I've played 2 out of the 3 routes as of writing this review but I have burnout from how grindy and repetitive it is. The earlier stages are fine, but once you get closer to the endgame you'll be speeding through everything just to progress the story, which is reflected by the way all your recruits say they can't wait for the fighting to end. Me fucking too. Three Hopes does very little to fix the half-assed story of its parent game, but there are a few key differences. Dimitri is still stupid and easily manipulated, but this time he can't excuse it with mental illness. Claude actually gets to be the master strategist Three Houses says he is, but gets nerfed by his complete inability to be a leader (I liked this development).
(Will be updated when I finish Scarlet Blaze)

I don't wanna give this an average rating just to complain about it, so I'll say that I agree with the consensus about Shez being better than Byleth, the inclusion of the Ashen Wolves without a DLC package, and Yuri x Sylvain's B support providing the best yaoi fuel any Three Houses interaction ever has.

I like call this game my problem child. I discovered it at a very difficult time in my life and its messy, in-your-face narrative and loud, flamboyant gameplay were exactly what I needed. By no means would I call this game a masterpiece. It contradicts its own themes multiple times and there are certain unnecessary plot points that continue to piss me off even 5 years after first playing it, but I'll be damned if it's not entertaining as hell, which for a game that easily clears 100 hours of playtime, is kind of necessary.

Baldur's Gate was my proper introduction into the Forgotten Realms setting. And needless to say, I loved it. The open-world exploration, the weirdos who could potentially join your party, the way it interwove an urgent story with regular tabletop hijinks that is seldom seen in other D&D based CRPGs...it was a truly memorable experience. But the gap between the first and second installments in the series always bugged me, and would bug me until Siege of Dragonspear was announced. I was thrilled for some truly fresh content after so many years, and once all was said and done...meh. It was okay.

The first thing of note in Siege of Dragonspear is the departure from BG's typical open world maps. This is an okay change, since your character is serving in an army and straying too far from camp for in-game weeks on end would be textbook desertion, but it removes part of the initial charm the original titles had.

Second, the characters. Roughly half of the original cast of BG party members either return as party members or are relegated to cameos, as well as all of the Enhanced Edition arrivals and 4 brand new exclusives. Credit where it's due, the old characters actually feel more real than they did in BG1. However, as expected, the Beamdog additions stick out like a sore thumb in terms of writing and nuance, but none of them are particularly bad. The new antagonists, however...

This brings me to my third point: Caelar. Oh boy, Caelar. Unlike the other main villains of the BG franchise, SoD tries to make you feel bad about fighting her, and it's...actually somewhat warranted. Objectively, what she's doing is wrong, but she shows she's willing to cooperate with you even as she targets you and she has a tragic enough backstory, so she had the potential to be really compelling. Aaaand then big reveal happens followed by surprise crossover followed by some shitty last-minute endgame railroading and then SoD falls flat on its face. I mean, not that it was that impressive to begin with, but the ending really sealed the mediocre rating I ended up giving. Meanwhile Irenicus is stalking the player in the background the whole game and he still manages to be a better antagonist.

Would I say it's worth playing? Probably...

Ah shit. I knew I was forgetting something. I know it's been 6 years, but I can't finish this review without mentioning it.

As you probably already know, there's a minor character in the game who's canonically transfem and naturally caused transphobes to cry and piss their pants in the weeks following SoD's release. If you're one of those people: look, buddy. Changing your gender in the Forgotten Realms universe is literally as easy as casting a spell. Literally instant HRT. It was always canon. On the other hand, Amber Scott is also in the wrong for smelling her own farts on account of her barebones shoehorned representation. As someone who struggled with my own gender identity for a long time, to both parties: go fuck yourselves.

And now I'm done. Play it if you want, I guess.

A pleasant surprise. Atlus could have easily just milked Persona 5 and given us a lame cash grab, or hell, a gacha (cough Square Enix), but nope. This is an honest-to-god sequel. And dare I say it, it stays true to its themes better than the original, and isn't constantly backpedaling on itself. All I can say without spoiling it is that it just makes more sense narratively from beginning to end. That being said, this game has the same basic formula as Persona 5, and that comes with its less charming trademarks, such as characters constantly repeating things that were already really obvious to the player (which can be forgiven cause, let's face it, Persona fans at large are fucking morons), or Ryuji being singled out and picked on by the rest of the group for no reason. However, it's (mostly) fixed the endgame asspulls and everyone gets a roughly equal amount of screentime, so in my heart, it gave my problem child game a pretty good sendoff. Overall, I'd definitely recommend it for fans of the original, but probably not for JRPG fans.

Easily the best material that NWN1 has to offer, simply because it just brings the most to the table. A high-stakes, high-level campaign, double the level cap, and a welcome departure from your typical medieval European fantasy setting that too many RPGs fall back on. I'll admit I'm biased because the Underdark is one of my personal favorite Forgotten Realms locations, but what more could you ask for? Well, aside from asking early 2000s Bioware to remove some of their cringier trademarks. You know the ones: lackluster, Macguffin-based storytelling, forced angst for every single party member that they whine endlessly about to you because there's no therapists, and don't get me STARTED on the vapid savior-complex romance arcs. Yeah, it's still got plenty of that. As much as tieflings are objectively sexy, if he started trauma dumping on me within days of meeting me that would be it. But I digress. All in all, this is a solid 20-hour campaign that's well worth buying (and completely ignoring) the forgettable original campaign and Shadows of Undrentide for.

Absolutely worth the 3-year wait. Adds a lot of interesting elements to the established gameplay formula, and there isn't a single character that gets left behind in terms of development (Susie in particular is now one of my favorites). The new setting is also as imaginative as you'd expect, and is probably the best and longest joke about the Internet ever. That's really all I can say without spoiling anything, so I'll just finish by saying that once again, Toby has proven that he really is just That Good.

In a word: underwhelming. $25 for a predictable story that takes under 10 hours to finish, and the final boss only took me 5 turns to beat. Character interaction is kept to a minimum, and assuming you've played through the main story on every route, you're expected to slog through yet another iteration of White Clouds to actually get to know the new characters. Don't get me wrong, the Ashen Wolves are all pretty solid, but not enough for me to play Three Houses a fourth time. As such, Cindered Shadows comes off as a prolonged, interactive ad more than an actual new campaign. And the final nail in the coffin: the villain's tragic backstory had me cackling. The fact that it's actually kind of challenging when compared to the main game (final boss excluded) and Balthus' tiddies are the only good things to come from this.

Spoiler for anyone who cares below:





He gets cucked by Jeralt.