Been playing again recently and tried to take off some of my blinders to the games flaws. I love BG3. For me, it's one of the greatest games/RPGs I've played. Reminds me of the great RPG's from the 2000's/2010's. But if I am trying to be objective, there are a lot of minor issues and a few major ones.
The TL
R of my sperging personal opinions - BG3 is one of the great games but after 6 playthroughs, 2 on Honor mode I can see more flaws. If you want to read it all and tell me I'm a retard please do:
Minor Issues:
Equipment/Gear - Most of it is pointless or not worth using until mid act 2 or act 3. Even then, most builds are funneled into the same gear or items if you want to play on Tactician or Honor mode. But even on balanced, most of the gear is just pointless. Things like momentum or chances or extra damage when specific criteria are met just ruin my enjoyment for getting items. There's one item that heals you if you do poison damage (no one uses poison) and another that if you heal someone, you get poison damage on weapon attacks. What healer is doing weapon damage? Don't even get me started on Armor being mostly worthless. I think Larian did a much better job in DOS II with items. There are counters to my point, and Larian also has the DnD ruleset to contend with, but I was hoping for better. Something else is that none of the items you get are ever truly end game items. None of them soar to the level of something like the Alien blaster in Fallout 3. Or the Survivalist Rifle in FNV. Or how about later game robes and weapons in KOTOR 2? Nothing ever hits that level. If you make something hard to do or hard to find, I like to feel rewarded for doing it. If I get the legendary Baldurian Armor and sword, I expect it be truly be legendary. Though for me the helmet never applies its bonuses correctly.
Why is everyone Gay? - Larian is woke like most of the industry. I've said it before and will say again - If you are going to insert wokeism into a game, BG3 is the way to do it effectively. But holy shit there are so many gays. There honestly might be more gays that are outright gay or hint gay than straight. Astarion, Shadowheart, Karlach are all "queer-coded" despite everyone being pan or whatever the term is. The majority of relationships that are portrayed lean gay. As an example - I was in the Underdark doing the Nere fight. Somehow, I blew up the rocks and it triggered combat even though everyone was away from it. This kept all the deep gnomes alive (including the girl that gets thrown in lava). After the fight I talk to her since I've never seen her live. She asks about the other female deep gnome that tries to blow up the Runepowder. My wife killed her for some reason so I told her she was dead. She got upset in the same manner someone would if their partner died. Then immediately after this, the gnomes are wandering around and two of them start talking about being hurt. One says to the other "you're my husband, something I care about you". it was two males. There is so much of this throughout the game - Alfira and that other one, Isobel and the Angel that was gender swapped, the tranny Shadowheart slept with, Raphael, I don't really care if someone is gay, but life is not majority homosexual and I prefer my games don't portray 50% of people as gays. The real issue for me is that we know these companies are subversive, trying to insert their political ideologies into everything. But again, Larian does this "right" as most people don't pay attention. It isn't in your face and for most, it will be a subconscious acknowledgement. Which is the point.
The companions kind of blow - My hottest of takes for sure. Astarion and Shadowheart are the only good companions in the game. Wyll, Karlach and La'zel are outright bad companions with weak to dumb story arcs. This isn't too far off from Larian's own metrics to be fair. Karlach is the only one that some people love, but her story is not great and feels tacked on. Wyll is just dogshit and gets relegated to permanent camp bitch for almost everyone. He was more interesting before the re-write IMO. When your patron has more character than you, you were not written well. La'zel has her moments, but is otherwise an annoying frog who's at conflict with everything and everyone. Her story isn't that interesting and just about everything she is a part of could be removed from the game without it affecting the rest of the narrative. You don't have to go to the creche. You don't have to interact with the Githyanki except for in random fights. They don't impact the ending despite fighting the Netherbrain. They either die or leave no matter your choice. You can make a companion like this. One who is hostile to everything. Instead of Karlach the Barbarian, you make a stereotype Nordic esq Barbarian that is constantly trying to club to death anything he can. Create a good, integrated backstory and boom - better than "Tsskkk we need to get to the creche, oh wait that was a waste of time". Gale is okay, but only because of the additional content where he can become a God. It never sat right with me his character motivations shifting so heavily from getting back in with Mystra to saying fuck that bitch, I want to be a God now. I know she asked him to blow himself up, but he didn't indicate he was overly hurt by it. Just that he didn't know if he could do it. If they had really shown his anger I think it would be better. Also what a stupid plot line that feels retarded. Halsin and Minthara are not real companions despite being more interesting than half the crew. I am being extremely critical here. I like most of the companions (except Wyll) but I've seen a lot of dick sucking that these are the best written companions in gaming. When Carth Onasi has a better story than some of your companions, you have a problem. I completely forgot about Minsc and Jaheria when writing this section. lol. I guess that says something. I think DOS II had better companions overall, but BG3 has higher highs.
Major Issues:
Leveling - Quite possibly my biggest complaint for the whole game. If you are a completionist or even a 75%er, you'll be level 12 before getting into Baldur's gate proper or right as you enter it. There is SO MUCH content in the city. None of it is really needed except for story purposes. Things like the bank heist, the undead dragon (forgetting name), the underwater prison, Bhaal assassin sub-plot, lorrorkahn, the water priests, the catacombs, the guy with the blobs, fish attack, the necormancy of thay, the fireworks - None of it really matters. The easy counter here is for the story. For sure this is true. And I like most of them in terms of narrative. But it can start to feel like a chore since there is no experience to gain. And depending on your character the items won't be worth it for your character. The undead dragon quest won't have any gear for non-melee characters. Lorrorkahn is purely for mages. You get the idea. I know not all or even for most this is not a huge issue. But for me, once I hit a level cap I don't want to have 15-20 more hours with the same skills and the same items. Not on additional playthroughs. I think they should have slowed down the leveling process or increased the level cap. Both come with their own issues, but to not get any additional levels/skills from Rivington on has always sat wrong with me. Maybe there are other options like gear being more interesting or some reason to do all of these things. If the counter is "the final battle", well...
The Story - My actual hottest take that I don't think is hot at all. The story arcs have a lot of issues. Where do you even start? I think the first major issue is that the game clearly went through to many re-writes. Mind Flayers and the tadpoles were supposed to be something entirely different. Instead, we got the Emperor and his hamfisted addition to the game. It doesn't make sense and it would have been so much better if there were some actual danger in consuming the tadpoles. Or if you had more restrictions on how long before you turn. If you had lets say, 10 long rests at first before you turned, but once you find X thing you postpone it another 10-15. It would have made the game more tactical and intense. Not to mention they ditched the individual tadpole powers you developed. This could have led into trade-offs. Maybe embracing more of the power would have led to longer periods of not transforming, but down the road you would have paid for it/not been able to resist the netherbrain. But hey, you can fuck the Emperor I guess? There was so much potential for truly arcing story paths with the Mind Flayers. At the end of the day, there really isn't any choice. The Emperor and Orpheus are the same thing, literally by the end.
The game is clearly developed around and for the Dark Urge. If you aren't playing the Durge, you are missing out on the true main story. The Durge can do everything a custom character can do as well as everything the Durge can do. The Baldur's gate series has done this traditionally anyways, you were always a Bhaalspawn. Committing to that would have allowed even more variability in story choices since it limits what needed to be considered for all play styles. This would also apply to playing as the companions. They really need to drop that aspect of their games.
Gale's subplot of blowing himself up never made sense to me. An actual God, and Elminster, just want to Nuke half a continent because they don't know what else to do? It all feels like convenient plot writing and is why no one even considers it. Not to mention that is interfering with mortals almost as much as Jurgal bringing back the Durge on a resist Durge. We are told they aren't supposed to do that. Skyrim has better writing than this.
The three villains are okay, but only Ketheric is truly interesting and fleshed out. Gortash is fucking stupid and looks stupid. Karlach's subplot with him is clearly added on. I love Orin and I wish she could be a companion for an embrace Durge, but without playing a Durge, she is an unkillable enemy that has the power to impersonate anyone and everyone at a whim. She can only be killed in the Bhaal temple whereas with Gortash you can technically kill him from the very first meeting, or at any time after that. She could easily attack and (try) to kill you but never does. Ketheric is great, but that might be because of the Voice actor who is amazing (cant remember name, not looking it up). His story is great IMO. I do wish it was a bit more fleshed out, but not too much to complain about. He also got an entire act to himself to tell that story. It feels like if all three had that treatment then they also could have been on that level. Not Gortash because he just sucks, and Orin is much better with a Durge playthrough.
Act 1 is the best act of the game. It has the most interactivity, the best "What comes next" feeling and clearly had the most time put into it (duh). Act 2, as much as I personally love it, is not great save for Shadowhearts sub plot and the final Ketheric fight. As much as I love it, it is empty, tedious, the most disjointed of the acts and has the most "random" filler fights of all. I know most people hate the Gauntlet of Shar but I personally love it's narrative. But I can see why most don't like it if I'm being objective. Act 3 is a bloody mess. They cut the Upper City pretty late into the game's development and shifted it all to the Lower city. This could have been a 4-5 act game which also would have allowed all three main villain's (minus netherbrain) to shine more. There are so many random things in Act 3 that most people just skip. A better paced story would have helped here.
The final battle and story conclusion are sloppy. I'm all about battling your way to the top of a tower through the toughest enemies. its a tradition in RPG's. But you still have to do it well. The caverns leading up to the final push are legitimately pointless. reusing the Bhaal Temple to get there is just odd for Larian. But then the caverns themselves don't have any relevance. There's even gear/loot down there that would indicate it was supposed to be more. That entire section should have been removed. Keeping everything the same, you would go to the Upper City and the Netherbrain would rise up like it does anyways You could either try to control it before or after it fully rises. You don't need to see it rising and as I've mentioned, there isn't any gear or XP to be gained at this point. Moving into the "gathered allies" portion of the story. This is honestly poorly done. There isn't any final talking to everyone like in ME3. The allies you bring themselves are mostly worthless. Some are useful canon fodder, and one or two are actually okay, but otherwise a pointless addition to the game. Then there's the courtyard fight. I think this is before the tower but oh well. Its a bad slog. If you have the right build and play it right, it can be done easily enough. But even then it takes way too long to get through. If you have people sneaking past your fight because it drags on too long, you should reconsider it. This is the ending of your magnum opus, not dark souls mob encounters. The tower climb is fine but I don't personally enjoy it. I think its challenging so I can accept that. The final fight is also pretty annoying for Honor mode players, but I don't necessarily think it's bad. I can't say what would improve it though.
The original ending was not great. The inclusion of the camp scenes and new endings are extremely well done. Can't say many companies have gone back and added as much to an ending as Larian did. My guess is they had most of it already done, but wasn't quite ready yet. But I'll take it.
