Posted November 01, 2020
I don't like the Larian style dialogues, where you are pushed into making choices without being given enough information, and being given a series of questions but only being able to pick one. Unlike in IE games, where you could ask/pick whatever you wanted, and you would never miss out on obvious questions or being able to ask/talk about more topics unless you picked something that would end the conversation or aggravate the person.
For example you when you meet cultists, they are looking for someone, but you are unable to ask why - you can only tell them where to find X or not. I think this is a crucial point everyone would think of asking.
I'm not a fan of the camera, it's absolutely atrocious. Edge panning doesn't work at the moment, although that might be a bug, so you can't even drag the camera around so it's easier to move around - it currently works just like in DOS1 but without edge panning, you can't angle the camera or up, so you feel like you're missing a part of the picture when you're zoomed in at max, and the camera follows the PC's side, so you see what's to the left/right of the character, instead of front, so I'm always using the keyboard to pan the camera left/right to see up ahead. And being able to look up ahead with wsad just feels like cheating.
The text is tiny it strains my eyes, and I don't like how small everything is on normal gaming laptop, so I feel that BG1+2 actually looks nicer than this one. I've always preferred the old graphics anyway. They do look breathtaking though, in cutscenes, and in Youtube videos where you can see someone ran it on a 25+ screen with all details on, but with high details but shadows turned off, it doesn't look that good on my PC. I do prefer isometric graphics though, so I would pick PoE/Kingmaker style of graphics over DOS.
Otherwise the combat is fun, not counting the bugs, although I'm not a fan of adding surface effects to the game (I haven't used yet barrelmancy or dipping weapons into surface effects, so I have no idea how much it makes the fights easier, but so far 2 wizards with sleep+ray of frost cantrip (which makes enemies go prone 98% time, because it creates a sheet of ice underneath them), 1 rogue (dual-wielding doesn't apply any penalties, so everyone can dualwield and have 2d6+Dex modifier damage per round in melee) and a cleric are easy. I haven't even tried using grease+firebolt yet, that would probably be even more OP. Adding high ground/low ground that affects your targetting chances is interesting and I do like it, but at the same time it's a pity that you have a lower casting chance just because you aren't standing higher.
I love the voice acting, I'm not a fan of how Larian overutilizes Irish/Scottish/cockney accents since they don't fit how I think the races actually speak (esp. since they didn't have them in BG), but I like the party's VOs.
I feel the party are jerks, I would prefer if they were nice, but someone was saying that supposedly you get 3 evil companions from the start to test them (+2 neutral/good), but I feel like that unless they actually rework the area, it will be the same at launch and the first two companions you come across, are evil.
All in all, it feels like a DOS game. It's commendable though, that characters can react to your race, and if you play a Drow, you get really different reactioins then if you play a good-aligned race.
For example you when you meet cultists, they are looking for someone, but you are unable to ask why - you can only tell them where to find X or not. I think this is a crucial point everyone would think of asking.
I'm not a fan of the camera, it's absolutely atrocious. Edge panning doesn't work at the moment, although that might be a bug, so you can't even drag the camera around so it's easier to move around - it currently works just like in DOS1 but without edge panning, you can't angle the camera or up, so you feel like you're missing a part of the picture when you're zoomed in at max, and the camera follows the PC's side, so you see what's to the left/right of the character, instead of front, so I'm always using the keyboard to pan the camera left/right to see up ahead. And being able to look up ahead with wsad just feels like cheating.
The text is tiny it strains my eyes, and I don't like how small everything is on normal gaming laptop, so I feel that BG1+2 actually looks nicer than this one. I've always preferred the old graphics anyway. They do look breathtaking though, in cutscenes, and in Youtube videos where you can see someone ran it on a 25+ screen with all details on, but with high details but shadows turned off, it doesn't look that good on my PC. I do prefer isometric graphics though, so I would pick PoE/Kingmaker style of graphics over DOS.
Otherwise the combat is fun, not counting the bugs, although I'm not a fan of adding surface effects to the game (I haven't used yet barrelmancy or dipping weapons into surface effects, so I have no idea how much it makes the fights easier, but so far 2 wizards with sleep+ray of frost cantrip (which makes enemies go prone 98% time, because it creates a sheet of ice underneath them), 1 rogue (dual-wielding doesn't apply any penalties, so everyone can dualwield and have 2d6+Dex modifier damage per round in melee) and a cleric are easy. I haven't even tried using grease+firebolt yet, that would probably be even more OP. Adding high ground/low ground that affects your targetting chances is interesting and I do like it, but at the same time it's a pity that you have a lower casting chance just because you aren't standing higher.
I love the voice acting, I'm not a fan of how Larian overutilizes Irish/Scottish/cockney accents since they don't fit how I think the races actually speak (esp. since they didn't have them in BG), but I like the party's VOs.
I feel the party are jerks, I would prefer if they were nice, but someone was saying that supposedly you get 3 evil companions from the start to test them (+2 neutral/good), but I feel like that unless they actually rework the area, it will be the same at launch and the first two companions you come across, are evil.
All in all, it feels like a DOS game. It's commendable though, that characters can react to your race, and if you play a Drow, you get really different reactioins then if you play a good-aligned race.
