Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous vs BG3

It's hard for me to say which game I strictly prefer. They are both superb games that I'm lucky I had the chance to play. I think that each does some things better than the other. However, even in each individual category, there isn't always a clear winner. It's more like, within X category, WotR is best at Y and BG3 at Z.

In discussing details of plot and character for both games, I will speak in general terms that are hopefully sufficiently vague to not require spoiler tags.

WotR raised my expectations for the genre of games descending from the original Baldur's Gate. BG1 and its immediate descendants have decades of nostalgia on their side. In one sense, nothing can ever compete with that nostalgia. But WotR made me feel like modern attempts at this genre can actually achieve more and be better than the games that inspired them. The wish-fulfilment was better at fulfilling my wishes. And the best-written companions had layers of complexity beyond what I remembered from my favourite Infinity Engine companions.

BG3 also raised my expectations, but along different axes than WotR: chiefly in terms of music, cinematic graphics, and reactive gameplay. That's not to say that it didn't also do well in other areas - but WotR had already raised my expectations in those areas.

Music: Both games have excellent soundtracks. That being said, the use of motifs in BG3's soundtrack is outstanding. In my admittedly limited musical experience, it can honestly be compared to the use of motifs in the Lord of the Rings soundtracks. The climax of Raphael's theme was impeccable. I also loved the changing meaning of the Song of Balduran as the game progressed.

Gameplay: In some ways, I can do much more in WotR. There are more abilities, more spell levels, etc. I can cast dispel magic! Mythic powers give a huge level of choice, both at the RP level and the gameplay level. However, I think that, before BG3, I was accustomed to RPGs having plenty of unnecessary fights. It's hardly something unique to WotR that there are plenty of fights that don't linger in the memory and feel more like filler than an epic contest. In WotR, there were some extremely difficult fights, but also plenty of combat where I easily wiped the floor with my enemies. In BG3, pretty much every fight feels uniquely handcrafted. I really have to take care to use every last resource as best I can. Further, while both games offer non-combat ways to resolve some fights, overall BG3 seems to have many more situations that can be handled without fighting, or handled in some other way than strictly bringing the opponent's HP to 0 - and the game will mostly succeed at proceeding onwards, recognising that you addressed the challenge in some way or another. At the gameplay level, therefore, BG3 ended up feeling more reactive and impactful to me. This did fall away somewhat in Act 3. It felt very noticeable when, in Act 3, I suddenly didn't have the same level of freedom to jump "off the rails," confident that BG3 would catch me.

Companions: Both games have excellent companions / party members, of whom some seem like clear writers' favourites (getting a lot more content / reactivity than others). I think that the BG3 companions who feel exceptionally involved with the plot, like Lae'zel and Shadowheart, feel more central to BG3 than, frankly, any of the companions from WotR. I enjoyed all the BG3 companions, with the exception of Gale (who just didn't gel with me in my first playthrough). Gale aside, from all the other companions I was impressed by the development of the ones who undergo a lot of change, and perfectly happy with the ones who are more static exemplars of particular feelings and principles. For WotR, I found it refreshing that not all evil party members can be "redeemed." And even if none of them are as central to the game's plot as the BG3 companions, they still mattered to me and the character I was playing very much. WotR also takes place over a longer period of time. In most cases, I felt like I got to know the WotR companions better and in a wider variety of circumstances. Favourites for me from WotR are Daeran, Ember, Seelah, and Lann, while from BG3 I think I like Wyll, Karlach, and Lae'zel the most (but I think Astarion might be the best-written).

Non-companion characters: Both games also have some great characters who don't join your party as regular companions. In some ways, Irabeth and Anevia remind me of Isobel and Aylin: two couples who I want to support through everything they face, then watch them ride off into the sunset. In both cases, depending on player choice, they can have some very different outcomes. Of the non-party characters, probably the Emperor made the strongest impact on me in BG3. I feel like, until almost the very end, Larian did a wonderful job balancing the many ways in which this character can be interpreted. In WotR, where I took the Angel mythic path, probably Queen Galfrey (who counts in the non-party category for me) and the Hand of the Inheritor had the greatest impact. Galfrey's motives (and role/actions/talents) can be debated to a somewhat similar extent to the Emperor, but I think she is a less interesting character overall. The Hand of the Inheritor was a great motivator in my game, but again I wouldn't say is a massively complex character. Overall, BG3 wins this category for me, almost entirely because the Emperor's writing is so good.

Romances: I was lucky enough to have my PC fall for a character with tons of content in WotR (Daeran), but my BG3 PC didn't fall for BG3's closest analogue (in my opinion, Astarion; instead, she romanced Wyll). It was a real "boot's on the other foot now" experience. Playing WotR, I thought to myself "oh wow, the ladies romancing Lann are getting waaaaaay less content than I am with Daeran," and now I'm one of the players getting less content in BG3. WotR's Daeran is a complex, multi-layered character whose first impressions hide so much of what's really there. I'd never felt pandered to by any RPG like I felt pandered to with such a well-written character actively pursuing my PC. And replaying WotR, it's possible to pick up on so many elements of Daeran's character that were easy to miss first time, giving me added admiration for his writing. Although Daeran and Astarion are different in tons of ways, Astarion does seem to be the closest direct analogue. And I also missed some of Astarion's sympathetic qualities in the first ~40% of my first playthrough (mostly due to doing heroic things he didn't like, so being locked out of his higher-approval content). The replay bonus for his character is fantastic as well. It's kinda funny that, mirroring the content discrepancy, I've spent more time talking about Astarion in this paragraph than Wyll. For Wyll, I found the romance felt very much like a classic fairytale and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Overall Story: BG3 has made me think a lot about memory, identity, freedom, survival, and revenge. I think that some of the themes are exceptionally well-explored, and in a lot of the cases the writing doesn't insist that we reach a particular conclusion, which I think was wise. Leaves us with plenty to discuss. I did find the very end of BG3 to be a bit of a damp squib, however. Certain options being closed off at the end felt quite artificial and forced, a sudden restriction of the freedom that I had mostly been enjoying up to that point. By contrast, I think that several themes in WotR were explored with less finesse, but the ending was extremely satisfying. WotR has extensive epilogue slides to show the results of our choices for all our party members plus the world at large. WotR's story also is definitely stronger at wish fulfilment. There are plenty of situations in WotR where you might say "hmmm, I'm not sure if this wish should be fulfilled..." But it's your choice whether to play a character who would do such a thing, much like the worst actions of the Dark Urge are (mostly) our choice. (I will say that the Durge's one unavoidable sin during the BG3 story was, in my view, a good writing choice and made the evil feel "real" to me.) At the very end, I did not feel that BG3 fulfilled the fantasy it offered me like WotR did. Rather, it undercut it. My WotR character could be consistent and faithful to her ideals until the very end, while my BG3 character could not. And several choices that I expected to be important in BG3 turned out not to be. If BG3 had ended with the conclusion of the Durge plot, it would've been a different matter. *That* fulfilled the central fantasy offered by the Durge story. But the conclusion of BG3 overall undercut some of what I felt were the story's underlying principles. To conclude, I feel that BG3 did a better job of exploring interesting themes, while WotR's story did a better job of successfully fulfilling the promise that its story offered the player.

Probably much more can be said, but I'll leave it there for now. In conclusion, to repeat, they are both excellent games.