Baldurs Gate 3: people hype it up as the best CRPG ever. When in fact it’s not even close.
It loses in every category that matters to several dozen contenders (including Baldurs Gate 1 & 2): build diversity, story, writing, the UI.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolutely reasonable game, if you haven’t tried any other CRPGs. But there is a nearly endless number of CRPGs that are better than BG3 in every way, including all the points you listed.
Except maybe for the cinematic part, I’ll grant you that, mostly because I don’t know what makes a game cinematic or why you’d want a CRPG to be cinematic.
I mean… The rendered cutscenes? The emotive facial expressions synced to dialogue and music? Just to start?
because I don’t know what makes a game cinematic.
…Look. I’ve played text-only RPGs and 2000s top down explorers that would fit in the cache of my CPU now, and they’re great! But you can’t tell me the visual gulf between BG1 and BG3 isn’t blindingly obvious. It’s almost a different medium!
or why you’d want a CRPG to be cinematic.
…Because I like seeing the emotions of my party and my character? And the visuals details of exploration?
Again, interpoliating all that in one’s head like a novel is fine, but I like an interactive movie, too!
That’s what sold me. I’m not a fan of the pen-and-paper mechanics so directly translated, TBH, but the sheer depth of presentation and the party characters are what kept me hooked.
Sure, the presentation is better than 20 years ago, but that is true for basically all games.
I found all companions to be painfully one dimensional, they all have exactly one gimmick and that’s all they ever talk about.
So the game never managed to make me care about their emotions, but I get where you are coming from.
I’m not into Baldur’s Gate, but my partner explained the retcons in 3 to me, and I find them offensive. Why not just make an original character instead of altering an existing one beyond recognition?
The answer is that no one at WotC knows what D&D is supposed to be at this point, so the setting went through 20 years sailing with the Ship of Theseus, with a captain whose sole focus seemed to be fantasising about dark elf matriarchs dominating him. In the middle of that, the game’s Fourth Edition came as a messianic figure from the sky in both mechanics and setting, and was fittingly crucified, continuing the ever-expanding clusterfuck generously called the Forgotten Realms.
For me the retcons aren’t even the worst part. There were zero logical reasons to name that game Baldurs Gate 3. It doesn’t continue the story and the mechanics are completely different. They just misused the big name, to get people hype up, and sadly, it seemed to have worked.
Baldurs Gate 3: people hype it up as the best CRPG ever. When in fact it’s not even close. It loses in every category that matters to several dozen contenders (including Baldurs Gate 1 & 2): build diversity, story, writing, the UI.
Playing baldurs gate 3 at the moment and one of the best things about it is hearing that it’s actually one of the weaker games in the genre.
Honestly I don’t even like fantasy CRPGs (hence I don’t have the reference of 1/2), but BG3 kinda blew me away.
It’s incredibly cinematic. The world design is tight and reasonably interconnected, voice acting great, and I thought the script was fine.
UI and build choice was… alright, not the best. I can see room for improvement there. A lot of mods seem to be going for that.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolutely reasonable game, if you haven’t tried any other CRPGs. But there is a nearly endless number of CRPGs that are better than BG3 in every way, including all the points you listed. Except maybe for the cinematic part, I’ll grant you that, mostly because I don’t know what makes a game cinematic or why you’d want a CRPG to be cinematic.
I mean… The rendered cutscenes? The emotive facial expressions synced to dialogue and music? Just to start?
…Look. I’ve played text-only RPGs and 2000s top down explorers that would fit in the cache of my CPU now, and they’re great! But you can’t tell me the visual gulf between BG1 and BG3 isn’t blindingly obvious. It’s almost a different medium!
…Because I like seeing the emotions of my party and my character? And the visuals details of exploration?
Again, interpoliating all that in one’s head like a novel is fine, but I like an interactive movie, too!
That’s what sold me. I’m not a fan of the pen-and-paper mechanics so directly translated, TBH, but the sheer depth of presentation and the party characters are what kept me hooked.
Sure, the presentation is better than 20 years ago, but that is true for basically all games.
I found all companions to be painfully one dimensional, they all have exactly one gimmick and that’s all they ever talk about.
So the game never managed to make me care about their emotions, but I get where you are coming from.
I’m not into Baldur’s Gate, but my partner explained the retcons in 3 to me, and I find them offensive. Why not just make an original character instead of altering an existing one beyond recognition?
The answer is that no one at WotC knows what D&D is supposed to be at this point, so the setting went through 20 years sailing with the Ship of Theseus, with a captain whose sole focus seemed to be fantasising about dark elf matriarchs dominating him. In the middle of that, the game’s Fourth Edition came as a messianic figure from the sky in both mechanics and setting, and was fittingly crucified, continuing the ever-expanding clusterfuck generously called the Forgotten Realms.
For me the retcons aren’t even the worst part. There were zero logical reasons to name that game Baldurs Gate 3. It doesn’t continue the story and the mechanics are completely different. They just misused the big name, to get people hype up, and sadly, it seemed to have worked.