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‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ can be a fantastic experience and a bad game at the same time.

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[-] Murvel@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm trying to get a refund from GOG, after spending nearly a month truly working my most to love the game, to understand what makes people say Baldur's Gate 3 is a masterpiece.

People said Read Dead Redemption 2 was a masterpiece, and I found myself in agreement. Same with Half-life 1, 2 and 3 (Alyx).

But the almost overwhelming attention to every detail and aspect of those games I cannot see in BG3. Everything from janky animations, buggy combat pathing, awful tutorials, visual glitches, the worst journal I've seen since Morrowind, and no pause button in 2023!!

Ironically, nothing of which this article brings up since it seems to shit on save scumming which I don't care about, all power to the player.

You cannot argue this game is 'bad'; the story and characters along with competently designed game play would prove that. But it's no masterpiece to me, and I feel I fell for the the overhype from the fans who just love the franchise.

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[-] smellythief@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

As someone who hasn't yet played it but will, and wants to like it, should I read this? Will it point out negative things I might agree with but would never have noticed otherwise?

[-] sushibowl@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago

It's not that deep. Here's the two main critiques leveled towards the game in the article.

  • you don't always know the consequences of your actions, and they're not always predictable: a seemingly sensible choice sometimes ends badly, and a seemingly dumb choice could get you a reward
  • you can load a save and redo your things whenever you want, i.e. save-scum

These are both somewhat obvious just from the structure of the game. Ultimately the conclusion the author is shooting for is that this makes Baldur's Gate 3 a bad game but a good piece of interactive fiction.

The author uses the mechanics of chess often as sort of an example of the pinnacle of game design which to me is telling. Video Games are much broader than that. Insisting that people should not call the thing you don't like a game but instead "interactive fiction" is pedantry at best, and gatekeeping at worst.

Sure, if you view the game through the lens of chess you will come away with these flaws. But for example, if you always knew the consequences of every choice the narrative tension would be destroyed. Of course chess has no such concern, so if we're looking at games through that lens then narrative tension is of no value. Ultimately I think this is just a very narrow viewpoint of what games should be.

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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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