Baldur's Gate 3

After about 60 hours (just entered into "act 3"), I must say that a lot of the hype about this game seems to be well orchestrated marketing. I really enjoy it where it reminds me of the old BG's and addons (e.g. the encounter with Elminster). It is challenging. I like round-based battle, that there are many dialogues, stealth options. There's a lot to be excited about, sure, just see the reviews online. Yet there is also a massive amount of severe logical flaws, bugs, annoyances. Some examples. - I'd rather have stranded from a pirate ship than a Nautiloid. Act I was nice, except for that: Goblins, Druids, a hag, the underdark, Gnolls, spiders, Grym. - Act II was linear. - There suddenly is a giant, evil, humanoid squid brain with tentacles and a Netherene crown. Wtf. Why not also a corrupted unicorn? - At just level eight, I just fought one of The Three. wtf. - Every cult has their parallel dimension: the astral plane, the weave, shadowfell, death (necromancy) ... running out of ideas? - I stealthed Kethric's room in Act II, before seeing him, found all kind of evidence for invasion and conspiracy; no consequence. - Voss just teleported to my camp. They could have come there all the time. - gore is unnecessary, e.g. Thorm doctor - romance is unnecessary, too easy, predictable - All (!) characters basically have the same "rebel against their oppressor" story. - For many many dialogues, I get multiple options, but it seems that the answer would fit either of these (no real choice). - Lae'zel keeps saying "Vlak'kith's will done" after defying the queen. Who cares? Me, it's an RPG! - Hirelings aside, my group too crucially depends on Astarion for (too many) sneaky tasks; he's the only "dexterity" character (would love a non-vampire monk or something). - Jaheira is Lvl 7 when I meet her. Minsc - will see. It is "eat or die" with the famous old companions. - I found few good "feit"s for casters, none for healer/supporters. There's more, just char limit here. Pity!

Played both BG1 and BG2, loved them both, and this is simply not a Baldurs Gate game. It's frankly insulting that they'd use the same name. They could have called it anything else in the world, kept it Dungeons and Dragons, and this would have been a different story. But then they wouldn't have been able to cheaply cash in on name recognition and hype by feeding off the interest of older, veteran players from back in the day. BG3's story is a mess of direction and quality with no sense of pacing whatsoever. It also does not take advantage of the Forgotten Realms setting whatsoever, with characters only ever talking about one single city amongst the vast world of landmarks. Not that it would matter, as the developers can't even get in-game road signs to point in canonically accurate directions anyways. That's to say nothing of the character writing quality either, which is equally a mess of shallow stereotypes who bore at best, and annoy like nails on a chalkboard at worst. Nobody on the BG3 writing team had any business being a part of this game, and it feels like playing a cheap BG fanfic. BG3 is also an absolute mess of performance. I picked up this game to play coop with my wife, as we played both DOS1 and DOS2 the same way. At best, BG3 manages to hobble its way through a coop experience. At worst, BG3 buckles under its own weight by developers who have no idea how to properly code an online experience. Dialogue options missing, characters not rendering, spell interactions not functioning as listed after they're cast, the list goes on. Performance is a disaster as well, with frame rates slogging into the single digits during certain areas of the game with an RTX 3080. I don't care if they claim "they'll fix it in a patch." This game was in early access for over two years and it's very obvious they did not prioritize performance. I'm also just sick of spending money up front and relying on the developers to fix basic expectations for a functioning game later.

There are a lot of good things, even revolutionary ones happening here. If you want to read those, have a look at the other reviews. I want to point out the bad stuff (and it may seem like a lot, but have a look back at how many stars i have given this game. That should tell you how good it is. Despite my many ramblings: 1. The writing of the story is frankly lackluster. I have had this kind of complaint back in divinity original sin 2 already. The world seems small if every story thread, every companion quest and every character's origin and/or destination points to a single city: baldur's gate. 2. The way your companions are introduced to you is somewhat weird. Especially the first few (astarion, shadowheart and laezel) are very hard to warm up to. I had the feeling that they were mostly arrogant, full of themselves and generally unlikable... Only to suddenly have the hots for you! Out of nowhere it seems.. I don't mind romance, but it all seems really forced. 3. Gameplay and balance. Some subclasses are just bad and kind of useless. No one picks them. Same for the deities clerics can pick. Aside of 3 (shar, selune and mystra) they dont have any effect on the story or even dialogues. Speak to the dead is also very very lackluster. It is such an interesting spell, but interacting with the dead is like having an unprepared GM in a pen and paper rpg forgetting you had that spell and then "winging" it. 4. Last but not least: the bugs. They are mostly harmless, but every now and then you might encounter a gamebreaking one. In my first playthrough I had a bug in which a critical npc just kept getting killed as soon as he got loaded into the map. It forced me to halt my progress for half a year! until it got fixed. That is unacceptable and makes me lose interest in playing the honour mode. Overall it is a good game. But it could really have been polished better. 4 Stars

FFS! For the first F******G time in history I do not want to "gather your party before venturing forth." Because so far your companions are so dislikable you will prefer to run around alone. Graphics are top notch, but I am afraid it can not save the game alone! Because your character is blend. The controls is a story of its own. Enough to say its chockingly bad. There is nothing with this game - for time being - that want me to stay in Baldurs Gate. And that say something coming from someone who have completed BG1 and BG2 countless times.

you just don't feel the DnD here, like, at all. And when you feel this game as more original sin like, the part when you can use environment at combat should be more alike...but its not, it feels like...i dont know, toned down. When you use fireball at damn oil barrel and it does nothing. Or the damn "%" chance at hitting your opponents is like at 60% you just got guaranteed miss almost all the even if you have +1 short sword and 15 dex... its like xcom hit chance crap.