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If movies and games could be everything, genres wouldn't exist. I'm getting an increasing feeling that BG3 doesn't know what it wants to be and who it's made for.

The reveal trailer introduced us into gruesome body horror which set the mood. And it was great! It was very BG, it was dark and mature as it should be.

Then we were introduced to the gameplay which was partly very tongue in cheek and cartoony in style. Exaggerated animations with very pronounced VFX, cartoony shoving left and right, surreal poison and acid pools, explosions everywhere. Very gamey stuff detached from realism or being grounded like many grown-up RPG's often are. And the other part is the story with dark themes, excellent voice acting and generally a very realistic feeling outside of combat. Why does combat feel like a different game? E.g. Dark Souls doesn't turn into Super Mario when combat starts but remains consistent instead.

Now we have a very explicit decapitation scene and a severed head. At the same time we have cutesy talking Disney squirrels bouncing around. All animals speak like in a Disney cartoon, like humans, eloquent and intelligent with personalities. Combining these two genres would never work in film. (Unless it's some masterfully directed next level Tarantino-esque experimental with a more niche audience. But BG3 isn't niche by any stretch.) So why would it work in a game that has mature themes and is very cinematic with photorealistic visual style? On a personal level, I find the talking animals very cringe and out of place and would have made them speak in a much more primitive and cryptic way. But I'm curious to hear how others feel and if you can ignore the clash of styles Larian is presenting here?

This is not to be confused with humor or having light-hearted or even silly scenes in a dark or mature context. Volo is a good example of a character who is a more light-hearted and silly entity in mature storytelling. He walks the fine line of what fits with his ice pick shenanigans, but he doesn't skip genres as blatantly as the squirrels do. The hysterical laughing scene is an example of humor that fits perfectly. The party banter is often funny and lights up the mood in the darkest dungeons, but is also completely within the characters.

Are Larian too fixed in their own distinctive whacky and fun style to be able to tell when they cross the line in BG3? Can gameplay and storytelling be from two different games?

Last edited by 1varangian; 21/10/21 09:10 AM.
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I think I disagree what original BGs were - I didn't think the original trailer fit BG IP at all.

That said I do agree with the sentiment. D:OS1 was silly fun all throughout - nonsensical plot, characters who were more about puns then anything else, riddiculus combat. Audience wanted something more "dark" and "mature", so Larian obliged. D:OS2 was a silly fun with a lot of macabre and dark twisted stuff. I didn't like it.

BG3 seems even darker, but silly Larian DNA is still underneath. I am also not a fan of what Larian considers "mature" content - from liberal cursing, to explicite sex scenes, to some really "yuck" moments. I think Tarantino comparison is very apt, with the difference that Tarantino understands very well camp, and explotation. I am not exactly sure if Larian's humor flyes over my head, or if it is them who don't get it.

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Welcome to Larian.
They always have a mix of a dark setting, crazy characters and adding funny stuff everywhere. If you think that this funny stuff is actually funny depends on your personal taste. They just add crazy stuff everywhere so you find at least some of it and they hope you like more than half of it. Compared to the previous games it is already more serious and I like this.

If this was a movie, think of it as a mix of Alien (dark horror setting), Deadpool/suicide squad (lots of psychos and lots of action, takes nothing too serious), a disney cartoon and some realism (some things characters do or say actually makes sense). A little bit of everything. After slaughtering some monsters you sing a happy song and then you blow up the whole place with oil barrels.


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In some sense it fits BG1+2 very well.
Those game were quite dark in general but they also had many crazy stuff (Minsc, Tiax, Noober, A quest about a guy who turned into a chicken, . . .).

In some sense it is a true BG game.
Its 20 years later and another company, so the balance between dark and silly is different.


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Originally Posted by Madscientist
If this was a movie, think of it as a mix of Alien (dark horror setting), Deadpool/suicide squad (lots of psychos and lots of action, takes nothing too serious), a disney cartoon and some realism (some things characters do or say actually makes sense). A little bit of everything. After slaughtering some monsters you sing a happy song and then you blow up the whole place with oil barrels.
This is the point exactly. You just outlined what could be best described as incoherent mess. It will be guaranteed to disappoint players. Like I personally can't stand the Disney cartoon animals and the silly pushing and shoving after the first laugh, because I was sold a dark mature RPG with a realistic fantasy style. How does this mess of styles and genres make BG3 good is my concern.

This is the reason why games and films have directors, so things don't fall apart.

I'm trying not to think about the original games too much because that was 20 years ago and more is expected and less is forgiven in 2021. And the silly things in the original games were few and far between.

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I disagree.

I love everything that is criticized here, it's the cynicism and bitter jollyness that I enjoy so much.

Give me the squirrels and the darkness all at once, this is what I like.


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In a world where I have seriously considered taking a very small drill bit to my skull to relieve the pressure brought on by my constant migraines, while friends and family wonder how I can actually crack some pretty good jokes about the situation, I disagree. I have had to walk away from games that I genuinely enjoyed, like Tera, because the endgame was far too flashy for me to cope with. Yet, if not for games like this one, I doubt I'd still be around. While I haven't personally witnessed any decapitations in the real world, I have seen some pretty graphic things, been the cause of some of them, and have had my cat "helping" me make my bed on laundry day. The take away, quite simply, is that there are truly gruesome and truly hilarious things going on every day in the world around us, why should it be any different in a game? While the extremes of gruesome and ridiculous are a bit wider in games than in the real world, I don't see any problem with both existing at the same time, maybe even in the same situation.

I mean, I absolutely adore Alfira's music video, and it doesn't feel "out of place" even considering the seriousness of our situation in game. It's not like it's the first example of such, after all, Leliana had a music video in DA O, and Lohse's song is very popular as well. There may even be other examples that I haven't experienced, because I haven't played every game out there, but this lightness is a fair balance to dark tales.

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Lighter and darker content existing in the same game is a bit different from skipping genres though.

Alfira's music video is a good example of lighter content that would stay in a given genre and provide a much needed balance for the darker things, if it wasn't for the Disney squirrels that just turn the whole thing into a bit of a joke for me.

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Originally Posted by 1varangian
If movies and games could be everything, genres wouldn't exist. I'm getting an increasing feeling that BG3 doesn't know what it wants to be and who it's made for.

The reveal trailer introduced us into gruesome body horror which set the mood. And it was great! It was very BG, it was dark and mature as it should be.
The BG saga was not all dark and mature as you portray it. It had some very silly, genre skipping moments too. Remember the woodsman making dark cavern jokes in BG1? It was a reference to, ahem, adult movies actor.

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Originally Posted by 1varangian
This is the reason why games and films have directors, so things don't fall apart.
I don't think Larian has this approach - it seems to me like Larian encourages unrequested, and unexpected input from their devs. They pride themselves on wacky things they staff puts in. I would prefer for the game to be more curated - I like RPGs as a story telling medium, and BG3 is greatly lacking in that regard.

Is it bad, per say? People seem to enjoy that - you never know what's going to happen aroudn the corner etc. I find it unengaging. Facade falls apart a bit too easily. I want to buy in into the story, but the game doesn't allow for that. I think it tries to be entertaining, and it will depend on the player if they like it or not. I always admired RPGs for their slow-burning, throughful construction and worldbuilding, so BG3 ususally annoys and frustrates me. I would say it lacks "heart". A central idea, or theme that would tie all things together. I think it will be a curious game, but I doubt it will stand the test of time, once novelty wears off. Like with push it is entertaining to see at E3, but becomes old quickly. Some games get better the more you play, some don't. Larian's titles tend to be the latter.

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Originally Posted by Wormerine
Originally Posted by 1varangian
This is the reason why games and films have directors, so things don't fall apart.
I don't think Larian has this approach - it seems to me like Larian encourages unrequested, and unexpected input from their devs. They pride themselves on wacky things they staff puts in. I would prefer for the game to be more curated - I like RPGs as a story telling medium, and BG3 is greatly lacking in that regard.

Is it bad, per say? People seem to enjoy that - you never know what's going to happen aroudn the corner etc. I find it unengaging. Facade falls apart a bit too easily. I want to buy in into the story, but the game doesn't allow for that. I think it tries to be entertaining, and it will depend on the player if they like it or not. I always admired RPGs for their slow-burning, throughful construction and worldbuilding, so BG3 ususally annoys and frustrates me. I would say it lacks "heart". A central idea, or theme that would tie all things together. I think it will be a curious game, but I doubt it will stand the test of time, once novelty wears off. Like with push it is entertaining to see at E3, but becomes old quickly. Some games get better the more you play, some don't. Larian's titles tend to be the latter.
Maybe this is why I also care enough to make a post about it. BG1&2 did stand the test of time very well and I want BG3 to succeed in the same way.

I remember literally nothing about DOS1 or 2 story, except that everyone was some kind of a sourcerer, even though I've completed the first and played at least 50% of the second. I only remember the gameplay with the surfaces and explosions and don't feel any kind of pull to ever go back to those games for either the story or the gameplay. BG1&2 story still stirs something in me. To this day I feel impressed by those games, and still sometimes replay them. It would suck if BG3 would only be remembered a short time for exploding barrels, funny shoves and talking squirrels rather than the story.

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Not sure if i understand this topic corectly ...
But if you are voting for making animals little simplier ... then +1


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As someone who's actually replaying the BG series right now, I think both games are pretty campy. And there's humorous tones inserted into all sorts of other NPCs. BG2 is slightly darker than BG1 (which I would say BG3 is closer in feel to). But still, any thing that comes out of Jan's mouth is wackier the BG3 companions.

Really, I think the reason why people feel such a distinction between BG1/2 and BG3 is the speech pattern used. BG2, despite having wacky moments, uses "Fantasy English" in their speech. So even though a storekeep maybe making a joke, there's a lot of "Alas" and "Ay"s that keep it in the genre of conventional fantasy. Whereas, BG3 in the most cases much closer to modern day people (especially with the VA) - so when it's a joke, I can see how it can really take you out of it.

And I think not having voice acting in many of these jokey moments help too. For example, one of my favorite "fun" interactions from BG2 is this one:

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Main Character: What is it, exactly, that you guard?

Spectator: Just the one chest behind me. You are welcome to open the others with the imps, or do whatever else... I'm not here to do anything about them in the slightest. I think the Sahuagin looted the other chests long ago. They might have put some stuff of theirs around here, though, thinking I would scare off thieves.... oh, that reminds me. I promised that mad little Sahuagin that I would make an effort to scare off intruders...

So... boo!

And that's about as much effort as I'm willing to put into that. (sigh) It's been a pretty lonely experience so far, you know.

Reading that, you can still keep the tone of the world in your heads, despite the Spectator speaking like a guy doing a night shift at a 7-eleven. With voice acting though, I feel like that illusion will shatter.

Last edited by Topgoon; 21/10/21 04:47 PM.
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@Topgoon - all agree. I would add that silly content in BG1&2 is a bit more out of the way. I don't remember stuff like that popping during those games "serious" moments - like the sequence in the Spellhold. Witcher3 sure had three farting trolls named and voiced by streamers, but it's generally not what people think of when they think Witcher3 story content. BG3 with it's compact structure puts those things side by side. One second you will stop druid from murdering a child, and then fight a squirrel right after that.

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I think the best only genre descriptor for Baldur's Gate is probably "pastiche." Or at least, if you want a ready film analog for what the earlier games represented, the best fit would probably be Star Wars (the Motion Picture I mean, not the subsequent Franchise or what Star Wars came to mean post TESB.) Like it was just pulling from everywhere, and sort of a big giant blender. Held together as something coherent and pretty genius, mainly thanks to the brilliant work of Williams and McQuarrie and the contributions of many others beyond the Director (like mainly the Editors, and Acting troupe and the various teams.) An unlikely win there, and hard to replicate the next time around. Or pretty fraught at that point, once expectations are all high and it begins going more Gravity than Levity. BG is a bit like that, well more than a bit, it's practically the only serviceable analogy I can think of hehe.

Like I can understand the basic criticism that it's a game in search of consistent tone. Tone is a pretty good word too, since it has the etymological association from the Greek with the stretching and pulling, trying to get the strings just taught enough to produce the right sound.

I think in terms of story it pretty much delivers in the way that BG did. Half Excalibur, Half Monty Python and the Holy Grail basically. Leaning harder one direction or the other at various points. If we time warped to blockbuster genre sections of old, it would fit squarely in that row called "Adventure" or perhaps "Epic" where they'd toss all the old double VHS sets lol. Adventure was a bit of a catch all. Certainly not like action or horror or comedy etc, but a bit of a mixed bag. BG humor always felt pretty referential in that way, like it might not carry or stand on its own two legs and needs a bit of support. A lot of Adventure films were like that. Conan and Willow and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves all come to mind, as indulging the camp element pretty hard, while still not totally giving up the Epic ghost.

What BG had I think, more than anything was, just a sense of scale, and overall sweep. Like it was large enough and sprawling enough to juggle a lot of different mirrors. I think as the games become more and more cinematic these days that sensibility gets rather harder to maintain without hiccups. We can have Epic like Homer when the meter is just right, or sort of camp and bawdy at times while still being beautiful like Euripides and Apuleius, but hard to do everything at once at the same time. It's a really tall order.

That's story though, which is my primary interest in this game. The mechanics of the gameplay are rather less impressive to me and sort of something I'm suffering through right now just to get at the story elements I enjoy. I wish the gameplay was a bit less cartoonish sometimes or just more streamlined for my sense of comfort, just so it would hold together a bit better as a complete experience. I thought BG1/2 were mechanically pretty rad for the times and able to make use of the best in show staying pretty current for what was on offer in the late 90s. The gameplay here feels sort of more like a console throwback to me. Like the systems in use for that don't exactly rival the best of the best I've seen elsewhere for a cinematic presentation style of gameplay according to the latest and greatest in gameplay innovation. I wish I could just switch to a driving cam or something more traditional and less offbeat, just so I wouldn't have to deal with those gameplay frustrations quite as much here. I think they have a pretty good hook in with the intro. Whether its a perfect fit for what follows immediately after is harder to say. There are definitely some non sequiturs, no doubt hehe. But I still hope they can pull it off somehow by the time all's said and done.

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Originally Posted by Topgoon
Really, I think the reason why people feel such a distinction between BG1/2 and BG3 is the speech pattern used. BG2, despite having wacky moments, uses "Fantasy English" in their speech. So even though a storekeep maybe making a joke, there's a lot of "Alas" and "Ay"s that keep it in the genre of conventional fantasy. Whereas, BG3 in the most cases much closer to modern day people (especially with the VA) - so when it's a joke, I can see how it can really take you out of it.

This is one of the aspects, not the VA, but the medieval dialogue that is not consistent throughout. I think Pathfinder WotR is even worse in terms of modern sound distracting VAs (Woljif and Lann). BG3 is more distracting in the written dialogue itself.

Other reasons are: complete lack of artistic direction in cinematics, poor writing with companions that don't behave as they are about to die from the tadpole (with exception of Lae'zel), cartoony hag and Raphael, the uninspiring Absolute thematic, a comedian vampire spawn, combat without grit/decapitations/dismemberment.

It is clear that Larian lacks a director (and writers) with vision for mature dark fantasy. They have been listening to feedback but there is only so much you can do when it is not your essence.

The original series took itself very seriously, despite the occasional humor. The tone was very different.

Edit: Also agree that the way they implemented speaking to animals is completely childish.

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I for one am glad that voice acting isn't stuck in the "ye old English" with all British accents for everyone all the time in all RPGs that even hint at medieval settings anymore. "realistic" or not, people talk differently. Like it or not, the medieval setting isn't just for western European sounding people. It's nice to hear some variety. that said, Larian has always done the silly with the serious, that's just them.

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Originally Posted by Wormerine
@Topgoon - all agree. I would add that silly content in BG1&2 is a bit more out of the way. I don't remember stuff like that popping during those games "serious" moments - like the sequence in the Spellhold. Witcher3 sure had three farting trolls named and voiced by streamers, but it's generally not what people think of when they think Witcher3 story content. BG3 with it's compact structure puts those things side by side. One second you will stop druid from murdering a child, and then fight a squirrel right after that.

I agree with you that there are tonal issues - in particularly the WTFs/yucks moments (i.e. the brain extraction and what the Owlbear cub's actions after a particular fight), but I honestly didn't feel like too much stood out from a humor standpoint.

I have close to 300 hours in BG3 EA but I've never run into the squirrel fight, even after 2 playthroughs as a druid. I'm guessing it's an animal I can talk to in the Grove? I honestly wouldn't say that is shoved in your face, but I might be an exception when it comes to not talking to animals (I mainly remember to do it for Scratch).


Spellhold. Ugh. Didn't have good memories of it from before, and having just replayed it I can firmly say it's my least favorite part of my replay for sure. Don't want to derail the thread, but it's basically all the tropes I don't like in an RPG/Narrative put into one location. In terms of what what we're talking about - I don't know, there are some wacky lines inserted into somewhat serious moments there too, like this:
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

This is supposed to be a tense moment in the game (especially if you're playing for the 1st time), and lines like this definitely feels off. IMO it's written in a way that seems to want to be funny, but doesn't actually get there.

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I wouldn't call that a funny line, especially considering the context of Spellhold.

Comparing to BG3, where it never really establishes s a serious tone suggested in the introduction.

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