Broke my plan of leaving BG3 untouched until release because I've nearly gone through two full playthroughs of the BG series this year (Just about done with BG2, then hauling ass through ToB) since I've apparently been in the mood for it and I felt like fucking with mods. Quick side note before talking about BG3, BG1 banter pack's solid, portraits portraits everywhere is ridiculous but fun, SCS is interesting in that it makes fights more challenging but I'll likely skip it for future plays simply because it doesn't make them challenging enough to require thought and it mainly boils down to just loading all my casters with shit to break magical defenses, whatever the romance and sex mod is called is a disappointment in that it isn't sexy and isn't funny so there's not really any point but this might be due to playing a chaotic evil male barbarian so I'm missing the goofier shit like fucking Firkraag, and Imoen romance IS entertainingly funny even though it appears I can't rape her and in fact the romance may be off entirely since she blew chunks after I killed the silver dragon in the underdark.
Quick BG3 thoughts then, doesn't much feel like a Baldur's Gate which wasn't all that surprising given the lack of world map and Larian's previous games, but I do have a titanic boner for it after fucking around a bit. Haven't been playing through all of what's available in EA since I don't want to ruin it for myself too badly but I've been dicking around the starting area trying different classes and different routes/solutions/options. One notable thing is I keep bumping into extremely minor C&C in characters reacting to super granular specific situations, cases where Larian could've simply written dialog in a neutral way to cover multiple possibilities and saved themselves the extra animation and voice work. Case in point, when you reach the druid grove you can head up a hill and some tiefling chick's about to be tastefully raped by a bugbear assassin that climbed up a cliff. You charge forward and kill the bugbear, and then I accidentally clicked on her with another party member than the PC (And one that didn't get the killing blow) and she had unique dialog saying "OH YEAH I WOULD'VE BEEN TOAST IF NOT FOR YOUR FRIEND OVER THERE" or something along those lines. Not a quest, barely even a random little encounter (Closest BG approximation would be some random NPC encounter in a wilderness zone) and they tracked who in the party killed the bugbear and had special dialog if you talk to her with someone else.
Another case, tried out barbarian. In the nautiloid you can find the cleric in the pod getting centipedes in her vagina and barbarian has a unique option to make a strength check to rage and bust the pod open rather than doing it like a normal person. I rolled, got a natural 1, failed, then said "Eh fuck it" and left her in there since I'd freed her on a previous character. Later on when you meet up with her again after the nautiloid she's awake (Rather than unconscious, the pods work as escape pods so it's neat that she's on her ass if she was with you adventuring but in a better situation if left in the pod) and trying to bash the locked door to the nearby crypt open. She bitches a little about the PC leaving her behind but does give credit for attempting to use retard strength to bend bars and lift gates (So another minor callout for very specific C&C of playing a barbarian, making a strength check, failing it, and then leaving her) and then you can say STAND ASIDE WOMAN BECAUSE I, BARBARIAN, WILL RAGE THAT DOOR OPEN and then she immediately shoots you down by saying if you're too much of a pussy to open the pod on the nautiloid then clearly you aren't going to be bashing a door open and you could conserve your strength.
All this C&C isn't all that important mechanically and I haven't been playing deep enough to see what (If any) long term C&C there may be with actual gameplay consequences rather than the game just acknowledging your actions, but it's pretty damn impressive. Also possible that the fine detail C&C will drop off a cliff and they're front loading to make a good impression much like the evil Obsidian, but still. Good shit. Not exactly C&C but during the final nautiloid sequence you can beat up the devil the mind flayer's fighting and jack his flaming greatsword before the ship crashes, too. Everyone's telling you to ignore it and go push the button, and as time advances a couple cambions run into the room to make shit worse, but cool little boost if you pull it off.
Few other notes, combat's been nice. D&D's got you doing less flashy shit than the DoS games obviously but encounter design's been enjoyable and they're often set up in ways you can potentially give yourself advantages. Hopefully the ghost line for movement will be improved on release since I have had a few situations where it'll tell me I can make it to someone and attack this turn and then run out of movement and stand there with my dick in my hand. Performance is surprisingly fine on my old 970, can play on high and it's just peachy. Harpies have their tits out with nipples which is terribly important and I'm glad Larian opted for that. It is nice that the paladin oathbreaking differs somewhat based on your flavor of paladin, too. Nature paladin will end up with a broken oath if he kills the owlbear defending her cub, but a justice paladin can scream "MAN HAS DOMINION OVER BEASTS" and kill the monsters and collect the unhatched owlbear egg to "Exchange for a generous donation to the church" with a wizard to put in his cum jar. Haven't fucked around with the goblin lair since I apparently headed off in the wrong direction so I can't weigh in on fallen paladin status for killing goblins. I would say killing the goblin prisoner back at the druid grove should probably count as a fall for a justice paladin since the goblin's already dealt with but I'd also say releasing her should make you fall too. Didn't do either, saved her from getting killed by a tiefling then said she was staying in there.
TLDR summary: BG3 owns but it does feel more like DoS3 than BG3 while playing it.
