Played through Stasis: Bone Totem myself recently, was very pleasantly surprised, a real hidden gem. Loved the Lost Vikings-like character switching mechanic, it felt very organic the way they integrated it.
For whatever reason I played Suikoden 2 (PSX) for the first time this month and LOVED it. It's so neat to play a classic and be like, yep, it totally deserves all the praise it's gotten. The game's unique writing and character scenes are charming against an atmosphere masterfully crafted with thoughtful visuals and an evocative soundtrack. Anyways keep being hella cool, you're an inspiration, Pam!
Great to hear your views on BG3, that is something I have to play sometime in the future. I'm closing in on 100 hours on Kingdom Come: Deliverance and feel like the progress is really slowing down and I'm stuck on a not-so-great of a mission that doesn't make me wanna invest that much time into the game. Still, it is one of the best games I've ever played, just need a little pause from it. Besides that, the new Rally game is just wonderful and VR has sucked me in somewhat. That is just a totally different thing and I do enjoy those games a lot.
Played through Ender Lilies, def one of my top 5 metroidvanias now. Playing through the Batman games as well (on Arkham City now). Mario Wonder on the Switch.
I must have gotten really lucky, as I got an almost bug free experience throughout the entirety of BG3. It also probably helped that I was playing the game at such a leisurely pace, that the Hotfixes and Patches were fixing issues long before I came across them....& now we have the Epilogue which adds such an amazing final flourish to what is already my favourite game of this decade (though I do hope they will be able to include more characters in the Epilogue as their actors become available to record/capture). Am already deep into my 2nd playthrough & having a blast (am now playing a Ranger based heavily on Vex'ahlia from Vox Machina).
@@Cannotbetamed1 Sadly that seems to be the direction that modern gaming has taken, where publishers push these titles out the door in order to satisfy their shareholders and we consumers get stuck being unpaid beta testers. Though some bugs/glitches have been fun to play around with like the swingset glitch and invisible stairway to heaven in GTA IV and GTA Online respectively. As long as they're not game breaking I'm fine with it. Though it is still unacceptable to expect full price for an unfinished product.
BG3 took me 3 months and 400 hours for one playthrough, which was so draining that I took a break from gaming the following month. Yes, it's a great game, but it's also very consuming. Regarding companion dialog, I noticed that when they had something new to say, they didn't always have an exclamation mark over the heads. They often had new comments right after a notable event or situation. For instance, after you escaped the Iron Throne, if you talked to Astarion in the submersible, he would say, "I'm so happy I could kiss the floor! But that would be disgusting." But once you left the submersible, you would miss that dialog, because something else would happen that would prompt him to say something else.
One thing about BG3 is that it seems to have a lot of rescue missions throughout. I wouldn't say it's a problem, but it just seems...a lot, to the point that is noticeable: save Mayrina, save Halsin, save the gondians, save the duke (the most exciting rescue mission in the game), save your companion from kidnappers, etc. Almost everyone needs to be saved, including saving your friends from worshiping the wrong gods! Incidentally, this is also a very "religious" game. Tons of storylines and characters revolve around religious beliefs, notably Shadowheart's and Lae'zel's quest lines. Gale's storyline is about a goddess that he worships. Wyll made a pact with the devil. And there are religious cultists, fanatics, and rituals galore throughout your journey. The overarching storyline is about a cult called The Absolute. Some players may need to be forewarned because these topics could be a turn-off for some. Lots of games have "religions", but they are often just window-dressing. But BG3 goes deeper with it, often reaching a profound and emotional level.
The best thing about all that saving is you can do the opposite and be a complete sociopath or pick and choose who to save and abandon if it's what benefits you
For me, I think my initial problem with Baldur's Gate 3, is that though I can appreciate the upgrade in performance capture, I liked the action point system, classes, & spells in Divinity Original Sin 2 more than the D&D mechanics in Baldur's Gate 3. I started Baldur's Gate 3 on PS5 on the early weekend, the same weekend I started Starfield early on Series X. And though I put 16 hours into both that weekend, I was way more enthralled in the Starfield quests, ship building, & charactes. And for the next 3 weeks, all I did was play Starfield. (And I really enjoyed it, but like you with BG3, I was really ready for it to be over by the time it was over)Then instead of jumping back into BG3, I started Phantom Liberty in Cyberpunk 2077, and it was amazing. I didn't do all the side gigs, but I loved the main quest. And after the post amazing game doldrums, where nothing was making feel like I wanted to invest in it. (played an hour of Final Fantasy 16, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Lies of P,& Hogwarts Legacy, but nothing stuck.) But one night last week I decided to go back to Baldur's Gate 3, and I've been loving it since then. Yes, sometimes there being so much to explore, and not initially understanding how to do so many things, (and me killing so many possible party members) feels daunting, & all those misses you make on possible hits, is infuriating. But I started to fall more in love with the world and it's storytelling.
Its intriguing, Pam, that whilst you found 80 hours of BG3 to be "too much", I got to the end of my 120 hour playthrough, & still didn't want it to end. Then again, I have been a massive Forgotten Realms/D&D fan since High School.....so I was utterly sucked into the setting.
I can't speak for this game specifically, but D&D is historically just a system, meaning 100 different games could be in 100 different settings (e.g., cities and/or continents). This game apparently takes place in Forgotten Realms, which is a slice of known D&D lore, but there's an infinite number of stories possible there too. Still, I'm curious about any response you get to your question.@@joet6434
@@jamesg8203quite differently. I found myself getting more sucked in with each successive act. So many amazing pay-offs in Act 2 & Act 3-& I find it hard to decide which of those 2 acts are my favourite.....& I *loved* the finale. Then I got to recently play through the epilogue, which was like a wonderful dessert after a very filling main meal 🙂
@@joet6434100%. Whilst the deeper lore elements are really cool for the hardcore fans, I have seen lots of CZcams reactors, with no D&D experience, having an absolute blast with the game.
Thank you for not spoiling anything in BG3. I'm intending to play it, but I can't immediately. It sounds like what I'd expect - frontloaded companion activity, tons of options (maybe "too many"), etc. I am curious how it will stack up against games like Jade Empire, DAO, and other Bioware titles.
Alan Wake II was so good that I didn’t want it to end. Make sure you keep a save before the endgame (which they conveniently inform you about) so you can go back and do all of the content in the open world. Then, optionally, move on to CONTROL if you haven’t played that yet. It’s fantastic + loosely ties into AW2.
I finally bought Dredge (on switch) and inhaled it. Also got Kingdom: Eighties and finished the story same day (on normal diff, which was pretty easy). It's my fave Kingdom because it has more story and the "islands" are more distinct. It's also synthwave AF obvs so I love that.
When Dead Island originally released on PS3 it was an absolute banger in terms of visuals, totally insane what they did there, it had 1 million bugs and coop was almost impossible first but It was stunning. Played Dead Island 2 this year with a friend (it’s not from techland anymore) and I was highly surprised. Expected it to be a complete desaster after countless delays over the course of years but it was a fantastic coop experience from start to finish. Thx for your video :) you played some great games last month!
Bone Totem is on the list. Just played through Cayne this weekend. Figured out what was going to happen just as the main character reached the elevator. Probably should finish Stasis one of these years too.
That was a really good review of Baldur's Gate 3. Most of the reviews and stuff I've read have been overwhelmingly positive, you'd think the game was entirely without faults. It was good to hear from someone who liked the game, but isn't calling it the best game of all time.
Didn't even try to tackle Baldur's Gate 3. I already decided it would have been too much for my easily distracted brain!! Dead Island was a hoot, I played it a while back though. Great catch up! Please play "The Last Faith" if you haven't already as I love it and your opinion would be good to hear. GO PAM!!! LOL
Excellent video, as always. By the way, a recommendation I have is ‘Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical’. My family recently got it and enjoy it quite a lot. Also, a random idea: a lot of great games you recommend sometimes have no combat (Spiritfarer, Cloudpunk, point and click games, among others)-what if you made a video of say 5-10 great games that have the uniqueness of zero combat? Perhaps this idea does not interest you, which is of course cool, and I certainly don’t want to come across as asking for too much-I can only imagine how much work goes into each video. Just a random two cents. All the best!
So as you can probably guess, I have been playing a ton of BG3, & have also been doing a new playthrough of CP2077, now that Phantom Liberty/2.0 is out. Have also been going back to BG2 from time to time, as well as doing the occasional playthrough of The Outer Worlds. That takes up a massive chunk of my free time 😉
At some point I'll have to get BG3. I played Dead Island a while back. It was ok but could have been better. One thing I hated was how you are at level 1 and all the zombies are level 0 or 1. You get to level 2 and all zombies are level 1 or 2. You get to level 20 and all zombies are level 19 or 20. I love your green makeup.
Trying to do every little side-quest is the worst possible thing you can do on a first play-through with massive-content open world games like Baldur's Gate III or Skyrim. Almost without fail, I always burned myself out long before I got to the end, and never even completed Skyrim. I've learned now to focus on the main quest with maybe a few side quests. Then on any subsequent playthroughs do some of those side quests you missed.
I personally gave BG3 a 7.5/10, for one reason only: there's no option to romance a Goblin and convince her to run away with you to go open a shop on a boardwalk by the beach somewhere far, far, far away. Seriously, why would anyone even put Goblins on their game and not think about something so obvious?
You hit the nail on the head with BG3. Exactly, game starts out really strong, but it tapers off especially on last act. Act 1 is content heavy, and later on you see less and less. In fact, it is so much early on that i thought about killing some companions early on to not deal with their storylines because i did not wish to be bogged down every camp being forced to go talk to every companion before and after sleep. Game also somehow forgets that friendship is a thing, and everybody wants a romance. So much of companion content is behind romance, it is just absurd. Never had a companion who was otherwise until Jaheira i believe, who would be your traditional buddy in another game, like Garrus or Wrex in ME. There's also the inventory management mess. They put items in most containers, which looting and checking everything (because thats what you do in these games), bloats the gameplay time A LOT. I found useful scrolls or gear in things that you'd just pass by in reality, and that forces you to check everything to not miss gear. Frankly, i know potions are a thing in D&D but there's just so many special arrows, scrolls, potions, gear that casts spells (1 ring/amulet of spell storing would make all of them obsolete, just allow us to cast a spell once on item, then allow the item to cast the same spell, specific times per day). Its just filled with clutter. Its a game that has tremendous effort put in, and it shows but its not consistent and there are a few key bad decisions made during its development. I mean to this day i never thought i'd consider a game too long. Only 2 games where i kinda gave up before the end, despite enjoying it, was AC Valhalla (tbh it wasnt that good of a game, but it was too much) and now Baldur's Gate 3. Hell, both Skyrim and Witcher 3 felt great despite both of them taking like 2 weeks of gameplay.
After a 10 year hiatus, I went back to COD in November and am having a ball using Ash from Evil Dead complete with one liners and his S-Mart Boomstick straight from Grand Rapids Michigan. Other than that I've been playing Forza and Grounded. Still haven't played BG3, the Cyberpunk Expansion, nor the new Yakuza game.
Put way too many hours into Dead Island back in the first couple years of its release! It’s definitely a less focused Dying Light and feels incredibly amateurish at points, but I have a soft spot for it in how kinetic and intimate a zombie encounter can be in that game. Stumbling into a bungalow to hear heavy breathing the next room over only for a husk to be shambling at you until you kick it to the ground and beat it to a pulp is unlike anything else. I don’t think it comes across in co-op as much though lol. Great video as always, Pam!
Hi Pam, I appreciate that you took the time to share your ideas and experience on Baldurs Gate 3. I am eyeing it, as it is part of my radar list of games. I may give it a shot, game of the year. But as for now, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Agree with Pam about BG3. My PS5 system clock says I'm at 105 hours, and I'm only nearing the end of Act 2. It's an absolute triumph of a game and probably one of the games of this generation, but it's kind of like eating ice cream every day for breakfast. I f---king love ice cream, but it gets old after awhile. 😂I've been playing since launch on PS5, and I think I'm going to take a break once I get to Act 3. I need to change up my palette. Maybe Alan Wake 2 or some indies, and then I'll get back to BG3.😂
My exact experience too, well regarding romance options. I actually restarted and killed several companions, they finally got the message I'm not interested in that with you.
There’s a part of me that wants to try Baldur’s Gate III, but every time I read about it’s people talking about bearmance speedruns and turning into a wheel of cheese and I’m like, nah, this is a game for weirdoes. I’ll wait for Dragon Age 4.
I'm desperate for old Bioware, so I'm going to try BG3, Cyberpunk, etc. But if those fail, I might be cured of hope. I didn't particularly enjoy Divinity: Original Sin's mood, so I'm fearful I'll get a super goof game instead of anything sincere.
I’d recommend Jusant, I got game pass for Cocoon but ended up a bit meh on it, one puzzle where you had to crystallise your flying helper. Go back and warp got me. It ended up trial and error, no eureka moment. Jusant has a weird story I don’t understand, the letters you collect don’t help. But the climbing with the game pad is so good. With the music etc… for one hour at a time. Definitely not for everyone and can be really frustrating but I really loved it. Games like this are what make game pass for me. I would have skipped it on steam but yeah, really good. Give it a chance, if you liked Death stranding but not the Kojima guff.
I had to look up the date when the original Baldur's Gate was released (1998). I thought about getting it, but I was still into the PS1 at the time. But yes, today's games are so complex, they're almost like interactive movies. They invariably come with bugs because the company has a deadline that has to be met... they'll just keep pumping out patch after patch until we're banging our heads into a wall 😆.
I had better hopes for The Lamplighter League. Harebrained Schemes losing 80% of its staff, parting ways with Paradox, and losing the Battletech & Shadowrun licenses hits me harder than it should. Even knowing the channel was not a good experience for some people, I have nostalgia as an outside viewer of HBS on a Twitch channel that eventually separated.
It's dark out at 4, so that means dark game catch up. Played Amnesia 1 and 2, then Dead Space remake, now onto Chorus. I think VR has ruined me for horror (wasn't remotely scared), but I kinda liked Machine for Pigs for how strange it was. Chorus feels like something special, filling the void left behind by Rogue Squadron and Crimson Skies with some very pretty space graphics.
i just started BG3 a couple of nights ago, and i'm a bit worried how long it's going to take me. for whatever reason i take waaaay longer to finish most games than the "average" - my original playthrough of elden ring clocked in at over 250 hours for example - and i get this feeling BG3 will easily top that. finished deathloop before that, really enjoyed it. given i love the dishonored series, and enjoyed both prey and deathloop, it really makes the whole redfall situation so disappointing.
I agree that baldur’s gate 3 got progressively worse the further I got, but overall still thought it was a very good game. I do agree with what you mean when you say it’s just too much game for its own good. I also was annoyed being max level so quickly in act 3. I felt like I did the majority of the act fully leveled. I enjoy the aspect of leveling up and getting more powerful. Doing all these quests for Xp but no progression in power got a little annoying as well. Still a great game overall, but act 1 was the absolute peak and the ending of act 2 with the nightsong. The final boss kinda sucked and felt cheap in its design.
Completely agree. I played through relatively fast and still reached max level way before the end. Also, some classes are just boring to level up, which makes it less rewarding. I love turn-based combat, but fights that are made harder by putting 20+ enemies (plus some NPCs for good measure) on the field and having to wait through all those turns is not fun at all.
Never thought I'd say this, but as I'm getting older game length is an issue. Trying to get through Atomic Heart right now and I just don't have the damn time for all this. Game quality might also be a factor tho.
I agree on the companion stuff in BG3. I felt like I could accidently screw everybody but who I wanted to screw and things also moved so damn fast it took the thrill out of the character development.
No Baldur's Gate 3 for me. I feel like games like that are best experienced on PC and I do not currently have a PC that would run it. I know it's on PS5 and someday Xbox, but... Meh? Maybe down the road sometime. In November I finished Alan Wake 2 which I really loved. Then played through Jusant in a weekend. Had very little expectations for that game but gave it a try and found that I really liked it. Beautiful art design and just lovely throughout. Then started up another playthrough of Cyberpunk. First time through was on Series X at launch and loved it. Picked up a cheap Collector's Edition on PS4 when they announced the next gen update and only just got around to it. All the improvements make an already awesome game even better. Loving it just as much the second time through.
ebenezer and inisvible world looks fun and looks like my type of game might be my favorite game i ask this indie dev that i want it to see this game also come to the new atari vcs 800 and the indie dev does he want it to bring this game over to the vcs as well one day when it does come to the atari vcs i will give my own difference opinion to see if i love the game i think it's good or if i don't like the game if i think it's bad
Hmm, I think I will trust your reviews even more after your BG3 take. I played it on my PS5 and I too thought it was a bit much. Mechanically, I preferred Divinity Original Sin 2. I'm sure part of that was because I played DOS2 on a computer. BG3 was a bit buggy on the PS5 and it seemed like having to adhere to the D&D ruleset as opposed to making something that was tailored especially for a videogame (as was the case with DOS2) resulted in a bit of bloat. I'll go back and play it next year after there have been a bunch of updates and I'm feeling more relaxed. I'm sure I'll have a better time then.
"Too much game after a while" is also how I'd describe my experience with Larian's massive CRPGs. And CRPGs in general. They're great, but...there's just so much of it. I also think D&D is a fine tabletop game but doesn't make for a great video game.
I just finished BG3 myself. Much like Divinity Original Sin 2, the game drops off very quickly. I still think it's a solid game, but act 2 is a drag and 3 is just a complete mess. Two of the four call back characters to the originals are a slap in the face, just absolutely dreadful in my opinion. Also completely agree that it should have been 6, like Baldurs Gate trilogy was. In regards to companion interactions, I also didn't see a lot of that compared to plays I'm seeing online. Mine rarely talked to each other. I'm wondering if it's either we need to play an origin character or if the early bug that broke romances also broke interactions. Honestly really hate that Larian has the concept of origin characters. Tav should be Tav and have their own story line. Hated the concept in D:OS2, hate it here. Really wish Larian would learn to stop making single massive areas to explore and break things out like... BG1, BG2, IWD, and the PoE games. Still, overall, a solid 8.5 game. BG1 is still a 10 and 2 a 9.5 for me. The re-playability is still there though. Especially with how much more story Dark Urge gives you, though the concept of that also irks me a bit.
I barely got to see the callback characters. Spoilers for anyone else reading... I went to Moonrise in Act 2, did the fight on the roof, came downstairs, and Jaheira and everyone was dead. I never even knew they were there/when this happened. And then because I didn't have her I had to kill Minsc basically immediately. I'm also not a fan of the origin characters. It's too hard to have it both ways - either make an RPG with a completely player created character, or have one character backstory in mind and go from there.
Never heard of bone totem. Baldurs gate i wanna play, but my pc is quite literally ancient. Im jealous yoi get to play so many games and make muns off it x)
Liked Baldurs Gate 3 a lot but by half way through act 3 I was done I did finish but I had lots of performance issues and bugs which made it an absolute slog in that last bit also had a bug which locked me in act 2 and so had to reload a few hours to undo. For me the standout was the environmental and quest design. Narrative was passable but uninspiring ending in particular felt like lots of section slotted together instead of a coherent solid deliverance which given its nature I was not surprised at tbh. I also wish they went with a better battle system D &D is fine but its a TTRPG system at heart computers can do so much more and tbh I actually enjoyed Divinity 2s battle system a fair bit more due to the added emphasis on environmental effects and even more bonkers builds that completely busted the game. Still overall great game. Ive largely been disappointed with game releases this year but then played Baldurs Gate 3, Mario Wonder and Master Detective Archives Raincode back to back and loved each one easily my top 3 games of the year if I dont count old games that I played for the first time this year.
BG3 is Divinity 3. Many elements didn't make it, such as climbing, which was frustrating playing a druid. And how does it compare to BG2? Visually, no contest, but that's purely the march of technology. The rest, nope.
I had a similar experience with Witcher 3 to your Baldur's Gate 3: I felt like it was probably the best of the trilogy, but there was just too much game; 91 hours into the first map and I wasn't even finished with that yet! As for my November, I was mostly playing older stuff or at least older adjacent; after a Wonder Boy marathon, I swept up some SEGA Master System and NES games I'd been eyeing up for a while, and played way too many NES rom hacks to mention, and aside from a few excellent hacks, most of it was just fine. I'm curious, though: was Stasis: Bone Totem more like the original Stasis? I did play its two... I guess they were calling them sequels; Cayne was just alright, and I didn't care for Beautiful Desolation at all.
My partner and I almost killed each other by the end of 100+ hours of BG3, but by the end our relationship was made stronger for it! Couldn’t agree more that the game becomes bloated with too much muchness, further exacerbated by the bugs increasing exponentially as you progress. Very grateful for your sweater in this video. I am not worthy. ❤
Havent experienced boulders gate 3 yet, but it is kind of a mixed feeling when you realize that maybe a game should have been finished 10 or 20 hours or so back.
How would you compare Baldur's Gate 3 to Baldur's Gate 2? To me BG2 is superior in gameplay, replayvalue and the plot is far better written. Irenicus is a better villain , the character interactions and romances are better and more fun . The dead three working together and their goal seems sort of selfdestructive.
Baldur's Gate 3 is like Divinity Original Sin 2 but better and worse. Mechanics are refined and doesn't feel like you always fight in fire areas, which is good, but the lore and setting is just mediocre D&D. It also suffer from a Larian thing: before the first half of the game you have already done everything, then there's a second half where you have to do everything again. I play D:OS2 and after Reaper's Coast, I stop playing, because at that point, the game just is too much.
I understand where you are coming from with Baldurs Gate 3, but complaining of "too much excellent game" sounds to me like complainng about too much good sex... 😛
Played through Stasis: Bone Totem myself recently, was very pleasantly surprised, a real hidden gem. Loved the Lost Vikings-like character switching mechanic, it felt very organic the way they integrated it.
Yes, it worked out very well. The character switching, and the fact that they all talked to each other throughout really added something.
For whatever reason I played Suikoden 2 (PSX) for the first time this month and LOVED it. It's so neat to play a classic and be like, yep, it totally deserves all the praise it's gotten. The game's unique writing and character scenes are charming against an atmosphere masterfully crafted with thoughtful visuals and an evocative soundtrack.
Anyways keep being hella cool, you're an inspiration, Pam!
Great to hear your views on BG3, that is something I have to play sometime in the future.
I'm closing in on 100 hours on Kingdom Come: Deliverance and feel like the progress is really slowing down and I'm stuck on a not-so-great of a mission that doesn't make me wanna invest that much time into the game. Still, it is one of the best games I've ever played, just need a little pause from it.
Besides that, the new Rally game is just wonderful and VR has sucked me in somewhat. That is just a totally different thing and I do enjoy those games a lot.
Played through Ender Lilies, def one of my top 5 metroidvanias now. Playing through the Batman games as well (on Arkham City now). Mario Wonder on the Switch.
I loved Ender Lilies.
I must have gotten really lucky, as I got an almost bug free experience throughout the entirety of BG3. It also probably helped that I was playing the game at such a leisurely pace, that the Hotfixes and Patches were fixing issues long before I came across them....& now we have the Epilogue which adds such an amazing final flourish to what is already my favourite game of this decade (though I do hope they will be able to include more characters in the Epilogue as their actors become available to record/capture). Am already deep into my 2nd playthrough & having a blast (am now playing a Ranger based heavily on Vex'ahlia from Vox Machina).
Part of the problem I had was that I rarely experienced anything that was very obviously a bug... but it still didn't seem to be working as intended.
@@Cannotbetamed1 Sadly that seems to be the direction that modern gaming has taken, where publishers push these titles out the door in order to satisfy their shareholders and we consumers get stuck being unpaid beta testers.
Though some bugs/glitches have been fun to play around with like the swingset glitch and invisible stairway to heaven in GTA IV and GTA Online respectively.
As long as they're not game breaking I'm fine with it. Though it is still unacceptable to expect full price for an unfinished product.
BG3 took me 3 months and 400 hours for one playthrough, which was so draining that I took a break from gaming the following month. Yes, it's a great game, but it's also very consuming. Regarding companion dialog, I noticed that when they had something new to say, they didn't always have an exclamation mark over the heads. They often had new comments right after a notable event or situation. For instance, after you escaped the Iron Throne, if you talked to Astarion in the submersible, he would say, "I'm so happy I could kiss the floor! But that would be disgusting." But once you left the submersible, you would miss that dialog, because something else would happen that would prompt him to say something else.
Wow, 400 hours. I feel like I missed a lot of companion dialogue, especially in Act 3.
One thing about BG3 is that it seems to have a lot of rescue missions throughout. I wouldn't say it's a problem, but it just seems...a lot, to the point that is noticeable: save Mayrina, save Halsin, save the gondians, save the duke (the most exciting rescue mission in the game), save your companion from kidnappers, etc. Almost everyone needs to be saved, including saving your friends from worshiping the wrong gods! Incidentally, this is also a very "religious" game. Tons of storylines and characters revolve around religious beliefs, notably Shadowheart's and Lae'zel's quest lines. Gale's storyline is about a goddess that he worships. Wyll made a pact with the devil. And there are religious cultists, fanatics, and rituals galore throughout your journey. The overarching storyline is about a cult called The Absolute. Some players may need to be forewarned because these topics could be a turn-off for some. Lots of games have "religions", but they are often just window-dressing. But BG3 goes deeper with it, often reaching a profound and emotional level.
The best thing about all that saving is you can do the opposite and be a complete sociopath or pick and choose who to save and abandon if it's what benefits you
For me, I think my initial problem with Baldur's Gate 3, is that though I can appreciate the upgrade in performance capture, I liked the action point system, classes, & spells in Divinity Original Sin 2 more than the D&D mechanics in Baldur's Gate 3. I started Baldur's Gate 3 on PS5 on the early weekend, the same weekend I started Starfield early on Series X. And though I put 16 hours into both that weekend, I was way more enthralled in the Starfield quests, ship building, & charactes. And for the next 3 weeks, all I did was play Starfield. (And I really enjoyed it, but like you with BG3, I was really ready for it to be over by the time it was over)Then instead of jumping back into BG3, I started Phantom Liberty in Cyberpunk 2077, and it was amazing. I didn't do all the side gigs, but I loved the main quest. And after the post amazing game doldrums, where nothing was making feel like I wanted to invest in it. (played an hour of Final Fantasy 16, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Lies of P,& Hogwarts Legacy, but nothing stuck.) But one night last week I decided to go back to Baldur's Gate 3, and I've been loving it since then. Yes, sometimes there being so much to explore, and not initially understanding how to do so many things, (and me killing so many possible party members) feels daunting, & all those misses you make on possible hits, is infuriating. But I started to fall more in love with the world and it's storytelling.
D&D fans would have rioted if they had just transferred over the DOS system. It was important for the game to stay true to the system it is based on.
Its intriguing, Pam, that whilst you found 80 hours of BG3 to be "too much", I got to the end of my 120 hour playthrough, & still didn't want it to end. Then again, I have been a massive Forgotten Realms/D&D fan since High School.....so I was utterly sucked into the setting.
Elminster nerd triangulated!
As someone who has never played D&D, not an American. Would the game be accessible for me? Do i need to know a lot of backstory to enjoy it?
I can't speak for this game specifically, but D&D is historically just a system, meaning 100 different games could be in 100 different settings (e.g., cities and/or continents). This game apparently takes place in Forgotten Realms, which is a slice of known D&D lore, but there's an infinite number of stories possible there too. Still, I'm curious about any response you get to your question.@@joet6434
@@jamesg8203quite differently. I found myself getting more sucked in with each successive act. So many amazing pay-offs in Act 2 & Act 3-& I find it hard to decide which of those 2 acts are my favourite.....& I *loved* the finale. Then I got to recently play through the epilogue, which was like a wonderful dessert after a very filling main meal 🙂
@@joet6434100%. Whilst the deeper lore elements are really cool for the hardcore fans, I have seen lots of CZcams reactors, with no D&D experience, having an absolute blast with the game.
Finished BG3 thrice over now.
Love how the green eyelid stuff resonates with your green top.
Thanks!
Thank you for not spoiling anything in BG3. I'm intending to play it, but I can't immediately. It sounds like what I'd expect - frontloaded companion activity, tons of options (maybe "too many"), etc. I am curious how it will stack up against games like Jade Empire, DAO, and other Bioware titles.
I didn't want to spoil anything in this kind of video. Though now I think I might want to make another video where I get more into things.
Alan Wake II was so good that I didn’t want it to end. Make sure you keep a save before the endgame (which they conveniently inform you about) so you can go back and do all of the content in the open world. Then, optionally, move on to CONTROL if you haven’t played that yet. It’s fantastic + loosely ties into AW2.
I've played control, but didn't do the AWE DLC.
Working through an evil Dark Urge run for BG3 right now, very interesting!!!
I finally bought Dredge (on switch) and inhaled it. Also got Kingdom: Eighties and finished the story same day (on normal diff, which was pretty easy). It's my fave Kingdom because it has more story and the "islands" are more distinct. It's also synthwave AF obvs so I love that.
I want to check out Kingdom Eighties, but I haven't yet.
When Dead Island originally released on PS3 it was an absolute banger in terms of visuals, totally insane what they did there, it had 1 million bugs and coop was almost impossible first but It was stunning. Played Dead Island 2 this year with a friend (it’s not from techland anymore) and I was highly surprised. Expected it to be a complete desaster after countless delays over the course of years but it was a fantastic coop experience from start to finish. Thx for your video :) you played some great games last month!
Bone Totem is on the list. Just played through Cayne this weekend. Figured out what was going to happen just as the main character reached the elevator. Probably should finish Stasis one of these years too.
Stasis series is really good.
Still have to play Bone Totem.
I think it's their best game yet.
That was a really good review of Baldur's Gate 3. Most of the reviews and stuff I've read have been overwhelmingly positive, you'd think the game was entirely without faults. It was good to hear from someone who liked the game, but isn't calling it the best game of all time.
i like how blunt and direct your assessments are of these video games.
Moses is the cleverest bear
And very brave.
@@Cannotbetamed1 my charlie!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Baldur’s Gate 3. I was really curious what your take would be.
Now that I've posted this, I think I might have more to say.
Didn't even try to tackle Baldur's Gate 3. I already decided it would have been too much for my easily distracted brain!! Dead Island was a hoot, I played it a while back though. Great catch up! Please play "The Last Faith" if you haven't already as I love it and your opinion would be good to hear. GO PAM!!! LOL
I would like to play The Last Faith, one day.
Excellent video, as always. By the way, a recommendation I have is ‘Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical’. My family recently got it and enjoy it quite a lot. Also, a random idea: a lot of great games you recommend sometimes have no combat (Spiritfarer, Cloudpunk, point and click games, among others)-what if you made a video of say 5-10 great games that have the uniqueness of zero combat? Perhaps this idea does not interest you, which is of course cool, and I certainly don’t want to come across as asking for too much-I can only imagine how much work goes into each video. Just a random two cents. All the best!
That's a good idea for a video, thanks.
So as you can probably guess, I have been playing a ton of BG3, & have also been doing a new playthrough of CP2077, now that Phantom Liberty/2.0 is out. Have also been going back to BG2 from time to time, as well as doing the occasional playthrough of The Outer Worlds. That takes up a massive chunk of my free time 😉
That's a lot of RPG!
@@Cannotbetamed1 Well, next to Turn-based strategy, RPG's are my favourite genre of computer games by a country mile 😀
At some point I'll have to get BG3. I played Dead Island a while back. It was ok but could have been better. One thing I hated was how you are at level 1 and all the zombies are level 0 or 1. You get to level 2 and all zombies are level 1 or 2. You get to level 20 and all zombies are level 19 or 20.
I love your green makeup.
Thanks!
I’m not a fan of level scaling, they added it to cyberpunk. It was better to have areas you get completely destroyed and others you walk through.
Also (and I hope this is okay to say), that is killer eyeshadow.
Thanks!
Trying to do every little side-quest is the worst possible thing you can do on a first play-through with massive-content open world games like Baldur's Gate III or Skyrim. Almost without fail, I always burned myself out long before I got to the end, and never even completed Skyrim. I've learned now to focus on the main quest with maybe a few side quests. Then on any subsequent playthroughs do some of those side quests you missed.
I personally gave BG3 a 7.5/10, for one reason only: there's no option to romance a Goblin and convince her to run away with you to go open a shop on a boardwalk by the beach somewhere far, far, far away. Seriously, why would anyone even put Goblins on their game and not think about something so obvious?
Over this November, I've been playing Super Double Dragon (Return of Double Dragon), Super Mario RPG, King of Fighters XIII and Prison City.
Good hearing from you
You hit the nail on the head with BG3. Exactly, game starts out really strong, but it tapers off especially on last act. Act 1 is content heavy, and later on you see less and less. In fact, it is so much early on that i thought about killing some companions early on to not deal with their storylines because i did not wish to be bogged down every camp being forced to go talk to every companion before and after sleep. Game also somehow forgets that friendship is a thing, and everybody wants a romance. So much of companion content is behind romance, it is just absurd. Never had a companion who was otherwise until Jaheira i believe, who would be your traditional buddy in another game, like Garrus or Wrex in ME.
There's also the inventory management mess. They put items in most containers, which looting and checking everything (because thats what you do in these games), bloats the gameplay time A LOT. I found useful scrolls or gear in things that you'd just pass by in reality, and that forces you to check everything to not miss gear. Frankly, i know potions are a thing in D&D but there's just so many special arrows, scrolls, potions, gear that casts spells (1 ring/amulet of spell storing would make all of them obsolete, just allow us to cast a spell once on item, then allow the item to cast the same spell, specific times per day). Its just filled with clutter.
Its a game that has tremendous effort put in, and it shows but its not consistent and there are a few key bad decisions made during its development. I mean to this day i never thought i'd consider a game too long. Only 2 games where i kinda gave up before the end, despite enjoying it, was AC Valhalla (tbh it wasnt that good of a game, but it was too much) and now Baldur's Gate 3. Hell, both Skyrim and Witcher 3 felt great despite both of them taking like 2 weeks of gameplay.
I really don't know what people are talking about when they say act 1 has more content. Act 3 had way more content than any of the other acts?
Yes, there is just way too much inventory. I hated dealing with it. All the companion stuff was very front-loaded as well.
After a 10 year hiatus, I went back to COD in November and am having a ball using Ash from Evil Dead complete with one liners and his S-Mart Boomstick straight from Grand Rapids Michigan. Other than that I've been playing Forza and Grounded. Still haven't played BG3, the Cyberpunk Expansion, nor the new Yakuza game.
Put way too many hours into Dead Island back in the first couple years of its release! It’s definitely a less focused Dying Light and feels incredibly amateurish at points, but I have a soft spot for it in how kinetic and intimate a zombie encounter can be in that game. Stumbling into a bungalow to hear heavy breathing the next room over only for a husk to be shambling at you until you kick it to the ground and beat it to a pulp is unlike anything else. I don’t think it comes across in co-op as much though lol. Great video as always, Pam!
Hi Pam,
I appreciate that you took the time to share your ideas and experience on Baldurs Gate 3. I am eyeing it, as it is part of my radar list of games. I may give it a shot, game of the year. But as for now, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
How's that going?
Agree with Pam about BG3. My PS5 system clock says I'm at 105 hours, and I'm only nearing the end of Act 2. It's an absolute triumph of a game and probably one of the games of this generation, but it's kind of like eating ice cream every day for breakfast. I f---king love ice cream, but it gets old after awhile. 😂I've been playing since launch on PS5, and I think I'm going to take a break once I get to Act 3. I need to change up my palette. Maybe Alan Wake 2 or some indies, and then I'll get back to BG3.😂
I absolutely loved stasis bone totem!
It's so good!
My exact experience too, well regarding romance options. I actually restarted and killed several companions, they finally got the message I'm not interested in that with you.
There’s a part of me that wants to try Baldur’s Gate III, but every time I read about it’s people talking about bearmance speedruns and turning into a wheel of cheese and I’m like, nah, this is a game for weirdoes. I’ll wait for Dragon Age 4.
I'm desperate for old Bioware, so I'm going to try BG3, Cyberpunk, etc. But if those fail, I might be cured of hope. I didn't particularly enjoy Divinity: Original Sin's mood, so I'm fearful I'll get a super goof game instead of anything sincere.
You don't have to play it like a weirdo.
Have you looked at STRAY GODS?
A Visual Novel as Musical with Greek Gods. Kinda Wolf Among us, Telltale-ish, looks pretty cool
I have, I was excited for it, then so many other games came out.
@@Cannotbetamed1 Glad to hear that, i will play it eventually this Year and hope you can cover it someday on the channel 🙂
Hellooo Paam! Thank you for the update. Glad to see you glowing as usual!
I’d recommend Jusant, I got game pass for Cocoon but ended up a bit meh on it, one puzzle where you had to crystallise your flying helper. Go back and warp got me.
It ended up trial and error, no eureka moment.
Jusant has a weird story I don’t understand, the letters you collect don’t help. But the climbing with the game pad is so good. With the music etc… for one hour at a time.
Definitely not for everyone and can be really frustrating but I really loved it.
Games like this are what make game pass for me. I would have skipped it on steam but yeah, really good.
Give it a chance, if you liked Death stranding but not the Kojima guff.
I had to look up the date when the original Baldur's Gate was released (1998). I thought about getting it, but I was still into the PS1 at the time.
But yes, today's games are so complex, they're almost like interactive movies. They invariably come with bugs because the company has a deadline that has to be met... they'll just keep pumping out patch after patch until we're banging our heads into a wall 😆.
The more a game became like a movie the more simple is.
I started playing BG3 recently. I'm at 40 hours, still in act 1, and "excellent but just too much of it" is already my verdict as well
What does "just too much of it" even mean?
I have yet to pay Baldur's Gate 3 but I've played the first two I wish I had my old saves hey Pam
I had better hopes for The Lamplighter League. Harebrained Schemes losing 80% of its staff, parting ways with Paradox, and losing the Battletech & Shadowrun licenses hits me harder than it should. Even knowing the channel was not a good experience for some people, I have nostalgia as an outside viewer of HBS on a Twitch channel that eventually separated.
Oh, I didn't know they lost Shadowrun. I liked those games.
I really liked the review of the BG3
It's dark out at 4, so that means dark game catch up. Played Amnesia 1 and 2, then Dead Space remake, now onto Chorus. I think VR has ruined me for horror (wasn't remotely scared), but I kinda liked Machine for Pigs for how strange it was. Chorus feels like something special, filling the void left behind by Rogue Squadron and Crimson Skies with some very pretty space graphics.
I just started octopath 2! It’s amazing and free on gamepass rn
Can you jump into Bone Totem without having played the original?
Yes.
Thanks for this exciting update video Pam!
Thank you Pam
i just started BG3 a couple of nights ago, and i'm a bit worried how long it's going to take me. for whatever reason i take waaaay longer to finish most games than the "average" - my original playthrough of elden ring clocked in at over 250 hours for example - and i get this feeling BG3 will easily top that.
finished deathloop before that, really enjoyed it. given i love the dishonored series, and enjoyed both prey and deathloop, it really makes the whole redfall situation so disappointing.
Oof, 250 hours in Elden Ring.
cant wait to play, but i need to upgrade my laptop. Its already waiting for me on Steam at least since I bought it at launch
I would love to hear your thoughts of AW2! But no rush :)
Been playing BG:3 and S:BT. Still in the very early stages of both. Now I'm sidetracked with Dead Space Remake.
S:BT?
@@Cannotbetamed1Stasis: Bone Totem
Omg, duh 🤣
I agree that baldur’s gate 3 got progressively worse the further I got, but overall still thought it was a very good game. I do agree with what you mean when you say it’s just too much game for its own good. I also was annoyed being max level so quickly in act 3. I felt like I did the majority of the act fully leveled. I enjoy the aspect of leveling up and getting more powerful. Doing all these quests for Xp but no progression in power got a little annoying as well. Still a great game overall, but act 1 was the absolute peak and the ending of act 2 with the nightsong. The final boss kinda sucked and felt cheap in its design.
Completely agree. I played through relatively fast and still reached max level way before the end. Also, some classes are just boring to level up, which makes it less rewarding.
I love turn-based combat, but fights that are made harder by putting 20+ enemies (plus some NPCs for good measure) on the field and having to wait through all those turns is not fun at all.
Good games BG3 and Dead Island (It is indeed the same company that did Dying Light). Interesting BG3 review , it may be GOTY!
Never thought I'd say this, but as I'm getting older game length is an issue. Trying to get through Atomic Heart right now and I just don't have the damn time for all this. Game quality might also be a factor tho.
Discovered you recently because I was researching some RPGs and was waiting for this video precisely
I love Maximum Force and I finish playing Yakuza Kiwami 2
Dnd is cool
I agree on the companion stuff in BG3. I felt like I could accidently screw everybody but who I wanted to screw and things also moved so damn fast it took the thrill out of the character development.
I like your shirt
Dredge net, it caught a Pam.
Me too
Thank you,
Yeah but who is it when playing all of Them at the same time it was fun and funny at the same time hahahahaha
No Baldur's Gate 3 for me. I feel like games like that are best experienced on PC and I do not currently have a PC that would run it. I know it's on PS5 and someday Xbox, but... Meh? Maybe down the road sometime. In November I finished Alan Wake 2 which I really loved. Then played through Jusant in a weekend. Had very little expectations for that game but gave it a try and found that I really liked it. Beautiful art design and just lovely throughout. Then started up another playthrough of Cyberpunk. First time through was on Series X at launch and loved it. Picked up a cheap Collector's Edition on PS4 when they announced the next gen update and only just got around to it. All the improvements make an already awesome game even better. Loving it just as much the second time through.
You didn't say much about Alan Wake 2 ;) Will we get a full review?
Nope. I didn't say much because I'm not finished.
@@Cannotbetamed1 Looking forward to hear you thoughts on it. I didn't like the first one as much as you did but I'm a horror fan.
ebenezer and inisvible world looks fun and looks like my type of game might be my favorite game i ask this indie dev that i want it to see this game also come to the new atari vcs 800 and the indie dev does he want it to bring this game over to the vcs as well one day when it does come to the atari vcs i will give my own difference opinion to see if i love the game i think it's good or if i don't like the game if i think it's bad
Hmm, I think I will trust your reviews even more after your BG3 take. I played it on my PS5 and I too thought it was a bit much. Mechanically, I preferred Divinity Original Sin 2. I'm sure part of that was because I played DOS2 on a computer. BG3 was a bit buggy on the PS5 and it seemed like having to adhere to the D&D ruleset as opposed to making something that was tailored especially for a videogame (as was the case with DOS2) resulted in a bit of bloat. I'll go back and play it next year after there have been a bunch of updates and I'm feeling more relaxed. I'm sure I'll have a better time then.
"Too much game after a while" is also how I'd describe my experience with Larian's massive CRPGs. And CRPGs in general.
They're great, but...there's just so much of it.
I also think D&D is a fine tabletop game but doesn't make for a great video game.
I just finished BG3 myself. Much like Divinity Original Sin 2, the game drops off very quickly. I still think it's a solid game, but act 2 is a drag and 3 is just a complete mess. Two of the four call back characters to the originals are a slap in the face, just absolutely dreadful in my opinion. Also completely agree that it should have been 6, like Baldurs Gate trilogy was. In regards to companion interactions, I also didn't see a lot of that compared to plays I'm seeing online. Mine rarely talked to each other. I'm wondering if it's either we need to play an origin character or if the early bug that broke romances also broke interactions. Honestly really hate that Larian has the concept of origin characters. Tav should be Tav and have their own story line. Hated the concept in D:OS2, hate it here.
Really wish Larian would learn to stop making single massive areas to explore and break things out like... BG1, BG2, IWD, and the PoE games.
Still, overall, a solid 8.5 game. BG1 is still a 10 and 2 a 9.5 for me. The re-playability is still there though. Especially with how much more story Dark Urge gives you, though the concept of that also irks me a bit.
I barely got to see the callback characters.
Spoilers for anyone else reading...
I went to Moonrise in Act 2, did the fight on the roof, came downstairs, and Jaheira and everyone was dead. I never even knew they were there/when this happened. And then because I didn't have her I had to kill Minsc basically immediately.
I'm also not a fan of the origin characters. It's too hard to have it both ways - either make an RPG with a completely player created character, or have one character backstory in mind and go from there.
Never heard of bone totem. Baldurs gate i wanna play, but my pc is quite literally ancient. Im jealous yoi get to play so many games and make muns off it x)
Liked Baldurs Gate 3 a lot but by half way through act 3 I was done I did finish but I had lots of performance issues and bugs which made it an absolute slog in that last bit also had a bug which locked me in act 2 and so had to reload a few hours to undo. For me the standout was the environmental and quest design. Narrative was passable but uninspiring ending in particular felt like lots of section slotted together instead of a coherent solid deliverance which given its nature I was not surprised at tbh.
I also wish they went with a better battle system D &D is fine but its a TTRPG system at heart computers can do so much more and tbh I actually enjoyed Divinity 2s battle system a fair bit more due to the added emphasis on environmental effects and even more bonkers builds that completely busted the game.
Still overall great game. Ive largely been disappointed with game releases this year but then played Baldurs Gate 3, Mario Wonder and Master Detective Archives Raincode back to back and loved each one easily my top 3 games of the year if I dont count old games that I played for the first time this year.
nice
My favorite light gun shooter got to be House of the Dead 2.
BG3 is gonna win GotY!!!
Probably. I voted for Alan Wake.
i could only play act 1 and then i ran out of free time lol
I'm pretty excited to play Baldur's Gate 3. Getting the physical version from Japan, woo hoo 😊😊😊
The revolutionary thing about BG3 is that it is a turn-based RPG. 😂😂😂
BG3 is Divinity 3. Many elements didn't make it, such as climbing, which was frustrating playing a druid.
And how does it compare to BG2? Visually, no contest, but that's purely the march of technology. The rest, nope.
I had a similar experience with Witcher 3 to your Baldur's Gate 3: I felt like it was probably the best of the trilogy, but there was just too much game; 91 hours into the first map and I wasn't even finished with that yet! As for my November, I was mostly playing older stuff or at least older adjacent; after a Wonder Boy marathon, I swept up some SEGA Master System and NES games I'd been eyeing up for a while, and played way too many NES rom hacks to mention, and aside from a few excellent hacks, most of it was just fine. I'm curious, though: was Stasis: Bone Totem more like the original Stasis? I did play its two... I guess they were calling them sequels; Cayne was just alright, and I didn't care for Beautiful Desolation at all.
I didn't like Beautiful Desolation at all either. Bone Totem is more like the original Stasis.
❤
I am terrible at games like Maximum Force.
Did you see a book named tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow ? I want to see your video comment.
Who did she paly in BG or what
Is anything named Cain ever actually not evil?
They try to hide it by spelling it Cayne
The green eye makeup with the green shirt is the hottest shit I've ever seen in my life.
Hey Pam 👋
Hi!
Nice video
Thanks!
Hi Pam and fun video but I'm a music man and I wanna know what Vinyls you got 😀 ???
I show them off here: czcams.com/video/pKcN1B823yk/video.htmlsi=fnd0FYwMdFdQQjcw&t=4044
@@Cannotbetamed1 Cool 😎 I checked it out and that podcast never pops up in my feed. "It's a secret to everyone....."
My partner and I almost killed each other by the end of 100+ hours of BG3, but by the end our relationship was made stronger for it! Couldn’t agree more that the game becomes bloated with too much muchness, further exacerbated by the bugs increasing exponentially as you progress.
Very grateful for your sweater in this video. I am not worthy. ❤
Ive subbed cause i have a crush
this game was good untill i forgot to save
Havent experienced boulders gate 3 yet, but it is kind of a mixed feeling when you realize that maybe a game should have been finished 10 or 20 hours or so back.
How would you compare Baldur's Gate 3 to Baldur's Gate 2? To me BG2 is superior in gameplay, replayvalue and the plot is far better written. Irenicus is a better villain , the character interactions and romances are better and more fun . The dead three working together and their goal seems sort of selfdestructive.
It's been 20 years since I played BG2, I dunno.
Nice shirt ;)
Liking the cleavage situation 🤓
Nerd.
@@Cannotbetamed1 translation: I think you’re hot
u look so good
Baldur's Gate 3 is like Divinity Original Sin 2 but better and worse. Mechanics are refined and doesn't feel like you always fight in fire areas, which is good, but the lore and setting is just mediocre D&D. It also suffer from a Larian thing: before the first half of the game you have already done everything, then there's a second half where you have to do everything again. I play D:OS2 and after Reaper's Coast, I stop playing, because at that point, the game just is too much.
I actually liked combat in DoS2 more.
@@Cannotbetamed1 Combat per se, yes, I did as well. But everything was always in fire, and that I didn't like!
I understand where you are coming from with Baldurs Gate 3, but complaining of "too much excellent game" sounds to me like complainng about too much good sex... 😛
Too much is too much.
Try to eat too much honey...
Nah, once things start chafing it starts being less good.
@@Cannotbetamed1 lol