Baldur's Gate 3: It's Party Time! (PC / PS5) - The Bear and Badger

Kernowgaz

Kernowgaz wrote:

Fuck me the first fight is hard or I’m not paying attention

I’m fucking solid. Ignore the fight, go for the controls.

Tempy

There is an achievement for winning that fight though.

Kernowgaz

Too late. I’m dying somewhere else now,

Kow

That damn push move. It's so satisfying pushing an enemy into a chasm and so fucking awful when they do the same to you. Little archer guy ran into the room and just pushed my main character into a hole, no shots fired.

b0r1s

Some little tossers pushed Gale into lava. I missed his spells but not him.

EvilRedEye

Blocks100 wrote:

Eurogamer has given this four stars.

Not as good as Pikmin 4 then.

Speedhaak

I've found a few puzzles so far I was unable to understand. Refused to fall back on Google. Hopefully subsequent character play throughs will shine some light on them.

stormyskiesahead

Minnesänger wrote:

This is a take no prisoners beast of a game and I love it to bits.

Yeah, it's an absolutely superb game. I am not sure if, by the end, I'll prefer Original Sin 2 or this. I think I prefer OS2's skill and action systems, replying purely on Action Points as opposed to a set number of skill uses per rest period - BG3 being tied to D&D 5E means that, yeah, my Level 5 Cleric only has x number of Level 1 and 2 slots that she can use per day, with many classes needing short and, often, long rests to recharge skills. That's D&D and I understand why it does that, but it does mean that OS2 feels a bit better for experimentation - yes you can teleport over there, then go invisible, then use telekinesis on that thing to... - in BG3, doing the same thing would be weighted against the cost of using spell slots, and I find myself less likely to do things like talk with animals because I worry about keeping a Level 1 slot for combat utility. In OS2 gimme Pet Pal baby, let's go! Speak with every animal I can find! That issue, though, is balanced with BG3 excelling and surpassing OS2 in so many other areas, though, especially in dialogue, writing and character work. I adore OS2s Origin Characters, but they really have taken what they learnt from that and dialled it up to Spinal Tap levels here. Even in incidental, non-important NPC dialogue you can feel the love and effort and production values and its just stunning. Both games contain a huge amount of player agency and choice, and though i'm not super far in (just done Goblin place looking for a Druid) the amount of paths that were evident (and probably a whole bunch not evident) was completely in line from what I want from a CRPG. I know that I could role a new character and go back there and have it all go completely differently, which is not something I can say about sth like Skyrim, where rolling a new character only really influences the mechanics and progression paths through combat and puzzle spaces - the outcomes and options and world are mostly static otherwise. BG3 really is the ocean-wide ocean-deep counterpart to Bethesda's wide as an ocean deep as a puddle design philosophy and I love it. It's also stunning that Larian have now done it twice in a row (I really like the first Original Sin game and still play it semi-regularly, but while the mechanics and systems were there, the character work wasn't the priority yet). Anyway, like I said - there's things about both games I think I prefer over the other, but I'm not too worried. It's essentially me wondering which CRPG GoaT will be GoaTier and that's an amazing problem to have. I adore this fucking game.

This was great and has convinced me to get back into OS2 with a solo run after BG3. We were doing a co-op run a few years back and got a good way in, absolutely loved it, but for a reason I can't remember our sessions became more and more sporadic before falling off completely. Properly kicking myself now.

Minnesänger

A full MP campaign is amazing but so hard to keep going from start to finish as these games are so bloody big.

I’d thoroughly recommend a solo play through - start with an origin character, pick up 3 more, enjoy one of the best CRPGs ever made.

ZMM

It's a shame this game isn't getting a Physical PS5 release (outside of Japan).

Blocks100

What would you do with the physical disk Pug?, use it as a coaster whilst you roll your d20's?

Kow

How many disks for 122gb?

hylian_elf

Two. Max on one disc is 100GB I believe.

Kernowgaz

Fuck me this is hard, you’re doing ok and then fuck you’re all dead within a minute

AndCallMeCharlie

Performance in Act 3 is supposedly piss poor unless you have a beast of a cpu
Fortunately I am taking so long pissing about in act 1 by the time I get to act 3 the game will be so retro you can play it on the switch 2

AndCallMeCharlie

Anyone tried any mods? There’s one called « bags bags bags » which automatically puts stuff (arrows, scrolls etc) into a designated bag like alchemy or camp supplies which sounds really useful.
Item management is without doubt my least favorite part of the game

Tempy

Almost got the wrap on this and the wheels have fallen off a bit. Incredibly ambitious first act feels incredible, second act is a great change of pace, and the third act… is a real muddle. Some great elements, some really average parts, and the central thrust of the main plot just feels overly confused at this point.

Doesn’t help that a certain bug in a quest has caused huge problems with one of my allies and one of my companions and the only way to rectify it would be to reload a save from 20 hours prior. That’s something i’ll do, but not right now I don’t think.

Anyway, you can definitely feel the level of polish they got from three years of early access testing act one, and the fact that they didn’t have the luxury to apply that to act two and three. I imagine eventually it’ll be tightened with updates, but I think the structure of the last act is just a little bit unbalanced. Handful of really amazing fights though, since level 10 my party has been a machine designed for killing, not quite to busted levels, but it has made drinking in the destruction I can unleash pretty enjoyable.

I don’t want to sound too down on the third act though… the conceit is clever, but it sort of sprung on you out of nowhere and struggles to mesh well with all the companion quests. It’s the ultimate expression of “Big Town” syndrome in an RPG, and that level of saturation feels odd at the tail end of the game. The writing and choices are top notch, it’s just almost too much. I’m purposely choosing to ignore one companion quest entirely because they’ve not been in my party for about 50 hours now and it just makes very little sense to me to pursue it, but the game really tries to nudge you into finishing eveyone’s stories from different angles.

FranticPea

This isn't as good as Div2, for me.

Tempy

And we're done. Last fight was an incredibly hard bastard of a thing. Took me a fair few reloads.

Paul the sparky

FranticPea wrote:

This isn't as good as Div2, for me.

The Division 2? Different sort of game mate

FranticPea

Ah yeh. My mistake.

Paul the sparky

Regarding Divinity, I like the story and characters of 2 more, but prefer the combat of 1 because you don't have to chip away at magic armour before you can do the fun things

Minnesänger

Yeah, I usually ignored magic armour and had most damage output targeting physical. That’s what you need to turn someone into a chicken.

AndCallMeCharlie

FranticPea wrote:

This isn't as good as Div2, for me.

Why so? I’m intrigued

Pseudoscot

So tiefling kids are dicks. I did a thing. I didn't know how bad a thing it was. You'd think that the tieflings would be happy with me saving them from total destruction at the hands of a massive goblin army and they were. Gave me some good stuff and said lets go have a party. Awesome, I'll just go chat with some druids to get the cool stuff from them and then we can crack open the mead.

Seconds later the entire group decided to attack me en masse because of the dick move by the kid from about 7 hours of gameplay before. I suspect the party back at camp might be a little light on guests now. Oops.

Minnesänger

#scamps

jdanielp

Hi, I know a guy who worked as a lead animator at a dev team down south that collaborated with Larian on this. Unfortunately he is very ill just now and is unlikely to be around much longer. If any of you were up for writing something brief about how much you're enjoying the game (and how pretty the animations are...), I would love to pass some real world feedback on to him about your experience with it, but no pressure at all.

Pseudoscot

You can tell him I'm likely to get a really shit mark on an essay I'm supposed to be doing but I'd rather play his game. Thank you.

b0r1s

I’d say the close up facial animation and delivery by the voice actors means I don’t skip the dialogue scenes, which should be taken as a high watermark.

Tempy

yeah honestly the animations are incredibly polished, they make the game so much better than the sum of its parts. the presentation is top notch. I am so sorry to hear about your pal, but he's made near enough a million people's lives just that little better.

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