I'll start by admitting I'm on the younger side; my first cRPG was the Dragon Age series (with II as my personal favorite... yes, I know, chuck all credibility right out the gate, haha). So I'm not coming into this as a long time fan of the first two Baldur's Gate games. And I've played a few sessions of DnD but I'd hardly consider myself an expert. That said, I enjoyed BGIII so much I picked up the first two games. Regardless of your opinions on the game so far, the buzz around the sequel bringing new, younger fans to the series overall can certainly be viewed as a positive.
I won't touch too much on gameplay mechanics. People far more articulate on this front than I have already gone into great detail about the flaws. I'll only mention a couple aspects in passing as they relate to narrative.
The thematic thrust feels like an interplay between power and identity. Each companion comes in with a firmly established identity, and the mindflayer abduction and subsequent race to prevent ceremorphosis calls that identity into question. In contrast, DOS2 starts out with all the characters in a position of being marginalized by an institution (the True Order), but this doesn't have much impact on any of the companions' arcs besides Ifan. I have a rather low opinion of the narrative in DOS2--still fun to play, however--and BGIII already steps up the writing quality just by making the central narrative more cohesive with individual companion arcs.
The focus on identity does make the player character feel somewhat extraneous in comparison, however, unless you're an ardent roleplayer. My personal favorite run so far involved a gruff bounty hunter with a secret heart of gold who went around demanding money from everyone, and then when the tieflings finally offer him his reward, he turned it down. That was a satisfying gaming moment. But I understand complaints that the MC doesn't feel as special/pivotal as the companions (partially a result of the origin system, which I'm indifferent to overall), because his identity isn't being explicitly defined/opposed by the narrative.
Still, I'm really liking the companions so far. While their animations are janky and need improvement, I particularly enjoy their physicality. Lae'zel's sharp, abrupt hand gestures; Shadowheart and Astarion's sneering, snarky eyebrow wiggles; Wyll's overall braggadocios theatrics; Gale's unctuous, narcissistic finger pointing. I also liked that certain defining aspects of their identity aren't revealed right away (even if in some cases it's rather obvious: looking at you, Astarion), letting more layers naturally reveal themselves. Wyll and Lae'zel comes across as the two main exceptions. Wyll is someone whose layers are presented immediately and then peeled back to showcase the weak, angry coward within, while Lae'zel is a very straightforward character (which is fine and serves as a refreshing contrast to the others, although she's not without her machinations). Unfortunately, due to the game's bugginess, it's easy to miss many pivotal character scenes, but that'll be smoothed over when the full game releases.
The other aspect of the companions I appreciate so far is just how unreliable they are. They're constantly lying and manipulating the player and I trust them about as far as I can throw them. A good example of this is Lae'zel. In most of my playthroughs, she refuses to elaborate more on what purification entails, claiming she can't say anything because it's her sacred duty. But in a githyanki playthrough, she instead admits she doesn't KNOW what purification entails. The companions constantly try to position themselves to be viewed a certain way (Astarion wants to be pitied and underestimated, Gale and Lae'zel want to be voices of authority, Wyll wants to be heroic). Funnily enough, Shadowheart may be the only exception, despite her secrecy and paranoia. Having an urgent overarching quest throw together a bunch of disparate personalities is part of the fun of this type of party storytelling. I do agree we need some more straightforward/good aligned companions to balance them out, however.
My personal favorite companion is far and away Shadowheart. Mainly because I'm a sucker for anyone who's suffered from severe religious trauma, and they really nailed a character who's beginning to doubt her role in a cult but hasn't quite broken free of the gaslighting/brainwashing. Part of me would really love it if her arc entailed going from devout to faithless, but the Selune theory seems far more likely and more in line with the general cosmology of the forgotten realms. I find there are a lot of interesting mysteries surrounding Shadowheart, and her storyline seems to be where a lot of the faction elements intersect. It's also cute to me how she tries hard to come across as world weary (I lol whenever she talks about preferring one night stands) and flirty while in reality she's just this awkward ball of mush. Plus she loves animals... I'm a simple creature.
My other favorite character is Gale. He's just as slimy and manipulative as Astarion, but he hides it a lot better. Someone described him as a weave vampire, which made me chuckle, but it also fits really well. The whole scene where he dies and you bring him back to life is probably one of if not my favorite companion interaction in the whole game so far. Just very funny, tongue-in-cheek, unexpected, and also says quite a lot about Gale. I don't trust that he's telling the whole truth about his affair with Mystra, either. That dude is a wolf in sheep's clothing (
insert meme here). And I personally like his whole loot-eating deal. It creates a neat little moral quandary where you either keep him and lose out on potentially useful stuff or kick him to the curb for selfish, materialistic reasons.
My least favorite character is probably Astarion, mainly because he comes across as your typical hedonistic pseudo-Dorian Grey sex-is-interchangeable-with-violence vampire. I do like that he has a legitimate reason to keep the tadpole in and try to figure out how to control it, however, creating a natural conflict of interest with the rest of the party. And I also like that he's the only companion (so far, anyway, as far as I know) who will try and use the tadpole even if you stop using yours, although again, the scene is absurdly hard to trigger. But I personally hope he doesn't get a redemption arc as not every character needs one, and his archetype tends to be much more fun when they're unrepentantly chaotic evil.
My biggest complaint so far is the way the diegetic and non-diegetic elements combine to create a jarring sense of ludonarrative dissonance at times. The camping function is the most egregious example, exacerbated by the just how many pivotal companion moments you miss out on if you don't use it. Really the way time functions in general comes across as counterintuitive and consistently broke my suspension of disbelief. I don't specifically need a day/night cycle and I don't think it's necessary to create immersion: DA:O didn't have one was fine without it; but I think they need to do more to ground the narrative in some semblance of time beyond updates in the journal that are easy to miss.
This isn't really a criticism, at least not on my end, but I also think if this were a movie it would be classed more within the action/thriller genre than the older games or the traditional high fantasy adventure epics such as LOTR that DnD draws so much inspiration from. In that regard, I can see what people mean when they describe it as not 'feeling' like Baldur's Gate. The pacing in general is much faster than the older games, which involved a lot of trekking through the woods and quiet moments where nothing happens. Now I don't personally need these moments to feel immersed but it does change the overall atmosphere of the game.
Regarding the main overarching narrative. Other than a lot of inconsistencies seeming to be waved away by saying, 'oh, a special tadpole did it,' I really like it. The dreams, the mysterious Daisy figure, the Absolute conspiracy, the temptation to use the tadpole powers to bypass checks, these all fit nicely into the overall theme of BG regarding power and resisting the allure of power. While I'm not all that into the true evil path--siding with goblins--the game provides you with a lot of options for story quests and potential for roleplay. I also like that the side quests, as well as the companion quests, all are either rooted in the overarching quest (Auntie Ethel, for example, offers to cure you of your tadpole) or tie into the important factions vying for power (Shadowheart is involved with both Shar and the githyanki, Lae'zel ties into the githyanki, Wyll ties into the hell plot with his cambion friend, Gale I'm not quite sure but his connection to Netherese magic just makes me really suspicious, and Astarion is also up in the air but I wouldn't be surprised if Cazador ends up having some relation to the Absolute conspiracy as well). Everything feels cohesive and thematically relevant in some fashion or another.
So... yeah. I really like BGIII; it gives me a lot of similar feelings Dragon Age at its best gave me. Hopefully they iron out the kinks in EA and give us a game that both old and new fans of the series can enjoy.
