I tried playing bg 1 and 2 about 10 years ago. I put about 40 hours in between them and enjoyed it, but I found it tough going. I’ve found bg3 way easier to get into and have already far surpassed the hours I put into the original games. On top of what I’ve already mentioned, the change to fully turn based is a huge improvement on that weird pausable real time used in the previous games
I’m really excited to hear that. The real time but actually not combat I think is what really killed me when I played them. I was only like 15 years old but I think I just didn’t “get” it and tried to just go for it in real time which made many encounters incredibly difficult.