#i just got into bg3 and i'm now in act 3 with 100 hours in

[simminglytimeladies]

A typical rogue and bard duo... What trouble would they cause next?

[dare-to-dm]

I've got too much of a good thing with video games right now.

Like, I'm in act 3 of Baldur's Gate, and I already know I'm going to want to replay this game like 6 more times. In fact, my second playthrough of a game is usually my favorite, so I often replay the games I love. But I got the prequels on sale, so now I also want to try BG1 and BG2 first. I think there's a good chance I won't be able to get into them because I historically have not enjoyed older isometric RPG videogames, but I feel like I oughta give them a chance now that I've gotten a taste for the current game in the series.

I've got several other series with this same issue as well. Like, I fell in love with Yakuza and I already want to replay Yakuza 0, but I still need to play some of the newer ones (I swear they are coming out faster than I can play them!)

Same with Assassin's Creed. Which I pretty much have to start the series over every single time a new one comes out just to understand the story, but that's becoming an increasingly unwieldy commitment and now I'm a couple main games behind.

Persona 5 was freaking amazing so now I want to replay that, but first I gotta try Persona 3 and 4 (actually already tried and enjoyed 3, am sure I will like 4 as well).

And every time I play one of these long ass games my list of games to try keeps growing. Like, my list was sitting at 90 when I started BG3 and now it's at 98 and I wouldn't be surprised if it creeps back up to 100 before I manage to beat this game.

Like, this isn't a terrible problem to have. But it is weirdly stressful in it's own way. I just keep falling in love with games with 100+ hour long play throughs...

[ciitrinitas]

baldur's gate 3.

100+ hours later, and i survived baldur's gate 3. it partly took me so goddamn long to finish because i got to the end of act 2 on my first character...only to find out it wasn't just me and that minthara is likely bugged (or has an insane amount of cut content, but i'm on hopium here). so i decided to restart on a second character as the dark urge to complete the story on whilst i await a minthara fix.

so, yeah. that was a choice i made! 🫠

to preface, however, while bg3 isn't a game i'm keeling over in sheer love for or a new favorite for me, i had a fucking blast playing it. any flaws or personal issues with the game aside, it is genuinely a ton of fun and full of shit to do.

long, scattered thoughts below the cut.

"huh, i wonder why there's so much grumpiness about the ending." ohhhh. i get you all now. the lack of ending cards or epilogues or any kind really stings when it's such a standard for wrpgs of this type. the main plot lost momentum for me early on when the urgency and desperation surrounding the tadpole infection slowed down, so i was vibing well enough with the ending until the lack of any epilogue hit. that is a weird oversight for a game like this and a sequel to games like bg1-2 and spiritually following games like dao.

biggest plot complaint with the ending: i choose to free orpheus because it's what my girl lae'zel wanted, so move aside, squid. in response, the emperor...skedaddled to join the fucking netherbrain????? what. i don't remotely understand this. did i miss some stuff about the emperor's motivations...? regardless, this was a bit of whiplash for me before i popped orpheus out then left him with no choice but to...abruptly turn into a mind flayer because...sorry, but my beautiful boy's skin isn't going to be sacrificed...nor karlach's despite her offer...and gale shut up about the damn nuke.

on villain side, i was disappointed with how little we saw the chosen. ketheric is introduced for a single scene earlier in act 2, but we only see orin and gortash by the end of it and then they aren't as present in act 3 as i would have hoped. ketheric is...fine (imo, i found his voice delivery kind of flat), and i appreciate the hammy glory that is aylin, so thanks for bringing isobel back, i guess. orin's design slaps, and her va's performance makes what could have been a too-much script really work. she's a bit more interesting if you're playing dark urge and have that backstory connection with her. gortash...i got a little caught up in shipping him with my dark urge half-elf boy in that coronation scene because of what good old murder pals the two used to be! but gortash gets killed by the netherbrain just because even if you side with him, so eh. better to let karlach have her revenge on his shady ass.

on my first character, i was initially set on romancing shadowheart until i learned about minthara and then was wildly divided between them. then i met minthara in person and next thing i knew, i had slaughtered refugees and druids and was married. 😌❤️ it really broke my heart a little to learn that she is (HAS TO BE) bugged when i turned my entire playthrough on its side to nab her. no regrets because she is easily one of my favorite characters, but a bummer. the crazy hot cultist lady exterior drew me in, but it was her intriguing character on the interior that got me to stay.

if it weren't for the whole "violently slaughtering the grove" thing being necessary to get minthara (unless you go out of your way to not do things or glitch it afaik), she'd be my default pick over halsin all the time, every time. halsin is deeply boring to me. he talks about nature...and then some more about nature...and more about nature. jaheira is more involved in the main plot than him, so an odd choice to cram a second druid in when he's much duller than minthara or jaheira.

jaheira, jaheira, jaheira! oooh, i adore jaheira! i'm familiar with bg1-2, so i knew the basic deets in jaheira. i really hope larian wrote her as a natural extension to her classic self because while i planned to play bg1-2 eventually, the urge is now truly powerful because jaheeeeeeeiiiiiira, my beloved. cool hot older woman who is just so good. that she partly has some batman in her with her four adopted kids is adorable... her house is so cute... that she has a keepsake from khalid, too... i want jaheira to be happy. 😭

UNLIKE ASTARION. look. i was pleasantly neutral with his ass until after visiting jaheira's home, he thought he could make a catty remark about jaheira being a horrible mother. i'm happy his final appearance in the good end of the game is him sprinting away as he burns and screams in the sun and gale weirdly comments that this will probs be the last time they all see him. fucking bizarre writing choice, but a victory for me. don't be mean to jaheira!! (in all seriousness, astarion is a perfectly fine character with solid writing. he isn't the type i tend to latch onto, and i was salty when he made such a bitchy comment about jaheira.)

gale gave me my favorite line in the game. if you're slutting it up, mr. wizard can hit you with one of those ultimatum conversations. if you pick to simple leave without a word, he says you are being a very cone of cold. i keep subjecting xofi to references to this. it's my favorite line. gloriously dweeby, and gloriously wizard-y. oh, gale. i can tell you don't have friends that aren't your magical flying cat, a very old man, and uh...your divine ex, i guess. he's like you transplanted a bard's personality into a wizard. he was fun to have around!

lae'zel...my abrasive darling. you know what, i'm glad she's inspiring "discourse" (aka "women wasn't 100% nice to me :(((") because it exposes the weaklings. if lae'zel is too mean for you, then thank you for letting us know. we must cull you so that we won't waste resources on you. the winter is harsh, and only those warmed by good taste will be able to endure. i'm happy for where my ending had her: orpheus went mind flayer and then i politely knifed him when he asked, so lae'zel was asked to carry on his torch in inciting her people against vlaakith's tyranny.

shadowheart is my meow meow. the eight-or-so hours of early access that i played two years ago had her as my favorite by the end and that was carried over into the full release. she and minthara are the favorites. my only real quibble with shadowheart's arc is that binary dnd god morality does not spark joy for me. worship of shar being so bluntly evil took me out of a bit. nice to see viconia, though!

i...honestly forgot wyll until a second ago. there's an interesting conceit to him, but he's woefully dull. he and halsin are just boring. i feel kind of bad that i'm so bored by wyll. there's a missing bite from him that i vaguely recall from early access. i get that the devs wanted a companion that is, like, good, but oh, wyll, buddy...idk what the hell they did to your writing.

minsc isn't a terribly deep character, but he's enjoyable when i view him as a charming addition to jaheira. i'm going to try and get him earlier in future playthroughs because i nabbed him terribly close to the end on this one. orz

karlach...i think here arc was my favorite of all the cast. in act 3, i had swapped lae'zel out for her for a bit and lae'zel ended up kidnapped by orin, so my defaulat party just ended up shifting to gale, shadowheart, and karlach. i'm pretty happy it ended up this way. i ran into some interesting conversations for her, and her reactions to things like my dark urge signing raphael's contract surprised me in their passion. she's effective at keeping up her cheer until the latter end of act 3 when the unfairness and shittiness of her situation come to head in some gorgeously acted scenes. her fury and despair at the tragedy someone else thrust her into is really fucking good. i'm not even mad about her ending. it can feel odd in the greater context of bg3, but for my tastes, i was fucking there for her having to pick between dying or return to live in a place she loathes.

this is a "era has personal preferences that don't align with the game's goals" thing, but i kind of wish the dark urge was the protagonist. i like even customizable mcs to have a bit of an arc built in despite that impacting the scope of roleplaying lmao. the dark urge stuff had me wishing there was more than what is present, though. i wanted it to be dug into deeper, but i did still like what is there. the temple of bhaal was really fucking good, and i love that the dark urge turns out to be the architect of the absolutist cult.