I enjoyed the swagger, which I read more as cat-like, but of course that scene is etched into my brain now too. On my hot avatars like Generica D'Tav the High Elf Barbarian or Tav'itha the Githyanki sorceress it played pretty well. Din the Durge pulled it off too. Six Middling the Halfling not so much, where it could only ever make me laugh. I did think though, in each instance trying to save Us, that if this was a thing that I had somehow selected, as a gestural/emotive trope that was being expressed in the cinematic, then that is sorta exactly what I want from a cRPG sim of this sort. There are tons of little moments like that throughout the game and among the various characters, especially the bit characters who are most memorable. It's definitely more step into the role than role invention though.
I feel like there is a lot of player agency in the approach to encounters and how a given combat might play out, but the main character isn't really a D&D player character the way I tend to think of that, or at least not in the way that I really wanted to see. We can't make a custom character with anything like the depth of their origin companion characters. To me that would be a big thing worthy of doing, somehow getting the custom Tav to be at that level, but then dude up and said they weren't a tool making company. Kind of a buzzkill honestly, cause that's the exact thing I want from a D&D cRPG, that exact sort of tool, specifically.
It's tough. I really wanted a full Expansion and a BG4, probably for weird reasons of a sense of symmetry on my part that doesn't truly matter, but still, it's what I wanted. That BG3 would get a BG4, the same way BG1 got a BG2, created by the same people. Seemed like all the groundwork was laid and then now they have this massive audience all primed for it.
I get that desire to only make big things even if it does sound kinda megalomaniacal, but they legit just did that, so I kinda thought it would go "big" in the other way. You know, bigger but simultaneously more intimate, where we might get something along the lines of the BG2 stronghold quests but in BG3. Sorta more intimate and oriented on things like Class or Background and more stuff for the custom Tav. I expected any big news to be like a trailer for the expansion. Something to get another hook in, like these did...
But then I at every point along the way I also imagined them way further along than they apparently were, so I don't know. I thought it'd already have been the oven like 6 months by now, and that maybe I'd get a teaser trailer with a party of 6 or something. So a bigger party, but more intimate campaign adventure, perhaps camp in-world. Things of that sort.
For now it just sorta took the wind out the sails a bit. Clearly there's not going to be any return to werewolf island with Shadowheart in tow. As a result my desire to dive back in on it just fell off a cliff into some kind of chasm, least for the moment. I'm sure I'll return to it periodically the same way I would return to BG1 every year or so. I think it will strike a similarly nostalgic chord for me, and this whole experience did clue me in to some of my own sentimentality on this score, but yeah I'm torn. I wanted them to call it on the Full Release so they could wrap that disc and ship it, focus on the next big campaign, but I didn't want that to also mean no Expansion or no BG4 lol. Damn, this is going to be a hard one to move on from. DD2 is alright, but it's not scratching the same itch really. Just a very different sort of gameplay vibe. I think I'm a sucker for FR too, even though it's probably the silliest of all possible settings hehe. Maybe somehow it gets picked up again, who can say, but if the length of the last intermission was any indication I'll be holding my breath till the 2040s and like D&D 10th Edition? Like damn, last time it took forever and a day just to get to from 2 to 3. The distance from 3 to 4 now seems unfathomably far off, cause I can't imagine who else could step up and pull it off, and I don't trust wizards any farther than I could throw them with a strength potion. Guess we'll have to see. As it stands even the boards are feeling like a concert encore after the lights have already been turned on. Light I'll be holding the lighter up totally pointlessly lol
