This game may have been something fantastic if the gameplay and engagements were lucky enough to receive just a fraction of the attention that the cinematics, lore and voice acting were gifted. Those areas shine and if my review was for a movie rather then a video game, I would give it stars. But... it isnt. Taking a look at the combat, it is a five star, four alarm holy righteous journey down fuck up lane. The scripting is a nightmare for characters not being directly controlled by the player, and I found that the second I moved from one character to another the AI was doing something totally stupid and not even close to what I had laid out in its script. The combat itself is boring, 2 dimensional and repetitive. The game gives you "companions" that have already been leveled up to some degree with skills and spells that dont even work, or if they do, its not what you need as a player for the build your looking for, and no way in game without mods to change any of it. This is just the very very short list. Skills and spells: Another disaster. Most of them dont work at all (15 years down the road from release...???) so this is yet another example of devs dropping the ball midway though and expecting the player base to band aid all of their screwups with modding. The majority of the skills serve little to no purpose. They put crafting in the game as an afterthought as most everything you can craft is sold or drops in game anyway. I could go on for days. Gameplay: No autorun?? Dungeons and instances that you cant leave that go on for hours so you cant sell anything from your inventory when it fills, then you have to run all the fuck back to the entrance by holding down the run key. Not too bright. Some quests update as you progress through the list of "things to do" .. .some just dont. All in all it was another example of half ass, sub par mediocre effort in major areas of the game that ruined the enjoyment of my experience during play through.
The day Larian titled this game (Baldurs Gate 3) was the day the series died. This DOSified version of a BG title is nothing less then pissing all over great games of the passed and just bastardizing them into this neo-larian Frankenstein that dosent even come close to the original style and content of Baldurs Gate, or for that matter, WOTC games in general. What a disappointment. Even if they changed the title, BG3 still fails in so many ways I could spend hours listing them all, but to summarize: The major idiosyncrasies that suck the enjoyment out of this game would start with the fact that you can even breathe without being drawn into another RNG trapped dialog. Many of which will severely cripple your main character with PERMANENT reductions to critical attributes, in some cases, 3 at a time. Still loaded with instability issues, major bugs such as buffs not registering when cast or items being lost, save files disappearing or config files being erased... etc etc. Overall I just find that the content of the game is just... boring. The way that Larian put this together dosent have even close to the same style and D&D feel that the original BG series had. For me it has been one of the most epic over-hyped disasters of this decade. Thats saying a lot.
Imbalances The game still has some massive balancing issues that need to be worked out, some encounters that are so easy they put you to sleep (such as the green dragon that you would think would be one of the most difficult fights of the game) to the other side of the spectrum where you can have a perfect group that gets one-shotted before you even react to an OP lighting spell at lvl 3. Character Customization All of the face options pretty much look the same, the only thing they have in detail is coloring. And with only 2 voice options per sex your group sounds like the same person talking no matter what character is in dialog. Content One year after release and still no additions to the story line, no new playable content with the exception of a small side quest they offered with the DLC, which dosent include much except for 2 new character types. Mechanics Several game mechanics such as line of sight to a target or increased AC based on terrain, obstacles etc are in dire need of a complete overhaul. In some cases a target mob that is literally standing in an open field with nothing but pebbles and grass can have a +5 or +2 AC terrain modifier, while another mob standing behind a wall or pillar will have no modifier at all. Encounters Last but not least, encounters in Solasta are waning in several regards: 1) Ambush cut-sceenes that almost always place your characters in wide open areas with no cover. 2) Many abilities such as hide in plain sight are pretty much useless throughout the game. 3) Mobs that just "appear" out of thin air, they love to just have stuff pop in around you like they were all beemed in from an orbiting star ship. Summary I loved the game in EA for its play style and I still do, I love the authentic D&D turn based game play. Its heartbreaking to have to deal with all of the idiosyncrasies the game currently is plagued with.
