Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Explicit decapitations and Disney squirrels

It really feels like you jumped in here with an axe to grind and a rant you wanted to deliver, regardless of whether it was really related or only tangentially parallel to the thread...

This has been a discussion about seriousness vs silliness, and the mixed tone of the game's delivery...

This is a game whose main plot inherently follows themes of violation, trauma, loss of control, loss of personal privacy and loss of self, and how different people deal with and cope with those things, and what they might do, or sacrifice, to regain those things, versus the prospect of giving in and surrendering, and the promise of power for doing so. The game naturally needs lighter tones here and there to stop it getting too heavy, too consistently, but too much levity and silliness will very easily rob the game of any emotional investment or impact the exploration of these themes might have. It's very valid concern.

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Er... I don't ever recall seeing any threads about the game being too dark, except for one thread by one particular poster who was squicked by some of the grosser elements.

What story beats are tied to talking to squirrels? Is this, instead of not LRing enough, why I'm not getting all my tadpole dreams in Act 1? I don't recall that being something I have to do to advance the story, can you point me to something somewhere that demonstrates otherwise?

The fact that he is a simple-minded rashemi ranger who talks about a "Miniature Giant Space Hamster". Not just a magical or planar hamster, that would be just silly and cringy, but a miniature giant hamster from space would only make sense if Minsc was somehow related to Spelljammer setting and space stuff, not a simple Rashemi ranger.

Fun fact: the BG games actually takes place in the Spelljammer and/or Planescape settings. That's why there are spelljammers and tiefling Doomguards from Sigil in the game.

But no, Boo is actually only ever referred to as a Miniature Giant Space Hamster by Minsc's bio page, as far as I remember.

Minsc also had brain trauma.

If your image of BG2 is a light hearted fantasy filled with silly humor, we definitely did not play the same game. For a game that came 15 years before Witcher 3 and GoT, I would say it is very dark. The Spellhold sequence that many people are criticizing is specially dark and masterfully delivered as I posted in the video last page.

Yet, 20 years later im BG3 we have an evil vampire spawn making jokes every sentence about blood drops, while he has an impeding fatal doom.

We should remove Astarion's sense of humor and give him a miniature giant space hamster instead. Now, the tone is perfect and dark.

If Astarion was the only problem, just refer to the other ongoing topics for many other issues with tone and writing.

I mean that would definitely be an improvement. Hamster made Commander Shepard's cabin brighter. It would make the camp brighter. Astarion even after getting killed, just lies in the camp spoiling the fun.

A magic space hamster is worse than anything in BG3. Those "issues" about tone are fictional.

Certainly. No wonder there are no complaints about them.

I could find complaints on this forum about everything in the game (literally everything). It does not mean every complaint is correct.

So any criticism aimed at, for example, the conflict in the grove is irrelevant because as far as I know it is skippable? If it is in the game, it's that games content. It either adds or detracts from the experience. If I don't find enjoyment in interacting with characters, in a genre where the main appeal is interacting with characters, then I have a problem with the game. It's an RPG. Of course I will talk to anyone I can, at least on the first playthrough.

Nonsense. I'm no D&D lore aficionado but always assumed that Boo is not actually a hamster from space as it's fairly obvious from the outset that Minsc is mentally incapacitated. So, in a sense, it's in keeping with Minsc's character to have such delusional fantasies. In some respects it quite endearing but also fundamentally sad.

The previous games certainly had their wacky or funny moments but I never felt anything but immersed in the game world. The game worlds in BG1 & 2 felt alive and believable, not a bizarre cramped theme park where everything is on your door step and you can simply jump into magical way portals conveniently and liberally littered around the map. The combat didn't involve an endless scramble for higher ground or Super Mario style leaps and the story was a little more concise, clear and not riven with quite so many plot holes. I feel like everything reminds you this is a video game. Out of sheer curiosity I replayed BG1 recently and sure it is flawed and dated but it still holds up remarkably well and it wasn't long before I was lost in its charms once again.

In BG3 everything is exceptional, from the Michael Bay-like prologue where we find ourselves hurtling through the realms on a flaming Mindlfayer ship being hunted by Githyanki and dragons to the OTT backstories of all the Origins companions, bar Lae'Zel. I liken the tone and writing of BG3 to contemporary Marvel/Star Wars films; it is hard to describe succinctly but I always think back to that awful cringey opening scene of The Last Jedi where Poe Dameron is alone in his X-Wing facing off against a Star Destroyer (or whatever ship it is). The dialogue Is terrible and tries too hard to be funny.

In my opinion BG3 suffers for a lack of coherency and immersion; I appreciate I might be in a minority but nevertheless it is how I feel. Probably went off topic a little bit there so I apologise.

Exactly. Some people just have problems understanding things in context, or are simply tone-deaf. There is only so much you can do.

Quite ironic that you call posters tone-deaf for simply disagreeing with you, because Minsc never outgrows his characterization from BG1, where his simple mind get treated the same as Khalid's anxiety or Tiax's delusions - something to turn into a joke. Oh, but as an added bonus in BG2 Boo squeaks in response to Minsc in dialogues. Unsurprising, since this character concept was originally created by a teenager:
http://blog.beamdog.com/2017/12/six-siders-space-hamsters.html?m=1

And in BG2 we had Jan Jansen making jokes every sentence about turnips. Also impeding fatal doom isn't really a problem here, many people with fatal diseases use humour to cope with stress.

Except he is a tribal from a medieval enviourment and Boo isn't a magical, planar or spirit hamster. Boo is a SPACE hamster. The immersion-breaking comes from the fact that a rashemi tribal has a delusion about something that is outside of his character scope. If he was a spelljammer captain it would make sense, but he isn't.

I don't think it's off topic. The lack of direction is also why BG3 lacks immersion compared to 20 year old games.

It's probably a younger dev team who were influenced more by MMO's than BG, IWD or NWN. I remember Swen saying in an early dev video that half of the dev team didn't even know what BG was. That's probably why we have the theme park design, repetitive high ground combat and teleport systems that don't make sense in the game world. There seems to be a lack of understanding what it takes to create an immersive world, or a principle that gameplay comes first and has to have A, B and C to be a "good video game".

I think there's a clash between these video game tropes in gameplay and powerful immersive storytelling in an RPG. Would be interesting to hear RPG game devs talk about that. Previous D&D CRPGs or spiritual successors like Pillars of Eternity did not have theme park maps, teleport systems or surface spam / high ground race for combat and they were great. Why does Larian feel like we need all that?

I really have the same feeling as OP.

In my opinion some gameplay mechanics, some visual effects, some story elements and the world design does not work well together.

It looks like different developpers did not harmonize their job to create something coherent.

It does not prevent to have funny/silly characters like some were in BG1/2 or a few obvious references to the fact it's video games... But in the old games the mechanics, the world design, the story and the visual effects worked well together.

In BG3 combats look like a silly parenthesis in the adventure (way less than before).
The map design create wierd situation in the story or the coherence of the world. Many visual effects or animations are shouting "video game" way more than necessary...

It's probably gonna be one of my biggest dissapointment in the end. I'll deal with it because the game has many good things to offer but I really hate this.

In my opinion the best games of all time have to be coherent. BG3 is not at all.

It's funny because Minsc and his space hamster is going to be part of BG3.