Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

aka: BG2, Baldur's Gate II: Cienie Amn, Baldur's Gate II: Schatten von Amn, Bode zhi Men 2: Anmu de Yinying
Moby ID: 2465
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Description official descriptions

Some time after the events described in Baldur's Gate, the protagonist and his friends Imoen, Minsc and Jaheira have been captured by an elven mage called Jon Irenicus. His intentions and connection to the heroes unknown, Irenicus conducts experiments on them, holding them in cages somewhere in his vast underground complex. During his absence, the heroes manage to escape, and soon find themselves in the city of Athkatla in the country of Amn, where they confront Irenicus. However, at that moment several wizards arrive and arrest both Irenicus and Imoen for unlicensed use of magic. The first task at hand is to raise the money needed to rescue Imoen, before facing Irenicus again and unraveling his true goals.

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is a party-based role-playing game using the AD&D rules. The basic gameplay is similar to that of its predecessor: the player navigates a party of up to six active combatants over isometric environments, conversing with non-playable characters using branching dialogue, and fighting enemies in real-time, free-movement combat that can be paused to issue specific orders to the characters. World traveling now occurs by selecting locations on a map rather than exploring wilderness areas to reach the destination. However, the game world is larger than in the previous game, with more individual locations to visit and side quests to perform.

Being a direct sequel to Baldur's Gate, the game lets the player control stronger, higher-level characters from the onset. The main character can also be imported from the previous installment. Three new classes (sorcerer, monk, and barbarian) are available along with those that were present in the original game. Characters can also acquire specializations within most of the classes: a paladin, for instance, can become a dragon slayer or an inquisitor. Weapon proficiencies are more specific: for example, instead of just specializing in blades, the player can choose between proficiencies in long swords, two-handed swords, bastard swords, katanas and scimitars. There are many new types of weapons, armor, and magic spells in the sequel.

Sixteen characters may join the party during the course of the story. Each of them has his or her own motivations, sometimes conflicting with those of other characters. Scripted events and interaction with playable as well as non-playable characters have been noticeably increased in the sequel. The main character can also romance some of the companions by choosing appropriate behavior and dialogue lines. The game allows the player to make many moral decisions and pursue character-specific side quests unrelated to the main story. Many of the companions bring their own quests, and unique tasks are available for the main character depending on his or her class.

Spellings

  • Baldur's Gate 2: Тени Амна - Russian spelling
  • 博德之门2:安姆的阴影 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 柏德之門II安姆疑雲 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

384 People (376 developers, 8 thanks) · View all

Dedicated to the memory of
Executive Producer
Line Producer
Producer
Director of Writing and Design
Lead Design
Design
Scripting and Data Entry
Additional Design
Original Baldur's Gate Game Design
Lead Programmer
Programmers
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 93% (based on 74 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 285 ratings with 9 reviews)

A milestone, if not the pinnacle, of CRPGs.

The Good
Here's a game with a tough act to follow: Baldur's Gate 1 was a super-mega-hit, made D&D cool again and became one of the biggest names in the rpg revolution so... How can you make a good sequel to that? The answer is twofold.

For starters the designers took the effective but not that revolutionary "brute force" approach to making a sequel which means they just jammed down your throat 10 times as much features. The new gameworld (moved south of Baldur's Gate around the city of Amn) is 4534536 times bigger with much more varied locations including underwater cities, elven citadels, planar spheres and even the Underdark among the collection of usual temples, dungeons and cities that populate Faerûn. The adventure has also been moved up level-wise, with +3 weapons being now a common occurrence and with enemies such as Beholders, Demi-Lyches and even dragons to fight against instead of the same old lvl 2 kobolds, the spell book has been upgraded to around 300 spells, and the character classes now support character "kits" which work like subclasses with special skills and weaknesses that add a lot of neat twists to the game.

All that plus new features like double-weapon wielding, interface fixes and a more accurate gameplay balance, for instance: thievery is now much more of a requirement and it even awards exp. points when successful. Mages can now cast spell triggers and contigencies making them much more resourceful in combat, in BG1 mages where useless fodder that could be dispossed of easily, now mages are devastating powerhouses that require equally skilled party members capable of casting spell turnings and stuff like that! And that's without mentioning the magical creatures like the vampires, beholders or dragons! Result? It's not enough to have a group of head-crushing fighters anymore, and true variety is much more necessary when considering party development. And speaking of party members, that's the only figure that seems to have dropped: 16 against the 32 or so of the original. But the drop in quantity is acceptable considering that much more dedication has been placed on each character and his/her particular background and storyline. Don't worry tough, along with the new party members you can still find your favorite BG1 characters back: Imoen (much more mature and with a dark secret and all), Jaheira (now single!), Edwyn and my personal favorites: the dimwitted Minsc and bad grrrrrrl Viconia. The characters have dropped that annoying tendency to come in pairs but they still converse with each other and can get into heated arguments and fights if they don't see eye to eye.

In short it's BG bigger, badder, with better graphics (there are even some polygonal elements here and there plus higher resolution options!) and more hours (upwards of 200) of gameplay. Enough to make a cool sequel right? But as I said the answer from the designers was twofold, and the other big improvement they made was really simple: Scripting.

Taking a lot of cues from previous Black Isle games like Torment and Fallout, BG2 forgave to a degree the freeform element of the original and crafted a much tighter world where no enemy is randomly spawned (aside from the obligatory but scarce chance encounters), each NPC has custom dialogues, each quest is meticulously crafted and every possible party member comes with their own scripted events and gets tied to the storyline appropiately. And the most impressive thing is that all these rather ambitious goals are kept for the entire adventure! It still boggles my mind that at no point in the game the quests fall in quality and every little nuance seems controlled by small scripted events, be it a run-in with some spies, a need for money, or some of the miriads of character-related quests that develop each party member Final Fantasy-style and tells us more about their backgrounds; or the class-related quests that provide you with a unique base of operations, quests, sub-plots and steady income depending on your character class; or the romance-scripted events and sub-plots; or the consideration provided by the designers to include small fandom-related touches such as self-parody, D&D cameos by Elminster, Dritz, the kids from the D&D show and enough self-references to the original to satisfy the most jaded fanatic (ever wondered what happened to that character? Practically every character from the original can be found in some form or another here!) ; or the optional challenges like hunting the pieces of a super-powerful hammer, defeating the dragons, assembling a sinister armor made of flesh, destroying Kangaxx, etc,etc,etc,etc,etc....

And still I repeat: at no time does the quality nor the quantity of the game take a dive. One might also think that with such priorities the storyline would decay and end up an inconsistent mess with little to no direction and with as much development as a Street Fighter storyline, but the fact is that the storyline benefits from the tighter scripting and actually soars above the original, exploring further the consequences of your demonic heritage and weaving a larger and more complex plot that interweaves most major players in Faerûn as well as most of the characters you meet in the game instead of being a series of subplots holding up a basic storyline like in other games. Granted, it's not as story-driven as Torment or some console rpgs, but it's still way up there.

The Bad
The ending is blatantly shitty, made for the exact purpose of leaving you with pretty much no answers and prompting you to buy the expansion... and some of the features that everyone wanted (such as knowing what the hell happened to each party member) got kicked over to said expansion...oh well, more BG can't be so bad....

Oh yeah and the final fight with Irenicus was a joke. Quite odd considering there are plenty of difficult challenges in the game and that the final showdown with Sarevok on the original was a veritable nightmare.

And what the hell happened to the spell effects? After Torment and it's screen-shaking, over the top spell effects I expected BG2 to be a super spectacle of magic spells!! Yet....

The Bottom Line
This is one bad ass rpg, one would expect such a massive game to be simply a freeform mess (Morrowind) or such a tightly written and scripted game to be a linear interactive movie (insert any console rpg here) but only Baldur's Gate 2 manages to reach both goals and remain solid.

Required gaming for any crpg wanna-be and gaming enthusiast, Baldur's Gate 2 is simply a masterpiece of videogaming.

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2003

Splendid game! But not as good, as BG1.

The Good
When I first installed Baldur's Gate II, it's difficult to explain how excited I was. By this time, I considered BG1 to be the most interesting computer game of all time, and I guess I could enumerate few more people who said the same. Obviously, sequel of any kind was highly desired. And again, Interplay/BioWare has not let me down.

First, the massive number of quests. Player rarely finds himself wandering with no apparent reason. There are no "empty" locations in this game. On every map we can find some interesting NPCs, some unique items and, of course, quests.

New monsters. BG2 offers you beasts we desire to slay - dragons of various kinds. Although very difficult to kill, battle with them is really a great fun. But there are other interesting monsters one of which is an exceptionally strong lich Kangaxx. The battles are also balanced. Players starts with characters on 7-9lv (highest experience level available in first part of game) and approaches far more difficult monsters than those in BG1.

Graphics is another magnificent element of Baldur's Gate II. Although the game still uses Infinity engine, the quality of locations, characters and spells has increased. We can also use higher resolutions, unofficially to 1600x1200.

The Bad
There are few, serious flaws, which make the game worse, then BG1.

First one is the overwhelming number of sidequests. Sure, it is the essence of the game no to roam freely in pointless locations, but to solve mysteries, rescue princesses, kill dragons etc. But at some point we are thrown into situation, when we enter a new location to complete one quest and before we meet the NPC we want to talk to, we encounter three other characters, each one asks us for a favour. Then, we are suddenly given few other new quests when we try to complete one of those three new. At some point, player gets really confused.

"Empty" locations is another problem. We all remember those woods, mountains, fields etc. which filled the map between Candlekeep and Friendly Arm Inn or between Beregost and Nashkel. There was nothing interesting in there - just some pointless dialogues or pseudo-quests like saving a dog. But it was this pointlessness that made these woods interesting. Player never knew what lures there - it could be a pack of wolves or perhaps a really interesting quest. And if we were in a hurry, we could just rush to the opposite side of the screen and ignore everything else. Perhaps it was a waste of time, but at least we had a choice. In BG2 every location has its purpose. I really could use some "fresh air" and listen to the wind while traveling through bushes and woods. Too bad I can't find it here.

Another disadvantage - experience level. In BG1 we start our adventure with dagger and 10 gold coins. Band of 10 kobolds is a lethal threat to our party. Later, we become stronger, but our strength is reasonable. In BG2 we fight dragons and demi-liches. In Throne of Baal we battle demons and it is Elminster himself that wants to get out of our way. Isn't it a bit too much? Doesn't player become epic? I guess that's too much just for a game.

The Bottom Line
You want a very good RPG game? You like D&D? You want to see some nice story, not just massacre on the screen? Go get yourself this game!

Just keep in mind that nothing is perfect and so is BG2, especially if you are familiar with its prequel.

Windows · by Ajan (262) · 2008

A Great Sequel!

The Good
The game took the elements of the original Baldur's Gate and made them better. The AI was improved so that when one member of your party is going to pick up treasure, other members will move out of his way. The 800x600 graphic size was a welcome improvement (though you can still play 640x480 if you wish). The ability to make notes in the journal was great for tracking important things like a specific place to return when a quest was completed. Also, now your party gets XP for doing things like picking locks and disarming traps. Conversations with NPCs are better done.

The Bad
What I didn't like was the repetitive music. Don't get me wrong, the music sounds great. It's just that after a while I was sick of hearing it (but I'm always like that). Also it seems that the number of quests gets to be a bit much. Granted doing all these things build experience points but most of them have nothing to do with the main storyline. So at times I would feel like "Ugh! Another tedious quest to do but hey, it will gain me XP and maybe a higher reputation).

The Bottom Line
Basically this game picks up where Baldur's Gate ended and goes from there. There are all kinds of new monsters to challenge your party as you become more powerful. Plenty of new items, spells, etc. in this game. If you like RPG games or D&D, you'll really enjoy BG2.

Windows · by AstroNerdBoy (35) · 2002

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Baldur's Gate II appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

German version

In the German version the gore option is set to off by default and removed from the options menu. This results in missing blood and splatter effects.

Novel

Wizards of the Coast published a novelization of this game in 2000, written by Forgotten Realms series editor Philip Athans.

References

  • Ever wonder what happened to the kids from the animated Dungeons and Dragons television show? In the back of the Adventurer's Mart, there are two portraits on the wall of these "Adventures far from home" with rather snide descriptions and the speculation that they ended up in the belly of Tiamat.
  • In the Rangers cabin in Umar hills, you can find a book labeled "The Umar Witch Project", which clearly is a joke referring to the famous Blair Witch Project movie.
  • In the Bridge district of Athkatla, on the third floor of an inn in the western part, you can find a picture of Elvis on the wall!

Sales

In 2001, Baldur's Gate II won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2001 (Issue #201) – Role-Playing Game of the Year
    • November 2003 (Issue #232) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • Game Informer
    • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #89 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
  • GameSpy
    • 2000 – RPG Game of the Year
    • 2001 – #37 Top Game of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 02/2001 - Best RPG in 2000
    • Issue 02/2001 - Best Gameworld in 2000
  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2001 - Best Game in 2000
    • Issue 01/2001 - Best RPG in 2000
  • Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
    • 2001 - Gold Award

Information also contributed by ClydeFrog, Emil Kraftling, Marko Sošić, Pseudo_Intellectual and Xoleras

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Related Sites +

  • Baldur's Gate Forum
    The biggest German forum about Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and other Infinity Engine games.
  • Baldurdash
    A site by Kevin Dorner of Bioware containing hundreds of unofficial bug fixes for both Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal that weren't corrected by any of the official patches.
  • Baldurs Gate Trilogy
    A German Fansite - with tons of detailed informations, walkthrough, and many files, including the unofficial german text-patch
  • Gamasutra: The Anatomy of a Sequel
    A post mortem article by Ray Muzyka (May 2, 2001)
  • Hints for Baldur's Gate 2
    These hints might help you solve the game.
  • Planet Baldur's Gate
    Another Planet, this one covers Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate II and the Throne of Bhaal, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment. Files, forums, articles, help, walkthroughs, news, and links populate it. A typical Planet site.
  • Pocket Plane Group
    Pocket Plane Group publishes a number of detailed mods for Baldur's Gate 2 and other Infinity Engine games. BG2 Mods include Kelsey NPC, Quest Pack, the BG1Tutu converter, Banter Packs, and Ashes of Embers.
  • Spellbound Studios
    Spellhold Studios (or SHS) is a community committed to creating mods for different CRPGs, especially Baldur's Gate II and other games using the Infinity Engine, but also Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 2465
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by -Chris.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Dr. Elementary, PCGamer77, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, phlux, Corn Popper, JRK, FloodSpectre, Xoleras, Silverblade, Jason Compton, Klaster_1, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added October 1, 2000. Last modified March 20, 2024.