I've been looking forward to play this in split-screen together. After getting about 10 hours into the game, getting familiar with the systems and problems, today was the day we decided to give it a go. What a horrible experience. I'm still mad for it ruining our day (prepare for incoming rant...)
With the kids at the grandparents, a grey rainy Saturday, my wife and I decided to give it a chance.
First task, move the couch to 4ft from the 65" tv so we can both actually read the item descriptions with the screen split in half.
That done, err how do you actually start the game in split-screen. I started a new game choosing Dave with my wife planning to play a warrior or fighter. Finally after the whole intro again it responds to my wife pressing x, splits the screen and she gets to create a character. She doesn't have the option to choose a pre-made so we go through the long process of making a character, too many options. And little did we know that choosing genitals would be the most fun part of the experience and the last laugh we had playing the game.
Anyway we start in the ship yet want to switch controllers. I log out both controllers so we can play with our preferred controllers, log em back in assigned to the right profiles yet the game slipped out of split-screen with no way to get it going again. Eventually we give up, choose back to main menu, reload the autosave but it's still just me. Restart the game, load the auto save, still just me. Restart the ps5, the game, the autosave, still just me, wtf.
So I go online to figure out what to do, which says you need to start the character creation together instead of drop in. So we choose new game and for some reason now it does work, screen splits and we can both make a character. Continue on, skip the intro, end up in the ship, "something went wrong". The game crashes and the only option is "report problem". It didn't save our characters either.
Third time creating characters, almost an hour later we can finally start the game. The ship part is horribly confusing still even though I played through it before. My wife has no clue what's going on, we leave Shadowheart behind and head for the exit, out of this mess. It's the worst start of any game I know, not the way to introduce your game. But since I persevered before by myself I knew it was worth it to press on. The real start is when you wake up on the ground imo. (It would have been a lot better to learn about the Mindflayer ship later, perhaps in a flashback)
Anyway we get our footing, start exploring, find some stuff and then my wife is suddenly dead? Apparently she managed to jump into the water and insta drown. Revify to the rescue. We explore the beach and get to some ruins which look interesting. I'm talking to the NPCs there, persuading them to move on, then suddenly my wife falls through the floor and into combat. She blames me, says I dropped a giant stone on her, yet I was still stuck in dialog. Impossible fight below, I jump after her to help yet we both die quickly, game over.
Reload back on the beach at the start lol. We go a different way this time and end up in The Hollow. First an extremely disorienting battle. Sitting so close to the tv with that awful camera actually started giving me motion sickness. It jumps around like crazy when it's everyone else's turn, no clue what's going on, zero overview. Targeting is a mess as well and hold R2 yet tap R1 to bring the radial wheels up is inconsistent and confusing.
We survive go inside the town to sell some crap and find out still only one person can shop at a time even though our inventories aren't combined. The other can only listen?? Terrible game design.
I handle the shopping while my wife does something else, we get some upgrades, level up and can finally continue again. We decide to go back out, enough with the one sided talking, and head back to the ruins we found earlier and run into the fighter from the ship along the way. Good extra help to have yet odd thing in the ship I had to order her around, on the ground my wife had to do her moves. How do you change that, what decides that?
We get back to the ruins and this time make it to the door, shoot the guy trying to run for help and get to loot the mess on the table. Ugh this targeting with the cursor is so so terrible. Also still hard to see during the day time, you really can only play this game at night. While my wife is looting the table I move to the door, someone apparently saw me and ran for help, next thing I know battle is initiated and the whole gang is on us again. We survive for 20 minutes, trying to target things and position in the right place but perish. Oh the game didn't save before the fight, back to outside ugh.
After getting back in, kill Donlan, loot the room again, we open the door and engage battle with the person in that room. Miss, miss, miss, string of bad luck, he makes it to the next door, the gang comes in again. We survive, well not really, my wife survives, the warrior from the ship is burned to a crisp and I'm knocked out on the ground. At least it's not game over as last time we tried helping each other up which only makes things worse, costing multiple turns. However when she goes to revive me, Dave starts a long diatribe and while clicking through the dialog my wife dies as well from lingering poison. Game over.
3rd or 4th attempt, we're both already sick of the game, the camera movements, camera obstructions, targeting problems, general confusion, tip boxes and other stuff overlapping vital information, the tiny UI, hard to see visuals, clutter everywhere, cumbersome controls. We did get the second person in time this time yet we're just not having any fun. So after 3 hours we gave up, closed the game, probably not going back. I don't even feel like continuing my own save anymore, what a terrible experience. (We played on Explorer mode btw, to enjoy the story lol)
Do not play this game in split-screen on console, worst idea ever. Great way to tarnish our memories of Baldur's Gate (2)
Play this game on PC with mouse+KB, it just not fit for purpose on console. I would get a refund and switch to PC but Sony won't refund so I guess that's it for BG3 for me. I'm not going to pay again for this mess. Also this was the last time I buy a digital full price game, at least physical you can trade in or have the satisfaction of throwing the disc in the trash.
