Baldur's Gate 3 - Atratzu Review

where do I start balers Gate 3 pulled me into the game and kept my attention from start to finish just when I started thinking oh yeah I know exactly where this story is going now they'd add a Twist each Act significantly changed my assumptions on where the story was going balers Gate 3 is a turn-based classic roleplay game released in 2023 and developed by laran Studios who are also the Developers for the Divinity games which I'm sure you've heard about before this will actually be the first balers gate game I've played and I haven't even played any of the Divinity games either and that's about all I can write for my quick review section on my steam written reviews but it just doesn't do justice for what my opinions are for this game I don't know if you understand but it's really really difficult for me to write reviews for games I've played a lot over 350 hours of Total playtime for balers Gate 3 how can I even provide a review which will Encompass an opinion showing someone who's never played the game why I like it should I emphasize tips and tricks to make theame easier since I now know how to play it so well but while I'd love to tell you each and every choice I made I also want to avoid spoiling important key parts of the story and those are the most tasty parts of the story where I made the critical decisions for myself in balers Gate 3 and equally important how do I provide a review which won't just be so full of words that no one can even remember anything after all you're likely going to remember one joke that I agreed with your opinion or that I left out your most favorite thing in the game and I will hear about it in the comments but that's okay just know it's what I struggle with when reviewing games of this magnitude in my playthrough I tried to go for a good moral ending I'm rather thorough I tried to uncover the map as much as possible and I ended with a save file for my first solo game with 135 hours and 47 minutes that's discounting plenty of hours for failed Battle reloads and reloading because I made a terrible choice or failed a persuasion role because my elf Ranger is dumber than a doorknob I kind of thought that Rangers would need some intelligence to survive in the Wilds but what would I know my time Compares quite well with completion run times that I've seen online but since I've had several games going with different people and not all of them are even finished yet I'm going to say I'm over the 350 hour mark total so [Music] far nothing's more popular with the kids these days than kicking off a review with a mature content age disclaimer I felt strongly to include it for a few reasons first every party member is more horny for the protagonist than a teenage boy who's discovered where his dad kept the rated R movies every party member wants you which to some people is a great feature in a game but I'd hate for a kid who isn't ready for that kind of thing to get slapped by it so I guess for parents you might want to skip this one for your kids or make sure you provide supervision as you see fit that said once you do turn down a party member they won't ask you again but each act will introduce new people so you come right back to square one you can also toggle on and off nudity too in the settings so there are tools to work with for people's different sensitivities and or streaming or video recording second sometimes the story gets dark it's one of the things that I like about balers Gate 3 if I want I can be holy Saint at tratu or I can be the evil murderer tratu while I'm not personally one to shy away from violence and Gore the intent behind it does affect me I finished playing through as the dark urge and boy let me tell you the dark urg's story is so much darker than just a custom character taking a dark path much like Nets of the Old Republic where I played through as a selfless Saint saved everybody it's really tough on me to play through again as the opposite especially right after getting a good ending the day before I worked so damn hard to save and protect these teelings throughout the game and here I am in act one again murdering and sewing seeds of chaos so that I can march on into the Druid Grove with the goblins and Destroy them all there are those characters which were douchebags to begin with which were easy to kill like Koga but there were others who I really would have preferred not to kill like Arabella but I'm doing it all the same because to me I'm telling a new story albeit a sad story but a new story nonetheless also it's interesting to see how the story is told without key characters from my last playthrough I got a bit sidetracked here but my point is there requires a certain level of maturity to be able to appreciate a tragedy type story story and I'm referring to the traditional definition of tragedy you know where not all the main characters live to the end of the story and I also mean it in the literal sense where terrible awful things happen and everyone else did not live happily ever after it is as you say to me the story is the strongest part of balers Gate 3 I could have just written a review by the end of act one but I wanted to make sure sure that I liked the ending before I started writing and thankfully I got exactly what I wanted before I even got to act three laran Studios released an update which provided a nice postgame reunion and provided some charming closure to the story also it's equally important to note that depending on what you do the story needs to adjust itself slightly for example in each playthrough I'd try to do things a little bit differently where at first I talked to everyone read every book moved every rock on other playthroughs i' try to get characters in a different order do things a little bit different kill different people and sometimes you discover special voice lines you never would have for example I picked up carlac before aaran and I was awarded with banter between those two characters no need for this to get messy I will rip your face off fancy boy and I'll eat your heart fire girl you can only get that dialogue if you go very out of your way and know where to get her first and balers Gate 3 is full of dialogue like that which is amazing and requires a whole new level of dedication for game devs think about it how many people do you think have gotten carlac before aarian and gotten that unique dialogue I'm guessing it's uncommon at best speaking of the characters each one joining your party has his or her own quirks virtues and foibles one of the most enjoyable parts of the game is getting to know the eccentric personalities along the way moreover you can tell just how much love and care and detail went into the scripting and voice acting for this game like I said I cannot imagine just how many hidden voice lines there are here I'm going to tell you my opinion on each character if you want to go into balers Gate 3 completely ignorant on the characters I'd suggest skipping this section of the video I'm specifically talking about the origin characters if I told you about every character in the game you'd be here for the next few days and I don't want to record that long first we have the flamboyant elf asarian at first meeting I had already decided I didn't like him he struck me as hotty and arrogant I nearly never had him in my party for my first game which makes sense he normally didn't appreciate the compassion I was trying to shower fyon with that being said imagine my shock when I realized he's probably the best character in the whole game his voice actor brought me to tears at the end of his story with the final showdown with kazador and naturally I've had him along for my new playthrough as the dark urge and he's very understanding H I wonder why next we have Gail the wizard arguably your round ofth the-mill fantasy wizard he was my favorite and from our first meeting in act one he was part of my party from beginning until end seriously I liked having him along for his optimistic personality and destructive magic spells his story was interesting but nothing as emotional as the other characters and it breaks my heart to say he's not in my other playthrough he said give me a hand and I took it moving on we have the hot-tempered carlac a barbarian with an infernal engine for a heart once again this was a super compelling character who I loved having in my party sadly my tank was pretty well established by the time I got car so I only brought her along when the story called for it carlac story was impactful too it actually had me put on my philosophy hat at the end of it I didn't have nearly as many tears for carlac as I did for aaran but there were a few I should just make a cry meter for how emotional I got at the end of each character's Arc next we have the githyanki fighter Lazelle a character I hated upon first meeting and derailed our story to make us go back to her crash or else she'd abandon us she became an established tank melee fighter in my group and probably the most damage dealing so I could not afford to lose her and no one I could really swap her out for I would have love to have carlac as my tank instead but I just knew my strategy with my team and couldn't give Lazelle up that said she did grow on me towards the end of the game and that's the thing about the characters in balers Gate 3 they grow as characters except for the morally good ones who just stayed morally good in my game or died by my own hand when I had my villain Arc next is the cleric half elf named shadowart she is far more morally ambiguous and has several twists and turns in her story I pushed her in the morally right direction but she just as well would have gone the other way lastly we have will the character I would have wanted wanted to be without the Devils of the past he is by far the brightest Shining Light of selflessness and righteousness in the game and he took the hit for it the whole playthrough and came out the other end still being the better man now there's two more characters to talk about yours first we have your own personalized custom character this character can be from num races and backgrounds my character was a Wood Elf Archer whose background was a soldier I figured it made sense considering my time playing World of Warcraft as a hunter if you drop into someone else's game you can always create a new character and pick up wherever they are it's just a nice multiplayer feature lastly I should explain the dark urge this is another customizable character however their backstory is dark Dark and Bloody you can still make choices to fight your urge and still pull through for a happy ending but there aren't any steam achievements for me to do that so I feed the urge in my game and was very uncomfortable for that playthrough the things I do for achievements going along with the different quirks of your companions and party members depending on your decisions you will get approval or disapproval aaran might approve of you murdering Village of Orphans but you can know that will wouldn't approve of such Shenanigans as time goes on your companions will sometimes need a push in One Direction or another and depending on how much approval you have that push might need to be a shove to the tune of a D20 critical success role and I'm looking at you shadowart cuz you made me reload my game so many times in act two because my luck is awful for the story it's broken down into three acts again this might be a section to skip to avoid any slight story spoilers I think the less you know going into the game the better that being said there are some common themes I'll mention about the different acts and the themes of the areas you'll be in I shouldn't be dropping any real big spoilers here just painting a picture with broad Strokes act one I would title the naid the forest and the the underdog you're just getting set up as adventurers you're learning about your companions everyone's new no one knows each other why does carlac keep calling me Soldier why does the Starin keep calling me darling you know you're just getting started you'll have several different ways that you can make your way from act one to act two you could go through the under dark or you could just hang out in the forest and go Overland into act two no pressure though you can do both I was all worried that I wouldn't be able to go see the crash if I went to the underd dark but I risked it and eventually lasel was like hey how about that crash am I right smooth skin you could completely skip one or the other honestly when I was trying to speed through the story as the dark urge I found out you can even kind of skip both and go from the Forest right into act two if you know where to go act two I would title these dark spooky woods are my home now regardless of the choices you make you'll eventually end up at moonrise Tower and the shadow cursed land around it there's a fair bit of lore for you nerds to dig in here my attention isn't always 100% and there is stuff I missed on my first playthrough where subsequent playthroughs refreshed my memory and gave me new eyes to see with act two was my least favorite act it felt like it just dragged on forever Every Act is split up pretty similarly TimeWise but it's like being in the middle of anything I was just kind of tired I just wanted to finish up and the Darkness is literally oppressive in act two again after playing through a second time it wasn't that bad but I learned tricks which made subsequent playthroughs so much easier hey I I can learn act three is we finally made it to balder's gate by the time we got to balder's gate I honestly didn't think I was going to see the city I thought they might just dangle a carrot in front of me and I'd never actually get to see the stupid City in the stupid Long Bridge or whatever but at long last I got to act three and it's around this time they played a song in your camp which acknowledges that you're nearing the end of the game which I might have lost my attention summon Act 2 but it was definitely back as I started to wrap up personal stories for my companions and making preparations for my final fight against villains which have been built up since act one also a quiet side note my favorite song well let's just say lives all Mortal lives keep expire again I cannot emphasize enough just how smartly made this game is there's just slight adjustments for your decisions you make in your previous acts but your character and your actions back in Act One have had an impact on the story in the Final Act this isn't simply a tells tail joke about Clementine we'll remember that if Clementine was in act one in of balder's gate she would actually remember what you did in act one when you're in act three because that's the kind of quality Lan Studios has put into this masterpiece of a game now I'm going to be very careful when I say this but I was happy with the ending of my story it was important for me that I not get to the end and think what I did all this work for this garbage there are some games out there where you spend so much time working towards the end of the game and then you're just so deflated by the ending that it's just what's the point depending on what you do at the end you could potentially get that type of ending but my good moral choice ending was good in my eyes I don't really think I can or should say anything more if you'd like more I'd suggest taking to the comments or dropping me a a message on my Discord server from my experience with balers Gate 3 each Act built on itself bringing the decision from the previous act and adding something new and providing new information which better articulates what exactly is happening right to the final Encounter of the game there's still details being revealed which can change how you look at the game story when you replay it a new from act one first things first when it comes to gam play there is one detail that rises to the Forefront of my mind dice rolling welcome to Classic RPGs I've played some RPGs where the dice rolling happens in the background like with cotor 1 and two that's that's of the Old Republic look wanted two but in balers Gate 3 your dice rolls take a far more Central role literally sometimes you have a D20 in the center of your screen and you click roll when you're making dialogue options which require you to roll not only are you rolling for persuasion Insight or deception when you walk into combat the first thing you do say it with me everyone roll for initiative the thing I said before balder's gate which my fiance didn't understand and now we'll never forget as long as she lives before you attack you roll for initiative and for anyone who doesn't know before you can start attacking each other you need to roll to see who goes first if I roll a one and you roll a 20 you rolled better than me so you'll go before me you won't always see a dice roll in the center of your screen but your character will still roll dice and you'll see text pop up over them that they rolled this typically happens when you're being attacked and trying to concentrate on a spell you cast or you walk by buried treasure or you're trying to sneak past someone's line of sight you'll hear and see an animation and if your character saves you rolled successfully if you failed you'll lose concentration miss the treasure or be spotted as you sneak by much like another RPGs these are almost background in nature but it does add a Dungeons and Dragons flare to the experience which is not entirely unpleasant in my opinion I must confess I don't know how best to explain the combat in balers Gate 3 obviously it's turn-based but you equip Gear with stats and effects on it okay and your character has stats and effects which you take into consideration with that equipment and you have resources to cast spells called action bonus action and reactions sometimes you'll need a spell slot to cast a spell other times they're cantrips and they can just be casted there's a lot of freedom to experiment and play around with your character's class and gear you can even dual class to take advantages from Perks from a whole other class want to be a fighter Mage a barbarian Bard you won't get the final spells from that class though so you need to weigh the pros and the cons of dual classing there's so much I could go on about with character building in my first game I made a ranger but eventually I made him wear heavy armor and equipped a heavy crossbow well towards the end of the game my fighter had two Legendary Weapons equipped and I missed out on making the best heavy crossbow so I decided okay this is no longer working for me let me rebuild my Ranger so I reclassed him took points out of crossbow perks and instead gave him the legendary bow I had and instantly I dished out so much more damage I was competing with lazelle's destructive power one of my favorite builds I saw was my younger brother who picked up a spider companion as a Ranger then dual classed into a druid so he could turn into a spider 2 one of my own projects has been to try to get as many actions and bonus actions as possible and then literally beat people with my weapons but just like I said there's a lot of freedom to experiment you can also really really screw stuff up especially when you're leveling up the good news is the price of changing your class is a meager 100 gold pieces the price you can pay if you change class to a Bard and play in the streets of balder's gate for 30 minutes or so does that seem oddly specific moving on to platform I play balers Gate 3 on my computer with a keyboard and mouse and I also played it on the steam Deck with steam deck controls both options have been set up nicely and I like playing with the easier controls with my keyboard and mouse but it's also nice to play on the TV sitting on the couch with a Bluetooth controller the steam deck controls aren't as fast as the keyboard and mouse but considering balers Gate 3 is a turn-based game it doesn't really need to be fast unless you're trying to hit someone or something without turning turn-based mode on and that's just exasperating because they keep moving lastly it stands to mention there are four difficulty modes on balers Gate 3 Explorer mode which makes everything easier and focuses on the story balanced mode which gives you more of a healthy dose of challenge tactician mode which is for those of you who go harder and honor mode for you masochists who just want to prove you're better than me I played on balanced difficulty which was perfect for me I've been tempted to try out tactician modes since I feel like I have a reasonable grasp of the game playay and of course you can reload saves to get through tougher fights but honor mode is like playing a game on Hardcore Mode I have no desire to smash my face against a brick wall and say yes sir please some more I'm already in an abusive relationship with Don't Starve I don't need that from balers Gate 3 hey hey you did you make it we're nearing the end of this video this might be one of the longest reviews I've done so far and I still don't feel like I've done this game Justice there's just so much I haven't said someone's going to be mad at me that I haven't mentioned the dog scratch or the owl bear I will now call grounder but in conclusion I've enjoyed playing through balers Gate 3 and appreciate having an opportunity to experience such a rich game with such fine details and such a great story I haven't been so immersed in a game since I first played Skyrim for the first time so very long ago and I wasn't expecting that to happen here I thought I was just going to jump in and play a Dungeons and dragon video game with my brothers little did I realize I was going to nearly exclusively play balers Gate 3 for the rest of 2023 and that's why my YouTube channel has been silent for so long that's the unfortunate thing about starting a huge game like this I don't have time for anything else I could play five shorter games and have a few reviews out every couple of months but that's not an option if all my waking free time is absorbed with trying to save balers gate it's like a second full-time job which already cuts into my personal project time now I'm not saying balers Gate 3 is perfect after killing someone my camera will sometimes zoom into that creature's groin because that's definitely where I want to be looking up close and personal my character has fallen off cliffs and elevators to his unceremonious death I've gotten a glitch where my character thinks it's been downed and so I can't teleport away I've got a mid powerered PC which has been in need of an upgrade for the past 5 years so the load times are pretty tough on me too but through everything I've experienced a game I'll never be able to forget every character that joined my party or stayed in my camp for a while I distinctly remembered each one was unique and had his or her own addition to the whole story which was my experience with balers Gate 3 sometimes I got into crazy fights where I only won because of some crazy scheme involving pushing people off high Cliffs or sneaking around and even played a game where we knocked out aaran stole his clothes and left him naked in act one after finishing the game I was actually hit by a wave of sadness because it's over the story's done I now know how it all ends but I don't fight that feeling I embrace it as part of the process for a long long game like this it truly does sometimes feel like you're on an adventure with the party members sure I can play a new game and I most certainly did but there's another option for me now I'm going to take a break I'm not ready to dive into one of these games again for a bit but I can always go back in time I've never played balers gate one or two I haven't even played Divinity original sin although Divinity has been on my steam wish list since what 2015 there are some absolutely awesome games I can turn to to fill the bald gate void anyway thank you for watching and listening I know this has probably just been a long winded way for me to say hey I like bers Gate 3 you should check it out but these videos are a chance to exercise critical thinking skills along with writing and video editing it means a lot to me that there are people out there who also find enough value in them to actually watch them and even fewer that actually get to the end so hey know that I appreciate you and thank you for giving me not only an outlet but also a space to just toss my reviews out there for others to see I'm sure I miss stuff sometimes on purpose to Omit details other times because there's just so much in the game what do you think what was your team when you played through balers Gate 3 similar play style to me or did you rotate your companions feel free to let me know in the comments below don't forget to like that Bell and ding that subscription thank you for watching my name is atatu and I will see you in the next [Music] video [Music] never adult [Music] moment

Channel: Atratzu

Views: 502

Keywords: Baldur's Gate 3 Review, Baldurs Gate 3, BG3, Larian Studios, Balder gate three, Baldur's Gate 3 comments, my thoughts on Baldur's Gate 3

Id: lePHVv_JqwQ

Length: 31min 14sec (1874 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 27 2023