Bugs, bugs and another bugs. Quest bugs so very noticable. Would be 60/100 if it shipped without them.
Classic Larian style of game.
-Frontloaded with good content and second half is rushed and buggy. (Minsc is basicaly there just to be there.)
-You hit level cap too soon.
-Very easy combat.
-Inventory managment - terrible, exacerbated by junk items
-Party Managment - terrible, you need to talk to change members, this exacerbates Inventory
Managment when you need to get something from NPC who is not in party. You cannot level NPCs
who are not in party.
- Cannot say much about music as it is very hard to notice when it plays, like it was made not to interfere with voice chat in Co-op, even main theme is kinda weak, especialy when compared to other CRPGs.
If I jump twice in quick succesion rest of the party jumps only once, so I have to get them over 1 by 1. This is very annoying. Jump should be automatic if character can jump over. That pressing jump creates some power surge, which just delays the time it takes to jump is cherry on top.
Presentation is great, The exploration is quite good (read - really good). The combat is boring as hell (that's 5e for you),. Your party skills don't matter if you are in a conversation or an event since only the active character can roll. The UI has issues, the game has no manual or even the "at higher levels" button that way smaller games have managed to fit in for the classes. Your character has more choices for genitalia than faces and there's a distinct lack of QOL features - changing a companions weapon shouldn't take 10+ clicks.
Only experienced a few game breaking bugs (infinitely stacking buffs, being permanently encumbered - that sort of thing.
I also find only one of the origin characters likeable, two tolerable (which means hirelings are mandatory until later in the game) and act 3 is still a bit of a mess. The storyline also is questionable considering the ending of the previous entry.
The graphics are great but the game itself isn't. It doesn't feel like a D&D game at all. One of the core elements of D&D is your alignment, and you can't even choose an alignment in this game. You don't really pick a deity either.
The combat in the game is messy. There are times when characters will do something you don't want them to do, simply because the game decides it's better. For example, rather than trying to shoot from a distance you wish, the game will automatically make them walk in range of a target and shoot which often means placing them in a really bad position to get attacked.
When trying to set up for combat while in tactical mode, if a character is not "engaged" with an enemy it moves outside of combat on their own which is ridiculous. During combat which is supposed to be turn based they will walk around freely as if not in combat. This means they will try to walk (not in turn based mode) up to the party leader. This leads to them moving out of the position you initially put them in (and didn't want them to move).
Combat is also scripted; if you reload you will find enemies doing the same exact attack every time, such as throwing an item that causes a fire or standing at a specific location and casting a "concentration" spell. This means there are very specific ways to defeat them rather than having it be random which reduces replayability.
Another really annoying thing is that your party members will not avoid hazards. On more than one occasion I had a party member that was standing with a hazard between them and the rest of the party (fire, acid, etc) and after combat they walked straight through it after combat ends to join the rest of the party. I even had a party member die to their own cloud of daggers because they walked through it to rejoin their party.
The story is also very boring and generic and I found myself forcing myself to play the game in hopes that it would get better over time.
