I'm just a little bit late to the Baldurs Gate 3 party,

Late? As a patient gamer I would say you got in early. :)

I played most of the mainstream CRPG, including multiple Larian Studios titles and I have no doubt that I will play BG3 as well... But probably in a year or two after the game gets some polish and, hopefully, a discount.

BTW, thanks for posting and generating content in Lemmy.

I feel like there's two parts. On the one hand, Larian's engine is fantastic and allows really creative and diverse approaches to their puzzles. There's a number of fights that feel more like puzzles than fights, because they're nearly impossible if you just go in spells blazing, but not nearly as threatening with a little preparation. They've honed that engine through DOS & DOS2, so it's much more mature than you'd get if this were a pure derivative of BG1/2. The first time I lit Shadowheart up with Spirit Guardians and dashed her around a battlefield reaping the canon fodder...I actually giggled with glee.

Then there's the storytelling. My journal is filling up with quests & side quests, but I don't think any of them have been the "Kill 5 orcs," "gather 10 blood moss," or "deliver this McGuffin" variety. The NPCs you meet tend to reappear later and react differently depending on how their previous quest ended. I suppose, technically, that's similar to going back to the same quest-giver, rising in their 'ranks' toward some prize, but it doesn't feel the same. The NPCs, even the side-quest NPCs, feel like they're woven into the overall narrative and it makes for a much more immersive experience.

I can't imagine how much writing, animation, and voice acting had to be done to accommodate all the choices I won't make. Even just the times some NPC voices my gender.

I'm 60 hours in and I just discovered that there's an act 2...

My only complaint is that you can't rename your backpacks

I'm playing a gnome druid with dark urge, his troubled background is what causes the urges but deep down he just wants to be a good guy. Although, the urges do sometimes win, he tries to shop with every merchant to help the local economies. While necromancy is typically considered evil, he views it more as a "it's stopping living people being hurt in battle."

I only bought it last week and I'm already up to 50 hours, but I feel there's so much I've missed. The amount of content is insane, and speak with animals/speak with dead just seems to increase it even more. I've been talking to every animal I came across and the depth of every character surprises me every time. It's nothing like Bethesda's "go talk to the boss, I'm a lowly grunt" esque chats, even the children have their own entire arc. I may be slightly enamored with it, I'd go so far to say this should be the gold standard of game releases.

Loving the game as well but the character creation is kinda limited. Everyone turns out sounding like a Shakespeare actor, and looking too prim and proper.

I understand why that is, a game as large as this would be impossible to make with the range of voice variety I'm hoping for. Unrealistic on my part.

That said, the game is incredible, and as long as you accept what the character creator gives you, the models and faces look great

It's great, the voice acting seems really good right across the board too. Overall it makes for quite an engaging world and story at least for me. I've run into a fair few bugs and annoyances but fortunately nothing too major, been having a blast so far! Hopefully the issues that are there get patched soon.

I've been lost in the underdark for hours

I'm not sure if I'm enjoying it yet. I'm only 4 hours in and it feels like Divinity Original Sin 3 and not a Baldur's Gate game. Maybe that's fine, but it's not what I was expecting.
The combat seems more complicated and I'm having to rest after even basic encounters, but I guess that's the way BG1 was too.
Still messing with the graphics settings to get it to look decent and run ~60FPS on my creaky old Vega 56.

It's really, really great. I'm hoping they use the platform for more content, it's fucking incredible.

It’s the first game I bought for full price since… since I had Steam at least, probably even further than that. And I’m definitely not regretting that, it’s awesome

Absolutely great game! And being a Larian's title means the game will only get better and better with updates and good mod support! Like you said they really did a good job to make the game easy to follow. As an one who never played any tabletop RPGs, I couldn't understand how the combat worked in the first Pathfinder game (like at all) so I eventually dropped it, but this is not the case for BG3.

All the classes are surprisingly fun too. Like I did think I would enjoy Berserkers but they are even more funnier than I have ever imagined - when there's any problem, just roar them out, or grab it up to hit another problem and make them both prone. And I already have planned 4 or 5 classes to try in the future. Now if only they can make save files smaller in size (got 1.4G of them now)...

I don't play that much any more sadly, only one evening per week with the buddies but BG3 looks very appealing. Do you think it can be enjoyed casually ?