I think the real issue here is that this is Divinity III, and not Baldur's Gate. At all. I'm assuming all the Gen-Z reviewers and Gen-A streamers giving it 9.9999999999999999999/10 scores have never actually played an overland adventure six-character isometric RPG, much less something as unforgiving as AD&D— and probably weren't even out of diapers in 1998 to switch between five CD's.

Game not true to form and fans unhappy? Toss in a bunch of nudity ala Game of Thrones. Problem solved.

it's fun tho

I've been playing BG2 since '99, and I completely disagree with you. This is what things look like today unless you only have a few developers so you work in a retro style.

This game is about as close to Dragon Age Origin as I've seen. And that's what old Bioware did after Baldur's Gate. They made cinematic 3D cRPGs more or less in this style.

Yes, this game does not play like BG 1 & 2 with miniature micro people walking around, walls of text to read, and Diablo inspired combat unfaithful to what D&D really is supposed to be.

But if the old Bioware was making the game today I doubt they'd have made it like they did 20 years ago either. It would be more like this.

So I agree this is not exactly the same game as BG1 & 2. It's in most ways better. But it does feature the Baldur's Gate location and include characters from those older games.

It's not like Final Fantasy, where 16 has absolute zero to do with the old games, worlds, or characters.

^This
I'm not that far into it yet but I definitely got that vibe.

Agreed, it feels for me like a Baldurs Gate that got Dragon Age into it.
I also have the Feeling they captured a good Part of how a Pen and Paper Game feels.
I've "only" played Divinity 2 and Original Sin 1, but those Games feel different.

Personally i like the round based Combat more than the chaotic Combat of Baldurs Gate 1,2 and Icewind Dale.

i actually played BG 1 and 2 some years ago and after that i played divinity original sin 1 and 2 so i think i have a good spectrum of those games but the thing is that this game is indeed different from BG 1 and 2 but the only thing that is excatly the same and feels the same as divinity is the fact that it has turn based combat (which i prefer a ton more than the extremely chaotic mess that you had in BG 1 and 2 ) and the fact that you use a party of 4 isntead of 6 which isnt a a big deal for me other than that it feels really different even on how the combat works starting with the fact that you dont even have a limited amount of action points for everything like divintiy and spells and attacks doesnt work as they did in divinity this is really the most modernized version of those old BG games to be honest i would believe that bioware wont do the same that they did back then if they had kept the franchise alive they would've probably mess it up like they did with dragon age and mass effect

I think EverNightX said it best. Yes, I would have liked BG3 to follow more in the steps of its predecessors (primarily in utilizing RTwP as well as a 6 man party, but I got mods to fix the latter), but I agree that if Bioware had made BG1 and 2 today, this is likely what they would have come up with too. I will always, ALWAYS hold the Infinity Engine games close to my heart, but they were made as they are under the technological limitations of the time. If Bioware had access to the same kind of computer and graphical power as we do today, I imagine their ambitions would have been much higher as well.

Video games will ALWAYS continue to grow and evolve as both technology and the tastes of gamers change. If you don't like BG3 for what it is, that's fine. There are other studios out there like Obsidian who still make games more in the style of you love. Just because something doesn't align with your tastes doesn't mean that the game is bad, nor does it mean that your tastes are wrong. It's just not what you're looking for, and while you're perfectly justified to feel disappointed, one's energies are best spent looking elsewhere to find what you seek.

Did we play different games? If Larian wanted to make an isometric successor to Baldur's Gate 2, it would've looked like Pillars of Eternity (which was boring btw, but captured the mechanics well). They seemingly didn't want that, so they went down the same path bioware did with NWN and DA:O, but instead of making a good game, they made a trash game and ruined the gameplay at the same time by using an inferior ruleset and adding back in turns for no reason (oh, they already had a turn-based engine so it was easier, I guess that's the reason).

I hate rtwp. It turns any attempt to render D&D into an arcade game.

Lol, BG1-2 are dnd 1e, BG3 is dnd 5e, it was bound to be different + it's a 100 years later. Funfactor is already critically acclaimed, either your taste is even picky among crpg fans or you are being disingenuous.

Having been a DM for D&D for the last twenty years, with D&D 2nd edition being my first experience with D&D back in late 1999 as a high school student and played through (as well as DM'ed) D&Dv2 D&Dv3 and D&Dv5 (yes, D&Dv2 is still the best version period), I can attest that this is probably as close as you'll get to what D&D 5th edition would look like in a computerized format.

The reason it does not play the same, mechanically, as Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 is likely due to the fact that BG1/2 were 2nd edition ruleset vs BG3 being 5th edition ruleset.

On the point of "romantic affairs" there isn't a session that goes by at my D&D table where a bard isn't trying to shack up with some barmaid. So I assume the devs are just trying to keep it pretty close to what players do at the table. It's extra content you can always skip by so it's optional regardless.

That's my take on this. To each their own.

No. Yes, I said this. There are over 800K concurrent player's today on Steam. That would be amazing for a AAA mainstream game. It's insane for a CRPG. Anyone with eyes can see BG3 has been super well received. So that probably puts you somewhere between mistaken or delusional.

If you don't happen to like this style of game, that's understandable. But to not be able to see that it's a super high quality game is hard to understand. It's based on D&D. D&D is turn based. That's a pretty good reason. If it's not turn based, you are not playing a game of D&D. Maybe you are playing something else with a D&D skin, but you are not playing D&D.

The first two BG games were based on AD&D second edition. First edition was long dead when the BG1 was released. Second edition was also nearing the end of its life when BG1 came out, as third edition was set to release in 2000.