Hey folks, stands to reason that opinions are like assholes so this probably wont be popular but I hope folks understand the objective is to be constructive. Even if the criticism seems a tad sharp.
In any event here goes.
I'm posting as an avid D&D and BG series fan.
There are glitches - Its early access this was known when purchasing no issue or comment there.
Character development. Frankly i liked the old days where you rolled what you rolled and stuck with it. You start off with a character thats either forced to have mediocre ability scores across the board or half his scores are good and the others are abysmal.
The appearance side of things was aesthetically pleasing though the swords look like normal swords - not some kind of Manga behemoth wooden mallet that is comically large. (I do think they should shorten the blade length and hilt length of the two handed sword just a tad.)
The character dynamics are god awful - so much so that i hope i can just create a whole party and leave the cesspool of a party i start with at camp. They dont get along, they are all equally ignorant and theres nothing keeping them together. Half the party is on the evil spectrum and impossible to keep happy unless you play a sociopath. The other half are good guys with terribly flawed backgrounds - a dude that has to consume ancient artifacts to survive... Yeah man let me deal with your magic cocaine addiction the whole game.
In reality i doubt the character dynamics would stick together a half a second longer than they had to. Which is basically after the first hour of gameplay.
The throwing and Z axis features are actually pretty cool as well as the item manipulation, all of that stuff is useful in combat - and the only way i know that is because a party of 4 isnt big enough for a D&D adventure. Just add the other two characters for gods sake if a player wants to use fewer thats always an option I dont understand the enfatuation with a 4 player party.
I wont even comment on the lack of a real time combat option clearly thats never gonna come from Larian. Even though "Their secret sauce for the perfect game" seems to be based on the ability to pick shit up and move it in game. I had really hoped they understood what they had in their hands and instead they just re-skinned another game and changed the rules a smidge.
Combat takes forever both because you are a level nothing character, and because you only have 4 characters to work with, and because theres no real time option. If you dont use the environment in most of the fights you're pretty much hopelessly outnumbered. For some reason though every encounter past level three seems to consist of computer AI capable of 2-3 actions per turn.
Finally the story. Ill just say that this reminds me of metal gear solid 5.
The illithid infection is somehow linked to a diety and thats why you havent turned yet, its also why the devil wants to make a deal so badly. Because all the folks infected by this particular illithid "strain" will inherit Toril and thus make the devil guy all powerful by getting the souls somehow of every infected person.
Its a cheap story thats pretty cleche' and takes almost no thought to conjure up because the amount of reaching and stretching required to link the two subjects just discounts the whole stories legitemacy.
I hope Larian fixes the above issues. I hope this game kicks ass, im gonna keep playing it and trying to find stuff to make the game better because it deserves to be a great game. I dont want to see them break the D&D aspect to fix the complaints i want them to tailor the game so that it organically works with their vision and the classic BG fans.
Unfortunately those two visions are currently worlds apart.
Had they called this game anything else but baldurs gate it would be a "neat" game.
From what i've seen though this isnt an "Epic".
*Final note If Larian is annoyed by the character creation analytics could it POSSIBLY be because they misread their audience? Food for thought... hopefully.
