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progIs there, or was there ever, such a thing as Mexican Stoplight Candy? Google refers me only to people making references to the same MST3K episode I picked up the phrase from.
I'm falling a little more into the Baldur's Gate groove. Each major misfeature I do far find seems to balance itself out with a major nicefeature, at least relative to console RPGs. I was, for example, feeling somewhat annoyed at the RTS-style movement (select units, then click on where they should go) that felt far more herky-jerky that console game movement, where your heroes keep moving west so long as you held down the left controller button. This makes movement through wilderness areas very slow, and I was dreading the thought of backtracking, where it would take fifteen minutes or more of real time to get my guys between cities on the map, while I click-scroll-clicked them up paths through the forest. But: a discovery! After your group leaves an area, you can insta-zap them to any other place in the game world that they've already visited, and the game just advances the game-clock by the appropriate amount. So that's pretty good. I definitely prefer this over the console mechanic of having 32 fights with Monster A or Monster B each time you step outside.
Of course, the reason that console RPGs set you up with all those fights is to massively level-up your characters so that they can topple the next boss monster. You can see another bit of difference with Baldur's Gate in that I've been playing for four nights and have gotten two characters (out of six) up to level 2. According to a FAQ I read, the game only supports characters up to level 6, so I'm really not worried.
I'm falling a little more into the Baldur's Gate groove. Each major misfeature I do far find seems to balance itself out with a major nicefeature, at least relative to console RPGs. I was, for example, feeling somewhat annoyed at the RTS-style movement (select units, then click on where they should go) that felt far more herky-jerky that console game movement, where your heroes keep moving west so long as you held down the left controller button. This makes movement through wilderness areas very slow, and I was dreading the thought of backtracking, where it would take fifteen minutes or more of real time to get my guys between cities on the map, while I click-scroll-clicked them up paths through the forest. But: a discovery! After your group leaves an area, you can insta-zap them to any other place in the game world that they've already visited, and the game just advances the game-clock by the appropriate amount. So that's pretty good. I definitely prefer this over the console mechanic of having 32 fights with Monster A or Monster B each time you step outside.
Of course, the reason that console RPGs set you up with all those fights is to massively level-up your characters so that they can topple the next boss monster. You can see another bit of difference with Baldur's Gate in that I've been playing for four nights and have gotten two characters (out of six) up to level 2. According to a FAQ I read, the game only supports characters up to level 6, so I'm really not worried.