Baldur's Gate 3

[Ranbir]

A great game. I completed one playthrough already.

Lots of great throwbacks to the first two games.

Karlach is bae.

[James]

It has been a while since I have played a PC game, but the extent to which people are enjoying Boulder’s Gate 3 has me pretty tempted. And it seems like I should be able to run it just fine on my Mac.

How long did a play-through take? It sounds like an expansive game, as would be expected?

[Ranbir]

Can take maybe 100 hours, maybe more if you want to be thorough with your quests.

I did a casual run-through and I finished in 50 hours.

[James]

Can take maybe 100 hours, maybe more if you want to be thorough with your quests.

I did a casual run-through and I finished in 50 hours.

Hmm... I may have my first new PC game in a good long while.

I did get a chuckle reading an article about commentary on how the community and reviewers ought not to raise their bar on account of this game being so exceptional (as opposed to just setting higher standards).

[Ranbir]

It breaks some RPG paradigms in how you can solve quests or get to the end of dungeons. Lots of interactive environmental objects can create some interesting outcomes.

I'll give one easy example:

In a normal RPG affair, there is a dungeon, one way in and you'll work your way to the end and after killing a boss there you'll perhaps find an exit behind the boss, a shortcut to exit the dungeon. It is usually a wonder, oh...wow wasn't this exit available before? In Larian games (divinity and now BG3) that entry is possible. Explore enough and you'll find the 'backway' to dungeons and come upon the boss immediately!

[Jake]

Got the game on full release and played 116 hours and still not done with it. I try to cover every corner of the game, loot every container and that’s definitely slowing my progress.

But even so, the game offers you choices that impact the game so much that I’m going to olay the game again in the future and still see new things. Larian really nailed the DnD roleplaying and silliness of the tabletop into the video game.

I’m impressed how they’ve added tidbits of lore from the previous games as kind of easter eggs into game. The first two games felt more dark by their athmosphere, but I guess the modern day graphics and overall cleaner look makes things more… lighter? Idk.

Last note, I know that nowadays the world is more open to all forms of love, but it’s kind of awkward and little bit anxiety inducing that every member of your party wants to hit it with you once you’ve got good enough friends with them. Ugh.

[Jia Nanfeng]

Completed my first playthrough at just under 110 hours. Immediately started up a second play — just a few hours in and already found a couple things I missed the first time.

Last note, I know that nowadays the world is more open to all forms of love, but it’s kind of awkward and little bit anxiety inducing that every member of your party wants to hit it with you once you’ve got good enough friends with them. Ugh.

It’s not just party members — there is one important NPC in particular who has a sudden and unexpected sexual scene. I said yes thinking it would be a joke but they really got into it so I noped out of there at the soonest opportunity.

Spoiler for the character’s name

I speak of the squid-man himself, The Emperor

[Jake]

It’s not just party members — there is one important NPC in particular who has a sudden and unexpected sexual scene. I said yes thinking it would be a joke but they really got into it so I noped out of there at the soonest opportunity.

Spoiler for the character’s name

I speak of the squid-man himself, The Emperor

I had totally forgotten about this! Even the thought of suggestion makes my skin crawl.

Around 10 years ago I finally played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 through, and when certain party members started to have conversations with you that would eventually lead to romance - I don't remember them being pushy or outright jumping straight at you like they've implemented here. For one character, I can understand the reason in BG3, that being

the character is question

Lae'zel, and only because she sees you as a "warrior" because of cultural things, etc

but I don't want nor except every single being in Forgotten Realms to thirst for my character.

P.S. Currently at end-game and 137 hours. Started a playthrough with friend after a DnD session on Saturday night where we both picked random characters without telling each other about our choices - we both ended up choosing monks.

[Jia Nanfeng]

but I don't want nor except every single being in Forgotten Realms to thirst for my character.

Yeah, I agree. I actually second-guess choosing the “nice” conversation options because I know it’ll boost my romance score or whatever.

It doesn’t help that I feel bad turning these fictional characters down, for some reason.

P.S. Currently at end-game and 137 hours. Started a playthrough with friend after a DnD session on Saturday night where we both picked random characters without telling each other about our choices - we both ended up choosing monks.

I’m a monk in my current single-player campaign. I’m enjoying it so far — did the “open fist” sub so I can focus on punches. The sound of a punch connecting is comically loud….I actually turned down my audio for it.

My brother and I started our second campaign as well, and we decided to go with four bards as a traveling band. Just waiting to get Withers so we can convert our companions.

[Jake]

So I beat the game clocking around 141('sh) hours and I have to say that this has been the single most best experience while gaming I've had probably in years.

Last time I wrote about the campaign, I didn't really realize how close to the end of the game I was. I had couple of quests unfinished at the time, and then after that it was storming through the end. In the end, I'm glad that it was Larian Studios that decided to tackle this monster of a project because of their past experience in CRPG's.

Without going into much detail, I was yet again surprised by how the designers had presented the players with a plethora of ways to achieve you end goal. I think I skipped around an hour of combat towards the end just because I accidentally found another way to approach the situation.

The ending with my character was bugged, but I sent a report in the hopes that they'd get it fixed in the next hotfix. Not long after that, they published patch 5 that had an massive amount of bug fixes (but not the one I reported, sadly) and an epilogue for the game. Soooo... I reloaded my save that was towards the ending of the game, played it through, avoided the bug and got into the epilogue - which made me yet again realize just how much work they've put into the game, since there are so many ways of how you can affect the outcome.

All in all, this was just such a great experience. For the future, I hope that they will release a scenario editor, since that would be a cool way of creating stories inside the game.

But also hoping for more Forgotten Realms content from Larian or other studios.

P.S. The soundtrack is an absolute ( ) banger. I've been listening extended mixes of some of the more popular tracks in order to stay focused while studying or working.