One thing that I keep returning to is the sheer complexity of BG2, both in its mechanics and its environment. The class and combat mechanics are truly arcane, but the difficulty of the game means that any successful playthrough will require at least some familiarity with the relative benefits of "Save Versus Death" versus "Save Versus Spell," knowledge of whether Breach can remove Stoneskin or Spell Immunity, and an appreciation of the Contingency and Sequencer systems. Better know the difference between "dual class" and "multi-class" for leveling up. The spell lists themselves are huge, with many abilities that are highly situational (or, in some cases, just bad). The inventories are tiny and segregated across the characters, creating an odd mini-game of mix-and-match to optimize one's loot. The City of Athkatla is a maze of redundant locations and vendors, full of buildings that in many cases are completely unrelated to all but the most obscure quests, quests so obscure that you may never even find them. The quests themselves offer little in the way of guidance, requiring one to pay attention during conversations, occasionally take notes in one's journal, and actually try to read the maps. Better pick your end-game party early and stick with them, since only the characters that you take with you on missions actually get experience (though once you get the spell to summon demons, you can just kill them repeatedly to level up, if you want).
I think I've gone soft, guys, because in retrospect a lot of this doesn't sound terribly attractive. I keep telling my wife (who loves the Dragon Age games) about how awesome the stories and characters from the BG series are, but I'm almost positive she would hate the games if she tried to play them - they just require too much work to figure out. I remember playing KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights 2, or DA:O and being relieved at how streamlined their inventory, map, and ability systems were. In this regard, things can definitely be too complex.
And yet... I still catch myself thinking back to Baldur's Gate II as perhaps the best RPG experience I've ever played. There is, I think, something about mechanical complexity that actually enhances the realism of a game. On a certain level, I sort of want the spell system to be arcane and difficult to figure out - that's what magic should be like. I sort of want the main quest hub to be an impossibly-complex maze of redundancy and variation - anyone who's ever lived in a city knows that's what it's like. I even sort of want the old, confusing journal/map system back, where you had to actually read the maps to figure out where you were going and could actually get lost trying to find something and, because the game was so dense, often stumble onto something completely different (props to the one side quest in the Korcari Wilds in DA:O where you have to find the treasure by following a verbal treasure map referring to various local landmarks
). This complexity increases the sense of ambiance in the game. I'm wandering down an Amnian alley wondering whether this is the right run-down tavern under which is hidden an illegal slaving operation, or whether I've made a wrong turn (like last time) and will run into another inter-planar acting troupe that will whisk me off to the other side of the multi-verse or (like the time before that) a strange necromantic cabal of human-flesh-wearing cannibals. As I enter the tavern (to the general murmuring hubub and prancing notes of a recorder and tamborine), one of my companions whines about how we really need to go and rescue her troll-infested family estate, and I'm wondering whether to fill my single Level 5 spellbook slot with Breach or Cone of Cold, all the while cursing myself for getting in so far over my head while my best friend is being held in magical Alcatraz. I'd bet that everyone who was really into BG2 had moments like this. At that moment, I don't feel like I'm playing a game anymore - I actually feel like I'm a wizard-mercenary, desperately trying to scrape together enough coin to spring my friend from the clutches of our mysterious mortal foe. Most of this ambiance, I think, is lost when I have an intuitive spell system, a companion approval metric, and a bright shiny icon on my mini-map to show me exactly where to go.
Mechanical complexity does interesting things to the advancement dynamic in the game, as well. Leveling up in BG2 was extremely important, but a lot of the improvement that came in playing the game was me, rather than my character. By the time I'd finished playing, I felt I actually had a pretty good grasp of the odd and complicated magic system (though even then there remained corner-cases that could surprise). I had my places in Athkatla where I would go to fence loot and pick up odds and ends, places that I had found and gravitated towards for whatever reason, rather than a single, easy-to-use one-stop shopping center. And I was actually pretty good at reading maps and finding places. The result, I think, is a fondness for those characters and that city that transcends anything else I've ever played.
I'm not sure what this trip down memory lane should mean for DA3; perhaps nothing at all. I certainly don't want to go back to THAC0, "Save versus Wands," and leveling only the characters who are with you. But I also think that it's possible to go too far down the path of streamline, convenient, easy-to-use gameplay, and that the Dragon Age series in general has thus far gone that route.
To those who made it this far, what do you think? Does mechanical complexity add to the ambiance of a game? How might additional complexity add to the experience of future games, without making them unplayable?
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