I find all the party members insufferable. I change their classes almost immediately for better synergy or I switch them out for the soulless NPC’s Withers has. Ironically, I’ve been D&D 5E Dungeon Master numerous times and I find the party members to be absolutely authentic characters real people would play. Good work Larian, ya made the characters so table top believable that I want to find a new group to play with.
I loved the character design because I hated the characters too: Lae’zel was a close minded warrior, Shadowheart a smartass, Gael Mr nice guy not so nice when you do something he doesn’t approve, Astarion the vampire rapist… Etc.
But then I kept on playing and I realized they were really deep characters. Lae’zel was indoctrinated super hard, but she’s smart and can recognize when things don’t make sense, even if she totally believes those things. Shadowheart has been lying to everyone, including herself, and putting a mask on; but she’s a really sweet woman. Astarion was abused in every possible way for centuries, and being a total asshole is his way to cope.
My point is, yeah, the characters are flawed and can come across as dicks, but many real people do too until you understand their circumstances. Not saying that what they do is justified, just that they are interesting characters and redeemable from my PoV.
I feel like a lot of characters were just standard RPG archetypes with maybe a wrinkle added in. Like Wyll is the classic “Warlock that makes the deal for the right reasons” and the wrinkle is that he has dad issues.
Compare him to one of my favorite RPG companions. Classic elf wizard nerd with an abusive father that made him hit the books and hit him also… but because of his childhood trauma his soul’s past life, a foul mouthed woman from a long time ago awoke within him and sometimes he dissociates and she takes control because she wants him to be assertive… which, along with his fears of animancy, caused him to have an obsession with control, and why he accepted to join the baddies some time before you meet him.
4 max party size was a mistake
by the end game I was running around with two druids, Gale and a Karlach. It was enough to create an army
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x3 fire elemental lv 6
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x2 woodland being lv 5
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x6 ice elemental lv 4
spamming through “end turn” because moving them all will take longer than finishing the fight next turn was very annoying
though it did feel good to have a whole army at my command, the encounters took forever
If they went any higher they’d have to make some encounters even larger and lengthier for balance, and some of those encounters already feel like they go on forever 💀
I don’t think the writing is particularly good, and it is particularly problematic in Act 3. The pacing falls apart, all urgency disappears and there is also a big problem with the villains. Gortash and Orin are pretty bad characters and the nebulous blob that is the Nether Brain is not a compelling antagonist. The Emperor is a pretty interesting character, but he sadly doesn’t really play out as an antagonist - which I find a massive waste in itself. It also felt like some parts of the plot only make sense if you’re playing as Dark Urge.
The companions all being extremely horny and protagonist-sexual gives off a weird vibe, and the progression and design of the relationship system is extremely bad. As an example, Shadowheart can say you’re her soulmate that changed her whole life on like the second day you spend together! There is also a severe lack of bonding moments that are purely adventure party/friendship and not avenues for everyone else to hit on you.
There being literally 0 consequences for dabbling in Mind Flayer powers felt weird and bad and generally undercut the impact of the entire main story. There is no reason not to fill out your whole tadpole tree (including becoming half illithid), and there is no reward for completely abstaining. No specific dialogue, no impact on the ending. Not even an achievement.
Lots of small attempts at fanservice for fans of BG 1&2 feel like surface level lipservice made by people who never played the originals. The Flail of Ages being a shitty rare regular flail sold in a random shop is just depressing.
I wish they left more BG 1&2 characters alone if they didn’t know exactly what to do with them. Jaheira is mostly fine, but even Minsc felt out of place and shoehorned in and the character assassinations of Viconia and Sarevok just felt terrible. Especially since the role of both of those characters in the plot could have easily been replaced with brand new NPCs.
On a similar note, it strikes me as extremely weird that they seemingly outright refused to have any voice actor reprise their role. Heidi Shannon has disappeared from the face of the earth so Jaheira needed to be recast, but Grey DeLisle (Viconia) and Kevin Michael Richardson (Sarevok) are still out there working for example and Jim Cummings (Minsc) was asking random fans at cons to remind Larian he exists.
I don’t think the writing is particularly good, and it is particularly problematic in Act 3. The pacing falls apart, all urgency disappears
Overall I disagree with you. I loved the writing in the game, and the companion back stories are rich, and full of tragedy. But I completely agree with you about act 3. We’re smack dab in the middle of literally trying to save the entire world. We just defeated a major contributor to the master plan. We finally travel to Baldur’s Gate, close to accomplishing our goal… and we stop all of that to help a little kid find their mommy, investigate dangerous toys, and go all detective mode for a missing prostitute. I couldn’t figure out how to get into Baldur’s Gate because I had rejected all of those story lines. They felt completely out of character, and not something I had time to worry about with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. I think that they really could have used a smoother transition from act 2 to act 3.
the companion back stories are rich, and full of tragedy.
The thing is, they’re mostly exposition dumped at you. All of them already went through the worst of it and tell you about it. To me, Larian fell in the old TTRPG trap of making up those elaborate grandiose backgrounds for your characters and expecting the other players to be impressed instead of writing the story of their adventures during the actual game.
I was there when Jaheira found Khalid’s corpse. I accompanied Nalia when she came back to a ruined home and a dead father. I broke Imoen out of the wizard’s asylum.
Karlach told me how bad the hells used to be and we proceeded to make a few trips to the blacksmith together. Wyll told me of his pact and his crazy adventures, the rest just happened to us at camp. Gale told me he banged a goddess and I got to make a persuasion check at the end. Astarion told me of the torture he suffered, and the resolution was done in 2 fights after we met zero vampires before the last room (BG2’s Bodhi and her lair were so much ahead of this it’s not even funny).
Shadowheart is the only one I felt had a story that I actually experienced with her and wasn’t just politely informed of. Oh, and Minthara, but the evil play through really got the short straw in any other way.
I dont care for the lengthy skill checks with the dice roll animation
You are able to click again to skip the animation. The rest of the setup though is important to be able to apply bonuses.
Act 3 destroys the pacing
They should have just let you dye equipment at will from the character screen
The Emperor isn’t even that hot
It’s weird, but I suspect that Act 2 and Act 3 were swapped originally. It makes more sense to have Act 2 be where you go to Baldur’s Gate, learn more about your companions, resolve their personal stories, explore a large open map, and THEN move on to the big confrontation against the Absolute at the tower.
From a story perspective it’s really weird how you confront the Absolute and then go on to sort of aimlessly do all that other stuff in Baldur’s Gate. It makes more sense if the story acts are swapped, imo.
