Being a person who had absolutely no interest in D&D, and in fact held the opinion that it was quite stupid, I was very late to the party with Baldur's Gate 3. But for the past year, it's a game that I haven't been able to escape hearing about. It's been the talk between all of my friends, with even the fussiest and hardest to please people that I know singing the praises of it. Plus it's won countless awards, including GOTY, and has an overwhelming positive rating on steam with hundreds of thousands of views. So when it went on sale in the summer sale, and along with some steam gift vouchers I had, I had the chance to buy it for a measley £15 and decided to take the plunge and give it a go to see what the fuss was about.

Needless to say I did not regret my decision. I love story based games, especially 'choices matter' ones, and BG3 is one of, if not the best choices matter games that I've ever played. The story is full of twists, and incredibly difficult decisions that have dire consequences depending on what you choose.

And the best part is I've only scratched the surface of this experience. The game is massive. I streamed it to friends who have hundreds of hours and multiple playthroughs under their belts, and they even saw some choices, dialogue, and gameplay that they never even knew existed. The replayability is insane and you could easily complete it, start a new playthrough and it will be like playing a entirely new game all over again. There's also endings, dialogue, and choices which are only just being discovered after over a year of it's release. It took me just shy of 90 hours and I know for a fact that I missed a lot of content. So expect an easy 100+ hours for a thorough playthrough.

Due to zero experience with D&D, I absolutely sucked at combat. I initially started on tactician and started to get my ass kicked not long into act 1. The game doesn't hold your hand, and there is very little to no tutorial. So a small warning if you're someone like me that you will need to take initiative and learn how it works but once you get the hang of it, the combat is very fun, and satisfying once you find a build that is powerful or fun.

The characters you can recruit are also very likeable, and are all very different from each other. There's a huge amount of character development for all of them and it's a very enjoyable experience watching it unfold.

I also adored the soundtrack. Some of it gave me goosebumps and I found myself putting some of it into my spotify rotation.

There's honestly very little to criticise, but if I have to nitpick it would be on the following points:

- The character creator is quite limited in my opinion, while there are a lot of races to choose from, I found being able to create a certain appearance that I wanted quite difficult, such as old, fat, or outright ridiculous looking characters. I chose to create a character similar to the Barry63 meme, but couldn't really get it to look how I wanted. The same applied when I started to prepare another character for a second playthrough and wanted to play as an old woman, I encountered the same problem. It's not a deal breaker or a terrible character creator by any means, but I've played games with better ones.

-I felt like the level cap of level 12 was too low, this is highly based on my opinion and preference of course, but you reach max level with a huge amount of the game left which left me with little motivation to do anything combat other than what was needed for quests or story. However I do appreciate that people also want to be able to play a fully powered up character for a good duration of the game.

-Your companions are very horny, perhaps too horny. I found myself triggering romance scenes with characters that had done nothing but stay in my camp for most of my playthrough or ones where I had not flirted with or shown any form of romantic interest in at all. I wish it was a bit more balanced.

The best part about the above points however, is that they can easily be fixed by mods. So that's my plan for my next playthrough.

In summary, this game is absolutely incredible and it's clear that a lot of love and effort went into it's development by Larian. I also hugely respect the fact that they could have taken full advantage of its popularity by releasing paid DLC or micro transactions but chose not to. The focus was clearly on making a working and complete game and they absolutely nailed it. BG3 is a once in a generation game, and one of those where you will wish you could erase your knowledge of it and experience it all over again for the first time.

Even if you have no experience or interest in D&D like myself it's a must play if you like story games. Even if you play on the lowest difficulty to experience it.

I'm looking forward to what Larian do next.

Being a person who had absolutely no interest in D&D, and in fact held the opinion that it was quite stupid, I was very late to the party with Baldur's Gate 3. But for the past year, it's a game that I haven't been able to escape hearing about. It's been the talk between all of my friends, with even the fussiest and hardest to please people that I know singing the praises of it. Plus it's won countless awards, including GOTY, and has an overwhelming positive rating on steam with hundreds of thousands of views. So when it went on sale in the summer sale, and along with some steam gift vouchers I had, I had the chance to buy it for a measley £15 and decided to take the plunge and give it a go to see what the fuss was about. Needless to say I did not regret my decision. I love story based games, especially 'choices matter' ones, and BG3 is one of, if not the best choices matter games that I've ever played. The story is full of twists, and incredibly difficult decisions that have dire consequences depending on what you choose. And the best part is I've only scratched the surface of this experience. The game is massive. I streamed it to friends who have hundreds of hours and multiple playthroughs under their belts, and they even saw some choices, dialogue, and gameplay that they never even knew existed. The replayability is insane and you could easily complete it, start a new playthrough and it will be like playing a entirely new game all over again. There's also endings, dialogue, and choices which are only just being discovered after over a year of it's release. It took me just shy of 90 hours and I know for a fact that I missed a lot of content. So expect an easy 100+ hours for a thorough playthrough. Due to zero experience with D&D, I absolutely sucked at combat. I initially started on tactician and started to get my ass kicked not long into act 1. The game doesn't hold your hand, and there is very little to no tutorial. So a small warning if you're someone like me that you will need to take initiative and learn how it works but once you get the hang of it, the combat is very fun, and satisfying once you find a build that is powerful or fun. The characters you can recruit are also very likeable, and are all very different from each other. There's a huge amount of character development for all of them and it's a very enjoyable experience watching it unfold. I also adored the soundtrack. Some of it gave me goosebumps and I found myself putting some of it into my spotify rotation. There's honestly very little to criticise, but if I have to nitpick it would be on the following points: - The character creator is quite limited in my opinion, while there are a lot of races to choose from, I found being able to create a certain appearance that I wanted quite difficult, such as old, fat, or outright ridiculous looking characters. I chose to create a character similar to the Barry63 meme, but couldn't really get it to look how I wanted. The same applied when I started to prepare another character for a second playthrough and wanted to play as an old woman, I encountered the same problem. It's not a deal breaker or a terrible character creator by any means, but I've played games with better ones. -I felt like the level cap of level 12 was too low, this is highly based on my opinion and preference of course, but you reach max level with a huge amount of the game left which left me with little motivation to do anything combat other than what was needed for quests or story. However I do appreciate that people also want to be able to play a fully powered up character for a good duration of the game. -Your companions are very horny, perhaps too horny. I found myself triggering romance scenes with characters that had done nothing but stay in my camp for most of my playthrough or ones where I had not flirted with or shown any form of romantic interest in at all. I wish it was a bit more balanced. The best part about the above points however, is that they can easily be fixed by mods. So that's my plan for my next playthrough. In summary, this game is absolutely incredible and it's clear that a lot of love and effort went into it's development by Larian. I also hugely respect the fact that they could have taken full advantage of its popularity by releasing paid DLC or micro transactions but chose not to. The focus was clearly on making a working and complete game and they absolutely nailed it. BG3 is a once in a generation game, and one of those where you will wish you could erase your knowledge of it and experience it all over again for the first time. Even if you have no experience or interest in D&D like myself it's a must play if you like story games. Even if you play on the lowest difficulty to experience it. I'm looking forward to what Larian do next.