Our spoiler-free thoughts after playing the first act of Baldur’s Gate 3.
We’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 since we played early access three years ago. The thing that appealed to us most was that we could create our own characters within a TTRPG setting, allowing us to create Taliesin and Ruuda. We always play them, and other characters from our game/book series when allowed to create an entire party. We’ve done it for Pillars of Eternity II, Neverwinter, WWE 2K23, and Solasta. As soon as the game was officially out, we jumped at the opportunity to begin this new adventure.
Character Creation
The character creation is decent. Since we tried to recreate our characters exactly, it was disappointing. When games with less development time like 2K23 allow you to enter your character height by inches and weight by pounds to adjust their physique, we expected to see a game with this much detail allow sliders at the very least. We were super happy you could play a duergar, however. That race always gets overlooked and it is a joy to finally have that option.
The graphics are certainly very pretty; the hair looks soft enough to touch. And the ability to dye your clothes to further customize your look is a wonderful addition. We wish you could preview the dye look before committing to it, though.
Gameplay
The gameplay is extremely user-friendly. You can toggle the camera between characters and swivel it around, giving you much more flexibility than the typical top-down perspective of similar games. You point and click where you want your character to move instead of having to fuss with directing yourself through the keyboard. It is easy to target enemies, and the hot bar has simple navigations to find what you are looking for.
Combat flows really well. You are allowed to scale the difficulty based on if you want to focus more on the story and less on fighting the same boss over and over. The three-dimensional environments allow for some really fun fighting locations.
Story
The story is the heart and soul of Baldur’s Gate 3. The characters have depth, are complicated, and have interesting backstories that influence your quests. You are allowed to make moral decisions, and it isn’t always clear on who to trust. You care about NPC’s, you are driven to explore, and the absolute vast amount of dialogue options allows you to feel like you are truly part of the story.
Overview
The first act of Baldur’s Gate 3 is an epic and dark adventure sweeping you into a fully-fleshed out world. You truly lose track of time when you play this game due to how simply fun it is.
Pros: Beautiful graphics, compelling story, great characters, user-friendly gameplay
Cons: Limited character customization, too gory
