Baldur's Gate 3 is a great game. I've put in excess of 80 hours into it for my first playthrough, and I will pick it up again to be sure. The battles are great, and the world is beautifully crafted. I wholeheartedly recommend the game to every RPG and strategy gamer. Nevertheless, as a fan of the predecessors by name as well as tabletop D&D 5th edition, I have a number of gripes with it: - Unicorns everywhere. Every single companion has to have a ridiculous over-the-top background story, which makes them appear less than normal, relateable people and more like superhero caricatures. - Weak Story. The overall story of BG3 is a generic 'Evil wants to take over the world' story, with a number of ridiculous twists and excessive use of larger-than-life events and antagonists. The story also engages in gravedigging with regards to events and characters of the predecessors, but disregards some major conclusions from the old games in order to utilize them as 'Remember this' events. - Cut spells. BG3 has cut quite a few spells from 5th Edition, and many others are not handled according to tabletop rules, often making them worse or uninteresting to use (looking at you, Fly). This also hurts class balance, as for example the Warlock's already small spell selection is reduced even further. - Larian engine. BG3 is basically Divinity with a D&D license, and it shows. The game showers you with special arrows, fantasy handgrenades and other unbalanced nonsense which doesn't fit into the 5e rules. - Martial superiority. The excessively powerful weapons and armor tend to favor non-caster-classes; this is made even worse by the aforementioned special arrows & stuff, and the fact that all classes can use spell scrolls (!). Time and time again I have asked myself why I bother using spellcasters, when a barbarian or fighter can just use a scroll of fireball in crucial situations when enemies are clumped together, and dish out ridiculous damage against single targets in all others.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a flawed game, and there is a lot of valid criticism. A common to be addressed is that it shipped in a horribly buggy state, though having started my playthrough roughly 1 month after the release I have to say I have encountered only a few bugs. When talking about the game I think it's reasonable to compare it to GTA, which is kind of the top dog of the genre, and I'd pick Cyberpunk over it anytime. Keeping that in mind, here's a quick breakdown of my thoughts for the game: - Combat: I love that Cyberpunk has so many options on how to handle battles. Shooters were never up my alley (Cyberpunk does it reasonably well for the genre), and Swords/Melee works decent (better than in say Skyrim, imho), but I love that Cyberpunk is a reasonably competent Stealth game too. Hacking is additional icing on the cake. - Story: The core story is pretty great by any standard, and I am impressed how well CDPR executed telling it. Side characters are a different story. I think they should have cut their number by about 30-50% so those who are left could shine more (now most are forgettable). - The World: Night City is great, but it lacks variety. I get that they were going for the dirty, grungy feel, but there's too many missions in such environments. When driving through the world one can see more variety, which leads to an issue: - Driving: I never felt that driving in Cyberpunk was satisfying. Basically no damage models, vehicles feel like rubber toys, little to do except accelerating and breaking. As a consequence I avoided driving whenever possible. Other points: - Map: It is a mess. Named POIs / Icons for orientation are very much missed. - Quests: More variety would be appreciated. The braindances are a nice idea, but are really tedious and take out tempo in practice. More driving-related missions would be a good change of pace if driving was more fun. - Character Editor: Great for any RPG, but more occasions where I see my character please.
