Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[gurugeorge]

Basically it's a villain soup, which makes it unfocused and all over the place. You could have had either Thorm or the 3 or the Brain or the Emperor or Raphael as major antagonists, maybe at the most two (an earlier big bad leading to a later big bad pulling the strings of the first), but all of them together is just a complete mess.

I do think it's fairly innocent, it was just Larian being nervous of not making the game "epic" enough to honour the legacy, leading to them feeling they had to throw in the kitchen sink, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. But some restraint would have been better - for us and for them, so they could have had an even more polished game with less stress. It's not like the villain overload actually added to the kudos the game has received - that was all gotten from the impressive density and immersive-sim-like quality of Act I, which is fairly simple and straightforward plot-wise (although even there, it still has evidence of lots of reworking).

 

[Larianshill]

All of this reminds me of Divinity 2, where we have the Voidwoken and the God-King, and Dallis, and bishop Alexander, and Lucian out of nowhere (and Lucian is not even the finall boss, a different surprise villain is). And as a result not a lot of these storylines get developed. Like, bishop Alexander gets established as an immortal villain early-on, sort of like Ketheric. His immortality is specifically noted to be weird and out of there, and you'd think they'd do something with it, or at least explain it, but they don't.
I agree with the fact that that absolutely nothing about the Emperor is good, and the game would be better without him and his sexual harassment.

 

[Fedora Master]

Again, they wanted an Illithid story (which they got wrong) but had to do a Dead Three story too because brand recognition.

 

[jf8350143]

I have to disagree. They planned the dead three from the very beginning. There are already the dead 3 symbol in the very first trailer they show.

Also can Dead 3 even considerred an iconic part of the first two games? I doubt people would care if they are not in there.

Then again I doubt they can make a good story even without the whole dead 3 thing. Their writing of the Elder Brain is awful as well(especially when it interacted with Dark Urge, it feels like fanfiction from AO3)

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

The other isssue is that you go from the most interesting villain to blandest one. Ketheric is intriguing when you first see him and has some actual depth. Orrin is a psycho, Gortash is just a clown, and the The Netherbrain is just a sci-fi b-movie villain. An evil floating brain who wants to establish an evil empire? Seriously? That's probably one of the dumbest endbosses in the genre's history.

 

[Jeskis]

They planned the dead three from the very beginning.

It’s not argued that they didn’t, but that they had to.

 

[Crichton]

...Gortash is just a clown...

I liked Orrin and I liked the portrayal of Kethric (the back-story is awful though), but it's hard to even enjoy killing the voiceover dude from Bake-Off / The Great British Baking Show:

 

[ColonelMace]

Basically it's a villain soup, which makes it unfocused and all over the place. You could have had either Thorm or the 3 or the Brain or the Emperor or Raphael as major antagonists, maybe at the most two (an earlier big bad leading to a later big bad pulling the strings of the first), but all of them together is just a complete mess.

I do think it's fairly innocent, it was just Larian being nervous of not making the game "epic" enough to honour the legacy, leading to them feeling they had to throw in the kitchen sink, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. But some restraint would have been better - for us and for them, so they could have had an even more polished game with less stress. It's not like the villain overload actually added to the kudos the game has received - that was all gotten from the impressive density and immersive-sim-like quality of Act I, which is fairly simple and straightforward plot-wise (although even there, it still has evidence of lots of reworking).

On the other hand, an overload of cosmic villains could be an interesting concept to explore. It'd require to build the story and game around it though.
Think of something like the alexandrian's remix of Dragon Heist adapted as a crpg, where you freely side with any faction or villain to recover the eye of Golorr.

I'm not saying that's what they were trying to get to, but that a wide array of considerable threats would actually make for a good crpg. Especially if you give the player the tools to juggle with them, and focus on c&c.

 

[Arryosha]

Where do you think this game would rank in codex top 100 if the poll were done today? Would it be in there?

 

[Fedora Master]

On the other hand, an overload of cosmic villains could be an interesting concept to explore.

There's a fan supplement for FR that explores what happens if all the adventure modules for 5e go wrong. Tiamat is released, the North is frozen by Auril, Vecna is back etc.

It's actually neat.

https://www.drivethrucards.com/product_reviews.php?products_id=398215&language=espto&&language=espto

 

[gurugeorge]

Where do you think this game would rank in codex top 100 if the poll were done today? Would it be in there?

I don't think you can deny that BG3 is an exceptionally high quality product a lot of the time, or that it has many, many instances where it feels like a good, proper CRPG, and even a true successor to the BG games (e.g. Auntie Ethel, chunks of Act II, some of the set pieces in Act 3 like Raphael's mansion, but even lots of lesser instances, side-quests and examples of bits of exploration and discovery scattered throughout the game).

But on the downside the plot is a horrible mess, the woke retardation is sometimes unbearable (unless you have the appropriate mods to mod a lot of it out) and it's still a bit buggy here and there. One might say, it's a case where the sum of the parts is better than the whole.

So I think it would always be somewhere in the top 100, the question is which aspects of the downsides would lead different people to weight it differently within that 100. For me, I enjoy it more than I dislike it (especially with a lot of the woke retardation modded out) and I've found it to be fairly replayable, so it would be in the top 20 for me.

 

[Fedora Master]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

 

[Stoned Ape]

I don't think you can deny that BG3 is an exceptionally high quality product a lot of the time, or that it has many, many instances where it feels like a good, proper CRPG, and even a true successor to the BG games (e.g. Auntie Ethel, chunks of Act II, some of the set pieces in Act 3 like Raphael's mansion, but even lots of lesser instances, side-quests and examples of bits of exploration and discovery scattered throughout the game).

But on the downside the plot is a horrible mess, the woke retardation is sometimes unbearable (unless you have the appropriate mods to mod a lot of it out) and it's still a bit buggy here and there. One might say, it's a case where the sum of the parts is better than the whole.

So I think it would always be somewhere in the top 100, the question is which aspects of the downsides would lead different people to weight it differently within that 100. For me, I enjoy it more than I dislike it (especially with a lot of the woke retardation modded out) and I've found it to be fairly replayable, so it would be in the top 20 for me.

I broadly agree with most of your points.

The problem I have with the game is that I have no interest in playing it more than a couple of times, once as Tal and the other as Durge. Once I realised just how retadred the plot is later on in the game and how much I dislike the illogical Theme Park Forgotten Realms that Hasbro has spewed up I lost my enthusiasm for it.

I quite enjoyed my first playthrough though, and the game is streets ahead of Divine Divinity 2 which had dogshit mechanics and terrible loot. I couldn't even bring myself to finish that, got to the final chapter and gave up.

Overall, I'd probably have BG3 somewhere in my top 50 RPGs, but probably somewhere in the low 30s or high 40s.

 

[Swen]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

You are cringe

 

[Jeskis]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

Act 3 was where Swen and Co properly relaxed seeing that EA goes fine and went fully Larian with lots of weird choices music wise. The first call was that awful Down By The River song which I believe was warmly welcomed by the BioWare audience. Raphael’s fight and the music playing in the hotel/camp are absolutely unbearable and I can’t see how it went through the QC without some ‘core management’ insisting they like it.

 

[Moink]

Act 3, particularly the circus and certain NPCs is where the Larian Humour™ starts showing up despite being mostly absent from previous acts, I do wonder if there was a change in writing staff or something similar because it's very jarring going from the shadow death zombie zone to drag queens and evil clowns in less than an hour.

 

[Turisas]

Act 3, particularly the circus and certain NPCs is where the Larian Humour™ starts showing up despite being mostly absent from previous acts, I do wonder if there was a change in writing staff or something similar because it's very jarring going from the shadow death zombie zone to drag queens and evil clowns in less than an hour.

When you're a belgian, you can hold back your homosexual tendencies for only so long.

 

[jf8350143]

They planned the dead three from the very beginning.

It’s not argued that they didn’t, but that they had to.

I mean they pretty much just write whatever they want anyway, so I don't think they "had to".

It's more like they want to because they think it might make some of the fans of the first two games happy.

 

[Fedora Master]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

You are cringe

Does that mean you'll give me a job?

 

[Crichton]

On the other hand, an overload of cosmic villains could be an interesting concept to explore.

There's a fan supplement for FR that explores what happens if all the adventure modules for 5e go wrong. Tiamat is released, the North is frozen by Auril, Vecna is back etc.

It's actually neat.

https://www.drivethrucards.com/product_reviews.php?products_id=398215&language=espto&&language=espto

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

You are cringe

He's got you.

 

[SpaceWizardz]

Theater kid antagonist singing his own musical number is entirely appropriate.

 

[Tyranicon]

The music for Raphaels fight is cringe

I thought it was one of the few memorably good moments in BG3. It makes sense for the overly flamboyant fiend to sing his own boss song.

 

[Ryzer]

So Larianshill hasn’t finished the game?

It's Swen alt, too busy shilling for the game online.

 

[havox]

You are cringe

My bear. Based, trad, a true bro supporting all my choices good and evil, useful packmule hauling 500lbs of gear without hogging a STR belt, and a royalty.
Your bear. Cringe, degenerate fiend, incompatible with recruiting Minthara, not even a real bear.
Our bears are not the same.

 

[Stoned Ape]

I've just replayed the Solasta OC using the DLC classes for the first time. I think the main thing it has going for it over BG3 is the setting and how grounded the story feels. Although the voice acting sucks and the traitor in the council is pretty obvious at least the writers try to do something involving political factions in a way that feels somewhat believable. I can feel immersed in the world without things obviously feeling out of place.

In contrast nothing in BG3 seems quite right. It's all a bit overblown from the starting point being a nautiloid which is travelling through the Hells while being attacked by red dragons and cambions (while the PC is level 1) to journeying into the Underdark at 4th level. It wants to show you all it's cards early and make everything feel fantastic which in turn makes nothing feel special.

Although BG3 is a far more impressive game technically, I don't enjoy it as much as Solasta because I have to actively suspend my sense of disbelief while playing it.