Baldur's Gate 3: developed by Larian Studios

[Raid]

I'm only a few hours in (spent the last hour investigating the refugee camp and now making my way to the Druid sanctum), but it's fantastic to see a setting I've gotten quite invested in over the last few years rendered in such quality. There are tons of little touches, like the way everyone reacts to the familiar I gave Gale, and while I knew there were dialogue lines added to recognise your character race and class, I'm shocked at just how many there are. Half of the people in the camp mentioned my character being a Drow.

[Wrathbone]

The combat is producing some wonderfully chaotic and desperate scenarios - all emergent, not scripted - which require some proper D&D improvisation to resolve. I had a massive fight going on where Shadowheart got dropkicked off a ledge into lava, and I was a long way into the fight and didn’t want to reload (would have been bad form, too), so I had to figure something out. I started by having my bard use healing word to wake her up and then had Gale lob a potion of flying at her, which sadly didn’t work, and she immediately started melting again on her turn.

The next round Gale got incapacitated, while Karlach was holding off some big bugger (there wasn’t much she could do to help Shadowheart anyway). It was down to my bard PC - I had him misty step from one side of the battlefield to the other, managing to just get to the ledge to use a scroll of dimension door, which thankfully was just close enough to tag Shadowheart and teleport us both to safety. Next round was a healing frenzy followed by some serious ass-whooping.

The secret MVP in that fight was Karlach, whose hasted rage slaughtering kept everything at bay while the predicament was resolved. It was a nail-biting, mesmerising battle that rivalled some of the best tabletop fights I’ve had.

[arqueturus]

I'm only a few hours in (spent the last hour investigating the refugee camp and now making my way to the Druid sanctum), but it's fantastic to see a setting I've gotten quite invested in over the last few years rendered in such quality. There are tons of little touches, like the way everyone reacts to the familiar I gave Gale, and while I knew there were dialogue lines added to recognise your character race and class, I'm shocked at just how many there are. Half of the people in the camp mentioned my character being a Drow.

This is more or less where I'm up to, similarily my character is Half-Orc although I'm playing her has Half-Human and the touches in reactions is brilliant. Ranging from subtle to obvious it's just excellent and really adds to the immersion. I think my high point in conversation so far was Astarion talking to the Tiefling child vendor - the amount of options in that conversation alone, that actually made sense was just fun.. I can't remember the last time I had fun in a brancing conversation in an RPG rather than it being a) Main Quest exposition or b) Boilerplate for a side quest.

I do love the combat but I'm having a ball wandering around talking to people so much so that when I when I hit level 3 with Astarion I picked Arcane Trickster because I felt it fit his character and I got genuinely excited at the the thought of how I could use him in conversations.

My only cristicsm is not being able to swap characters mid conversation - you don't really know who to begin a conversation with like the above one with the Tiefling, it was fluke that I had Astarion selected.

[Raid]

My only cristicsm is not being able to swap characters mid conversation - you don't really know who to begin a conversation with like the above one with the Tiefling, it was fluke that I had Astarion selected.

Yeah, I think I'd call that my only real criticism so far too. It feels like other party members ought to be part of conversations, because in the tabletop it would feel weird if only one player could contribute to NPC conversations. Perhaps they could have any unique dialogue choices for other party members listed among responses, just with the character's name prefacing it (similar to how skill checks are listed). I almost always use my player character for conversations as she's the high-charisma one, but I feel like I'm missing some of the more entertaining options from the Origin characters.

[Raid]

Oh my god the barn.

[Wrathbone]

Quite.

[Snowy]

Well this is eating a large chunk of my life atm!

Was playing till 2:30am this morning, which doesn't often happen outside of booze-fuelled TGA Ghost co-op sessions. 20 hours invested and cleared the goblin encampment and ended the Druid grove threat. I have had quite a few 'oh fuck *reload*' moments, and am thinking of macroing up F5 to fire off every 5 mins as it is too easy to accidentally walk un-rested into a nasty scrap. In one fight in the Underdark (be careful of the ramp leading down part-way in...) one particular encounter had punted three of my party into the void before the fight proper had started!

Not sure about the sexy elements. I saw a a fairly obvious opportunity to shag the angry Githyanki (with my female Drow bard) so decided to follow it through - suffice to say I wasn't expecting the moderately graphic cross-species oral sex scene that followed

[Animalmother]

So this is due out on the PS5 soon but not the Xbox as Larian can't get the split screen co-op to work reliably on the Series S. Microsoft are insisting that game features work on both of their consoles or not at all, fucking studid. This is apparently why there's no raytracing versions of Minecraft or Halo available and probably why Starfield is locked at 30fps on console.

I had to look up the barn scene after a mate told me about it....fucking hell

[Wrathbone]

Not sure about the sexy elements. I saw a a fairly obvious opportunity to shag the angry Githyanki (with my female Drow bard) so decided to follow it through - suffice to say I wasn't expecting the moderately graphic cross-species oral sex scene that followed

Every party member is too damn thirsty! I’d prefer it if there was a clear “no means no” option, because every other camp conversation feels like a challenge to avoid flirtation with everyone and everything, and honestly I’d like to be able to talk to Gale without him making magical fuck-eyes at me all the time.

[Snowy]

Just went back to tidy up some old areas before moving on. Oh man, the barn scene had me howling

[Raid]

The barn scene has honestly been one of my highlights of the game so far.

Spoiler

At the point I opened the door I was utterly convinced it was a trapped animal that you could release as a distraction to the goblins, and I'd spent a minute or two sneaking around trying to find a more subtle way I could see what was inside. It ended up being the most dangerous fight I'd had up until that point, as the ogre one-shotted both Gale and Astarion, and brought my player character down to 1hp. Having a TPK because I'd walked in on some almost graphic intercourse between a Bugbear and an Ogre five times his size would have been absolutely hysterical.

I'm not far enough in (ooh-err) to have seen any sex scenes between party members yet and I don't tend to bother with romance options in games, but given their inclusion made the above possible, I'm willing to allow it.

[Raid]

Every party member is too damn thirsty! I’d prefer it if there was a clear “no means no” option, because every other camp conversation feels like a challenge to avoid flirtation with everyone and everything, and honestly I’d like to be able to talk to Gale without him making magical fuck-eyes at me all the time.

I found a Gandalf hat very early on that I made him wear. It conveniently covers the top half of his face in conversations.

[arqueturus]

Spoilers! people Spoilers!

I'm weak and won't be able to resist looking stuff up

I've not had a chance to play more as yet but should do this evening. I'm intrigued by the tough fights people are having - are we all playing on Balanced? So far I'm not finding the fights too tough but it might be all kitten gloves with me. I do tend to scout heavily mind.

[Snowy]

Spoilers! people Spoilers!

I'm weak and won't be able to resist looking stuff up

I've not had a chance to play more as yet but should do this evening. I'm intrigued by the tough fights people are having - are we all playing on Balanced? So far I'm not finding the fights too tough but it might be all kitten gloves with me. I do tend to scout heavily mind.

I quickly dropped it down to low difficulty and the combat is still absolutely nails. I know myself too well, too many wipes and my enthusiasm for the game will also be wiped. It is about the right difficulty for me now.

[Wrathbone]

I’m on balanced and I’ve had a couple of TPKs, as well as a few fights I’ve barely scraped through. The high stakes in some fights make them brilliantly tense, such as when you have a chance to save an NPC, because you know full well that there will be consequences either way.