Throne of Bhaal Review Retrospective
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| An Epic Banality — A Rush-job |
Released by BioWare in 2001, the Throne of Bhaal expansion for Baldur's Gate 2 constitutes the third and final phase of the Bhaalspawn Saga. Having passed through two critically-acclaimed phases - Baldur's Gate and Shadows of Amn - Throne of Bhaal ends the Saga on a note that might best be described as a wet fart.
If BioWare's aptitude for campaign design hadn't already gone down the gurgler in BG1 vs BG2, it certainly did with Throne. And they never again climbed their way back to the level of the original Baldur's Gate released back in 1998-99, which is one of the Best cRPGs of all-time.
Throne took some of the worst aspects of Shadows of Amn's cRPG Design and somehow managed to worsen them. Ignoring the best thing about Shadows (non-linear exploration of the quest dense city of Athkatla, and its outskirts), it ran only with the bad things:
It wasn't enough that Shadows nerfed exploration in comparison to the original Baldur's Gate: Throne removed exploration almost entirely:
It wasn't enough that Shadows' story was a poorly-written yawn-fest: Throne barely has one:
It wasn't enough that, in comparison to Sarevok BG1, Archmage Irenicus BG2 was weakly employed as an antagonist (and is only popular due to being peerlessly voice acted): High Matriarch, Amelyssan the Blackhearted, is a completely unmemorable blowhard with whom no one can empathize:
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| One of the rare dialogues in which Melissan isn't screaming at the top of her lungs |
With its tiny world map devoid of waylays...
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| Colorful and cartoony |
... tiny, lifeless town-hubs featuring boring questing...
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| Saradush & Amkethran: not hubs, but husks. |
... and areas that exist merely to be filled with epic mooks or to show off shallow siege-warfare spectacles (areas have no life, lore or mystery of their own)...
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| North Forest & Oasis: borefests |
... Throne is an on-rails hack and slash campaign with almost no redeeming qualities.
In an attempt to offer something deeper than just linear hackfest segments culminating in big, set-piece Bhaalspawn battles, and petty Pocket Plane challenges (both of which are accompanied by lectures by Melissan and the Solar), Throne added in the mega-dungeon known as Watcher's Keep to the Shadows overworld (accessible in Ch. 2, 3 and 6); also immediately accessible from its own. But Watcher's Keep just feels like a parody of a mega-dungeon, lacks thematic consistency ("It's Epic!" is not a theme) and therefore cuts a poor figure when going up against Durlag's Tower, which is a masterpiece of cRPG dungeon design.
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| The Keep vs. The Tower |
The truth is, though: Throne's bad design was rooted in the Monty Haul of Shadows (a campaign made for munchkins), its hands were tied, and so it could do naught but throw itself headlong into the emptiness that is the hallmark of the Epic. As a result, it falls flat on its ass.
Take for example, Arcana Archives Baldur's Gate 2. The sheer amount of spells on offer in one place is gobsmacking.
For all its engine enhancements (eraseable spells, non-pausing mapscreen), feature bloat (43 tacked-on High Level Abilities) and big-budget polish (OST, VOs), Throne cannot even take credit for pushing the Infinity Engine to its limits: Black Isle's Icewind Dale 2 takes that prize, and is also superior in writing, reactivity and - most importantly - cRPG combat encounter design.
Basically, the Bhaalspawn Saga is a mess after the revelation of CHARNAME being a Child of Bhaal in Baldur's Gate. As I've mentioned before, Shadows and The Exile would not exist in a sensible rewrite of the Bhaalspawn Saga. Shadows is just a marathon-length diversion that could easily have been omitted in favor of focusing on the real story: that of the Bhaalspawn & the Prophecy of Alaundo. Imagine a 100 hour Baldur's Gate sequel that kept its focus on this:
... instead of getting side-tracked by the antics of an elf and then having to scramble to cram exposition of the Prophecy into a rushed expansion. That could have been a sequel that did the ending FMV of Baldur's Gate justice. Chasing an elf from Spellhold to Suldanessellar wasted too much time.
Basically, the Bhaalspawn Saga is a mess after the revelation of CHARNAME being a Child of Bhaal in Baldur's Gate. As I've mentioned before, Shadows and The Exile would not exist in a sensible rewrite of the Bhaalspawn Saga. Shadows is just a marathon-length diversion that could easily have been omitted in favor of focusing on the real story: that of the Bhaalspawn & the Prophecy of Alaundo. Imagine a 100 hour Baldur's Gate sequel that kept its focus on this:
... instead of getting side-tracked by the antics of an elf and then having to scramble to cram exposition of the Prophecy into a rushed expansion. That could have been a sequel that did the ending FMV of Baldur's Gate justice. Chasing an elf from Spellhold to Suldanessellar wasted too much time.
But Throne is not without merit. Some of the tracks in its OST are great: the classic Poledouris-esque track that plays on the approach to Yaga-Shura's fire giant stronghold (think Conan) is one of the best I've heard on the IE, and the track that plays during the battles against the Five is top-tier, too.
In fact, with the exception of Illasera, the battles against the rival Bhaalspawn are well-designed - especially the ones against the half-dragons and the Drow.
Their enclaves and dungeons, however, are comical in size, consisting mostly of tiny inter-linked areas, just like Watcher's Keep. Imagine if Sendai's enclave was refitted into a redesigned Shadows Underdark, for example. That would have been more worthy.
In locating rival Bhaalspawn, we should have to climb mountain ranges, delve to abyssal depths and traverse great deserts, not just click an icon on a map - and BANG - we're there. Again, the germ of this lack of a sense of landscape, and of journeying, is found in Shadows.
While most of the forced exposition and lore-dumps by the Solar are not only boring but annoying as well, the dialogue with Charname's mother, Gorion and child-Sarevok are welcome and well-written.
Charname's mother and Gorion:
Child-Sarevok then steps in and adds:
This dialogue segment is noteworthy in that it allows us to empathize with the conqueror-villain of Baldur's Gate. Charname can acknowledge a certain debt owed to Sarevok BG2 (his Fate could have been Charname's), and Charname is even able to redeem Sarevok (and Viconia) by shifting his alignment to Chaotic Good through various companion-based dialogues. Sarevok's capacity for redemption was forseen by Tamoko BG1.
There are several dialogues in regard to Sarevok's redemption, but this lengthy third one is crucial, and the thread can easily be broken by a single "incorrect" response, so I doubt many players even know about the potential for redemption:
In the follow-up banter, Sarevok shifts to Chaotic Good permanently:
It's a big change from:
Here is a variation in which Sarevok alludes to the evil within:
It is also notable that Imoen gains Bhaalspawn abilities such as Draw Upon Holy Might. Charname would actually be quite jealous since his or her abilities are lost in Spellhold to make way for the Slayer transformation, which, however, is clearly inferior to DUHM.
Wait, you don't think DUHM is very strong? You don't think scaling Strength, Dexterity and Constitution - a max of +6 for you - is very strong?
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Having slain the Five and taken out The Ravager (the last of the Pocket Plane "challenges"), we have the finale at the Throne of Bhaal itself.
That's right: one battle and one area constitutes a Chapter. It's just a multi-stage battle against Melissan...
... interspersed with epic-level mooks that are guarding essence-pools of Bhaal, which are the source of her power.
Having beaten up Melissan four times in a row, the Solar steps in to finally pronounce her defeat:
We are then presented with "a choice" the consequences of which, at this point, can consist of nothing more than which of the two ending FMVs play: to ascend to godhood or remain mortal.
As with Irenicus, Melissan is then shown being utterly vanquished through a cutscene:
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| Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo! |
We don't even get to lay the smackdown ourselves. And thus, the Bhaalspawn Saga comes to its comical and unsatisfying conclusion.
Throne is an epic banality, a rush-job. While it was an admirable attempt at salvaging Throne, the climax-enhancing Ascension BG2 mod did not set out to address what many BG veterans perceived to be its flawed fundamental design. That would take one year and an entire studio. Throne was made in six months; Ascension in four.
As I've said, Shadows - which ate up 18 months - should never have been. Instead, there should have just been Baldur's Gate followed by a completely different Baldur's Gate 2 that focused on the Bhaalspawn, Bhaal-lore, and the Prophecy of Alaundo. Basically, a massively expanded Throne. But what's done is done and there's no going back.
Throne is an epic banality, a rush-job. While it was an admirable attempt at salvaging Throne, the climax-enhancing Ascension BG2 mod did not set out to address what many BG veterans perceived to be its flawed fundamental design. That would take one year and an entire studio. Throne was made in six months; Ascension in four.
As I've said, Shadows - which ate up 18 months - should never have been. Instead, there should have just been Baldur's Gate followed by a completely different Baldur's Gate 2 that focused on the Bhaalspawn, Bhaal-lore, and the Prophecy of Alaundo. Basically, a massively expanded Throne. But what's done is done and there's no going back.
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| CHARNAME Baldur's Gate | Canon Party Baldur's Gate | Chateau Irenicus Baldur's Gate |
Did you not like the Saradush and Amkethran maps? I think they look nice (might be because they remind me of Torment a bit). Also liked the music in Amkethran.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think they look nice. And the music and ambience are good, too. My problem with the hubs is that they are small and also shallow in respect to questing. Also, the approach to Amkethran consists of just one area (an oasis). I would have preferred having to travel through a few desert maps to get there.
DeleteAgreed. I was just wondering because you usually talk about the visuals and/or music.
DeleteBtw, do you like games like HoMM and AoW? (I know it's off-topic, but I can't DM you anywhere :P)
Yeah, this was a very small and limited write-up for ToB, so I didn't comment much on some aspects or at all on others. I only tried to sum up what I thought of it in general.
DeleteI haven't played much of HoMM or AoW. Certainly not enough to comment on them. And at this point I don't want to invest time playing different RPGs just so I can comment on them.
I prefer to play around with RPGs that I'm already deeply familiar with, and commentate on other aspects of those.
Basically, I just want to get better at what I know, and expand on and refine the pre-existing (time-permitting), instead of diversifying. There is always room for improvement, and in my case there is a lot of room for imorovement. Another reason is that it's easier to maintain and increase Google authority rankings when I don't diversify and branch out.
That's fair. I asked because I wonder what you'd write about some SRPGs, and I think many of them might be up your alley. I also think many of them have better systems design than a lot of top CRPGs, but it takes a while to get familiar with them.
DeleteBy improving and refining do you mean going back and re-writing/revisiting stuff you've already written about?
And Google authority is good and all, but I hope you also find pleasure doing this :)
That's the problem. These days, I try not to comment on anything with which I'm not deeply familiar. And so I'd need to invest heavily in such games if I were to have the confidence to comment on them. And then, even when that's all done, I start off at the bottom of the pile and need to work my way up the rankings, in order to be read.
DeleteThe reason for revising, rewriting and expanding are twofold:
• Some of the earlier write-ups are poorly written because I didn't take the blog seriously when I started out.
• Write-ups that are not updated are not crawled by Google as often, resulting in loss of rankage.
Expanding is also about posting new write-ups that branch off the prime ones.
As for enjoyment, blogging can be a burden but so can posting on forums where I need to sift through shitposts in order to find something worth reading. And then there are moderators and trolls to deal with.
So, for me, both can be rewarding at times, and also troublesome, but blogging is far more rewarding than forum-posting, and much less troublesome.
Understandable. I didn't know about the loss of rankage thing, that's interesting.
DeleteAre you going back to write more/update stuff about NWN2/expansions? I know you said the 'tree of knowledge has been plucked' re: MoW, but I still think your commentary would be interesting. Also, I don't remember, did you finish a SoZ series?
I've finished SoZ several times, yes. And by several I mean six runs over the years, not including partials. There is a short write-up floating around somewhere as well as a write-up for its community expansion pack and a write-up for Legacy of White Plume Mountain, which is SoZ-like. I'm pretty much over SoZ, and NWN2 in fact, for the foreseeable future.
DeleteWhat are you playing at the moment?
I see. How's Legacy of White Plume Mountain? I love the PnP module, so that could be interesting.
DeleteI recently started Jade Empire. I played it for a few hours a long time ago and dropped it, but I've been reading about BioWare's history again, which made me want to give it another try.