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.
Literally! I’m worried about how some character interactions played out in our first few sessions, because we disrespected Lucifer and a host of other questionable things, so I wonder if it’ll negatively impact us in the comings acts. And duuuude, we barely cleared act I. We’re exploring the rest of the map in act I before moving forward, but there’s just so much to be done we really haven’t progressed since maybe 2 or 3 sessions ago 😂
Ooh so I would say I do like the battle mechanics in Skyrim more because it’s very straightforward hack and slash , but BG3 has a fun turn based system and it allows you time to strategize move sets or attacks. And never fear! It is slowly making its way to other consoles! It’s on PC, Mac, PS5 and should be on its way (or is already there) to Xbox series consoles!
I’d love your take on the game, but it is a time sink and your grad program is probably taking up most of your time 💀
Emulators if you want the original broken version of the game (with the useless evade stat, but the overpowered mag-evade stat). But the pixel remaster is pretty solid. Though I’m told the font annoys people there are mods that fix it.
COURTNEY!!! I love you dude, thank you for that <3
Please do play it, maybe you can do a campaign with your sister! That sounds like it would be an absolute hoot! I know...we didn't mean to kill Halsin, we just kinda assumed he couldn't die but then he did and we were too far along in the combat that we just hitched our britches and kept moving forward xD
wait Courtney I understand why your sister was upset with Halsin's death. I did not realize he could join our party until like 5 minutes ago. And he's a really good party member to have and we lost that. Also he's hawt in a rugged bear kind of way. She'll understand what I mean LOL
BUT ALSO. Since Halsin died in my playthrough and he was supposed to be a playable character, his NAKED and ABANDONED CORPSE just hangs out in my campground. Because if he were alive, that's where he'd be TmT
I remember being 17. Going to Babbage’s in the mall. And picking up my massive box of the original bakeries gate. It was 6 CD’s. I knew I was in for a time. After installing it for 2-3 hours (those were the days) I was enthralled by what really was a very open game especially at the time.
Baldurs gate 2? Same magic. Bigger more political world.
Baldurs gate 3 bounced off of me in early access. But I wanted to wait for the full release. And I jumped in.
And loved it. I was a hard sell too. I revere the original games as probably the best rpgs ever made. (Sorry cloud, Terra, crono).
Once you understand that “yes, you can do that”. It opens up. It has been so long since a game has said “break me.” Modern gaming has become obsessed with balance and making every challenge 1% harder than the last just to keep you on that dopamine treadmill of feeling like you’re constantly getting better. Along comes BG3 begging you to break it.
Too hard? Figure it out. Too many enemies? Have you tried bombs? Or talking?
Yes standing on top of 10 boxes does make you hard to hit. You mean I can just sneak in and assassinate that guy?
Wait I was meant to recruit that person?
It’s refreshing but you have to let go of the last decade of game design. A decade that programmed content meant to be tackled in a few specific ways and look like choice. And don’t get me wrong. Those games are good. But the paths are programmed. There’s the guns blazing or the stealth path. You can choose one of the other.
BG3 gives you a lot of choices by, instead of programming a players way through the game, the developers just programmed systems, characters, and encounters. It’s up to you to figure out how to flex those systems in those encounters. With those characters.
It is hopefully a wake up call and a breath of fresh air.
It balances the idea of the sandbox with railroading in Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Sure you can do whatever you want, but here is the main quest and you can (and you probably should to the chagrin of the DM) do it, but you don't have to. Much less in any given order.
The other BG games were recommended to me by a friend long ago and I still have the browser tab open on my phone when I looked it up to see if I could afford it at the time. Now that I'm older and am an adult with adult monies, I can make those decisions for myself!
Honestly, you're right about games. But I wonder if it's the chicken or the egg question: did games develop into the illusion of choice because of the playerbase, or did the playerbase evolve to only want the illusion of choice?
And maybe there are indie games out there who throw you into worlds and expect you to sink or swim, but the meta has proven that players don't like that and so it drowns out the possibility for other narrative explorations in this medium. I want some sort of research study to be conducted on this LOL
I think as gaming has become massive there is a lot of aping other games. Also the gamification of games.
Mind you this isn’t a bad thing. I have had a load of fun with more linear or balanced games. I think a high quality difficult but linear game can be great in and of itself.
So I agree. It’s complicated. I think as gaming has enveloped the whole of society. (A far cry from 1998). Games have had to cater for o a broader interest.
Última. Baldurs gate. Might and magic. These were at their time very niche. Even within gaming. They weren’t built for any kind of casual gamer. The manual for Baldurs gate was over 100 pages long. Fallout 2 came with two manuals.
These were “hardcore” games made by hardcore gamers first and audience that wasn’t looking for a good time. They were looking to be challenged. With intricate systems. And games that could break cus they lost that one item hours ago. Balance wasn’t expected. Just interesting systems. They weren’t trying to please the steam algorithm, or a thousand publications on meta critic. They just were what they were. Blunt and honest. Not perfect. But interesting.
Things change the industry changed. It’s fine. A lot of good stuff came out of but in terms of triple A games they all got really safe for the most part. So it’s nice to see a big risk- and yeah BG3 is a big risk it asks a lot of the audience- take off like this.
There is a fear of failure that is deeply rooted in profit. If a AAA game flops and they lose millions of dollars, they lose reputation but with how saturated the market is, they are actively risking their existence by taking risks and playing with the medium too much. In my opinion, a good story is always king and the button mashing comes next, but so many of my friends are here for the full experience, the packaged feeling of good game mechanics accentuating the story. Story aside, the gameplay needs to be enjoyable since video games are basically art pieces that require collaboration on the audience's part in order to be "functional."
In a community where failure is a necessity, the iterative process game companies have created that has a finely tuned process and equation for making the big bucks, why would they risk it to do anything else? Financially, it doesn't make sense.
BUT
that's why I believe in indie studios. For games or for films. There is this amazing love for failing and fixing that should be prevalent in every level of a game company, but becomes forfeited by the juggernauts in the industry. Indies allow themselves to fail and get better, but now that there is an accepted format for how a successful game runs, what interests me is how established game companies can make the known unknown and reimagine a medium that has killed itself with indulgence.
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.
Literally! I’m worried about how some character interactions played out in our first few sessions, because we disrespected Lucifer and a host of other questionable things, so I wonder if it’ll negatively impact us in the comings acts. And duuuude, we barely cleared act I. We’re exploring the rest of the map in act I before moving forward, but there’s just so much to be done we really haven’t progressed since maybe 2 or 3 sessions ago 😂
Loved Skyrim, so if it's similar it ought to be good. Someday I'll play BG3.
Ooh so I would say I do like the battle mechanics in Skyrim more because it’s very straightforward hack and slash , but BG3 has a fun turn based system and it allows you time to strategize move sets or attacks. And never fear! It is slowly making its way to other consoles! It’s on PC, Mac, PS5 and should be on its way (or is already there) to Xbox series consoles!
I’d love your take on the game, but it is a time sink and your grad program is probably taking up most of your time 💀
You said it, no time now. Sounds like a classic RPG style battle system. I used to love those 90s final fantasys.
I’ve been meaning to get into Final Fantasy! It’s the time and the inability to find a game that has good reviews and works with the systems I have.
FF6 is the best. Not sure about how/where to find a copy, tho. Maybe an emulator?
Emulators if you want the original broken version of the game (with the useless evade stat, but the overpowered mag-evade stat). But the pixel remaster is pretty solid. Though I’m told the font annoys people there are mods that fix it.
I'll be looking into emulators this week now, thank you gentleman LOL
I want to suffer like everybody else here, but I want to choose my suffering. OG FF6 here I come hehehe
My sister continuously shares her adventures throughout Baulders Gate 3 and continues to BEG for me to play it.
Your review brought joy to my sister and upset when you mentioned the death of Halsin!
Continue what you’re doing, a fantastic read!
COURTNEY!!! I love you dude, thank you for that <3
Please do play it, maybe you can do a campaign with your sister! That sounds like it would be an absolute hoot! I know...we didn't mean to kill Halsin, we just kinda assumed he couldn't die but then he did and we were too far along in the combat that we just hitched our britches and kept moving forward xD
wait Courtney I understand why your sister was upset with Halsin's death. I did not realize he could join our party until like 5 minutes ago. And he's a really good party member to have and we lost that. Also he's hawt in a rugged bear kind of way. She'll understand what I mean LOL
BUT ALSO. Since Halsin died in my playthrough and he was supposed to be a playable character, his NAKED and ABANDONED CORPSE just hangs out in my campground. Because if he were alive, that's where he'd be TmT
You know what’s hard for me?
I remember being 17. Going to Babbage’s in the mall. And picking up my massive box of the original bakeries gate. It was 6 CD’s. I knew I was in for a time. After installing it for 2-3 hours (those were the days) I was enthralled by what really was a very open game especially at the time.
Baldurs gate 2? Same magic. Bigger more political world.
Baldurs gate 3 bounced off of me in early access. But I wanted to wait for the full release. And I jumped in.
And loved it. I was a hard sell too. I revere the original games as probably the best rpgs ever made. (Sorry cloud, Terra, crono).
Once you understand that “yes, you can do that”. It opens up. It has been so long since a game has said “break me.” Modern gaming has become obsessed with balance and making every challenge 1% harder than the last just to keep you on that dopamine treadmill of feeling like you’re constantly getting better. Along comes BG3 begging you to break it.
Too hard? Figure it out. Too many enemies? Have you tried bombs? Or talking?
Yes standing on top of 10 boxes does make you hard to hit. You mean I can just sneak in and assassinate that guy?
Wait I was meant to recruit that person?
It’s refreshing but you have to let go of the last decade of game design. A decade that programmed content meant to be tackled in a few specific ways and look like choice. And don’t get me wrong. Those games are good. But the paths are programmed. There’s the guns blazing or the stealth path. You can choose one of the other.
BG3 gives you a lot of choices by, instead of programming a players way through the game, the developers just programmed systems, characters, and encounters. It’s up to you to figure out how to flex those systems in those encounters. With those characters.
It is hopefully a wake up call and a breath of fresh air.
It balances the idea of the sandbox with railroading in Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Sure you can do whatever you want, but here is the main quest and you can (and you probably should to the chagrin of the DM) do it, but you don't have to. Much less in any given order.
The other BG games were recommended to me by a friend long ago and I still have the browser tab open on my phone when I looked it up to see if I could afford it at the time. Now that I'm older and am an adult with adult monies, I can make those decisions for myself!
Honestly, you're right about games. But I wonder if it's the chicken or the egg question: did games develop into the illusion of choice because of the playerbase, or did the playerbase evolve to only want the illusion of choice?
And maybe there are indie games out there who throw you into worlds and expect you to sink or swim, but the meta has proven that players don't like that and so it drowns out the possibility for other narrative explorations in this medium. I want some sort of research study to be conducted on this LOL
I think as gaming has become massive there is a lot of aping other games. Also the gamification of games.
Mind you this isn’t a bad thing. I have had a load of fun with more linear or balanced games. I think a high quality difficult but linear game can be great in and of itself.
So I agree. It’s complicated. I think as gaming has enveloped the whole of society. (A far cry from 1998). Games have had to cater for o a broader interest.
Última. Baldurs gate. Might and magic. These were at their time very niche. Even within gaming. They weren’t built for any kind of casual gamer. The manual for Baldurs gate was over 100 pages long. Fallout 2 came with two manuals.
These were “hardcore” games made by hardcore gamers first and audience that wasn’t looking for a good time. They were looking to be challenged. With intricate systems. And games that could break cus they lost that one item hours ago. Balance wasn’t expected. Just interesting systems. They weren’t trying to please the steam algorithm, or a thousand publications on meta critic. They just were what they were. Blunt and honest. Not perfect. But interesting.
Things change the industry changed. It’s fine. A lot of good stuff came out of but in terms of triple A games they all got really safe for the most part. So it’s nice to see a big risk- and yeah BG3 is a big risk it asks a lot of the audience- take off like this.
There is a fear of failure that is deeply rooted in profit. If a AAA game flops and they lose millions of dollars, they lose reputation but with how saturated the market is, they are actively risking their existence by taking risks and playing with the medium too much. In my opinion, a good story is always king and the button mashing comes next, but so many of my friends are here for the full experience, the packaged feeling of good game mechanics accentuating the story. Story aside, the gameplay needs to be enjoyable since video games are basically art pieces that require collaboration on the audience's part in order to be "functional."
In a community where failure is a necessity, the iterative process game companies have created that has a finely tuned process and equation for making the big bucks, why would they risk it to do anything else? Financially, it doesn't make sense.
BUT
that's why I believe in indie studios. For games or for films. There is this amazing love for failing and fixing that should be prevalent in every level of a game company, but becomes forfeited by the juggernauts in the industry. Indies allow themselves to fail and get better, but now that there is an accepted format for how a successful game runs, what interests me is how established game companies can make the known unknown and reimagine a medium that has killed itself with indulgence.