[quote=Ixal][quote=Ikke]
Larian, it appears with hindsight, took the easy way out for this. They made use of the Baldur's Gate name and used the existing successful game mechanics and then crafted around those things. Instead of delving deep on the main storyline they use distractions with relationships (sexual not deeply meaningful) to try and gloss over the story inconsistencies.
Even thought I am going hard at them, I think Larian crafted a solid game. Was it worth of GOTY awards, well look at what it had to go against. Let's face it they did not have stiff competition this year. Starfield and Diablo both FLOPPED. In context of this year I think yes they deserved the awards they go.
People do know there are more gaming companies on this planet than just Blizzard, Bethesda and Larian, right? Because I keep seeing this and it always looks like a very, very weird thing to say with a straight face. Octopath Traveler 2, Spiderman 2, Alan Wake 2, RE4R, Dead Space R, Hi-Fi Rush, the list goes on. 2023 has been a record year for the most top rated games in twenty years:
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/31/2023-best-reviewed-games. The main difference is the same reason why I shrug and give the lion's share of the 'blame' for GOTY on IGN who created the 'underdog showing AAA how it's done' story out of thin air with misleading and at times falsified reporting, which is one of if not the biggest reason the game got the attention it did.
Thread tax: Yes, but also no and also kind of. Multiple themes, switching themes, transforming or subverting themes are not in and of themselves hallmarks of poor writing. It takes time and has to be set up. As with most things, it's not the premise, it's the execution. Sticking to a theme still won't help cut corners, lazily written outs, retcons or plot holes. It's the symptom of the disease, and the disease is everything regarding the main plot was not planned out very well. What you are describing is 'set up with no payoff' paired with 'attempting to pay off on zero set up.'
Establishing the rules the setting runs on, or on having some kind of authoritative knowledge fails because the game doesn't know what rules its running on. The mindlfayer question, does it erase you or not? Setting up logical through lines fails because the story feels like it was written by the seat of someone's used underwear. You can't follow your progress on a map, who did what when is confused, why doesn't X know Y person, why didn't Z do F, etc because no one was interested in building a *world.* It's all handwaved at whim, often defaulting to Rule of Cool to get out of hard questions. Which leaves the pay off falling flat with the slightest bit of critical thinking. It's not a theme problem, the story as a whole is not *coherent* which is much bigger, imo.
