Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General a review of baldure gate3

That sums it up perfectly.

BG3 depends a lot on the illusion of choice and production value. Imo more so than other rpgs. Which makes it more bitter when the illusion shatters.

And once you look past the cutscenes and full voiceover BG3 is "just" ok and above average, but not the sensation people hype about.

The story is fantasy standard, not really better than WotR or Kingmaker. The narrative is unsteady and often clashes with the rest of the game instead of working hand in hand, for example when it creates a fake sense of urgency, intermixed with real urgency, which causes you to miss many story elements because they depend on long resting. Or how the way the tadpole is handled.

Then there all the visible results of rewrites like some plots simply stop or are not really interwoven with the world (Karlach) or how Gortash is standing around doing nothing and Cazadors mansion is a hole in the wall. Even apart from that some sub stories are very disconnected from the world like the way Ketherics family is (not) handeled or how the Emperor never remembers what he said in previous discussions and basically just behaves verry erratic in the way you want him to instead of having his own personality.

Add to that the technical problems, especially in act 3 with performance and broken triggers and things getting referenced that did not happen and bad design like inventory handling, the way how everything depends in long rests, the toilet chain, how long as takes to switch out companions and the general design if nearly always being able to rest after every encounter and also how they are trivialized by items and certain design decisions like haste.

Gotta agree on magic items part... Finding a named magic item in BG 1 / BG 2 was a "wow" moment, but in BG3, although a lot of loot is useful and fills a niche, there is no "wow" factor. Armors and weapons do look great tho. I just reached the forge, so maybe that will change?

Charname Faces are mostly ugly, yea. After Solasta though, I can take it.

I'd be the first person to oppose appealing to certain minorities' "wants and demands", but those things are not in your face, and easily avoidable. They managed to make it an "option" for few who want it, but it's actually quite concealed for the rest of us. So no problems there.

Don't really understand your "negative" outlook for a game, which you played for 335 hours. The games I do not like never pass 1 hour "played" mark for me. So there are absolutely things here that hooked you and keep you entertained. Means it is a good game.

Can I try to do a review too?
Disclaimer: I am a man from Russia, I am 40 years old, I was once a Tolkienist role-player, but I have never been fond of canonical DND.

So, imagine that you have a grandfather who is 90 years old. He's not a bad person, but he watches a TV channel about conspiracy theories too often. He wears a foil hat, believes in reptilians, etc.
And so, he tells you that he was abducted by aliens similar to Cthulhu in order to put a worm through his pupil into his brain. And then the guys arrive with the appearance of the Grinch Thief of Christmas, riding on dragons.
It sounds like nonsense. This is definitely not a fantasy... Yes? No, it`s new game about Faerun. Surprise!
The game is very beautiful. But that's not what's impressive.
It's impressive that Larian Studio is people with steel balls! They made a game in 2023 in which we see the good old ultra-violence, a lot of blood and entrails, boobs, nurses from Silent Hill, you can beat children and so on. Hooray, I got back the impressions I got from the games in 1999! After the fight, the whole team looks like a meat processing plant brigade – everything is covered in blood. In all cutscenes, almost the main character in my case appeared as a kind of character from the R category, with a lot of blood stains on his face and clothes. During the battle, blood naturally splashes from the killed, spreads in puddles, and then the characters who have passed through this puddle leave bloody footprints on the floor. The character's inventory may include: someone's brain, liver, ear, tongue, hand, a whole corpse, skull, bones, rotten cheese, rotten carrots, and so on.
Plot.... There's just a lot of it. It's not good everywhere. And the impression of multivariance is deceptive. Anyway, all paths lead to several standard situations. The endings are not 100500, but something like three. But wait, are you playing for the ending? Did you play Fallout 2 for the ending? Maybe you played Morrowind and at least once passed it to the end? No, you liked the process of the game, and you were in no hurry to complete the game to the end.
I see that the studio tried to make the game good. And no, it's not the same as usual. Other developers make the game the way the manager, the customer, the marketer told them to. Very few studios make the game because they are fans of their business and have inspiration. I can remember Disco Elysium yet. Perhaps there are no more games made on inspiration.
While I was going through the first act, the list of things that should be corrected reached two sheets. Now I have consulted with friends, crossed out a lot. But still the game must be completed. It is wonderful as a good reason, a good platform for further development. It is good as an information guide.
I sincerely regret that I am not 20-25 years old, I speak English poorly and have abandoned my career as a screenwriter. It would be interesting to take part in the revision of the game. This is a really inspiring project