Baldur's Gate 3

Review

Before starting a new game, you will be asked whether you want your adventure to contain mature and sensitive subject matter, such as nudity.  You can change your option later in the game should you wish by visiting the Options menu. After a quick Gamma Corrections, you will find yourself on the Mani Menu Screen. Here you can start a New Game or choose to play Multiplayer. I decided to play a new game rather than launch headfirst into a multiplayer game as it was my first time playing. Once you have a game save then you can either continue a game or load another game save from the main menu screen.

Once a new game has been started you will have to choose the game's difficulty. You have the option of three difficulties to choose from; you have Explore, for those who wish to experience the story before combat. Balanced is for those wanting their adventure full of challenging choices. And finally, you have Tactician where you’ll need to be at your very best strategically in combat throughout a tough campaign. I went with the Balanced difficulty and so far, the game has been challenging enough to keep thinking on my toes, which I like and prefer over an easier approach.

Your adventure begins with you and a bunch of others onboard the Mind Flayer ship, the Nautiloid. You are prisoners aboard the Nautiloid and a Mind Flayer is placing some nasty looking worms with needle-like teeth into your eyes. Once the worm enters your eye, you are taken to the character development screen where you will create your character. The categories from which you choose your character's background are Origin, Race, Subrace, Class, Background and Abilities.

There are other categories depending upon the race and subrace of your character.  You have Cantrips, Spells, Prepare Spells and some others which can customise your character. You can just hit the Randomise button and use whatever character is created. I decided to go with a Human Fighter after which I had to choose my Fighting Style specialty from Archery, Defence, Duelling, Great Weapon Fighting, Protection and Two-Weapon Fighting. Each will have their own benefits and styles, so choose one which suits you best.

Next you have eleven backgrounds to choose from for your character. The options on offer are Acolyte, Charlatan, Criminal, Entertainer, Folk Hero, Guild Artisan, Noble, Outlander, Sage, Soldier and Urchin. You are also able to edit your character's appearance from this screen so you can fully customise your character. Once you have decided your character’s class and look etcetera, the game will begin.

The Nautiloid crashes after being attacked.  You are lucky to survive but you get up off your botty and start to look around your surroundings. The worm inside your head will turn you into a Mind Flayer, bursting out of your current body. Even though the worm gives you certain powers, you must still find a way to remove the worm before you become a Mind Flayer and have a beard of tentacles. There will be some pop-up information boxes that give you information about the basics of the game.

You will make your way through the ruined ship and out into the unknown world. There are bodies scattered everywhere and they could have some items which you can make use of; if you can’t, then you can always sell them to traders and make a few pennies so that you can buy new equipment, weapons, potions or other items. You can also find items of interest in chests, although you will have to be careful as some of them are protected by traps or may need lockpicking to open them.

Traps, locks and other actions will require you to roll a D20 dice, where you must roll a certain number or above, depending on the difficulty of the required action.  Failing to roll a number equal to or higher than the action dice number will mean you fail the action. This would mean failure to disarm a trap, unlock a chest, or whichever action you were hoping to perform.

You will also need to roll a dice when interacting with characters; some of the choices you will be offered when talking with them are Persuasion, Intimidation, and Threaten. There are items and equipment which can give you a boost to your dice rolls. It is also possible to throw two die; the higher of the two will count as your roll.

As you progress you will come across new characters, you can have four members in your party at any one time. So, you can mix and match to find your best group as the characters will come with different backgrounds, class types and abilities. You can change party members by visiting your camp and recruiting them from there.

You can also spend a night at camp to replenish your health etcetera; this is called a Long Rest.  You can also perform a Short Rest which will replenish your health, although it won’t replenish everything the way a Long Rest would. A short Rest doesn’t have to be performed at camp but can be performed while out in the world and can be used twice before needing to be replenished with a Long Rest at camp.

Performing a long rest at camp will require Camp Rations, which you can find on your travels, so look everywhere. You can also buy from traders if you don’t have enough rations. It costs forty rations to be able to perform a Long Rest at camp.

The main objective of the game is to find a cure for the removal of the worm in your head. And there will be many along the way who will offer you assistance in removing the worm. However, while the story unfolds you will have a lot of other objectives and missions to complete. Although many of them can conflict with others, this is where your choices will have an effect on how the story plays out. Saving one person or group will make you less popular with other folks or groups. So, be careful with your choices as it can send you down a totally different road than you first thought.

Combat takes place once it has been initiated through chat or moving into an area. You can select each of your parties and maneuver them into place - wherever you think they’ll be best suited in the surrounding area - before initiating combat if you are careful. Combat is not played out on a flat area but will depend on your current surroundings. Inside a building, for example, you could take advantage of the roof rafters and use ranged attacks on your enemy, giving your character an advantage. The enemy can still attack you from the ground but at a disadvantage.  They can also chase you up into the rafters the same way you got there.

There will be times when your environment can be used against your enemy, such as using hanging brazier where you can shoot them down onto your unsuspecting enemy. Or destroying a bridge where an enemy is standing so that they fall into the chasm below which can be very helpful when dealing with enemies, especially if they are quite strong.

Your characters can use melee weapons and ranged weapons, and your choice of weapon will depend on the class of the character.  Some characters will also have the ability to use magic attacks. There are also scrolls that a character can activate to produce an attack on an enemy or add a bonus to a character. One thing I like but keep forgetting about is the ability to dip your weapon into fire and acid and other things in your surrounding area, which will give your weapon a boost.

After defeating the enemy you’ll gain some experience points.  You will also gain points through other actions as you progress through the game. Once you have earned enough experience points your characters will be able to Level Up. Leveling up a character will allow them to evolve, learn new class types, add new spells and cantrips etcetera. You will also be able to search the bodies of the defeated and collect any valuables they may have on them.

To help you move around the world, there are portals scattered about.  You can jump back ‘n forth between various portals by visiting the world map and selecting the place you want to fast-travel to.

So far, I’ve really enjoyed playing Baldur’s Gate 3.  I’d get lost in what I was supposed to be doing and start wandering off, only to find something else to do, so I ended up with a big backlog of objectives to go through.  But I do love to go and look at everything possible before jumping right in.

I love the story of all the characters and the fact that it’s up to me how the main story unfolds. The graphics are great and the game has run beautifully overall; I haven’t had any real problems to deal with, but I have had a couple little hiccups.

Sometimes when splitting inventory items, the split items would disappear. This would be rectified if I re-split the same item or split another item, at which point the items would appear in my inventory. Or I could just select another character and go back, and the items would be sitting there in my inventory. It’s not a big problem but one that had me wondering where the bloody hell those health potions went.

There was another small problem, but at the moment I can’t think of what it was. If it finds its way back into my noggin, I’ll add it here at a later date.

There is a co-op mode both online and Lan, but I haven’t tried playing either of them yet.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

Baldur's Gate 3 Steam Store Page