#there are more thoughts I'm sure but ooof can't even conceive them right now laksjdf

[robogart]

*points THAT'S MY FRIEND*

I've been watching calico play BG3 while I've been playing on my switch and while I'm not even playing the game - it has been a second-hand frustration experience. There is honestly so little I enjoy in this game, the few things being the acting and mocap (for some, not all of the characters), some of the music tracks and, most importantly, the Speak To Animals feature. But nothing about the actual gameplay or the design of the game (both in interface and story) feels thought out At All.

And to see the amount of praise - and I mean, ABSOLUTE praise, with NARY A QUALM - has been so incredibly frustrating that calico and I look to each and are constantly screaming the aforementioned statement: "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!!"

How can a game, with SO many predecessors to look back on for structure, mechanics and story-telling (the most glaringly obvious being Dragon Age, but literally any fantasy RPG can do) literally ignore ANY good decisions and create something like this? It honestly makes me feel like the developers intentionally avoided or were Ordered to ignore actually implementing any sort of gameplay mechanic that could be derived from outside their studio. I was sitting and watching and just thinking to myself "if they want to have a map setup and keep it turn-based, WHY don't they just make the battle mechanics similar to Fire Emblem? Why not implement a grid system? Why the fuck is movement SO tedious? Why is that hotbar design SO unnecessarily complicated?"

And while the game is BEAUTIFUL and technically gorgeous to look at (the mocap acting and animation is lovely and some of the creature designs are really fun), the actual visual design choices of the game are really not good. There is just TOO MUCH on the screen. There is NO visual hierarchy. Directive composition is generally lacking (Where Should I Go Next? Couldn't Tell You It All LOOKS THE SAME). And another thing - there is simultaneously NO environmental storytelling and yet there is so much Stuff that you pick up (letters, items, etc) that literally do nothing and add nothing. No sidequest, no interest, absolutely nothing. Why does every single person I talk to need their own dialogue cutscene? What does that add? NOTHING.

Calico put this SO right when saying this is a maximalist behemoth (which feels like the state with SO many of these AAA/adjacent games) and for a game that loves to brag about it's 17,000 endings, it's ability to give the players so much choice - it does Nothing. There's absolutely no follow through, reward or consequence to any decision in this. It's just maybe an instantaneous outcome, if anything, and then it moves on to whatever it (the studio) wants you to do next.

Doesn't matter if you helped these guys, they're still going to get fucked up! "Well sometimes life isn't fair" NO! This is lazy writing!! It's shallow! So much of this game just feels like you're asking "but what does this actually add though?" and their response would be "but is has 17,000 ENDINGS what other game does THAT FOR YOU?" It's one-pump-chump energy. It reeks of no foreplay. If you need 17,000 endings to mark as a selling point of your game, it tells me you couldn't even write One Good Ending.

I feel like for any game with multiple choices, you can have 3-5 endings (even LESS) and that would be PLENTY. 17,000 is just EMBARRASSING. Maybe they should've taken all the time and actually committed it to writing out ACTUALLY fleshed out and developed characters. Everyone is SO flatlined, and the only reason these characters stand out at all is because of the actor's performance behind them. Their actual story? Their actual personalities? Paper thin. Disintegrating in the rain. The strongest character story in my opinion was Astarion - but again, so much of that is Neil Newbon's performance. But the story arc is tight, it's succinct and it's well delivered. Gale is also a pretty solid storyline (he doesn't feel as well integrated though at the moment here in Act 3, but there's also just TOO MUCH of nothing going on) and Wyll was set up to be So SOLID but I feel like he's just not given enough space? Drama for his story to unfold?? He should be SO much more involved in this game given his background at Baldur's Gate but there's just no setup for him. Why??? And I hate that I didn't include any of the women in here - but frankly their stories and personalities were just not well done. Shadowheart feels she's definitely given the most time, but she is still boring, unlikeable (and not even in a fun way), and her story is somehow overdeveloped and underdeveloped at the same time? And everyone else just feels tacked on and flat as paper!

Man, I definitely know there's more to yell about here but BOY is this game lauded WAY too much. I have to wonder if it's people who are being paid, gamer bros who just wanting to gatekeep and tell you it's a skill issue, or people who just simply haven't played another rpg yet to know what a good one is? I don't know. But anyways - yelling about this game! If you also feel like your taking crazy pills - you're in good company here! 👏✨✨✨

I can't be only one, right...?

I wanted to finish the game and then write this post but I gave up. I put in 100 plus hours and just could not go on once I got into act three. Maybe no one will hear my pitiful cry from the void, but I must scream for the sake of my sanity.

I was completely and utterly disappointed by Baldur's Gate 3. 

It had huge maps like an open world game yet I had no desire to explore the settings despite their beauty. It had hours of dialogue as an RPG would and yet I found myself skipping characters' responses. The game mechanic structure was inspired by DnD, a story-telling game dictated by some rules, lucky rolls and the extent of players' imagination, yet I was strong-armed into fighting impossibly stacked battles. A story-telling game dependent on the players’ attachment to their and their teammates' characters and yet this game lacked any kind of narrative consistency or depth of feeling. 

Larian wanted to make an open world RPG, based off of DND mechanics and somehow did the worst version of all three. The studio touts that Baldur’s Gate 3 has 17,000 possible endings and 2 million words, but to what end? What did this game have to say about what happens when people rise to the challenge and become heroes despite their circumstances or fall into the dark and become the monsters they were supposed to fight? What did it suggest might happen when fate deals you a bad hand but in doing so also helps you find true friends or love with the other? Ultimately, nothing. 

BG3 is so large that it ends up being incoherent. No writing or game structure decisions were made to keep the narrative tight and on theme. It urges players to choose a moral alignment, but most decisions, good or bad, seem to end up having little effect in the end. To play the game at all you have to resort to save scumming and that in turn deflates the possible impact of so many plot points of the narrative overall. 

Forcing players to save scum in order to progress through the game is terrible design in general. Statistically speaking the bosses make impossible critical hits again and again. I was playing in the game’s “casual mode” and found myself struggling to get through confrontations with bosses that were at a lower level than my own. If you are reading and thinking oh well you are probably not using tactics or spells well, etc., let’s do a little experiment…

Take your d20 (https://rolladie.net/roll-a-d20-die if you don’t have one in person). In the third act of BG3 I had an AC of 13 as a sorcerer with 100 plus HP. Roll your d20 ten times or more. How many times out of ten would your character have gotten to hit mine successfully? Unless an enemy is extremely lucky it should be unlikely that an enemy could hit my character every turn they get. And even if they do they would have to roll for damage which is only a single d6, d8, d10 or d12 plus a modifier at lower levels depending on your class. Again an enemy would have to have an extremely lucky roll to hit me every turn AND deal significant damage. During an in person DnD session that is just a bad night for my character. In a video game on casual mode that is significantly suspicious. 

So what you might say. You've made and enjoyed the fanart, memes and etc. You got your $61 worth of playtime. So many other people were fine with the game, what is your problem? 

I love video games. They blend so many artforms and tell stories in ways never done before. It is a medium unique to our current century and when historians look back they will view video games as an insight to our culture. 

It frustrates me to no end that Baldur’s Gate 3 is considered the next gold standard. Too many games have done open world and RPGs in a fantasy setting far better for Larian (Swen Vincke) to have made the design and writing choices they did with BG3. There are so many podcasts and shows that have written better stories through the DnD format. I am embarrassed for the medium as an artist and frustrated as a player. Players and the industry deserve better than to have artists, actors, engineers etc. burn themselves out creating maximalist behemoths like this game. A game that is beautiful but basically unplayable, narratively, nihilistic and incoherent.