BG3: The King of CRPGs

The header title says quite a bit already.

After playing Baldur's Gate 3 in tactician mode for over 150 hours with almost all side quests done, here is my complete review of the game.

CRPG: Computer role playing game, marking the difference from the tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons.

Good to know: The game has been made by Larian Studios under a D&D license, but is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast in any other shape or form. They basically paid for the rights.

Release date: August 3, 2023 (about 1 month earlier then the initial date, I don't even know a word for this, because it never happens, the only word I know of is "delay").

Price: $59.99 for the standard version on steam. An extra $9.75 for the digital deluxe edition.

No story spoilers.

BG3 Game Review

Baldur's Gate 3 Difficulties

Explorer Mode

Story-only oriented. Easy mode for casual players that don't want to experience anything else then the story.

Balanced Mode

This is the normal mode of the game. Half-way through story-only and actual thinking, requires a little bit of brain activity. Combat will be easy on you.

Tactician Mode

This is the hardest difficulty available in the game. Not as hard as some people make it out to be, but it will require a certain sense of strategy that most people do not have.

Using your environment at your advantage and switching between your characters will mostly be required.

The difference between Tactician and Balanced comes down to rolls, you will be less likely to hit, enemies will have an easier time hitting you. Enemies will also have access to more spells overall to make the fights harder.

Overall Difficulty

The following is only for tactician mode:

At lower levels the fights are tighter then at higher levels. Being 1 level below the boss you are fighting usually ends up being pretty intense. Being the same level as the boss makes it suddenly a little too trivial.

Since some levels you only get a HP boost and a passive skill, and some other levels you get a new spell level and a whole lot of other things like feats; in the end it results in some spikes of power at certain levels.

In the end, the difficulty of the game will depend on your level. Stay at least 1 level below bosses (recommended) or cheese your way through the game by being over-leveled (not recommended).

Challenge Run

I'm thinking about it for later.

First I thought about a "no long rest run", but there are forced long rests so it doesn't work. Also, I only did a few long rests during my whole playthrough. I got the "4 long rests" achievement late act 2.

Now I'm thinking about a 1 character solo run + jack of all trades (meaning all 12 classes on your character will be level 1). Nothing allowed besides summons and temporary things next to your portrait. Because you are alone, you'd have to prevent any form of CC through class skills (like elfs are immune to charm/sleep) and items.

I'm pretty sure it's doable because of all scrolls and items.

It would be quite a time investment. I don't plan it in the near future.

Baldur's Gate 3 Gameplay

Classes / Subclasses

An interesting amount of choices. Each class has many subclasses to choose from, leading to a high amount of different gameplay styles.

12 classes and 46 subclasses.

The reading of each single one's features in-game is up to you, it will take quite some time. I did spend hours reading all of them and thinking about synergies (during the character creation and when you get subclasses later).

Larian did release some stats on X/Twitter about how many people did spend over an hour in character creation, 10% spent at least an hour in there. Well, I'm in there, but it only took me a few minutes for my character appearance, the rest was just reading.

Attacks / Spells

Nothing really feels completely out of place on an overpowered scale (expect Gale, he deserves to be nerfed).

Both melees and spell casters are getting more powerful throughout additional actions and higher level spells.

Building a balanced team will get you though most encounters, even when they are unfavorable for one type. If magic doesn't work, buff your melee fighters with your magic instead of hitting the enemies with it. And if melee doesn't work, make sure that nothing gets to your mage. In the end, everything always "works".

Savescum / Reload

The favorite thing to do for anyone that doesn't have a good enough anticipation sense or judgement skill.

Savescuming: reloading your save file each time something goes wrong in your little world.

I did this in a very minimal way, it was always story related because I wanted to see the full side story of every main character.

An example of this without naming anyone: someone that was not in my team left after a boss fight, that someone took with her 100% of my gear instead of the classic 50/50 for a divorce, not ok. This did also put an abrupt end to her questline. So yeah, I reloaded a save before the boss fight and switched her in my team, then killed the boss again.

Dices / Advantage

All encounters with people will require you to roll some dices. Ability checks, save throws, etc..

Here again, having a balanced team will help you getting advantage (bonus roll points or even double dices) on everything both in and out of combat.

Advantage is very important in combat, you have a base % of landing skills, putting some debuffs on the enemy will increase that accurancy rate. Knock someone prone with your melee, you'll get close to 100% skill landing rate on it.

Baldur's Gate 3 Graphics

Art / Design

A lively World, more stylized then realistic, when it comes to the raw appearances at least.

It is a high fantasy game, and you'd expect fantasy creatures, which is what the game offers you.

The druid has a lot of interesting forms, I didn't even expect shapeshifts in the first place (not part of character creation), I just picked druid because I like druids. Can't deny that I was very happy when getting forms, it opened up so many playstyles.

Zones / Acts

All 3 acts have some massives zones to explore. Over the ground and under the ground.

There is a high amount of attention to details everywhere, making the game very immersive.

I can't actually say much here without spoiling anything. So.. next.

Animations / Cutscenes

Like I said previously, the World is lively and so are all cutscenes/dialogue.

Why is that?

The whole dialogue has been done wearing a full body motion suit, so everything you hear and every body animation you see was done at the same time with voice recording and motion capture.

This created a whole new level of immersion. I did spot this from the very start of the game. Facial and body expressions don't lie.

Baldur's Gate 3 Music

Composer

Borislav Slavov composed the original soundtrack for Baldur's Gate 3, I was already familiar with his work from Divinity Original Sin 2 where he used a lot of ethnic instruments. This time he came back, with the full fantasy arsenal.

Favorite track

"Main Theme, Pt.2". The ultimate fantasy track, the definition of a high fantasy. It has everything, an epic orchestral track with male choirs, a female elf soloist, whole string/perc/brass/woodwind sections and a harp.

The second part of this track was used as the announcement theme for the game trailer. Like I commented on YouTube: it gives the most powerful "the adventure starts NOW" type of feeling.

If you are looking for something more lyrical, then "Down By The River" is the iconic vocal version of the main theme.

Fantasy Playlist

Final Score

About the Story

While I don't review stories of games I play, this one gets an unofficial 11/10.

I don't remember the last time I was so invested in a story. A truly immersive experience.

(This is not part of the final ranking.)

Final Score: 10/10

I could have -1 in gameplay for bugs but it doesn't deserve it.

Tons of bugs have been patch already, and I did just workaround many of them during my playthrough.

I recommend you to save often to prevent wasting time when getting soft/hard locked.