Recent reviews by ZombieStalker08

“As vast as an ocean, as deep as a puddle.”

NON-SPOILER REVIEW

Quick TL;DR? Pretty mid game, not the greatest Bethesda game but it isn’t horrible, yet it certainly isn’t GOTY. 5 or 6 / 10. Wait for it to go on sale/DLC to come out/Modders to add additional content. Honestly The Outer Worlds blows this game out of the water in my opinion.

Actual Review Below:

A rather disappointing game. I’d personally say 5/10. It wasn’t horrible by any means but looking back on Bethesda “main-line” titles I’d certainly say this was the weakest. I’d argue any other Bethesda main-line titles are better than this one. From the writing, exploration, combat and mechanics. So let’s get into the details so I don’t sound like I’m needlessly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on this game without reason. As a frame of reference I’m writing this with over 162 hours of gameplay and I’m on NG+ run 3.

Story: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fetch quest galore. Some may argue that such a thing may be a common theme in Bethesda games and they may be right but the ENTIRE GAME? Nearly every single quest in the game aside from minor ones is a fetch quest. From the main story to the faction quest. So let’s go over them without spoilers.

Main Story: “You think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he’s created?” You have an acid trip when you touch a special jigsaw piece so now you’re on the hunt for all of the other pieces to complete the puzzle. 90% of the MSQ is finding these pieces with some minor drama in between but nothing worth caring about. This happens until a laughable quest takes place where you must “solve a riddle” concerning the three main religions/beliefs within the galaxy that dissolve down to some movie fluff plot of “Well these must be coordinates and this must be the planet it’s on!”. In the finale of the game they rush some hasty question of universal power/god that asks you “What is Unity?”. Resulting in the player’s choice to enter a new game plus which results, personally, in the feeling that all you accomplished in the playthrough was for nothing with how the NG+ system works.

UC Story: “I’m doing my part!”. The UC story is nearly comical. If you like Starship Troopers then I can promise you that you’ll love this faction questline. Join the Navy! Get sent out on a basic mission where the “basic” mission was a lot more than your recruiter expected. End up in a plot to cover-up state secrets or expose them and put an end to the “bug” threat! Pretty alright and you earn your “citizenship because of your service”.

FSC Story: “In the eyes of a ranger, had better know the truth from wrong and right”. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, someone just came at the thought of cowboys/southerns in space and made an ENTIRE faction about it. You get recruited into this faction by stopping a wild west bank robbery and get deputized to stop the “outlaws of the blackest ocean”. Which all basically ends with “It was the corrupt mayor’s fault!” which you saw from a mile away if you have the most mild of storytelling abilities.

UC Sysdef/Crimson Fleet Story: “THERE ONCE WAS A MAN NAMED GOLD ROGER WHO WAS KING OF THE PIRATES!”. Pirate fantasy or undercover cop dream, take your pick. Either you’re recruited to spy on this pirate faction or help them. Either way results in an “adventure” to find a hidden treasure hunted by the most famous pirate captain. It’s practically One Piece without the powers and in space. The entire questline is to basically find the One Piece where you get a final choice either to give it to one faction or that other and then kill the one you don’t give it to.

Ryujin Story: “Tetsuke RAISE! TETSUKE RAISE!” Wake the ♥♥♥♥ up samurai, we’re serving the corporations! You ever wanted to work for off-brand Walmart cyberpunk Arasaka? Congrats. Here’s your chance. Welcome to corporate espionage and the most “here’s the thieve’s guild” faction I’ve ever seen next to Skyrim. An entire basic thieves guild storyline that culminates into a cyberpunk plot of “This cyber brain chip is dangerous and could cause the end of civil society! What do you think?! HMMMMM?!”. No Keanu Reeves though. This questline ends with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ board meeting and then they basically tell you to ♥♥♥♥ off. Wonderful.

Plot holes: “Miku won. You know what that means? All my friends are gonna die and you are too.” Where to begin? First off, House Va’Ruun. Despite being a clear rip-off from a Dune faction. We’re told NEXT TO NOTHING about this cult-like government full of people that hold a major amount of power such as: Holding access codes to a vault of forbidden tech governed by the space UN. Yet there’s nothing in this game of a home planet, centered fleet or actual power. Yet they have an embassy and diplomatic relations with the UC? I hope they get expanded on in the DLC. Next to the cult faction is “The House of Enlightenment” which I thought was going to be an interesting faction till it felt like an abundance of their story/play within the story was cut almost? They’re almost portrayed as sorta the Yin to Va’Ruun’s Yang yet are never expanded on aside from a small MSQ element before being discarded for minor side fetch quests. And the “beings” ah yes what feels like a ham-fisted last moment attempt to get the players interested, we’ve got to bring in “other worldly beings” and multiverse theory. Jesus Christ.

Exploration: “Over a thousand planets to explore!” was a common quote I heard pertaining to this game both in its marketing and other people talking about it. But I’m not here to complain about the gas giants. Those are fine. My issue is with the ACTUAL planets. The only planets that are worth visiting are maybe four or five? Out of the thousand? The rest are barren as ♥♥♥♥ aside from the standard copy and pasted pirate hideouts or “abandoned cryo-facility”. All of which are copy and pasted to each planet with no variation other than when the MSQ forces you to clear out one and adds a small single room to the layout to which lays a jigsaw piece. “Well Zombie you can put outpost on those planets and survey them” to which I ask “♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ why?” The outposting system serves no purpose. Literally zero purpose. Not even like in Fallout 4 where you kinda had to build one depending on which faction you picked in the story. As of this very moment there is no reason to build an outpost.

Combat/Mechanics: It’s just Fallout 4’s gunplay. That’s it for combat. Some of the weapons are interesting but for the most part you’re just gonna hard skill into one type of weapon and end up one or two tapping enemies then looting their corpses. Flying? HA! How do you feel about extended fast traveling? Because that’s what you’re getting. Do not get this game expending NMS levels of flying into the atmosphere and flying to another planet to which you may land on it. Everything is covered by a loading screen. Which would have been fine if they actually filled the planets with a bunch of ♥♥♥♥ to do on them rather than only five planets with actual ♥♥♥♥ to do and 995 being basically barren deserts with the occasional pirate outpost. For a moment let’s reflect back on Skyrim. I know I know we’ve seen and heard enough about Skyrim for over a decade but trust me on this. Skyrim was jam-packed full of content even before any DLC dropped. Countless cities with minor and major storylines/faction quests. Even on your mundane travels you could find a burned down fishing hut and discover what happened to the small little family who burned alive inside of it. This has next to nothing other than fetch quest, the major fetch quest MSQ and rather small faction quest. The leveling system requires multiple playthroughs to actually build your character. I’m on NG+ run 3 and I’m only level 59. That’s with purposefully going to over level areas to grind out higher XP enemies. The level cap is 100. Does this game want me to play it over 9 or 10 times to reach the level cap?

TL;DR: Comically horrible writing. Basic combat. Poorly made systems/exploration. Wait a bit.

NON-SPOILER REVIEW

TL;DR? Amazing game. Highly Recommend. For newcomers or veterans of the genre. Worth the money I promise you. 10/10.

Actual Review Below:

A damn fine game! I'd argue a 10/10! In the age where the quality of video games can vary, Baldur's Gate 3 has surpassed with flying colors. My first playthrough was over 140 hours of non-stop amazing story, combat and dialogue. Mind you, I'm personally a major D&D fan and have played the TTRPG for years, so there is a bit of a bias here. That being said this game is outstanding with its presentation of story, game mechanics and choices presented before the player. To be fair I encountered a few bugs/glitches within my first playthrough, missing textures and dialogue skipping cutscenes, not to mention the allied AI will glitch and not act within combat in large battles but I believe these minor problems can be easily fixed with future patches and updates. But I cannot stress enough how amazing this game is.

Let's start with the story. Without giving anything away I can certainly tell you that both for new faces to D&D/Strategy RPGs as well as veterans of the gaming genre/D&D TTRPG, this game is a breath of fresh air story wise. There is a common stereotype within D&D and other TTRPG stories which is the common plot line of: You and the party meet in a dark candle lit tavern and are eventually sent on a quest to deal with a dragon on top of a mountain or an evil Lich who raises armies of the undead or perhaps for the veterans of D&D, the countless runs of Curse of Strahd rings a bell? It certainly does for me. I can positively assure you, at least personally for me, the story presented here is a breath of fresh air that I haven’t experienced personally within single-player strategy RPGs or in my IRL TTRPG 5e/3.5e sessions. Hell, the companion side missions alone could be run as one-shots because their stories alone hold up enough that I’d buy them as DLC if marketed that way. I will admit, there is the occasional plot hole here and there such as: “Why can’t this be solved with a revive scroll? I have eight of them.” But I grant some leniency to certain plot devices/explanations as is customary to all D&D campaigns. Hell, before this game I simply thought Mind Flayers were a simple hivemind that lurked in the underdark that feasted off the occasional drow brain. I was certainly wrong.

Moving on to game mechanics. The combat is simple and easy to understand. For veterans of the D&D genre the combat mechanics/movement/buffs and magic will come to you without issue. For newcomers I’d recommend citing experiences such as XCOM for combat and Mass Effect for dialogue but WIDELY expanded on with the freedom to act as you please to an extent. To some, these examples might seem like a stretch or perhaps downright incorrect but hear me out in the case of presenting this game’s mechanics to newcomers to the genre. Hey, do you like turn based strategy combat with movement limitations, action/bonus action combat? All those percentages to hit and buffs/debuffs? This ♥♥♥♥ is for you! Oi! Do you like the karma system/dialogue of Mass Effect? You ever wish it was made better? More in-depth? More choices? This ♥♥♥♥ is for you. And hey! Guess what? Unlike XCOM, when the game says there’s an 80% chance to hit an enemy? There’s an actual 80% chance. When the game presents you with six dialogue options to say to a character grieving/angry? Guess what? You say those actual things rather than the game presenting you one dialogue option then your character saying a completely different thing. A rather famous example of this is Mass Effect. I'm sure those who’ve played it remember encountering a dialogue option to respectfully disagree or refuse an offer to which Shepard would proceed to tell the NPC that they hope they die in a house fire. Now aside from the basics, this game is in DEPTH with it’s abilities to let the player do as they wish. I plan on doing a future playthrough as an improvised weapon fighter because the game makes it viable to fight only with bottles of bacon grease and wooden chairs.

In my first playthrough I played a Human Paladin, Oath of Devotion with the goal of being a “good karma” character (original I know right?). In my playthrough I had a myriad of ethical options presented before me as well as dialogue options that directly tied into the fact that I was a religious, almost zealot like knight for Tyr, the God of Justice. I was granted the ability to settle disputes of law and order to which the characters regarded my character’s judgment as the word of law since he was a devoted knight to Justice. What I enjoyed, which perhaps may seem strange, was the fact that I was held to a standard as a Paladin. I recall a moment where I was getting greedy, I saw this NPC had a jewelry stash which, if “confiscated” and sold, could buy my crusader better gear to be prepared for the battles to come. So my Paladin’s fingers got sticky and moments after I skillfully collected the funds to provide protection for the war to come everything weirdly stopped….The narrator alerted me that I felt my divine connection severed, the world felt nothing but cold to me before a literal ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ demon of vengeance came out of the ground and branded me an “Oathbreaker” warning me that he would come for me later that night when my character attempted to rest after the hard fought battles. There was an actual punishment for acting outside of my oath rather than a simple NPC wagging their finger at me.

This is the point where you might go: “Well of course your custom character and their interactions seem great to you! It’s a stand-in for you! What about the companions?”. Well I’m happy to say that the companions are actually good well-rounded characters with motivations/aspects that make me want to invest time into their personal stories. Hell, each one of their personal side stories from what I’ve witnessed have at least three different endings you can walk down. Perhaps if you’re really into the fantasy genre there might be a few companion stories that feel “common”? The classic “Well I have X and my time isn’t long for this world. I may collapse any day, only if I could get Y then my situation would be so much better” but even in the more commonly placed situations presented before the player they’re handled with dialogue and jaw dropping moments. For me personally, even in that classic situation where a character basically has magic cancer, there was a wonderfully written moment where they talk about their fear yet acceptance of death. That they felt terrified of what may come after yet found serenity in knowing that there is an end.

Needless to say this review has gone on for way too long, some small side notes I’d like to point out quickly is the comical amount of accidental romance I seemingly tripped my way into. As I stated my original playthrough was as a Human Paladin so I tried to treat everyone with kindness and help them work through their problems….I did not know doing this was a sure-fire way to have the proposition of sleeping with your companions. I did say this is a spoiler free review but for those who have played the game and made it past the first act, I’m sure you know what I mean. I was kind to a certain Fighter but left them at camp in place for the Cleric, Barbarian and Wizard. After I had finished the main plotline for the first act and returned to camp the Fighter practically demanded to sleep together in a moment that made me audibly go “What the ♥♥♥♥? Why?”. This comically happened to me again in Act 3 where my “guardian” spoke to me shirtless and offered romance when all I showed them was basic kindness and understanding.

All in all, 10/10, the game has some minor issues but they can be easily ironed out with patches/updates. But I will say, if they made DLC for this game? I’d buy it in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ heartbeat. Thank you Larian Studios for providing us a wonderful experience.

It's ight.

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