I legit cracked a smile when you said doing this allowed you to pay off your house. Nobody deserves it more Mort - much success to you and your channel.
@@oriandthesleepytime replay DAO. The dialogue in that game is leagues ahead of BG3. BG3 dialogue is all extremely mechanical and people talk like they actors in a play (over-emphasizing silly things for drama)
I think one aspect that sets larian studios Crpgs apart from other Crpgs that it does not get a lot of praise for is the immersive-sim esque approach to problem solving people have no idea how hard it is to develop these kind of gameplay mechanics, its not just an rpg from narrative and reactivity perspective, but also from a gameplay perspective spells and abilities can be used in and outside the combat, you see a fire? you can put it out, you see a corpse? you can cast a spell and question the dead, dead refuse to talk to you? well you can shapeshift into something else then talk to it again, cant jump down without dying? well you can cast feather and then jump down, thats what elevates BG3 from other crpgs for me and i hope more games will learn from it.
@@tincano-beans2114 Well, the "industry" consists mostly of major corporations, they can afford the time and bugets, but they still don't deliver any good rpgs..
@@tincano-beans2114 Nobody is expecting indie devs to deliver a game this crazy and expansive. Literally nobody. Millions upon millions of dollars, years of development, and hundreds of employees IS THE STANDARD for every major game corporation, but you never see anything as ambitious as BG3 coming from those studios. So it can't just be a budget issue.
@@tincano-beans2114they pulled off what the op is talking about in dos2 as well. It’s not the budget it’s the approach to interactive storytelling telling they use. I saw a Mark Darrah video and he referred to what they do as “campfires in the dark” The big money let them make the fancy graphics, cut scenes, voice acting etc. the bones of the game are all build of what they’ve done before and have just kept refining.
@@ducky36FI can’t believe more people don’t know/realize this. At least we have Larian. At least we have DoS2 (and 1 I guess) and now BG3. I hope Larian release another absolute banger in several more years again 😅
@@chrisjackson1215 Writing/dialogs isn't content??? What??? It's a ROLE PLAYING. The content is the role playing, aka dialogs. Here's what's gonna blow your mind. D&D, the game that BG3 is based on, is 100% dialogs.
The game isn't that big, the problem is that no one played it, everyone got in, played act 1, maybe act 2 and never toched it again. If you check on steam, the achivement for finishing the game, not for getting 100%, just for finishing it once, has been obtained by only 15.2% of the people that bought it.
Mort, I really appreciate what you do. If it wasn't for your channel, I wouldn't have even tried to get into content creation. Love the work you put in.
5:06 fantastically summarized about how this is just one representation of the CRPG genre. I think people really need to heed what you’re saying, and go check out those other masterfully made, and executed CRPGs.
Congratulations on paying off your house Mort! Personally, I really enjoy your build ideas and would be happy to see more of those for bg3, rogue trader or other crpgs to come.
You should check out Remortis, he’s pretty solid too. Though much newer to TH-cam. He just started putting out Rogue Trader builds but also did a ton of bg3 stuff too!
And a shoutout to Slandered Gaming, between Mort's and Slandered's video's for both BG3 and the Pathfinder WotR its added so much more enjoyment of these games for me..
Great review! We all know BG3 is a fantastic game, but thank you for being honest and pointing out it's few flaws. Also, congratulations on paying off your house. Being debt free sure feels good.
I did .75 of a playthrough. Act 2 burnt me. Same as dos2 for me. In act 1: Omg this is the greatest game ever. By the end of act 2 it just felt like a slog. I did almost all the side missions and if you do that, theres too much content.
@@tomjones2056Don't feel bad, that happened to most of the people that played it. I finished it twice and it has problems, the story is amazing, the characters are super charismatic, you end up loving most of them, but the combat is really slow and it only get's slower the more you move forward. The same thing happens with the bugs, at the start there's just a couple here and there, but by the end they're everywhere, each worse than the last one. That probably why only 15.2% of the people that bought the game have the achivement for finishing it, even after 3 months.
@@tomjones2056 I feel the exact same. Act 1 was a 10/10 and I'm pretty sure I either 100% it or very close. Act 2 was kind of a linear slog and was a 7/10. Act 3 is awful, obviously bc of performance and bugs, but the pacing, story, and sidequests that made Act 1 so amazing, just disappeared completely. As amazing as Act 1 is, unfortunately the game was not immune to being unfinished and rushed to release like pretty much every game these days. I'll give them a bit of a pass because the scope of this game is insane, but the game as a WHOLE is very overrated, at least until we give them two years to finish the game and release the definitive edition like they do with all their games.
@@tomjones2056 I felt that way with DOS2, but not this game. I played through 3 full games (my 2nd game I did skip some stuff in act 3). But I admit on my 4th and 5th games I petered out pretty early on in act 1. That said, I am tempted to at least play the beginning of act 1 as Astarian based on this video.
I'm happy for you, Morty. Even during the worst CRPG droughts I never gave up on the genre, and I can't wait to talk to all the new people that BG3 will hopefully bring into the fold. I'm excited for what might happen next now that BG3 has proven that, when done right, AAA CRPGs can be both critical _and_ commercial successes. And I'll keep tuning in here to get all the latest CRPG news and reviews. As for the review itself, IMO, BG3 is a game with a lot to praise, some nitpicks which don't warrant much discussion, and a small, small number of genuine issues. If Larian fixes anything in a 'complete edition', I hope they 1) Add a real epilogue, and 2) Fix the Act 3 performance issues. The way the game ends so suddenly is almost unforgivable after the epic journey that brings you there. And while Act 1 ran buttery smooth for me, by the time I got to Act 3 I was literally getting sometimes less than half the FPS I started the game with.
I like romances as a tool to tell Tav's character development, and so I usually sketch out the general progress of the romance throughout the story right at the start but man, Lae'zel was the absolute hardest person not to romance when I had other plans. Her development was done stunningly.
Never played a cRPG, or even any RPG games, never played DnD, my most played games before this were survival/puzzle/cosy games but BG3 is now my most played game of all time with 400 hours, and I'm running it on a crappy laptop. I absolutely love this game, the writing, the interesting mechanics and I especially love that the combat is turn-based, I typically don't play combat based games because playing with a touchpad makes them honestly kind of impossible, but turn-based combat takes what normally is a reaction/mechanical skill based thing and makes it more like a really cool game of chess, keeping track of all the pieces and their abilities and having time to think about each move ahead of time and plan out a strategy, it gives me the same satisfaction as solving an interesting puzzle , honestly a lot of my hours have just been going back and reloading combat encounters just to test out new ideas or mess around with builds! And after all those hours I’m still yet to actually finish any of my saves 😂😂 Also, doing the jack of all trades achievement was such a struggle XD the minute I completed it I respecced my character as a super strong padlock as a reward for getting through it XD
I´m in the same boat except I haven´t gotten much into BG3 precisely because of combat. I know it´s turn based and yes, for me that´s also a plus, but still... too much fighting, too many icons... I keep waiting on something like DIsco Elysium and I have asked all over the internet, including like 5 times in this channel coments, but either such game doesn´t exist so nobody responds, or if I get responses it´s always the ultra-elitist complaining that I dare to ask for a non-combat RPG. I know Morti has mentioned several times Planetscape Torment, but yeah, clearly his definition of "little to no combat" is completely different than mine, map is filled with people that attack on sight. I´ll see if after finishing some other games I have on the process I give BG3 another go, but I just keep wishing for this genre to finally start mixxing things up a little more than "it´s a fantasy cRPG or a western cRPG or a cyberpunk cRPG".
CRPGs are my favorite genre, so I love comments like these. Like Morty says in the intro to this video, hopefully one of the lasting legacies of BG3 will be all the people who say "I gave CRPGs a chance because I heard BG3 was amazing!" Really funny to see your comment on _this_ channel, of all places, since I come here mostly because Morty more or less focuses mainly on CRPGs.
Two things I was most excited about when I got BG3: playing the game and the Mort 100% review. Looking forward to grabbing beer and listening tomorrow. Congratulations man.
I don't own a PC and neither do I own a PS5 yet. I planned on buying a PS5 and BG3 on Black Friday this year because I'm such a huge fan of choice driven RPGs like this. That and I'm also taking a week off from work to play this game 🎮 Thank you so much for helping keep the hype around this game alive. I can't wait to dive right into it after Thanksgiving 😁
I simply believe it is the best approximation of an actual table-top setting that has ever been done, which, at the time, was exactly what the original Baldur's Gate was. A true virtual Dungeon Master for those who can't or don't want to find a real-life group. In that way, if not mechanically, it is a true successor to it's namesake titles. As for it's legacy, my GF has never played a single game like this. She is now on her second playthrough and completely obsessed. A difficulty beyond Tactician may be added as DLC, or will be taken care of by mods ala Sword Coast Stratagems for the originals. It seems to me focusing on attracting and enthralling normal people like my GF was a far better value for them to focus on.
'normal people like my GF' :D I think you mean explorer type players, people more interested in an immersive experience than in beating super hard mechanics. Even though I've played on Tactician, I'm this type of player too; I don't like the term 'casual' bc imho there is nothing casual about putting hundreds of hours into a game, exploring every corner of the world and eventually every dialogue option in several playthroughs, all the while being deeply invested into the NPCs and the RP of your own character. So while I did enjoy combat and the many tactical options there are much more than I thought when I bought the game, it's not what I love about BG3. It's being immersed into this atmospheric world and experiencing the story of my own RP - not so much when it comes to the grander narrative, but in the conversations that give me more dialogue options than I'm used to in video games (vs. in tabletop). I also think the amazing voice acting and cinematic camera angles contribute a lot to the immersion and to my knowledge, the combination of both hasn't been done before on this scale. However, I'd love to hear recommendations from you guys. The only other CRPG I've played is Disco Elysium. Now that I know that turn based combat is not a dealbreaker though, I'd love to play more games that have great RP options + at least semi immersive audiovisuals.
I’m soooo very thankful I gave this game a chance! I have went on to 100% BG3 and beat Honour Mode, played through DOS2 and I’m now probably about halfway through Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. If it wasn’t for BG3 I would never have even considered something like Pathfinder and I am very grateful to Mort for helping me through all above titles. If anyone reading this is on the fence about playing this masterpiece just give it a couple of hours and don’t get disheartened at first if things don’t go your way. It truly is one of the best games ever made and I don’t say this lightly.
I feel like I just watched a tiger mom chastise her kid for getting an A instead of an +A lol it's clear how passionate you are with games like this and it's great to see such an in depth review. Thanks again for your hard work and I hope this video does well with the algorithm!
BG3 is one of those games that single handedly expanded my taste in video games. I've always been a fan of rpgs, ever since I was a kid, but I barely knew anything about crpgs as a genre overall and what little I did know, they didn't really seem like my kind of thing. But with the hype of BG3, I decided to check it out and ended up loving it. So much so I went out of my way to purchase the first two baldur's gate games, as well as planescape torment, divinity original sin 2 and pathfinder wrath of the righteous. I actually already owned kingmaker for free via epic as well. I decided to try out kingmaker after BG3 and while I haven't finished it, I absolutely adored it (overall at least, it does have some issues and things I'm not a *huge* fan of) and can't wait for my inevitably playthrough(s) of WOTR. I've also since started DOS2 and am enjoying it immensely as well. If not for BG3, I never would've considered any of these games, let alone fallen in love with any of them.
all right, I haven’t started the video yet. But one hour and 24 minutes? Let me go get some popcorn and grab a drink oh and also let me not forget… Thank you Mortim you are a grand soul! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Well spoken about the negatives. BG3 is a fantastic game but I feel like the negatives get swept under the rug. Act 3 just deflates after the buildup of Acts 1 + 2 and made me actually take a break and instead play Cyberpunks DLC. You easily feel how stuff was cut and how the 2 other big bads feel crammed in. You rightfully pointed out it does so much better than DOS2 (even with the Enhanced Edition) but I hope Larian learns how to fully stick the landing without any stumbles in the future
I am a first time player to turn based games. This game has been a huge learning curve for me but I think I'm nearing the end of Chapter 1 and slowly beginning to grasp it. Having fun so far. I won't be watching all of this as I don't want spoilers but have enjoyed some of your other videos on the game.
I'm so glad your amazing BG3 content turned out to be so profitable as well. Thanks for a glorious review, and for the rest of the content you're producing without drop in quality and quantity. I personally started to explore the CRPG genre thanks to your videos, and I can't wait for Rogue Trader release and incoming flow of dedicated content on your channel
Your critiques are really fair. I’ve been shocked at the difficulty, as both divinity games beat me to a pulp at times just on the standard difficulty! I think my extreme familiarity with 5E is probably helping me, but I’m still amazed at how little Tactician is challenging me. Would love to see a video on what you think the future of the genre might look like after the unprecedented success of BG3, as well at looking at announced games in a sort of preview format. Congrats on the success and the 100%!
Well let's hope that after 6 months to a year there will be a goty edition with a reworked last act and a difficulty where enemies have and use more abilities and might have more hp.
@@FSVR54 That is fine, I don't think anyone mentioned uping difficulty of lower settings or removing them , but it is important how to up it on higher, higher ac or hp is an option but not the best one as it only forces optimization in a limited direction, while adding/restoring enemy abilites and spells and adding more specialized enemy types that synergize with an enemy group is a varied and more fun challenge. And owelcat like difficulty customization would be welcome.
@@luxaeterna365 True, it turns out I was thinking of the Definitive Edition and Enhanced editions of original sin 2 and 1 , witch had there 3 act / end fight remade and optimized with many overall game improvements. Becouse of those I kinda expect the same here, they somewhat drop the ball in the later parts of the game but pick it up later., about a year later :) .
As a CRPG/D&D newbie struggling through Explorer mode, it’s very hard to imagine Tactician being too easy. But your guides have been a huge help, Mort!
Like the other guy said. Like for example, Fromsoft games are notoriously "hard" but the game gives you tons of options to approach these challenges, that with the right build, every boss becomes a breeze.
Having grown up with the original games, it's honestly so heartwarming seeing the life Larians breathed into this franchise, the love it's recieved and all the new people checking out the genre.
1:24:01 Mortim Bro….You are a rare breed my friend! Truly happy to have you here. Congrats on paying off your house!!! what a huge win! Keep up the great work my guy!
Mort, amazing video. I’m so delighted to see your section about playing as origin characters! I’m trying my first origin run through as Gale and I’m amazed in act 1 how much new content is there for him! Wow!
Abdel Adrian is mentioned in a book in the counting house about the past dukes of BG. With Minthara, talking about how she feels about us being the saviours of the city and how she thinks she won't be accepted due to her drow heritage, the player can say the previous duke was a bhaalspawn. Just thought I'd mention that it definitely confirms Abdel. Great vid.
I found your channel looking to get into the EEs of BG1&2 and I’ve been watching nearly every video since I subscribed. No one deserves the success more than you. Thank you for introducing me to my new favorite genre of games! Now I’m going back to DOS2 and Pathfinder with your guides
I am glad I you mentioned the new patch 4 performance issues because it has absolutely impacted my playthroughs, but specifically my cooperative ones. It has become very difficult to get through in Act 3. That being said, Larian has earned my full trust, so I will assume it will be ironed out soon.
I have had that super annoying lag in act 3 since launch. Crazy that even more people are affected by it now. Hope they fix it by definitive edition. Planning to go for a second playthrough when the game is all finished up.
Since the performance issues are linked to specific save files, I have the harrowing suspicion that they have irrevocably corrupted them. This is inexcusable. It's not just some super annoying but manageable lag. It takes MINUTES to open a single damn door. That is unplayable. They have probably ruined my run for good. A hotfix was release yesterday, but the problems did not disappear.
Amazing, being waiting for this 100%. I've been able and encourage to play so many CRPG's because of your guides. WotR, BG1&2, POE1&2. Greetings from Perú, keep doing amazing content and may we all wonder in wisdom.
I found your channel through BG3 and since then I have watched a lot of your backlog on other games. I'm super happy that things worked out for you in this way and your channel got a lot of more eyes!
A very good review that reflects a lot of my own observations on this game. While i do like it, i will also point out that this is not a sequel to the original games at all in my view. It´s D:OS with a paint job. As harsh as that may sound, it´s marketing and there it was a hit, not the least because the nature of this game (all the fun stuff) plays perfectly into the streaming/youtube/shorts crowd. Remember how the made a big deal about the romances and sex scene, yet there is hardly anything of substance here and they are overall really subpar. But the Halsin love scene gets the views, so a marketing success. The writing or better narrative really breaks apart in Act 3, for some reason Larian thinks rewrites late game are a good thing, they did this in other titles as well and it shows. Especially the cut content hurts the ending really bad. A few months more in production could have done wonders. I also agree with Minthara, who is still bug ridden to no end, and that Minsk in Act 3 was a mistake (originally planed for Act 1). Overall I couldn´t really get into the companions, they felt very generic to me, despite some interesting moments in their personal stories. In the hands of better writers this could have been amazing. It´s still a good game and I had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully they will make a Definitive Edition and at least fix some really glaring issues with the last act. Anyway, I will take Pillars, Pathfinder, BG original series etc over BG3 any time. I think you are spot on with the analysis that many people are so in love with it, because that´s their first venture into this genre, so hopefully this will also bring some more attention to other titles as well.
Lots of good points. Really appreciate the section on Origin characters to get an idea of what to expect when going for another run. I agree with a lot of your points about the difficulty and balance, but I'll take a bit of an easier game in exchange for not having it be as cumbersome as something like the Pathfinder games (around 1:07:00 where you discuss the need for prebuffing in them, I hate that kind of stuff, it's just so much pointless busywork).
I'm so glad that making these videos has brought you so much success and enabled you to pay off your house. The quality of your work is always top notch and appreciate them so much!
Minsc is interesting from a D&D perspective. A difficult character to imagine is a high wisdom, low intelligence character. This is exactly how Minsc is depicted - very well - if you take him with you, listen to his commentary, talk with him after every event. His instincts about people and situations are pretty spot on, even if his lack of intelligence makes him misunderstand obvious things sometimes. And adding to the fun of his characterization, he has an awfully good vocabulary for a supposedly low intelligence character. Just throwing more fuel onto “is he actually dumb or is it an act” aspect of him. Yeah. I enjoyed him. The one I found boring was Wyll. I like his characterization, but he’s just shortchanged in terms of interactions and character development. His story quests aren’t even really about him! Rescue his father, find this dragon he heard about. Only the one about his pact is actually about him.
A couple of things: Swen posted on Twitter yesterday with some testing on Series S that looks like it'll significantly improve performance issues on all systems. Secondly, there's been an alleged 4th Difficulty Mode found in the game files, so it looks like that may arrive at some point.
@@xMorumoto Apparently it might be called "Honour Mode". The leak was found in the latest Patch in the GOG version in relation to an Achievement called "Foehammer".
Yeah when even I can beat tactician you know it's not too hard. Because I'm terrible at micromanagement. Not needed on this game. You can wing it and still do well.
I've played many CRPGs but I feel that BG3 really got many things right with script/story writing, game mechanics, quest decision variation and voice acting. It all comes together forming something so compelling to me.
Sup Mort, just wanted to let you know that you were one of the channels that inspired me to start content creation :) Can't wait to see you get the 500k
Bro I remember it was just a year or 2 ago when I found your channel and you were only getting like 5k views a video for the longest time, I used to think you were such an underviewed channel and wondered why people werent finding it, well now here you are with 103k views in 17 hours, congrats bro, happy for you that your hard work paid off!
I agree very much with the epilogue not giving me satisfying conclusions for the origin characters. I barely did Gale's quest line but he seemed to have the most to say at the end with me even though I spent way more time with Shadowheart, Wyll and Astarion in my party. Astarion seems particularly the worst since I completely finished out his story quest and helped him avoid ascension only to have him comically run off because he's sensitive to light again...
kinda a shame that if you half-illithid him, he doesn't keep being immune to the sun - but I suppose thats more a bug than anything else that non-party members keep being half-illithid after you killed all Tadpoles :P Party Members revert, after all
I actually quite liked Karlach's ending when i played. I played a bard and romanced her. I also did Wyll's quest and pushed him to continue protecting people. My bard went down the Illithid route and eventually went full Mind Flayer. So at the end when Karlach was dying, Wyll wanted to go with her to Avernus, and my Mind Flayer bard went with them. The three of us against the Hells. Wasnt the outcome i wanted, but it was still pretty satisfying. Also, im fairly certain this is the outcome that does the most good. Orpheus canonically wants to continue his mother's work of exterminating with Mind Flayers, but also wants to conquer and enslave every plane.
That was exactly how my first run ended. I was a halfling bard turned mind flayer that went to Acernus to do eternal battle with Karlach and Wyll. Very badass ending.
@@bananana5714 I cant find any info on it. Just read the patch notes again. It seems like they just fixed some ending scenes to be the way they wanted them to be, but i dont see any "new" endings for her.
Such a great video! I can't express how grateful I am to you and your content. I'm so happy to have found you as a creator because of BG3. You deserve this success and I can't wait to see what other new content comes our way through you! I'll be watching closely for Rogue Trader content! Last two videos were pretty awesome! Lastly I have to say your opinions on these is always a breath of fresh air. You don't nit pick the things that don't need to be but hold things into the light that do. I especially enjoyed your comments on the story line between BG 1 2 and 3. I was also an avid player of the first two during my youth as well. Thanks again for such amazing content!
Great video! I know it's pretty standard for you, as I'm a fan of your content, but man is it just amazing to see the amount of time and effort you put into all of your reviews. You have become my favourite reviewer for all games you cover as I believe there is no one who is willing to do 100% reviews as often and as you do. Now with my simping out of the way, with Rogue Trader approaching release, is BG3 your current front runner for Game of the Year, and if not, what other games are among that tier for you personally?
I found this channel less than a year ago and enjoyed every video that has been posted on it. The details you explain and the time you put in shows in the qaulity of your work. Cheers to you and congrats on your personal achievement. Can't wait for the future of the channel and your personal growth. Thank you for all you do. Take a bow Mort!
Completely agree with the ending. When credits rolled I was expecting more scenes to properly close it out. So in that sense it slightly soured the experience a little bit. Apart from that though, for my part I played it on easy as it was my first time playing this kind of game, and noticed that the sub class system is locked out for anyone on easy. Which I found strange. Is it because the systems are more advanced?
I have no experience with D&D and played on tactician difficulty my first time around and didn’t find it too difficult outside of a handful of combat encounters, most of which were in Acts 1 & 2. In Act 3 my characters ended up being so powerful I pretty much ran through the remaining combat scenarios without breaking a sweat. All that said, I agree that there should be a harder difficulty.
That's fantastic! I kind of had the opposite experience? I design for 5e so I'm VERY familiar with it, but I'm just so so at CRPGs. I had a big learning curve of what moves and spells are so so on tabletop but very important in this game. My biggest struggles were in the Larian style mob fights in Act 3 (House of Grief and the Foundry in particular). They destroyed me on Explorer and I'm dreading them now that I'm playing Tactician!
@@angrynerdgirl that’s really cool. I kind of feel like having no experience was a benefit to me since I had no preconceived notions of what would and wouldn’t work. I just read all of the in game tutorials like a mad man lol. I think most of the difficult fights were when they just overwhelmed you with 12+ enemies.
Not sure if you'll see this comment, but I appreciate you calling out the Act 2 -> Act 3 railroad. I chose to play my first character as hardline anti-illithid. Never consumed any tadpoles, refused to make use of any powers, and going to any lengths to find a way to remove the parasite. Reaching the end of Act 2, the Emperor's deception made me genuinely want to kill him. By chance, all the gith ended up dying before I zeroed his hitpoints, which IMMEDIATELY triggered dialogue where he commended me for changing my mind, and I was forced to continue on like nothing happened. Worse still was that after the forced dialogue ended, I obviously still wanted to kill him. So I attacked...and attacked...and attacked... His hitpoints can reach 0, and absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. At all. He doesn't die, doesn't warn you or fight back, he just tells you to piss off and that's that. I was genuinely so disappointed, and it was entirely because of the standard Larian had set for themselves leading up to that point.
I fully avoided the Illithid buffs throughout the game, because I expected a gotcha moment later on. I even avoided the illithid chat options, because I thought that it would be a kind of evil option which my character would not use. I'll do another playthrough, fully embracing it.
Your Baldur’s Gate 1 guide was immensely helpful. I loved playing Fallout 1 and 2, but could never even get passed the most basic encounters in BG1 which lead me to rage quit for years until stumbling onto your channel. I’ve now finished the Bhaalspawn saga and am looking forward to BG3, all thanks to you.
Curious. I found Fallout 1 and BG1 to be brutally hard first time but found their respective sequels to be really easy. For the most part BG3 was a cakewalk
This is a great and fair review. Like you, I have enjoyed all of Larian's games. Heck, even Beyond Divinity had a few enjoyable aspects. That said, my biggest complaint with Larian that continues with BG3 is that they do not respect the story and lore of prior games. They didn't respect the lore of their own Divinity universe, and so it's no surprise that they didn't care much about respecting the Bhaalspawn saga. I hope that changes, but given that it has never been a priority for Sven (who never even plays his own games again after they're released), I don't expect that will change.
The definitive review on TH-cam! Thanks for all your hard work. You bring up a very interesting point about getting railroaded into helping the Emperor until endgame. Would have been much more interesting if you could side with Orphaeus during that first fight and open up more narrative potential.
Dude, you articulated SO many of my own issues/nitpicks with this game. I was like is it just me? Was BG3 overhyped? IMO, it totally was, especially with quality of life stuff that still hasn't been fixed as of Feb '24; wrangling all the lackluster companions; and Act 3. (Playing on PC at least allows for modding---sucks for console). But is it still a great game a cut above the rest? ABSOLUTELY.
What bothered me in the story was that there is no benefit in not using Illithid powers. It is implied you lose humanity when you use them, that in fact you should not be using them. Guess what - if you don't use them the only consequence you get is you are limiting your options in gameplay - have less powers for combat. Regardless of whether you abstain from using powers or use them constantly, at the end you get the same story outcomes, e.g. turning into mind flayer when you free Orpheus has the same consequences.
I did not know this! I have been avoiding using powers. Haven’t used them even once. I guess I’m making things harder for myself than they need to be. I can finally stop hoarding a chest full of tadpoles. 😉
@@KittenCritters Sure, technically there does not have to be a benefit to anything you do. But then, teasing a certain outcome and then not following through it does not make a good roleplaying game. Therefore, there should be either negative consequences for succumbing to illithid powers or positive consequences for not doing so - as was foreshadowed in the story. A DM who handwaves the choices of his players is not a good DM.
I discovered Mortismal after I played Dos2 a few years ago and wanted more lore, since than I've watched a lot of your videos. You certainly are the best reviewer imo because of the fact you 100% every game and really understand it before critiquing it. Love the voice, the way the videos are setup, thanks for making this
I absolutely love BG3 and its now one of my favorite games of all time. I am so thirsty for a similar game but there is no game like it. I tried to get in to Pathfinder wrath of the righteous but it just didnt click with it. The main problem isnt event the presentation which of course is many levels under BG3, but neither the story in the beginning nor the feeling of the game could hook my. My biggest complain is that the game does absoluetely nothing to teach you its mechanics and its unique rule sets and gameplay. So i just felt like I was at the wrong place because the intrudoction in to the story and world wasnt as smooth and good for a newbie as in BG3 and the mechanics are also extreme complicated. Sorry but I dont want to have to watch hour long videos or guides about a game I want to play. The Leveling alone and the class system and character chreation looks so more complicated and you just have no clue which is good or bad for the character you want to build. I think BG3 just nailed completely the balance of statisfying deep combat and many possible interactions with in the world ( many physic objects, also something Pathfinder is lacking ) and is very addictive written in its narrative and story design and also gets it right to introduce newbies very good to the world and story. Pathfinder WotR just feels like a game for Pathfinder Fans only, it just feels like it doesnt even want to try to get Outsiders involved. I think this one of the main problems why many CRPGS dont appeal as much in the mass as BG3. Its not because they are too complex, its because they are often designed entirely with a mindset only thinking about people already extremely involved into the world, story and rule sets. Thats why I am looking forward for warhammer 40k rogue trader, because I am a huge Warhammer (40k) fan and I am very into the lore and world of it. But I think if OwlCat Games wants to reach the same highs as Larian in success, they need to give Outsiders more attention. Larian already did a good job with the Divinity games well to introduce the players with the right pacing and story telling into its world and rules. Also Games such as Disco Elysium which I really love as well reall nail introducing players into its world and characters ( even if its a bad comparison, because the games isnt based on a already existing PnP universe)
I've desperately tried to get into Pathfinder WOTR too, but I ultimately end up disliking it's overbearing mechanical focus. Like even something as simple as just showing me the percentage chance to hit an enemy, instead of making me manually calculate it by bringing up my character sheet and looking at the enemy AC. And it's frustrating because I say this as someone who loves tabletop DND and has played recent CRPGs (both DOS, and Pillars of Eternity 2). If anything, I hope Larian's success encourages many other CRPGs to just be a *little* friendlier and more accessible in their systems.
Yeah, I tried to play Pathfinder, Wasteland 3, Pillars of eternity and others RPGs but nothing compares to BG3. I played Solasta before BG3 I really recommend it and the combat is very similar and the dialogues are so funny
Congats on the 100% and this video. Even if it doesn't end up as your most viewed video, it will still end up being game-changing. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
Love the content but gotta disagree about minsc. I recruited him early in act 3 (like you said it’s a lot so I specifically worked toward it) and he added a ton to the last act for me. Plus having him and jaheira walking around the city commenting on everything is a real treat. I think they have more lines than the origin characters in act 3 lol
I'm on Xbox, so I haven't had the chance to play this yet, but I'm a big Larian fan because of DOS2. Have been watching reviews since the game released, but this is the only one I have been waiting for. Every major gaming channel/mag pushed their reviews without even finishing the game once or experiencing a fraction of what it has to offer. Thank you Mort for doing your due diligence. Your work ethic and attention to detail truly sets your channel apart. Looking forward to the rest of your 2023 content!
I think the major reason people resonate with BG3 is the full voice acting. I've had many friends approach me asking for games like BG3 they could play. The second question is always voice acting and the lack there of making it a no go. I don't know how you fix this other than allocating a rather large amount of your budget to VA which would already be challenging when this genre doesn't typically operate in the AAA space. Either way I can only hope we see even more CRPGs in the future.
@@BoxStudioExecutive If you look in the CRPG genre its actually not that many. Baldurs Gate 3, Pillars of Eternity 2 and Divinity Original Sin 2 are the only ones I can think of. While reading doesn't bother me, I just think it makes it far more accessible to people. This could also be completely wrong and that's fine. Not here to argue.
@@bad_chewy6092 Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Witcher, KOTOR. There's like 12 games right there. Fallout 3, 4, NV, Starfield if you want to loosen up the criteria.
As good as the game is, Pathfinder WoTR and Solasta still offers more on some aspect. (replayability, build diversity, UI, group discussions, campaign design, resting system, etc.)
@@nickrubin7312 You're absolutely right on WoTR. I wasn't including Solasta in the sense that it's better on all these points, but I disagree on the UI. I love Solasta's UI, which is the main reason I even mentionned Solasta. Also.. resting system.
I love that they made Minthara easily available in your good play threw, her full story fits that more as a good story as she is mostly a chaotic good character. I played my first playthrew as a dark urge oathbreaker and thought she was going to be your evil sidekick but she instantly reveals that she is truly good and kind of changed how i thought the play threw was going to go.
My only major complaint is that the evil playthrough feels way underbaked compared to the good playthrough, because most of the characters/quests are tied to the good playthrough and you just don't get as much interaction on the evil one. I really hope they flesh that out as they have done reworks of the weaker elements on their previous games. Other than that the game is obviously a masterpiece.
I felt it was natural as you would not have as much interactions or companions if you're a murder bot, there are people with morals in the game that won't like you or have anything to do with you and everyone else is dead you killed them. If you slaughter everyone you run across you won't be having tea with people or spending time chatting and hanging out. To me that is how it would be so making a bunch of dialogs with npc's would seem weird you're a murder bot people who survive being anywhere near you are not going to want to chat. What were you thinking should have been done? Did the other games have a bunch of evil npc's that replace the normal ones so there was equal amounts of content? I have not played the others so I am unaware of how they would handle a murder bot run.
@@gabriellekili2977 Yeah, the previous games (BG1/2) did have full casts of evil - and neutral! - characters and alternative evil paths for almost every quest. This was especially important in BG2, where an entire main gameplay system would give you different rewards for increasing your power based on if you were good or evil. Personally though I think that the Pathfinder games, especially Wrath of the Righteous, show the potential for an evil route. You should watch Mandalore's WotR review for an example of how it can work. A good example from BG3 though is Moonrise Towers. In act 1, there's a big deal made about how you can infiltrate Moonrise Towers if you act like a member of the cult. This is a perfect "evil" path choice - you fuck over the tieflings and the Grove selfishly (evil) but you do it for your own good to try and take the fast lane to understanding the cult. That's exactly what evil should be, power at all costs. However, that's where this plot thread ends. There's basically no content at Moonrise Towers. What it should have been was an alternative main quest hub to the Inn of the Last Light for evil characters. You can see that they tried this in act 1 too, with several quests localized to the goblin camp. However, it even walls apart there too since the Grove has so many *more* quests and especially quests that lead you outside of the Grove to do things in the act 1 map. Another example would be the shadow druids in the "hidden" path to resolving the conflict at the Grove. There's really no reason why an evil aligned character shouldn't be able to side with the shadow druids. The game forces you to consider them bad and attack them. This would have been a great option for an evil aligned character - especially an evil druid! - to make a choice befitting their character and fight with the shadow druids against the rest of the Grove for an alternative quest reward. It's not like the game doesn't have some good evil choices. Turning Dame Aylin over to the wizard Lorroakan is a great example. And there is a slight payoff to helping the goblins in the form of the unique evil companion Minthara. Note that neither of these are "murderhobo" options. While you do kill a lot of people to help the goblins, no matter what option you pick (goblins or Grove) 50% of the population in act 1 has to die, so it's not anymore "murderhobo-y" than the other choice, it just changes who you kill. Turning Dame Aylin over is literally a business transaction. And evil one, but still just business. That's what the evil route needs to be in a game like this. I think the problem ultimately is a lack of development on the evil path. Going evil locks you out of most of the companions in the game, and gives you the second least interesting companion in the form of Minthara. That's it. There's no unique evil hub in act 2 with its own quests, there are very few quests that let you make evil choices for your own benefit, and most of the roleplaying options push you into being a pretty generic hero. Like, one of the things I would have liked is for Karlach to be evil. Evil doesn't have to equate to *mean*, her personality can still be the same. But imagine a Karlach who is *not* under any situation going back to Zariel. A Karlach who will turn on a dime and kill anyone who she thinks is going to try and interrupt her path to freedom. She is willing and able to do evil deeds in pursuit of this goal, but she's also a charismatic and friendly person outside of that. That would be an extremely interesting character and in fitting with her lore, and it would give good players a character they can work with and try to redeem, while evil players would have a character that fully supports their quest for personal power as a way to potentially free herself. And it would make the Wyll conflict more interesting by making her more a grey character!
@@ElevenHymn You are being sensitive to wording. There was no negative flavor to my text. People choose evil playthroughs because they enjoy them, but they are what they are how many Evil playthroughs have you seen where the person is a pacifist, and most people live? That is the point of Evil playthroughs let people embrace what they enjoy without sticking your issues with morality in it I brought up npc morality because d&d has a morality tier chaotic neutral good evil ect not because i was judging the player but because the npcs will judge the player like astarion approving whenever your awful to innocents he is evil most vamps in d&d are. My son is doing a DUrge run and having a blast we laugh and talk about it all the time. You see negativity because of your perceptions not because it is actually there. Have a great rest of your day.
Congratulations on laying off your house Mort, so happy you’re able to do what you love and monetize it! Thank you for all you do, it really is your hard work paying off. 100% reviews at the speed you’re able to accomplish it really goes the extra mile and doesn’t go unnoticed by your audience and many others still to find this channel
Look, I haven't finished this game so I won't watch the video yet, but I'm giving you a thumbs up solely because of your commitment to 100% the games you review and sticking with that. Respect.
This is by far the most comprehensive so-called 'objective' in-depth review I've ever seen of BG3. You carefully weighed all the positives and negatives thoroughly each aspect of the game whether it'd be gameplay, story, progression, combat system, etc. without having a particularly strong bias whatsoever (aside from your adoration for the genre and previous installments which is perfectly fine.) All-in-all personally, having to spend over 100 hours in the game and having never played DnD I'd say that I'm extremely satisfied. This has been one of those every-once-in-a-decade type of experiences in gaming for me. The one glaring flaw I find myself agreeing with you the most is that we aren't given a choice to side with the githyanki prince over the Emperor and later free him anyway? That was the first moment in the story where I felt like my choices didn't really matter all that much. I never really enjoyed turned-based strategy games (aside from Civ) but this game has changed my perspective to the point that I'm willing to give a chance to other games in the genre.
I believe its said that the Dark Urge is not TRULY a Bhaalspawn, he was a mortal infused with the "blood of Bhaal", not exactly an offspring, something akin to being a Chosen of Bane/Myrkul. Thus when you actually rebelled against the Dark Urge, it is stated from Withers himself that Bhaal only knew to kill the blood within you that he recognized. Over the course of your journey you essentially separated your own essence from the one Bhaal gifted to you.
It's more vague than that, but yeah like I mentioned but didnt elaborate on, Sarevok tries to explain it. It still doesnt make any sense because Bhaal would have had to have done that at a time when he was dead. It's not a huge deal, and honestly I doubt many people besides myself even care, I do like the Durge being a spawn, but the whole thing is not well thought out.
Yeah I think the first video I watched from you was on the full story of BG1 followed by 2 cause I was hyped for 3. I played them both as a kid but never beat either one and haven't ever went back to them, but I've read books on the lore since and have always liked the setting a lot. Since watching those first two videos, I started getting other videos by you in my suggestions and have found some cool new games to check out and ended up subscribing which is something I don't ever really take the time to do, even with channels I watch a lot, just because I'm usually thoroughly interested in the games you cover and enjoy the way you cover them. Thanks for all the hard work, glad it's paid off for you! Cheers
Patch 5 addressed a fair few of my criticisms which you can see here: th-cam.com/video/qpyiQl7k39E/w-d-xo.html
It is amazing how reactive Larian Studios was to address so many issues in so little time since this video.
Thats why they are legendary. One of the best devs ever. I hope they see all this love and keep the passion up instead of being money hungry
@@ethanmoon505this game still deletes saves like it's going out of style on Xbox. Don't dislocate your jaw sucking them off just yet
Even more has been fixed in patch 6… can’t wait for the definitive version.
hi mort, would be interested in your personal ranking of dos2, wotr & bg3. you excessively played all of them, so whats your favourite? greetz!
I legit cracked a smile when you said doing this allowed you to pay off your house. Nobody deserves it more Mort - much success to you and your channel.
A game that filled the hole in our hearts where Bioware used to be
uhh... not quite
well then you have big rotten heart and nothing will ever make you happy
start drinking
@@frogoree
@@oriandthesleepytimeUnpopular opinion but I agree, BG3 outdid even Dragon Age Origins by a wide margin.
I legit feel like I'm playing Dragon Age Origins sometimes, when I'm playing BG3
@@oriandthesleepytime replay DAO. The dialogue in that game is leagues ahead of BG3. BG3 dialogue is all extremely mechanical and people talk like they actors in a play (over-emphasizing silly things for drama)
I think one aspect that sets larian studios Crpgs apart from other Crpgs that it does not get a lot of praise for is the immersive-sim esque approach to problem solving people have no idea how hard it is to develop these kind of gameplay mechanics, its not just an rpg from narrative and reactivity perspective, but also from a gameplay perspective spells and abilities can be used in and outside the combat, you see a fire? you can put it out, you see a corpse? you can cast a spell and question the dead, dead refuse to talk to you? well you can shapeshift into something else then talk to it again, cant jump down without dying? well you can cast feather and then jump down, thats what elevates BG3 from other crpgs for me and i hope more games will learn from it.
@@tincano-beans2114 Well, the "industry" consists mostly of major corporations, they can afford the time and bugets, but they still don't deliver any good rpgs..
@@tincano-beans2114 Nobody is expecting indie devs to deliver a game this crazy and expansive. Literally nobody. Millions upon millions of dollars, years of development, and hundreds of employees IS THE STANDARD for every major game corporation, but you never see anything as ambitious as BG3 coming from those studios. So it can't just be a budget issue.
@@tincano-beans2114they pulled off what the op is talking about in dos2 as well. It’s not the budget it’s the approach to interactive storytelling telling they use. I saw a Mark Darrah video and he referred to what they do as “campfires in the dark”
The big money let them make the fancy graphics, cut scenes, voice acting etc. the bones of the game are all build of what they’ve done before and have just kept refining.
They won’t bro or they would have.
@@ducky36FI can’t believe more people don’t know/realize this. At least we have Larian. At least we have DoS2 (and 1 I guess) and now BG3. I hope Larian release another absolute banger in several more years again 😅
*Everyone:* “This game will take years to fully experience!”
*Mort:* “Hold my 100%.”
Considering most of the experience is slightly different dialog and not any actual plot changes, that’s not surprising.
@@chrisjackson1215 Writing/dialogs isn't content??? What???
It's a ROLE PLAYING. The content is the role playing, aka dialogs.
Here's what's gonna blow your mind. D&D, the game that BG3 is based on, is 100% dialogs.
The game isn't that big, the problem is that no one played it, everyone got in, played act 1, maybe act 2 and never toched it again.
If you check on steam, the achivement for finishing the game, not for getting 100%, just for finishing it once, has been obtained by only 15.2% of the people that bought it.
@@luxaeterna365while I agree to some degree, there are still over 100k playing as of a couple weeks ago. On steam only.
@@chrisjackson1215I agree but the acts alone took me 250 hours to find everything in-map. I’d say that’s more than enough.
Raphael works hard but Mort works harder
66 likes...nice
@@danboyd6180 the ninja turtle from teenage ninja mutant Ninja turtle
Yeah but Mort can't sing like Raphael
Nice one. *finger guns*
@@danboyd6180 The Protestant work ethic
11 playthroughs..truly one of the hardest working gaming youtubers. Massive respect to you, Mort, and hope the channel keeps growing
No seriously
Mort, I really appreciate what you do. If it wasn't for your channel, I wouldn't have even tried to get into content creation. Love the work you put in.
5:06 fantastically summarized about how this is just one representation of the CRPG genre. I think people really need to heed what you’re saying, and go check out those other masterfully made, and executed CRPGs.
@@zoltanschweifer4304I'm glad your game is getting better. This video isn't about your game. Chill. You're coming in too hot.
And congrats on earning a paid off house. Cheers.
@@spellandshield Yes
Is 100% even possible 🥹😅
Congratulations on paying off your house Mort!
Personally, I really enjoy your build ideas and would be happy to see more of those for bg3, rogue trader or other crpgs to come.
You should check out Remortis, he’s pretty solid too. Though much newer to TH-cam. He just started putting out Rogue Trader builds but also did a ton of bg3 stuff too!
And a shoutout to Slandered Gaming, between Mort's and Slandered's video's for both BG3 and the Pathfinder WotR its added so much more enjoyment of these games for me..
At long last the coveted BG3 review and it’s movie length, congrats on finally getting this out Mortismal!!
Great review! We all know BG3 is a fantastic game, but thank you for being honest and pointing out it's few flaws. Also, congratulations on paying off your house. Being debt free sure feels good.
500 hours and 11 play throughs?! Ive done about 150 hours and 1.5 playthroughs and im burned out! You're a machine
I did .75 of a playthrough. Act 2 burnt me. Same as dos2 for me. In act 1: Omg this is the greatest game ever. By the end of act 2 it just felt like a slog.
I did almost all the side missions and if you do that, theres too much content.
@@tomjones2056Don't feel bad, that happened to most of the people that played it.
I finished it twice and it has problems, the story is amazing, the characters are super charismatic, you end up loving most of them, but the combat is really slow and it only get's slower the more you move forward. The same thing happens with the bugs, at the start there's just a couple here and there, but by the end they're everywhere, each worse than the last one.
That probably why only 15.2% of the people that bought the game have the achivement for finishing it, even after 3 months.
@@tomjones2056 I feel the exact same. Act 1 was a 10/10 and I'm pretty sure I either 100% it or very close. Act 2 was kind of a linear slog and was a 7/10. Act 3 is awful, obviously bc of performance and bugs, but the pacing, story, and sidequests that made Act 1 so amazing, just disappeared completely.
As amazing as Act 1 is, unfortunately the game was not immune to being unfinished and rushed to release like pretty much every game these days. I'll give them a bit of a pass because the scope of this game is insane, but the game as a WHOLE is very overrated, at least until we give them two years to finish the game and release the definitive edition like they do with all their games.
@trevorbye6965 Lol you're just wrong, it's okay to admit you just got burnt out. It's a personal issue.
@@tomjones2056 I felt that way with DOS2, but not this game. I played through 3 full games (my 2nd game I did skip some stuff in act 3). But I admit on my 4th and 5th games I petered out pretty early on in act 1. That said, I am tempted to at least play the beginning of act 1 as Astarian based on this video.
I'm happy for you, Morty. Even during the worst CRPG droughts I never gave up on the genre, and I can't wait to talk to all the new people that BG3 will hopefully bring into the fold. I'm excited for what might happen next now that BG3 has proven that, when done right, AAA CRPGs can be both critical _and_ commercial successes. And I'll keep tuning in here to get all the latest CRPG news and reviews.
As for the review itself, IMO, BG3 is a game with a lot to praise, some nitpicks which don't warrant much discussion, and a small, small number of genuine issues. If Larian fixes anything in a 'complete edition', I hope they 1) Add a real epilogue, and 2) Fix the Act 3 performance issues. The way the game ends so suddenly is almost unforgivable after the epic journey that brings you there. And while Act 1 ran buttery smooth for me, by the time I got to Act 3 I was literally getting sometimes less than half the FPS I started the game with.
I like romances as a tool to tell Tav's character development, and so I usually sketch out the general progress of the romance throughout the story right at the start but man, Lae'zel was the absolute hardest person not to romance when I had other plans. Her development was done stunningly.
Never played a cRPG, or even any RPG games, never played DnD, my most played games before this were survival/puzzle/cosy games but BG3 is now my most played game of all time with 400 hours, and I'm running it on a crappy laptop. I absolutely love this game, the writing, the interesting mechanics and I especially love that the combat is turn-based, I typically don't play combat based games because playing with a touchpad makes them honestly kind of impossible, but turn-based combat takes what normally is a reaction/mechanical skill based thing and makes it more like a really cool game of chess, keeping track of all the pieces and their abilities and having time to think about each move ahead of time and plan out a strategy, it gives me the same satisfaction as solving an interesting puzzle , honestly a lot of my hours have just been going back and reloading combat encounters just to test out new ideas or mess around with builds! And after all those hours I’m still yet to actually finish any of my saves 😂😂
Also, doing the jack of all trades achievement was such a struggle XD the minute I completed it I respecced my character as a super strong padlock as a reward for getting through it XD
I´m in the same boat except I haven´t gotten much into BG3 precisely because of combat. I know it´s turn based and yes, for me that´s also a plus, but still... too much fighting, too many icons... I keep waiting on something like DIsco Elysium and I have asked all over the internet, including like 5 times in this channel coments, but either such game doesn´t exist so nobody responds, or if I get responses it´s always the ultra-elitist complaining that I dare to ask for a non-combat RPG. I know Morti has mentioned several times Planetscape Torment, but yeah, clearly his definition of "little to no combat" is completely different than mine, map is filled with people that attack on sight. I´ll see if after finishing some other games I have on the process I give BG3 another go, but I just keep wishing for this genre to finally start mixxing things up a little more than "it´s a fantasy cRPG or a western cRPG or a cyberpunk cRPG".
@@GeoGyf ... what? Sorry but your message makes no sense to me, neither is related to anything I said.
@@GeoGyf Based on your reading comprehension, I get why you'd have such an opinion.
CRPGs are my favorite genre, so I love comments like these. Like Morty says in the intro to this video, hopefully one of the lasting legacies of BG3 will be all the people who say "I gave CRPGs a chance because I heard BG3 was amazing!"
Really funny to see your comment on _this_ channel, of all places, since I come here mostly because Morty more or less focuses mainly on CRPGs.
@@ungreatfulduck750 If you're not against 2d, I'd recommend Wildermyth.
Two things I was most excited about when I got BG3: playing the game and the Mort 100% review. Looking forward to grabbing beer and listening tomorrow. Congratulations man.
I don't own a PC and neither do I own a PS5 yet. I planned on buying a PS5 and BG3 on Black Friday this year because I'm such a huge fan of choice driven RPGs like this. That and I'm also taking a week off from work to play this game 🎮 Thank you so much for helping keep the hype around this game alive. I can't wait to dive right into it after Thanksgiving 😁
Wow…just wow..a truly Herculean effort. Congrats man! The only spoiler here is the way Mort spoils us with the quality of his reviews.
I simply believe it is the best approximation of an actual table-top setting that has ever been done, which, at the time, was exactly what the original Baldur's Gate was. A true virtual Dungeon Master for those who can't or don't want to find a real-life group. In that way, if not mechanically, it is a true successor to it's namesake titles.
As for it's legacy, my GF has never played a single game like this. She is now on her second playthrough and completely obsessed. A difficulty beyond Tactician may be added as DLC, or will be taken care of by mods ala Sword Coast Stratagems for the originals. It seems to me focusing on attracting and enthralling normal people like my GF was a far better value for them to focus on.
100% - BG3 is both a masterpiece in its own right and an amazing gateway drug into other games into the genre
I’m using the Tactician Plus mod at the moment and it’s great with lots of different options!
Have you played Dark Sun games before? I would argue they are a much better approximation of an actual table top setting than the original BG.
The Owlcat Pathfinder games are as good as BG3 at adapting their system, they just don’t have the level of polish.
'normal people like my GF' :D I think you mean explorer type players, people more interested in an immersive experience than in beating super hard mechanics. Even though I've played on Tactician, I'm this type of player too; I don't like the term 'casual' bc imho there is nothing casual about putting hundreds of hours into a game, exploring every corner of the world and eventually every dialogue option in several playthroughs, all the while being deeply invested into the NPCs and the RP of your own character.
So while I did enjoy combat and the many tactical options there are much more than I thought when I bought the game, it's not what I love about BG3. It's being immersed into this atmospheric world and experiencing the story of my own RP - not so much when it comes to the grander narrative, but in the conversations that give me more dialogue options than I'm used to in video games (vs. in tabletop). I also think the amazing voice acting and cinematic camera angles contribute a lot to the immersion and to my knowledge, the combination of both hasn't been done before on this scale.
However, I'd love to hear recommendations from you guys. The only other CRPG I've played is Disco Elysium. Now that I know that turn based combat is not a dealbreaker though, I'd love to play more games that have great RP options + at least semi immersive audiovisuals.
I’m soooo very thankful I gave this game a chance! I have went on to 100% BG3 and beat Honour Mode, played through DOS2 and I’m now probably about halfway through Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. If it wasn’t for BG3 I would never have even considered something like Pathfinder and I am very grateful to Mort for helping me through all above titles. If anyone reading this is on the fence about playing this masterpiece just give it a couple of hours and don’t get disheartened at first if things don’t go your way. It truly is one of the best games ever made and I don’t say this lightly.
I feel like I just watched a tiger mom chastise her kid for getting an A instead of an +A lol it's clear how passionate you are with games like this and it's great to see such an in depth review. Thanks again for your hard work and I hope this video does well with the algorithm!
BG3 is one of those games that single handedly expanded my taste in video games. I've always been a fan of rpgs, ever since I was a kid, but I barely knew anything about crpgs as a genre overall and what little I did know, they didn't really seem like my kind of thing. But with the hype of BG3, I decided to check it out and ended up loving it. So much so I went out of my way to purchase the first two baldur's gate games, as well as planescape torment, divinity original sin 2 and pathfinder wrath of the righteous. I actually already owned kingmaker for free via epic as well.
I decided to try out kingmaker after BG3 and while I haven't finished it, I absolutely adored it (overall at least, it does have some issues and things I'm not a *huge* fan of) and can't wait for my inevitably playthrough(s) of WOTR. I've also since started DOS2 and am enjoying it immensely as well. If not for BG3, I never would've considered any of these games, let alone fallen in love with any of them.
Try the Pillars of Eternity series as well!
I envy you having the chance to experience all of these games for the first time. Enjoy! You've got some great adventures ahead of you.
DOS2 is one of the greatest games ever imo
all right, I haven’t started the video yet. But one hour and 24 minutes? Let me go get some popcorn and grab a drink oh and also let me not forget… Thank you Mortim you are a grand soul! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Well spoken about the negatives. BG3 is a fantastic game but I feel like the negatives get swept under the rug. Act 3 just deflates after the buildup of Acts 1 + 2 and made me actually take a break and instead play Cyberpunks DLC. You easily feel how stuff was cut and how the 2 other big bads feel crammed in. You rightfully pointed out it does so much better than DOS2 (even with the Enhanced Edition) but I hope Larian learns how to fully stick the landing without any stumbles in the future
I am a first time player to turn based games. This game has been a huge learning curve for me but I think I'm nearing the end of Chapter 1 and slowly beginning to grasp it. Having fun so far. I won't be watching all of this as I don't want spoilers but have enjoyed some of your other videos on the game.
I'm so glad your amazing BG3 content turned out to be so profitable as well. Thanks for a glorious review, and for the rest of the content you're producing without drop in quality and quantity. I personally started to explore the CRPG genre thanks to your videos, and I can't wait for Rogue Trader release and incoming flow of dedicated content on your channel
This game did the unthinkable. It made me, some regular dude that works construction, love D&D. Big W
Your critiques are really fair. I’ve been shocked at the difficulty, as both divinity games beat me to a pulp at times just on the standard difficulty! I think my extreme familiarity with 5E is probably helping me, but I’m still amazed at how little Tactician is challenging me.
Would love to see a video on what you think the future of the genre might look like after the unprecedented success of BG3, as well at looking at announced games in a sort of preview format. Congrats on the success and the 100%!
Well let's hope that after 6 months to a year there will be a goty edition with a reworked last act and a difficulty where enemies have and use more abilities and might have more hp.
I'm good on difficulty, turned it down to explorer after the Gnoll fight and it was just right
It probably won't get GOTY, but aparently that's not needed for a company to do a GOTY edition anyway.
@@FSVR54 That is fine, I don't think anyone mentioned uping difficulty of lower settings or removing them , but it is important how to up it on higher, higher ac or hp is an option but not the best one as it only forces optimization in a limited direction, while adding/restoring enemy abilites and spells and adding more specialized enemy types that synergize with an enemy group is a varied and more fun challenge.
And owelcat like difficulty customization would be welcome.
@@luxaeterna365 True, it turns out I was thinking of the Definitive Edition and Enhanced editions of original sin 2 and 1 , witch had there 3 act / end fight remade and optimized with many overall game improvements.
Becouse of those I kinda expect the same here, they somewhat drop the ball in the later parts of the game but pick it up later., about a year later :) .
Patch 6 has addressed so many quality of life issues, I think it's pretty close to being a near perfect game now.
As a CRPG/D&D newbie struggling through Explorer mode, it’s very hard to imagine Tactician being too easy. But your guides have been a huge help, Mort!
Like most games based around stats and gear, it's only "too easy" with the right build and gear.
Like the other guy said. Like for example, Fromsoft games are notoriously "hard" but the game gives you tons of options to approach these challenges, that with the right build, every boss becomes a breeze.
Having grown up with the original games, it's honestly so heartwarming seeing the life Larians breathed into this franchise, the love it's recieved and all the new people checking out the genre.
You know Larian is the best when most of the small complaints mentioned in the video have actually been fixed since making this
The legend strikes again! Congratulations on another 100%, specially on this one, Mort!
1:24:01 Mortim Bro….You are a rare breed my friend! Truly happy to have you here. Congrats on paying off your house!!! what a huge win! Keep up the great work my guy!
you deserve a medal for even considering the thought of 100%ing this game!
Thank you for telling us about the unique scenes for each companion when you play as each origin character.
Mort, amazing video. I’m so delighted to see your section about playing as origin characters! I’m trying my first origin run through as Gale and I’m amazed in act 1 how much new content is there for him! Wow!
Abdel Adrian is mentioned in a book in the counting house about the past dukes of BG. With Minthara, talking about how she feels about us being the saviours of the city and how she thinks she won't be accepted due to her drow heritage, the player can say the previous duke was a bhaalspawn. Just thought I'd mention that it definitely confirms Abdel.
Great vid.
Congrats on finishing the video! Hope you have a nice day
I found your channel looking to get into the EEs of BG1&2 and I’ve been watching nearly every video since I subscribed. No one deserves the success more than you. Thank you for introducing me to my new favorite genre of games! Now I’m going back to DOS2 and Pathfinder with your guides
I am glad I you mentioned the new patch 4 performance issues because it has absolutely impacted my playthroughs, but specifically my cooperative ones. It has become very difficult to get through in Act 3. That being said, Larian has earned my full trust, so I will assume it will be ironed out soon.
If there's one company these days to be trusted fully it's Larian.
I have had that super annoying lag in act 3 since launch. Crazy that even more people are affected by it now.
Hope they fix it by definitive edition. Planning to go for a second playthrough when the game is all finished up.
Since the performance issues are linked to specific save files, I have the harrowing suspicion that they have irrevocably corrupted them. This is inexcusable. It's not just some super annoying but manageable lag. It takes MINUTES to open a single damn door. That is unplayable. They have probably ruined my run for good. A hotfix was release yesterday, but the problems did not disappear.
lol it has been a week no fix yet
@@Veldrynvslol I had this problem for a week now
Amazing, being waiting for this 100%. I've been able and encourage to play so many CRPG's because of your guides. WotR, BG1&2, POE1&2. Greetings from Perú, keep doing amazing content and may we all wonder in wisdom.
1,5h video, we're eating good, guys! just in time as I'm in the middle of my 2nd playthrough
Same situation here. I'm running a good durge paladin half orc, what did you pick for your 2nd?
@@finnfeaver1196 I actually decided to run evil durge drow warlock
@spacesh1p583 that is cool as hell! Enjoy
@@finnfeaver1196 thanks mate! I’ve played as a good guy bard on my first run so now I’ve decided to do smth completely opposite
@spacesh1p583 I was good guy bard too! Such an op persuasive build
I found your channel through BG3 and since then I have watched a lot of your backlog on other games. I'm super happy that things worked out for you in this way and your channel got a lot of more eyes!
A very good review that reflects a lot of my own observations on this game. While i do like it, i will also point out that this is not a sequel to the original games at all in my view. It´s D:OS with a paint job. As harsh as that may sound, it´s marketing and there it was a hit, not the least because the nature of this game (all the fun stuff) plays perfectly into the streaming/youtube/shorts crowd. Remember how the made a big deal about the romances and sex scene, yet there is hardly anything of substance here and they are overall really subpar. But the Halsin love scene gets the views, so a marketing success.
The writing or better narrative really breaks apart in Act 3, for some reason Larian thinks rewrites late game are a good thing, they did this in other titles as well and it shows. Especially the cut content hurts the ending really bad. A few months more in production could have done wonders. I also agree with Minthara, who is still bug ridden to no end, and that Minsk in Act 3 was a mistake (originally planed for Act 1). Overall I couldn´t really get into the companions, they felt very generic to me, despite some interesting moments in their personal stories. In the hands of better writers this could have been amazing.
It´s still a good game and I had a lot of fun with it. Hopefully they will make a Definitive Edition and at least fix some really glaring issues with the last act.
Anyway, I will take Pillars, Pathfinder, BG original series etc over BG3 any time. I think you are spot on with the analysis that many people are so in love with it, because that´s their first venture into this genre, so hopefully this will also bring some more attention to other titles as well.
I'm still working my way through this in co-op with some friends so I'm stopping by to like, comment and add to my watch later.
Lots of good points. Really appreciate the section on Origin characters to get an idea of what to expect when going for another run.
I agree with a lot of your points about the difficulty and balance, but I'll take a bit of an easier game in exchange for not having it be as cumbersome as something like the Pathfinder games (around 1:07:00 where you discuss the need for prebuffing in them, I hate that kind of stuff, it's just so much pointless busywork).
I'm just really happy this game has made your channel skyrocket and get exposure. To more years of content like yours and all the best!
Oh this gonna be good!
Edit:
I am so glad for your success man,and I am glad that you can make a living covering what you love!
I'm so glad that making these videos has brought you so much success and enabled you to pay off your house. The quality of your work is always top notch and appreciate them so much!
It's finished!!! Congratulations Mort ❤
Minsc is interesting from a D&D perspective. A difficult character to imagine is a high wisdom, low intelligence character. This is exactly how Minsc is depicted - very well - if you take him with you, listen to his commentary, talk with him after every event. His instincts about people and situations are pretty spot on, even if his lack of intelligence makes him misunderstand obvious things sometimes.
And adding to the fun of his characterization, he has an awfully good vocabulary for a supposedly low intelligence character. Just throwing more fuel onto “is he actually dumb or is it an act” aspect of him.
Yeah. I enjoyed him.
The one I found boring was Wyll. I like his characterization, but he’s just shortchanged in terms of interactions and character development. His story quests aren’t even really about him! Rescue his father, find this dragon he heard about. Only the one about his pact is actually about him.
A couple of things: Swen posted on Twitter yesterday with some testing on Series S that looks like it'll significantly improve performance issues on all systems. Secondly, there's been an alleged 4th Difficulty Mode found in the game files, so it looks like that may arrive at some point.
That’d be amazing. Tactician is still way too easy, and I don’t feel like relying on mods to spice up the difficulty is a good thing.
I would be more excited for a new difficulty level if it didn't look like it's just going to be ironman tactician.
@@xMorumoto Apparently it might be called "Honour Mode".
The leak was found in the latest Patch in the GOG version in relation to an Achievement called "Foehammer".
Yeah when even I can beat tactician you know it's not too hard. Because I'm terrible at micromanagement. Not needed on this game. You can wing it and still do well.
Thank you for this. I needed a place for completionist.....since the last place i used to frequent lied about donations and bits going to charity.
I've played many CRPGs but I feel that BG3 really got many things right with script/story writing, game mechanics, quest decision variation and voice acting. It all comes together forming something so compelling to me.
Sup Mort, just wanted to let you know that you were one of the channels that inspired me to start content creation :) Can't wait to see you get the 500k
Khalid was killed by Irenicus? No, he died when heroically charged at three half ogres on the road to Nashkel. Very sad.
Bro I remember it was just a year or 2 ago when I found your channel and you were only getting like 5k views a video for the longest time, I used to think you were such an underviewed channel and wondered why people werent finding it, well now here you are with 103k views in 17 hours, congrats bro, happy for you that your hard work paid off!
I agree very much with the epilogue not giving me satisfying conclusions for the origin characters. I barely did Gale's quest line but he seemed to have the most to say at the end with me even though I spent way more time with Shadowheart, Wyll and Astarion in my party. Astarion seems particularly the worst since I completely finished out his story quest and helped him avoid ascension only to have him comically run off because he's sensitive to light again...
kinda a shame that if you half-illithid him, he doesn't keep being immune to the sun - but I suppose thats more a bug than anything else that non-party members keep being half-illithid after you killed all Tadpoles :P Party Members revert, after all
They portray him as a total buffoon by the end 😂
So happy for you, congratulations on your achievements!
I actually quite liked Karlach's ending when i played.
I played a bard and romanced her. I also did Wyll's quest and pushed him to continue protecting people.
My bard went down the Illithid route and eventually went full Mind Flayer.
So at the end when Karlach was dying, Wyll wanted to go with her to Avernus, and my Mind Flayer bard went with them. The three of us against the Hells.
Wasnt the outcome i wanted, but it was still pretty satisfying.
Also, im fairly certain this is the outcome that does the most good. Orpheus canonically wants to continue his mother's work of exterminating with Mind Flayers, but also wants to conquer and enslave every plane.
That was exactly how my first run ended. I was a halfling bard turned mind flayer that went to Acernus to do eternal battle with Karlach and Wyll. Very badass ending.
That's a new Karlach ending after the patch
@@bananana5714
I cant find any info on it. Just read the patch notes again. It seems like they just fixed some ending scenes to be the way they wanted them to be, but i dont see any "new" endings for her.
@@tarinindell8217 its a main change from patch 2
Such a great video! I can't express how grateful I am to you and your content. I'm so happy to have found you as a creator because of BG3. You deserve this success and I can't wait to see what other new content comes our way through you! I'll be watching closely for Rogue Trader content! Last two videos were pretty awesome! Lastly I have to say your opinions on these is always a breath of fresh air. You don't nit pick the things that don't need to be but hold things into the light that do. I especially enjoyed your comments on the story line between BG 1 2 and 3. I was also an avid player of the first two during my youth as well. Thanks again for such amazing content!
Great video! I know it's pretty standard for you, as I'm a fan of your content, but man is it just amazing to see the amount of time and effort you put into all of your reviews. You have become my favourite reviewer for all games you cover as I believe there is no one who is willing to do 100% reviews as often and as you do. Now with my simping out of the way, with Rogue Trader approaching release, is BG3 your current front runner for Game of the Year, and if not, what other games are among that tier for you personally?
So far its BG3 by a mile, I've played a lot of Rogue Trader and I enjoy it, but its not really comparable
I found this channel less than a year ago and enjoyed every video that has been posted on it. The details you explain and the time you put in shows in the qaulity of your work. Cheers to you and congrats on your personal achievement. Can't wait for the future of the channel and your personal growth. Thank you for all you do. Take a bow Mort!
Completely agree with the ending. When credits rolled I was expecting more scenes to properly close it out. So in that sense it slightly soured the experience a little bit.
Apart from that though, for my part I played it on easy as it was my first time playing this kind of game, and noticed that the sub class system is locked out for anyone on easy. Which I found strange. Is it because the systems are more advanced?
Congrats on the house Mort ! :)
I have no experience with D&D and played on tactician difficulty my first time around and didn’t find it too difficult outside of a handful of combat encounters, most of which were in Acts 1 & 2. In Act 3 my characters ended up being so powerful I pretty much ran through the remaining combat scenarios without breaking a sweat. All that said, I agree that there should be a harder difficulty.
That's fantastic! I kind of had the opposite experience? I design for 5e so I'm VERY familiar with it, but I'm just so so at CRPGs. I had a big learning curve of what moves and spells are so so on tabletop but very important in this game. My biggest struggles were in the Larian style mob fights in Act 3 (House of Grief and the Foundry in particular). They destroyed me on Explorer and I'm dreading them now that I'm playing Tactician!
@@angrynerdgirl that’s really cool. I kind of feel like having no experience was a benefit to me since I had no preconceived notions of what would and wouldn’t work. I just read all of the in game tutorials like a mad man lol. I think most of the difficult fights were when they just overwhelmed you with 12+ enemies.
Congrats! Happy for you and always love hearing what you have to say
Not sure if you'll see this comment, but I appreciate you calling out the Act 2 -> Act 3 railroad.
I chose to play my first character as hardline anti-illithid. Never consumed any tadpoles, refused to make use of any powers, and going to any lengths to find a way to remove the parasite.
Reaching the end of Act 2, the Emperor's deception made me genuinely want to kill him. By chance, all the gith ended up dying before I zeroed his hitpoints, which IMMEDIATELY triggered dialogue where he commended me for changing my mind, and I was forced to continue on like nothing happened.
Worse still was that after the forced dialogue ended, I obviously still wanted to kill him. So I attacked...and attacked...and attacked...
His hitpoints can reach 0, and absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. At all. He doesn't die, doesn't warn you or fight back, he just tells you to piss off and that's that. I was genuinely so disappointed, and it was entirely because of the standard Larian had set for themselves leading up to that point.
I fully avoided the Illithid buffs throughout the game, because I expected a gotcha moment later on. I even avoided the illithid chat options, because I thought that it would be a kind of evil option which my character would not use.
I'll do another playthrough, fully embracing it.
Better put my suit on for this one!
Excellent review of Baldurs Gate 3. I enjoyed the 100% completion spin.
Won't play BG3 for a long a time, but I really was waiting for this.
This is the review that matter the most.
Financial? Save up, skip the coffee a few times. Time? If you’re so busy then why watch a 100% review BEFORE playing?
Your Baldur’s Gate 1 guide was immensely helpful. I loved playing Fallout 1 and 2, but could never even get passed the most basic encounters in BG1 which lead me to rage quit for years until stumbling onto your channel. I’ve now finished the Bhaalspawn saga and am looking forward to BG3, all thanks to you.
Curious. I found Fallout 1 and BG1 to be brutally hard first time but found their respective sequels to be really easy. For the most part BG3 was a cakewalk
This is a great and fair review. Like you, I have enjoyed all of Larian's games. Heck, even Beyond Divinity had a few enjoyable aspects. That said, my biggest complaint with Larian that continues with BG3 is that they do not respect the story and lore of prior games. They didn't respect the lore of their own Divinity universe, and so it's no surprise that they didn't care much about respecting the Bhaalspawn saga. I hope that changes, but given that it has never been a priority for Sven (who never even plays his own games again after they're released), I don't expect that will change.
So happy you are able to do what you love. Your videos are great. Thank you
This man works hard...!
Congrats on the 100% review, it was worth the wait, thank you so much for doing it.
The definitive review on TH-cam! Thanks for all your hard work. You bring up a very interesting point about getting railroaded into helping the Emperor until endgame. Would have been much more interesting if you could side with Orphaeus during that first fight and open up more narrative potential.
Dude, you articulated SO many of my own issues/nitpicks with this game. I was like is it just me? Was BG3 overhyped? IMO, it totally was, especially with quality of life stuff that still hasn't been fixed as of Feb '24; wrangling all the lackluster companions; and Act 3. (Playing on PC at least allows for modding---sucks for console). But is it still a great game a cut above the rest? ABSOLUTELY.
What bothered me in the story was that there is no benefit in not using Illithid powers. It is implied you lose humanity when you use them, that in fact you should not be using them. Guess what - if you don't use them the only consequence you get is you are limiting your options in gameplay - have less powers for combat.
Regardless of whether you abstain from using powers or use them constantly, at the end you get the same story outcomes, e.g. turning into mind flayer when you free Orpheus has the same consequences.
I did not know this! I have been avoiding using powers. Haven’t used them even once. I guess I’m making things harder for myself than they need to be.
I can finally stop hoarding a chest full of tadpoles. 😉
Its a roleplaying game, There doesn’t have to be a benefit to not doing it lol
@@KittenCritters Larian specifically hyped it up during pre-release and in the beta. It's definitely a wet fart.
@@KittenCritters Sure, technically there does not have to be a benefit to anything you do. But then, teasing a certain outcome and then not following through it does not make a good roleplaying game. Therefore, there should be either negative consequences for succumbing to illithid powers or positive consequences for not doing so - as was foreshadowed in the story.
A DM who handwaves the choices of his players is not a good DM.
@@mreszotnik There are negative consequences for succumbing to illithid powers.
I discovered Mortismal after I played Dos2 a few years ago and wanted more lore, since than I've watched a lot of your videos. You certainly are the best reviewer imo because of the fact you 100% every game and really understand it before critiquing it. Love the voice, the way the videos are setup, thanks for making this
I agree it was so stupid to force the player to side with the Emperor instead of Orpheus the first time. Very bad railroading.
Love your sentiment around your work and videos, Mort
I absolutely love BG3 and its now one of my favorite games of all time. I am so thirsty for a similar game but there is no game like it. I tried to get in to Pathfinder wrath of the righteous but it just didnt click with it. The main problem isnt event the presentation which of course is many levels under BG3, but neither the story in the beginning nor the feeling of the game could hook my. My biggest complain is that the game does absoluetely nothing to teach you its mechanics and its unique rule sets and gameplay. So i just felt like I was at the wrong place because the intrudoction in to the story and world wasnt as smooth and good for a newbie as in BG3 and the mechanics are also extreme complicated. Sorry but I dont want to have to watch hour long videos or guides about a game I want to play. The Leveling alone and the class system and character chreation looks so more complicated and you just have no clue which is good or bad for the character you want to build. I think BG3 just nailed completely the balance of statisfying deep combat and many possible interactions with in the world ( many physic objects, also something Pathfinder is lacking ) and is very addictive written in its narrative and story design and also gets it right to introduce newbies very good to the world and story. Pathfinder WotR just feels like a game for Pathfinder Fans only, it just feels like it doesnt even want to try to get Outsiders involved. I think this one of the main problems why many CRPGS dont appeal as much in the mass as BG3. Its not because they are too complex, its because they are often designed entirely with a mindset only thinking about people already extremely involved into the world, story and rule sets.
Thats why I am looking forward for warhammer 40k rogue trader, because I am a huge Warhammer (40k) fan and I am very into the lore and world of it. But I think if OwlCat Games wants to reach the same highs as Larian in success, they need to give Outsiders more attention. Larian already did a good job with the Divinity games well to introduce the players with the right pacing and story telling into its world and rules.
Also Games such as Disco Elysium which I really love as well reall nail introducing players into its world and characters ( even if its a bad comparison, because the games isnt based on a already existing PnP universe)
DOS2 or Pathfinder WOTR may scratch the itch. I’ve been looking for the same feeling.
@@myst0ne you didnt even read my comment, right ?
@@BossXAOC I didn’t realize how long it was until after i sent mine. My shame is already here I cant delete my comment.
I've desperately tried to get into Pathfinder WOTR too, but I ultimately end up disliking it's overbearing mechanical focus. Like even something as simple as just showing me the percentage chance to hit an enemy, instead of making me manually calculate it by bringing up my character sheet and looking at the enemy AC.
And it's frustrating because I say this as someone who loves tabletop DND and has played recent CRPGs (both DOS, and Pillars of Eternity 2). If anything, I hope Larian's success encourages many other CRPGs to just be a *little* friendlier and more accessible in their systems.
Yeah, I tried to play Pathfinder, Wasteland 3, Pillars of eternity and others RPGs but nothing compares to BG3. I played Solasta before BG3 I really recommend it and the combat is very similar and the dialogues are so funny
Congats on the 100% and this video. Even if it doesn't end up as your most viewed video, it will still end up being game-changing. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.
Love the content but gotta disagree about minsc. I recruited him early in act 3 (like you said it’s a lot so I specifically worked toward it) and he added a ton to the last act for me. Plus having him and jaheira walking around the city commenting on everything is a real treat. I think they have more lines than the origin characters in act 3 lol
I left Minsc for literally the last quest and mostly ignored Jaheira 😂
I'm on Xbox, so I haven't had the chance to play this yet, but I'm a big Larian fan because of DOS2. Have been watching reviews since the game released, but this is the only one I have been waiting for. Every major gaming channel/mag pushed their reviews without even finishing the game once or experiencing a fraction of what it has to offer. Thank you Mort for doing your due diligence. Your work ethic and attention to detail truly sets your channel apart. Looking forward to the rest of your 2023 content!
I think the major reason people resonate with BG3 is the full voice acting.
I've had many friends approach me asking for games like BG3 they could play. The second question is always voice acting and the lack there of making it a no go.
I don't know how you fix this other than allocating a rather large amount of your budget to VA which would already be challenging when this genre doesn't typically operate in the AAA space.
Either way I can only hope we see even more CRPGs in the future.
There's so many rpg's with full voice acting...
@@tincano-beans2114 Maybe let people enjoy games how they want to enjoy games?
@@tincano-beans2114 Judging by the way you interact with people it seems you dont have any. Not too late to change my dude.
@@BoxStudioExecutive If you look in the CRPG genre its actually not that many. Baldurs Gate 3, Pillars of Eternity 2 and Divinity Original Sin 2 are the only ones I can think of. While reading doesn't bother me, I just think it makes it far more accessible to people. This could also be completely wrong and that's fine. Not here to argue.
@@bad_chewy6092 Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Witcher, KOTOR. There's like 12 games right there.
Fallout 3, 4, NV, Starfield if you want to loosen up the criteria.
I've waited patiently for this. Thank you for the thorough review, it is very much appreciated!
As good as the game is, Pathfinder WoTR and Solasta still offers more on some aspect.
(replayability, build diversity, UI, group discussions, campaign design, resting system, etc.)
@@nickrubin7312 You're absolutely right on WoTR.
I wasn't including Solasta in the sense that it's better on all these points, but I disagree on the UI. I love Solasta's UI, which is the main reason I even mentionned Solasta. Also.. resting system.
I love that they made Minthara easily available in your good play threw, her full story fits that more as a good story as she is mostly a chaotic good character. I played my first playthrew as a dark urge oathbreaker and thought she was going to be your evil sidekick but she instantly reveals that she is truly good and kind of changed how i thought the play threw was going to go.
My only major complaint is that the evil playthrough feels way underbaked compared to the good playthrough, because most of the characters/quests are tied to the good playthrough and you just don't get as much interaction on the evil one. I really hope they flesh that out as they have done reworks of the weaker elements on their previous games. Other than that the game is obviously a masterpiece.
I felt it was natural as you would not have as much interactions or companions if you're a murder bot, there are people with morals in the game that won't like you or have anything to do with you and everyone else is dead you killed them. If you slaughter everyone you run across you won't be having tea with people or spending time chatting and hanging out. To me that is how it would be so making a bunch of dialogs with npc's would seem weird you're a murder bot people who survive being anywhere near you are not going to want to chat. What were you thinking should have been done? Did the other games have a bunch of evil npc's that replace the normal ones so there was equal amounts of content? I have not played the others so I am unaware of how they would handle a murder bot run.
@@gabriellekili2977 Yeah, the previous games (BG1/2) did have full casts of evil - and neutral! - characters and alternative evil paths for almost every quest. This was especially important in BG2, where an entire main gameplay system would give you different rewards for increasing your power based on if you were good or evil. Personally though I think that the Pathfinder games, especially Wrath of the Righteous, show the potential for an evil route. You should watch Mandalore's WotR review for an example of how it can work.
A good example from BG3 though is Moonrise Towers. In act 1, there's a big deal made about how you can infiltrate Moonrise Towers if you act like a member of the cult. This is a perfect "evil" path choice - you fuck over the tieflings and the Grove selfishly (evil) but you do it for your own good to try and take the fast lane to understanding the cult. That's exactly what evil should be, power at all costs. However, that's where this plot thread ends. There's basically no content at Moonrise Towers. What it should have been was an alternative main quest hub to the Inn of the Last Light for evil characters. You can see that they tried this in act 1 too, with several quests localized to the goblin camp. However, it even walls apart there too since the Grove has so many *more* quests and especially quests that lead you outside of the Grove to do things in the act 1 map.
Another example would be the shadow druids in the "hidden" path to resolving the conflict at the Grove. There's really no reason why an evil aligned character shouldn't be able to side with the shadow druids. The game forces you to consider them bad and attack them. This would have been a great option for an evil aligned character - especially an evil druid! - to make a choice befitting their character and fight with the shadow druids against the rest of the Grove for an alternative quest reward.
It's not like the game doesn't have some good evil choices. Turning Dame Aylin over to the wizard Lorroakan is a great example. And there is a slight payoff to helping the goblins in the form of the unique evil companion Minthara. Note that neither of these are "murderhobo" options. While you do kill a lot of people to help the goblins, no matter what option you pick (goblins or Grove) 50% of the population in act 1 has to die, so it's not anymore "murderhobo-y" than the other choice, it just changes who you kill. Turning Dame Aylin over is literally a business transaction. And evil one, but still just business. That's what the evil route needs to be in a game like this.
I think the problem ultimately is a lack of development on the evil path. Going evil locks you out of most of the companions in the game, and gives you the second least interesting companion in the form of Minthara. That's it. There's no unique evil hub in act 2 with its own quests, there are very few quests that let you make evil choices for your own benefit, and most of the roleplaying options push you into being a pretty generic hero.
Like, one of the things I would have liked is for Karlach to be evil. Evil doesn't have to equate to *mean*, her personality can still be the same. But imagine a Karlach who is *not* under any situation going back to Zariel. A Karlach who will turn on a dime and kill anyone who she thinks is going to try and interrupt her path to freedom. She is willing and able to do evil deeds in pursuit of this goal, but she's also a charismatic and friendly person outside of that. That would be an extremely interesting character and in fitting with her lore, and it would give good players a character they can work with and try to redeem, while evil players would have a character that fully supports their quest for personal power as a way to potentially free herself. And it would make the Wyll conflict more interesting by making her more a grey character!
@@gabriellekili2977 You're being noticeably reductive to downplay his concerns when you translate evil playthrough to a "murder bot" playthrough.
@@ElevenHymn You are being sensitive to wording. There was no negative flavor to my text. People choose evil playthroughs because they enjoy them, but they are what they are how many Evil playthroughs have you seen where the person is a pacifist, and most people live? That is the point of Evil playthroughs let people embrace what they enjoy without sticking your issues with morality in it I brought up npc morality because d&d has a morality tier chaotic neutral good evil ect not because i was judging the player but because the npcs will judge the player like astarion approving whenever your awful to innocents he is evil most vamps in d&d are. My son is doing a DUrge run and having a blast we laugh and talk about it all the time. You see negativity because of your perceptions not because it is actually there. Have a great rest of your day.
@@tincano-beans2114 No thank you. I like everyone else here can say what they like including you isn't it fabulous. 😘
Congratulations on laying off your house Mort, so happy you’re able to do what you love and monetize it!
Thank you for all you do, it really is your hard work paying off. 100% reviews at the speed you’re able to accomplish it really goes the extra mile and doesn’t go unnoticed by your audience and many others still to find this channel
Look, I haven't finished this game so I won't watch the video yet, but I'm giving you a thumbs up solely because of your commitment to 100% the games you review and sticking with that. Respect.
This is by far the most comprehensive so-called 'objective' in-depth review I've ever seen of BG3. You carefully weighed all the positives and negatives thoroughly each aspect of the game whether it'd be gameplay, story, progression, combat system, etc. without having a particularly strong bias whatsoever (aside from your adoration for the genre and previous installments which is perfectly fine.) All-in-all personally, having to spend over 100 hours in the game and having never played DnD I'd say that I'm extremely satisfied. This has been one of those every-once-in-a-decade type of experiences in gaming for me.
The one glaring flaw I find myself agreeing with you the most is that we aren't given a choice to side with the githyanki prince over the Emperor and later free him anyway? That was the first moment in the story where I felt like my choices didn't really matter all that much.
I never really enjoyed turned-based strategy games (aside from Civ) but this game has changed my perspective to the point that I'm willing to give a chance to other games in the genre.
I believe its said that the Dark Urge is not TRULY a Bhaalspawn, he was a mortal infused with the "blood of Bhaal", not exactly an offspring, something akin to being a Chosen of Bane/Myrkul.
Thus when you actually rebelled against the Dark Urge, it is stated from Withers himself that Bhaal only knew to kill the blood within you that he recognized. Over the course of your journey you essentially separated your own essence from the one Bhaal gifted to you.
It's more vague than that, but yeah like I mentioned but didnt elaborate on, Sarevok tries to explain it. It still doesnt make any sense because Bhaal would have had to have done that at a time when he was dead. It's not a huge deal, and honestly I doubt many people besides myself even care, I do like the Durge being a spawn, but the whole thing is not well thought out.
Yeah I think the first video I watched from you was on the full story of BG1 followed by 2 cause I was hyped for 3. I played them both as a kid but never beat either one and haven't ever went back to them, but I've read books on the lore since and have always liked the setting a lot. Since watching those first two videos, I started getting other videos by you in my suggestions and have found some cool new games to check out and ended up subscribing which is something I don't ever really take the time to do, even with channels I watch a lot, just because I'm usually thoroughly interested in the games you cover and enjoy the way you cover them. Thanks for all the hard work, glad it's paid off for you! Cheers
This is amazing. The quality of your videos are gold standard