First of all, I'd like to thank the development team! I happen to know a thing or two about software development, just enough to understand how difficult it is to implement something so ambitious so flawlessly. I loved pretty much everything about D:OS2, so I knew I could expect a high quality game, yet BG3 is still mind-blowing. It is the new standard, and - like it or not - many people including myself will compare all future CRPGs to it.
I've been playing video games for nearly 30 years. I've touched hundreds of titles old and new (particularly, did multiple playthroughs of every Infinity Engine game), and here's my verdict: BG3 is one of the best games in history.
I'm sorry. I can understand wanting to look on the positive side, but this is more than a little hyperbolic. BG3 already got ( far more than it deserved, frankly) plenty of praise in the press. Its failures are not nitpicky ones; they're humongous failures with the narrative, combat, and basic functionality of the game. No game that has the problems that BG3 has deserves to be called "one of the best games in history," and you can't strawman the criticism of it away.
Myth #1) BG3 isn't D&D.
As any DM worth their salt will confirm, BG3 is the very essence of D&D. D&D encourages DMs to interpret the rules creatively and employ house rules when it suits their needs. Blasting a game for not blindly following source books is one of the stupidest and most anti-D&D things one can do. Let me remind you: Black Isle Studios and BioWare were very liberal with their implementation of the ruleset as well. The Infinity Engine games weren't even turn-based. These days they are recognized as timeless classics and must-plays for anyone interested in D&D-based video games. Ironically, even now after 20+ years of fame, there are still haters that claim that BIS and BioWare were wrong. And that's the worst thing about haters. They don't know when to shut up. They never admit defeat even when it's completely obvious.
For example with this. The criticism is not that BG3 does not strictly follow the 5e ruleset. The complaint is that the custom changes Larian made to it have really unbalanced things. Some things Larian did were fine (I actually like the custom weapon actions.) But they totally broke the action economy with changes to haste and how bonus actions could be used, and they totally threw off the challenge by showering your party with absurdly powerful magical items, while also inexplicably massively nerfing control spells from their tabletop versions. This has led to combat that's dominated by martials stacking up big numbers, and to combat that is *really* far too easy, even on the highest difficulty, without even needing to do any sort of meta build. It commits one of the cardinal sins any RPG can commit: Combat becomes *much less interesting* as you get to higher levels. You can't just sweep this aside as "Oh foolish people just want strict 5e tabletop rules!" Changes to the tabletop rulesets are fine, and in many cases necessary for computer games. That does not mean *any change one could make to the system is good.* People are dissatisfied because Larian made a series of *bad* changes that severely impacted how interesting the combat was.
Pros:
- Adjustable difficulty. You can make it really challenging by pushing the sliders all the way to the right. Then you have to find unconventional and creative solutions to beat combat encounters where the odds are very much against you.
- Lots of exploration. It would feel even better if the main quest wasn't on a timer, but there is enough time to visit all optional zones.
- Nice and rich story (it's one of the Pathfinder official adventure paths).
Cons:
- Boring companions. A free tip to Owlcat: it's good to make a story based on a P&P campaign, it's bad to make companions based on the examples from Player's Handbook. A bunch of walking tropes and cardboard cutouts isn't exactly what people dream of traveling with.
I have my own problems with Kingmaker (and I actually like Kingmaker much more than WoTR) but I have to take issue with this. I actually like quite a few companions in Kingmaker much more than I like any of the BG3 companions.
imo, BG3 tried to address one of the major weaknesses of CRPGs: NPC "liveliness." In most other CRPGs (and Kingmaker as well), *all you get to look at* for a NPC is a paper doll, a portrait, and some voiced lines (often with not the greatest VAs). My theory is: No matter *what* the writing of the character is like, this simple fact makes the NPC *less memorable and less likable* than they would be if they had more expressiveness.
Which is what BG3 tried to do. They hired great voice actors; they had mocap and you could see the character's changing expressions as you talked to them. I think this went MILES to making their characters more likable, despite the fact that, welllll....BG3 companions, going purely by their writing, can often be obnoxious and their stories have a lot of narrative dissonance. (Gale particularly gets on my nerves, he's a humongous Mary Sue imo. But I was struck by the fact that despite the fact that I think his writing is terrible I actually still like him as a character, pretty much entirely because of his VA and personal mannerisms.)
But regardless, I actually think if the Kingmaker companions got the BG3 treatment - high quality VAs and animated dialogue - a lot of them would be much more memorable and likable than BG3 companions.
