I'd actually disagree with this - Yes, the computer can handle all that extra involved complexity... but it still requires players to engage with and understand it, or else it asks them to play semi-blind and just 'trust' the system to be telling them what the best thing to do is, without really understanding it. When I was much younger, I played a 3.5 CRPG; I had very little idea of what was happening and why, in terms of gear and spells and combat systems, and mostly had to just fall back on casting things that sounded like they were probably good buffs, by their flavour text, and things that sounded like they did good damage. Large swathes of the system were opaque to me... and just because the computer could handle all the math didn't make that element of the gaming experience a more positive one. I'd much have preferred clarity of system.
Execution matters a lot. I don't think I have ever heard anyone complain about KoTOR being particularly obtuse back in the day, and that was built under modified 3rd edition-Neverwinter of course shares a lot of its DNA with those games -IIRC they even got away with shoving a modified Umber Hulk from Neverwinter into the game as an enemy, which shows how much they shared 'under the hood'
Certainly I have heard a lot of people here on the forums complain about stuff relating to interface, information being readily available to the player in-game, obtuse and/or confusing mechanics etc. A lot of that can be laid at Larian's particular vision for executing 5e in BG III, not necessarily 5e itself. (though some 5e mechanics aren't particularly great either IMO)
)
There was Icewind Dale 2 and the Neverwinter Nights games, all of which I think are well regarded, D&D rule-wise at least. Did they ever make any other 3e games?
I only ever put serious time in Neverwinter Nights; there were some times it didn't accurately adapt the pen and paper stuff, otherwise I had fun character crafting. The interface was pretty annoying though, Larian doesn't have anything on NWN. As far as adequately explaining the rules to you, that seems to be a serious shortcoming of any crpg, just talking about the Baldur's Gate games, I don't know half the things going on in a magic combat to this day, and the only reason I know about the other half is from knowing about D&D outside the game.
There's Temple of Elemental Evil, but that was Troika's last game IIRC, and it shows as it was released basically unfinished. When it works bug free (rarely) it does really show the good qualities of 3.5-as it tries more than any other D&D game I can think of to faithfully recreate the ruleset.
As for NWN, I really liked their attempt to nail crafting. Having a wide variety of weapon/armor types as well as materials for crafting that subtlety changed the properties of crafted items, then the enchantments. Something like that which also included the Masterwork properties from Dragon Magazine(IIRC) would have been amazing to see. But 5e doesn't have that. 3.5 armor and weapons are just miles above more engaging to interact with as a player.
