Baldur's Gate 3

Played way more than several hours, past version 1. Seen the most recent Panel. Seen The Dark Urge. Go ahead--look up The Dark Urge, a 100% customizable by gender/race/class/etc. optional Origin character, whom you can play as gleefully evil or fighting their nature. Now look at that red circle with the teardrops around it underneath the example character's feet in the promo videos, and tell me this isn't a BG game. Look up the companions from the original games that are in. If you actually ARE an OG player, you will start to see that it IS a BG game. RTwP did not make BG. That was the least D&D-faithful part of OG BG. What makes BG is the theme of a dead god ruling your life, of some nasty legacy inside of you that you either embrace or fight, and discovering an imperiled vital city. What makes it is characters you care about teaming up with you; mysteries you want to solve; villains you want to defeat. All of that's here, better than ever. Over time, Larian--amazingly, and in contrast with the majority of developers--LISTENED to player feedback that this was too DOS2! They started with what they knew, then made it increasingly more right and awesome with every new incarnation. The CC--which devoured hours or even DAYS of some people's lives--release version blows the original version OUT OF THE WATER in terms of usability AND options!!! You can easily detail virtually EVERYTHING you want to, but in a game that actually has a meaty story, for the first time in gaming history. There are already unprecedented amounts of character specific dialogue. This will be GOTY if there's any justice in this world. It has come into its own precisely because Larian is infinitely committed to listening to its audience. I crave Celestial Warlock, but a multiclass will sate me for now. In expansion? Who knows. Now, let's get a review from someone who played more than a few hours to the top of the "overall most helpful" list. I don't care if it's mine, just let it be accurate.

If you want more Dragon Age 1 this is as good as it gets these days. The game is fine, but after 3 years in early access it has a number of baffling technical and UI problems: Opening the quest journal when prompted by a quest update does not highlight the quest in question. Inventory UI has obvious bugs such as items often only getting equipped after the second attempt when using drag and drop. Can easily softlock the game by opening containers or trying to loot or examine corpses which are in your inventory, especially if you got a quest to bring a head from a corpse which is already in your inventory. Such softlocks can even persist after saving and loading. Can only manage inventory for people who are active in your party. Highlighting interactive objects with Alt does not highlight some objects for no apparent reason. No simple option to always pass checks for people who are going to reroll anyway. Wild fluctuations in loading times. Few obvious graphical errors on some models which should be obvious to anyone testing the game in the most straightforward way. Some animations during dialogue are not property interpolated. Pathfinding in combat sometimes fails for no apparent reason, especially when you need to walk before you can do a ranged attack. Many other small technical bugs.

Best RPG since Dragon Age: Origins. One of the all time best CRPGs ever made. Their attention to detail, and carefully crafted world are only topped by their dedication to player agency and choice. I cannot reccomend this game enough, even some of my friends who don't like RPGs enjoyed playing this one.

This isn't the best CRPG ever made. But it's pretty good. The game is split into three acts, each set in its own game map and related submaps. The first act is excellent. If the game could maintain this quality throughout, it would deserve all the praise it's getting. Unfortunately, the game begins to go downhill starting in the second act, but here it's still quite good. But right after the second act's climax, and running into the third, it's basically a total mess. You are suddenly introduced to a new goal and set loose into the third map which has tons of bugs, is quite overwhelming, unoptimized, and half-baked. Thus, the great force pushing you through the first half of the game suddenly disappears. In addition, the developers include here a large number of progressive social-political statements and themes which were heretofore (largely) absent. However, this may not be an issue for you if you are so inclined. Regardless, this all adds up to a lot of resistance. Luckily, the momentum gained in the first act should be enough to just push the player through to the finish line. Replay-wise, there are a great number of fun and interesting character builds which give it a fair bit of replayability. However, even the great first act grows tedious after a handful of runs through it. It's not world-shattering, but a fun game. I'd recommend picking it up on sale if you like CRPGs

In a nutshell I did not enjoy my time in this game. Maps are upside down from the characters...making it hard to get around. Edge panning only works sporadically so you need to use arrow keys...which is very awkward. I had to remap camera rotation...default had right turning left and left turning right plus...like edge panning...it was awkward to use. Combat seemed to overly favour the enemy NPCs. I realize this is largely personal perspective and...yes...roll of the dice and all that but combat was a very frustrating experience for me and is what led to me returning the game for a refund. I don't expect to faceroll through every fight but when my group is higher level and still struggles in a fight it's just not fun or enjoyable...which is what a game is supposed to be.