#so i ended up with only 2 or so hours of bg3 and thats TOO FEW

[orcelito]

Gearing up for a 7 hour shift like "I'd rather be playing BG3"

[pagesofkenna]

The ending to BG3 is sloppy, rushed, and underwhelming. if burnout on this game hadn't already lead me to decide not to replay it again anytime soon, that nonsense ending would have been the nail in the coffin. instead, it just convinced me I have no interest in replaying this again ever

BG3 is a fun game to play, but not a fun game to finish. I like finishing games

thoughts on the nonsense ending (major spoilers):

I chose to free Orpheus because I was romancing Lae'zel, and even without that I really like the Githyanki and was pleased to participate in any action leading to Vlaakith finally dying (she's overdo). On the other hand, I didn't outright disobey The Emperor until that moment (I even did his sex scene, which is hindsight was such an obvious manipulation)

Consequently, The Emperor seemed like a suspicious and untrustworthy ally for the entire game right up until he decided to ditch me and... fight for the Netherbrain?? You know, the thing we were working together to fight this whole time??

there's no attempt to rationalize his actions. the game needed to punish me/pay off for me discovering this 'ally' is actually not one, but his actions in that moment don't make any sense. the most logical thing would have been to say 'since you're freeing Orpheus, who will want me killed, my only options now are to die, run away, or be subjugated by the hive mind again' but he doesn't say that!! he seems to be saying that he's joining the Netherbrain cause of his own volition, and during the fight (which also includes a subjugated red dragon... for some reason?) The Emperor does not indicate that he's subjugated or that he's joined the hive mind. he's just here to be petty!! i guess!!

Once free Orpheus says the netherstones can only be wielded by a mindflayer...........? for some reason? for plot railroading reasons. Not like Netheril or Karsus were mindflayers, or even abberations at all. not like the Dread Three weren't wielding the netherstones separately just fine (for a time)

so sure, I'll allow that it has more to do with the brain itself having 'evolved' (thats not what that means) and trying to wield all three stones against it at once. but why a mindflayer?? why specifically the one type of being most vulnerable to an Elder Brain's influence??? why can't Orpheus, the one being in the world that we know is naturally immune to mindflayer and Elder Brain manipulation, wield the stones as-is??

plot reasons. because.

because I need to be made to make a Difficult Choice here in the eleventh hour; either Orpheus dies or I do. because, sorry, being turned into a mindflayer is not a 'transformation' its a death. I love mindflayers I think they're a cool enemy, but The Emperor was not Baldur. he was a mindflayer whose first victim, whose first memories he obtained, was Baldur. maybe this is a fault in me being a GM and knowing too much about the mechanics of this world

except that Withers himself literally appears out of nowhere to make sure you know that mindflayers don't have souls! way back at the end of Act 2! there was no point to that other than to make sure the players knows how this bit of the world works: a mindflayer is like a robot made from a dead person's brains. it might act and think like the dead person, but the person is dead.

I actually saved, and had Orpheus transform, and saved that as one branch, then reloaded and took the transformation myself, and played through the rest of the ending on that branch. I transformed, we saved the city (mostly), my girlfriend told me she thought I was ugly but she loved me anyways and would overlook it, then I told her to go save her people and after she left I killed myself

I'm glad I at least got the chance to kill myself because otherwise there were almost no narrative consequences for letting my brain get eaten and my corpse transformed into a monster. allies were like 'its weird, but youre awesome! huzzah!' even Orpheus says 'you'll be remembered fondly as the mindflayer who withstood the hivemind' until I specifically told him not to remember me that way (I'm only a mindflayer because you told me I had to be one!)

there were like 7 options for that final choice on what to do about yourself. options 1-5 were variations of 'sure I'm a mindflayer now but that's not a big deal! not all mindflayers are evil!' option 6 was 'they probably shouldn't trust me, i should be in prison.' option 7 was 'the narrator is literally telling me I can already feel my sense of self slipping away. I know what Baldur turned into. I know what mindflayers do. I need to be dead, for everyones safety'

I wish someone else could have killed me. it would have been so heartwrenching to have Lae'zel kill me but I would have loved her for it!

then Karlach burned to death and I got no other scene for literally any other companion and roll credits

nothing. for anybody. poor Karlach is dead right now, we gotta rush and get this product out for shipment, we're spending more money on the overloaded graphical effects and textures than we are paying the line-writers and voice actors

like, you didn't play this game for the ending, dear customer, did you??

I truly think Larian did an amazing job for what they were asked to do, and I'm very curious about their other work. but it feels sometimes like game devs spend so much time making satisfying middle-game experience that they really drop the ball on end-game experience. I dont know if they fell into this trap because they were working with a major IP with not enough creative control, or time, or resources, or if even with better circumstances they still wouldn't have put much effort into trying to stick the landing