Baldur's Gate 3 Review - The Final Verdict

foreign [Music] after nearly three years in Early Access and six years in development Baldur's Gate 3 is finally available on PC while the hype was immense I saw what the team could deliver with the full release larion has vastly exceeded my expectations Baldur's Gate 3 is not just one of the best role-playing games of all time or just an incredible rendition of the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy it's a game that will stand out for the next several years with its depth and complexity not to mention the soul and creativity infused in every aspect of the experience it's a role-playing game that in the truest sense of the word with a breathtaking world to explore full of memorable characters and incredible Secrets where you can just live out your fantasies regardless of the dark paths they take you on suffice it to say that you don't just dive in and play spectator to the story as fun as that can be in its own right you are a character and not necessarily A Chosen One decisions and where they lead you drive the story and it reacts accordingly sometimes soonish and other times at some far-flung point that you would never see coming whether you play shadow heart the dark urge or any other origin character these are your stories backed by Stellar production values despite the bugs and performance dips you get abducted by a mind flare and held captive on its nautiloid receiving an illicit parasite to instill ceramorphosis that's very bad since it turns you into a mind flare but after being attacked by get the Yankee Dragon Riders it eventually crashes into feyron after the first encounter with one of the captives elizille you're given full agency to do just about anything want to pry and intellect Devourer from a victim's skull and use it as a pet to rescue Shadow heart or leave her to die heal the various thrall lying about and watch them jump off the nautiloid and about a frenzy you could do all these things and that's not even the tip of the iceberg fight for the fate of faerun a fight we are losing for now you can change that but only if you embrace your potential once on land you begin a journey to remove the tadpole from your brain quickly accruing companions with the same Affliction there's asterion a flamboyant magistrate from Baldur's Gate who also happens to be a vampire Gail a Charming wizard harboring a secret with potentially catastrophic consequences while the blade of the Frontiers and a venerable Legend who has a dark pack to fulfill and many more to say that these characters are incredibly realized would be an understatement they're multi-layered and nuanced but also converts and react naturally Shadow heart isn't quick to trust people much less open up but gain her approval and you'll notice her making Jabs and believing a more relaxed nature Gail comes across as confident but desperation slowly takes over as you learn more about his need for Magical artifacts Carlock hyped as the killing machine whose thirsts for blood is tough and confident but has a goofy side that emerges as you help her with her infernal engine the dialogue in these conversations is impeccable and flows well the interactions between party members are also pretty fun whether it's lizel and Gail discussing battle stances or a car lack boasting about the city to Shadow heart of course if you don't want to recruit someone or kill them which the dark urge provides several opportunities for you can do that as well the crazy thing is how even random NPCs deliver memorable dialogue and interactions like the tiefling children with their underground hideout and a small time thieving business or scratch a dog waiting patiently for his master to wake up the voice acting is impeccable but special mention must be made of Amelia Tyler the narrator she ties it all together conveying the protagonist's thoughts and fulfilling the intervals of interactions with Insight without feeling conspicious it is also a testament to the sheer quality of the story that even as you run around looting containers left and right and exploring caves or ruins the pace feels right events happen at a rapid pace and regardless of how insignificant an interaction may seem there's that feeling of your choice creating an impact down the line whether you focus on the story or explore every nook and hidden corner of the game's three acts Baldur's Gate 3 is massive each companion who has has their own questline and background goals to fulfill and your Journal will quickly fill with different side quests there's something new and exciting around almost every corner like a side of Massacre where you face off against some nulls or a barn with some secret weaponsmith plans even simple encounters like two individuals who lost their Ally to an owl bear becomes adventures with several consequences even more intriguing is the direction you can take in some encounters maybe you'll send the previous two individuals to fight said owl bear and die or you'll talk to it beforehand and Retreat without fighting perhaps you'll slay it and adopt the owl Bears Cubs as your new pet in the blighted village you could sneak around the Goblins or use the illicit tadpole to manipulate one and have them consider you as friendly it allows for bypassing a major battle but you can also use it to set up an attack when their guards are down choices like these and many more go a long way to making the game and its World feel alive they also offer unique solutions that may be better than indulging in combat oh that was worth it Daddy of course everything is down to the roll of the die proficiencies gear and skills especially with other party members providing bonuses can help turn the odds in your favor however your race sub race and background can also play a role such as intimidating someone as a lot sworn drone to obtain more information on the githyanki crunch in the area or convincing kaga to release a young Thief due to your Affinity with nature the best part is that even if you fail in places the story still plays out with interesting results combat will eventually occur the die determines several things whether it's your attack role and whether it will land on a Target the damage roll which determines the amount of damage or the saving throw for mitigating or outright avoiding damage you also have some incredibly spicy options like jumping for repositioning or shoving enemies which is incredibly useful if you have The High Ground you could throw things like weapons and even people create new opportunities and gain advantages and disadvantages based on the situation like the story combat is where the sheer depth of your build shines I played as a ranger specializing in ranged combat and could dual wield swords for flourishes to knock enemies off balance eventually I unlocked the gloomstalker which opened up a new Avenue for stealth and bonus actions like applying Hunter's Mark or ranged in melee attacks for free though companions start simple enough their kits provide extensive depth when mixed with everything else Lazelle is a strong Warrior capable of extra action and attacks like lacerate however she could also become an Eldritch Knight adding magic Missile and chromatic orb to her repertoire as they get the Yankee she can also use psionic jump action allowing for greater distances on jumping which can also be used on other characters Carla could become a Berserker and dual wield Axis or a wild heart whose bestial heart provided different bonuses to nearby party members depending on the animal chosen this is in addition to Rage which deals more damage and grants physical damage resistance and Reckless attack which provides an advantage on attack rolls at the cost of enemies also having an advantage against you honestly it's a lot with hundreds of available spells and actions throughout the game it can be overwhelming but in a good way it's great having so many options to personalize and strengthen your character I haven't had much opportunity to get into all the gear or Feats but each provides additional bonuses and abilities to further augment builds again all of this every bit is just the start there is so much depth to the experience to talk about like the illicit powers that provide new ways to mess with people and enemies or the hidden things that you can discover with decent enough perception or the combat encounters themselves with each feeling unique inviting you to try out different strategies and even utilize the environment to your advantage or the appearance part of the character creation system with its staggering amount of options for each race regarding the presentation and visuals the character models look distinct and backed by strong facial animations and motion environments are full of details with Gorgeous lighting foliage and textures throughout instead of an overhead camera during conversations each is a proper cutscene with different camera angles providing even more immersion and personality what's even more impressive is that despite being on the lower end of gpus GTX 1060 gang rise up Baldur's Gate 3 offers a solid performance throughout even on high settings for everything my experience has been pretty good so far but there are reports of frame drops in the latter parts of the game even for those with powerful Hardware it's nothing too severe and hopefully these will be optimized in good time this brings us to the bugs and honestly for a massive experience like this with so many different systems events and characters that play in a large world the level of Polish is pretty strong it's not Flawless though I encountered a bug which hid lizelle's action bar under varying circumstances which has been fixed by reloading a save other bugs like damage taken being delayed or some slightly long pauses when waiting for the list of dialogue choices also popped up you'll also notice a bit of Jank at times in some cutscenes there was also the infamous save data bug which resulted in larion disabling cross saves while investigating a fix while there's no doubt that the experience will be polished even further with time I also hope that the inventory system will see some changes you pick up lots of stuff in this game and your inventory can quickly become messy there are filters and categories to sort through it all and you're free to send things back to the storage chest in Camp which is nice but it can become cumbersome to manage at times regarding the music every track has been in orchestral Delight in keeping with the setting there's nothing that I can say that would even begin to describe how great it all sounds so if nothing else listen to it and be amazed Baldur's Gate 3 is a Triumph for many reasons storytelling combat dialogue choices visuals music voice acting pacing sidequest design complexity Everything feels spot on and the attention to detail is insane that's not accounting for the sheer replay value with all the classes subclasses spells path decisions and much more even with its imperfections slight as they may be larion has raised the bar for role-playing games hey did you know that we had gaming bolt upload new videos every day stick around drop a like subscribe and hit that Bell and let us know what kind of content you'd like to see in the future with a comment below

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Id: TFL-LUVvMkc

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2023