I actually really enjoy exploring the world and how open ended it feels. I could see how it might not be as amazing when replaying the game though. I am just really impressed with this game. Especially considering its over 20 years old, lol this game is old enough to drink this year!
Honestly this is probably going to end up in my top 5-10 games ever made. Its still that good.
BG1 is great and BG2 just builds on it.
It is fun to transfer your character over too.
If you ever feel like replaying the series (which is easy to do when you can play with different classes and party makeups), I'd suggest looking into the trilogy mod and Ascension.
Trilogy ports the BG1 campaign into BG2 and you play through BG1, SoD, BG2, and ToB as one really long campaign, instead of two separate games that require manually porting a character over to. It includes the additional benefit of characters that appear in both games carrying over consistent stats and abilities.
Ascension is basically a semi-official mod that adds a lot additional content back into the ToB expansion for BG2 and increases the challenge of the big boss battles.
Also, Unfinished Business.
That mod sounds cool. Do you have to have the new expansion for it? ---