Baldur's Gate 3 - Before You Buy

and we're back with another episode of before you buy the show where we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing today hey it's baldur's gate 3 baby it's been a long time since there's been a baldur's gate which if you're not familiar is top-down tactical western rpg that was originally created by bioware now i've been particularly interested in this entry because it's coming to us by way of larian studios the same people who made divinity original sin one and two which are some of the best rpgs ever in my opinion so perfect fit i mean these are some of the most beloved rpgs of all time so high expectations and if anyone can do it it's lyrian big thing i have to mention here is this game is in early access that means you cannot play it from start to finish it's not possible you can currently only play part of the first act which is a pretty big chunk of the game larian is saying about 20 to 25 hours at the moment but it's not even close to being the entire game currently the game has six classes you can play as nine different races and sub races there are more planned to be added later the game also incorporates multiplayer so multiple people can play through the campaign much like how it worked in the divinity original sin games so it needs to be said there are a few things that are different here the game for instance is not a direct continuation of any of the story of the original baldur's gate game so if that's what you're looking for it's not there that's not a bad thing it's not a value judgment and the game is more of a continuation of the series and spirit it is set actually a hundred years after the events of baldur gate 2 and its expansion so we may see some returning characters from previous games but that story ended with throne of ball the expansion to baldur's gate 2. the game opens with your character escaping a crashing mind flayer ship as the game progresses you recruit other survivors of the crash with all of them having the same problem a mind player tab pole stuck in their head that'll eventually turn them into one of the crazy tentacle guys so that's the setup for the game and honestly it's a hell of a hook you have to deal with mind flayers in a memorable section of baldur's gate 2 but it's nothing as crazy as this right out of the gate you get expansive character creation options it is impressive what i like about the game in particular is it feels like they give you a lot of choices but without it being overwhelming they do a good job separating everything out so you're not immediately hit with like some kind of information overload and from our experience the game does a great job with the default settings for each class obviously you're free to modify things slightly to your liking but if you go with what the game gives you you should do fine it's not going to be a disaster by its nature it's a little more rigid than the character building system in divinity original sin 2. the classes are more locked into their specific roles but it does make it so that there are less traps to fall into when building your character so it balances out pretty well and anybody who did go through character creation in the original baldur's gate games you do not have to roll for stats in this one just uses a regular old point by system so yeah you're not wasting time with that and i know that some people like that but truthfully it's it's a bit of a hassle when you could just be using a point by system the original baldur's gate games were based off advanced dungeons and dragon second edition so you had some quirks like armor score going down as it got better balder's gate is based off dungeons and dragons fifth edition the newest one so a lot of the underlying mechanics are simplified especially compared to the kind of confusing rules governing the original games the game is however brutal right out of the gate it does not take much to die and you will want to save a lot experimentation is obviously key just like with the previous larian divinity games there are a lot of environmental hazards that you can use against enemies or you can just you know kill yourself with if you're not careful surprisingly wizards have a lot of utility with spells that can do basic things like make rain or make a character be able to jump three times as far mages aren't just stuck shooting magic missiles and giving characters defensive buffs they're also sometimes actually necessary for exploration it can also be pretty easy to miss things like this sequence where you talk to a brain near the start you need someone with a high enough jump skill to get up there and the fact there's a little bit of verticality to the areas is enough to throw anyone off who's used to playing a lot of crpgs one thing that is very similar to the old games however is the amount of loot you collect it's not a ton but everything you get feels significant it's a good balance and honestly i think a lot of newer games could learn from it in general the game really emphasizes that it's a d d game first with stuff like actually rolling a virtual die when you need to do a skill check or the way recovery works where you actually go to a uniquely instance camp area rather than just press a button to rest and also in keeping in d d rules uh many skills and spells can only be used once a day once the ability is used you can't use it until you go back to a camp and end the day camp is pretty interesting too it works pretty much the same as it did in dragon age origins it's the place where you can talk to your party members get little bits of story before you go to sleep and yes you can romance party members if you want gives you a lot of freedom depending on what you want to do side quests are everywhere some of them are really short others are a lot more involved the way the game introduces side quests feels pretty natural most of the time like they're introduced in notes sometimes they start from npcs just doing things that you can follow or you'll get them from wandering like to random corners of the map in general the quality of voice acting also pretty impressive like even in utterly unimportant npcs like the voice acting is good along with i mean let's also say how good the character models are as well not everything looks great all the time they're a couple of awkward animations but when some random npc talk shoot is not just a series of canned animations but animations made specifically for that character and that is really impressive now we gotta talk about combat cause there are some big changes here baldur's gate 3 is turn based and that is not how the originals were the originals had real time with pause whereas this game is just standard turn based like the divinity original sin games both had turn-based combat so it's not much of a surprise that larian did what works for them and also those are fantastic games so i'm certainly not upset with it however you will notice that this game compared to other larian games has very fast combat it might seem like a minor thing but the speed your characters perform actions and move around is a real breath of fresh air for a turn-based combat game at this point we're used to a lot of waiting around characters moving then stopping then attacking slowly then game stopping for the ai to figure out his nest move there's not a lot of that here it feels very fluid and very fun and even in early access and you get tons of options right out of the gate with your combat like being able to fully move get an attack and free action every turn is really nice when compared to like the shared movement and attack points of previous laryn games you don't have to worry about not being able to attack if you move too far in this game as well so moving around the battlefield is something you can freely do rather than the standard tactic in the divinity games where you kind of stand in place and hoard as many action points as you can that is not to say this is an easy game though combat it can be pretty lethal it was like that in the previous layering games and it is like that here if you want a challenging crpg experience this is the game to play enemies can kill you fast if you're not careful and the smart application of your abilities can turn a tough battle into something much more manageable that is to say be strategic man i chose to play as a cleric and they're usually pretty all-around good class in dnd and i wasn't disappointed by that even though your character starts out very measly at level one you've got a good selection of spells and you can make some meaningful choices in combat right from the start stealth also very very expanded here compared to the old games outside of giving enemies vision cones like in divinity original sin 2 you can also hide in dark places combine that with magic that can distract enemies you have a ton of options that you can sneak and comparing this to basically any other crpg i've ever played very very good you can turn this game into a top-down stealth game in some parts speaking of top down let's talk what this game looks like it is incredible looking on full settings like genuinely just right up there with triple a studio output with facial modeling and animations environments just fantastic although we have encountered a couple of graphical bugs again early access build is kind of expected but it is something to keep in mind that said the amount of detail is almost overwhelming in this game combined with all the various things you can click on and interact with you're definitely going to miss a few things thankfully there is a highlight interactable objects button you just press alt that's it because without that i think you'd probably lose a lot of stuff in the environment again detail oriented the big set piece moments feel like something out of a modern bioware game rather than one of the old ones the fact they're able to combine these huge events while also having classic crpg gameplay honestly impresses me like just on its own but to sum up um this is an early access game but what is on offer at this very moment is really impressive and there is a decent amount of it everything that we have seen points to this game being a step up for larian studios like they are progressing like a studio should and this is really a phenomenal game so far especially for an early access title does it feel like a balder's gate game it's a little bit harder to say that it does get across the d and d feeling but it also does feel more like larian than black isle or bioware i mean it starts with an exploding brain spaceship being attacked by dragons and demons it's a lot wilder than the relatively sedate stories of the first two baldersgate games we love those games but this is also a crazier take on dnd and feels new and fresh to be completely honest it's not all high concept stuff though the subtler things are well written and interesting as well especially the dialogues with your companions at the camp they are immediately unique and interesting like interpersonal conflicts play out in a way that kind of feels natural especially for a game like this still game does have some noticeable bugs and some wonky visuals and again early access it's only partially done larian says not to expect the full game for at least another year so it's really important to consider that when you do see these kind of little mess-ups i guess it depends on the type of person you are are you okay with playing the game early knowing that it is a little rough around the edges absorbing the content as it gets added or do you want to play the game as a complete thing right from the start i have a feeling to some extent it may even end up feeling a little bit like an episodic game as they add more content which wouldn't be the worst thing i like episodic games because i like having the game sort of spread out over time it gives you time to process story stuff but at the same time it's also a baldur's gate game not a telltale game and if you do want to wait at least you won't have to pay more for the finished game larian released the game into early access at full price so there will not be a price hike at the end of the campaign but also there's no savings for early adopters kind of both a pro and a con ultimately i have to say this is a great game for me i'm kind of digging that they've done what they've done with baldur's gate but i sense that there may be some people that don't agree with that so from my perspective it's one to buy i've gotten a ways in i'm not all the way through the 20 25 hours i certainly want to play more of it i will definitely go through the entire game it is engaging larian studios is just fantastic and i'm excited like i'm really excited it's fun any of you out there played it though leave us a comment let us know what you think if you like this video please click like if you're not subscribed now is a great time to do so we upload brand new videos every day of the week and the best way to see them first is of course the subscription so click subscribe do not forget to enable all notifications and as always we thank you very much for watching this video i'm falcon you can follow me on twitter at falcon hero and we'll see you next time right here on game ranks

Channel: gameranx

Views: 691,664

Rating: 4.8893213 out of 5

Keywords: baldur's gate 3, baldur's gate 3 review, baldur's gate 3 before you buy, before you buy baldur's gate 3, baldur's gate pc gameplay, baldur's gate pc gameplay 60fps, gameranx, game review, baldur's gate 3 early access, baldur's gate early access, larian studios, baldur's gate larian, falcon

Id: s7-39QT378g

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 07 2020