Well, I am currently at the beginning of Chapter 5 in BG2 and I just really felt like Baldur's Gate was the better game. Story, pacing, difficulty, freedom...these were all elements I felt were implemented better in 1 than 2. I also feel the original has more magic, at least in comparison to how far I have gotten in 2.

BG2 feels like it was the ultimate game on paper, but in the process of game development, seemed to lose the charm of its scope & features, despite their successful inclusion gameplay wise. BG2 feels like cheese...yes, its epic, but easy...and most of the great loot in the game was the same end game loot in BG. Bigger, better & more isn't always an improvement, I guess, and I feel BG2 took this notion and ran with it.

Maybe I will change my mind throughout the course of the game, but so far I feel the original was far superior....anyone else feel the same way?
Oh, I forgot to mention I played both games vanilla without any mods.

I also liked BG more than BG2.

I liked BG2 better than BG, myself. Part of it was that the party members actually had conversations, instead of just repeatedly shooting the same lines back and forth. (Jan + Minsc + anyone = hilarity.) BG2 also just feels more -epic- then BG; I've yet to find anything in gaming that I've found as exciting/intense/awesome as that first battle with Firkraag, or any of the battles with the Five in ToB besides the first. (Or ToB's final battle, for that matter.) Just my two cents, though.

For me both were about equal in terms of how much I liked them.

I wish BG2 had more of the free spirited roaming that you could do in BG. That to me was what made Baldurs Gate so amazing. Just the fun of wondering around.

BG2 has way less areas but has many advantages that BG should of had in it.

Probably my two most favourite games of all time. Many say Planescape is better but I got annoyed how most of the game your stuck in a big city, though artisticly Sigil is neat to look at it wears on you after awhile.

What got me with Placescape is its set on the freaking planes. There is so much you can do with that setting and the game itself just seemed limiting to what it possible could of achieved. A good game though.

I've played BG multiple times, BG2 once. To me BG carries off the feel of the struggles of a new adventurer (either by choice or by circumstance, you choose), the novice caught up in something far larger than he or she could have ever imagined, and the quest to learn who you really are. That's probably why I also like IWD. And why I got involved in the modding community at Gibberlings 3.

BG2, though improved in many ways technically, is geared to a more mature character and player. But it lost the feel of the free adventurer, able to go anywhere in the region at a whim, when it became much more linear. And the ToB expansion was even worse in this regard.

Here's hoping BGEE is improved enough to allow conversion of BG1 NPC mod to function. Increased party interaction, interjections and romances, as well as new mod NPC's would be very welcomed.

Your thoughts mirror mine exactly. I loved how free you were in Baldur's Gate.

I only discovered the BG series through GOG and was totally immersed by the first instalment with the aid of the tutu mod. The whole D&D concept was new and the more I played, the better it got.

BG2 therefore had the disadvantage of not being new and fresh. However, I can't see how you're finding it easier than the first - to me the battles in BG2 were much more challenging throughout.

I felt the NPC's and party members much more likeable in BG2 - Jan and Minsc provided some genuine laugh out loud moments.

However, the first game did feel much less restrictive and linear as long as you prioritised party members quests.

Having reflected I think they were on a par - I disagree with what seems to be the majority who have reviewed BG2 that it does everything better than the BG1 experience provided.

I though BG2 was a much better game than BG1.
Combat was better, with smarter enemies and more (quantity) memorable encounters.
NPCs were better, with their interjections and banter.
Athkala was a far more interesting city to explore than Baldur's Gate.

I missed the outdoor areas to explore, though.
And game balance kind of fell apart once you started your genocide aginst the Beholders in the Underdark, armed with that ultra cheesy Shield of Balduran.

I have always found BG to be the better game here, the story had many twists even though the story was light. I liked exploring around every area to find many cool things.

Now I am not saying that it isn't possible in BG2 but the thing is in BG there were SO MANY optional areas or areas that you could easily skip whereas in BG2 there are hardly as many. I also found starting at level 1 gives you more investment in your character.

I have finished BG 4 times now and imported into BG2 every time, yet EVERY TIME I have had problems playing into it further.

My favourite BG-game is BG in the BG2-engine (with Tutu). What I like about BG is starting of as a weak level 1 character, that doesn't know it's own epic background and has to grow in experience a lot before it's own fighting capabilities become epic. There's so much more involvement in your character if it get's easily killed by a wolf and slowly grows in experience to become able to battle much more fearsome enemies. Secondly the wonderful thing about BG that's missing in SOA is the free roaming. Amn could be just as awesome a landscape as the Swordcoast, but it's like you get to see a few specks of it under a magnifying glass and miss the overal picture. Though if wilderness areas in Amn did have monsters that are challenging for a 7th-level party, the land wouldn't be inhabitable anymore for ordinary peasants and farmers.

Some things I do like more in BG2 are taken over to BG1 by using Tutu with the NPC1-project mod: the TAB-highlighting feature (no more looking for coordinate X/Y) and the very well written dialogue between the NPC's. The modders who made NPC1-project did a great job! Even better well-written are the dialogues in the Finch, Gavin and Xan-friendship mods.

But actually, after playing Tutu intensively for 3 years and having started in BG 2 a year ago, I'm liking BG2 as well. It's a good succesor and has an epic feel as well

I beat both games once, and I do enjoy them both. The "exploring the wilderness" part in BG is a nice feature and BG2 doesn't do that as much. But BG2 is so big that there is a lot to do in the areas in the game. When I beat BG2, I didn't even touch any part of the Astral Prison, big sphere in slums (name escapes me right now), beholder lair or mind flayer lair in underdark, or half the sewers. Additionally, add in the more powerful weapons, armor, and enemies, and I give BG2 the nod.

You can't go wrong with either game though.

I've never finished the first one. Why?

-The "exploring" part everyone praises is boring to me.
I don't like roaming around looking for things that may be there may not be there. I feel I'm wasting my time everytime a game does that (like the Mako part on ME1. It was fun for the first five times, than I just wanted to go back to the normandy).

-The Journal on BG1 is a mess too. And you waste a lot of time with it.

- Level cap is too low for me and I certainly did not feel powerful enough throughout the game.

-Too few classes to choose from (compared to BG2 that is)

BG2, on the other hand, I finished a bazillion times. With and without mods.
Theres nothing in BG1 that I wish BG2 should have. Nothing at all.

For me BG2 >>> BG1.

Playing BG1 with BG2's mechanics via Tutu gives BG1 most of the things that might have made BG2 better than its predecessor for me.

IMO the fact that BG1 is a low-level campaign places the spotlight on story and setting in a way that games that feature over-powered characters and items do not. I appreciated the effort to give the impression that the Sword Coast existed outside of my gameplay experience in BG1, whereas BG2 is pretty unapologetically constructed for the purposes of making gameplay interesting. I understand why people might prefer the latter, I'm just not one of them.

Anyway, I wanted to lend my agreement to begolf00's comment above about Planescape: Torment. As great as I think the game is, it severely underutilized the setting given the posibilities that existed with someone like the Nameless One. I'm typically against messing too much with classics, but I'd love to see PST redone showcasing more of what the setting offers.

Weird I never thought the journal was bad. Then again I'm using BG trilogy so I dont even remember what the BG1 journal looks like. I like BG2's journals anyway.

The original journal was just page after page of text, unsorted and unfiltered, with each entry in the order it was received. You often got large amounts of text but because there wasn't any way to search or categorize the entries, you ended up having to read through everything many times over looking for the right one. And if you took a few months off and came back to your character, it was a nightmare trying to figure out which stuff you'd finished and which stuff you hadn't.

The improved journal is at least half of the reason I've used Tutu for years.