When I got the original BG2 I fell in love. BG2 had everything a RPGer would look for and more. I've never played the original BG so I don’t know exactly how far it came to reach that point, but compared to games I have played it truly stood out as one of, if not the absolute best game IMO. Now ToB takes the original BG2 to the next level. With an 8 mil exp cap, more powerful equipment, new spells and abilities, a new NPC (Sarevok aka Da Man) and a new character class (the unpredictable Wild Mage) ToB truly takes BG2 to new heights of fun and adventure.

    The graphics in ToB are about the same as BG2 which were great, but now it has minor improvements here and there. The auto adjustment crap wasn’t one of them. I'd advise anyone that finds the action getting choppy to turn it off. I did and now everything runs fine. I did find that the characters were a bit more detailed here and there, but for the most part the graphics look about the same. Some may want to give it a higher score, but in comparison to, say, Dungeon Siege, they aren’t that great.

    The sound was cool. I really liked the music in the last few chapters. It always sounded so epic which is appropriate since by that time the battles have increased dramatically in size and scale. The voice acting is once again wonderful with the exception of the little imp butler Cespenar. I'm not sure if the spelling is right, but if you played it you know who I mean. He gets fairly annoying after the third or fourth visit. Constantly running down the list of items you have that he can work on. It would’ve been cool if they didn’t have a voice over for EVERY ITEM! Once you get deep into the game you'll be sitting there a while rapidly clicking on continue or hitting ENTER not to hear him talk smack about everything you have on you. Outside of that the voices fit the characters nicely and they help bring the characters to life.

    Awesome. With the higher exp cap comes new abilities and spells you truly do reach godhood. I've used most of them and found them all to be useful in their own way. The level 9 spells are incredibly powerful as we all know and having regular access to them finally gives you a much needed advantage in battle. One thing I noticed though is that even though these spells are powerful, they aren’t unbalanced. The Dragon's Breath and Comet spells are awesome area effect blast spells, but they are neither over nor under powered. They can clear out a group of orcs no prob, but against a boss it does damage w/o knocking him/her/it back in many cases. Also, spell casters (and paladin's oddly enough) can summon extra-planar creatures such as Planetars and Devas (Fallen Devas for evil clerics). They each come with their own set of spells and abilities and are VERY useful in battle. The new fighter abilities are also quite useful, though I had to actually get used to using them because I grew so accustomed to relying on support magic alone (bless, chant, draw upon holy might, etc.), but once I did, battles became increasingly shorter I must say. Clerics and druids also get new level 7 spells like summon elemental which has a chance to summon an elemental prince and mass raise which brings multiple characters back to life. Still, I didn’t find myself using their new abilities too much outside of the regular support and summoning magic since I don’t use clerics for attack spells really. The new weapons go as high as +6 and have insane abilities like level drain and casting Larloch's Minor Drain with each hit (no save) giving you an almost immortal fighter. Diablo 2 fans will love the frequency and size of battles now. Overall, the game play has a higher focus on battle than anything else, which isn’t bad IMO, though some RPG purists may not be too thrilled.

    I don’t wanna give it away, but I'll say that it’s a bit more dire and epic than before. ToB makes the original SoA feel a bit more like a light-hearted adventure. The war torn cities and people pushed to insanity in ToB really changes the mood. Call me greedy, but I wish the expansion was a bit longer. Though with Watcher's Keep included the expansion is already huge. It’s just that, like with any good RPG, once you start you don’t want it to end. Unfortunately ToB does just that. It puts an end to the BG saga. Hopefully, Black Isle will have something else in store for us relating to BG in the future.

    Well, as I said it ends the saga. You can play it again to get items you missed or didn’t get to use the first time, but after that there's really no point to playing again. You can always start over from the beginning and test out the new mage class, but other than that there's nothing more to do once you beat it the first time. Still, I'll probably be playing ToB again. The game overall is just so good you're gonna come back to it eventually. It’s just that good.

    After playing this and reviewing it I think I'll go out and get the original BG set. I just want to see how it all started. This saga has reached legendary status and will always be remembered much like other great RPG sagas. This should be standard in any RPGer's library. If you don’t have it, get it. You'll be glad you did.