It has been 22 years... 22 years since Baldur's Gate came into this world and wowed us all - now, we have Larian Studios doing what Bioware did so many years ago - telling compelling stories in wonderous setting and still have the grim-dark feel about it that I loved from the original. I'm happy they have gone away from Real Time combat and instead implemented the way the gameplay is supposed to be - turn-based!
Not a huge fan of the 5e rules, I much more like Pathfinder, but this is what we get - and I can live with it! The graphics are mindblowing, enviroments as well as characters.
Still early access, so there are things that are wonky, and doesn't work as intended, but as of now it is very much playable and very enjoyable!
2.5 hours played. No crashes. Some random texture pops. Runs flawlessly. Fast load screens. Technically speaking, it's as good as I can expect for EA. Little things will get ironed out.
The companions need a little more life to them. There's not enough banter (only one so far) or interaction from them during dialogue. Like, they don't even chime in when I'm recruiting a new party member. This is my biggest worry right now. I'll update if this improves.
Combat is D&D goodness. Might end up being the best implementation of our favorite tabletop system out there. The verticality in the game really has the opportunity to take combat to new heights.
A darker palette and heavier undertones to the music will go a long way to transitioning the D:OS feel to BG. It's entirely "fixable".
I paid for this back in 2020 pretty much as soon as I could, played a couple hours and found several aspects unpleasant, but figure I'd just wait until the full release came. Now with more than 40 hours in the "finished" game, I am mostly disappointed.
From graphical glitches to weird progression bugs, this game feels remarkably unfinished after nearly three years since it was launched publically. Even aside from that, Larian's weird fixation on massive combat encounters, where you end up waiting minutes at a time between actions while waiting for the NPCs to take their turns and then struggle to parse who's friendly and who's hostile in the clutter.
Squad management is needlessly cumbersome, the inventory system is a trainwreck, there's not a "puzzle" I've come across yet that wasn't more infuriating than satisfying, and the maps feel incoherent and needlessly difficult to navigate.
Visual design is fine, and story is okay so far, but this is well beneath what I was expecting from Larian.
Writing and characters in act I were stellar. Act II ditched most of what made act I fun and was about as fun as treking through Modor. Entered act III, quickly reached max level and then hit a wall. Pretty much every other encounter would be "Deadly" in dnd terms and combat takes longer and longer. On the way to the final confrontation you have tons of enemies and can call upon allies. It takes so long that I just can't. Might slog through it for some kind of ending but gods damn
I waited until the game was out a while and patched up before giving a review. I bought it day one of early access.
The people saying it is a DOS2 sequel and not BG3 are correct, clear down to the reused mechanics, assets and even some of the mapping layouts.
The lore breaking is rampant throughout. There are just too many examples to list. From the perspective of someone who has been playing D&D since before the AD&D books were published, yeah, the lore in the game may as well be from Rainbow Six. That's how far removed it is from the source lore.
Some of the mechanics are painfully broken. Fail a dialogue attempt with an NPC and it attacks you is grounds for making a paladin fall. Jump is wonky at best and some of the characters must be hard coded to perpetually miss, like Shadowheart. Got to the point I would just end her turn without bothering to use her since she never hit in any of the 38 playthroughs with her in the party.
The game had to be patched to fix the perpetually bad dice rolls. I've worked on die rolling tools. I've tested many other ad nauseum, and while BG3's dice mechanics falls into the same patterns all other algorithm based rollers do, it will do so at numbers 30% below what needs to be rolled for success.
COMBAT ZOOM. Complaints about this terrible game mechanic go back to 2015 with DOS2 and absolute silence from Larian regarding any remedies. It's still the same today. Why does the camera zoom clear off into another realm at every attack?
Reload Simulator 2023 would be a good title for how wonky the mechanics get. Have to pop a smoke bomb? Make sure it's on the left side of those rocks or you will be attacked by the very people you are saving.
Worst AI Ever is another title. I thought it impossible for an engine to have an AI worse than BioWare's Aurora engine. NWN vets know what I'm talking about. But Larian achieved it. Your characters will exclaim, "Lookout! A trap!", then run ahead right into it. *Facedesk*
Fun? Yes. D&D? No.
EDIT: Patch 7 completely destroyed this game. First, none of my saves or mods work due to that completely borked mod manager Larian added. Second, I uninstalled via Revo Uninstaller so I could completely clean my registry, reinstalled and now the standard play UI is overlaid on the vanilla new chargen screen. I am presented a naked black male human and four bald black male heads on the left where the character classes are, so they cannot be accessed. I can't create a character at all. I want a rollback option to patch 6, or my damned money back. Larian, you destroyed this game and lost a customer forever with your antics. Years of modifying the game and character development wiped out. You should work for Microsoft.
