I'm about to play through the entire BG saga (from TuTu through ToB) and I've been thinking. What's the real difference between the two games. Yeah, yeah, I know about kits, and the resolutions, and tab keys, and all that.

Suppose, however, that you are playing through the game with TuTu, so that the same engine is used for both BG and BG2. Now, what's the real difference between the two? What prevents the saga feeling like one really really really big game?

My first thought is the nature of quests. Quests seem to be rather long and involved in BG2, less complex and straightforward in BG.

Any other thoughts?

BGI has fewer dialogs between party members and interjections (though this is resolved with the BanterPack).

In BGI, you have to do a lot more random walking around to find stuff where you don't have to in most of BG II.

Here are a few things I can think of off hand.

BG1 w/out Tutu
No Romance
Magical Items +2 or greater enchantments are rare
Quest xp is distrubed amoung the group
No xp from theiving skills
Magical Tombs to increase ability scores
City maps are not open and places are not labeled

Party banters.

You don't have to fight that many mages in BG1, there's more of those fighterish types of enemies. You don't actually have to worry about protecting yourself from magic at all(at leeast without TotSC, which I haven't played).

^Which is sensible as at low levels fighters rule and mages are P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C, but in highest lvls mages do command and conquer game rather easily...

Kobold Commandos are dangerous in BG1 *c*

Also no experience for writing spells in BG1 either.

In BG1 the most nasty thing in the world is an archer type character with a nasty bow. They are absolutely brutal!

In BG1 bows and slings are your friend. The more characters who have ranged weapon the better off you are to survive. You only need one or two characters good with close ranged combat. All others should be able to fling a weapons at others.

yeah, in BGII although ranged weapons are nice most of the time close range weapons are more effective in battle, but in BGI u can esaily dispatch most enemies with several long range attackers before they even get close enough to attack.