So I bought the game a while ago, but haven’t really been playing it (I need to get into the right headspace). However, I’ve come to realise something.
This is the first game I’ve bought for over £40 in a while where I haven’t felt scammed or that I’m complicit in something immoral. I feel like they “deserve” the money, which is a strange feeling considering the AAA industry right now.
The game doesn’t even include DRM, not even the “free” one you can enable through steam.
same here. I typically buy games on super deep sales a few years after the games comes out just so I don’t end up disappointed by the product, but this game feels properly polished. a few bugs here and there but none so far that I’ve encountered that are game-breaking
He focuses on the visual aspects of the game, which are indeed wonderful and contribute a lot to immersion, but to me, a host of other elements contribute at least as much to making this game stand above the rest. The writing, acting, world richness, player agency, variety of story possibilities, battle mechanics, and sound design, for example. There’s so much to love that even with all the bugs, it’s still a lot fun.
I think I agree with him. It's not just that it looks good and that it's cinematic; it's that it brings what they were doing well already to that cinematic standard that we got from the big studios for years. But those big studios were frequently sacrificing the depth of the RPG in the process. Mass Effect 1 had a full character sheet and a bunch of mechanics that never really came together. Mass Effect 2 had fairly simple skill trees. That series was good for lots of reasons, but in order to make each sequel in only 2 years, they threw away what didn't work rather than iterating on it to fix what didn't work. BG3 is iterating on Larian's previous successes and still letting us get that cinematic experience from Mass Effect. It's definitely what caught my attention when it was previously barely on my radar.
I think live play podcasts and shows might help also. I’m a big live play DND/ttrpg listener despite having never played in person with people. I bought it pretty much instantly and I’m loving how much it feels like those podcasts.
I know CRPGs based on ttrpg mechanics still hit with people back in the 90s and early 00s but I’m guessing it wasn’t the selling point. Like I’m pretty sure people didn’t buy Fallout back in 97 because it used a system that was similar to GURPS.
The Adventure Zone podcast by the McElroy brothers came out in like 2014 and the live play podcast genre skyrocketed since. Pretty much every podcast network has at least a few DND shows plus a few more using other unique systems. There’s even podcasts parodying live play like Offices and Bosses, an improv comedy where they play fantasy monsters playing DND with human characters. Theres no way people would have come up with that format before the adventure zone.
To this day, I really wish BioWare had iterated on their mechanics in Mass Effect instead of trying to make it more of a shooter in RPG clothing. I liked how certain classes could only wear certain armor or use certain weapon types, and how you had more choice in how your Shepard was built.
To be fair, audiovisual and name recognition is huge. People talk about the game as if nothing like it has ever existed. DOS 1/2, Kingmaker/WotR, PoE I/II, and many more are similar games, also varying levels of amazing, but without large cinematic budgets and mo cap and extensive voice acting and DND name recognition, they don’t even get mentioned in most comparison articles which always just go to DragonAge.
I haven’t played it yet but would like to so no spoilers please, but from what little I’ve seen it just looks like reskinned and slightly upgraded D:OS2.
DOS2 is one of my favorite games of all time and i am somewhat suspicious that people think Baldur’s gate is some novel masterpiece when really it’s that Divinity is super under rated and relatively unknown by comparison. Can anyone who has played both games weigh in on this?
And if it is the case that gameplay is very similar, is it just the setting / writing that is much better in BG that makes it stand apart or was it just coincidence / hype that made this game succeed harder?
A lot of the great things in D:OS2 are present in BG3 and it probably wouldn’t be a success without them.
For an upgrade, Baldurs Gate 3 has great cinematics with motion capture and it feels like the dialogue writing offers more interesting, sometimes outlandish options. Often, winning a skill check just earns you a witty line, but it feels great.
I have encountered one remarkable situation were I really didn’t expect something to work, but I was able to play it out exactly as I would have been able, interrupting the main characters dialogue by switching to a companion and doing something and the NPC reacted as I had hoped.
It has been a while since I played Divinity: Original Sin 2, and I’m still in Act 1 of BG3, but from memory:
D:OS2 has fewer bugs and better performance. This isn’t surprising, of course, since it has had more time for polish.
From what I’ve seen so far, BG3 has:
More balanced battle mechanics. In particular, battles aren’t dominated by excessive surface/cloud effects or telekinetic barrel drops, and I haven’t yet had a fight where I felt unfairly disadvantaged by my party lacking one specific ability.
Far fewer instances of the targeting UI lying to me and causing frustration in battle.
More world to explore.
Richer lore, as told through books and journals all over the world. It reminds me a bit of Elder Scrolls in this respect.
More interesting writing. (This might be subjective, but I would be surprised if most people disagreed.)
More character depth.
More immersive voice acting. (For example, the voice actors almost always understand the context of their lines. They often didn’t in D:OS 2, which I found distracting.)
Better character animation (outside of cut scenes, some of which are a bit awkward).
The gameplay is indeed similar, of course, as it’s the same kind of game, from the same studio, using a revision of the same engine. But this one is IMHO better in almost every respect, and I think I’m more likely to play it again when I’m done.
i am somewhat suspicious that people think Baldur’s gate is some novel masterpiece
Novel? Not really, except maybe to people who haven’t played its predecessor, or good BioWare games, or D&D. More like an improvement on what came before it.
when really it’s that Divinity is super under rated
Where in the world have you seen D:OS2 underrated? I sure haven’t.
and relatively unknown by comparison.
Well, yes, that’s to be expected. D:OS2 didn’t have half a century of role playing game history or Hasbro’s marketing budget behind it.
Thanks for your insights. I meant underrated in terms of exposure. As you indeed pointed out, it’s highly praised by those who have played it. And it’s not a hidden gem by any means it just feels less zeitgeisty than BG is. I haven’t actually seen the numbers so that could just be anecdotal.
With your incidental review, I am excited to play it! Probably after Starfield though :)
Swen said that they had to pay Hasbro to use D&D and that Hasbro didn’t provide them with any funding.
I don’t think that precludes Hasbro from marketing the game. It might be interesting to see what promotional stuff they have had a hand in. At the very least, it’s on the digital games page of the official D&D site.
To be fair the game still had a huge fucking budget. You don’t have that many voice lines and get them all to also do mo cap and make a CRPG with that much content on a small budget.
To me, the biggest improvement in BG3 is how much looser the gameplay progression is. Since being just two levels behind meant death was all but certain in D:OS2, the path even on an “open” map like the Reaper’s Coast was still very much on rails. XP gain was so tight that side quests weren’t really optional, even to the point of discouraging roleplay by doing things like passing persuasion checks and then killing everyone anyway to squeeze every last drop out of the map. The first D:OS also really struggled with this until later in the game.
BG3’s first large map is a little tight, but even a new player can easily go off script and pick and choose what quests they want to undertake once they hit level 5. Encounters with enemies two levels higher can still be comfortable after that point, even three higher if the player has a good party build or has mastery of the battle system. And the player will want to, because the game is huge. It’s such a delight to just go, and it’s exciting to see Larian turn a major weakness into a strength.
But essentially, BG3 meets or improves upon every system in D:OS2. The dialogue scenes are the most flashy improvement, supported well by good writing, voice acting, and mocap. The only thing I found to be a step back was the soundtrack. I don’t think it’s bad, and there are some standout songs for sure, but D:OS2 really excelled in that area both in terms of the quality of the music and how it was used in battle (but then I’m a sucker for cello). It also won’t compare favorably to D:OS2 in its current state in terms of polish, but D:OS2 wasn’t exactly bug-free on release, either.
A big part of why this game is so big in the zeitgeist right now is because Larian was able to pounce on a lull in the release schedule. I’d call the pre-release hype for this game average at worst for that reason alone. Early reviews were beyond glowing, marking a studio’s successful graduation to AAA development with a game that has no aggressive add-ons or DRM. That will spur gaming enthusiasts to generate all the marketing you need.
It is a DoS game, except with DND leveling, stats, and combat mechanics. Many of the stuff I find weird or backwards always traces back to DND rules. The 5e? rule book gets mentioned a lot. I don’t play DND and knew nothing about it before BG3. Learning the new level-ups, stats, calculations, and mechanics in BG3 is learning DND. There are a small amount of Sorcery point spells in DoS, but most of the spells in BG3 are Sorcery points. The normal spells that don’t cost sorcery points are called cantrips, and there are very few of them. I wish all the spell casters in BG3 were warlocks, as they play the closest to DoS spell caster classes, but only get 2-3 spell slots per battle. That’s 2-3 spells they can cast per short rest. It wouldn’t be so bad if everything refreshed on a short rest. And warlocks cast spells at their max level too, so you don’t have to be forced to cast level 1 spells at endgame like the other spell casters. Also, warlocks are pigeonholed into using 1 normal spell (cantrip) all the time, eldrich blast. At least it’s powerful and fun to spam.
There are also a bunch of ritual spells, which are not labeled when looking at the level up screen. They don’t cost spell points outside of combat. Talking to animals spell is one, which is nice for roleplaying/talking outside of combat (and I highly recommend talking to all the animals).
Conentration spells are also a mence, because you can only have 1 active per character. Summon a cloud? Need concentration for that. Summon a fire or rock wall? Concentration. Cast a buff on allies? Concentration to maintain it. Use them, but they limit the interactions a lot.
Talking about interactions, there are far fewer elemental ground effects and interactions. Some are in the game, but you have to take like 2 turns to do damage because most surface effect spells don’t do damage. Explosive barrels are still fun.
That being said, the new common actions (jump, dash, push, dip, etc.) are a great addition to the game.
I recommend the game still, because it’s mainly DoS with DnD combat. The story is better, and like the witcher, has a lot of heart and soul poured into the stories (and lots of sex and nudity, which can be disabled in options).
Also avoid fextralife wiki. Use the bg3.wiki as that’s going to be maintained better. (I’m not going to be talking about the drama with fextra here).
One last thing. The game is easier than DoS, and gets easier as you progress. I hope there will be a harder mode coming.
I’ve missed the launch week so I’m going to wait for sales on this one. Steam sales have conditioned me to avoid buying games that are not brand new at full price.
In my experience it’s like 2 players have full agency to play independently, unlike other coop games where the experience for player two is often driven by player one.
In BG3 you can run off in completely different directions, engage with your own NPCs in conversation while the other player starts a fight and it’s seamless
I’ve played both divinity games in co-op with my partner. You have an entire (quasi) open world game fully explorable by both players independently. At one point in the main town in DOS1, I was running around tracking clues for a mystery while my partner (a rogue) was stealing everything she could get her hands on from the market. Once I reached the climax of the mystery quest, we joined back up for the final battle.
This freedom engenders a lot of creative flexibility and is just overall a chill way to play a game together. I agree that it makes for the best co-op experience I’ve ever played (especially when you’re playing with an otherwise non-gamer).
Hey to be fair, I have heard several people complain about the gratuitous boob shots. Still happy that it stayed the same, but it’s still a bit iffy by today’s standards no?
MGSV was 8 years ago and had gratuitous boob shots and poorly-reasoned near-nudity and it was relentlessly complained about for that. I’d reason that a majority of the controversy surrounding that game was only related to Quiet.
Yeah, but you realize we don’t apply this logic to other media? I mean Gone With the Wind is pretty racist, but was acceptable for the time, if I go out and buy a DVD of Gone with the wind, it’s going to be the same movie released ages ago, just in some better quality. Same if I look it up on a streaming service or if I buy it on Blu-ray.
I mean if you were remaking Gone With the Wind or Metal Gear Solid then yeah, sure you would probably update elements of it. Kind of like how the modern remake of Birth of a Nation, does not side with the clan, but if I go out and watch the original on a screaming service, it’s still going to be the same fucked up KKK propaganda bullshit.
But for some reason, we feel the need to censor video game re-releases, sometimes not even re-release it, look at Undead and undressed or skullgirls, games that existed for over a decade without controversy, suddenly getting a patch out of nowhere that sensors content to be compatible with today’s sensibilities. Causing fans to be distressed by the fact that the product they paid for is no longer the product they have, and it wasn’t as if you had a new influx of players fully embracing the fact they can now play a version of Skullgirls with weaker Illusions to police brutality or version of Undead and undressed that doesn’t use the word trap.
An argument could also be made that, we cannot get a more Progressive Society if we keep censoring the artwork of the past. After all you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you have been, by pretending that the world is always been this inoffensive Bastion of Tolerance, we actually damage future progress that we could make towards a brighter tomorrow. We should be able to look at old media, and take note of what no longer flies and why these things were problematic.
Because if I’m watching a version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that doesn’t have the song about being a Sweet Transvestite from transsexual transylvania, then I’m not watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
My response was about the “that no one ever complained about” part of your initial comment. That is simply untrue, plenty of people have complained about it since the game was released.
I am also in favor of keeping the original and giving content warnings and relevant info or commentary, as this is the best way to integrate our sometimes troubled past in our future vision.
But I also feel that the word censorship is used very strongly here. The old metal gear solid games are in no way being “undone” or “hidden” by the existence of a new version. I feel that a CRT and a physical controller are also part of the original, is this then also being censored in the new version? Even if it is just a remaster, some decisions will be made to adapt it technically to modern systems, I don’t see why doing the same in terms of some painfully dated content is considered censorship instead of just a new version. Just reducing some of the blatant boob gazing doesn’t retroactively destroy the original Snake Eater in my opinion. But I guess it depends on what you see as a rerelease vs remaster vs remake. If you expect to have the exact original experience that I understand that you don’t want anything changed, but then I also think you’re best of playing the original.
It is interesting that you are telling me to go out and play the original if I want an unchanged version of the game, except that defeats the point of a remaster. A big reason why these remasters are done is simply so that I can play the original game on Modern Hardware without having to go out of my way to track down Legacy Hardware that may be difficult to work fine or go for a very Hefty price, and all without being able to support the company that made the original.
If you censor a product I enjoy in order to get other people in on it, even a little bit, what you are doing is essentially robbing Peter to pay paul, I already liked this game. Why should something I like be taken from me on the off chance that someone who didn’t like it before, might enjoy it now?
Yes a lot of old media is rather dated, but I think we need to have some understanding of things being acceptable for their time, or an understanding that values dissonance is a real thing, and something that was considered Progressive 10 years ago maybe considered offensive now.
Plus, morality is highly subjective, maybe I think having a lot of shots of boobs and asses is great as it creates an environment that strive to be sex positive. Sex positivity being something that is very much a good thing in my own moral compass.
If you are going to sensor new releases of old products, it really should just have a toggle. If you want the original click this button, if you want a version that has been modified to Modern sensibility, push the other button. I feel like that’s the best way to do it. As media preservation is highly important, and we cannot censor the past just because the present disagrees with it.
I think this kind of content warnings kind of makes sense for children’s television. But these are games primarily targeted towards adults. We’re able to form our own opinion.
If there’s no label, the option to not ignore it isn’t even there.
If you guys are really in favor of adults being able to make their own informed decisions, hiding important warnings is not the way to go. Or maybe you just want to complain, like many other people.
I design and operate monitoring systems, and let me tell you, information fatigue is a real thing. Warning labels make sense when sensibly used; otherwise people get conditioned to ignore them, even if they would be crucial. Think of road signs: if there was a speed limit of 10 before every turn, all speed limits would soon lose credibility.
Hardest part of the job is actually learning which alerts we need to keep and which to trim… if we simply slap warnings on everything, everyone would ignore them soon enough.
I’ve been an adult for a little while now and I can confirm: Adults don’t exist. We’re all children with various levels of impulse control. But it is frustrating when you feel like you’re being treated like a child. The reason I learned not to repeat swear words on TV wasn’t because they took all the swear words out. It’s because I repeated them, got in trouble, and learned my lesson. So, I’m not against it, but it shouldn’t be news worthy that someone chose not to butcher prior art.
I think it’s stupid that this behavior is considered worthy of an article. This is how we should be handling this all the time. If the values change, then update the content rating, but don’t touch the content. And for some reason the norm right now is to completely memory hole anything that doesn’t fit the values. I should have been clearer with my comment.
Unrelated to video games but Taylor Swift has a song where she threatens to tell the friends of her Ex that he’s gay for breaking up with her. This has since been replaced entirely with a new line and can’t be found on anything but the original 2006 release.
Can you still legally obtain a copy of the 2006 version? Because with music, if it’s a separate release, it doesn’t affect the past work. This is all, obviously, just my opinion. I feel that games suffer from the effects of this more because often when a “remaster” comes out for a 15 year old game, then it’s the only way to play it, because there’s no legal way to obtain a new copy of the old version.
Now that I think about I think the real difference is that games and other software require constant support, then music audio files don’t. Most people do consume music from a streaming platform, but you can still buy most of it in a physical format that you then are allowed to content shift to a format you can actually play. And theoretically once the copyright runs out, it can be shared. Although Disney has been ruining that for a while now. Games, for the most part are less “stable”. And since there’s almost no legal protection for people sharing old dead games, then the remasters can effectively erase prior art if they change content.
I remember the bomb, but not the second part. I’ll go looking for if there’s any mentions or reference to that, but if you have one handy, that’d be helpful.
Edit: Big yikes. It’s found in the audio logs. Not the act itself, but it’s pretty heavily insinuated in a monologue from the bad guy that he’s going to force it to happen.
I have such an issue supporting Konami after all that shit storm with Kojima. But I care too much for these games to not buy it.
I just re-played mgs1 on my ps1 a few months ago. Curious how they will do the mantis battle, and “turn to page 16 in the game manual for frequency number” type meta stuff.
I still just enjoy anything Kojima, and choose to support generally anything he has a hand in. So ultimately I don’t feel too awful pre ordering this set. But still FucKonami.
I believe that’s referring tothe whole relationship between Otacon and Emma and Otacon and his stepmom in MGS2. The backstory where Otacon slept with his stepmom while he was a minor causing his dad to drown himself in the pool and probably the fact that his step sister was in love with him.
This seems like a marketing move. When the Parental Advisory Label was created for the music industry, some bands and labels went out of their way to make sure they got it put on their albums, sometimes even altering their content just for that purpose, because it would actually drive sales. Of course every kid listening to rock and rap wanted "the real shit."
Here again we are being promised "the real shit" by a meaningless content warning.
It also helps Konami keep its distance from Kojima, which is probably what both of them want.
gamesradar.com
Aktywne