Coming from Divinity 2, with some reservations about it, I could not wait to finally be able to gather my trusty friend and jump into this new adventure now that it was officially released.
We started the game excited about what was to come and it took us a total of two months to the clock to finish it. In our case, we decided to go with two custom characters and build relationships with the various origins characters in the game. We created our characters and thrust ourselves into the new campaign, both completely new to the world of Baldur's Gate, but not new to the work of Larian.
The game's writing is amazing, with every choice having the weight you'd expect if not more. The approach to the narrative, storytelling, and story progression is in your hands completely. From smaller things like specific races and backgrounds having extra options during certain dialogues giving more depth to your story, to annihilating an entire faction. Easily one of the best implementations of DnD to a game.
8h into the game, while exploring, we unlocked a way to reset the levels of our characters. Considering this was a title developed after Divinity 2, I went into it expecting there would be the possibility to change your character's appearance, but that wasn't the case. When the option wasn't available alongside the respec, especially as it has less actual impact on the game, I decided a quick search was mandatory as both me and my friend wanted to change a few things about our characters we were not happy with.
Although a way to change your looks has now been patched into the game, that was not the case more than two months ago and in an attempt at enjoying the many more hours we'd have on the title, we restarted from scratch, recreated our characters and quickly got back to where we were.
After that, it was smooth sailing. We kept exploring every crook and cranny and would never leave a region before making sure all loose ends were close and we had explored everything. The quantity and quality of content the game offers it's magical and calls for multiple playthroughs just to see how much love and attention has been put into it. We took our time - clearly - and made sure to play as meticulously as we would alone not letting the coop get in the way of attention to lore, books or dialogues. We had a wonderful time, really. Great game to play with the right person!
All dialogues have so much depth and have been motion acted! There is a moment in the late game, where one of the dialogues has such amazing voice acting and animation that it has forever engraved itself in my mind. That's how good it was. Another moment that comes to mind is a discovery we made during a mission. Something very unexpected, yet it was the truth and completely changed our objectives going forward, at least for our roleplay whereas for others it might have motivated them even further. This is the beauty of this game, everything you do and every approach is just as valid as the next one. This was not unique in these 160 magical hours. Throughout all of them, me and my friend kept being shocked by the level of detail, interaction, and ramifications of the story. There are so many other examples I could give.
But where there is good, there is bad. During the final Act we did encountered a few bumps. Still god-tier, but it is worth mentioning. Progression in particular felt sluggish, as if at every corner we would meet a wall that would make all our choices and plans crumble somewhere else as a consequence. It took us many hours, with a lot of different approaches to our progress to find the perfect balance for what to do first.
Regardless of our best attempts and careful approach, during our finale, we could not forsee this turn of events. We had to make a really hard choice to get the best outcome and find common ground with my friend, so I was already saddened by that. Right after that, my favorite origin character, my romance and companion through most of the run took a steep turn I didn't expect in their story. I was so confused by this end result considering the path we had both walked on was not the one they were now choosing, even slightly hinting at it being also my idea when it never was. I later learned shortly after seeing the finale that what I thought was an inconsequential choice made during a dialogue - one I would even say was quite neutral - was the dialogue that would permanently determine their story. This was prior to even learning and talking about the potential alternative new objective for this origin character. There is no other dialogue or check of any sort that can change that and, in my experience, nothing in the game made me understand things would have gone this way after I made this choice. Hell, it even sounded like it was still up for debate. 70h after I learned my price.
For the whole game, I have been preaching this, so: I know it's technically the result of my own choices, and since then I accepted the end result and found many ways to level with it when it comes to roleplay. That said, I stand my ground that having the choice to determine which path the character will follow, prior to knowing what are the options, and with a neutral response isn't well done, not when for everyone else it was quite clear. A simple dialogue after the events would have done it.
Add to insult injury, although I was the host, my friend during the whole finale was the only character visible besides the origins, only because he had the character that could defeat the final boss in his group. That was the case even for dialogues with my romance and companion. The coop never had any such issues until now, often having our characters at least in the background during dialogues.
The game is a solid top-down CRPG, and controls very similarly to Divinity 2. I wished for some of the prior games' limitations not to show up again. After all these years of early access and a new camera zoom that can go close to third-person perspective, I was disappointed in not having the choice to bind movement to WASD when that is the default for controller players. Especially in a game that, with all the dev's good intentions, still struggles with camera angles and environment objects at times. Yes, things become transparent when too close to the camera, but are still interactable making your character move in the wrong direction or teleport back to the area you just came from simply cause it's a big door and its hitbox is still in front of your mouse.
As a hoarder, something I also was hoping would have been improved is inventory management. There are plenty of bags in the game to order your items around, although you can't name them. When sorting, identical items will not merge into one stack, making entire lines of the same spell scroll unless you manually stack them, which I obviously did. A small icon next to books to let us know if we had read them would have also been a nice addition, especially with the large amount of literature available.
Other than that, the game plays perfectly fine and it's an extremely polished experience, with almost no gameplay limitations but your imagination.
Still, you know what they say: it's not the destination, but the journey that matters. Although I had wished for a better ending to my adventure, nothing can change our journey. What really matters is how excited, happy, and impatient I was to come home and play this game, and no amount of sour endings could erase that. I made a mark in this world and shared this crazy adventure with a friend, with highlights we'll bring back for likely the rest of our lives as already do with other titles, or until the next Larian game.
I find myself already thinking of what to do on my next run. No matter how hurt I may be from how a part of my story ended this time, it clearly can't keep me away from this game or lower it's magnificence, and that speaks volumes.
10/10.
We started the game excited about what was to come and it took us a total of two months to the clock to finish it. In our case, we decided to go with two custom characters and build relationships with the various origins characters in the game. We created our characters and thrust ourselves into the new campaign, both completely new to the world of Baldur's Gate, but not new to the work of Larian.
The game's writing is amazing, with every choice having the weight you'd expect if not more. The approach to the narrative, storytelling, and story progression is in your hands completely. From smaller things like specific races and backgrounds having extra options during certain dialogues giving more depth to your story, to annihilating an entire faction. Easily one of the best implementations of DnD to a game.
8h into the game, while exploring, we unlocked a way to reset the levels of our characters. Considering this was a title developed after Divinity 2, I went into it expecting there would be the possibility to change your character's appearance, but that wasn't the case. When the option wasn't available alongside the respec, especially as it has less actual impact on the game, I decided a quick search was mandatory as both me and my friend wanted to change a few things about our characters we were not happy with.
Although a way to change your looks has now been patched into the game, that was not the case more than two months ago and in an attempt at enjoying the many more hours we'd have on the title, we restarted from scratch, recreated our characters and quickly got back to where we were.
After that, it was smooth sailing. We kept exploring every crook and cranny and would never leave a region before making sure all loose ends were close and we had explored everything. The quantity and quality of content the game offers it's magical and calls for multiple playthroughs just to see how much love and attention has been put into it. We took our time - clearly - and made sure to play as meticulously as we would alone not letting the coop get in the way of attention to lore, books or dialogues. We had a wonderful time, really. Great game to play with the right person!
All dialogues have so much depth and have been motion acted! There is a moment in the late game, where one of the dialogues has such amazing voice acting and animation that it has forever engraved itself in my mind. That's how good it was. Another moment that comes to mind is a discovery we made during a mission. Something very unexpected, yet it was the truth and completely changed our objectives going forward, at least for our roleplay whereas for others it might have motivated them even further. This is the beauty of this game, everything you do and every approach is just as valid as the next one. This was not unique in these 160 magical hours. Throughout all of them, me and my friend kept being shocked by the level of detail, interaction, and ramifications of the story. There are so many other examples I could give.
But where there is good, there is bad. During the final Act we did encountered a few bumps. Still god-tier, but it is worth mentioning. Progression in particular felt sluggish, as if at every corner we would meet a wall that would make all our choices and plans crumble somewhere else as a consequence. It took us many hours, with a lot of different approaches to our progress to find the perfect balance for what to do first.
Regardless of our best attempts and careful approach, during our finale, we could not forsee this turn of events. We had to make a really hard choice to get the best outcome and find common ground with my friend, so I was already saddened by that. Right after that, my favorite origin character, my romance and companion through most of the run took a steep turn I didn't expect in their story. I was so confused by this end result considering the path we had both walked on was not the one they were now choosing, even slightly hinting at it being also my idea when it never was. I later learned shortly after seeing the finale that what I thought was an inconsequential choice made during a dialogue - one I would even say was quite neutral - was the dialogue that would permanently determine their story. This was prior to even learning and talking about the potential alternative new objective for this origin character. There is no other dialogue or check of any sort that can change that and, in my experience, nothing in the game made me understand things would have gone this way after I made this choice. Hell, it even sounded like it was still up for debate. 70h after I learned my price.
For the whole game, I have been preaching this, so: I know it's technically the result of my own choices, and since then I accepted the end result and found many ways to level with it when it comes to roleplay. That said, I stand my ground that having the choice to determine which path the character will follow, prior to knowing what are the options, and with a neutral response isn't well done, not when for everyone else it was quite clear. A simple dialogue after the events would have done it.
Add to insult injury, although I was the host, my friend during the whole finale was the only character visible besides the origins, only because he had the character that could defeat the final boss in his group. That was the case even for dialogues with my romance and companion. The coop never had any such issues until now, often having our characters at least in the background during dialogues.
The game is a solid top-down CRPG, and controls very similarly to Divinity 2. I wished for some of the prior games' limitations not to show up again. After all these years of early access and a new camera zoom that can go close to third-person perspective, I was disappointed in not having the choice to bind movement to WASD when that is the default for controller players. Especially in a game that, with all the dev's good intentions, still struggles with camera angles and environment objects at times. Yes, things become transparent when too close to the camera, but are still interactable making your character move in the wrong direction or teleport back to the area you just came from simply cause it's a big door and its hitbox is still in front of your mouse.
As a hoarder, something I also was hoping would have been improved is inventory management. There are plenty of bags in the game to order your items around, although you can't name them. When sorting, identical items will not merge into one stack, making entire lines of the same spell scroll unless you manually stack them, which I obviously did. A small icon next to books to let us know if we had read them would have also been a nice addition, especially with the large amount of literature available.
Other than that, the game plays perfectly fine and it's an extremely polished experience, with almost no gameplay limitations but your imagination.
Still, you know what they say: it's not the destination, but the journey that matters. Although I had wished for a better ending to my adventure, nothing can change our journey. What really matters is how excited, happy, and impatient I was to come home and play this game, and no amount of sour endings could erase that. I made a mark in this world and shared this crazy adventure with a friend, with highlights we'll bring back for likely the rest of our lives as already do with other titles, or until the next Larian game.
I find myself already thinking of what to do on my next run. No matter how hurt I may be from how a part of my story ended this time, it clearly can't keep me away from this game or lower it's magnificence, and that speaks volumes.
10/10.