Finally finished book 1 after book 2...

[KarlXII]

Book I is definetely on par with book II. Perhaps a little more easy. The end battle was easier for me. I played mage in both of them. And the omission of food and water is really helping. On the other hand your mana regeneration will enver exceed 1 point per 3 turns.

Anyway, beautiful music. I hope the same composer is kept for future projects.

[SpottedShroom]

I personally found the beginning of Book I much harder than Book II. There are fewer opportunities for easy quest XP that don't involve fighting things.

The slow MP regeneration in Book I definitely hurts mages, but if you're willing to be slightly cheesy you can more than make up for it. Set a Portal anchor at the well in Blackwater that restores MP, then whenever you're low set another anchor at your current location, Portal to the well, charge up, then Portal back. The fact that Portal works whether or not you have enough MP to cast it (it can put you into negative MP) makes things even easier.

BW may have fixed the Portal MP checking bug in the latest release, though - I don't remember if there's been a new one since last time I played through.

[Painted Lady]

It is always hard to compare two games, even ones from the same developer. If you start with whichever game, it will automatically influence your view of the other game.

That said, I feel BW does a wonderful job of dropping you into a scary environment and letting you sink or swim depending on the choices you make. Having started with Book I, I figured I would sail through Book II. Well, it didn't work out that way It took three re-tries before I got a playable character!