I’m having so much fun with Baldur’s Gate 3. I actually started over to get my characters look just right. Rolling a new character is one of the best parts of DnD anyway. The way this game encourages role playing is great. Information is key, and there are often a number of ways to approach any given situation. Those two things combine to create complexity, or the illusion of complexity, in a way I find so satisfying. This illusion-of-freedom plays out differently than it does in a tabletop setting, in which I have full control over my character and get to essentially collaborate with the DM. BG3 is by format more limited, but those limitations can end up being generative. For example, I’m playing a charisma druid. Pursusian isn’t always available to me in every encounter, which forces me to think about what my character would actually do. The early decisions I’ve been confronted with have helped form a backstory that informs future ones. And it gets more interesting when the die don’t roll my way and I have to live with the consequences of messing up.
I appreciate how the game just drops you into the world, but I am familiar, though not an expert, in the setting. I could see how it would be frustrating to someone totally new to Forgotten Realms depending . The game does give you clues as to what stuff is, but there’s almost no straightforward lore dumping/tutorializing. It’s refreshing, honestly.
The combat is tough, even on the balanced mode (and I kinda know what I’m doing!) I have no issues reloading a save before combat, or save scumming my way thru an encounter. Combat is a blast, though, once I picked up on the interface and how the game was communicating the different actions/states/various DnD combat stuff. I do try to avoid it when I can, but that’s more about how my character works than me trying to avoid the game system.
The quest design is my favorite part. They somehow managed to build a world full of stuff to do without creating a Ubisoft-like checklist headache. There’s a questline early on that makes it clear that when progress on it seems to have dried up, it’s time to leave the location and pursue other avenues of progression… maybe the answer lies outside that location. It works storywise, because there’s a ven diagram of sorts with quest goals, which avoids the problem of “fishing while the world ends.”
Overall I’m just so impressed with the game so far. I can’t wait to install my new GPU and run this baby at higher settings.
