This review contains spoilers
"Immense" is the only word I can think of when it comes to Baldur's Gate 3. Rarely ever is a game as deep as it is wide, and yet this is one of the few that is - it is incredibly replayable due to just how many ways the game can diverge and change based on your actions. It's the most reactive RPG I've seen yet, and I can't recall playing anything that felt this ahead of other games of its kind since The Witcher 3 (which is a game that this one made me think of quite a lot, actually.)
I will almost definitely replay BG3 one day - maybe pretty soon! Despite the fact that it's so massive, I'm not sick of it at all. Its combat and systems offer so much expression and variety, its characters and dialogue so much nuance and depth. There's just a ton to see and it's astonishing to think that having rolled credits on an 80+ hour playthrough, I still feel like there's so much more to do! Different companions to recruit, different builds to try, different decisions to make and then watch in awe as the game reacts to them up to 50 hours later. For a long time RPGs have promised that "your decisions matter" and that you can be "whoever" you want and whilst no game - not even Baldur's Gate 3 has ever fully been able to live up to that premise, I'd say it's maybe the closest we've yet gotten. It feels like a benchmark, like a huge step forward in actually achieving the promises made by the likes of Fable and The Elder Scrolls.
In my playthrough as an opportunistic Dragonborn Warlock who sought power but never wanted to bow to gods, I felt served almost every step of the way. I played nice with The Absolute right up until the last moment, when I stuck the knife into Ketheric Thorm, I let murderous urges overtake me until I was right in front of the God of Murder himself - and then I rejected him, when the Githyanki goddess confronted me and I was commanded to kneel - I gave her a sarcastic wave and turned my back on her. These were all choices I was able to make through gameplay and dialogue, which meld together more beautifully here than most any other RPG I've played. I could go on, this is a huge game and there's so much to see. It's a great big, huge, beautiful RPG that allowed me more player expression than anything I can remember.
This being said - it is janky, still, especially in Act 3. The last stretch leading up to the final battle is technically a bit of a disaster right now. The game could not handle this many enemies and effects on-screen at once, models started glitching out, idle animations stopped playing so everyone was just sat there like a stone statue whilst sound effects and damage numbers fired off all like a half-second too late - and the audio started getting all fuzzy and crackly like this part of the game's brokenness was about to blow my fuckin' TV up. Really, all of Act 3 is all still in need of some polish. Acts 1 and 2 are so beautiful both visually and in terms of content, but the game is a bit scuppered by Act 3. It's not a disastrous fall-off by any means, but I think BG3 definitely peaks early.
It also needs be to said that while it is basically bigger and better than Larian's last game - Divinity: Original Sin 2 in almost every way, I can honestly say I think it suffers with almost all of the same flaws. By which I mean that constant quicksaving and save-scumming is basically a necessity in this game. Baldur's Gate 3's cardinal sin is that failure isn't fun like it is in say - Disco Elysium, usually it's just combat or missed content. And if you aren't constantly quicksaving, what's gonna stop you from losing out on 2+ hours of progress if you suddenly get roped into an incredibly hard combat encounter you were woefully unprepared for and had no way of knowing was gonna occur when you picked this particular dialogue option or wandered onto this highly-specific part of the map? A word of advice for anyone playing their first Larian game - QUICKSAVE. LIKE, A LOT.
The actual maps and level design geometry of BG3 is also - like Divinity: Original Sin 2, pretty wonky and hard to orient yourself around. Paths often don't wind or extend in the way you expect them to, you'll occasionally be roadblocked by some pretty surprising invisible walls and the "gnarled roots" and "cragged rocks" that you can sometimes climb up and down to navigate your way around some of the game's weird path design are often weirdly hard to see and easy to miss, which can make orienting yourself in BG3 pretty frustrating sometimes. Also - damn D&D is complicated as fuck!! Like I'm sure this game is doing the best it can to ease people in and make it all make sense to new players but sheesh was I glad to have played another Larian game before this!
The negatives and flaws are there, but if the speed and effectiveness of Larian's patches so far are anything to go by, this game's rating is liable to go up to 5 stars for me, because the good already outweighs the bad to the fuckin' Nth degree. It's just a masterpiece, especially in Acts 1 & 2, which are so visually gorgeous and dense with content. It again makes me lament the relative brokenness of Act 3 bc damn I need to see that city in a higher framerate. Baldur's Gate itself when it isn't chugging along like we're back in D:OS 2 would probably be more stunning than anything else in the game! Alas, again, it can not yet really handle that much stuff on the screen at one time I don't think, hahaha
This is the new measuring stick for RPGs. Colossal in content and endlessly replayable. This is what happens when a privately owned studio with 2 decades of experience in the genre get as much time and money as they need to execute on their vision. That's the reason this game has set the world on fire the way it has - a lack of corporate intervention. Artists and creatives having the resources to do their job, and then just being left the fuck alone. That's why you don't get games like Baldur's Gate 3 very often, and you need to cherish them when they come around.
EDIT: I've decided to go back and give this 5 stars. Its flaws are still there but man, this game is too good at what it sets out to do. It's dominated my headspace since I finished it. I did a second playthrough on Tactician and loved it even more, its combat and systems absolutely sing at higher difficulty, this is just the best, most immense and deep and enjoyable RPG in a long time.
I will almost definitely replay BG3 one day - maybe pretty soon! Despite the fact that it's so massive, I'm not sick of it at all. Its combat and systems offer so much expression and variety, its characters and dialogue so much nuance and depth. There's just a ton to see and it's astonishing to think that having rolled credits on an 80+ hour playthrough, I still feel like there's so much more to do! Different companions to recruit, different builds to try, different decisions to make and then watch in awe as the game reacts to them up to 50 hours later. For a long time RPGs have promised that "your decisions matter" and that you can be "whoever" you want and whilst no game - not even Baldur's Gate 3 has ever fully been able to live up to that premise, I'd say it's maybe the closest we've yet gotten. It feels like a benchmark, like a huge step forward in actually achieving the promises made by the likes of Fable and The Elder Scrolls.
In my playthrough as an opportunistic Dragonborn Warlock who sought power but never wanted to bow to gods, I felt served almost every step of the way. I played nice with The Absolute right up until the last moment, when I stuck the knife into Ketheric Thorm, I let murderous urges overtake me until I was right in front of the God of Murder himself - and then I rejected him, when the Githyanki goddess confronted me and I was commanded to kneel - I gave her a sarcastic wave and turned my back on her. These were all choices I was able to make through gameplay and dialogue, which meld together more beautifully here than most any other RPG I've played. I could go on, this is a huge game and there's so much to see. It's a great big, huge, beautiful RPG that allowed me more player expression than anything I can remember.
This being said - it is janky, still, especially in Act 3. The last stretch leading up to the final battle is technically a bit of a disaster right now. The game could not handle this many enemies and effects on-screen at once, models started glitching out, idle animations stopped playing so everyone was just sat there like a stone statue whilst sound effects and damage numbers fired off all like a half-second too late - and the audio started getting all fuzzy and crackly like this part of the game's brokenness was about to blow my fuckin' TV up. Really, all of Act 3 is all still in need of some polish. Acts 1 and 2 are so beautiful both visually and in terms of content, but the game is a bit scuppered by Act 3. It's not a disastrous fall-off by any means, but I think BG3 definitely peaks early.
It also needs be to said that while it is basically bigger and better than Larian's last game - Divinity: Original Sin 2 in almost every way, I can honestly say I think it suffers with almost all of the same flaws. By which I mean that constant quicksaving and save-scumming is basically a necessity in this game. Baldur's Gate 3's cardinal sin is that failure isn't fun like it is in say - Disco Elysium, usually it's just combat or missed content. And if you aren't constantly quicksaving, what's gonna stop you from losing out on 2+ hours of progress if you suddenly get roped into an incredibly hard combat encounter you were woefully unprepared for and had no way of knowing was gonna occur when you picked this particular dialogue option or wandered onto this highly-specific part of the map? A word of advice for anyone playing their first Larian game - QUICKSAVE. LIKE, A LOT.
The actual maps and level design geometry of BG3 is also - like Divinity: Original Sin 2, pretty wonky and hard to orient yourself around. Paths often don't wind or extend in the way you expect them to, you'll occasionally be roadblocked by some pretty surprising invisible walls and the "gnarled roots" and "cragged rocks" that you can sometimes climb up and down to navigate your way around some of the game's weird path design are often weirdly hard to see and easy to miss, which can make orienting yourself in BG3 pretty frustrating sometimes. Also - damn D&D is complicated as fuck!! Like I'm sure this game is doing the best it can to ease people in and make it all make sense to new players but sheesh was I glad to have played another Larian game before this!
The negatives and flaws are there, but if the speed and effectiveness of Larian's patches so far are anything to go by, this game's rating is liable to go up to 5 stars for me, because the good already outweighs the bad to the fuckin' Nth degree. It's just a masterpiece, especially in Acts 1 & 2, which are so visually gorgeous and dense with content. It again makes me lament the relative brokenness of Act 3 bc damn I need to see that city in a higher framerate. Baldur's Gate itself when it isn't chugging along like we're back in D:OS 2 would probably be more stunning than anything else in the game! Alas, again, it can not yet really handle that much stuff on the screen at one time I don't think, hahaha
This is the new measuring stick for RPGs. Colossal in content and endlessly replayable. This is what happens when a privately owned studio with 2 decades of experience in the genre get as much time and money as they need to execute on their vision. That's the reason this game has set the world on fire the way it has - a lack of corporate intervention. Artists and creatives having the resources to do their job, and then just being left the fuck alone. That's why you don't get games like Baldur's Gate 3 very often, and you need to cherish them when they come around.
EDIT: I've decided to go back and give this 5 stars. Its flaws are still there but man, this game is too good at what it sets out to do. It's dominated my headspace since I finished it. I did a second playthrough on Tactician and loved it even more, its combat and systems absolutely sing at higher difficulty, this is just the best, most immense and deep and enjoyable RPG in a long time.