Like many others, I sat ready to play on release day with two main differences. I never really got caught up in the hype even if I was now eager to try it out, and I won my copy of Baldur’s Gate 3 (by luck), which removes the monetary investment from the equation. I think the money transfer clouds our judgment, I know it does for me sometimes. AAA games are expensive, especially nowadays. Can a game that cost this much and has been this hyped by bad? I must be playing it wrong – type of deal.
Luckily, Baldur’s Gate 3 is not part of that scenario. It’s a very ambitious and interesting game, however, after about 13 hours of playtime, I do see and sense some cracks in the walls. My first issue with Baldur’s Gate 3 is how much it feels like Divinity: Original Sin 2 in both exploration and general tech. It’s much better, yet it adds a mark on the whole gaming experience for me because I didn’t like that game much at all. It was way too whimsical for me with poor mechanics and lackluster character development. Baldur’s Gate 3 is based on a totally different system (DND 5th Edition) thankfully, but “barrelmancy” is still part of the game design, and of course covering every surface with some kind of liquid that often explodes.
The world also has the MMO feeling that Divinity: Original Sin 2 has, but it’s somewhat reduced. The environments just don’t feel very real to me, at least not the outdoor areas. Castles and other indoor areas feel like real locations, though. I think a better idea would be to drop the semi-open world approach and replace them with hub areas. Everything would feel better connected that way, instead of the theme park deal that you stumble through with various weird encounters sprinkled on top.
One baffling decision, considering the graphic fidelity, is to exclude WASD controls from PC. The only way to play on a PC with mouse and keyboard is the classic top-down way by clicking where to go. This unfortunately makes playing zoomed in, as having the camera hovering over the shoulders of the character you control a real pain in the behind. You will constantly miss-click, and start conversations you don’t want to have by accidentally selecting one of your companions instead of that damn chest you what to loot. It’s a major missed opportunity since the game can be played like Dragon Age: Origins, but only if you plug in a controller. That, however, changes the whole UI interface to a horrific mess with menus in menus (I heard you like menus, so I put a menu in your menu) that seems to go on endlessly. I don’t get this decision at all since the “tech” is there. I want to play Baldur’s Gate 3 as a third-person game since the world is filled with detail and small stuff to loot which is hard to see with the camera flying far above.
Some major positives are the combat, even if I find the animations very exaggerated and barrelmancy notwithstanding. It’s classic turn-gamed gaming, in the style of Solasta: Crown of the Magister with the DND 5th Edition as the system controller. It’s not my favorite edition, but I think it works well in favor of Baldur’s Gate 3. From what I understand there are many homebrew systems in use here, yet, what they add expands the gameplay instead of messing it up. I especially love how everything can be thrown and used as a weapon. I also enjoy pushing and shoving goblins off cliffs. It’s a very satisfying combat system, which also works well with the stealth mechanics. Instead of just being randomly stat based, you actually have to hide in the shadows for it to work best. So be ready to shroud the location you want to infiltrate in darkness, either by magic or extinguishing all light sources by hand (or water). The sneaking reminds me a bit of the old game Thief, as Baldur’s Gate 3 seemed to be designed to make this a viable approach. For example, in one old fort, I made my way around on the wooden beams holding up the ceiling. It let me avoid the fights, and it had my stalker instinct satisfied as I was listening in on conversations that were not meant for my ears. Fun time all around here, especially in “Tactician mode”, which is the hardest setting that makes every resource important for the battles.
The writing range goes from cringe to good. It’s a bit more serious and grounded than say Larian’s former games. That alone makes me enjoy it much more, however, I feel the story is told oddly. It starts way too epic, to then calm down and have the game actually begin in a more normal adventure type of style. At first, I didn’t care much for the story since it felt like I was just meandering around, doing stuff with no real purpose or sense of why, but that got improved after a while. Overall, I find it intriguing, yet, what makes the writing cringe at times is the companions and that is mostly because of how everything is written with sexual undertones. It seems everyone wants to jump your bones, regardless of sex, and it gets a bit too much BioWare for me. It’s BioWare on crack. I don’t get the obsession for romances at all, can’t we just focus on the adventuring part, please? Is it not enough to form a brotherhood/sisterhood in blood on the battlefield? Must we have exchange those fluids too…
Another thing that impresses me is the choice and consequences the game presents. There are a lot, and many of them will depend on your class, abilities, and your own ingenuity which you affect through rolling with dice – in a true tabletop fashion. Baldur’s Gate 3 seems to accompany many solutions and outcomes to events, having characters mention what happened and comment on it. I did notice a few jumps in the dialogue though, some stuff was mentioned that I had not yet experienced, but it has been a very rare thing so far. The companions also interject and give their opinions on quests and conversation prompts. It’s all very enjoyable to make the roleplaying part come alive in a “cinematic” manner, even if it can look a bit janky at times.
So, all in all, I’m very much enjoying my time, and it feels like a real roleplaying game for once, as in having stuff matter beyond combat. There are some issues as mentioned before, with my biggest being the lack of WASD controls. I can’t say I feel the connection to the Baldur’s Gate series just yet, but I’m only a few hours into the game, and besides, in the main menu of the game, there is a cave shown with an enormous carving of the Bhaal symbol. I’m just waiting for it! I highly recommend giving the game a try as it is now if you don’t already own it that is, as it seems everyone and their mother bought Baldur’s Gate 3 already. I think this will be a be a good thing for the RPG genre overall, regardless of the degeneracy from the companions.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Vault 