i would just like to say: i will remain loyal to shadowheart, but 1: gale is one smooth wizard, 2: karlach is so cool and sexy and fun that my next character may have to be entirely based on hooking up with her, lol

man, i really like some people here a whole lot, but i feel tired when there's a new game i like and the popular reviews are all lists of things the writer hates about it and none of the positive. i've known people in the past who were very passionate about film and fucking hated 99% of the movies they saw and that shit exhausts me. it's probably why i've kinda stopped writing anything of substance here (if i ever did). it's such a lonely feeling when you're more inclined to seek out the good in things while everyone else is intent on tearing it all down. depressing.

Not checking the page for the hot new game every so often did wonders for me, but I will say I don't exactly mind it this time since the qualms of BG3 seem pretty understanding. Still, I'll give it like... 2-3 weeks before the dust settles.

@blazingwaters: yeah, it's often that period where the game is fresh that all the negativity is at its most rampant. i watched a number of people go from ripping elden ring to shreds to quietly upping their rating to 5/5. i figure the same will happen here, too. and i'm not at all saying i think that none of the complaints i've read have been apt — i agree with some of it, and i certainly have my own issues with the game! but it's a pattern i've noticed on this site and i wish people would just sit on their thoughts for a bit longer instead of coming out swinging because there's some sort of pressure to be the first to have something to say, for their words to be the most salient, and nobody wants egg on their face for saying they like a thing.

gaming and, as you mentioned, film are probably the most vitriolic in terms of first impressions among popular releases, it feels like every time I hit a great page detailing the negatives and positives there's another creeping up that swings so hard in one direction I have to ignore it and move on, to backloggd's credit though I haven't used the block feature as often as I have on letterboxd. i don't want to act like i'm above this, i'm very much guilty of this be it from playing them or looking at their trailers (I will say now that I never liked nor got the appeal of Hi Fi Rush even back during its shadowdrop reveal), but ya know. balance and all that. hoping we'll get

also that one 'skramzlegend' person moaning about reviewers criticizing the character creation's stunted presentation of gender types is super funny, there's the obvious reason of them being really weird and pestering about this, but there's also the irony aspect considering the population fans of the genre make up in it. the day i meet a cis skramz fan would be a shock ngl.

@blazingwaters: i blocked that skramzlegend dork with the swiftness after deleting their dipshit "bAsEd ReViEw, EvErYoNe eLsE is SoY" comment. i hate that kind of language, for one thing, and that just isn't the sentiment i want to convey here. they mentioned character creation specifically and the common complaint i've seen that i very much do agree with is that for as proud of it as larian seems to be, it actually is very limited and notably shallow and almost dehumanizingly fetishistic wrt genitalia options. that's not the sort of qualm i find troubling. the stuff getting under my skin right now is the volume of declarations that the game is boring and that there's no room for subtlety to any of your companions' characterization or their individual subplots and so forth... that's the sort of thing that makes me feel like i'm not even playing the same game. i've actually seen few (if any) complaints about some of the bizarre and infuriating results of the diceroll system and sometimes very strangely limited dialogue options — e.g., in one conversation with gale, i had 3 options: flirt, another flirt, or tell him i hate cats. what the fuck? but the vast majority of it is really good and succeeds in making me feel empowered to rp my character in more or less a way that fits with what i imagine my character to be and to think. i'm not bored, i'm overwhelmed by the scale and richness of the world and the happenings within.

oh, one other thing: it does seem like a large number of people who play video games, on this site or elsewhere, feel compelled to play everything that comes out whether they think they'll like it or not. i don't have that kind of time or money! there are too many games i want to play because i think i'll enjoy them. if there's something i think i won't like, i am probably just not going to pay it any mind!

i haven't finished any of Larian's works yet but I'm pretty bummed to hear the dicerolling isn't better. Playing DOS1 and having to deal with the really bad RPS mechanic severely hurt the type of roleplaying I was gonna do for my two MCs, since I now feel like I have to make them agree with each other just to avoid it despite not wanting to deviate from my path. I understand there had to be something in regards to both singles and duos, but there could've been a better way.

That being said it is made up for the fact that they seem pretty freeforming in customization, pseudo or real. Like I remember Dragon Commander (I believe their commonly cited weakest game?) having you either make nice or mess with the officials on your ship, and it felt pretty cool to drive around the conversation even if the aspect there is pretty middling. There's also the combat but I don't think that much needs to be elaborated on, and in DOS1 I like how you could be able to douse the burning ship with just... a water balloon. That's pretty funny.

I've seen some complaints about the writing and honestly, I'm not bothered. I pretty much accepted that Larian's a "gameplay first, writing second" type of studio, which they seem to shine in. I do hope it's not too casual like pre-Enhanced Edition DOS1 casually dropping stuff like "sup dude?". Or I could be misremembering that...

@blazingwaters: i think the writing is (as of over 20 hours in, yet still in act 1) a bit of a step up from d:os2 and definitely from d:os1 (i only played the 'classic' version and i could hardly tell you what it was about, though i did enjoy the game). there's no "sup dude" or anything like that — i think the worst i've noticed is npcs saying "look me up when you get to baldur's gate" which had me wondering if there's a sword coast phonebook or some equivalent. (was "look me up" even something people said before we had telephone directories?)

wrt dicerolls, i have been a bit tempted to see if there's a mod that reduces their presence to some extent (at least in dialogue) because they are constant and i don't think it often makes sense to have to roll on the outcome of a line a character of some given background would obviously say successfully. or things they would observe in the world, and so forth...

i have put 80+ hours into this game and still have not completed my first run. three of those hours were in the character creator. i stay up late thinking about my character and their interactions with this wonderful cast. i haven't felt this way about an RPG since, well, dragon age origins, which will forever be one of the most magical experiences i had with a game. hopefully you've made it as far as i have at least by now. saluting you and your wonderful dose of positivity amongst the Technically Fair but, frankly, mostly unwarranted negativity.

@aeon: thanks! i just last night started act 2, and i'm a bit over 60 hours in. admittedly, i think part of why i feel the way i do comes from wanting to love this game — and for the most part, i do. my biggest complaints at this point remain diceroll-related or about various things that have me reloading far more frequently than i'd like to, but some of that is more of a problem with my own expectations rather than the game itself, i think.

that being said, it's a fantastic game and i especially love my current party of shadowheart, karlach, and gale. i never would have chosen to roll a paladin in virtually any other game, where their defining traits were lawful and pious — here, i really feel like the oath of ancients paladin operates based on real love and kindness in appreciation of life and nature, free of fascist baggage. it's wonderful. but it does mean i feel somewhat beholden to maintaining the image i want for my character in a somewhat less rigid way, e.g. they would never kick a small animal to its violent death and grin sadistically even if the territorial creature did harmlessly attack first (hence, reload). and while i could complain about larian's qualities as a virtual dm, i appreciate that i do at least have the freedom to reload and do things in a way i find more satisfying and truer to the character i've imagined. it's not even a "cup half full" way of seeing it — the cup is overflowing!

oh, yes, definitely in a similar boat here. i believe there are several aspects of the game worth criticism, namely related to the character creation's regard for trans bodies as well as a rather clumsy implementation of the non-binary gender selection, which i am hoping is the result of bugs rather than negligence – there have been increasing numbers of instances of characters referring to my nonbinary character with either masculine or feminine pronouns and terms. i would have loved more body type variations, the inclusion of scars, being able to toggle and slide for different shapes... really capturing the divergent gender experience. i am transgender and also intersex so i think that while i prefer larian's approach to, for example, CP2077's (likely unintentionally) transphobic approach to pronouns, there is still much to be desired. i was gifted this game during early access and had hoped that feedback on this front would have encouraged these tweaks to the implementation, but i have felt a little disappointed so far.

there are other things like bugs and in general all of the flaws that are present in 5e naturally, and i definitely agree on dice rolls. if you haven't already, i do recommend turning the karmic dice off. i'm not even sure what it does, really! but my rolling experience has been much better since.

but i think what is most important to me is that i am having so much genuine fun in spite of areas i feel like there can and should be improvement. i'm taking the experience for what it is on its own merits. currently i am playing the dark urge, which has many wonderful nods to those who have played baldur's gate 2 and also makes very wonderful changes to the story and how your character interacts with it. i really recommend you give it a shot after your current run if you'd like a different, albeit potentially darker and more fraught, roleplay experience! i certainly plan on replaying this game many more times at the rate the main scenario is going and my hopes for the ending. i'll definitely keep you posted on my end, and i'm so glad you can share your own joy with everyone. our cups runneth over!

also...your party is wonderful! there isn't a single party member i dislike, but i especially love karlach, astarion, gale, and shadowheart. my current party is karlach, astarion, and wyll – i swap around my members often and managed to snag two other optional companions – and we are about to take act 3 by storm!

@aeon: i was really liking wyll at first, having then been ignoring gale for the most part because he didn't strike me as particularly interesting at first, but once he began to reveal himself i had to swap him in. his voice actor is probably my favorite of the lot, with karlach coming in at a close second. i'll include wyll in a later playthrough for sure — probably my next run, where i foresee myself going dark urge and including jaheira. i mean, i haven't even encountered jaheira yet and maybe i won't be able to resist involving her in this run, but i really enjoy my present party and would like to save some things for the next run and i feel like dark urge + jaheira romance could be particularly fruitful, if possible... (though this also means i'd be delaying my karlach romance to a third run and fuck i really like her a lot, haha)

we can only hope that the character creation is expanded upon and improved with time, especially with regard to gender and body specifics. it's wonderful that they decided to make everyone open to a relationship sex/gender-agnostic, but feeling like your character truly represents what you want them to be and having this properly and consistently recognized would add so much to that.

@detchibe: why'd you even bother to reply if you were just going to block me for daring to ask you for an elaboration on some of your criticisms? lol, sheesh.

i'm hoping this will be taken in the good faith in which it is meant given that we shared a productive discussion. can I just ask: why are you doing this? why are you engaging in what appears for all the world to me to be an attempt police critical perspectives on an overwhelmingly beloved game when said perspectives get likes? why are you pettily sniping at someone who blocked you like this? people can block each other for whatsoever reason they choose, and it's hard not to see why one might choose to do so if you are behaving like this. it's hard to read what you said in my own comments with the good faith i gave it given your comments to user detchibe, especially since you did the exact same thing of attempting to snidely undermine their perspective on the basis of playtime that you did with me.

it's not a failing or a problem that other people don't share your perspective or are taking different things away from a game. the nature of a CRPG is that different will people will engage with it in different ways and have different takeaways, is it not? people disagreeing is just the way of the world, and if it bothers you that multiple people have liked a particular disagreement, then i don't really know what to say other than that doesn't sound particularly healthy. the game has more 5-Star ratings than any other rating combined. it's the second highest-rated game of the year. it doesn't really seem reasonable to me to claim that there is in any way a zeitgeist of negativity towards BG3, nor does it seem in any way polite to, intentionally or otherwise, attempt to undermine other opinions like this.

you are, evidently, enjoying the game a great deal. isn't that enough?

@monalisaoverdrive: well, honestly, i do feel a little shitty about bothering someone i liked enough to end up blocked. for what it's worth, detchibe wasn't just a user previously unknown to me that i was harassing because their review was getting likes — they were someone i had been following on this site for... i'm not sure, 2-3 years? though i'm not sure that they felt any mutual appreciation for anything i've ever put up here. i would guess probably not.

as for why i decided to go this route... i don't know, maybe i'm just being a little autistic about certain claims that ring false to me and seeking either to understand or to encourage others to reevaluate the wording of these claims (to reflect that they are about the player writing the review at least as much as they are about a game that others are experiencing differently). and, um, i was actually pretty satisfied with detchibe's reply even if it wasn't exactly what i might have hoped for, so i felt like blocking me was rather unnecessary... hence my "pettily sniping" comment about it above. i didn't feel like i was being rude, but i guess that directly and humbly challenging a review (by someone i had liked and supported for a considerable time) rather than just writing my own isn't appreciated and i find that a little disappointing.

i do want to say i think it's a little unfair to accuse me of disagreeing "on the basis of playtime" when it's not the time alone that matters, but the volume of experience with a very long game, one full of moments that go far beyond whatever one might glean from the first few hours. i can't help but feel a game like this is owed a bit more investment before particular criticisms are of any real value. (emphasizing that this is how ~i~ feel, of course, and i don't expect everyone to agree. i think that having too strong of an opinion on something one has only just dipped their toes into is a bit of a failing...) i didn't think there would be any harm in pushing back a little when it came to dealing with a person whose reviews i had really enjoyed and respected for quite a while. i'm not so concerned with the matter of whether or not the majority of people like the game or how they've rated it (and if anything i feel like it's too soon to give the game any rating, but... again, just me).

you're right, though: when i expressed concern about the backloggd 'zeitgeist' i was really only considering the relatively small group of people i follow, and not so much the site at large. it does seem pretty unreasonable of me to feel this way when the game is clearly well-received in a broader sense and now i feel like i've only managed to be a nuisance, tedious at best, when i guess i hoped i might add something to the conversation unfolding a bit more directly before me, among peers. so, yeah, i'm sorry for being such a bother. i won't be doing whatever it was i thought i was doing with you or detchibe again.

p.s. sorry for all the deleted comments — i guess trying to italicize 'i' breaks tags. edit comments feature when...