Surprised that there's no Baldur's Gate 3 thread around. But anyway on a whim I decided to give it a try and see what the hype is all about. I've never played a single DND game in my life and the closest I've got to playing something similar was with Dragon Age Origins(and I loved it but I was also young and didn't get what exactly I was playing but I did complete 1 and 2).
And now 140hours in and having completed the game I'm here to say, quoting that one Steam reviewer, that this is essentially the equivalent of engineering the pyramids for gaming. It's insane how much work went into making the experience feel like your own. This game has undoubtedly surpassed ANY RPGs in the market in terms of well, the role-playing part of the game. I have no knowledge or any experience with the Forgotten Realms but I was enthralled and my entire life was gone for 2 weeks. The game isn't perfect, sure but it does almost everything right and does it with so much soul. I will likely be doing a second playthrough a year or two down the road and know that the experience will be different.
Even if you have no experience with DND and don't like RPGs, BG3 is still at least worth checking out. Even though I won't call the plot an epic and the ending can feel rushed, the journey there was so much fun that you can forgive it. Side quests are intricately designed and they, including the characters in said quests, carry over seamlessly to later parts of the game that you feel like you've made an actual impact. Battles can range from unforgivable to a cakewalk depending on how YOU want to tackle it and there's so much flexibility for creativity/experimentation if you want it to be. It's cinematic, the voice acting is the gold standard in the industry (they voiced EVERY line and even the deviations one that you wouldn't expect), the mo-cap is insanely well done, and environments vary, and are mostly fun to take in. I haven't felt like I've been on an, and immersed myself in, a grand adventure besides that one time I decided to watch that silly pirate cartoon.
This felt more like an innovation than a game and I can see why it got the love that it does. Once again, the last part does lose steam a little and the UI/UX leaves a lot to be desired. But other than that, this game deserves to be in the diamond standard that probably only a handful can reach. This is an epic in many ways than one.
Hang in there, Kierkegaard.
