For sure. Weather it's your type of game or not, it oozes quality, is DRM free, and is complete without having to get a season pass or the like. That's rare. It likely is a once in a generation type of game.

I've got a question about writing. I've seen a lot of arguments that it's not real Baldur's Gate and the rebutals of these arguments were usually about graphics not being isometric, or party not being 6 characters etc.

But the bread and butter of an RPG is writing. My biggest gripe with Divinity writing was lack of character arcs, meaningful progression and nuance. The epic dial was cranked up to the 11 from the very first moment, making the following adventures difficult to enjoy, since you've already seen in the first act the biggest and baddest things you're ever gonna see. It was kinda acceptable in divinity because the entire title was suppposed to be a slapstick-ish tongue-in-the-cheek take on RPG.

I've watched the trailer and the prologue and saw that the animation style is basically the same D:OS2 cartoonish exaggeration (with little attention to detail), which is coupled with quite dark and extremely high stakes onset of the story. I didn't want to spoil myself the story, so just asking here if the writing is equally terrible? How do they dial down from the nautiloid/hell escape to a level 1 adventure? How high would you say is epic dial cranked up in act one (after the prologue)?

Eh...increase you bitrate or something. BG3 is really not low detail or cartoonish at all. It's easily the most graphically detailed CRPG ever made.

The game is not as quirky and light hearted as DOS. Though it has moments. I don't think I agree that the stakes are any higher at the start of DOS2 than later. You don't even fight a boss at the start of DOS2.

I could not help but notice that both do start with the destruction of a ship, you having some magical interaction with a power, and then finding yourself on a beach.

Though Elder Scrolls seems to have a start as a prisoner thing going on too.

Heh - I like Elder Scrolls. and going to like Starfield too by the way - I am sure about that.

I played the older Baldur's Gate games, and then again with the Enhanced Edition. It always bothered me that these games where not turn based, and so bypassing the core of D&D. I know the developers did that to appeal to the people that liked real-time combat like Diablo, but it always felt forced to me.

In that department Baldur's Gate 3 hit the right marks for me. To be honest - So far as I played BG3, I feel it's miles ahead of the old Baldur's Gate games. I just love this version, and seeing the amount of people playing the game (about 815K yesterday on Steam only) I am not the only one thinking so.

Sure - There will be "purists" that will never agree, but for me this game really has earned the title Baldur's Gate 3.

what you want is BG3 in a 1998 retro style. Play Pillars of Eternity then.

TES Daggerfall started with a shipwreck.

Problem I have here is you're acting like it's a bad game or a Dragon Age 2 style AKSHUN game. Yes it is closer to Divinity OS 2 gameplay wise than BG2, but it's also a wonderful CRPG. Unless you absolutely hate turn-based I see no reason this wouldn't be a great experience for CRPG lovers.

By little attention to detail I meant that for example a miss with a spell and a hit with a spell looks (and sounds) exactly the same (from what I saw in prologue gameplay). By cartoonish I meant their style not their quality. Jumping 20 character heights, pushing exactly like in D:OS2.

I really don't care that much about it, though. For me writing is the most important part of a cRPG and only because it's adjacent question to OP, I felt like asking here makes sense, but as I see most replies are focusing on superficial aspects of the title.

All right, you want to throw down? I'm game.

I started playing AD&D1 in 1983. I've been dungeon mastering regularly since 1987. I've played and run every edition of D&D since Moldvay Basic, and I know the truth is none of them are even close to perfect.

My first D&D video games were the SSI gold box adventures in the late '80s, all of which were better interpretations than the Baldur's Gate games because they didn't make allowances for a fancy graphical real-time strategy engine.

Five CDs? Don't make me laugh, I'll mess up the install order for these ten 5.25" floppies.

I played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, and Neverwinter Nights 2, most of them at release (had to wait for Icewind Dale because I was a Mac user at the time). I bounced off all of them sooner or later for the same reasons I'm bouncing off Baldur's Gate 3 now:
- no way to assess the difficulty of an encounter before you start it
- insufficient low-level side content to properly prepare for no-warning higher-level story content
- conversations and scripted events that railroad you into unwinnable combat (or winnable combat with unacceptable consequences)
- Party members that commit you to fulfilling unacceptable expectations or facing catastrophic consequences.

All issues even a mediocre dungeon master wouldn't permit at their table, in any edition.

Baldur's Gate 3 is exactly the game I remember its predecessors being: flawed, obnoxious, trying desperately to fill analog shoes with digital feet, and an effin' brilliant achievement of video game design that will speak to thousands upon thousands of lucky players.

The real issue here is that nostalgia is death.

OK, well I only go back as far as Morrowind. Todd Howard has a prison fetish I think.

Can you point to a D&D game you think is not cartoonish by comparison?

The game has a slightly warmer colour palette - but I'm on a tropical beach, so that's to be expected. It's still pretty far away from an animated look like we'd see in the Warcraft games, or some Nintendo titles.

Did anyone play the Hairbrained Schemes Shadowrun games? I always thought their character art was way too cartoony. I like to disappear into the made up world when I play RPGs. Grittier and more realistic art helps achieve that. However, i do not feel that the BG3 art fails to be realistic at all. Quite happy with it. When I compare it to what's available in 10 years maybe I will feel a little less happy about it. But right now, this is really pretty good.

This is an odd thing to brag about. I hated doing this on Playstation and PC.