Baldur's Gate 3 | Revenge of the bad dragon (NO SPOILER)

Another awesome review! I appreciate all the time and effort you put into this for all of us! I'll definitely be giving BG3 a go!

lets just say i got so annoyed with how bad the dice rolling was during combat i just had to get mods to make it stop being so annoying with it's rng. bascially i had to turn bg 3 into dos 2 to make it fun.

Mate, I watch your videos on games released and that I played years ago. At least, on my case, I couldn`t care less for being "late" xD There`s always gonna be someone that just read Don Quixote for the first time and wanna talk about it/see others reaction and impressions to it. Here you have my late comment xD

One of the worst bits for me is that scenes seem to be queued in your long rests - I tried to not take many long rests so they felt more like a resource and resultantly, I ended up missing out on some things because too much stuff happened to be in my 'queue'.

One bug that you missed is the bug where a follower will stop following in a group.

If you have them be the party lead they will workn as intended but if you have anyone else lead they'll stand there. At the time of posting there is no fix that works all the time and its apparently been an issue since the beta. This happened to me and i didn't know about it until it was far too late and ruined Gale. While i was a Sorc so i didnt miss him too much this can absolutely break someones game, especially if it happens to multiple party members. And like I said its been a problem that the devs know abiut for over a year

Could you review some more old school D&D CRPG like Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights?

Sucks that I'm going to have to either wait for it to come out on Xbox One; or most likely actually upgrade to the Series X. Hopefully by the time I can afford to do that, the game will be out for the consoles, one way or the other. I'm not really a PC player. I do better with a controller than I ever will with a mouse and keyboard.

Might try to make an actual Halfling Berserker. Go for Big Red. She seems... enthusiastic. ; )
She'd be like: You must be this tall to ride - I'd be like, eh... where'd I put that step ladder?
(I bet you were a very, bad dragon...)

The Raphael fight music is golden

Since It released on PS5, I've got roughly 180 Hours into it, I'm almost done with my second playthrough. I think this game is going to get Game of the year, and if anyone is still considering it but is holding off due to potential limitations with the controller, I'd suggest going for it.

I think we've grown used to game companies that put their games in a microwave, nuke it for a bit, then shove it infront of us expecting us to dig in. While not perfect, BG3, and Larion is a lot like Elden Ring in the sense that it sets a new standard for the Genre and it's worth experiencing.

I agree with Strat though, that the game is lacking on Act 2, and that in general the balance could use improvement. I think what makes BG3 so interesting, is that it's a gateway game into DND, and that with how successful the game is it's not unlikely they'll go for a Custom Campaign system not unlike what we saw in DOS II.

Act 2 is defenitely the weakest part of the game. Still had fun with it tho.

Pretty sure the high amount of enemies at that point is to account for the fireball spell and some other aoe's.

Was that Mauler's voice I heard in the background?

the great thing about DnD is you don't have to upgrade to the non racist version :D

ugh more pozzed crap that railroads you into gay sex with an unkillable companion who just ends the entire game by exploding if you try to avoid his creepy constant attempt to ram your anus. every conversation ends with an attempt at it. another gay character sneaks around everytime you are sleeping and tries to suck on you. there isn't a single male companion that isn't trying to bring you to the ram ranch every time you talk to them. the characters and story in divinity original sin is so much better. baldurs gate 3 is spending 30 hours watching a digital 20 sided die roll without an option to auto skip watching it roll and spending the other 30 hours fending off sexual harassment from fairies. divinity did this stuff without wasting a day and half of my life.

I love how thorough you are with the reviews, most other reviews I've seen hadn't even made it past act 1, and here you've beaten it twice already.

you are the worst critic , you say bad things about any thing , you say city is too big if it was small you would say city is too small man you are very bad critic

I was disappointed it turned out to be more Divinity Original Sin 3 than Baldur's Gate 3. The pacing in it reminds me of that old Lionheart game - spend the first part enjoying the story, and then being bored for the second half due to all the combat

I actually love playing on controller. The menus do not bother me at all and I enjoy organizing them

My lipless beak!

I dropped the game in act one, SPOILER

when the devil offers to take out the tadpole i said yes immediately because why wouldnt i
If you say yes he does a long reddit post about how i cant say yes because im not desperate yet (i am i have a tadpole eating my brain)

This game was a great Vampire Guy Dating Simulator. The mini games of fighting were also very cool.

But seriously this game was amazing and I absolutely loved it.

You never separated your party? Ungroup the portraits and do your own thing.

I'm glad I'm not alone in feeling like there are big letdowns as far as pacing. Oddly I enjoyed Act 2 a lot more than you but I was definitely tired of perpetual dungeon by the end, to the point that I rushed through the colony dungeon after the first fight with Ketheric. Act 3 was where I felt a big slowdown, and a lot more restricted in terms of options. as far as story goes though, there are a few minor ball-drops in Act 2 that took me out of the narrative for a little bit, but I'm happy that I've carried on so far (nearly done with my first run, like 100 hrs in lol, I take it very slow.) I agree with your final thoughts, people just haven't had a proper CRPG in a while, the closest we got was Wrath of the Righteous, and that had a whole host of problems at launch, and was geared towards a much narrower audience than BG3 is.

I wish we could get another small-studio gem like Tyranny, here's hoping!

Man I just got fed up with act 2 today and decided to watch this video I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling this way and that the game gets better later

how dare you?!

I got bored with this game toward the end of Act 1. I don't know. It just didn't catch my attention. Nothing in the game made me want to play it more.

Fair enough criticism in my opinion, except I guess you didn’t realize you could uncouple your group characters from each other so they don’t all follow each other. Not your fault if you didn’t know this, but a system does exist for leaving the group behind for a single stealth attack.

Are you going to do a full spoiler review?

Bad Dragon huh ?

You should get games so early that it's before Todd even steals the idea for them

I had that infinite conversation loop bug in act 1. Went into the cave with the thief kids and the leader just kept repeating "I don't wanna see you ever again" until I gave up and reloaded.

this is it right right right?

"This isn't a milestone, you've just gone so long without seeing a real game you've forgotten what they look like"

Well said. I see a lot of people acting like the style of game bg3 is is somehow new and fresh? But these are also the people who think fallout 4 is the best rpg ever

I want to play a game where everyone outright hates you. Any time you come upon a town or mission, they just tell you to go away the first 5 or so times. Guards will harass you, shops will outright scam you, etc. Have the dogs even run from you.

Interesting, conversely I felt act 2 is where persuasion characters really shine. And yes, I agree. Even though it had frustrating moments for me too, where it shines more than made up for it.

I'm pretty sure people aren't doing act 2... that includes me. It's a slog. I'll get around to it eventually.

I played Tyranny bc of you. I killed a little girl and never finished.

Act 2 is probably one of my fav part of the game. Perfectly balanced in my opinion. Act 1 was a bit too hard sometimes bc you are low level. Act 3 was too easy bc you are too high level. Act 2 is perfectly fine. Challenging without being too hard. The curse was never a Problem, I actualy forgot it is a thing.

Balanced is perfectly balanced imo. Dont tell them to look up builds, just try things out. I never needed to optimize my build.

Being level 6 in act 2 is normal

That moment when a dude goes for the good the bad and the ugly and substitutes ugly for verdict. But we all know ugly part.

For all it's foibles, ESPECIALLY THE FUCKING CAMERA, this game allowed me to be a party of one.
Something i did not expect in the least.
And it makes damn sure you know it's your own choice and a very bad idea.

Even Withers got on my case about it:
"Thow walkest alone. On all these harsh nights, thou hast sought no company."
Literally got off Elden Ring and i still get npcs basically calling me "Maidenless".

Even if i had to cheese a looooot of fights. I still managed to get to Act 3, had to really comb the map for that XP.
That toad looking people creche? Yeah...it's empty now.
The hag? Down the river she went. Had to teach her the same fucking lesson again in Act 3.
Gortash? Motherfucker should've invested in spring legs or rocketboots for his precious steel soldiers. Literally used a potion of sleeping (long rest) midfight to recover my abilities. Even got an achievement for not triggering his stupid traps.

Orin is still on my hitlist, the red-haired girl will have to wait...this fucking city is huge!
And i am so annoyed the max level is 12.
I read it's due to complexity of the game...but all they had to do is force you to multiclass from level 12 into another class.
"Why can't i become a level 20 wizard?"
"Because tadpole in brain, shut up, now pick up that flute!"

As someone who was not enjoying the space between finding quest IE exploring already explored areas to find every nook but other then that solid as im on act 2 and it still holding up but tbf I don't these kinds of RPG often.

So despite my familiarity with the genre I don't waste my time on the trash.

Hey Strat, I was just running back some of your older videos and came across a few where you were talking about your surgeries. I'm glad you're still here man.

for the gauntlet in act 2, you're heavily incentivized to bring shadowheart who can just click turn undead and radiant dmg spells. It's quite well balanced, and in coop it's not that hard if you have aoe spells. Playing a 4 man coop campaign, one tactician and another one normal mode, it's clear to me that act 2 strikes a perfect balance of difficulty and fight design. Act 3 is piss easy and most fights are boring to boot.

LMAO you didn't even figure out how to make characters move independently from the party and you're blaming the game for it?

I was enjoying this game until literally everybody tried to screw me, all my party are horny furries or muscular men....the one hot chick i couldn't bang. Weirdo left wing shoehorned nonsense utterly ruins this.

Shallow experience/10, "Bethesda style" dialogues and quest design, strange design choices/ignored issues (including things fixing which really at the lowest of low tier efforts). Also the in-world (as in not background tracks but what characrers play/sing/hear) music design is abysmal and couldn't be more removed from the world, at first it just made me cringe but it became even worse.
Also weird mix between old school cRPG with non-zoomed in dialogues/first person ones and the new "cinematic" dialogue style which pushes the game firmly into uncanny valley, especially with destiny style facial expressions of the PC (meanwhile NPCs act, for the most part, fine). What I'm talking about is there's proper camera work like, say, in witcher or gothic (ok gothic is old school), but the PC doesn't actually voice their lines. Considering that they have action/exploration voice lines for PCs and premade faces (aka less problem with lipsync and such) it's twice as weird.
Companion approval system is fucked but I think they'll tune it in some future patch (you do nothing special and suddenly you're a confidante/literal most amazing human being whom everyone wants to fuck and spend life with)

I'm currently on act two myself, and something really stupid I learned that you mentioned about the Cleric in act 2 is that you are NOT supposed to talk to her when told to do so. Just avoid her and continue onward. I don't know why they did this, but act two starts presenting a lot of continuity problems, such as (Spoilers ahead) why do the captured tieflings die in prison after you rescue Nightsong?

I like act 2 and the gimmick, I think it does a really good job setting up the tone and desperation of the situation, but good god can you fuck up your save if you are not saving on a regular basis. Some might say that is the point of the fun, which I would typically agree with, but only if the consequences make sense.

My biggest complaint with the game is that some enemies are immune to some status effects and nothing warns you about that until after you've wasted a whole turn and spellslot to do it. Usually you can press T and check what effects an enemy has, which things they're immune to, etc., but sometimes the game just tells you to go screw yourself.

I appreciate that you don't just laud the game and you actually critique it a lot before you say that it's a great game. Even great games have large flaws or else every game would be for every person. Can't wait to finally get through it. Been on a big move but I'm hoping to get my setup going and enjoy the ride