#for me honestly gale which is funny cause I don't romance him in game

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

Omg the love triangle/breakup dynamics in BG3 kill me

Astarion offering to have a sordid affair down the road if you romance Wyll is amazing - and you can agree to that lmaooo. Honestly his retorts and jokes about Wyll if you pick Astarion might be the funniest in the bunch, love that he calls you a scoundrel if you agree hahaha

Karlach's got some really kind and funny things to say about Astarion as long as you get his act 2 scene before you sleep with her (the throwing his pomade into the river comment, joking about sharpening stakes, saying he's not one whose heart you should play with, etc). If it's the other way around you def feel like a piece of shit for picking him and she is right to make you feel that way lol. Also let her be the one to end things, don't tell her you're ending things first unless you want to cry, holy shiiiiiit 😭😭😭 I swear she makes me wanna cry more than anyone else this whole game (such good acting!)

Shadowheart, she also has some really insightful things to say about Astarion if that's your love triangle, but I think you can't really do an act 2 scene with her until the end of Act 2 / early Act 3? So in early act 2 she only gets one breakup option instead of 2 like the others, which only happens from Shadowheart initiating the breakup after you get the other person's act 2 scene. Regardless she & Wyll seem to take a breakup best imo

Meanwhile from what I can tell Gale does not take it well if you pick someone else no matter which order you do the love triangle. He's either super hurt or pissed no matter what I did even though I didn't even kiss him in the weave in my game!! I had no way to tell him let’s just be friends before anything with Astarion happened, although to his credit he does have one or two okay responses of wanting you to be happy as long as you let him down gently in the convo before his act 2 scene. He's just clearly very hurt and down bad though, I felt awful the whole time lol, almost as bad as with Karlach

When I've tried to make the love triangle happen with Lae'zel, she was just ultra salty no matter what I did & Astarion only had like one non-generic line 🤷‍♀️ might also be bugged cause when I tried to pick her after getting his Act 2 scene she said nothing and all I could choose was leave/breakup. Felt like they didn't add as many options for her? You can tell it def affects her though cause even though she's pissed she says your "bruises will scar" :( so... still a bummer

Similarly for Wyll if you choose someone else over him, his comments are mostly generic about writing your story and honestly he’s pretty mature about it, but you don't even get to tell him you wanna date both, which is where they can say some pretty emotional/funny stuff, so again, doesn't seem like a lot of variations were put in for him

I find it interesting that you seem to only get the "you chose me instead of X?" dialogue with Astarion if you break it off with Shadowheart or Karlach, where you can tell him you're "dead serious" about the relationship. Unless I missed it, he didn't have anything to say when I talked to him after breaking up with Gale or Wyll or Lae'zel, which is when that dialogue pops up with the other two.

He seems to have the "i hear you have a new lover / what, why?" speech with everyone though. If you choose someone else over him before his act 2 scene he has the same various replies of "lucky you, you'll think of me / i'll think of everything we did / having you once was enough" etc, but if it's after his act 2 scene it's all "I didn't think / you were a mistake" :( and you'll feel terrible about yourself

ALSO while I'm talking about it, idk if this happened to anyone else, but the "I hear you have a new lover" speech was bugged for me for Gale/Wyll/Lae'zel, so he skipped saying the 1st shady unique line for them, BUT I could see it in the journal. Karlach's seemed to work fine though. Adding pics for reference minus Shadowheart

UPDATE ok it is a known bug and Shadowheart def has variations too, adding the youtube link for these. Also I had NO idea about the act 3 versions, omg these are SAVAGE towards Wyll and Gale ahhahaha

[prismatic-starstuff]

Well, I honestly haven't played the finished version either, but my friend is playing it with their partner so I usually get their reactions, but the overhaul has caused some really funny bits of miscommunication, because sometimes they were telling me about something and I was like "??? Huh. That doesn't sound right." And I only found out that they just rewrote that guy nearly from scratch earlier today. Or, for example, I was really surprised that my friend seemed to be getting along really fine with most companions, and then I found that they made getting trust points like WAY easier.

I'm also a little surprised that Raph isn't a romancable options tbh. Like come on, people can rail Minthara but I can't have the cambion?? No shade to Minthara, she's a cool character, I'm just saying that maybe some of us would rather take Raphael lol. But hey, I have faith in the modders XD.

Otherwise I think that, from what I've gotten second hand so far, the game is pretty impressive, I understand why they changed some things like the trust points, tho when I'll play it I'm pretty sure I'll install the mod that makes it a little more difficult again, simply because I'm used to it being that way from the early days of the EA. I also think the finished companion models look great. Karlach got such a glow-up oh my god. Gale looks really great as well (imho he always did but I know that that wasn't always the universal opinion). I think they made Astarion a little less airbrushed, which is good imo.

Most of my criticisms are just "details" - for example I am a little disappointed that they didn't add more body types. For a game that has so many options, to only offer you to be either a twunk or a gigachad, or an "average" woman or a bodybuilder woman...that's kinda...I don't know. I know it's a petty criticism to have, a lot of games will not even let you pick a body type, but these are just my two cents. I think the race options are pretty solid, tho I admit that I'm a little surprised since back in EA there were a lot of datamined dialogue options for Warforged so...what happened to that? I'm wondering if Larian has plans for any DLCs with more races or something, because it just seems odd that they'd just scrap it?

Like rn I guess it must sound like I don't like the finished version and that is absolutely not true - I really like it, I think it's great, I think it's incredible that it's being sold for 60 dollars because the game is LOADS of play time and a lot of replay value, I think the music is wonderful, I love the way they improved the animation, the voice acting is incredible, the new Dark Urge backstory is fantastic, etc etc. But I just have, you know, a few nitpicks, like what I described above. At this point I am actually literally not sure HOW MANY companions there actually are, because back in EA Larian said that the companions released during EA were the ones designed for an evil playthrough. Ok, but...if I am not wrong, the only added companions are Karlach and Halsin? And Minsc, I assume? Which is enough I suppose, I guess I just expected the number of good companions to equal the number of the evil playthrough ones. I have one more nitpick that one is actually a spoiler so I can't say it.

But anyway #modders_give_us_Raphael_romance_2k23 kjdfhkdhd

Yeah!!! I remember in EA, it seemed like getting and maintaining approval was honestly a bit of a nightmare; it definitely seems like it's been made easier in the finished product (and honestly, thank fuck ALSMAOXNSJX)

It always struck me as a bit weird that they would include romance options that aren't companions (like Minthara etc.) and just— completely avoid Raphael, I was 1000% sure as soon as I saw him that he'd at least have a spicy scene

I am... honestly surprised about the body types too? Like, the game has one of the most extensive and in-depth character creation systems I've seen, I'm not throwing any shade at it either; but considering how in-depth it is, it seems odd that there aren't more body types, like... they could've done it; the differing heights on the playable races were done super well, they could've easily included more body type/shape options imo. (I was wondering the same thing about DLC; there definitely seems to be some stuff that was datamined and isn't in the game so far so— ig either there's Quite a bit on the cutting room floor or there's DLC coming at some point)

Ooooooo I am. Very Curious about the spoiler one! I personally do not mind spoilers (in fact, I welcome them, I always end up spoiling myself on everything anyway ALDKALXNSN) so you can absolutely tell me if you'd like to, but! If you'd rather not then that's 100% valid too!

But yes! In general, I do have those thoughts in my mind, but the game seems to be absolutely incredible from what I've seen; the fact it's like $60 for a game that seems so huge and looks so beautiful is really amazing, it's been really amazing to watch the progress through the alpha versions to the full release; almost kinda sentimental in a way alsnalxnanx 😭🙏

(#LarianLetUsKissTheCambion 😔 ALAMALXNAXNA)