Baldur's Gate 3 - A Flawed Masterpiece

B bang he's indeed surrounded by bber bang the spores of those mushrooms are both toxic and flammable bers Gate 3 the newest game from laran Studios developers of the Divinity series who have been in business since 1996 and have had decent past successes but nothing even close to balers Gate 3 as most reviews have already shown the general consensus of the game is it's pretty much one of the best RPGs ever made I want to start by saying as of writing this video not accounting for recording footage or more casual play I have clocked in about 184 hours as of August 29th so yes I like the game a lot I'm not going to discuss much of what the game does well because there's honestly like a billion other people already doing that so when it's relevant I'll mention something that they did really well but for the most part my focus here is is to point out where I think the game kind of falters again no none of my issues are any of the quote unquote woke garbage nonsense in my group playthrough our face looks like this and did his best to bang both hson and will but ditch will as soon as he wasn't down for a threesome all right to avoid spoiling any given act I'm going to divide this video into the various acts of the game that way if you want to avoid something it'll be easy enough to do I also really want to discuss theut content from the game which all admid is going to be the part that might age the worst but I'm going to focus on the stuff that I would pretty much bet money that they're never going to add back in laryan has restored cut content in the past yes but mostly they focus on fixing broken stuff and adding in Cut content that gels with the base game they normally don't do DLC but with the dollar signs they saw with balers Gate 3 they have said now that it's on the table for discussion so it could be that things that were originally not going to be added back in make their way back as DLC that all be well and good but I'm still going to focus on the game as is at launch and with the first few patches I feel like it's fair to discuss the game they gave to us before fixing it in the same way it's fair to judge the launch of No Man's Sky versus the polished version I know I know it sounds harsh and I don't mean to be that harsh it's just I wanted to pick something that was actually playable on launch on likee one of my other favorite games of all time being real the best comparison would be Knights of the Old Republic 2o but come on can you imagine being the sort of Boomer whose formative years were set during the early 2000s cringe am I right fellow kids really what is there to say having had the longest to cook out of any of the axe thanks to Early Access it's by far the most polished and put together out of every part of the game this act is where everyone began discussing it as game of the year and it's easy to see why the pacing of content is amazing the Druid Grove and the Goblin Camp are both really interesting locations with tons of stuff to do what I love the most is that the game lets you get totally lost and yet there's always something to find in that direction not just something to do but a lot of times I would just stumble across a quest line I had no idea even existed out of everywhere in the First Act I think the blighted village is probably my favorite both because you can interact with the goblins regardless of which side you choose them but between the windmill the bang barn and the eloquent ogres why not astonishing it's just packed with stuff it was also my and probably a lot of people's first discovery about the underdark in the game so it definitely gets points there I avoided The Early Access gameplay because I really didn't want to be spoiled so I had no idea going in that that was even there kind of reminded me of Elden ring when I first discovered the underground as for my criticisms really with act one there are only two firstly I think it's too long which I know sounds weird just hear me out I think the sheer scope of Act One compared to the others really makes it feel like the other acts are a lot shorter and less polished I'll get more into the specifics later but I would have preferred the underd dark to be moved to act two mostly to help break up the overall Samy feel of the Overworld shadowfell while still maintaining the holy [ __ ] moment of discovering the underdog when you see stuff like the phe spiders in the blighted village which hint at a much larger scope underneath the other issue I have with act one is honestly much harder to justify menar insiding with the goblins ignoring the early issues with Mena's dialogue being bug so tons of it just won't trigger as of patch three which is when I'm recording this it's still not working they make a point of showing that manthara was pretty much just brainwashed by the absolute when you side with her though being a Dro she is still evil but significantly less so so there being no option to knock her out capture her any of the sort really feels like a waste especially because I really did love the interactions that actually did work for me but even if manthara was the best companion you got in any RPG ever there's still the huge problem that comes with siding with the goblins now lie down you lose three companions all the Lings are dead and you don't even get menar until Midway into act two as a result you lose out on a ton of companion content to me the worst part is losing the T Lings with just how many quests they're tied to through the whole game just a few things you're missing out on Merchants quest lines lots of character interactions potential allies for the Final Act and just a general sense that your actions matter if the game let you say recruit some of the Goblins like SAA or had some hang around the camp just anything it would have felt significantly less Barren it screams to me that very early on in development they had this cool idea of having two distinct ways to end the conflict but they really only invested in the Druid route leaving the goblin route to just sort of starve I feel like all of the pieces are there to make a truly interesting experience with the goblin route they had plenty of named NPCs with unique personalities not even mentioning the literal thirsty drone Act 2 who I could easily have seen join your evil party they just completely dro the ball in the evil route in regards to giving you actual content and I know that dressy do slap but not even a degenerate such as myself can justify a full run just because of how much you lose the shadow fell has kind of a weird place in DND lore it's a newer Edition but because of how it functions everyone just sort of has to pretend like it's always been there which considering it looks like this I just find that really fun regardless I really do like it as a concept and I think the Aesthetics were really nailed in this game the Shadows were simple but do a great job at making it look like it's something you really don't want to be walking through all that said [ __ ] the lantern mechanic I know I know this Shadow Fell's dangerous but with the pathf finding being what it is where several times I would be trying to move slow and someone would get stuck on a piece of geometry so they get out of the Lantern and everything would be forced into a pause State and then I just have to slowly walk them over to me no I never had to reload but it was really just annoying personally I was really lucky that I discovered the fairy and the Lantern on my first play through completely blind but in my evil run where I let the dder live [ __ ] that I felt like they really just didn't sell the danger of the Shadow fell with the in-game mechanics this is where my desire to move the underd dark over really comes into play I really would have preferred if there were just sections you straight up couldn't cross this would go with people saying that there are some areas too dark that no amount of protection will help you they could have literally made that the case where you just have impassible sections and then you have to reroute into the underd dark to get around them this would both break up the kind of syy look of the Shadow fell but anyone who knows anything about Forgotten Realms lore knows that the underdark is a terrible place so having it be the preferable option would have really driven home that the shadow fell was that oppressive really my favorite parts of the shadowfell were easily the weird little dudes and Krick they had a lot of life into this act and I'm a sucker for weirdos being weird Krick is by far the strongest villain in the game JJ Simmons knocked it out of the park but he is also the only one of the dead three that I ever felt was a real threat I also really did like Moonrise and chars Temple both of which were really cool to explore and had a lot of neat little interactions Bazar specifically being well this extra is one of my favorite parts of the game My evil route it was really neat that you could allow balazar to take the knights song which gets you a meeting with cck and you can even pray to the absolute my issue with this route is you lose another companion bringing the total up to four so even more content is lost not even mentioning that it's Shadow heart and she's more tied into anything in the game than anyone but it also doesn't make any sense in character catherick has been shown to be immortal and you know the absolute is literally right there so letting him have that many allies isn't even good AR it's just stupid this is a perfect example of what I really wish they did more of back in act one with the GI Crush I loved how if you taunted blacka she just straight up killed you it was really shocking but really [ __ ] funny I feel like this game should 100% let us make the dumbest possible choice but I really wish it just killed us in more entertaining ways they really did have plenty of chances to do when not murdering Bazar such as letting him actually turn you into a weird Undead and that being being a game over so many of these choices are just awful and are still designed to funnel you into the same scenes which is really way more obvious in Act 2 and three than it was in one I don't have any issue with freedom of choice but only if every choice is going to get me a satisfying amount of content after act one I really feel that's where balers Gate 3 tends to struggle the most they want to let us have the freedom of choice but rarely we'll have a decent amount of content for the non-correct route it is totally unreasonable to expect fully branching stories with a game this size so please only focus on the more interesting things give us more dead ends people eat that [ __ ] up if you've ever heard about an anime visual novel I guarantee you it's only because it had a funny dead end that someone wanted to talk about to clarify I really did love act two Krick was perfect alen was great and the Avatar of Merkel was far and above my favorite fight in the game it was peak of what these sorts of games to me are really great for letting you live that power f Fantasy by fighting the good fight against odds that should otherwise be impossible which considering you go from fighting the Avatar of a God to Let's solve a murder mystery gang it feels kind of incoherent plus both Gort and Orin being way less impressive than Krick from a mix of cut content and just not really being as well written doesn't help the matter I want to give two examples for those new to crpgs cuz I know Boulders Gate 3 is many people's first let's look at the fight against Merkel as the peak moment of the game even if you disagree just roll with me despite how much I loved it it didn't give me that heart pumping spine tingling level of awesome that is present in one of my favorite crpgs of all time and one of my favorite RPGs Pathfinder Wrath of the righteous I'm going to avoid getting into specifics it's a crpg made by alcat in the Pathfinder system which itself is a followup to Third Edition 3.5 of D and this game is set near a place called the world wound it is a massive scar upon the land that connects the material plane to the abyss which is where demons come from for context in Baldo Gate 3 aerus is part of the hells which is where devils are from devils are lawful demons are chaotic like Ballers Gate 3 in Wrath you don't know who you are or where you came from at the start but within the first 2 minutes of the game you go from being at a festival to [Applause] behold Crusader Gods behold I you poor impostor your city will fall to me your followers will Fe my Hunger desari Lord of locusts leave my city the Lord of locust disari making his entance he invades and kills the ancient Silver Dragon protecting the city in a single brutal strike the game gives you a choice do you run do you fight but either way disari slashes the ground in half and you find yourself in the caves beneath this city from this point the game has you do your absolute best to survive demons can freely teleport to anywhere that doesn't have what's called a ward Stone which were initially devices given by angels to portal to help combat the demons after a bit of travel you pretty quickly encounter a demon named managa she is currently the one primarily working to destroy the ward Stone which marks the beginning of the end at this point you're level two this is so far out of your grasp that even survival seems like a Fool's erend when you finally come across the ward Stone you find Manago there attempting to destroy it knowing this means the death of all of you you draw your weapons and fight it is isn't even close with a single wave of her hand she drops your entire party you wake up alive but defeated the ward Stone hasn't been broken yet but at this point you must find a way to stop them if you don't it's over you spend time roaming around the war torn city finding allies becoming stronger learning about the demons and their plan all of this culminates in your second confrontation with Manago you beat her to the ward Stone and as you reach out to touch it You Feel The Strife she's been taking advantage of and you learn how the ward Stones work angels from the heavens made a deal to be bound inside the Demonic influence has driven some of them to Madness this conflict between the corrupt and the pure is the chip and the armor that the demons have been exploiting whatever your choice to resolve the situation you are flooded with a mysterious power that pulses outward in a golden light [Music] Manago then arrives then well this is really the first of many examples in this game that really get the power fantasy and while it's not nearly as graphically impressive as Ballers Gate 3 nor having anywhere near the amount of voice acting I feel like it's a great example of an actual ton of freedom of choice where the various major story beats save for a few are greatly altered depending on your choices the other example is significantly shorter and technically far more related see game developers all over the world have been chasing a very few specific things over the years in this case two characters that have made such an impact in their respective time that everyone wants to capture that lightning in the bottle just one more time the first being CA from Knights of the Old Republic 2 who's a great Jedi and was honestly one of the best parts of that game but the other is from balers gate 2 the Main antagonist is JN oranus yes I know someone named Jon in a setting like this seems goofy which I think is why everyone just calls him oranus he is introduced right at the start of the game and between his writing personality and pill or voice actor it's been the white whale for writers ever since because his entrance is just look at this the child of ball is awoken it is time for more exped Li the pain will only be passing you should survive the process chills every time this is um I mean uh it's a mess there's no two ways about it coming off the high of killing this bastard the first thing most people encounter is refugees attempting to not get kicked out of where they're staying there's an extended plot about toys rigged to explode a circus clown corpse treasure hunt and your first proper meeting with the remaining dead three none of these are objectively bad and there's no reason not to have some form of cool down period after that high I just it's such a whiplash when you add to that when you do finally get to Baldo's gate it's just the lower City for being the end goal of like every NPC you encountered and almost every quest in the game and factoring in about how Sven talked about an explorable upper City weeks before launch the cut content comes to a head here people who are in nobility all have to exist in the lower City when by all accounts they shouldn't even be here Gort we just have to take it as word for how big and powerful he is because where he had that influence was taken out of the game which means his coronation takes place uh in a fort on a bridge which admittedly is about as classy as looks but still kind of feels lame or in all of the many many many shape shifters I feel as a direct call back to the shape shifters from the old game where like every fifth person was one and when a party member and or child gets kidnapped that's also I think a direct call back to Ballers gate 2 with the vampires Orin works well enough but it's missing something and I don't know exactly what but to me I feel like there either needed to be more content with her or she needed to be something more than just crazy murder hobo the fight with her as darker specifically was really cool but like compared to Krick I could never really take her Gort seriously speaking of Orin the next point will only really make sense if you played balers Gate 1 and Arc 2 so I'll try and explain it and elaborate on the Forgotten Realms deep lore saravak was the main villain of balers gate one who reappeared at the end of two you had the option thrown a ball expand of Boulder's Gate too to turn him good if you treated him like a decent person I am fine with the cannon being he is not a good person and just kind of tries to return to his old self but it doesn't make any sense at all that he's still alive Orin saravak and the dark urge are ball spawn which hearken back to the event known as the time of troubles what kicked off this event was Bane and Merkel stealing the tablets of Fate from the over good owl these are tablets that are very vaguely defined at best but generally the purpose is to keep the natural forces of Law and Chaos in check beyond their McGuffin status they're fairly unimportant to the actual world how is the boss of all gods think if the great Gods answer to the Christian God is an overseer but he's also unknown to Mortals before this point and Fades from memory and written records after the time of troubles is over after the tablets are stolen the over good calls all of the Gods to counsel and asks who stole the tablets when no one steps for he becomes angry the theft is the last straw of Godly mischief and he strips all of the Gods except for Helm lawful neutral God of guards and loyalty of their Divine Powers this forces them to all live as a singular one of their respective avatars gods are thus capable of dying because if their one Avatar is killed they just go to the afterlife this results in a lot of the earlier ad and D Gods being slaughtered this includes Bane ball and Merkle Helm was set as a fully powered God whose only job was to guard the way back to the celestial Realms since he was the only powerful God at the time all Divine magic stopped working unless you were within one mile of your God's Avatar in addition Arcane magic becomes wholly unreliable as mistra was also made into an avatar mistra was herself killed trying to get past Helm who just straight bodied her consequences be damned my dude has a job to do a group of adventurers including the Assassin sirak the Paladin kelore and The Wizard midnight end up solving the plot in a series of novels whose quality I will not vouch for and a trio of pre-made Adventures that are pretty mid with things mostly set right sirich then steals the domains of all Bane and Merkel to become the super god of evil because he's a dick but he's also not very smart he accidentally hits himself with his own brainwashing super artifact and loses most of his domains tell becomes judge of the dead and midnight becomes the new mistra and as far as I'm aware TM the minor God of paladins whose main claim to fame was being worshiped by Korn from balers gate 2 and one of the best paladins in any game ever fight me died and was brought back to life by Al because he knew that torm died following his convictions well all the others that died were in Petty power grabs torm died fighting the Avatar of Bane for his actions he was not only resurrected but made into a lesser deity so for ball to be back which he clearly is saravak could not be alive like literally it wouldn't be possible at the end of Throne of ball if you don't redeem him and you choose to reject godhood which is the cannon ending zerok jumps on the chance and you have to kill him the only way he survives is if you redeemed him and you reject godhood I know they wanted to bring him back because they're fans of the original and his armor is awesome but just having him vibing in the sewers as a high ranking ball cult member really doesn't make sense the blood women around him are three of the ball Spawn from thrown of ball and them being there is fine since it's not really them and if saravak was the same thing and this was like an eternal punishment for him failing sure I can work with that but it's not he's the real deal and he's one of Daddy's favorites it runs counter to the point of the original games where once ball was dead rather than tried to become his vessel for Resurrection almost every single ball spawn immediately went [ __ ] dad and tried to take his seat of power for their own well some of the Side Quests for fun in act three a large chunk bow down to will help you in the final battle which don't get me wrong I love when games reward you with that but so many it's just a conversation and and that's it I don't know with everyone talking about how it was going to be this huge RPG City yet it just ended up as a glorified Quest HB which is kind of a let down the most exciting thing I've ever done in act three was in my group playr where gort's Hot Topic Sasuke looking ass tells you that you can't touch him his guards are just too powerful and that we just don't have a chance to stand up to him so my friends and I looked at each other and went I bet eight short rests three long rests and a few trips to Withers later gort's stupid ass is buried under like 30 steel Watchers was a ton of fun however this broke so many quests for us for example Will's dad died during the final fight but we convinced will to go back with his toxic ex-wife to get him back but the game kept acting like his dad was dead when he was standing there on top of that the steel Watcher Factory had already exploded there was no submarine to get to the iron throne and while not the game's fault our durar let the intrusive thoughts win shot the explosive barrels Belo had been tied to and killed the de know we didn't really have too many allies left at this point the House of Hope that was a standout for me I thought it was immaculately well done and again really makes me wish they hadn't cut so much of Raphael out of the game his boss theme is still one of the best bangers in the entire OST like dude is such a Disney villain that he sings his own theme song real king [ __ ] if Merkel was my favorite fight House of Hope would be my close second act three also has what I feel is the worst most Mass Effect three star child [ __ ] part [ __ ] orus I freed him especially when the emperor had revealed that him thring his only friend is why she acted like a stroke victim I didn't really feel like trusting him I figured it would be a good idea not decide with the guy who tried to mind break me so I free orus and at this point I'm thinking either the emperor would attack me and try and take the artifact see reason when orus didn't attack us something reasonable like that not join with the [ __ ] Elder brain what the actual [ __ ] is wrong with you his argument about needing a mind flare to beat the Elder brain was already really stupid but once he leaves Oria says the same thing dude your mom your literal mom stopped the first mine flare Empire without doing that and you have the same power as her what is wrong with everybody leading up to the final encounter the combats were really just lame lots of uninteresting cultists exploding intellect Dev hours and Devils trying to throw you off the ledge really it just kind of felt like a waste of time even with the ability to call in allies for assistance the ending I got initially was really stupid as of writing this no cut scenes have been added no ending slides which is one of the Staples of crpgs so not having them felt like a really bizarre choice just like the ending where Shadow heart says she wants a drink Gail goes off to become a villainy slaps I guess aaran despite having one of the best emotional beats in the entire game let alone act three ends up with having a gag ending where he comically runs away from the Sun LEL admittedly have a good ending by becoming the new champion of the GI and is the only one I felt Satisfied by then carli's content came back to rear its ugly head meaning we couldn't fix her while I romanced her will was the one to swoop in and say go to hell with me we'll do it together I know that it was a bug that they've already fixed but damn it I'm still mad [ __ ] [ __ ] I knew should have killed your dad which also funny enough is another issue I had with the game it doesn't seem to be a driving theme for the most part I feel like this is a result of Early Access and people whining about some of the writing which made Larry and more cautious about making statements with their writing the best I was able to really piece together is that there are good and bad options for everybody the good options are pretty straightforward kill your parents Shadow heart kill your mom carlac kill your dad staran kill your dad boyfriend lasel kill your God Mom dark urge kill your sister cousin and try and fight your dad Will's the only exception and more with him it's about reconciling with his dad the bad options all seem to boil down to becoming your parents or just dying to me the last part of the game that really feels put together as opposed to Milling around on a dock and staring at each other is the final fight with the Elder brain I like the background of being over the city a lot and fighting the dominated red dragon was a nice touch but like there's one part that really gets to me and that's why the emperor is my least favorite character in the game aside from him really having no core personality as in if you trust him he's good if you don't it's bad when you start the fight against him he summons the Guardians everyone has including the one you made at the start of the game everyone reacts because they have all seen them in their dreams despite you know when you first meet the emperor face to face everyone is surprised by this concept as if it wasn't happening to them this is where one of the major rewrites of the game from Early Access rears its ugly head which I'm sure they had their reasons for cutting but it lost out on what could have been one of the best parts in the game it's finally time to talk about Daisy to explain Daisy to people who don't know much about the Early Access she was present before the guardian she visited you and your dreams but instead of there being some Act of conflict in the astral plane these scenes took place in a Meadow near a river Daisy would try and comfort you talk with you attempt to help you with your suffering it's unclear if this was specifically just the tadpole or if it was the Elder brain working through the tadle either way to get a feel of how Daisy's relationship was with you there are two songs specifically about Daisy that are in the game down by the river at character creation and the power during the end credits both of which are explicitly about her which is why the cut content it was weird to me I think the reason she was cut is complicated but the main factors I believe were player feedback and Time Early Access feedback no one trusted Daisy and if you look at the scenes on Youtube it makes enough sense sure you got extra powers from her rather than sticking more cadps in your head but there was clearly something wrong TimeWise I feel the later cuts to the story meant that Daisy didn't flow with how they ended up deciding how the final confrontation would go despite the fact that everyone's personal Daisy shows up before you fight the Elder brain which again to me just shows how early that part was built out with her in mind as for the feedback people were rather harsh on a lot of the Bold choices things like characters being more off-putting not shering as much you not knowing exactly if everyone was on the level or not there were a lot of things that pointed to the themes of needing to build trust extend a hand with the knowledge that you might very well get bit instead of trying to argue on the Emperor as I've said I already don't care for him and he's less of a character and more of a plot funnel I'm going to give my take on how I would have tried to write Daisy using the bones of what's there as a tadpole you have a simple goal to infect the host and soriz this rarely takes much time and even if it's not immediate the host loses themselves and you're in the driver's seat but this time something strange happens this time the host is able to resist this has never happened before and suddenly you panic if you can't control your host what does that mean for your survival will you starve will you die for a being connected to the vast mind and knowledge of the Mind flare Collective the unknown holds a new level of Terror to you that's beyond anything a mortal could grasp at first the goal is simple keep the host alive prevent the fall from killing them protect them from other psionic intrusions but there's an issue because the host is autonomous you cannot Aid them against those that would do physical harm there's a resistance that limits what you can and cannot do and knowing how the host views you as a parasite just reaching out would be a Fool's erend instead you delve into their dreams piece together parts of their desire creating a form most appealing not just a form you weave together a personality designed to encourage them to accept you kind supportive worried everything something in your host situation should desire you create a field of flowers designed to be the sort of place your host would feel most comfortable lastly you must decide on a name looking around you choose from one of the features of the meadow Daisy everything is perfect everything is set you have accounted for all possible angles so why why do they resist at first you try to be understanding tell them it's going to be all right when that doesn't work you beg plead this isn't just about them your life is on the line too then you get angry how dare they resist you this host is mere ant compared to the Majesty of the iled Empire if they won't work with you then they will serve you but something's wrong that's what you should be doing dominating instead of asking taking instead of giving why won't you why can't you then it Dawns on you you don't want to all this time spent with your host two minds existing in the same space neither taking charge but coexisting something about your situation has changed you you don't want to hurt them they still don't trust you and for good reason could you blame them so the question becomes what to do now your kin will know your mind how you feel linked to this host care for them if you return to the collective you know what happens to defectors the host survival is not your only concern the host's freedom is you can only live if they are free so you give them your strength everything you can muster you ask for nothing in return you don't even reach out to them in their dreams anymore their fate is in your hands but only if they reach out to you you'll do what you can to help give whatever they will accept the best chance for your survival is your host win or lose acceptance or rejection your faiths are intertwined your host has listened to what you had to say they see your mind your soul as you have seen theirs you join together in your fight against the Unstoppable might of an elder brain death doesn't scare you anymore but for some reason being accepted being seen it's enough your host rejected you and this was to be expected after all you're still ilth it their mortal enemy if your host prevails you'll be extracted and that will be that if your host fails you will be seen as a betrayer of your own there will be no end to your pain so despite being hated by your host you hope they win death will be a mercy it's over they lost your host has fallen their physical form has failed and their mind is succumbing to the Elder brain you feel the sorous beginning but despite everything you can't leave things like this you take your host back to the meadow to where you first met too weak to even sit up you rest their head in your lap as you gently wipe the sweat from their brow you speak to them from your heart heart did Tad poles have hearts it doesn't matter you ask them one last question do they want to go peacefully you can do that you can't free their soul it's too late for that but you can protect them from the Elder brain you can accept them holy give them the rest they truly deserve make their last memory not one of failure but of comfort of rest one final rest down by the river

Channel: Nalfen

Views: 3,033

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Id: jSuzesIT26s

Length: 36min 51sec (2211 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2023