- This review is edited and now takes into account the epilogue added Patch 5. For a quick summary of the changes I am making, this patch addresses all of my issues with the games ending, so I have revised that paragraph. I decided to add extra notes as well about the performance patches for Act three, but as this is a review of MY experience with the game, I kept the majority of that part of the review the same.
Baldur's Gate 3 absolutely blew me away and ate up so much of my time this year. On the first week of the PS5 release, I sank an ungodly amount of time into this game, exploring every corner of Act I and trying to pick up on all of the diverse mechanics present. As someone who has never played DND before or any of the previous Larian Studios games, there was a bit of a learning curve, but that didn't matter; I was immediately immersed in everything Baldur's Gate 3 had to offer. For me, Baldur's Gate 3 offered an experience I so rarely have in games today. When I played Baldur's Gate 3, it felt magical.
Maybe it's odd to use the phrase magical to describe a video game, but I mean it sincerely. As someone who plays a lot of games and has had his fair share of experience with all sorts of RPGs, Baldur's Gate 3 feels special in the way that it is distinctly different from most of the other games in the genre. My largest gripe with most RPGs is the lack of consequences to the arbitrary choices they present to you. In games like Skyrim, you can be the Dragonborn, an assassin of the Dark Brotherhood, the Jarl of Whiterun, and the most powerful mage in the land. None of this means anything in the terms of the main narrative of the game. They are all side stories, disconnected in any meaningful way to the main storyline and your character's development/role within that story. Obviously I have played other RPGs since the release of Skyrim and this is a problem that permeates most RPGs at some level. There is simply no way to account for every single action you have taken as a player and have it meaningfully contribute to the narrative of the story. When I say Baldur's Gate 3 is magical, I say this because for a lot longer than I expected, I couldn't see this problem within the game. The game was a black box. Every thread I pulled on, even the most absurd ones, had some sort of worldly consequence, or was at least referenced back to in some meaningful way. It felt like this game was something that should have been impossible to make, and I absolutely loved it. The façade I'm describing does eventually show itself to be just that, a façade, the further into the game you get and the more choices and decisions you stack upon each other. As I progressed far into Act 2 and Act 3 it became a lot easier to make out the cogs in the system just as I had seen in all the other RPGs I had played. But at that point I was so sold on this game, so invested in the characters including my own avatar, that it didn't bother me. I was still determined to do everything and save as many people as possible on the Sword Coast, and after 140 something hours on my first playthrough I did just that. Unfortunately, the game does suffer a bit in Act 3, and really that is my only complaint with this game.
I had heard Act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3 did not stack up as well as the first 2 acts of the game. It was a long time until I reached the point where I could see it, but by the end of the game I had some noticeable experiences where I felt like the game could have handled its story threads better. The patch I was playing on at the time also had significant performance issues with Act 3 as well. It never ruined my experience, but at times it did take me out of the game. As I understand, these performance issues have been largely addressed post patch 5, but for the purposes of my review I was still impacted prior to this with Act 3.
Post patch 5, I absolutely love the ending of this game. The recently added epilogue was a much needed piece to the narrative. It brought each party members storyline to a much more satisfying end point, and it felt extremely personalized to me. It was exactly the ending I was hoping for and felt so fitting to my in-game experience and narrative I had been building in my head. I wish it had been there from the launch of the game, but I'm extremely grateful its here now.
I would also like to specifically compliment each of the writers and voice actors for the party members. Every single one of their storylines is compelling, and every single performance given is amazing. It's rare for an entire cast to knock their characters out of the park, but they all wildly succeeded. I loved them all.
To wrap this long review up: Baldur's Gate 3 was the most jaw dropping RPG i have played in a long time. My time with the game was some of my favorite in recent memory and I already feel that bittersweet sadness you experience when something you love has come to an end. It seems Larian Studios keeps adding things in updates to the game, so it'll be a game I continue to keep my eye on for a long time still.
Baldur's Gate 3 absolutely blew me away and ate up so much of my time this year. On the first week of the PS5 release, I sank an ungodly amount of time into this game, exploring every corner of Act I and trying to pick up on all of the diverse mechanics present. As someone who has never played DND before or any of the previous Larian Studios games, there was a bit of a learning curve, but that didn't matter; I was immediately immersed in everything Baldur's Gate 3 had to offer. For me, Baldur's Gate 3 offered an experience I so rarely have in games today. When I played Baldur's Gate 3, it felt magical.
Maybe it's odd to use the phrase magical to describe a video game, but I mean it sincerely. As someone who plays a lot of games and has had his fair share of experience with all sorts of RPGs, Baldur's Gate 3 feels special in the way that it is distinctly different from most of the other games in the genre. My largest gripe with most RPGs is the lack of consequences to the arbitrary choices they present to you. In games like Skyrim, you can be the Dragonborn, an assassin of the Dark Brotherhood, the Jarl of Whiterun, and the most powerful mage in the land. None of this means anything in the terms of the main narrative of the game. They are all side stories, disconnected in any meaningful way to the main storyline and your character's development/role within that story. Obviously I have played other RPGs since the release of Skyrim and this is a problem that permeates most RPGs at some level. There is simply no way to account for every single action you have taken as a player and have it meaningfully contribute to the narrative of the story. When I say Baldur's Gate 3 is magical, I say this because for a lot longer than I expected, I couldn't see this problem within the game. The game was a black box. Every thread I pulled on, even the most absurd ones, had some sort of worldly consequence, or was at least referenced back to in some meaningful way. It felt like this game was something that should have been impossible to make, and I absolutely loved it. The façade I'm describing does eventually show itself to be just that, a façade, the further into the game you get and the more choices and decisions you stack upon each other. As I progressed far into Act 2 and Act 3 it became a lot easier to make out the cogs in the system just as I had seen in all the other RPGs I had played. But at that point I was so sold on this game, so invested in the characters including my own avatar, that it didn't bother me. I was still determined to do everything and save as many people as possible on the Sword Coast, and after 140 something hours on my first playthrough I did just that. Unfortunately, the game does suffer a bit in Act 3, and really that is my only complaint with this game.
I had heard Act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3 did not stack up as well as the first 2 acts of the game. It was a long time until I reached the point where I could see it, but by the end of the game I had some noticeable experiences where I felt like the game could have handled its story threads better. The patch I was playing on at the time also had significant performance issues with Act 3 as well. It never ruined my experience, but at times it did take me out of the game. As I understand, these performance issues have been largely addressed post patch 5, but for the purposes of my review I was still impacted prior to this with Act 3.
Post patch 5, I absolutely love the ending of this game. The recently added epilogue was a much needed piece to the narrative. It brought each party members storyline to a much more satisfying end point, and it felt extremely personalized to me. It was exactly the ending I was hoping for and felt so fitting to my in-game experience and narrative I had been building in my head. I wish it had been there from the launch of the game, but I'm extremely grateful its here now.
I would also like to specifically compliment each of the writers and voice actors for the party members. Every single one of their storylines is compelling, and every single performance given is amazing. It's rare for an entire cast to knock their characters out of the park, but they all wildly succeeded. I loved them all.
To wrap this long review up: Baldur's Gate 3 was the most jaw dropping RPG i have played in a long time. My time with the game was some of my favorite in recent memory and I already feel that bittersweet sadness you experience when something you love has come to an end. It seems Larian Studios keeps adding things in updates to the game, so it'll be a game I continue to keep my eye on for a long time still.