Feels a bit rushed in Act 3, but overall a great game. I'd probably say I enjoy the combat and mechanics in DOS2 a bit more, but the story, characters and production value are on another level.
Read other "overwhelmingly positive" reviews first if you wish. I list below several visible flaws which I found to be immersion breaking to a great degree when added up, especially considering a game budget of this calibre. That is, if you care about D&D/FR lore... I indeed do since this game carries the BG3 and D&D titles, so please bear that in mind. The same issues below had been pointed out by some other reviewers in the past.
This is based on >150hr starting after patch 8, and having played the preceding games BG1+2+TB.
1. D&D/FR lore was not taken seriously enough in-game, in particular in the written text from books/items. It's a great departure from the preceding games. Modern games may have wonderful graphics/SFX take center stage, but the need to build lore seriously in-game shouldn't have been abandoned. The history and lore presented in-game don't lend weight to the seriousness of the situation in-game (ie. tone and mood of the story), and so Minsc feels like a jest encapsulated in a greater joke instead of the comedic relief as originally intended in the preceding games.
2. With "evil gods are coming!" as a plot driver, the acts of "overwhelming evil" presented in cutscenes were surprisingly few. The impact just wasn't there for me. Outside of combat, the manifestation of this was basically repeating placeholder art representing the aftermath of carnage. Back then during BG1-2 this was understandable due to time or perhaps budget constraints with making more 2D assets and FMVs, but surely not so today. In BG3 it was only in a limited set of conditions where there was a satisfactory realtime display of ill-intent, chaos, and gore (ie. in certain end game scenes, one specific side quest path, one origin path). Perhaps years of playing Biohazard/RE1-8 has dulled my senses but this seems to be a missed opportunity to: A) build suspense throughout the game instead of only in specific path outcomes, and B) to elicit a number of meaningful player responses when combined with point #1 & 3.
3. Evil NPCs and playable races (PR) with evil tendencies are massively visible everywhere in the game (eg. drow, tiefling, duergar); celestials and related PR are almost wholly missing. While demon/devilspawns should be greater in number, the ratio here is still mindboggling. There're only two NPCs in the entire game who can be categorized as celestials related and there're zero as PR. I think it's a missed opportunity to illustrate fear/dread stemming from the rigidity, ruthlessness, and psychopathic mindset of "overwhelming goodness". The preceding games did examine this aspect to a greater extent.
4. Tieflings are supposed to be demon/devilspawn with evil inclinations in FR lore, viewed by most with suspicion and/or loathing. That general vibe never showed up in game. Why would anyone have the idea of saving all those tieflings without using them for an evil end?
5. From Act2 onwards, the number of female NPCs who are tied to quests grew and grew until they all sounded annoyingly the same. Even the end boss ended up this way. The end boss should've sounded overwhelmingly... alien, being what it is. But by the gods did it ever fall farthest from that. Plus: it didn't sound overwhelmingly dominating or commanding either. The notable male NPCs all had good VA & character throughout the game. What happened here??
6. Minor point in comparison to the above: near end game cinematics/SFX and music dropped off in quality as if they teleported in from a lesser game.
Have 80 hours. Took me awhile to understand the rules, spells etc. But was enjoying it. Until I had to go back ten hours in game because of broken questline. Then again when I found another was not working. And now the last straw was Mizora bugged out because of a patch that supposedly fixed her. Now am told be other people and gog "support" to just use cheat engine or other workarounds to try fix it myself(and am not even modded game). Will either accept duke ravenguard is dead , or just ignore Wylls questline. Or more likely just delete the game for space and maybe try again in a few months. Pity as this has put me of trying with another character knowing all my hours will be wasted.
First Larian Studios, why always a beach opening to your games... REALLY? That aside..
If it wasn't for the name of the game, this would, even in it's early state, be worthy of 5+ stars. That said, it is NOT, in my view, a Baldur's Gate Sequel. There are only references to the city, etc. so far, and really not all that inviting. Can't tell you how many hours have sunk into playing the other Baldur's Gate games, but it was a lot! Thoroughly enjoyable they are. The originals drew me in to the whole D&D experience immediately.
After the naming aspect, this is a phenomenal game in true Larian Studio's format, if they could only rename it and change the beach.....
There are quite a few very nice face to face conversations (so glad no masks). On the downside this takes more effort and likely reduces work on other aspects, but it is a nice touch and good to see, if not so frequent. Plenty of voiced lines and they are quite varied, also another great Plus.
There are a myriad of ways to accomplish certain tasks but not a lot of detail to go with them. This is good and frustrating at the same time. Enjoy the format of the log file, excellent that is.
The character faces and visuals are stunning, very much lifelike, or what I imagine it could look like in person, including scars and other facial featuers. They did an amazing job here and with the character animations in the scenes. The companions characters show an immense amount of promise for the final game, quite varied and lively at times.
Even though there is not much here that reminds me of the original Baldur's Gate games, the story lines and side quests are generally very immersive and rewarding. The choices in dialog all make sense too, as well as their outcomes. For instance, after dealing High Priestess Gut, went into the caverns below and am doing all sorts of stuff there for at least 16 hours. Very well laid out area, very colorful too.
A very solid game, lots of room for growth, recommended
This is shaping up to be a great game and it is already a ton of fun, but calling it Baldurs Gate 3 was a mistake for several reasons.
First and foremost is that the Forgotten Realms have been completely ruined as a setting and it no longer even resembles what it was when Baldurs Gate was created. The same is true for the D&D ruleset.
Therefore it is pretty much impossible to actually make a worthy successor to Baldurs Gate 3 while using the official ruleset and setting.
This could have been Original Sin 3, or even its own IP in the new Forgotten Realms and no one would have cause to complain. Instead the forums are filled with posts decrying how unlike Baldurs Gate it is, or how it is too similar to Original Sin 2.
Another reason is that writing has never really been Larian's strong suit and a Baldurs Gate succsessor really should have had some incredible writers working on it.
I am sure the end result will be a fantastic game well worth buying, but don't expect it to be Baldurs Gate in anything but name.