A bit infamous for being in development for so long, Baldur’s Gate III finally had its full release earlier this month. And I… I’ve bounced off it rather hard.
In terms of visuals and gameplay it greatly resembles Divinity: Original Sin II, which is not surprising, while the characters and storytelling more resemble Dragon Age (which was unexpected). Despite liking both of those (Dragon Age II excepted) playing this one ended up subtly unpleasant.
After thinking about it for some time I believe I’ve narrowed down the causes: Narrative and mechanics system.
Narratively the issue is that right from the beginning the game acts as though you’re running out of time, when you are not. There is no time limit here. Yet all the early quests from the Mind Flayers, to the Druid Circle, to Gale’s ailment, to Shadowheart’s artifact keep reinforcing the idea that time’s in short supply… and I despise feeling rushed. It also clashes with the fact that many sidequests (particularly ones related to your companions) won’t progress unless you rest a ton.
Mechanically the issue is one of base percentages. Apparently in this game having a 70% chance to hit is perfectly normal, which is an issue when in most other RPGs anything less than 95% means either you’re doing something wrong or the enemy in question is meant to have abnormally high defenses. So every time I see that relatively low chance to hit when targeting a random trash mob I immediately feel like I’m underpowered, and I do not play RPGs to feel underpowered. Quite the opposite.
I’ll probably give it another shot later, now that I’m aware of what was throwing me off and can possibly look past it, but for the time being it’s not a game I can recommend.
