I'm enjoying it so far. The Mythic stuff feels kinda gimmicky in both a gameplay and story perspective so far IMO, but I like a lot of the philosophy of how the game was laid out They didn't shy away modeling things like the passage of time or travel distance that BG III greatly abstracts. There's even some high-level play involving kingdom management stuff that I have only just started to get into. Haven't seen much of that style of gameplay outside of NWN2 and BG2 with the strongholds.
I like a lot of the ways it embraces complexity. I'm already feeling like BG2 is reaching the mechanical limits of what 5e is designed to do, and it was really nice to see stuff like masterwork weapons and materials like cold iron, adamantine, and mithral. I really miss seeing stuff like crit ranges, crit mods, and dex mods playing BG III.
There's a little of a 'class bloat' thing going on where it feels like there seems to be a class or class variant for near about every conceivable type of character you could adventure as without an attempt to organize and cull them down into something more manageable from a worldbuilding perspective. But I don't really like a lot of what BG III/5e do with classes either (Whaddya mean I have to be a Dragon Disciple or a Wild Mage if I wanna be a Sorcerer?!) So I'll consider them more or less even in that department.
Plotline wise, I think I like Pathfinder a little more than BGIII. Both are outrageous all-out Epic-level campaign/setting-ending events as impetus, which I find is less my thing these days. The Absolute stuff in BG III feels really confused at times though-what it can do, what it's goals are etc. There's still plenty of time to be fleshed out, but it feels a bit nonsensical at times how the plot is unfolding. On the other hand, BG III feels better at the small roleplaying stuff generally. For instance, a lot of the evil choices in WotR boil down to 'I don't like you. Die! [Evil]' which is a shame. I like a lot of the 'little stuff' in BGIII more, the small roleplay dialogue choices and reactivity to stuff like race and class.
Characters are...an interesting subject. I have really soured on the Origin system over time, and I think comparing it to WotR shows its limitations. in BG III we get all of the party members dumped on our lap at the same time. all of them aside from Lae'zel have pretty 'out there' backstories setting them up as huge badasses that honestly I'm afraid will overshadow any experience you might get from a custom character. While there are some...out there party members in WotR, there are still a number of 'normal people' or at the very least comparably grounded. Seelah is literally one of the Pathfinder 'iconics' but she's remarkably 'normal' despite that. The player character gets their own storyline unique to them, of course, because there are no origin characters. There's enough party members that if you don't like one or two, there's plenty of variety and overlap to build your party the way you want, and they are spaced out over the course of the game, so you aren't overwhelmed right at the start.
They are both excellent games right now, IMO. But it is unfortunate to see BG III basically cede even attempting to do some of the things that Pathfinder is trying. Particularly with what feels like a noticeable disparity in budget. I feel like BG III might be in danger of not living up to its potential here.
