Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General A love letter ( slightly perfumed )

Baldurs Gate 3 is a beautiful and enjoyable experience. The level of depth, detail and immersion are second to none. I've never felt the importance of choices and dice rolls so vividly as often as I do in BG3. This is a slow burn RPG with secrets to be found and pieced together throughout npcs if you take the time to probe them. Rewards for thorough searching and proper use of Rogues to dungeon delve safely. The environments, the music, the dialog and the stories as well as your part in them really feel good. You, the player are altering this world around your decisions and it is very rewarding, excellent execution. The replay value is very appealing to me, choosing a different role, class and ways to navigate the game. I do have some mechanical gripes but I will save them for another thread because right now, I'm in love with BG3 and can see myself enjoying it for years to come. You won me over Larian, congratulations! This games deserves the name Baldurs Gate.

With love,
Stikyard

Yeah, I’m having so much fun, and I’m still replaying content from EA. This is a game I’ll be enjoying for years.

Aye, never had a doubt in Larian. They've achieved yet another masterpiece and it's absolutely wonderful. Plus I'm really happy to see a lot of Early Access feedback was taken to heart, which makes it even more amazing to play through it all

I have the same experience. There have been a number of really good CRPGs of this kind over the years, which I've immensely enjoyed playing, but none of them had quite the magic of the old classics. I thought I had just become a jaded old gamer unable to get excited about anything any more, but BG3 has shown me that is not the case. The old magic is back, and that I have some significant points of criticism does not change a thing.

I have had my doubts, especially since I really don't like the DOS games and was concerned the similarities in design would pull the experience to much towards those grossly overrated productions. Thankfully, that, too, is not the case, though my points of criticism are mostly about things inherited from the DOS games and Larian-style story design in a more general sense.

What counts is that they did the most important things right in order to make playing BG3 a memorable experience.

The game is extremely good at times and downright exceptional in some specific moments.
Without going into anything too spoiler-ish, I think the abandoned temple/Githyanki creche may very well be one of the best areas I've experienced in an isometric RPG, on multiple levels: the intricate layout, the amount of content, the aesthetic and thematic consistency...

Which all contribute to make even more puzzling to witness the things that the game on the other hand handles so poorly, like the unnecessarily cumbersome inventory system.

Anyway, I had a slow start at first but since Sunday I've been on vacation and - while I promised to myself it will stop today for the sake of my own health- in these first few days I've pretty much "no-lifed" the game for hours in a row and enjoyed ALMOST every single minute of it.
No doubt the game is a crowning achievement in the genre and deserves a mountain of praises.
There's also no doubt that it doesn't lack the room for improvements in few areas.

You all forgot to mention the Hotfixes - two in five days with the second causing problems. This is only the Steam version apparently as the GOG version hasn't had any Hotfix.

...Maybe I'm missing something but I don't think some hotfixes for bugs is of particular relevance in this discussion, specifically?

Not true. I own GOG version and I got both hotfixes.

Not sure what that is relevant. I have only had a few ver minor visual bugs, nothing even close to game breaking, and no problems with the hot fixes. None of this affects my enjoyment of the game.

BG3 is a really mixed bag. Parts of it are so amazing and you feel like just taking Tav alone and getting lost in the world. For that reason, I was ready to forgive the game for bad 5e homebrew and forcing generic videogame tropes in what could have otherwise been great tactical D&D combat. But then both world consistency and storytelling kind of finally fell apart for me in the beginning of Act III:

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=876908#Post876908

Mechanically the game is a really mixed bag as well. It's really cool that you have environment playing a big part and can do stuff like Telekinesis and Pushing Attack enemies into a Wall of Fire. But then the "videogamified" combat mechanics, debuff acid pools, spiders spitting gallons of poison, throwing healing potions at people, silly over the top shoving, Help whack-a-mole and just this irresistible desire to make combat so over the top and more amazing than D&D, conflict with the serious storytelling.

Now I'm just prowling the forums because I don't really want to continue Act III after a great Act II, expecting it will just fall apart more and more. Sucks.

Such a great game!!!

I've played this two days ago and I fully agree. This must be one of the best pieces of CRPG storytelling I've ever seen. Most notably, the fighting parts and the non-fighting parts come together to feel as a natural whole, and the place makes you feel its history as well as the presence of its current occupants. Nothing feels out of place here. It is rare to find such a thing in any medium.

My appreciation for a certain companion also went up. Her personal story really takes off in Act 2 to become perhaps one of the best companion stories, carried not just by the writing but also the voice acting.

With that said, I also agree that there's no lack of room for improvement

Probably the right place to mention this. The game isn't only fun to play, but genuinely makes me happy. Barely scratched the surface, already blown away. Thank you so much!

Just to highlight one aspect which needs more appreciation imo is the fantastic music and the atmospheric sound design. At one point I could have sworn there's a fly in my room, but it was just the BG3 surroundings.

(Admittedly also true: camera / party control and inventory management are clunky. Even thinking of buying a game pad extra because of this.)