Am 30 hours in.
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Story and World-building: 10/10 for me so far. (End of act1.)
Voice acting is perfect. Game is a bit gay but all the gay options are optional and there are plenty of edgelord decisions to be made. They did the Githyanki bitch really well. Want to play with Hitler? Here you go! This is the first game since I'd say
Dragon Age: Origins where I've been really impressed with the storytelling.
Music: 7/10.
Standard pentatonic noodling with orchestral support and variety. It is functional and has nice moments but it isn't interesting or memorable besides the main theme and the character creation theme. The sound-team did an excellent job with the bards in game though---if you have different bards play instruments near each other it adds the melody or the drums from that particular theme. Sound design is an 8 and music is a 6.Â
Combat: 7/10.
I'm a fan of hybrid action turn based systems (e.x., KOTOR 1/2). That said, this game hasn't improved on the novel environmental effects in Divinity 1. It has just converted it to a Dungeons and dragons rule set. I prefer BG3's combat to DOS2's annoying armour system (where they made magic armor and physical armor separate). The spells feel punchy and the 4E/5E changes to melee combat are much better.
Loot: 5/10.
Inventory management is fucking awful. So much garbage loot in the game. They fail completely on the random generation front. Loot does not feel impactful. Where loot is tied to the story they occasionally do an excellent job (e.x., Sentient items exist and are fun!) but sometimes they just drop the ball (e.x., +1 dagger of silencing for a quest involving some special anti-magic bark). Pen and paper (without a sharp DM) has always struggled with loot compared to games like
Diablo because the loot doesn't have stat flexibility that makes randomness work. You need so much base complexity that doesn't completely overpower the balance of combat encounters. That said, I appreciate that some loot just gives you spells or abilities. That's a nice touch. (E.x., Magic missile necklace that gives you one extra bolt.) The loot here is worse than
Divinity Original Sin 1.
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Honestly the first act is worth 40 bucks alone given the quality of the game. I have only done three of the companions in any depth and I can see this game having huge replayability if you can get by how slow it is. This is a game where if you put in energy you will get it back.
TLDRBaldur's Gate 3 is some rich story-telling, but like a thick slice of New York Cheesecake it can exhaust the pallet. The combat is so-so, the music is serviceable, and the loot is bad. If you like the medium of story-telling in games though... ...I'm not sure which games have done it better. Incredibly beautiful and engaging game.