#but this was my tadpole free playthrough and damn it if I wasn't going to see that through

[midnightwind]

so I beat BG3 finally and I have.... Opinions. This is going to be Very Long and full of spoilers, obviously, so fair warning

So to open with, I do really like Act 1 and 2. They have solid pacing and while Act 2 might be missing more side content, it does makes sense given the whole curse making it difficult to move freely without always having a torch out which can severely impact some builds. So I'm glad we don't spend very much time having to deal with that. (I am dual wielding thief rogue scum, so the torch was Agony)

I think Act 1 does an okay job leading you towards the goblin camp as the big end all of the story section while letting you also decide to hop into the Underdark for extra optional content. The Creche is kind of nightmarish depending on your choices, but I think it's still good content. I simply don't care for the Gith much as a people, but they're an important story beat so it's nice to get more of them before you delve into cursed lands. A1 has a nice balance of exploring and side content to do and I really never feel lost or in a lull. I have a goal and the freedom to do whatever else I want on my way to it. Plus the companions have a lot to say and a bunch of interactions together, especially if you change out a member periodically to trigger new ones.

Act 2 is a bit more rail road-y story wise, but you have the little side quests for Astarion and Shadowheart to pursue, helping Halsin, and a few npc quests to pick up or find. I think the inn defense is a bit of a nightmare because Jaheira will sometimes just nuke the tieflings for daring to be near an enemy, so trying to keep everyone alive is.... it can be a lot. But that's going to be more rng to blame than anything else I suppose. And like, if you don't care about saving everyone then it's a breeze I'm sure, I'm just a goody two shoes. The only bad time I really had in Act 2 was due to bugs, so that wasn't the story's fault! (I fell through the floor and only survived because of Thief's passive to reduce falling damage) Well, okay, the Nightsong fight also sucked. Shove being a bonus action is bullshit and also why would they make that such a problem on a floating rock? I had to redo that fight so, so many times to have my party all make it to round 2 without someone getting launched into the void. But otherwise! The build up to Ketheric and actual execution of his fight were all really good. (Well, I skipped phase 1 of his fight because funny persuasion, but I digress)

They really made you worried about Ketheric, showed how much power and sway he had over the land, especially by making him the source of the curse that was poisoning the land. They went in on making him the big dead boss you had to work to beat. I was excited to see what Gortash and Orin had working for them in Act 3!

But then I actually did Act 3, and man, you can feel the rush here. There's just so much squished into the city to the point where having it split in half doesn't help. The game can barely handle how much it has to always have loaded and moving. And the amount of story feels like they were going to have 4 Acts total, but then were told to push the game out and they just had to throw it all into one Act and hope. I think having Tav deal with either Gortash or Orin for Act 3 would have been better for the pacing and allowed for both of the villains to get proper sway over the city they were taking over.

Gortash has some sway with the Steel Watch stomping around, but they really aren't all that threatening unless you decide to slap one on the ass in the town square. You get a glimpse at what they really wanted to do with Gortash at his coronation, but it never really leaves Wyrm's Rock. Maybe it's because I was playing Rogue and sneaking past every locked door, but I never felt like Gortash was a threat. He was more like a snotty kid in the corner muttering rude names at you. The second he tries to go for you without the public eye around, he's dead. He doesn't even do a good job manipulating you. He's all about schemes and having power over people, but his solution when he sees Tav and the gang is to just... ask them to kill Orin for him and share in the power afterwards. Which would make sense if he hadn't led with the whole killing his last partner idea. Why should Tav trust him to hold up his end of the bargain if he clearly would rather rule solo? If Gortash has full control over the city, or the beginnings of it, shouldn't he be making connections with the big entities? Shouldn't he know more about the group of adventurers set on ruining his plans? He clearly can have Orin walk around the camp whenever he wants, so why isn't he turning any of the companions' baggage against them? He could link up with Cazador to send Astarion into a panic, snap up any stragglers of Karlach's friends to keep her from playing baseball with his head, tempt Gale with magical secrets and knowledge of Netherese. He had an in against Jaheira with Orin's shapechangers infiltrating the Harpers, but apparently they suck at their jobs because they got caught instantly, and also the game just shrugs and doesn't have us save the Harpers. Like, so many of the companions are linked to Baldur's Gate somehow and it isn't used to control them. If you take out the foundry, Gortash is just a guy in a booby trapped room with two goons. There is some poetic justice there about how the schemer is just a man at the end of the day, but Tav doesn't do anything to take his power away outside of getting rid of the mechs and maybe changing a single day's paper printing, if you were so inclined. We have no chance to stop the coronation, to break up the blackmailing and mind controlled nobility, hell he doesn't even make it hard to walk the streets if you betray him! He's supposed to be the schemer, the brains behind the operation, so why does he just sit in his castle and do nothing? He could enforce a curfew, forcing the gang underground and into back alleys. Like, I could see it making some builds more tedious to get around with, but they needed to show his power over the city somehow. The Steel Watch just don't cut it, in my opinion. (I also basically one shot him in his fight with 0 traps even going off so perhaps my opinion is colored by that experience)

Orin, then, well... she barely exists as a problem honestly. She steals a party member a few days after Gortash warns you about her, but the reveal just removes the taken character and you're left down a man. She's a serial killer, Bhaal's own unholy assassin who can change her shape as easy as one dons a cloak. So why does she let her ruse be revealed so easily? I think it would have been more compelling, more insidious if she were to take Tav's love interest (or highest approval companion) and just never reveal it's her. You could stumble across the real companion later, mayhaps fleeing from the cult in the sewers, and be forced to make the call on who's real and who's the fake. We have multiple forms of revival in the game, so you could make this hurt without actually losing a companion forever. You would never know when the switch happened and if you chose wrong, imagine how gut wrenching that would be! Instead her cult is more annoying than she is. The whole Sanctuary mechanic is tedious, the amount of the fuckers in the city begs belief, and having to try to save random npcs on a bloody note proves extremely annoying quickly. We don't know the npcs being targeted which is fine, but when I've restarted 3 times to try and distract the 8 assassins with my party so they don't hit the 50 health citizen 20 times, I start thinking the random shop keep might be better off dead. And it is doable, to save them, it just takes so much to pull it off. Again, maybe it's because I was going through the game determined to save everyone, or near enough, so what should have been moments of feeling helpless were more just a huge pain in the ass. The threat of Orin is too simple because they drop the doppleganger act so fast. Plus, she even offers to call off the killings if you take care of Gortash for her and then meet her for a duel! She solves herself. I think it's honestly a disservice to the idea of the character and she feels like a lot of the ideas behind her just weren't given the time they needed to pan out.

And then we move past them, to the Elder Brain. You spend all of Act 3 working your way up to either taking over this thing or killing it. And then you get stuck in extremely long mob fights for the next few hours before finally reaching the damn thing and it's both a dps check and a fucking heal check. The whole endeavor was a pure slog to me and making the summon allies a full action made it feel like it was just never worth it, I could dish out more damage with my own actions. Plus, the allies can't even follow you inside to deal with the brain so at best you use an action to summon hopeful meat shields. It feels like a poorer version of the defense of Denerim in DA:O. The other companions aren't shown doing anything, or even really hinted at doing anything except for like, 4 of them being at the rallying meeting. And the choice between supporting the Emperor or freeing Orpheus! It felts terrible either way! Support the entity keeping you safe, but lying the whole time who doesn't seem willing to talk about it's plans after dealing with the brain or free the trapped Prince of the Gith and hope he doesn't instantly kill you or lead his people to kill everyone in a war of conquest under a new name because you honestly have no idea what he'll do. It's shit either way.

The actual character endings are rather sparse. Also, fuck whoever thought it'd be funny to have Astarion running off screen if you destroy the brain and the vampire rules reassert themselves. You spend the whole game with him mentioning loving the sunlight and seeing the world how he used to. And then you make it a joke when he loses that? It's a heartbreaking moment and it was ruined by having it framed that way. It felt cruel.

I only got to see the epilogue with Astarion, because I romanced him, and Karlach returning to the Hells with Wyll and while they were both nice, they felt very short. I wanted to see what everyone would do, if the gang would stick together or stay in contact. How would they settle into the remains of the city, who would tag along if Tav decides to adventure on, do they have reunions or get togethers, do we get to have that party? It feels so rushed, like a lot was cut to ship the game out, and the companions all suffer for it. Granted this is if you destroy the brain. The endings where you take it over seem even shorter, albeit executed well for the power trip they're setting up, but you don't get much beyond that to my knowledge. (I haven't gone back to see all of them yet) I spent something like 130-140 hours in this one play through. You spend the whole game working up to this confrontation, this resolution, and it feels so truncated. Even just a still image of the landscape or characters with some text slapped on top to detail how they wrapped up the adventure would have been better than having 80% of the gang forgotten. I didn't take them all out into the world, finishing their personal quests, to have them be left behind like that. I love them all and I wanted to see their happy endings.

I loved my time in Faerun, despite it all, and I'm just a little disappointed with how the last act played out. I wish the game had been allowed more time to be finished, for the love and care that so clearly shines in Acts 1 and 2 to be allowed to flourish in Act 3. The people who made this game clearly care, and they had a story to tell, and it leaves a bitter taste behind that they so clearly were not permitted to tell it how they wanted to.

[toxicnotebook]

Okay! So, the endings I got in BG3. Putting them under a cut so I don't accidentally spoil anyone:

Orpheus got turned. I didn't want to turn my Tav into a mindflayer- especially since I didn't upgrade my tadpole at ALL during this run- and I definitely wasn't turning Karlach, so the prince was my only choice. And I'm glad I did- I got a damn good heroic sacrifice plotline, and his mindflayer form is RIDICULOUSLY overpowered.

This bit of dialogue I got right before freeing him was funny:

Also Raphael you SON OF A BITCH:

Symbolic drawings, etched over a forgotten text. Two figures, one an imposing female with a regal aspect, the other, a Devil, his face twisted with wry charm. Their hands meet in the exchange of an artefact- the Astral Prism.

IT WAS ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT. I'M GLAD YOU SLIPPED ON ICE AND HOPE GOT TO KILL YOU.

Speaking of Orpheus:

Lae'zel became the leader of the Githyanki rebellion, with a silver sword and a sweet red dragon! I also gave her the Githyanki egg:

She now has an adopted son named Xan. Awwwwww.

Karlach & Wyll went to Avernus together, and MAN I thought I fucked this one up for a hot minute. After Karlach had her heartwrenching breakdown after we killed Gortash, I panicked a little and looked up how to get her happiest ending. I was relieved that I had already locked in Karlach's good end by nudging Wyll to become the Blade of Avernus.

....and then she started burning up on the docks and the scene just kept going and going without any dialogue choices and I was like OH NO I MESSED UP SHE'S GONNA DIE. The RELIEF I felt when Wyll spoke up- MAN.

I high-key ship them now, btw. I love wholesome battle couples okay!! Oh, and:

GET MIZORA'S ASS WYLL, SHE SUCKS.

I was lowkey thinking of changing Wyll's class to ranger in my next playthrough, so thank you, Larian, for justifying that future decision

The one who got away, Shadowheart! The platonic hug is so freaking cute.

She now has a cute woodland cottage with her parents and five million animals- annnnnd the owlbear:

Best girl gets best floofball

Halsin runs an orphanage in the no-longer-Shadow-Cursed lands, and yeah. That totally suits him.

Gale's new job as a professor in Illusion Magic suits him as well. I was a little worried I would get a negative ending after I encouraged him to leave the crown in the sea, but nope! The orb is inert, he has a job he loves, and he didn't go back to his shitty ex. Yay!

Jaheira is busy assisting the rebuilding efforts in Balder's Gate, along with her children.

Minsc is... busy being Minsc

Minthara is plotting to topple Lolth with other drow rebels in the Underdark, and I could have CLAPPED when she said that, because:

I PICKED THE OPTION TO LEAD THE RELEASED VAMPIRE SPAWN IN THE UNDERDARK WITH ASTARION. Minthara's rebellion will have a unit comprised of vampires in my game's timeline, yes indeed.

Basically, I got happy-ish endings for everyone, despite thinking I had screwed up some of the routes. And I'm glad! As Astarion puts it:

A few more things:

This made me chuckle. I'm also going to ignore Scratch's canon ending- he was my Tav's familiar, that means he is HER dog, okay.

I just thought this was a nice easter egg

HE'S FUCKING JERGAL?? WITHERS??? HOW DID I MISS THIS. HOW.

...love that he's dunking on the Dead Three. You tell em, bone man!

[hikorzik]

So, after like 70 hours I finished my 1st playthrough oh BG3 and I gotta say :

- Love the game and the characters they're all so very cool that rocked

- Fuck act 3 and fuck the ending, it felt wrong to me for reasons that are below the line

Still a good experience but all in all I think it mainly gave me an itch to play Planescape Torment again...

So in all the game I decided against using any tadpoles or probing people's mind because I decided my monk wasn't into this Illithid shit and seeing as I romanced Lae'zel I respected her knowledge about them and her advice, bring "don't do that shit". However, as I wanted to free Orpheus because I feel like it was unfair to keep him here... I was forced by the game to negate all that I had built up to! Since you need to force someone to become illithid or become one yourself. I'm not forcing Orpheus because what would be the point of freeing him then. I'm not forcing anybody from my crew to become an illithid since none of them wanted to use the tadpole before. So... I could only sacrifice myself. I found this vastly unsatisfiying as imo I was led to believe there would be consequences to using (or not) the tadpole stuff and 1/ there were none and 2/ I was forced to negate all that I did and become a flayer anyway. I don't understand what this achieves, narratively. Nobody really minds beyond some jokes or awkwardness. I have now lost my soul. In the last fight I still just whacked on the damn brain and almost never used my newfound powers because... I had never used them before. Didn't know what they did. Didn't feel like trying on the *last fight*.

Gameplay wise act 3 tired me out a lot too. It was way too long, I was overleveled all the way and at the end I was at max level with my best stuff just going through the motions. I could have just not done those side quests but I really can't see myself not doing all the character quests I don't want a bad end for any of them. And I hated a lot of the late game encounters, which I guess are there because of how dd5e works. Getting zerg rushed by dozens of enemies that take long to take their turns was really u fun, especially in the factory and in shar's temple. The courtyard fight too was unfun to me and felt like a slog. And like I said before giving me newfound powers I never used before juste before the last fight was meh. Just used a potion of resistance, dimension door'd to the brain and used the stones and voilà lol. A bit anticlimactic for a last fight.

Otherwise I feel like progression in the first 2 acts was very cool. Especially act 2 with the cursed lands : lots to do, but in an area where you are still discovering a lot as you go. The city of baldur's gate had too much in too little space at a point when I really just wanted to get to something else.

Anyway I'm still glad I played this game!! Just gonna wait till way later for another playthrough.

[ciitrinitas]

baldur's gate 3.

100+ hours later, and i survived baldur's gate 3. it partly took me so goddamn long to finish because i got to the end of act 2 on my first character...only to find out it wasn't just me and that minthara is likely bugged (or has an insane amount of cut content, but i'm on hopium here). so i decided to restart on a second character as the dark urge to complete the story on whilst i await a minthara fix.

so, yeah. that was a choice i made! 🫠

to preface, however, while bg3 isn't a game i'm keeling over in sheer love for or a new favorite for me, i had a fucking blast playing it. any flaws or personal issues with the game aside, it is genuinely a ton of fun and full of shit to do.

long, scattered thoughts below the cut.

"huh, i wonder why there's so much grumpiness about the ending." ohhhh. i get you all now. the lack of ending cards or epilogues or any kind really stings when it's such a standard for wrpgs of this type. the main plot lost momentum for me early on when the urgency and desperation surrounding the tadpole infection slowed down, so i was vibing well enough with the ending until the lack of any epilogue hit. that is a weird oversight for a game like this and a sequel to games like bg1-2 and spiritually following games like dao.

biggest plot complaint with the ending: i choose to free orpheus because it's what my girl lae'zel wanted, so move aside, squid. in response, the emperor...skedaddled to join the fucking netherbrain????? what. i don't remotely understand this. did i miss some stuff about the emperor's motivations...? regardless, this was a bit of whiplash for me before i popped orpheus out then left him with no choice but to...abruptly turn into a mind flayer because...sorry, but my beautiful boy's skin isn't going to be sacrificed...nor karlach's despite her offer...and gale shut up about the damn nuke.

on villain side, i was disappointed with how little we saw the chosen. ketheric is introduced for a single scene earlier in act 2, but we only see orin and gortash by the end of it and then they aren't as present in act 3 as i would have hoped. ketheric is...fine (imo, i found his voice delivery kind of flat), and i appreciate the hammy glory that is aylin, so thanks for bringing isobel back, i guess. orin's design slaps, and her va's performance makes what could have been a too-much script really work. she's a bit more interesting if you're playing dark urge and have that backstory connection with her. gortash...i got a little caught up in shipping him with my dark urge half-elf boy in that coronation scene because of what good old murder pals the two used to be! but gortash gets killed by the netherbrain just because even if you side with him, so eh. better to let karlach have her revenge on his shady ass.

on my first character, i was initially set on romancing shadowheart until i learned about minthara and then was wildly divided between them. then i met minthara in person and next thing i knew, i had slaughtered refugees and druids and was married. 😌❤️ it really broke my heart a little to learn that she is (HAS TO BE) bugged when i turned my entire playthrough on its side to nab her. no regrets because she is easily one of my favorite characters, but a bummer. the crazy hot cultist lady exterior drew me in, but it was her intriguing character on the interior that got me to stay.

if it weren't for the whole "violently slaughtering the grove" thing being necessary to get minthara (unless you go out of your way to not do things or glitch it afaik), she'd be my default pick over halsin all the time, every time. halsin is deeply boring to me. he talks about nature...and then some more about nature...and more about nature. jaheira is more involved in the main plot than him, so an odd choice to cram a second druid in when he's much duller than minthara or jaheira.

jaheira, jaheira, jaheira! oooh, i adore jaheira! i'm familiar with bg1-2, so i knew the basic deets in jaheira. i really hope larian wrote her as a natural extension to her classic self because while i planned to play bg1-2 eventually, the urge is now truly powerful because jaheeeeeeeiiiiiira, my beloved. cool hot older woman who is just so good. that she partly has some batman in her with her four adopted kids is adorable... her house is so cute... that she has a keepsake from khalid, too... i want jaheira to be happy. 😭

UNLIKE ASTARION. look. i was pleasantly neutral with his ass until after visiting jaheira's home, he thought he could make a catty remark about jaheira being a horrible mother. i'm happy his final appearance in the good end of the game is him sprinting away as he burns and screams in the sun and gale weirdly comments that this will probs be the last time they all see him. fucking bizarre writing choice, but a victory for me. don't be mean to jaheira!! (in all seriousness, astarion is a perfectly fine character with solid writing. he isn't the type i tend to latch onto, and i was salty when he made such a bitchy comment about jaheira.)

gale gave me my favorite line in the game. if you're slutting it up, mr. wizard can hit you with one of those ultimatum conversations. if you pick to simple leave without a word, he says you are being a very cone of cold. i keep subjecting xofi to references to this. it's my favorite line. gloriously dweeby, and gloriously wizard-y. oh, gale. i can tell you don't have friends that aren't your magical flying cat, a very old man, and uh...your divine ex, i guess. he's like you transplanted a bard's personality into a wizard. he was fun to have around!

lae'zel...my abrasive darling. you know what, i'm glad she's inspiring "discourse" (aka "women wasn't 100% nice to me :(((") because it exposes the weaklings. if lae'zel is too mean for you, then thank you for letting us know. we must cull you so that we won't waste resources on you. the winter is harsh, and only those warmed by good taste will be able to endure. i'm happy for where my ending had her: orpheus went mind flayer and then i politely knifed him when he asked, so lae'zel was asked to carry on his torch in inciting her people against vlaakith's tyranny.

shadowheart is my meow meow. the eight-or-so hours of early access that i played two years ago had her as my favorite by the end and that was carried over into the full release. she and minthara are the favorites. my only real quibble with shadowheart's arc is that binary dnd god morality does not spark joy for me. worship of shar being so bluntly evil took me out of a bit. nice to see viconia, though!

i...honestly forgot wyll until a second ago. there's an interesting conceit to him, but he's woefully dull. he and halsin are just boring. i feel kind of bad that i'm so bored by wyll. there's a missing bite from him that i vaguely recall from early access. i get that the devs wanted a companion that is, like, good, but oh, wyll, buddy...idk what the hell they did to your writing.

minsc isn't a terribly deep character, but he's enjoyable when i view him as a charming addition to jaheira. i'm going to try and get him earlier in future playthroughs because i nabbed him terribly close to the end on this one. orz

karlach...i think here arc was my favorite of all the cast. in act 3, i had swapped lae'zel out for her for a bit and lae'zel ended up kidnapped by orin, so my defaulat party just ended up shifting to gale, shadowheart, and karlach. i'm pretty happy it ended up this way. i ran into some interesting conversations for her, and her reactions to things like my dark urge signing raphael's contract surprised me in their passion. she's effective at keeping up her cheer until the latter end of act 3 when the unfairness and shittiness of her situation come to head in some gorgeously acted scenes. her fury and despair at the tragedy someone else thrust her into is really fucking good. i'm not even mad about her ending. it can feel odd in the greater context of bg3, but for my tastes, i was fucking there for her having to pick between dying or return to live in a place she loathes.

this is a "era has personal preferences that don't align with the game's goals" thing, but i kind of wish the dark urge was the protagonist. i like even customizable mcs to have a bit of an arc built in despite that impacting the scope of roleplaying lmao. the dark urge stuff had me wishing there was more than what is present, though. i wanted it to be dug into deeper, but i did still like what is there. the temple of bhaal was really fucking good, and i love that the dark urge turns out to be the architect of the absolutist cult.