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Read this back to front and miss the good old days…
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View Reddit by planbOZ – View Source
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Read this back to front and miss the good old days…
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View Reddit by planbOZ – View Source
Excellent blast from the past
Old game manuals were wild. My cousin showed me once his old Arcanum manual that contained the whole background lore of the world.
for a 20+ year old game this is very well kept , nice find
Nice
Fucking epic game!
264 pages and there was *still* all kinds of stuff that wasn’t documented. Why is this monster immune to this thing? Why doesn’t this math work the way I’d expect? Do these spells really just do nothing? It’s endless.
I have well over a thousand hours in the first two BG’s, probably a dozen complete playthroughs. By the time you get the base version figured out, and then the Enhanced Edition figured out, and then your mods of choice figured out… The game is often all about figuring out and optimizing arbitrary engine mechanics. It’s kind of infuriating. Things often either work super effectively or not at all, and there’s a lot of repetition to figure out what works, and then you keep doing that until it doesn’t work any more. Half of the strategies you end up using feel like exploits, but depending on your character you may not have viable options but to “cheese” your way through encounters.
​
Bizarre mechanics aside, the story is good, the backgrounds pretty, the characters are fun, voice acting is excellent, character creation is varied and extremely relevant but also capricious, many items feel powerful, and a lot of spells are cool.
I had the spiral bound version. It’s probably still in a box somewhere. It and that golden paperback Ocarina of Time manual received a lot of wear and tear.
I has no idea Baldurs gate was that old
I didn’t know Baldurs gate was that old
You must gather your party before venturing forth!
Burp! Pardon me! Turnip reflux!
Ah just perfect!
Back when games were something personal, tangible and meaningful. They meant something back then.
Will never forget shopping for Ultima 7 and Ultima 8 in Virgin Megastores when I was in my early pre-teens. Nothing comes close to how magical the feeling was back then. I’d have to walk for an hour just to get there.
Now all you need to do is click a link.
Games have lost their personal touch and magic nowadays. Such a shame.
Oooh, annotations!
hey, free phb.
That’s a very well loved manual, I bet it’s seen may a late night, road trip, bathroom break etc…
I remember that. My friend had the 5 CD instal kit And this book was included. Non of us unedestood what IT saied cous none of us knew english
. We spent days translating main TIPS for charakter creating and spells. Such a good times 
I remember flipping through the WC3 manual for hours when it was my brother’s turn on the computer. AoE2 as well. Those manuals were fantastic. Miss getting physical stuff.
I LOVE Baldur’s Gate, though I’ve never beaten it.. when I was a kid I used to try but I was just mesmerized by the world and the feel of the game. I just recently bought BG, BG2 & BG3, I’m planning on making my way through them and maybe getting into 3 with a few buddies of mine. I used to love the way old game manuals were, they were so packed with lore, art and details about the world I would sit there for hours and flip through the pages. This is something I wish games now would bring back, even if it was in digital form, I’d love to have some spice or context with some of the games that are coming out now.
Congrats on the find!
marking with a marker pen lol.. thats a new level of nerdiness
fantastic throwback to the past
Ooc, what region was this from? I got a spiral bound manual in the US collectors edition. Same page count though.
I was just thinking the other day about how awesome game manuals used to be. Especially PC games, but even NES manuals were pretty cool and the best were those high quality Working Designs RPGs like Dragon Force. I still have some of my PC manuals I’m pretty sure, Hexen 2 was always one of my favorites.
Today’s games be like: you’ll be happy I let you have a fucking disk, don’t make me go diskless…. fucking manual.. shiiiat
I remember that particular manual. It included complete tables detailing every class progression. It was perfect to plan your party.
I read the shit out of that manual back in the day!
Come to think of it, pretty sure bg2 was what triggered my dnd obsession.
And all these years later it is still the superior BG game. I have been enjoying bg3 no doubt, but it has yet to match or exceed its predecessor.
Anytime here remember the original master of magic handbook? I have a vivid, almost out of body image of the exact moment I fell in love long love with pc gaming.
I’m in the second row, independent seats of an eighties, blue Ford van. Left side. It is between 5:30 and 6. We are half way between egghead software and a teppanyaki restaurant. I no longer want dinner, I want mithral dwarf hammerheads.
I love the idea of a game where you have to consult the manual to figure things out. Do any modern games do this anymore? Sorta like having to decipher the scripture to survive and complete the adventure.
This game was the OG. Pretty sure it “invented” the Bioware RPG style, including romancing your companions. This game set the standard that other series such as Mass Effect and Dragon Age built themselves around. Without BG2, you very possibly wouldn’t have a lot of the major RPG franchises we have today, nor would RPGs be as sophisticated.
Truly the GOAT.
Still the best RPG of all time. Only the recent Pathfinder series has come close.
Did the game come with any other box items? To me, that was one of the coolest things about buying physical games before digital platorms came along. My favorite will always be Everquest’s cloth map.
Some games had mousepads or even plastic models of a character. Posters were common as well. Also, that was one of the draws to get “Deluxe” versions of games, the swag that came in the box.
Those were the days, my friend.
The Baldurs Gate 1 version was even nice it wis spiral bound. I miss these game manuals. They were great.