I never finished Baldur’s Gate 1. It was not for lack of trying. I restarted that game over and over, but I always got to a point where I couldn’t progress any further. At last I buckled and followed a guide, but even then I got to Baldur’s Gate and the game became too hard and I quit. The problem was always that my characters weren’t leveled enough so they couldn’t take on the much higher level mobs. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong or how I should’ve accumulated more XP. I failed.
I dabbled in some Ice Wind Dale, played Neverwinter Nights to the very end, but I never really understood DnD, and didn’t like it very much.
Then I played Larian’s Divinity: Original Sin and it was love at first sight. I killed every enemy, figured out all the secrets, followed up every quest and at long last I killed the final boss; just to find out it wasn’t the final boss. I was only about 1/5 through the game. Good lord how much I hated the game from that point on. I dragged myself through the rest of the game, and at the end I had no idea why or who the end boss was or why I did any of it. I was just so tired of it all and I vowed not to play any Larian games ever again.
My history with DnD and Larian isn’t the best one, and I wasn’t going to waste my time on Baldur’s Gate 3 if it wasn’t for the excellent reviews and the game of the year award. Shit! I really have to play this one, don’t I? So I started it on Christmas Day and finished it … yesterday on 25th of May. That is exactly 5 months! This is a long ass game, and the weird thing is, I wonder how an evil play through would look like? No no no, STOP!
I think that Larian Studios was the best thing that could have happened to the Baldur’s Gate franchise as they clearly loves the DnD craft and put a huge amount of effort and dedication into making a worthy successor of the first two games.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a labor of love. They have put so much details into this game that it is ridiculous. If you find a cat, you can most likely cast a spell and speak to it. If you find a dead body, you can cast Talk to the Dead and find out how it died. There are so many quests, and interloping stories, entanglements and things that can happen out of order, that I would love to see the flow charts for what would and could happen in different situations depending on what has happened before. Just the amount of dialogue options depending on your backstory and proficiency is crazy.
Everything in this game is great and I could write in lengths about every single aspect, but there are two things I would like to focus on which makes or breaks a game for me.
The characters are very well made. They have elaborate backstories, side quests, and progressions through the game’s three acts. They will also progress in different directions depending on how you influence them. A character could turn completely evil, or turn from the dark to the light depending on your actions. They are very deep and it is easy to immerse yourself and start caring about them. I certainly have favourite characters that I couldn’t get a disapproval from, or I would immediately reload a save.
The main story is also great. It starts off quite bland in act 1 and then it takes off in act 2, and in act 3 you’re fully invested. It doesn’t take the turns that you’d expect, and there is something sinister in the way it was written. You can always sense that something is not as it seems to be, but you cannot put your finger on it, until that finger turns up and turn everything on its head. I really like it.
Before this review gets way too long I want to point out that this game was developed for PC primarily and ported to consoles, but that port is very good. It is on the same level as the Diablo 4 port to consoles and you don’t think much about it most of the time. There are certain times when things are quite strange to do and times when the camera goes haywire but most of the times I’m not bothered that PlayStation wasn’t the development target for this game.
In short, this game took 5 months of my life and deservedly so. I might even pick it up and replay it sometime in the future.
I rate this game as EXCELLENT.
Replay 