this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3
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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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You can just jump in without playing the first two, for sure. But this is not like Skyrim or Diablo, as it uses a turned based action economy. When you attack or are attacked, the entire game stops, initiative is rolled, and every one in the fight takes their turn to perform their actions (and bonus actions). Everything. just. stops.
So this is not a hack and slash like Diablo or Skyrim, but it is an amazing game. I prefer games that support Real Time With Pause, where the battle can just carry out in real time unless you decide to stop time and micromanage your party, but in this game, every single step is micromanaged. The hype is well earned, and real. But if it's not for you, it's really, not for you. Hope you give it a try.
Honestly I'm glad they didn't go through the rtwp route. I have the suspicion that it's just really hard and not worth it to balance both playstyles, because it's often both too easy yet tedious to frequently pause every combat but also too mentally taxing to keep track of the 10-50 person fight in realtime including gear switching, buffs, consumables, cooldowns, etc. Just my experience but I'd rather they just stick to one or the other and design around just that.
I would have thought too, but Owlcat (with Pathfinder) and Obsidian (with Pillars of Eternity II) did it admirably. Both made their game with real time with pause first in mind. I only play turn based (let me target my fireball properly, for crying out loud), and I couldn't find any fault to those games. It just felt natural.
That being said, I'm glad Larian went all in on turn-based, because it gave us that awesome idea of being able to activate turn-based mode whenever we want. It adds tactics to stealing and infiltrations, that's awesome.
Some of the fights can have a lot of verticality to them, and using the terrain to your advantage is very helpful. My cleric would let it rain on an enemy group, and my sorcerer would cast a lightning spell, electrocuting the whole bunch. My rogue would sneak in before the fight and get in position to push that archer or caster to their death. Things with so much depth are easier to execute with a round based system. It's very much a game of chess, where you plan ahead and take advantage of enemy mistakes, and the two examples I just gave are on the level of a peasant like me. You can pull off some crazy shit in this game.