I've played Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 more than all other games put together, and I love this addition to the franchise! I give 1 minus point because the "offline" version forms an internet connection to somewhere. Not cool GOG/Larian! TL;DR: If you want to know if you'll enjoy this game, watch the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The film is a lot like this game: a fresh take on an old IP. I will leave 3 hints to make this game more enjoyable in the last paragraph. This game does have some bugs. It's so broad that even though they advertise that you can, and are supposed to use your creativity, some times excess creativity may bite you in the behind down the line. Having said that, Larian's customer support is stellar and if you encounter a bug, and the time to report it, they WILL NOT ignore you!. Some say this isn't the same game as BG's 1&2. I think this is better in every way, basically. The characters, the relationships, the countless ways you can go about overcoming obstacles. World wise, this games events take place about 180 years after the originals, so IMHO the world can change. I think that the Forgotten Realms universe got destroyed and remade some time in between the first two and this one. Some say this isn't D&D. If your D&D is all about the old hammy&trite "huzzah and ye olde", then it's true, this isn't that. Rules implication wise, of course it isn't. PC games can't handle contradicting or vague rules. D&D is full of both, because this gives DM's something to do. HOW TO ENJOY THIS GAME MORE 1. Learn to navigate. Spinning the camera all around made me disoriented some times. I overcame this by relying on the big map and the compass on the mini-map. 2. Stay organized. If you left-click a container, you get to loot the container. If you right-click a container, you may get to pick up that container. You can put containers inside other containers. They're basically folders. Splitting stacks inside nested containers may bug. 3. Save!
This review is regarding Linux version on Kubuntu 22.04. TL;DR this game is broken. If you must buy and play it, enable quick save and use it, and also make regular backups of your save game at /home(/user)/documents/HardWest. This game also toasts your GPU for some inexplicable reason. The game itself would be awesome if it worked as it should. However, it seems that devs abandoned this project and moved on to making more presumably equally unstable games. I had to start this game 3 times over because of corrupted save games: for example some GUI items(such as the one that shows currently equipped weapon and its ammo) suddenly would suddenly missing and never come back. Little known feature that was added in final patch is "quick save" which doesn't work like regular auto save, but instead creates a snapshot of the game at that point. With a combination of quick saves and backing up my save game at /home(/user)/documents/HardWest I believe I will be able to actually finish this game.
This was the second adult visual novel I've ever bought. The first was "Fresh Women". When I was playing that game, I felt it was lacking in many ways. I bought this game hoping that this game would've fixed the things that were broken in the other. Sadly, if this game was worth 1 star, Fresh Women should be worth 6/5. It's difficult to put to words how much this game sucks, so I guess I'll just make a list about worst aspects of the game. 1. You progress the game by manipulating women to have sex with you. Literally. Forget about empathy, or morals. You must do your only purpose in this game is to stick your dick into females. 2. Empty world. Besides your dick holsters and 2 other male extras, the world is totally uninhabited. Forget about groundhog day, that's the freakiest part about the game: there's like 9 people in the entire city and none of them are over 50. 3. Sex grinding and premature ejaculation. You must jizz repeatedly on your dick holsters because you have no pelvic floor muscles. 4. Implied incest. You live in a house of one male(you) and 4 females (4 out of total of 7 dick holsters). They all act as if they've known you since you were a child. One acts toward you as if she were your (step)mother. 5. Implied rape. You date rape your (step)mother. She's only pretending to be unconscious from drinking too much, and the day keeps resetting so that makes being a total degenerate ok.
I haven't played the game through yet, but I've spent at least 40 hours exploring it. This game can be amazing but the it requires some work from the user: 1. Adjust the difficulty to as high as possible without preventing progress. Every time the combat begins and starts, the game "halts" for about a second to move itself in-and out of combat mode, so you'll want to make the combat worth your while. 2. Adjust the auto pause settings. There are a whole bunch of settings on how the game-time moves or doesn't, you'll want to explore every tick in the box individually. 3. Take the time. You'll want to have at least 2h of uninterrupted game time each time you sit down to play: this game moves really slow! You'll also want to reserve about 8h For your first crack at the game, because it'll take some time to develop the addiction/fall in love. If you never have 8h uninterrupted game time, reading the included Strategy Guide back to back before even launching the game may help compensate. The included manual is outdated and some mechanics described therein are outdated. You'll want to consult the fandom wikia for up-to-date info.
I haven't played through the game yet. I used the offline installer because I found the achievement notifications of gog galaxy irritating and distracting. The atmosphere and the world of the game is like a mash-up of most of Lovecraft's most iconic works: Not just Chutulhu mythos, you get reanmators and witchcraft too! Unfortunately I've encountered two bugs: 1. Often after loading an area or a save, keyboard shortcuts don't work until I move my character. 2. Some times the UI stops printing information: I got "experience gained: N/A" a few times. These minor bugs don't kill the game but they do reduce the immersiveness. Bug-free, the game would be 5/5
