I am about 16 hours in to Solasta right now (I re-bought it) and I admit it is a fun game, but comparing it to Baldur's gate 3 is ridiculous.
1) Solasta is purely a tactical game, that mostly sticks to the D&D ruleset. It works by heavily constraining your available actions, far more than an actual game of D&D would. It also heavy controls the combat situations you find yourself in by being 100% linear in execution. So you will face specific combats in a set order regardless of player choice.
BG3 on the other hand gives you a lot of leeway in regards to actions and how you approach any particular combat. You can talk your way out of things, scare the other side off, dominate them, or find other ways to ambush them or start the encounter. However surprise is a little broken rn in BG3 but I think its just bugged.
2) Solasta doesn't give all its objects specific health such as ladders, doors, chests, barrels, boxes, crates - where BG3 does. So the world is far less reactive to your actions. You also can't - for example throw a crate at someone, or make a blockade, or re-shape the battlefield really. You can knock items on the ceiling down on people though, which does small amounts of damage.
3) Solasta doesn't allow you to murder every single person you meet regardless of consequences. BG3 you can murder your way across all of ACT I with impunity.
4) Solasta doesn't have multiplayer, and won't ever. BG3 is built around robust multiplayer, will eventually have DM mode and a toolset.
5) The story in Solasta is pretty decent. The voice acting and animation is very basic but serviceable. The story is specific to Solasta and doesn't tie into the rest of the forgotten realms in any way. This is a condition of their specific license. I like the stock story though.
Versus BG3 where the story has its roots in about a million other stories. My heart goes out to the writers at BG3 who have to manage that behemoth and having so much pressure to make it worthy of the license and title. Objectively the story does have deep roots in Bg1 and 2 as it deals with the Dead Three. Period. Full stop.
6) Stealth and detection in Solasta is based on line of sight where you are eventually seen if you don't move away to cover. BG3 uses a sight system that involves you making saving throws if you are in line of sight. In this case BG3 is the more accurate to 5E rules system. Both are fine.
7) You can't pickpocket people in Solasta, or attack them if they are friendly. There is no stealing in general. I guess that stuff isn't in D&D /s
8) There are no romance options in Solasta. In Bg3 your entire crew are all former prostitutes that will nail anything with a heartbeat. So basically the same :p
9) In Solasta party members Banter but you can't explore specific backstories. You can't talk to them directly and ask them questions, there are no inter-party relationships. In BG3 the party members don't shut up about their weird emo problems and have an opinion about everything you do.
10) Solasta requires you to think about food, spell components, weight, and fatigue when traveling. Nothing about pooping though. Oh well I can dream.
11) Solasta uses a clock and day night cycles. Spells have real time durations. Bg3 has real time durations, but no clock. Spells with long directions just last until rest. Both are fine.
Solasta overall is a fun game for what it is. Probably the worst part of it isn't the game itself. Its the fan boi's with no social skills running their mouths on the BG3 forum. I'd explain what a "reaction formation" is to these people but I don't want them staring at me like a dog that's been shown a card trick. My apologies if that sounds too snarky but honestly if their intent was to get other people into this game they are approaching it from the worst possible angle. Bashing Bg3 on the BG3 forums is not just trashy and rude but also completely inaccurate and unnecessary. Especially given that Solasta is a finished game and BG3 still has at LEAST another year in EA.
BG3 is also an incredibly ambitious game that gets bombarded daily by an endless parade of lazy, mealy-mouthed gamers who just instantly crap on it with very little thought. "It doesn't have THIS SPECIFIC THING I WANTED?!!? Well then it's not Baldur's gate!!"
But for those out there that ARE well-adjusted humans who have not played this game. If you have time to kill and want a distraction its a decent one. The dev's clearly poured their little hearts into this and it is definitely challenging and interesting even on the default difficulty. You WILL have a learning curve.
One more thing...Don't expect the same class, race options that BG3 (even in early access) has - there is a lot of class homebrew there and same with a lot of the monsters. Also be prepared for a lot of stuff that flies and crawls on walls. Solasta took the idea of verticality to 11 - its pretty funny.
Mod's my apologies in advance if any of this was over the top.
Last edited by Blackheifer; 30/05/21 07:17 AM.
