Itās been one week since you looked at me Baldurās Gate was released. How are you enjoying the game? What are your general thoughts, impressions, and complaints? Has the game lived up to the hype for you?
Canāt stop thinking about it every waking moment. I have put off many household chores just to eke a few more minutes of gameplay out. Itās a massive accomplishment of a game with a few bugs, but still an incredible and well deserved achievement for Larian.
I am a little worried because it felt like I had to poke into everything in Act 1 to get enough XP to get to Act 2. Hopefully the outcomes are different enough to make replaying interesting, because I know I want to do several playthroughs.
The XP is my worry too. These long CRPGs burn me out because they require almost 100% completion to get to level parity. Iām still loving BG3, but if the later acts are like Act 1 Iām not sure Iāll make it. The content is all superb, but it seems like I need to do it ALL in order to progress.
The second part there is by far my biggest issue with the game. I donāt find the outcomes THAT different.
Iāve about finished Act 1, so I started a coop playthrough with a friend. Although weāve both been intentionally picking different options the whole time, itās still by and large the same process. Go to the same locations, talk to the same people but have them react to you somewhat differently. Thereās a large number of ways in which the game implies much more can happen than is really possible, and lots of ways you end up getting railroaded back to the same place no matter how much you try to change it up.
For myself, I will say that I have had an absolute blast so far. Itās been so long since Iāve been this obsessed with a game; I canāt remember the last time Iāve sacrificed this much sleep just to squeeze in some more game time. The combat and the different ways you can approach a fight, the different ways you can solve/skip a quest, and the different ways you can respond to companions and NPCs ā all of it has lived up to my high expectations so far.
That said, I do think the game needs a bit more polish. My biggest complaint would be the current system for switching out party members. It is extremely tedious, and the fact that you have to do this just to access a personās inventory exacerbates the issue. My second biggest complaint would be the inventory management; filter tabs and the ability to rename pouches/backpacks would go a long way in fixing this issue. In terms of bugs though, I have encountered very minimal bugs (although I am still only in Act 1).
But none of the flaws so far have dampened my love for this game. Thereās been a hole in my heart since Dragon Age: Origins, and I was a bit skeptical when I saw some people saying that this game is the spiritual successor. But itās true, and this game has indeed filled the hole that DA:O left behind. If Acts 2 and 3 maintain the quality of Act 1 (unfortunately Larian doesnāt have the best track record for this), then this will probably be one of my all time favorite games.
Have you ever been in the position where you complete some quest before youāve actually been given it, and when you go to the quest giver they give you the quest and you immediately click back and complete the questā¦ well so far Iāve saved the girl at the druids grove without speaking to the mother and when I did finally speak to the parents I wasnāt handed the quest, I was rewarded for something that I wasnāt asked to doā¦now that has impressed me. This game is above and beyond anything I expected it to be
I donāt think thatās really a sign of being āabove and beyond.ā You completed a quest, even if you didnāt formally accept it. I think a better sign is that one quest in DOS2 where if you donāt accept the quest, the NPC doesnāt reward you because from their perspective, it just suddenly went away on its own.
Camera can be really dog shit at times outside of the tatical view in combat, thats my only major gripe with the game. Have had a few crashes here and there along side some minor bugs.
Games great, its the closest to a ttrpg in crpg format that Iāve experienced regarding player choice and the resulting out comes. Makes me excited for future playthroughs to see the different choices and their proceeding outcomes.
Combat is standard turn based cRPG and i enjoy it. Ledges during combat can be a bit of a buggy mess at points however. Charcater level impact feels great.
Im 58 hours in on my solo playthrough and 12hours in on a friend group playthrough. They need to flush out the coop a bit. Not being able to release custom origin PCs from the party kinda sucks when everyones not around. Same with the save file being bound to the lobby host only.
Id toss it in my top 5 games of all time list most likely. Well worth the price if you enjoy crpgs with turnbased mechanics.
I played through the entire game once as a tiefling dragon sorcerer on Balanced. Took around 80 ish hours at most. I really enjoyed the game overall on my first playthrough, though. I had many bugs and a lot of the interactivity (companions, previous characters) felt super weak in Act 3. I also noticed a lot of issues with illusion of choice in those areas. In reality there are lots of minor options you can take that effect almost nothing, and a few major options that donāt feel like they change as much as they should.
I started a new playthrough today just to mess around with being more evil. And man, it feels TERRIBLE. This game feels very based around you making a good character first because evil choices feel questionable at best, completely nonsensical at worst and lock you out of a TON of content, nearly 1/2 of the companions, and just donāt make much sense no matter how you roleplay it. It felt really terrible going back through and realizing I should have just made another mildly good character to explore other options, because there is very much not a smart evil route in this at all without just picking the good guy options.
I wonāt speak too many spoilers here but this lack of variability really killed most of my interest in replaying the game (I played 125 hours of early access with friends and was very excited for the game). There is very little in this game that makes me go āwhat if?ā As many of the best CRPGs and choice-based RPGs of the past did. That kind of feeling is what gets you to replay the game, and itās a feeling I felt with Wrath of the Righteous recently, but I donāt feel it at all with this game. The most satisfying part of replay would honestly be playing new classes, since magic items are good and combat is fun.
Iām mid Act 3 and Iām starting to think my next playthrough will be all hirelings. I want to play my way without āSomeone other than Astorion disapprovesā
I need him as my lockpicking guy but cant wait to dump his ass in my second playthrough.
Knock. I canāt believe how much I love that spell. No more rolling for lockpicking. Still have to roll for disarm but my wizard replaced my rogue for the most part