No surprise this got game of the year. There really isn't anything anywhere close to this game that I've played or even heard of. I put 87 hours into my play through and now going to check out some YouTube videos about it, there is hours of content that I didn't see at all. It's bewildering how much stuff they've packed into this game. I want to play it again, but definitely need to put some time into other games first. Another 80 hours is a big investment. Also the story is really nice as well. You can play in a multitude of ways, but I thoroughly enjoyed the classic heroic adventure. Also, the amount of dialogue in this game is crazy. There were so many moments where I was like, "wow they really thought about everything" and it's all fully voiced really well may I add. Also the combat is super cool too. I took a very straight forward approach but even then it was very tactical, and now looking at challenge runs, it goes so much further. Just an absolute knockout of a game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was an interesting game, and unlike any other I’ve played before - with that said, it’s still a mixed bag for me. Instead of simply reviewing it, I’d like to list what I liked about the game and what I didn’t like to avoid waffling.
Pros:
• The best part of Baldur’s Gate 3 is easily the combat/character building for me(until a certain point). Battles felt intense and tactical, and every level up felt important and impactful compared to other games where you would level up more commonly. I really enjoyed unlocking more feats, passives, spells etc for my build. The building system has a great complexity to it, but also a much needed accessibility to not drown in the meaning of eighty different status effects.
- Dialogue/writing, Bg3 had a great grasp on its characters and their purposes, with eloquent dialogue and narration. In my opinion, this game is much more successful in the small, situational aspects of the story than the larger scale ones.
- Sound effects
- Act 2 is the most well-trimmed part of the game, having a certain atmosphere and pace to it that Act 1 entirely lacked for me. Act 2 is interesting, it’s threatening to be in that world, and it’s main content (like finding the Nightsong) pays off just as much as it’s side content is fun to find and explore.
- Act 3 was a good break off from the first two acts in it’s more peaceful like exploration of the city and wrapping up a lot of previous storylines. It also had some of the best content, from the Steelwatch Foundry, Temple of Bhaal to the grand finale.
- Speaking of the finale, I thought the fighting and spectacle was great! The system to call in your allies wasn’t really that great though, and you only really need one or two.
Now we get into a list of negatives…
- Graphic fidelity/art direction: In my opinion, the art direction in this game was decent at best. I’ve played countless fantasy games, and a lot of areas in this game are uninspired compared to the magical worlds I’ve seen in others. There’s a sad absence of true environmental storytelling that I’ve come to love in the open-world RPG genre. The cutscenes in the finale of the game had half loaded in houses in the background with poor water textures, having this unfinished look to it as well. That could be an optimization issue with Xbox, but it’s the stronger hardware out of the two consoles so it wouldn’t be that much of an excuse.
- Looting might be my biggest concern with the game! Every RPG has a satisfying system of looting enemies when you beat them, getting that next big piece of gear to add to your build. This had none of that. Looting small enemies to daunting bosses was so underwhelming and really left me walking away from these epic fights disappointed.
- The level 12 cap. Are you serious? And we’ll never even get dlc to go further up in levels? Yeah, if anything really disappointed me was this. Level 12 isn’t even the highest you could get to, we did so many things after that I feel like I would’ve been easily level 15.

Overall, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a really fun game that I had an amazing time playing with my girlfriend cooperatively. It has its flaws, and many of those could be exclusive to my tastes, but it also offers an experience that I haven’t had in gaming before. It was a very memorable journey! To speak on my personal experience with the game, I was a Dragonborn Warlock with Gale and Jaheira as my main companions.
Rating of Acts:
Act 1: 5/10 (only the underdark redeems this part)
Act 2: 8.5/10
Act 3: 8/10
I will also close this out saying it was a bummer to hear we aren’t getting dlc. It makes me more reactive to my personal flaws with the game when I know there won’t be any future higher level cap, bosses, loot, or areas for example.

Had an amazing experience playing this with my boyfriend although I’m not sure if I would’ve liked this as much if I played it alone, every act has its flaws and the story wasn’t the best, pretty weak villains and so much sassy characters they all felt the same, Karlach is the best because she was kind of in between being really sweet and badass but also not afraid to speak up and disagree with you with something (nicely), how the hell do people like Astarion so much, much less simp for him, he’s like a 5 year old stuck in a man’s body, Shadowheart was pretty sassy too and I see a lot of girls calling her annoying yet then they love Astarion, make that make sense, I’m sure they warm up if you romance them but they weren’t that likeable without that element whilst Karlach was great to be with and had a pretty interesting part to the story, loved running with her through hell in the end 😌 anyways, still lots of great parts and location and it’s definitely a game type that I’m not quite used to, part of me would compare it to Diablo 4 or Skyrim a lot in moments that did things better but I can’t fault the things BG3 did that were new to me but cool, being able to talk to animals, or turn into one (like a dinosaur), change classes whenever (I changed mine 3x), having many many choices and influence in the game etc, although I can’t lie I did really want to side with the sleeping dragon but eventually finding out that we had no choice but to fight him was annoying, same with that vampire (I can’t remember the name of) who we brought Astarion to and YET still had to fight?? Weird.

50% do jogo se passar na cidade superpopulosa, densa geográficamente e barulhenta é uma ideia genial na minha opinião e não acho que o jogo teria todo esse charme diminuindo o tamanho da Baldur's Gate, ao mesmo tempo não consigo parar de pensar que o ato 3 é de longe onde mais tive problemas em muitos sentidos, então dentro de mim fica esse sentimento conflitante nessa parte "final" da experiência, de qualquer forma, acho que foi uma execução e sentimento tão singular que a única coisa numa escala extremamente menor q consigo equiparar é Novigrad em The Witcher 3, respeito muito a ambição do ato 3 mesmo sendo uma parte do jogo que me causou uma exaustão que acho que nunca senti jogando outra coisa na minha vida

P.S o ato 2 é uma da minhas coisas favoritas dos video game em memória recente e talvez é o maior motivo do jogo ter sido 4 estrelas pra mim.