It's weird to be that person who could never get into turn-based combat, bounced off most other CRPGs they've tried, never played DnD, and rarely ever replays games (and never back to back), but then Baldur's Gate 3 comes along and not only smashes each one of those barriers down, but becomes unequivocally their favourite game ever. It's just that good.

The appeal here for me was the similarities I saw to Bioware RPGs, which were the games that made you feel like you weren't just a lone hero with a bunch of stragglers tagging along to help, but like you were a group of adventurers (or space soldiers) coming together to take down the Big Bad because there was something in it for all of you. They had developed personalities, their own goals and values, opinions about one another, fun banter, and most importantly, they had agency.

That's exactly what BG3 delivers, but on top of that, there's also amazing mechanics that enable creative thinking (both in and out of combat), an interesting and dense world to explore, fantastic music, great characters (Auntie Ethel and Raphael are the best), and incredibly talented voice work and writers to breathe life into it all. No game is flawless, sure, but to me, BG3 is damn near close. It's top-notch in every possible way and I'm glad I took a gamble on it, because it absolutely paid dividends.