Hey guys,

It's my first time posting here and I decided to share my thoughts here because quite frankly I'm a little bit disapointed of doing that in other communities like Reddit where criticism is discouraged.

Additionally, I'm not here to convince to my point of view. I'm mostly interested in knowing your oppinions and thoughts.

I’m going to write this review with enough time played into the game in order not to be unfair with Larian. Before doing so, I must assure that I’ll definitely review my feedback once the game is ready and we get ver 1.0. Additionally, the following text was written under some assumptions:

I know it’s an early access game.
I’m fan of the prequels HOWEVER I was really excited when I’ve heard that the game would be TBG and not RTWP.
I’ve played DOS1 (>250h) and DOS2 (>160h) therefore I know the mentality of the developer.
This review have nothing to do with the early access price. I’m totally okay with that.
I don’t think this game is hard. On the contrary, I think it’s easy. But I must say that I’ve played on Larian terms and they sold me a game saying that I would have freedom to be whomever I wanted to be.

I’m writing it to show how I feel about the gaming experience, so do not hope for criticism about the amount of bugs I’ve found and so on. This is entirely based in how do I feel about being an early access player and the joy I felt while doing it.
I’m not recommending Baldur’s Gate 3 AS IS exclusively to players that would read this review and agree with my point of view. If you don’t, please go ahead and decide by yourself whether it’s a game for you or not.

With all my assumptions on the table, let’s get rolling:

PROS:
I appreciate the multi-aligment-approach. So regarding story line, companions depth & overall writing does not bother me at all. Even though I’m not able to know the outcome of my engagement with my companions as we’re playing an unfinished game, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be at least satisfied with the story. Comparing with DOS with an extremely boring and bad writing you’ve shown to me that you’ve improved. That’s a minor win that I’m taking in account.

Graphically I don’t think that its too bright to be BG. I think that the graphics are in a good shape and I really appreciate the effort that was added to character creation: Big win over the prequels. I feel that I have the freedom to be whoever I want and I don’t think that the system limit my ambitions. Even not being 100% faithful to DnD 5e, I’d say that BG3 is already one of the best characters creators of 5e in the market.

CONS:
It hurts to me say that as my expectations for the early access were pretty high and I had hopes that Larian would prove to everyone in the world that the company have the maturity to recognize that a great feature in one game might not always be a great feature in another one. What I disliked in this game the most the was 100% taken from DOS.

1-The sense that every battle should be epic. I felt no sense of progression regarding CR. Every battle is a struggle to examine the surroundings, use the terrain advantage and fight. But isn’t that good? Not really.
DnD is a game of CLASSES and how they intertwine in an almost divine and magical way. Terrain is present in DnD, don’t get me wrong. But the role terrain have in the game is 5% to 10% in weight.
I’ll give you an an example: if I decide to challenge my foe without thinking about positioning because that’s how I feel I should approach this battle as my party is way too hotheaded, the game will punish me. I’ll have to depend on luck to win. If I use the terrain, even knowing that the character that I’ve created isn’t someone that use that kind of cheap tricks the game will reward me and I wont need luck at all! Well, if the terrain decides battles, not depending on the class, why would we bother with various classes in the early access?
That leads us to a battle system that is childish, cheap, boring & most importantly NON-IMMERSIVE. Okay, you give me the freedom to be good or evil but you don’t give me the freedom to battle the way I want to battle.

2- Larian was never a company with a good sense of balance. They decided by themselves to modify some solid RAW rules of DnD5e because they they though that the DOS player would think its boring to receive one action per turn and decided to add to Bonus Actions some features that are and should be Actions. As result, they fell on the middle ground where the game have no personality and no action economy. Everyone can hide, shove & disengage as a bonus action as the game is ASKING for you to do that every single turn. To preserve this many-actions-a-turn of DOS they simply broke action economy and the meaning of niche features. Needless to say, surfaces places one of the worst part of the games breaking the rules once again. I’m fine with DnD surfaces. I’m not fine with DOS surfaces in DnD.

3- Instead of balancing the CR of the fights, Larian crowded the world with items. Countless potions, carrots, potatoes, scrolls, weapons, magical arrows, etc were added so they would balance the game with it. It’s like they’ve thought: “I’ve made a mess with the equilibrium of the battles, lets add items to fix it and at the same time I need to show to my blind fanboys how much content I’ve added. That turned into another game where there’s no attachment between your characters and their belongings. Quantity over quality all the way.

4- Beside the mess with items, the action economy overall encourage you to take long rests as much as possible. Story progression is linked to it so the more you take rests, the more you know about your status. That encourages facing every battle 100% armed with your full spells slots and skills. Saving ammunition to use later is not a word Larian knows. SPAM BEDROLLS ALL THE WAY.

5-High ground as an advantage was always a flavor based theme and I’m okay with that, but with so many high grounds everywhere the melee fighter class turned from one of the most epic classes to a pile of garbage. There’s not a single reason I would chose a fighter over another class. Your hit rate will always be bad compared to anyone attacking from distance. Only when you have a foe over your archer you’ll be hitting less compared to melee. But hey! You can disengage as a bonus action and attack on the same turn! Damn. There’s no reason to melee. Prove that I’m wrong. On top of that, your opponent can also disengage as a bonus action! Even the Opportunities attacks are broken. If Larian didn’t have messed with the CR of goblins with 14 AC, the fights hit rate would be higher and as the figher dishes more damage per hit the balance would be reestablished. Let’s wait and see.

My next feedback will be here when the final release comes.

Maybe I’m just overreacting over an Early Access? Hope I am. Because that’s the last chance as a player I’m giving to Larian

I’m expecting Larian to net more than 300 USDm at the game maturity. I expect nothing less than a masterpiece that I’m going to remember till my very ending. Don’t be afraid of switching your childish approach to a more mature one.

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.