OP, ‘would you still think it’s a great game’ assumes anyone actually thinks it’s a ‘great game’ to begin with.
Act 1 is an impressively-devised if aimless playground. The antagonists are not introduced until Act 2, so it’s all a load of fluff around super tadpoles and ‘The Absolute’. I would consider that very, very weak storytelling, to the point of the writerly effort being almost non-existent.
Act 2 then is a rushed mess about a generic ‘epic’ attack on a fantasy city. One of the 3 main antagonists is killed off before Act 3 even begins, leaving the 2 blandest antagonists to take over.
While I can’t place my finger on the exact problem, this game simply does not have the ‘magic’ that BG1 and BG2 had. I’m talking as someone who was mightily impressed by the world-building of those games, as an ‘outsider’ who had no interest in DnD, and still does not have an interest in it.
Even Icewind Dale 1 and 2 had this ‘spark’ of brilliant strangeness that made you get lost in the wonderland of this once-impressive universe.
Chiefly, I see BG3 as the lowbrow hipster version of those games I genuinely loved ‘back in the day’: tries to be ‘modern’, hip, ‘sexy’, cool etc.
I think their writers are uniquely talentless: even the woke is tame.
The romances are tacky, weird, disturbing. But they were always that, in all video games I’ve played. So nothing new there.
The main issue with BG3 romance is how it mutates the companions. They can’t just be friends. Any positive banter could trigger some bizarre ‘romance’ scene.
To those who want this, they should have it, if they consider it ‘entertainment’. To those who want friends for companions who will see a ‘high five’ as a ‘bro moment’, or whatever you want to call it, and not a ‘want to ride you moment’, we’re kind of at a loss with the approach taken here.
