Again, it is also heavily emphasized that time is of the essence. Does the game reflect any of this? Nope.
This is explained by the prism protecting the player. This is revealed a little later on when the player reaches the Goblin camp, however the player can discover more about this through clever dialogue. Such as meeting Auntie Ethel at her house and discovering that the tadpole has been tampered with and cannot be magically removed. This is also a setup for several story beats. Such as the part where Lae'zel suggests suicide to avoid transforming into a Mind Flayer.
The first living beings i meet are the looters on top of that building a bit ahead. What dialogue options do you get?
Asking where we are? Where the nearest settlement is? If they saw what happened with the huge aliencraft that just crashed nearby? Nope.
Your character only has the options to say "Nah, the loot is mine" and fight them over it, or persuade them into going away. Not a single reasonable option like "Listen, i don't care about this building, it's all yours, i just wanted to ask some questions" Priorities?
The character talks to several criminals who directly threaten the player with drawn weapons. This is a very common trope in rpgs and feels like nitpicking. Especially since the grove is right next to where they are.
I then meet Astarion and Gale. The former pulls a blade on me. Not exactly a great first impression. But for some reason im forced to lick his boots instead of having the option of attacking him. Ugh. I just don't let him join the party and that's that.
The game lets you attack any npc in the game so this is also a moot point. The player can just murder Astarion as soon as you meet him. This is also an exceptionally rare circumstance in rpgs, especially with party members. So this also feels like nitpicking.
Anyway, we talk to some random npcs and Baldur's Gate is mentioned, you as the player can infer you're at least in your planet/plane of origin, specifically the sword coast. This doesn't seem of any relevance to any of the characters though, who just earlier were wondering where the hell they ended up.
The city of Baldur's Gate is flown over by the Nauteloid, additionally Astarion mentions he was in Baldur's Gate when you first speak to him. You can also see several other locations like Avernus which matters more when the player meets Karlach.
On our way there we find some statue that seems to upset Shadowheart. Turns out she's a priestess of shar, which doesn't go really well with my oath of vengeance paladin. Lacking the option to kill her, i just inform her that this is where we part ways. Except she doesn't really leave my group, she just waits goes back to camp. What? But alright. We circle over the goblin camp, and find the Githyiankis. They're after some weapon. Lae'zel lies a bit, and afterwards she says they're after our artifact??? WHAT??? What artifact? WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT?!
They're after the prism Shadowheart is holding. It's stated to be an artifact if you talk to Shadowheart and gain her trust. She says she stole it from the Githyanki.
We cross the bridge west and our characters fall to the ground and have some vision about three shrouded figures. An artifact, just like the one Shadowheart had appears in front of us. My character takes it. It's bound to me apparently. I proceed and we're brought to camp. I go talk to Shadowheart. She tells me that the githyianki want the artifact. Specifically, says this:
"That thing is shielding us somehow. I don't want to know what would happen if we lost it." ????????????????????????????????
Now my replies are even more puzzling.
"There must be more to the artifact. You were sent to take it, you must know why it's so important."
"The artifact is shielding us, but ultimately, you wish to give it away?"
She was sent to take it??? WHAT? I NEVER EVEN SPOKE TO HER. How does my character know all that??? And it's shielding us??? Since when?
The protagonist logically infers that Shadowheart was sent to take the artifact and that the Githyanki want it. The artifact causes the visions of the Absolute to go away. That is what the protagonist is referring to when they say it's "shielding" us. It's logical inference.
Literally what the hell am i supposed to do at this point? This game is unplayable. It's a role playing game where you can't roleplay because going where you're not meant to go just breaks the game. There is right and wrong dialogue options, except we're not talking morality, but the game working as intended.
Im so disappointed. I didn't even mention some of the nonsensical dialogues from minor characters, or the horrendous gameplay bugs.
If it was just that, i could've handled it. But when the entire story doesn't make sense, on top of the gameplay being a buggy mess? Sorry.
A lot of this feels like nitpicking and not picking up on things to be entirely honest. Especially in the context of your next statement.
I also basically skipped over most of Act 1's content, because again, the game acts as if you're gonna die soon. So it would be silly from a roleplaying perspective to worry about random secondary quests.
If the player goes to camp they point out they should have changed into Mind Flayers already so something weird is occurring. Additionally if the player goes to the grove and talks to Auntie Ethel, she claims to know how to cure it. If you follow that questline she also reinforces this. The idea of a ticking clock before catastrophe is also a very recurring trope in rpgs but it's rarely actually literal outside of games like Fallout 1. The player is never told outright "you have xx number of days" you're always told a vague "this should have happened by now".
It makes me wonder if you went to camp and ever long rested as the characters in camp discuss this information at length and the player eventually visits their guardian in a dream who also says the same thing.
Im gonna try again with a new character. but it sucks that my first blind experience was this bad, since you only get one of it. Im already gonna know the consequence of most actions and everything i do will be biased. i remember i had similar issues with another larian game, divinity original sin. game was very overwhelming, while having underwhelming explanations and tutorials...
anyway you basically have to play the game first, make terrible mistakes, and then start over fresh with a new character with your new knowledge. clearly the game fails at guiding the player into getting started appropriately. which is sad and i hope it will be fixed. they really should focus on this instead of making new origins or whatever.
This reinforces what I mentioned before. Demanding that Larian spoonfeed you information more would end up making the game feel insufferably linear at the start. When one of the best aspects of BG3 is replayability. Like I said earlier you don't even have to pick up any of the party members your given. You don't even need to actually visit the grove after the initial fight infront of it. You can completely skip almost all of the content in Act 1 if you know what you're doing.
