Baldur's Gate 3

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.

Fix it. It shows the precipitous decline of this industry when bg3 receives goty award for merely being better than all the horrendously produced games out there. It's OK at best. Similar to divinity. The plot is an afterthought. Urgency is introduced but forgotten about. The writing is less hit and more miss. The companions are mid at best. Gale takes the crown easily. The rest is written for horny teens. Anyone who has played tyranny or pillars of eternity can see that writing is not larian's strength and never will be. So they try to mask it with production value. Animations range from hilariously bad to pertinent for the situation. Some emotional moments in which the VA is doing her best to deliver oscar worthy performance is ruined because of the accompanying animations. Music is good. Every time I boot up this game I wait and listen to the main theme. Sound design and va is excellent. Too bad larian decided to waste their budget to render characters closeup since the poor animation quality ruins the performance of the sound and va team. Visual fidelity is a mixed bag. Bg3 certainly looks good from afar. Zoom in and you see a conflicting amalgamation of laziness, haste and competence. Characters have detailed textures that are intermingled with some hideous ps3 era textures. Gameplay is what you expect. Turn-based combat is unparalleled in this genre and fun once you get the hang of it. However larian always finds a way to turn it into a drudgery. Used up all those spells in that fight? Too bad go through 3 relatively lengthy loading screens to recover your spells. This is on a 13700/5070ti and WD sn850 btw. Doubt vast majority have a similar setup. Performance is good on my setup but like the aformentioned paragraph I'm on capable rig. I wouldn't expect good performance on older setups. Overall if you are not interested in the gameplay then don't buy this game. The plot is generic. The writing is mid at best and you remain nostalgic.