Baldur's Gate 3
Rating: ▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱ 90%
⠀
It's been a while since I wrote an actual proper review for a game, and I think this game definitely deserves one. Considering the last final major patch has been released for the game, I think now is a good time as any for this review. As someone who has never experienced Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) systems until BG3 I was quite unfamiliar with the "dice roll" mechanic, 1dXs, DCs, ACs, and etcetera when I first started. The game doesn't truly teach you these systems either but it does a decent job at displaying information that's understandable to non-DnD players. All this to say; if you have never played or watched DnD campaigns, like me, the game is still very much playable, but I would suggest some quick web searching for terminology meanings and mechanics whenever you come across them to fully understand the game.
⠀
This game has an insane amount of content. There are so, so many quests, stories, and paths to take in this game. It's the type of game where even after 250+ hours, you will still be finding new things to do, or quests you never even realized were there. Most of which also tie really nicely into each other, with the quests themselves having great attention to detail—changing certain dialogues based on your actions before, or whatever your current situation is. The ability to be able to play as Origin characters (characters you would otherwise recruit into your party or "canon" characters) and have unique dialogue and internal thoughts just shows the length the developers went to creating a fully fleshed out story experience for the player.
⠀
Speaking of Origin characters, the characters you meet in this game are a fun bunch with each having unique and distinct personalities. They also interact with each other while exploring and sometimes even having unique dialogue in conversations depending on who is in your party. The developers did a wonderful job at creating chemistry between the cast, leading to a lively and enjoyable experience.
⠀
The game is generally split into two paths story-wise, the "normal" route, and the Dark Urge route, where you essentially play as a murder hungry character who either tries to suppress this urge, or embrace it to go wild. I would highly recommend playing the "normal" route first to understand and experience the world and characters, then enjoying the other route later. I feel the need to say that the Dark Urge route is infinitely more interesting and fun to play compared to the standard Tav route, it's also very cool to see the many things changed depending on the route you choose to go.
⠀
But although the game has a lot of content, some of them have quite a clear difference in quality and/or content. For example, romance can be a huge part of your playthrough should you choose it to be, however, some romanceable companions have criminally short romance quests, differing cutscene qualities, or just ending blandly. It seems there are the few key favorite romance routes from Larian that receive really beautiful and fulfilling stories, but ending up leaving the other half lacking. Romance aside, most story quests are fun to do even on repeated playthroughs, but there are also a small minority of quests that become quite tedious to complete on repeat.
⠀
Due to the sheer scale of the game, there are expectedly some issues with quests sometimes being bugged or blocked. Despite that, it's nothing game breaking and I have some confidence that these will be ironed out as more hotfixes are released.
⠀
When I first saw the gameplay of Baldur's Gate 3, I was honestly quite disinterested, something about the top-down turn based gameplay was just not appealing to me. However, that was until I actually received the game and tried it for myself. Watching the game and playing it is a whole different experience, I quickly found myself really enjoying the gameplay and combat especially. Certain mechanics simply scratch the right parts of your brain and lead to an addictive experience. The only real complaints I can give is that movement speed while exploring feels slow at times and that enemies every so often take a weirdly long time to make a move, and especially when in a fight with a lot of enemies, it leads to a fair bit of downtime and waiting.
⠀
Core gameplay aside, the max level of the characters feels too limiting. Especially with the ability to multi-class, the levels given often results in most builds not feeling "complete" as you sacrifice certain important leveling milestones for a class. Considering that classic DnD's max level is significantly higher than the game, it's an odd choice to limit the max level here to 12. Though, this can be remedied with modding (discussed in a later section).
⠀
Some of the UI in-game felt a little unintuitive. The game uses a lot of pop-up menus to do things and it can get really cluttered and messy at times.
⠀
Base graphics are good but the true standouts is the spell and combat effects. Combined with the powerful sound design, Baldur's Gate 3 visually delivers a incredibly satisfying combat experience every encounter.
⠀
Some very minor gripes are that facial expressions at times seem too unnatural or over-exaggerated and comical (especially some Durge faces) and that I wish the default character customization had a little more options.
⠀
Performance-wise, it's generally good and stable until the later parts of the game (Act 3), which has a severely noticeable impact in frames. If you are able to get good performance in the earlier acts, the drop should not be enough to be unplayable but it's worth noting nonetheless.
⠀
In my opinion, you can't have the fullest Baldur's Gate 3 experience without mods, which is why I am infinitely thankful that Larian has made modding so compatible with this game. BG3 has some really nice built-in features to accommodate moddin; an in-game mod manager, a mod browser, and a feature to inform you when saves have missing mods. Though Baldur's Gate 3 is incredible with it's story and base mechanics, the sheer amount of QoL (BetterTooltips, BetterTargetInfo), gameplay (UnlockLevelCurve, WASD Movement, Party Limit Begone), and customization (Hair, Faces, Eyes) tweaks, combine to elevates this game to a whole new level. Though modding can be incredibly fun, I would probably suggest finishing at least one campaign on default first before delving into mods, it's personally what I usually do to get a feel for the base game before modding it to hell.
⠀
Baldur's Gate 3 is an incredible game made with extreme care to detail and a very evident amount of effort. It's a game with lots of content, deceivingly fun gameplay, interesting story and characters, and great support for modding to truly customize your experience. I feel like I can talk endlessly about this game and like most games I really enjoy, I very likely didn't manage to write everything I want about this game. This game is truly the gold standard for gaming.

As a final note, Larian has made me attached to the world of Baldur's Gate. And although I understand their decision to move away from DnD entirely, I can't help but to feel slightly disappointed that this world may never receive a game like this again. Despite this, I am looking forward to their next project and they have my full trust in creating another wonderful and rich experience. Thank you for the game.

[b]Baldur's Gate 3[/b] Rating: ▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▱ 90% ⠀ [h3]Intro & Preface[/h3] It's been a while since I wrote an actual proper review for a game, and I think this game definitely deserves one. Considering the last final major patch has been released for the game, I think now is a good time as any for this review. As someone who has never experienced Dungeons and Dragons [i](DnD)[/i] systems until BG3 I was quite unfamiliar with the "dice roll" mechanic, 1dXs, DCs, ACs, and etcetera when I first started. The game doesn't truly teach you these systems either but it does a decent job at displaying information that's understandable to non-DnD players. All this to say; if you have never played or watched DnD campaigns, like me, the game is still very much playable, but I would suggest some quick web searching for terminology meanings and mechanics whenever you come across them to fully understand the game. ⠀ [h3]Story & Quests[/h3] This game has an [i]insane[/i] amount of content. There are so, [b]so[/b] many quests, stories, and paths to take in this game. It's the type of game where even after 250+ hours, you will still be finding new things to do, or quests you never even realized were there. Most of which also tie really nicely into each other, with the quests themselves having great attention to detail—changing certain dialogues based on your actions before, or whatever your current situation is. The ability to be able to play as Origin characters [i](characters you would otherwise recruit into your party or "canon" characters) [/i]and have unique dialogue and internal thoughts just shows the length the developers went to creating a fully fleshed out story experience for the player. ⠀ Speaking of Origin characters, the characters you meet in this game are a fun bunch with each having unique and distinct personalities. They also interact with each other while exploring and sometimes even having unique dialogue in conversations depending on who is in your party. The developers did a wonderful job at creating chemistry between the cast, leading to a lively and enjoyable experience. ⠀ The game is generally split into two paths story-wise, the "normal" route, and the Dark Urge route, where you essentially play as a murder hungry character who either tries to suppress this urge, or embrace it to go wild. I would highly recommend playing the "normal" route first to understand and experience the world and characters, then enjoying the other route later. I feel the need to say that the Dark Urge route is infinitely more interesting and fun to play compared to the standard Tav route, it's also very cool to see the many things changed depending on the route you choose to go. ⠀ But although the game has a lot of content, some of them have quite a clear difference in quality and/or content. For example, romance can be a huge part of your playthrough should you choose it to be, however, some romanceable companions have criminally short romance quests, differing cutscene qualities, or just ending blandly. It seems there are the few key favorite romance routes from Larian that receive really beautiful and fulfilling stories, but ending up leaving the other half lacking. Romance aside, most story quests are fun to do even on repeated playthroughs, but there are also a small minority of quests that become quite tedious to complete on repeat. ⠀ Due to the sheer scale of the game, there are expectedly some issues with quests sometimes being bugged or blocked. Despite that, it's nothing game breaking and I have some confidence that these will be ironed out as more hotfixes are released. ⠀ [h3]Gameplay[/h3] When I first saw the gameplay of Baldur's Gate 3, I was honestly quite disinterested, something about the top-down turn based gameplay was just not appealing to me. [b]However[/b], that was until I actually received the game and tried it for myself. Watching the game and playing it is a whole different experience, I quickly found myself really enjoying the gameplay and combat especially. Certain mechanics simply scratch the right parts of your brain and lead to an addictive experience. The only real complaints I can give is that movement speed while exploring feels slow at times and that enemies every so often take a weirdly long time to make a move, and especially when in a fight with a lot of enemies, it leads to a fair bit of downtime and waiting. ⠀ Core gameplay aside, the max level of the characters feels too limiting. Especially with the ability to multi-class, the levels given often results in most builds not feeling "complete" as you sacrifice certain important leveling milestones for a class. Considering that classic DnD's max level is significantly higher than the game, it's an odd choice to limit the max level here to 12. Though, this can be remedied with modding [i](discussed in a later section)[/i]. ⠀ Some of the UI in-game felt a little unintuitive. The game uses a lot of pop-up menus to do things and it can get really cluttered and messy at times. ⠀ [h3]Graphics[/h3] Base graphics are good but the true standouts is the spell and combat effects. Combined with the powerful sound design, Baldur's Gate 3 visually delivers a incredibly satisfying combat experience every encounter. ⠀ Some very minor gripes are that facial expressions at times seem too unnatural or over-exaggerated and comical [i](especially some Durge faces)[/i] and that I wish the default character customization had a little more options. ⠀ Performance-wise, it's generally good and stable until the later parts of the game (Act 3), which has a severely noticeable impact in frames. If you are able to get good performance in the earlier acts, the drop should not be enough to be unplayable but it's worth noting nonetheless. ⠀ [h3]Modding (Post-Patch 7)[/h3] In my opinion, you can't have the fullest Baldur's Gate 3 experience without mods, which is why I am infinitely thankful that Larian has made modding so compatible with this game. BG3 has some really nice built-in features to accommodate moddin; an in-game mod manager, a mod browser, and a feature to inform you when saves have missing mods. Though Baldur's Gate 3 is incredible with it's story and base mechanics, the sheer amount of QoL [i](BetterTooltips, BetterTargetInfo)[/i], gameplay [i](UnlockLevelCurve, WASD Movement, Party Limit Begone)[/i], and customization [i](Hair, Faces, Eyes)[/i] tweaks, combine to elevates this game to a whole new level. Though modding can be incredibly fun, I would probably suggest finishing at least one campaign on default first before delving into mods, it's personally what I usually do to get a feel for the base game before modding it to hell. ⠀ [h3]Closing (TLDR)[/h3] Baldur's Gate 3 is an incredible game made with extreme care to detail and a very evident amount of effort. It's a game with lots of content, deceivingly fun gameplay, interesting story and characters, and great support for modding to truly customize your experience. I feel like I can talk endlessly about this game and like most games I really enjoy, I very likely didn't manage to write everything I want about this game. This game is truly the gold standard for gaming. As a final note, Larian has made me attached to the world of Baldur's Gate. And although I understand their decision to move away from DnD entirely, I can't help but to feel slightly disappointed that this world may never receive a game like this again. Despite this, I am looking forward to their next project and they have my full trust in creating another wonderful and rich experience. Thank you for the game.