The best systems I’ve seen so far are super new and janky because they use AI and you just actually fucking talk to them, and are also only in some niche indie games atm. It’s what I’ve always dreamed to be the future of dialogue systems in games since getting into RPGs way back in the 90’s. The systems themselves are perfect; but the AI still has a little ways to go.
Morrowind similarly used this dialogue system, and I truly do like it a lot more than most others, even with a lot of options because it feels more like naturally discovering information and acting up on it, rather than just having a threshold on your stats, or completing quest triggers.
The original is still my favorite. There are some awesome ROM hacks that provide competitive 2-player mode, while keeping the original rules, scoring and graphics.
Marketing. It generally being a good game and part of a beloved series, set in a beloved franchise (D&D). WOTC has been marketing and growing the Hells out of D&D lately. The recent movie and this game are part of that.
The fuss seems to be mostly just the Japanese developers getting butthurt that people in the west got bored of their simplistic combat systems and random encounters, and came up with a term to differentiate the games that, at the time were entirely developed in Japan, that fit this style.
It’s not the Japanese part that made them disliked more. It was the style of gameplay they offered. If you played one, you played them all, basically. They are barely RPGs, taking a more linear, choiceless approach to not only character creation, but dialogue options if even offered, are generally “yes/no” responses to questions that don’t have any real impact.
It took the big developers of these games way too long to actually listen to fans’ very valid criticisms and make changes to these systems, and they still very much keep so many more traditions that the term endures.
Fuck Hi-Rez for making a really good Tribes game and then abandoning it for Smite. I sure hope they merely licensed the name and don’t hold rights to the entire IP, cuz I want a good, modern Tribes game so bad.
These are all things that have existed in all of their RPGs since Arena. These aren’t empty promises, but they’re also not something to be super hyped on.
If you think the story is told like shit, I gotta know what stories and games you actually like. Because it ain’t BG1 and 2.
The forgotten realms lore has changed tremendously, dude. WOTC is going absolutely crazy with retcons and changes lately. Where have you been? Like the entire pantheon of Gods from even 3.5e is totally different. There has been a huge cataclysmic event that almost destroyed magic for a second time (the first being the Netherese empire’s destruction; Karsus’ Folly) and much of the landscape too. It’s practically a different world. This stuff isn’t Larian’s fault. It’s literally Wizard’s fault.
Also: BG1 and 2 didn’t have a single map. They did have a world map screen that connected all the actual maps, but it didn’t really mean anything. It was basically what the fast travel screen is now. 🙄
My first dude was a Dragonborn and that was my thought with the voice options, too. My dragon doesn’t sound like a dragon. He actually sounds like me, IRL.
I just use the unique named backpacks I find. Like I have a “backpack,” “Bewildered Adventurer’s Backpack,” “Old backpack,” “Rotting backpack,” etc.
I keep my potions in the bewildered bag, scrolls in the old bag, and throwables in the rotting bag. All the quest items (except the damn artifact) into the backpack I started with, along with my alchemy and supply pouches, gold and keyring.
To be fair, that one Fallout in the latter installments that best fits the original tone of the 2D games had many of the same people that made the original games, including the original designer and writer. If Obsidian was given another shot, now that those people no longer are at Obsidian, I question how good it would be compared to New Vegas.
I invite anyone to tell me what connects this game to the originals
the plot is basically the same as the first game and the second game combined and mixed with some new elements to make it unique and is set 100 years or so after the events of the second game.
The city itself
all the recurring characters, including the villains
The play style
the setting
The only thing that doesn’t connect them is the rule edition, and you’re not the same protagonist. BG1 and 2 used AD&D2e. BG3 uses 5e.
Game mechanic wise, their original titles aren’t even much different in how they are setup from old Bioware titles. Specifically a combination of Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR and Jade Empire. The story is almost exactly the same as the first one, with a blend of elements from the second one, remixed into an entirely new tale.
I’m pretty sure they made them proud. They copied what was good, and improved upon what wasn’t.