Imma be real. I didn’t get the hype for this game. I bought it to play with a friend, we speedran through the character customization and then launched directly into an open world we were woefully under leveled and outclassed for.
I hated the whimsical autosave. The possibility of combat anytime you explored a new dungeon, whether you wanted to or not. The ludicrous nature of a combat sequence with you versus a tiny army of 20 (I fucked up at the Goblin camp and made everyone unhappy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).
After logging in several more sessions and playing the game, how it’s meant to be “played” and absolutely how it is meant to be experienced, I get it.
Like, for every gripe I have, there are 20 positives.
The character designs. The dialogue and voice acting. The story open enough for interpretation but weird enough that you don’t feel railroaded into following the Main Quest and only the Main Quest.
I have collected so much in-game cheese.
I get to romance (and be fantastically rejected) by almost all the NPCs.
I spit literal flames and that’s really cool because I can’t do that in real life.
This is such a damn good game. Sorry to Hogwarts Legacy and PS5’s Spider-Man 2 for feeling like they were disrespected by the Game Awards, but if you compare apples to apples, Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) is giving you a filet mignon steak to those appetizers. They’re all great games, well done, beautifully rendered, allowing a playscape in a realm we’re familiar with but different enough to feel like doing a new playthrough.
But Baldur’s Gate lets you do (almost) anything. Think on that carefully.
BG3 is drawn from the magical and fantastical realms Dungeons & Dragons has carefully crafted over the past decades.
There is no kink or slut shaming in this game. Death is a byproduct of having to live in a hostile world.
Your magical abilities are only as powerful as your intelligence to level them up canonically.
All the game mechanic details are awesome. You really do get a feel for how to play an actual D&D session with multiple friends in a campaign. There are cantrips, spell slots, attack and movements that use up your turn ability.
Which can seem overwhelming, but if your jazz is like Supergiant’s Transistor, Altus’ Persona, or Sid Meier’s Civilization VI— this combat system will make sense and even hopefully impress you with how detailed and cohesive it is.
OOH GIRL
Also the story.
Y’all know I’m a sucker for story.
The characters are phenomenal and mysterious and makes you want to betroth—er, protect them BUT the overall plot also keeps you entertained.
Why do I have a worm in my head? Why does it whisper sweet nothings into my gray matter? Who is the mysterious goddess that saves you and unironically looks like my ideal twink?
I DON’T KNOW. YET! AND THAT’S REALLY COOL.
In my playthrough, we have unceremoniously killed several key people integral to our Main Quest (not on purpose, more like we didn’t realize they could die and then they did and we didn’t want to reload a previous save so…RIP Halsin and those two humans in the cave. We lived though so that’s cool), we’re given tidbits and morsels of our party’s lore, and any interaction or action can be met with approval or not by our members.
I can’t even imagine the behemoth of an engine running the scripts for any and all possible outcomes.
There is a definitive goal that you can work towards and hotkeys galore to make accessing game menus easier, but the sheer scale of what you can do is impressive. It makes me want to try some sort of nuzlocke in my next run, or speedrun a romance or bits of the game itself to some sort of self-satisfaction or self-flagellation.
So yeah.
I haven’t finished a full playthrough, but just like McDonald’s Mantra: I am loving it.
I’m loving my time with this game also! Over 60 hours in and I still haven’t beaten Act 2 lol. It’s one of those experiences where you don’t realize how massively consequential certain intentional/unintentional choices are until you hear another person’s experience of the game. The sheer amount of work to layer the game this way is mind-boggling.
Loved Skyrim, so if it's similar it ought to be good. Someday I'll play BG3.