That is why I believe some people are tone deaf, which is the case for Larian' staff most likely. Tone goes so much beyond writing and only listening to DOS2 and Fallout 2 soundtracks you can tell they have completely different writing and tone styles. All these scenes in BG3 have no emotional undertone, simply because the scenes are poorly directed, infested with bad dialogue and the overall artistic direction is lacking. Even Arabella's outcome feel meaningless, specially when Kagha's writing is so artificial. I will not even comment on Wyll, since he is the most apathetic, generic NPC we have so far.
Irenicus is a brilliant iconic character, not because of his goals, but for his stellar voice acting and solid dialogues (plus his initial dungeon which provides plenty of background). David Warner elevated the character so much, his lines felt personal and layered. The spellhold for example is masterfully conceived, shows the range of DW's acting and I posted a video some pages back. Many characters across different medias are simple, but the delivery is the most important. And that is what makes the Rag, Raphael, Astarion, Gale, Kagha so unimpressive (and those are the "evil/neutral" characters). They are infested with Disney humor and even good voice actors cannot overcome bad art direction and writing.
Good voice acting? Sure. Solid dialogues? Nope. Irenicus writing isn't just cliche, he is simply boring, predictable and extremely lacking any realistic personality. His dialogues are literally a carbon copy of any generic villian dialogue, it's edgy, generic and we are expected to treat his seriously, vene though he's successes are the reslut of him having a huge amount of plot armour until the final battle. How is a guy who's every other sentence is about him being great and others being pathetic isn't artificial and disney humour, yet Kagha is? You also call Wyll generic and apathetic despite him being one of the most conflicted and complex NPCs in all BG games. You honestly make no sense in your criticism.
Originally Posted by ash elemental
Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Irenicus is a brilliant iconic character, not because of his goals, but for his stellar voice acting and solid dialogues (plus his initial dungeon which provides plenty of background). David Warner elevated the character so much, his lines felt personal and layered.
JonBon is remembered for that because there is nothing more to his character. His voice acting is great and his megalomaniac rants amusing, but he doesn't bring anything more interesting to the table. Not even an engaging conversation, as you can have with e.g. Kerghan.
This. Kerghan as the BBEG is dialogue is amazing, especially when Virgil confirms that what Kerghan says about afterlife is true, and also the fact that you can persuade him to stop his crusade against life makes him much nuanced and empathetic compared to a guy who just wants to kill everyone he doesn't like and get godlike power because being god is cool.
Originally Posted by Ragitsu
Originally Posted by ash elemental
Originally Posted by IrenicusBG3
Irenicus is a brilliant iconic character, not because of his goals, but for his stellar voice acting and solid dialogues (plus his initial dungeon which provides plenty of background). David Warner elevated the character so much, his lines felt personal and layered.
JonBon is remembered for that because there is nothing more to his character. His voice acting is great and his megalomaniac rants amusing, but he doesn't bring anything more interesting to the table. Not even an engaging conversation, as you can have with e.g. Kerghan.
There was also the "race twist"; I found that to be kind of cool.
The race twist idea was promising, but the execution was very weird. Irenicus looks like a gym trainer who escaped a BDSM dungeon.
