An almost entirely miserable experience that gives you all the freedom in the world - to butcher, and butcher, and butcher, in unimaginative lands full of equally violent and miserable people as yourself, nobody with anything meaningful to say in their lengthy monologues, everybody sort of uncanny and ugly. It's not D+D, it's not Baldur's Gate, and it's not a good RPG. When it comes down to it, it doesn't even feel that big - it just feel torturously slow and clunky, with every battle taking forever, and painfully awkward traversal otherwise, all coming together to give the illusion of size, and of time well spent. BG3 is an enigma, if only because of how extremely shallow and juvenile the game is, and also how adored.
Well, I tried to like it. I promise, I tried. I spent more than two weeks playing this, and I can't think of a single quest or area or conversation I would like to revisit. Also, the UI is cluttered and the camera frequently worked against me. Also, it crashed 50 or so times during my time with it (on PS5), mostly when trying to load saves, sometimes after levelling up, and occasionally for no discernible reason at all. What happened to standards?
I keep thinking about all the unsurpassed freedom that this game supposedly offers. Well, I don't think a game needs to offer unlimited things to do and ways to do them, because games should focus first on doing one thing well, and then expanding where it has space to. Yet, since everybody and their grandma keeps bringing up how much freedom this game gives you...I never felt free to do what I wanted in this game. I felt trapped. Suffocated. More so than in most 'linear' RPGs I've ever played. You sort of have to do every quest you can find if you want to level up. Different dialogue choices lead to the same outcomes. You can never escape the endless vortex of (often meaningless) violence thrust upon you by passersby. There were so many fights I got into that I didn't want, so many people I had to kill that I would have liked to befriend, flirt with, talk to, be nice to... God, being nice! Acting like a regular human being to a fellow traveller! What a concept! Instead, your key interaction in this game is putting your fist through somebody's skull before they can do the same to you, through battle inputs that don't feel good or natural to use. It's mind numbing!
...Ketheric Thorm's voice acting was good. Stood head and shoulders over the rest of the cast.
Well, I tried to like it. I promise, I tried. I spent more than two weeks playing this, and I can't think of a single quest or area or conversation I would like to revisit. Also, the UI is cluttered and the camera frequently worked against me. Also, it crashed 50 or so times during my time with it (on PS5), mostly when trying to load saves, sometimes after levelling up, and occasionally for no discernible reason at all. What happened to standards?
I keep thinking about all the unsurpassed freedom that this game supposedly offers. Well, I don't think a game needs to offer unlimited things to do and ways to do them, because games should focus first on doing one thing well, and then expanding where it has space to. Yet, since everybody and their grandma keeps bringing up how much freedom this game gives you...I never felt free to do what I wanted in this game. I felt trapped. Suffocated. More so than in most 'linear' RPGs I've ever played. You sort of have to do every quest you can find if you want to level up. Different dialogue choices lead to the same outcomes. You can never escape the endless vortex of (often meaningless) violence thrust upon you by passersby. There were so many fights I got into that I didn't want, so many people I had to kill that I would have liked to befriend, flirt with, talk to, be nice to... God, being nice! Acting like a regular human being to a fellow traveller! What a concept! Instead, your key interaction in this game is putting your fist through somebody's skull before they can do the same to you, through battle inputs that don't feel good or natural to use. It's mind numbing!
...Ketheric Thorm's voice acting was good. Stood head and shoulders over the rest of the cast.
MiraMiraOTW
3 months ago
It's a bit like how people keep hyping up anime protagonists for their empathy, only for the story to end by killing all the bad guys.