Baldur's Gate 3 Review

balers Gate 3 pushes player freedom to the absolute limit that unparalleled level of Freedom can be found in nearly every aspect of the game from its character creation to combat and after two full playthroughs and a dozen ongoing campaigns I've still barely scratched the surface no two experiences are alike and every character I've created feels unique well the game can't always keep up with this spontaneity of a real life dungeon master it manages to offer plenty of agency while also ensuring that it's vast webike narrative is compelling from start to finish the game begins in the belly of a nautiloid a lovecraftian spaceship piloted by a squid-like race known as athid after you create your avatar and pick a class you are infected with a parasite that slowly and painfully turns the host into a tentacle adorned mind flare you and the other affected members of your party must must find a way to remove the parasite before the transformation is complete it's a wonderfully dark setup that allows laran Studios to pull together an Eclectic batch of characters with a wide array of beliefs dispositions and backgrounds and give them all a common goal these characters aren't adventuring together out of friendship but necessity in many cases it's an uneasy allyship Rife with internal drama and conflict balers Gate 3 regularly puts its characters first and it's better for it while the narrative isn't all that interesting on its own and basically amounts to purge the parasite and save the world the diverse cast of characters makes it so much more memorable by creating an extra layer of nuance that grounds the entire experience with more personal Stakes carlac is a hote headed tling Barbarian with a heart of gold aerian is a pompous and flamboyant Rogue with just enough charm to win you over and lasel is the battle Harden Warrior that puts an interesting spin on the Fish Out of Water archetype there are 10 potential party members in total and each one is backed by sharp writing impeccable acting and spirited animations what's most impressive is how these characters react and grow to your decisions throughout the game how you play your character factors into your relationship with your party for example aarian can be sadistic and power hungry and you can either nurture those dark Tendencies or defitely try to steer him away from them this allows aarian to act as a dramatic foil to a goody two shoes character or a Sinister Confidant to a more chaotic one no matter how you choose to play your character you will be friend some characters and make enemies with others and if you clash with a party member too much they can abandon you alt together this is part of what makes balers Gate 3 Feel So reactive although the story and setup Remains the Same across various playthroughs the party Dynamics and character interactions continue to surprise on each subsequent playthrough these scenes and relationships are supported by an uncompromising presentation for a game with so many variables every conversation feels handcrafted thanks to the Cinematic approach larryan Studios took with dialogue every line other in your own is fully voiced characters are expressive and the camera Cuts seamlessly between the action we will deal with a G after we escape well this approach isn't novel few games if any have done it to the scale of balers Gate 3 presentation isn't everything though but in the case of balers Gate 3 it makes each playthrough no matter how ridiculous feel authored and intentional the impressive level of reactivity extends to the combat while combat is based in dnd's fifth edition rule set larion took some Liberties to make it more approachable in a virtual setting the result is a rich layered combat system that plays out like a turn-based tactical RPG initially every character has one action and one bonus action attacks and spells typically require an action action while a secondary skill like jumping or using an item require a bonus action combat itself is calculated through hidden dice rolls like D and D this adds a bit of uncertainty to the equation where balers Gate 3 sets itself apart from other tactical RPGs though is how flexible its combat mechanics are the game rarely if ever tells you no even in some of the more critical fights in fact the more you level up the more absurd and unpredictable combat gets for example I turned a particular challenging boss into a goat using a polymorph spell and had Arling goddess carlac kick him into an abyss in act three the friends I was playing with learned that the hero's Feast spell makes the entire party immune to poison damage until the next long rest this meant that our wizard could cast Cloud kill anywhere while our fighter and Paladin warlock could mop up the suffocating foes all while ignoring the Spell's deadly effects even something as simple as casting haste and action surge on a level 11 fighter so they can attack nine times 10 if they have a bonus action attack in one turn feels like it's bending the rules to execute a clever play that can dramatically shift the tide of battle this is no time to go playing with fire but the game encourages it combat is so flexible especially near the end that a well optimized party can obliterate even some of the toughest foes yet even when the battles start to feel a bit too easy they never be become roped every spell interaction environmental trap or clever maneuver feels like a stroke of Brilliance that only you and your party could have conjured up during one fight a handful of traps were spewing smoke powder bombs that would explode after a turn and send anyone in the blast radius flying the obvious course of action would be to disable the traps or steer clear of the bombs however since the bombs didn't detonate immediately I put down a wall of fire with my sorcerer and the rest of my party members strategically hurl the time bomb in order to launch the foes into the blaze was it efficient probably not was it effective absolutely the fact balers Gate 3 allowed me to play around with all these variables and reward my Ingenuity speaks to how much creativity the combat can enable depending on your choices every facet of balers Gate 3 Works in tandem to deliver a climactic third act the story builds to a difficult final Choice key combat encounters are appropri epic and it all takes place in the dense city of balder's gate as good as the first two acts are it really feels like balers Gate 3 saves the best for last the resolution of character arcs in particular really stands out in my adventure carlac story wrapped up with a Bittersweet heartfelt moment that almost brought me to tears meanwhile I managed to fix Asian's darker Tendencies by unearthing some of his trauma while different both arcs felt equally satisfying and rewarding but your decisions can also lead to an anemic third act that lacks any emotional payoff whatsoever in a very chaotic Co-Op campaign my party and I killed and or pissed off just about every important character your quest log still leads you to some of act three's key set pieces but most of them felt bare without characters like shadowart and asarian to ground the experience it's a weird problem to have because most games simply wouldn't let you kill off characters that are this integral to the story but balers Gate 3 lets you and there are consequences is it laran Studio's responsibility to ensure that every single Quest plotline and character Arc is satisfying if those characters are no longer around I don't think so and in the case of balers Gate 3 that Unapologetic player freedom is far more important to the overall experience you reap what you seow and sometimes what you seow is a sad and lonely [Music] conclusion if anything that kind of outcome shows that the game's level of Freedom extends Beyond a solo adventure to co-op where the variables are complicated further by having other human controlled Adventures up to four players can create their own character and play through the entire Campaign together surprisingly the co-op is nearly identical to the single player experience it does have some quirks but any player can push the story forward make important decisions and aggro NPCs without anyone else knowing it's empowering and a little terrifying knowing that you could potentially sink an entire quest line or character based on a decision you make that the rest of the party might have missed by the time my party had made it to the third act shadowart had abandoned us Gail had vanished after I bit off his hand will died during the emerald Grove Fiasco car had refused to join us because of the emerald Grove Fiasco Menara had attacked us because a party member tried to read her mind promptly after a sexual encounter and I killed aarion because I didn't like the way he treated me our only surviving party member was lizel who miraculously was undeterred by r mostly my senseless violence this resulted in a hollow and fragmented final act that forced us to fill in the blanks once again this issue is rooted in balers gate 3's immense level of Freedom sure laran Studios could have put up safety rails so we could have gotten the proper experience but that would have come at the cost of the freedom that is so core to the game especially in a Cooperative setting where every player needs to feel like the hero of Their Own Story near the end of balers Gate 3 a character says too much Freedom can be frightening it's a powerful line within the context of the story but it also speaks to balers Gate 3 on a deeper level that freedom it offers is unprecedented and it takes a little while to really see the scope of what that means for the game at times the sheer number of choices and consequences can be overwhelming but before long it becomes apparent that balers Gate 3 allows players to be the authors of their own destinies in a way no other game has before it's that freedom and reactivity paired with an excellent presentation and fantastic characters that really set balers Gate 3 apart and it's why after 200 hours I'm still coming back to it too much Freedom can be frightening but larryan trusts its players to make the most of it For Better or For [Music] Worse

Channel: GameSpot

Views: 254,854

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Id: pOG1jjvLh28

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 19 2023