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
Larian tried to take on the legend and didn't delivered. From the moment we start the game we are not met with the invigorating music that welcomes us to embark on a journey, but rather blant and uninspiring sounds that more resambles moaning due to constipation. Combat is the next dissapointment. Instead of well-known real time system, we are thrown a completly boring and unnecessarily long turn based combat that deprives us of any tactical advantage. World presentation in another let down. Despite being quite large it feels rather cramped. Original approach with many smaller areas gives a feeling of a much bigger world and that high fantasy grandeur. World interactivity is also lacking. The "jump" is something we would rather have seen in an anime game. Solasta, a game with a fraction of a budget, gives an immensly more interactive world where we can climb walls, walk on ceiling, attack while climbing and perform a perfectly natural jumps.
But the biggest dissapointment is the narrator telling us how you should feel about certain things...
Is it a bad game? Not at all, but it's a bad Baldur's Gate game. Instead I would recommend newer games that do far better at capturing the essence of Baldur's Gate: Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Pathfinder, Solasta.
I really wanted to love this game. Playing Original Sin 1&2 in Coop were some of the most fun gaming hours I ever had.
But this game is WORK. I am sorry but it just isn't fun. I had a friend who was constantly one Act ahead of me in his single player game so when we played together he knew the right order to play areas etc. so that you would not get screwed by level jumps etc. However, the moment he did not have time to play in Coop anymore I lost all enjoyment.
Why do I still give 3 stars? Because I do achnowledge the sheer depth and scope of the game, it is impressive. Maybe it just caught me at the wrong time in my life.
PS: The fact that all companions are super horny and hot for you was really distracting and might be the reason I did not continue playing. Gradually building releationships in games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age was a core part of the experience which is severly cheapened by this approach. Everybody can love everyone means that no one loves anyone. Limitations add meaning.
