Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate. What is there to say about Baldur's Gate? Quite a lot considering everyones playthroughs seem to wildly differ. Mine in particular must of been comparably disorganized, considering not only have I never played a crpg before but I have also never interacted with D&D in the slightest. I was drawn to the game first and foremost by its roleplaying and strong sense of character it develops for each of its cast members. I still say this is the shining part of the game for me, the amount of written and voice acted dialogue is insane and it definitely helps that both these things are pulled off incredibly. I cant remember an rpg I've played where I didnt dislike at least one party member, but they're all so diverse and painstakingly crafted that its hard to not have fun with them.

I enjoy the roleplaying so much that I really just wish i could explore that aspect of the game without the combat. This is tied to one of two distinctive flaws I think Baldurs Gate 3 has. Not the actual combat itself, the actual gameplay is very very fun and well thought out. There are so many strategies you can work out and the game does a good job of making most encounters unique; both in map design and the enemy's skillset. But its so slow. Its so slow. I akin it to waiting in line for a rollercoaster, it takes that long for it to be my turn. The turns themselves are slow but it doesnt help that Larian cant help themselves and, after Act 1, seem to become obsessed with spawning in 40 trash mobs to combat your 4 playable units. Some enemy turns felt like they took a better part of 20 minutes to get through. Thats where the well crafted combat starts falling apart in my eyes, those fights where its you vs 30 things are just too long and too tedious not to be annoying. The span of status effects in this game can be quite fun but if you wait 10 minutes for it to actually be your turn and some dickhead casts flee on you- forget it. It becomes way too annoying and it burns me out. Easy mode is not easy enough, I just want to look at the dialogue options....

On the topic of roleplaying is where my second criticism lies. This game is very sexual. Thats fine, I love breasts and ass and cunt ect ect. But for a game that is so determined to have every character come up and request to sleep with you, I find it weird that theres no option to set your sexual orientation. I could take it a step forward and say I wish every party unit had a set sexuality- but for now I really wish my obviously lesbian charcter would stop getting forced into romance cutscenes with men. It is confusing too, because it must be annoying for the majority of straight men who play this to have guys like Halsin abruptly declare his love for their character, so I'm not sure why this isnt a feature. It would be a pretty easy box to check off for certain events not to trigger. I doubt this will be added but it would make the game much less uncomfortable to play.

Those are my complaints but I feel like I'm really downplaying how magical and fun this game was to go through. It is a rare game that is worth 60 dollars, I dont think anyone can undermine the sheer amount of effort and passion this must of taken to put together. For my first crpg I feel like the tutorial was kind of bad- but if you can work past it it's definitely a very solid place to start. It was very addicting and I feel gratified to have played it.

Now, some notes that didnt really fit in with the other subjects.... Act 1 and most of Act 3 are so much fun to explore and play around in but Act 2 is awful. I hate Act 2 with all my heart. There are about 3 interesting encounters in that area and thats it. Fuck the Shar temple I HATE it. No more puzzles.

I wish owlbear and Scratch had more points of interaction! Theyre so cute and sweet, I wish they had their own stories like everyone else. I stopped getting cutscenes for them after the underdark very early on, so I wish there was more I could play around with there.

Also on that note: I feel like the companions quests have either very weird pacing or (more likely) i missed a lot of flavor dialogue. Specifically, I feel like I missed out on a lot of romance specific things with Shadowheart and im not really sure why. I am the most interested in this so it really confuses me why there seemed to be so little altered when you're in a relationship. I know the dialogue exists so Im confused why I never came across it in my playthrough... a bit disappointing.

On the note of disappointment: why the hell can I pick what type of vulva I have if I never get to SEE it in use? I had sand sex with Shadowheart and I only did get to see boobs. I didnt expect a full on animated sex fuck sequence, but a little touching? A bit of body? During Shadowheart's scene my character just kind of sat on her and they started kissing and fade to black. Everyone in this god damn game wants to fuck everything and everyone and the sex scenes come across as vapid. And, while I had the option to hire a prostitute, I only got to have it once... that also ties in with my complaint that I wish there was more extra scenes and choices added in to the romance options, but all that to say it was kind of underwhelming.

The end in general was also kind of underwhelming and depressing. Only Lae'rel got to have a fleshed out goodbye, everyone else was just nothing. Astarion's (for his good route) was just incredibly sad. I was hoping for a cutscene showing us all celebrating together and a special epilogue with Shadowheart but it was, again, very abrupt and empty. To have such a dramatic buildup and then a let down of an ending is a bit crushing. Not to mind that that's the reward I get for beating that awful awful final boss.

That was a lot of complaining but I do actually love this game, dont get me wrong. In the wide span of things I FORGOT ABOUT KARLACH- what the fuck why is obtaining her directly connected to whether or not a single tiefling dies in the grove regardless of who you sided with. I didnt even know how to play the game at this point, nonetheless how to properly gauge how to make an optimal decision. I was trying to help the tieflings to the best of my knowledge by taking out the druid leader... the tieflings themselves had no issue with this seeing as how they threw a huge party in my name. Karlach's dialogue seemed to be set up negating siding with the tieflings and almost just assuming you went with the druids, seeing as how she called me a murderer of her people for no reason and how I couldnt properly respond. I never got to meet her character all for the actions of someone else, its definitely stupid and I hate her now.

I will try again: I do love this game a lot. In the wide span of things it definitely feels like a genuine feat of human accomplishment. This is what it looks like for a game to have a loving dev team and all the time and resources in the world?...needless to say it will be hard to top this in the future. I love Scratch and owlbear and Shadowheart and all my friends, even Astarion who hated me for most of my run. I will play again when a mod comes out that lets me skip the combat. And also, always remember to never stab your vampire companions even if they steal blood from you. That is a blatantly bad decision (uri...). Shoutout to Hilda for helping me find a clown's body parts for 3 days straight. That's all, goodbye.