I think it's comparable to Baldur's Gate II - you will spend a lot of time reading, but you'll spend even more exploring and dungeon crawling. Besides, most text is exposition which will lead to a better understanding of the story but it's not essential.

Oh absolutely, with Beandog, the franchise is in much better hands than with EA and they're obviously enthusiastic about it. However, by creating a storyline interjecting into BG1 and 2, they invite a much more direct comparison to the old games - changes will suddenly be bad just because there are changes and anything even slightly not fitting into Bioware formula will be criticized. People tend to be a lot more forgiving when it comes to spinoffs.

I've heard the "hey, this game isn't want we wanted and will probably be crap, but GET HYPED because it might lead one day to the game you really want!!!" argument over many years and it never works out. All compromising and accepting and buying crap games gets you are more crap games. And just because one company released a turd or a misfire it doesn't mean another would be welcome. They're meant to learn with mistakes and improve with time, not get worse.

It's sad to hear someone talking about a lot of story and reading be a bad thing in an RPG...almost the key ingredient to it being a proper RPG in the first place.

Personally, I consider a lot of story and reading to be a bad thing in any game (except things like visual novels or text adventures) because I play games (RPGs included) for gameplay, not story. Story events just get in the way when I actually want to play the game.

Save the princess... blah-blah-blah... The whole story of Dragon Warrior I and most of the first CRPGs :))
[to avoid confusion: letter "C" stands for Computer/Console]

I am with Dtgreene fully on this one. And I am scared by this notion of making some shooter and labeling it CRPG because of story and a tiny bit of actual CRPG elements. CRPG is defined by gameplay, story is just a background for any genre.

I think the BG series is a good GAME because it has great GAMEplay and a good enough story to keep me interested and moving along. I'm not a word counter, but playing through BG did not feel like a lot of reading to me. Some fun and challenging combat levels really breaks up the boring dialogue (see Shadowrun) and in my opinion is an element to a good GAME. It's all opinion of course, but mine is the IE style of gameplay is fun and good enough stories can be told with it if some professionals want to take the time.

I actually agree with you. My favorite RPGs, for the most part, involve a lot of reading. There's a significant amount of dialogue to read in Morrowind and that's one of my favorites, although I don't read all the books I come across in that game. I do read some of the more relevant books about the main storyline though to learn more about Nerevar and the phophecies.

I also feel there is a significant amount of reading to be done in BG2. Between all the dialogue and item descriptions there's a lot to read. And again, that's even without reading the books you come across. The original BG doesn't have as much to read.

But I really like the total immersion in the worlds of those games, and while I may not read everything, I still think it adds significantly to the games.

I never understood the criticism myself. The dungeons are generally more interesting, and high-level characters were fun to use. It is on rails, but no more so than most of SoA once you leave the city. The writing got a bit worse in places, but at times it's quite good. Imoen's ToB dialogue is some of the best in the series in my opinion.

back to the ORIGINAL argument. the ONLY reason I don't like ToB is the damned Reverb in EAX is horrid! it was a slop job. in Shadows of Amm when you exited a dungeon you sounded like you were outside. why in Hell did they change it in TOB to be booming and echoey even OUTSIDE! the bozos were probably trying to rest on their laurels and play a pot of gold from the previous successes. I don't care for Melissant either. She's a silly antagonist. I don't mind reading at all. game play is only interesting if there is a POINT to why you are going around beating everyone with your sword. I am being off topic here, but I'd say Gothic,Ultima VII and Mass Effect have better dialogue. I also liked SOA if you keep up with your attention span also much superior antagonist! and David Warner excellent as VO as much Kev as Sarevok. SoA it is a similar kind of thing as Planescape. this is not a hack n slash. ToB could be good if they cleaned up the sound and not using EAX sux, especially when customising your own voice sets. it always worked well in ToSC and SoA. the antagonist is kind of silly as well.

Gaining 10 levels and the equilvalence in gear in 1/5th the amount of time is what made it kind of silly for me. Just a bit too Monty Haul for my liking. But it was the conclusion so I think not hitting epic levels wouldn't make sense. If it were a larger game, it'd be fine, but tripping over +5 Sword of Apocalypse every few steps just doesn't feel super great. I mean, I noticed this as a total DnD noob way back before I had even heard the term Monty Haul.

Compare that to all you had to go through to get Carsomyr. Well, kill one dragon, but that felt like a real feat!

Over the years, I had read that ToB was not meant to be an expansion, but rather BG Part 3. Then the developers' time and budget got slashed (reflecting Interplays financial woes), and we were lucky to get any closure with the series. I think it was much less than a year between SoA and ToB being released. For ToB, they're bug-fixing SoA, enhancing the game engine, and creating a conclusion to one of the most epic adventures ever for a CRPG.... all within a year? If you ask me, it's a miracle ToB was even completed.

The one time I played the BG series start to finish, I was All In, 100% invested in the game, characters, and story. I might have a different opinion on a subsequent play-through. But that first time, through my jaded eyes, before being flooded with opinions from the internet.... the thought never once occurred to me that ToB was inferior in any way.

I'll always appreciate ToB as the finale of the Saga that is my favorite game of all time.