I have about 250 hours in this game. I truly love Acts 1 and 2. Act 3 was discombobulated and the ending was fucking horrid. The last fight was, let's just say not great. Raphael's fight is honestly going to go down as one of the best I've experienced. I was expecting something similar for the END of the game. I honestly had all the wind let out of my sails.
An incredibly hamfisted conclusion: scenes glitching into the next with no coherency, no vignettes that could give me some sort of parting resolution in regards to all of the choices I made leading up to it, hell I didn't even get a cutscene with my romantic interest. It just sort of... ended.
I haven't played it myself (yet) but apparently Divinity Original Sin 2 was similar and the "Definitive Edition" that came about a year later fixed Act 3. So I hope the same thing happens for BG3.
I loved acts 1 and 2. But, somehow I made it through those without any mention of the names Gortash or Orin, so for them to show up at the end of act 2 and suddenly THIS is the bigger bad beyond ketheric was...weird. and then, the transition into act 3 felt very poorly executed, suddenly Gortash is THE head Duke of all of baldurs gate? Whyls dad is now mind controlled and there was no option to prevent that from happening? Just felt a little railroady after all the branching upon branching of the first two acts
I'm telling this because I assume you have finished the game: Gortash is related to Karlach's backstory so you can get some hints from before, and Orin is related to Dark Urge's backstory so yeah, same.
There are hints of the cult of Bhaal and Gortash taking over all over acts 1 and 2. I just found a note in act 1 in the entry to the zent basement talking about Gortash. The goblins talk about their 3 leaders, and you quickly understand that they're not the goblin, the drow and the hobgoblin.
Ketheric was merely the first step, and saving the duke comes in act 3. There are many pathes to save him or not. Really that's not railroad that's happening, that's vilains having more in their bag that you'd hope for.
These are good vilains, and it is a good story. Far better than a story that doesn't move forward and has its vilains protected by scenarium.
What part exactly is a spoiler? That you can fight Raphael? Something that anyone can intuit the moment you meet the character. That the game comes in three acts? That the game has an ending?
Larian is largely getting a free pass for an unoptimized mess in act 2 and 3. Pent up demand for a good CRPG has made a lot of gold completely ignore the very obvious issues.
I think you and I have different definitions of a role-playing game.
Personally, the idea of using persuasion or deception to get out of what could have easily been a fight is way more interesting than simply running around getting into fights.
Often when we talk about "hype" surrounding a release, it’s in anticipation of shared cultural euphoria more than that of a great gaming experience.
Maybe I'm hijacking the discussion, but also I don't care. That quote is the first line of the article. That's pretty much exactly what I was trying to talk about the last time I commented about BG3 and called all the excitement surrounding it just "hype" and people were crawling out of the bushes to downvote and dunk on me for criticizing their new favorite game. Every time I looked at my message inbox I was making that "wtf" face the guy made when fucking O'Reilly said "tide goes in, tides goes out, you can't explain that."
It turns out lots of people overestimate their understanding of things, and love bandwagoning. It never feels good when you're on the receiving end, does it? Sadly, the best I think we can do is recognize it when it happens, try not to let it get to us, and move on.