, unless you're explicitly telling your friends "don't walk in the lava," they will just walk into lava. NPCs, am I right?

Butch:

NPCs indeed. 17 intelligence my ass, Aerie.

True. It was a simpler time. Still, I find myself often rolling my eyes all "C'mon, man, I've proven I can beat these guys."

I know a certain gnome who needs skulls.

Feminina:

Hm. Fair point about the enemy types.

It certainly runs like lightning now, though! Love the practically instantaneous load times. It's a good thing they don't have any helpful hints on the load screen, because we would never see them.

"When in combat, the surefire way to not die is--" [LOAD]

Of course, even if we could see it, it would turn out to say "the surefire way to not die is to avoid taking too much damage!" and we'd say "thanks, that solves everything."

Loothound:

Plus, other hot takes like:

Trolls regenerate most types of damage.
Small items like keys take up as much space in your inventory as a suit of plate mail.
If they have dark skin, double check to make sure they're not evil.
Anomen is an insufferable ponce.

We're missing out on SO MUCH LORE!

Feminina:

Siiiiiiiigh. If only we didn't have these powerful PS5s.

Butch:

Bravo on the use of "ponce."

Yeah, the key thing is certainly annoying. Wasn't there a "key ring" in the first game?

I also have yet to encounter a dude with a bag of holding. Thank Naked Zeus for the scroll case and gem bag.

Loothound:

Yeah, Feminina mentioned a key ring being in the first game last night. Now I want one. One with a zippy chain like janitors sometimes have. Also, where is Bag of Holding. Much want.

Okay, so I just had this weird, meta joke pop into my head. You go through a game like this, right, and one of the hints that pops up in the load screen is just "Valkyrie needs food, badly."

Later in the game there's a drunken NPC that raves about having been a Valkyrie once. If you give the NPC some food, they sober up and ARE in fact a Valkyrie! They thank you and give you a bad ass gauntlet as a thank you.

Okay, maybe not so much a joke as an Easter Egg, but the point of the story is, my brain is a strange place.

Butch:

Dude that is WAY beyond meta.

It's summer, man! You're supposed to NOT be stressed.

Loothound:

That isn't stress, that's how my brain enjoys itself! Figuring out why my email still has buggy issues is stress.

Speaking of summer, how do you make a Sloe Gin Fizz?

You cast Slow on him, and drop him in acid.

Wakka, wakka.

Butch:

Sweet Naked Zeus help us.

Feminina: