I feel much the same. The returning characters run the gamut between well done and hard to understand.
I was delighted by Minsc’s translation, but considering you’re not really working with a great deal to begin with, I considered Minsc a layup for the team. Unlike some others I actually would have found greater deviation from old Minsc more forgivable and interesting.
I’m also happy Larian didn’t ruin the fun of Boo.
I also thought Jaheira was well done. Very faithful to the original games but not to the point of arresting her development as a character. I totally bought the hardbitten, wished she could be a cynic put on. And her relationship with the city for that matter.
As for the returning characters who weren’t spoiled before release.
Sarevok never struck me as a fanatic . His attitude toward Bhaal and godhood always seemed pretty matter of fact. But I have trouble understanding the motivations of anyone in a murder cult, so who knows. That extends to Orin I don’t really understand her motivations, or maybe they’re just too simplistic to be interesting. Sarevoks journal says he was brought back in BG2 but very little of the interesting development for his character there seems to have occurred, nor does much seem to have happened to him since then except falling in the Doppelgängers again and continuing Bhaals work. If they made more clear he was the revenant of only part of Sarevok I might more easily have bought in, but much like his VO there’s just something lacking.
And Viconia. I’ve felt like reserving my judgment here before playing as Shadowheart, there seems to be more going on here that Tav isn’t party to. As Tav, Viconia is little more than a cameo. One who I have trouble matching up with the original games.
No point in denying I’m a Viconia fan, I don’t usually go through BG2 without a spot for her (or Jaheira and Minsc for that matter) and going to the Underdark without her is leaving a lot on the table. Maybe for that reason I’m trying to be more impartial than is reasonable, still based solely on Jenevelle’s story it doesn’t seem like the Viconia in BG3 would have survived the first two games.
Thanks to BG3’s notoriously spoilery journal entries Viconiam’s cell has gone rogue adding to my interest in her story despite there not seeming to be much there to discover.
I like the game. I like the story, I like the characters better, but maybe because of that I find all the rough spots on the road where it’s underwritten or drops plots all the more glaring.
