After reaching Baldur's Gate this is starting to really bother me and I have to call it out. Big spoilers incoming.
The devs made a point in the final Panel from Hell how the writing team went through the entire game to make sure the game reacts to your Dragonborn Bard entering a tavern. Well, did they completely forget about the game reacting to it's own NPC's when they are far more fiendish or undead than the PC's can ever be? Did they completely forget to consider how PC's should react to monsters? These scenes are getting so numerous by the time you reach the city it's completely turning me off now. Let's list a few.
Act I - Astarion right away - you don't get to react to his vampire look of pale skin, red eyes and monstrous sharp teeth. Withers just hanging out at your camp IS really camp. No one minds having a lich around or has anything to say about it. Like every camp is supposed to have their own camp lich that just subserviently follows you around everywhere like a pet.
Act II - At the shadow cursed town inn - PC (Gale) goes to order a drink at the counter like there's nothing special going on and has some witty line about it. The innkeeper is a corrupt bloated undead abomination. The party has been fighting for their lives against shadows and zombies. In my playthrough the Last Light Inn just got destroyed and literally everyone died. Next scene - horror comedy. This kind of stuff really ruins the storytelling. Nothing holds up. Same with the House of Healing. Your dialogue choices only allow you to treat an undead nurse like a normal living person in a normal town.
Wyll has been a devil with horns and a black glowing devil-eye for a while now. No one gives two coppers anywhere.
Act III - When you reach Wyrm's Crossing and the city it just all falls apart. Vampires are casually hanging out in public at the Flophouse in daylight, with glowing red eyes, bestial vampire teeth and talking about Master Cazador like a vampire coven in the city wasn't any kind of secret. Wtf? The Circus has a ghoul on the street and it's supposed to be funny. NO ONE CARES! Mizora, a winged devil from Hell, is standing around on busy city streets, or inside the Wyrm's crossing fort flapping her wings. NO REACTION FROM GUARDS OR ANYONE!
And the best part so far. The villain himself, Lord Gortash, at his own inauguration with an audience sitting right there just casually repeats to the party being a servant of Bane, explains about Orin and Bhaal, and the whole freaking Absolute plot about the netherese-controlled Elder Brain. The hall is echoing as the inauguration audience is sitting right there listening! AND NO ONE CARES! If everyone in the hall is tadpoled, it needs to be explained, and it wasn't. Plus "everyone is tadpoled" would be really lazy storytelling. An inauguration ceremony is pointless if it's only witnessed by mind controlled people in the first place. Why are these scenes so sloppy?? Why doesn't Gortash first meet you in private to make his deal? Sarevok inauguration scene in BG1 is a hundred times more convincing even though you can count the pixels! Hiring Jason Isaacs to do poorly directed scenes is painful to watch. And probably too expensive to reshoot.
Silly horror comedy or mature dramatic storytelling? WHICH IS IT??? And why doesn't the storytelling hold up in any logical way? It's so frustrating to see what amazing potential this game has, and then it stumbles on something simple like this and the whole just doesn't work. This game needed clearer direction. Parts of it are great, but as a whole it is all over the place.
Last edited by 1varangian; 08/08/23 09:58 PM.
