In this kind of spoiler free review of BG3, I try to give you plusses and minuses and my opinion/arguments why you should wait to buy BG3 or get it only on sale. Some spoilers on Act 2 and little bit of Act 1, but I will not tell you much spoilers and I try to be shady when I tell some spoilers and I avoid character names in this... Also the ending of the game is safe in this review. Also I give a couple of fix ideas.
+ Act 1 is very well done, with freedom of choice to do many things in many different order and many ways. (With different outcomes.) Act 1 is the strongest reason to buy the game now in full price and if I would review only Act 1, game would get 9/10.
+/- The beginning of Act 2 is still good and some side quests you can see quality. Still the quality of the game starts to drop in Act 2. In Act 2 player still have options to be good or bad, but you do not really have options to join the bad group, expect for a awhile. You can also be more good first and then betray later the good guys, but these options are very similar to average RPG that have been seen 1000 times. So nothing special in Act 2 as many seem to think right now. (Not sure how the evil road/option from Act 1 is tight to Act 2, it can be better.)
- You can not leave the Act 2 main area to Baldur's gate and just ignore the content of Act 2. (You could just leave in Act 1 to Act 2 areas, that is not the case in Act 2.) The game will put you in dead body part place if you try to leave to the Road to Baldur's gate and later the game will give you the ending screen if you do not battle against the End Boss of Act 2.
- So players are forced to do two things in Act 2, a) complete this temple area of Gauntlet of Shar and find The Item You Need and b) do battle against the End Boss of Act 2.
+/- End Boss of Act 2 had some options on how to do the quests related to that part of the story, you can even avoid the first fight against that person... if you are successful in persuasive check or you go the evil road/option of the story.
- but on a good road/option with a failed persuasive check, you have to battle against the End Boss of Act 2 three times, until the person dies. It felt to me more like a bad action movie level of game design. Average at best. (Even voice actors in BG3 are very good.)
- Design of Gauntlet of Shar of Act 2 is very weak or average level at best. It is mostly in the rails area, that is also reported to have many bugs… Example bugs have happened if you try to be less in the rails and kill the bad guy/middle boss of the area - before finding The Item You Need and have to find.
To me the Gauntlet of Shar area just seemed an example of Larians lazy game design in Act 2. Most of the freedom of choice is missing in this area that you could clearly see in Act 1. Also, designers of this game throw some companion quests in the same area, that you have to do, if you do not want bad endings to at least one character. Example one character tried to kill me in the game and I was forced to kill that person, before finding The Item You Need. Some claim this was a bug, because I had high influence with this person, so maybe it should not happen at all at that point. Game did not give me any persuasion check options and only very short dialogue options to avoid this attack. (My choice was to do the companion quest or kill the person.) So this companion just went full psychopath on me, before even nothing important happened in the plot, because I did not do this persons companions quest right there and now. I think it was the weak solution of Larian Studios in that point of the story. (Maybe they change this later.)
- What game promises and shows in Act 1, for example when/in what order the player finishes a companion quest… There is a little bit of that same spirit in Gauntlet of Shar, but not even close to the same level like in most areas in Act 1. You can not return to do certain Act 2 quests later. What I mean is, that the order when to do certain sidequests or companion quests are now tight to certain events long before you leave to the Baldur's gate or you miss the quests forever. It is very possible example to miss completely one companions quest, if that person is not in your party.
- Design of Gauntlet of Shar is the big cliché of crpgs, where you need to do puzzels and battles to get keys/stones to the Door of The Item You Need, but this is very lacking in options, because there is only puzzle or battle options.
FIX: Gauntlet of Shar should have had many options on how to get down to the Door of where The Item You Need is. Example with the Bad Necromancer/Middle boss should have persuasive check, to get at least one of the Keys/stones to the Door of The Item You Need. Or maybe you could skip the Elevator Keys by using vine + ropes, to get to the floor where you need the last 2 Keys to the Door. Or maybe someone stole one key/stone and you have to find that person out from Gauntlet of Shar. Nothing like that is there. So this kind of more Kotor 1 quality of quest desgin would change the area a lot, to give it more life and freedom, but in this state (7.10 2023.) the place is an example of how the BG3 started with freedom of choice, but ended in the dark dungeon of Shar.
It is good game design to reward players for doing everything, like every puzzle and battle, but it is not good game design to make players do only puzzle and battle to get the Keys to the Door. To be fair Keys to the Door is a common crpg sin what Pathfinder games/Owlcat studios have also done a lot.
+/- Influence with companions in BG3 seems to be a very high illusion of the game, but choices do matter how you do companion quests. (There seems to be also much of the content cut out.) I would really like to hear what is the difference in the end if all companions hate you, but you still made the best/good aligment choices for them. It is possible that mostly you get the same available good endings to all, without them even liking you.
Little flair FIX: game should give to a roll plusses, if a companion character likes the PC. Example when two companion characters fight in the camp you should have more plusses in persuasive checks if one or both are your friends. And if the companion character loves the PC then the player should have advantage in those story moment rolls.
FIX: to fix companion quests in Act 2 is to add more options to do things in many ways or add more areas where you can only do companion quests. Minimum fix of getting the Act 1 quality back to Act 2 is to give at least player back the freedom to do companions quests without a timer or before event you do not know without one playthrough, but of course story-wise it is fine that you should do certain companion quests, before leaving to Baldur's Gate. One companion quest design seems to be the best in current build in Act 2, where you can do this persons questline later, but I do not think you can do that quest after the Boss Battle of Act 2.
Spoiler free opinion of Act 3 ending. I played Act 1 many times in BG3 and I have played a lot of RPGs on my life. This game should be good for me, but the quality drop was too high in Act 2 for me. BG3 in its current state is like a good trilogy, where the first book is good and then quality drops in the second book and you hope it is going to be better in the third.
I did see the beginning of Baldur's Gate area/Act 3 and did some quests there and I talked to many NPCs. Then I stopped playing the game. But I did watch many videos about the different endings of Act 3 and it seems that Baldur's Gate 3 variations of 17000 endings is in truth, something very different than well crafted epilogue. BG3 have only a very short epilogue, where some characters had more quality endings, but others did not. (Lots of cut out content?) So the ending/epilogue of BG3 is not right now even close to the same level as most good rpgs/crpgs, like Baldur's Gate Throne of Bhaal, Fallout 1 and 2, or Fallout: New Vegas or not in the level of more modern games like The Outer Worlds or Pathfinder: Wrath of the Rigtheous. Even little bit older and too much of an online game design/many times too empty Dragon Age 3 seems to have better epilogue than BG3, at least in the last DLC had epilogue. By good epilogue I mean that the player will see at least pictures and hear a story teller voice telling of what happened to the characters and the places after.
The future. It very possible that BG3 will be the game later, that it was in Act 1, a year later from now. But in its current state (7.10 2023), with cut content and bugs and pacing issues, and forcing player to do cliché Key findings to a Door main quest design etc. I can not recommend to buy BG3 at its full price and you should be careful with high expectations that Act 1 makes you feel. Still, it is not bad game and there is passion in this project and BG3 it is not the same level of horrible like release of Cyberpunk 2077 was. But BG3 does not deserve in my opinion the crown of being the greatest crpg of all time or that BG3 is something we only get in once in 10 years, like some reviewers have written. It is just one big crpg called Baldur's Gate 3, that could have been 9 out of 10, but now it gets 7 out of 10 for me, in its current state.
- Review by MrLeikari, 7.10 2023
