To preface, while I do not own Baldur's Gate 3 on GOG, I do own it on Steam and have logged 120+ hours into the Early Access/In-Development state of the game. I have also played similar amounts of time in other titles that are oft compared to Baldur's Gate 3: Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Baldur's Gate I & II. I have also played a smattering of Larian's previous titles, namely D:OS 1 & 2 but not nearly to the same extent as the others. Before I go further, allow me to reiterate the following: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME IF YOU ARE EVEN THE LEAST BIT HESITANT. Larian has stated several times in the past that they don't want people to buy the game just because it is in Early Access, but only if they want to help give feedback to the dev team prior to launch. They prefer that you wait for the game to be complete if you are not interested in seeing the game as it is now. Caveat emptor, friends. Now, to the game itself-- Pros: + Wonderful graphics and varied environments + Stellar voice acting + Good sound design and music + Challenging combat + Rewarding exploration + Intriguing story premise + A wealth of choices and free will to play as you wish (within the bounds of the game/story) + A faithful adherance to the Forgotten Realms setting (and plentiful references the prior installments, should you find them) + Largely adherant to 5th Edition to D&D + Can pick up and play without having played prior games. Cons: - The autosave functionality isn't as frequent as it could be, leading to one retracing steps if you aren't mindful of saving/quicksaving. - Bugs are not terribly frequent, but can interrupt the flow of play. - Not all classes, rules, and races have been implemented yet. - Character customizer lacks ability to chose body types. Beyond all said here, this may not be right for you depending on your tastes. If you prefer BG I & II, WotR, and other games like them, you may not enjoy this. Or you may be pleased if you enjoy 5th Ed. D&D.
Tales of Maj'Eyal is hands down one of the most intricate and well thought out games I have played, on top of being a well crafted Rougelike game! I do not own ToME on GoG but I have many hours logged on it through Steam but it is a good idea to buy in either place to support DarkGod (aka the creator who has now spent almost 20 years working on the game). The main bulk of the game is just trying to survive the randomly generated dungeons and lordy! That is quite the challenge if you play with Permadeath on. The game has a way of making you think about what you will in enocunter in any given dungeon and how you should deal with it without screwing up your cooldowns. On top of cooldowns, you have to do a little resource management to make sure that you can continually keep using skills. This sort of feature can be hard to pull off in most rougelike games, considering how many you can have at any one time, but since the game is entirely turn-based, it works very well! All in addition, the number of classes/races and unlocks you can acquire keeps the game fresh and drives you to keep playing. I mean, who doesn't want to be an Oozemancer, amiright? Don't get me wrong, the game isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Even after all these years, bugs still pop up here and there. For example, not too long ago I found a bug where if I used a skill to move 4x faster and tried to move too much, the game would crash. Granted, these bugs are few and far in between, but something to keep an eye out for (they may cause you to die but just about 90% of your deaths are gonna be your fault). The game can also pull a fast one on you too. Due to the random nature of the dungeons, sometimes it will throw a stupidly hard monster at you and you will rage a lot (trust me on this) when you die. The graphics are, well, dated. They were created on a game engine made in the 90's so keep that in mind. Overall, this is diamond in the rough! I HIGHLY recommend you get this if you enjoy rougelikes!
