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?
