Baldur's Gate 3

In and of itself, the game is pretty good. It has good enough graphics, some pretty good implementation and I have found that for early access, it is already quite polished. It is a game worth playing. However, and I am sad to say that I feared this from the early interviews about the game, it is not Baldur's Gate and I am left feeling frustrated about it. It is basically DOS with a slightly different skin. Only four party members at a time is a failure. BG series had six and it radically changes your party cohesion, set up, fun, character interactions etc. BG hit the sweet spot, DOS (and therefore this game) does not. The story so far is not gripping. I still recall th instant interest of the Candlekeep prologue at the beginning of BG. The story was instantly inriguing and starts humbly in order to grow into a great saga. This tries way too hard from the start and in an RPG, starting the story well is critical to immersion. The dice roll for certain actions is interesting but I can live without it to be honest, I'm a bit 50/50. The maps are more limited than I expected, quite linear and lack a feeling of freedom. I do like the jump action though, something that enables characters to reach other areas, that was smart thinking. I'm still getting used to mage and priest casting skills so I will reserve jusdgement on that. The fighting... It's DOS system so it's fine but it is not what I hoped for. At the time the real time system in BG was incredible, it felt clever, realistic and was full of action, spending too much time watching one fight could lead you to unintentionally leaving Minsc to get mauled by a mage... It felt, big, interesting and strategic. I have found the fight scenes in the DOS universe to be quite boring in comparison and sadly BG3 has followed suit. I don't feel fulfilled by this game and can quite happily walk away from it after 30 minutes of playing and forget it exists for a chunk of time before going back to it for another chunk of time.

So far it 'ok'. Not good, but not what I was hoping for. As pointed out in other reviews it's not D&D- (enough), it's too DOS2. Dislike the fast travel, party chaining, too much junk loot, no passing of time, no day/night, resting/camping stupidity, excess of exploding barrels, etc. If I hadn't gone past the 30 days would have asked for money back. I can only hope things will improve. Currently enjoying playing Solasta EA instead.

Full disclosure: i bought the game on steam and refunded it. As other people have stated, it's a fairly decent RPG game, but not really a worthy successor of Baldur's Gate. However it absolutely shows that it's an early access game, for which the 60€ asking price is an absolute joke. Throwing a game clearly miles away from being finished onto the market for a price higher than most AAA titles are charging, is a practice nobody should ever support. The point of early access is to make the game available early for fans at a significantly lower price, since they are buying an unfinished product, but want to support it. Wait for the full release, what do you have to lose?

As a long time fan of the Baldur's Gate "series", with countless hours played on BG1, BG2, their expansion packs and Icewind Dale, I was really looking forward to revisiting the Forgotten Realms, with a game based on a modern engine. Unfortunately, Baldur's Gate 3 is a massive disappointment, with a terrible camera interface, woeful inventory management and some of the worst combat mechanics I have ever come across. When it takes almost an hour to resolve a fight with a handful of goblins, and you lose that fight, only to realise to progress in the game you will need to spend another hour on the same fight, any desire to continue playing the game drains out of you. Anyone who has played the game (and is not one of the many obviously paid shills who have reviewed the game for the gaming media) will commiserate with me. Miss, miss, miss, critical miss.

I love most everything about the game. At every turn choices matter.... Except one. The ending. The creators have decided (and fixed it so) someone has to become a mindflayer. no options, even if Gale sacrifices himself, someone has to become a mindflayer. No choice, not option on that, no other way. This is my big hate. I have over 800 hour and have finished it once because I despise the forced ending so badly. Having said that I have over 800 hours playing what is an amazing game over all. Just tragic that the ending does not carry what is loved about the rest of the game: reasonable options, even if it makes things harder.