Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback How does one capture the essence of the original Baldur's Gate? An honest opinion from longtime fan.

Hello,

2 things:

1. BG3 is awesome - its super fun, its beautiful, its immersive. Love it, keep up the great work. Not super thrilled about the decision to be turn based combat, but it is fun to push goblins off ledges. It is FUN. I have no intention to detract from how amazing this game is, and where it is going. I hope they make more.

2. There remains an aching void in the hearts of many die-hard fans of the original, un-enhanced, baldur's gate: tales of the sword coast.... And while part of it is attributable to nostalgia glasses.... i think we can all agree there was something profoundly special about that first game. AND I BELIEVE THERE REMAINS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SOME BRAVE SOULS TO CAPTURE ITS ESSENCE IN MODERN 3D GAMING!!!


My credentials:
- First played the original BG when I was 9 years old. It completely changed my life. I chose adventurous outdoors professions as a result IRL. Have since been in helicopters on mountain peaks collecting mineral samples, run-ins with bears (+a grizzly), travelling to indonesia, surfing remote waves.... these are all inspired by the call to adventure that the first BG evoked in my young mind. I have bottomless gratitude to the original creators.

- Played BG2, TOB, SOD, icewind 1, HOW, Icewind 2. They were all great, but still #1 in my books was the original baldur's gate - indeed that game started it all...

The original game had a 'feel' to it that is yet to be captured with modern gaming technology.

Its aesthetic had something shakespearian, medieval yet renaissance, and understated. It seemed mature (after all the opening line is a particularly cool Nietzsche quote) yet often quite silly. One foot in realism, one foot in fantasy. The arrows whizzing by in real time. (Example: You see an enemy wizard starting to cast that "Fear" spell you recognize, you think "Shit!" and quickly react and shoot arrows to try to disrupt their spellcasting Mid-spell!! Sooo exciting. Meanwhile some armoured jerk is hacking at you with a sword. The real-time aspect is huge. I know its not textbook DND, but if we were trying to be the spiritual successor of BG, perhaps we should hang onto what made it so beloved in the first place?

The speed at which characters moved seemed appropriate, why would you jog everywhere? It was tasteful in its use of visual effects to represent magic or special abilities. The world had lots of open, empty space to explore. (Think of a painting - the empty space is necessary to amplify the beauty of the subject).

There was something in the art/design of landscapes, items, sprites, UI, and portraits, that no one has captured. It felt solid.

All the other new games that have tried, such as pillars of eternity, somehow come out looking cartoonish the way the sprites run around etc. Same with BG3 (no offence.. Love it! just my honest observation). Maybe the difficulty is because of the shift from 2D isometric low-resolution to high res 3D. I don't know how you could capture the elegance of those original sprites in 3d. But i bets its doable!

Why is it so hard to re-create it's essence? Why are all modern games/rpgs so highly-saturated visually with every second item magically glowing, or some elaborate visual effect for the character "Preparing" to Dash? In aesthetics, simplicity if often key!

I don't know, but i can tell there's a huge thirst for someone to capture the "feel" of the original. I don't care if it's called "Baldur's Gate". That doesn't matter. The new BG3 gets close, but "feels" more like neverwinter nights, than original BG. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Neverwinter nights was great. BG3 is great.

What they all have in common is: The forgotten realms.

There is room for more games of this type. There is a market for a Forgotten Realms game that feels like a modernized BG1. Hell it doesn't even have to be isometric - it could even be first person shooter perspective. The thing that fans of the original miss is the FEEL. It's hard to pin down, but I believe it is possible to recreate the secret BG sauce.

And lastly, let us not forget that the original BG1 had a HUUUGE influence on fantasy RPGs. We had best ask ourselves why that is. They used a picture of COFFEE BEANS in .Jpeg to create the cobbled streets of Baldurs Gate and Beregost!!! Talk about creative limitation.

And still people are playing this game 30 years later. Theres something about it. It's not just nostalgia. We know it. I feel nostalgia for all kinds of things, and this is different. This is a deep knowing. An appreciation of art, of beauty, of simplicity. I believe video games can be avenues of fine art and mythology. There was a spark of something divine in the original. Larian has whet the appetite of those who still hunger for the essence of the original Baldur's Gate. Not BG2, not the enhanced versions. The ORIGINAL. Thats where it all began.


Out.

I also love BG1 and have been playing it since it first came out (although I like BG2 better). It brought D&D back into my life. Your post inspired me to fire it up again on the iPad. I still love it. BUT…. After playing BG3 EA this past year, I miss having verticality in the game. I miss having interactive environments. I miss having fully acted dialogue encounters. I miss having trees and grasses blowing in the wind. I miss having a 3D view that I can rotate. I miss having the 5e rules (wait did I just say that!?! I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.)

As much as I love(d) BG1 and BG2, I am so much more looking forward to a completed BG3 even though Larian has a different feel than the original.

I don't think you can. I had something like 117 complete playthroughs in Baldur's Gate, with about half after TotSC. I had 90 some odd playthroughs of Baldur's Gate 2, including ToB. I can't recall the exact numbers for the IWD series, but there were quite a few, one recently for IWD.

I then played NWN for 5 years, but, in NWN, I spent the better part of that either in the Tool Set, or in modules created by other players. However, it wasn't because it "felt" like Baldur's Gate or IWD. It had it's own identity, and the modules were all unique unto themselves. However, just as with a first love, you're never going to find that intensity again. I was in my 30s when BG released, and was happily playing things like Doom and Quake as Shareware when my GF at the time brought BG home. I never looked back.

With all that, when I recently tried to play it again, it had lost it's "luster". It wasn't as shiny as I remembered it being. When I look back at it, I still get those tingly feelings. I've never gotten those again from a game, in the same way. I have loved other games, in the genre and out, but they've never had quite that pull on me that I got the very first time the music for the Friendly Arm Inn had when I arrived on the map for the first time. Not even with BG 2, which seems to be the more popular game. It's that "first time" thing, and there's a reason it's the granddaddy of them all in so far as cRPGs are concerned.

I've played 100s of other games, some good, some bad, some just ok. But none of them, no matter how much I loved them, gave me that "first time feel" like BG did. They can't, because they'll never be "First". I didn't come here looking for that particular feel. I came hoping that this game will be another one that has me looking at the clock realizing that I haven't been to bed, and it's almost time to get up. I just had that last night, after finally getting my computer back up, and reinstalling Horizon Zero Dawn. I looked over at the clock, and it was 4 AM. That's what I'm looking for when this game releases. I'm not looking for it to fulfill an itch to return to the original, because I know it can't. I am looking for it to take me by the hand, and tell me a story that makes me realize that I've been "in the world" for far too long, and if it can do that, it's going to be successful, for what I both want, and expect, from a new game in the FR.

wow. That...was actually...beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Yes! Great post! Made me think about why I love games. Be warned…I am in a a sappy mood… but…

I think there is often the “first” element with the games we love. When I was in college, I had a Playstation that I used for tertris and occasional hot shots golf with pals. But I was not a gamer at all, really. Too busy. Then my mom died suddenly and my family did not do Christmas that year. So there I was over winter break…bored and sad and all alone in my apartment hundreds of miles from home. A friend gave me a bunch of games months before and on a whim, I put in the one with a red dragon on the cover. It was DAO.

I played it probably 20 times. I had no idea that games like that existed. Stories you could be part of??!! As an old school and avid reader of fantasy and sci fi, it was like a dream come true! II thought games were mindless escapism. I had no idea how rich and complex they could be.

Then the same friend suggested Mass Effect but said that it was better on a computer. So I built my first gaming PC, buying a piece a paycheck. Then it was ME series and DA2 and Dragon’s Dogma and Jade Empire. Then it was the Witcher series. Then the Dreamfall games. So many wonderful tales!

Then DAI was announced. That is when I discovered online chatrooms about gaming. I adored the discussions so much (still do)! Other people loved gaming as much as me??!!! Other people spend hours talking and critiquing every last drop of lore???!!! How on earth did I miss all this?

Then MEA came out and some pals got it for me as my graduation gift, because by that time gaming was my number one hobby. I mean, it was shite…still sweet of them tho. At least I had Bioshock to ease the disappointment.

Then it was building an awesome computer for CP77. Tho it too was a disappointing game, the new rig meant multiplayer games and late night streaming with friends. I played my first fast paced shooters and then the Assassin Creed games. Then it was indies with amazing pixel art and walking sims with quiet stories and beautiful puzzle games like the Witness and funny ones like Portal.

Only then did I feel able to try CRPGs, which seemed hard core to me. So much stuff to keep up with! I never played DnD because I am a loner and the whole isometric thing and RTwP was daunting. But…I figured XCOM prepared me a little for managing parties (lol—-naive fool!)…so then it was messing around in BG, POE, and DOS. Great fun all in different ways despite steeper learning curves.

So…I have now played a crap ton of games, like most people here. And I have enjoyed them all.

And I will say this. Nothing…absolutely nothing…has ever come close to DAO. Not a single other game, for me. Those characters are like family. The story is like a real memory. The lore is my absolute favorite. And it is what made me love games. It was my gateway, just like BG1 was for others here. A gateway with a red dragon.

So I totally understand everyone who laments that BG3 does not capture the spirit of BG1and2. 100%. I was the same way about DAI. Ye gods, how I raged about it in the forums. They pooped on the lore! They did not capture the essence! Etc. Etc. Etc.

But then I met an awesome fellow gamer that I play alot of stuff with. We talk about games all the time and she plays everything and has super strong and insightful opinions. And lo and behold, her gateway game was…DAI. Lol.

So…it may just be that someone out there picks up BG3 and it becomes their first gaming love. And in 15 years, they may feel the same about Gale and Lazael and Asterion as I feel about Alistair and Wynne and Sten. So…feeling sappy…I am a little more forgiving if it is not true DnD or 5e or even BG. In the grand scheme of things, it is a story based rpg and new ones can never be a bad thing imho. For us seasoned gamers, we have our ideal…that never goes away. And this game will never live up to that for most people.

But as someone’s first, it very well might.

Anyway, that is my old lady musing. Happy Thanksgiving all! 😊

Games today just don't have you spend hours (like days overall!) in char creation just to get the perfect roll. You don't suffer party wipe because of the bloody weather or finding an effing wolf 2 feet from Candlekeep.

It's "fair" to new players, ha! to hells with that! I was a new player godssdammit when I got our arses handed to us by fecking Xvarts for effs sake!

Kids today (yeah, i'm that old!) don't know what a game effing you over really feels like, and we liked it and beat the game anyway (about a decade later in my case! you really got your moneies worth!).

Love it!

Kings Quest, anyone? Those games were not at all about “fair”. No rule book. No looking crap up online. Just figure it out or die! Lol

To be fair, BG was easy street compared to Alone in the Dark, that game just kept on murdering you! I still love it - got it on GOG recently, bloody hell I've gotten soft! That is the most terrifying and hilarious ( for all the crazy ways to die) game ever!

*laughs nervously in getting-absolutely-smashed-by-DA:O-on-normal-difficulty-and-spending-hours-just-to-clear-the-bandits-at-the-very-start* :'[

But hey! At least I got better after a very long learning curve. X] And I am not even (that?) young (? I am 27).

I know you and I have not always agreed, but this here post of yours could just as well been written by me. It lays out perfectly my own feelings about playing BG1. Thanks for posting this.

DAO was fucking great though wasn't it! It was not my first gaming love by a long mile, but I still hear the music in my head on random occassions, like washing my hair in the shower or cooking dinner hehe.

Baldur's Gate was like the last summer after highscool ended for me, and it hits some very potent nostalgia chords for that. IWD was in the dorms and intermitent. BG2 was the first apartment flying solo (but with like 3 other roommates.) I don't think I even slept in a bed that summer, basically just the futon or the Five Flagons Inn lol. I have equally fond memories of NWN. But my first true love in CRPG land was Might and Magic. III, IV and V to be specific, solidly my elementary era with B drives and hella floppy disks lol. The gameplay was basically identical across all 3, like frame by frame POV. Doesn't seem like much these days, but that three headed fountain is etched in my brain forever. When the clouds of Xeen and Darkside hit, I think I was like 13 and I had that double map for years and years. I played the gold box SSI games too and Ultima, Warcraft and Diablo, probably everything that ever was on Nintendo too, but when Baldur's Gate hit it just instantly siezed the throne.

BG1/2 was a genre masterwork. Like Civ or MOO in X4, Doom or Goldeneye in FPS. Shogun in Grande Strat. RE and SH2 in survival horror. The Super Mario Bros of Dungeons and Dragons basically, some big shoes to fill hehe.

I think the spirit of the Baldur's Gate can be summarized in one phrase for me: "Import/Export"

BG was the first game I ever played that just took that idea fully to the next level. I spent so much time scouring for portraits and drawing my own, trying to record stuff from old movies for the custom voices, making sure my pair of colors was perfect hehe. It was just genius in that way. It invited the player to be like one of the artists or designers on the team, and that was just rad. When NWN came out I sank a good 5 years into that one as well, and had assembled maybe 2500 portraits by the time all was said and done. I also spent a lot more time in the toolset, or with the dm client and building PWs then I ever did as a player there. Sadly it just didn't grab me in the same way on the tactical gameplay and full party angle the way BG did, but it certainly had it's run.

To me the custom character will always be the secret spice that made Baldur's Gate what it was. I want BG3 to deliver on that too, which is why it drives me half insane sometimes hehe. I had really hoped that each patch would showcase the Character creator getting more and more elaborate. I get sad every time I load up a new patch and see the same 4 voice sets, same heads, same dress and colors, same companions in a party of 4. I want the grand sweep and to see the full promise realized, but it's not there yet. Hopefully they get there some day!

Meantime though, Happy Thanksgiving!

Ah, DAO. As a fan of Baldur's Gate and all things Bioware I was unreasonably exiced for this one. Finally proper RPG is back, bringing all the production value of after-KOTOR bioware titles. It was my first purchased title, for which I paid with my first earned money during my first yeat at Uni.

It launched and got great reviews. And then I played it. With a friend we booked a whole day off just to play as much od DAO as possible in one day. And after couple hours (I remember slogging through mages tower) we looked at each other and realised - this is pretty shit. Dull world, predictable plot, uninteresting, long winded companions, no sense of fun or adventure, repetitive, shallow combat. And then there was the guy bugging me in the camp to buy more content for a game - my first encounter with in-game content.

So yeah, not many fond memories of that one. Tried it many times after, and always coming to the same conclusion. It is just not a very good title, no matter from which side I look.

I might have had some similar impressions honestly, but for me there was a curious outside influence at work too, that perhaps dialed it up and made it even more extra special as it was a gift from my GF at the time. A first time RPG neophyte and we rocked it cover to cover together over the course of the Winter break. So I got to see it hook in a different way I guess and just love it for many and varied reasons. We also watched Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian that same break, classics for me, a first time for her. Perhaps more what we brought to the game than the game itself, but it had the resonance in my case. Probably a confluence of different things that would hard to pin down, but definitely the witch of the wilds has a special place in the heart hehe.

I'm on team Kotor all day too, so I can see what you mean. I think for her it was like timebean's intro, or perhaps more like the BG experience was for me and that gave it a glow. My first time playing Bioshock gave me what I imagine might be a similar kind of impression. I don't know, but it was great for me!

Also, for as much as I enjoyed DA, and Kotor too, they could never have delivered in the way that BG did for me. I thought DA felt completely different from FR Baldur's Gate 1/2 even though it was billed as a spiritual successor. To me it was basically Jade Empire with a setting change, so that was something I had to just get over immediately. Strangely BG3 looks and feels much more like DA than it does BG1/2 to me, which is a bit of a bummer. Not cause I didn't like DA, but because DA was always a very different sort of game than Baldur's Gate, which I felt strongly at the time, and still do.

I don't know that DA ever clocked more than a couple hundred hours in my house, and when I finished I was more or less finished, though I still have the disk of course. BG1/2 combined was probably closer to that magic 10,000 hours expertise level time sink. First install with every new rig, always on the hard drive. I mean I played the living fuck out of those games for like years and years and years, and can still find an excuse to do it again. I want BG3 to be like that!

I definitely feel that. BG3 reminded me of DA:O quite a bit, and not only because of the not quite high quality cinematic dialogue.

I know quite a few people for whom DA:O was an entry point - I suppose in some ways it opened the doors to the ongoing cRPG renaissance even if it didn't reach some older fans like myself. Though it did seem to satisfy more people then it didn't.

Ironically, I played Origins before there was anything but Stone Prisoner. I quite enjoyed it, and there are still DLC that I haven't purchased for it. I gave DA 2 a hard pass, and this is what's really funny, reading through the responses here:

I passed on it because the BSN, BioWare's forums back then, were lit up with "It's not Dragon Age, because it's not the Warden", along with all the much deserved negative press about reused areas and wave combat that they went into for 2. Seems familiar, doesn't it? I learned a very valuable lesson about gaming forums during that year, first and foremost, not to rely on them for a "buy/don't buy" decision.

DA2 was definitely not up to snuff. I hated DAI with a passion my first playthru…but it eventually grew on me as it had some great character moments. Honestly, I would replay it again except for the fact that the hair is atrocious and so is the mod support for it. I just can’t be bothered.

Kotor and KOTOR2 !! How did I leave them off my list! KOTOR2 was my favorite star wars story by far. Breaks ny heart that Disney owns the IP…I would very much like to see the Exile’s dark story in film.

It’s true that DAO is not as deep as other rpgs for sure. Still love it tho. And I too still occasionally hear that music in my head!

I also kinda feel that BG3 has more of a DAO vibe than a BG1 vibe, to be honest. Somehow my interactions in camp with the crew and the way they interject during convos is very DAO-like. But then the combat is very DOS-like. Kind of a mush mash.

So in regards to OP…I think capturing BG1 vibe is not possible for two reasons. First, I don’t think this is Larian’s intent at all with this game. Which sucks for BG1 fans because it is called BG! And second, because of nostalgia. Nothing will ever live up to that initial BG magic, meethinks.

But I do hope fans of it will be inspired to play other rpgs in the future if they are new to the genre. Including BG1 and 2.

I didn't like DA2 not because it wasn't about the Warden (I love my Warden but the way DAI took... glad my Warden was written out, because the way Grey Wardens were portrayed sucked). It was the repeated maps over and over again and the general "why am I the one doing this". The Warden doing what the Warden did makes sense. Inquisitor makes sense. Hawke... dunno why Hawke did what Hawke did.

I loved DAO and this is from someone who played BG series, all the while pondering "How does a Chaotic Good Elven Cleric of Sehanine get the portfolio of a Murder God". It's a different story, in a different setting, and Bioware did the smart thing of building the world from scratch. You don't get nerds like me wailing that it makes no sense for a wizard to learn the Bless spell.

Why this game feels less like Baldur's Gate and more like DAO (to me) is... the way the locations are currently portrayed, I think. It's not the characters, but rather the general atmospheres of the locations. Baldur's Gate is... chaotic. It has the upper city and the lower city, and the lower city is a cesspit. It had Talonite priests next to Helmite temples. Neverwinter, despite being on the Sword Coast, is organised, almost militaristic, and (from what I imagined) cleaner. Waterdeep is a metropolis. Baldur's Gate is... gritty. Dirty. Cutthroats abound in the darkest corners of the city, while on the surface it keeps its facade by the Flaming Fist and the Watch. Which was fitting for the story of Bhaalspawn to unfold. Helmspawn's tale, despite having the temple of Helm, in Baldur's Gate would be weird.

A lot of people in various review sites have compared BG3 to NWN for this reason, I think. Neverwinter and Ferelden have a similar feel (Baldur's Gate would be more similar to Antiva City from the way Zevran described it, for DA fans out there). Organised, not too luxurious or exotic or anything, just run-of-the-mill fantasy city with nothing too crazy. From what we have been exposed to in this game, from Waukeen's Rest to the Hollow, it feels... too clean and organised. I don't expect a regular inn (peasant level) in Baldur's Gate to have too clean of sheets, but I almost expect it in Waukeen's Rest.

Granted, Baldur's Gate is about 300 miles away from where our PCs are at the moment (there's a mention of the city being a good tenday walk), so who knows, suddenly as we approach the city we might be ambushed by an army of cutthroats. But what we see right now is... too healthy. Too wholesome. Baldur's Gate isn't a wholesome city. It's a merchant city, filled with intrigue, greed, and opportunities.

First, I should say that, while I did enjoy DA 2 once I did break down and play it, about a year after launch, I'm not trying to paint it as anything other than what it was. I don't think it was the best thing since sliced bread, but, it was an enjoyable romp, even with some disconnects after Act 1. It just wasn't as bad as what the BSN initially painted it as, and that was my point. When Inquisition was announced, however, the BSN totally shifted gears on Hawke, which I found simply hilarious. They'd rather have a protagonist that they, at launch, hated, than continue with the "New game, new protagonist" theory that DA has. Let's not get started on the "The Inquisitor is the OGB" (Old God Baby) threads.

I played Jade Empire, but despite not being able to remember much about it now, I don't recall that I thought it was "bad". I eventually played both KotoR games, but more because I was playing swtor, and characters were being referenced, either through gear sets, or otherwise, and I had no idea who they were, so I played them, once. While I loved KotoR's plot twist, there was nothing in the game that motivated me to play it over and over. Maybe, if I'd played them while they were new, but again, it's not that they were "bad", just that they didn't motivate me to play over and over again.

Here's a controversial position: I couldn't bring myself to finish any of the Witcher games. I own all three, and all the respective DLC, where applicable, but I just couldn't finish them. I found Geralt too dry, for whatever reason, and just couldn't keep going. I did, however, finish CP 2077. I couldn't tell anyone why, but I did get through it. Maybe because, as with Andromeda, where I couldn't reproduce a lot of the graphical glitches I saw on YouTube, I wasn't getting a lot of the bugs, despite playing on an XBox 1S. I've even considered buying it for PC, now that mine's above the specs for it. This despite some of the shady stuff that went down prior to release. More because despite my track record with the Witcher series, I was always impressed by how CDPR treated the players, and hope they find their way back to that level of trust again.

My post about DA 2 however, was more drawing the parallels between what was going on with the BSN and DA 2, and Inquisition, and what's going on here. Unlike the BSN, however, I'm not overly invested in these discussions. Lots of threads have flown "under my radar" because, frankly, I'll post while I'm looking at some changes, but I'm not actively playing the EA enough that I'm concerned with saving my old character files when an update requires me to delete them, or with seeing too much of the story yet. I don't want to burn myself out on it in EA, and I know that I would, if I didn't make myself stop. So, I'm not overly concerned with keeping track of all the threads. The premise here caught my attention, and led to my initial post, but as I become invested in other games while I wait for launch, I'll disappear from here, again. As an amusing aside, the first game to get reinstalled once I got my PC back up was BG 3... I couldn't say why, perhaps to benchmark it against my new hardware?

The banter here does remind me of DA style party banter, and I hope that it gets built upon as the game progresses. It's nice to have comps that aren't just there to fulfill a role, even if I'm not overly fond of them. Our current batch isn't rubbing me the wrong way, per se, but I'm not ready, at this juncture, to join any of their fan clubs yet either. As I've mentioned previously in other threads though, we're playing in Act 1 of what amounts to an Alpha build. I'd be surprised to find out that I'm finding everything perfect. That people aren't finding it perfect is both glaringly obvious, and expected, at least by me personally.

It’s a good point.

DAI forums were intense back in the day (way worse than here because community was huge). People gushing and people raging like it was the end of the world. Lol. I recall being pissed about how the templars were rewritten to get a cheap fan-service romance shoehorned in, as well as the overall loss of grit in the story to make it more happy-good-time. But it really did grow on me and I actually like the game now. The elven lore stuff is particularly interesting in it. So it is true that one should take forum rage with a grain of salt.

Having said that, some games do deserve the criticism they get. Nothing can salvage MEA for me. Shite story, shite characters, tho decent gameplay if u like watered down multiplayer vibe. I did not get bugs either…just a braindead plot with a dislikable protagonist. So disappointing considering how jazzed I was for a new ME game. Same with CP77– it was a very lame story and boring gameplay in a pretty city. Zero replay-ability —- except for reloading the final assault 6 times to see all the endings. But it was also so overhyped before launch and the expectations from the community were really overblown. They could not win, in the end.

I worry about that a little with this game (BG3) tbh. It is a careful balance to create hype but not promise the moon. And, there are inflated expectations simply because it is called BG. And the DnD 5e thing also opened it up to certain expectations that it will never meet. It is a shame tho…I actually enjoy yhe game for what it is…but there will always be what it “should/could” be because of the IP.

I have something like 1500 hours in TW3. I adore it. My favorite way to play is no music, no hud…just sink into the road with Roach and do my thing. Geralt is one of my all time favorite protagonists.

But yeah…I enjoy forums for critique and analyses. However, I do not let them alter my enjoyment (or annoyance) with any game.

Yeah, the BSN was a nightmare. "Not the Warden Wednesday" comes to mind, off the top of my head. Lots of parallels to here, as far as that goes. I haven't been paying enough attention to the forums to note if there's a lot of pulling quotes out of context to support one argument or the other, but with how some posters do like to cherry pick stuff out of my posts, I wouldn't be surprised.

For all the negatives with ME A, I actually had a good time with it. I couldn't reproduce some of the graphical glitches people were reporting, and posting to YouTube, and I tried, because I wanted them on video for my own amusement. I do hope, however, that that next game carries on with that story, there's a lot of threads that got left hanging to the negative press that I'd like to see picked up, with more of old school BioWare's attention to story. For what it's worth, I enjoyed CP 2077. I'm more on the line of "it's just alright" than "it was good", and it was fun. I'd be more excited about crashes, if I hadn't had FO 4 crash about once an hour, and Horizon Zero Dawn crashing once a day since I got this PC back up.

I'm with you on the "hype train" thought though. I'm kinda glad BG 3 isn't "in the news" every day. There was a lot of hype here for Solasta initially, and I played it. I was looking through the options today, and most everything that people are looking for here is there, and can be turned off. It's almost like they used 5e as a guideline, since the mechanics to support turning off core mechanics have to be built into the game from the beginning.

I have all three Witcher games, and maybe one day I can get into the hype. But when I initially played them, I just couldn't. It's not like "it's too twitchy" is the problem, I played a lot of Aion, which had a lot of PvP. They just never grabbed me. It's interesting to read through this thread though, and catch all the games that some liked, and some hated, and entry points into gaming. One could almost write a thesis about it, just based on this thread alone, let alone the millions of threads elsewhere that lay out the same scenarios.