Out of all the RPG’s that I enjoy, I’ve always been a big fan of anything that had to do with the Dungeons and Dragons series, including Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Ravenloft even from back in the day. One title in particular that I thought was a blast was Baldur’s Gate on the PS2, and despite it’s short lived play time and cliffhanger ending, it turned out to be a fun and visually stunning romp through the world of Forgotten Realms. Needless to say, I was ecstatic over getting this fun title that has now been scaled down to the GBA to take along in your pocket, and overall I have to say that I had fun … even despite some rough patches that couldn’t be overlooked.

The story to Baldur’s Gate for the GBA retains the overall elements of the original game, including the opening where your character is assaulted by a murderous band of thieves and you’re stumbling into the Elfsong Tavern to begin your adventure. The only real difference this time around is the fact that the storyline takes place in a few different settings within Baldur’s Gate (for example, the item shop guy that was in the Elfsong Tavern now has his own shop out in the city and you meet the priest on the city streets versus in the catacombs) but overall everything will feel pretty familiar, including most of the stages from the original game like the sewers, frozen mountain peaks, and swamplands. You also get to select one of three characters from the original game as well … fighter, wizard, or archer … and then off you go on your adventure hacking and slashing your way through familiar monsters like slimes, kobolds, and trolls all the way to bosses including such familiar battles from the console like the Orb of the Undead.

Now, one thing that I was a little worried about up front is in some of the puzzle solving that took place in the original title that would be extremely difficult on the GBA to pull off (ledge jumping and some of the switch based ones). Fortunately, the gameplay runs smooth and is more focused on action, and all of the jumping style and obstacle laden puzzles were left out to avoid a lot of anger and do overs. What is left is more of a pure hack and slash title, but for those of us who happen to remember sitting around playing the original dungeon hack Advanced D&D video and tabletop games from way back when know that’s not really a bad thing. 

For a smaller viewed title, the producers also did a good job in fitting most of the elements of the original in to try and give it a familiar feel. The A button performs your attack, the B button performs your magic or selected abilities, and different armaments or abilities can be selected through the Start button screen and quickly cycled by using the R button. Also, for you hack and slash “safe” players out there, the L button will perform a block to help in minimizing damage. As you can see, everything from the up front gameplay element was covered … but then things get a little weird from here.

For starters, Baldur’s Gate has an isometric, ¾ kind of viewpoint without the option of rotating the screen. Now, if different obstacles or areas on the screen (like walls, columns, trees, etc) had the ability to go transparent, then this wouldn’t be too much of an issue. The problem here is that they don’t go transparent, and this can obviously cause some problems along the way if you happen to be blind fighting an enemy and are swinging at air due to the fact that you can’t see him. It also had some moments of blocking walkways or areas that you needed to move through, and to make matters worse the GBA version of Baldur’s Gate doesn’t come with a map option either so you have no way of finding where these hidden areas lie plus you can get turned around and lost in parts of the game since you’re not 100% sure where to go or where you haven’t been yet. Also, add in the fact that there are no Potions of Recall to get you back to the shopkeeper or a village setting should you run out of health potions or need to sell loot since you’re weighed down and it can get frustrating.

Another issue in the GBA version of Baldur’s Gate comes in the AI department for the monsters that you come up against along the way while in an inside setting. The AI is decent in the fact that the creatures will act aggressively and will come after you if you happen to enter the area that they are in … but for some strange reason they also seem to have a dire phobia of doorways. As a note to all potential players … if you come across a room of tough bad guys to deal with simply walk through a door and stand there. The monsters will walk up to the doorway and sit there while you hack them apart and if you are positioned right, they won’t attack back (they will still make ranged attacks though that can pass through doorways). This obviously is great in the area of saving health potions or getting past a rough spot with lots of melee creatures, but bad in the overall gameplay department.

Graphically, Baldur’s Gate looks really good on the little screen. The colors and backgrounds were lit well and were a really good representation of the console titles. The GBA version also included a change in looks as new armor or weapons were equipped, which impressed me personally. Everything was well represented overall, except in the category of some of the models that were used. Each character up front has the same exact look to them, whether it be the fighter, wizard, or archer, and many of the NPC’s that you encounter look the same with some different colored clothing and whatnot. In the sound department, it wasn’t too terrible … but there really wasn’t a lot there to grade overall. The opening track was converted well to the GBA cart, but there isn’t much background music at all and most of your time will be spent listening to the sound of your character’s footsteps or the roars and death noises of your foes … those of which were done nicely.

Overall, Baldur’s Gate is far from perfect … but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy playing it even despite issues that I found along the way. While it’s not going to be the next groundbreaking GBA title, Baldur’s Gate fans that loved the original PS2 or Xbox versions and are looking for one to take with them on the go will probably have a good time with it. If he issues mentioned will outweigh the other elements or you haven’t played the original one yet and are thinking of picking it up, I would recommend seeing if a friend has a copy you can try prior to making the decision to purchase it.    

Gameplay: 7.4
The developers did a good job in converting the overall feel of the console title over to the GBA, and did a great job in ensuring that the controls did all of the things they needed to while being in more of a scaled down version. Unfortunately, the issues with the camera, no map, long backtracking at times to get to an item shop or safe zone, and bad AI indoors hindered what could have been a really great experience.

Graphics: 8.0
The environments, lighting effects, and even changing looks depending on what weapons or armor was equipped was in the game, and it was really impressive looking on the little system. The only real issue that I personally saw in the graphics was in the fact that there were a lot of the same models used for NPC’s, and all of the selectable characters up front looked identical.

Sound: 7.5
The sound wasn’t really bad, there just wasn’t enough of it. The monsters and characters make noise while in combat, and the whooshing and slashing sounds of weapons or spell effects sounded good. There really was no background music except for certain times though, so you got to listen to footsteps a lot … especially when backtracking or going for long times with no action.

Difficulty: Medium
It seemed like this version of Baldur’s Gate made it a little more difficult to level up, meaning that it was a little more difficult to get new abilities or special attacks. Some monsters also can be dangerous when attacking in groups, especially if you happen to be low on healing potions at the time.

Concept: 7.7
Even despite issues, the bottom line is that the overall look and feel of the original game was captured well. I only wish that more of the little things (map and quick returns) had been added in.

Overall: 7.5
While I would have loved to see the GBA version get a 9 or higher overall, there were just way too many little quirks that ran rampant too frequently to be overlooked. Still, fans of the original games should enjoy it even despite its flaws, but new players to the D&D Forgotten Realms hack and slash world may want to give it a try and see if it’s what they are looking for prior to buying it.