Best Alternative to Sitting Around the Table with Friends
If the goal was to get as close to the feel of tabletop gaming as possible, then this is the pinnacle of success to date! The story is both intriguing and engaging. The interface provides tools that are very familiar to any TTRPG player; and, for anyone familiar with the D&D 5e ruleset, then the gameplay is exactly as expected and comfortable to play in. I am astonished that the game is still in developement and is already this excellent. I can't wait to see how good the final relase is. It is already a truly gorgeous game! Definately a critical hit! Keep up the excellent work Larian Studios.
Played 80 h in Early Access. That's a huge jump from DOS2 to a new higher level:
* The origin characters are all amazing,
* the story itself is thrilling,
* the combat is super versatile and intertaining.
* The cinematics are mindblowing
* and that's just the EA?
Latest Panel From Hell showcase has shaked the whole industry, other devs are scared of the level that Larian managed to achieve.
Thank you, Larian, you set the standard that all players wanted.
Bloody excellent “tabletop” RPG feeling, but the story hooks leave something to be desired.
I love that the faction reputation system accounts for how you interact with individuals, but also whether you get caught doing bad things (or whether word has gotten around about good things). The ability to sneak around and assassinate targets without ruining your reputation is far beyond anything BG2 offered in that sense.
I’m excited about what the city of Baldur’s Gate in the full release will hold with respect to the freedom to act and the way the world responds to your actions!
Unfortunately, about 2/3 of the way through the EA I got bored because there just didn’t feel like there was a good hook for my character to continue learning and exploring once the druid grove questline was done. The initial “ticking time bomb” urgency had passed, and nothing had replaced it. Hopefully the full release will have more to draw you on!
To start off it's NOT a hardcore, super difficult, extremely long game for D&D experts. I didn't play D&D anytime as a board game and in pc games I'm not sure (possibly two games were D&D - Pathfinder and Trials of fire, but I didn't really think about it) so for me BG 3 was from beginning to end something very original and fresh (if anything can be in times of copying everything). And I must say that first act was very good, great size, superb diversity, lots of secrets and difficulty just right for learning and feeling challenge. I didn't play early access so it's a really good job of ea players to polish this act. Afterwards I was expecting super large act 2, everywhere there were articles and interviews stating that act 2 is the biggest and game is for 200h, simply put my expectations were sky high. And? Act 2 felt smaller than act 1 (playing same way, checking everything it took me 5 hours less to "clean" it). What's more important, in act 2 there's much less density and diversity of locations, graveyard atmosphere and lots of time takers (long corridors, not important rooms, first part of map has around ten fights overally and none really important). That's why anyone reading this review should know that I'm a little surprised and possibly biased against this game.
To put it shortly:
-Acting is great, voice acting and immersion superb. From storytelling point of view it's a GOTY (although many books and notes are still empty, just with "[]").
-RPG elements and D&D part of the game is also best possible. All these actions and small parts of the game like dice rolls, developing your hero, interacting with every element of environment and some puzzles really make this game a memorable experience.
-No bugs, beautiful places, views and creatures/people made with artism.
-Really lots of nice moments, emotions and every road leads to BG.,
BUT!
It's not a really hard game, I didn't feel satisfaction too often. Brothel feeling all the time. Graphics not overwhelming.
113+ Hours for me to finished it, was everything that i wanted, there are some few stuff in cutscenes, dialogue that couldve been better but im this is still a worth successor and the rpg of the year, higly recomended, I stand here now empty cuz i finished the game but really hyped to see what else Larian studios will be launching next
