I am no stranger to RPGs (role playing games), with titles such as Skyrim, Fallout, Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic, and Dark Souls under my belt I’ve spent plenty of time exploring their intricacies. However, of all those titles, I firmly believe Baldur’s Gate 3 is the best role-playing game you can ever play.
Baldur’s Gate 3 may not have the fast-paced melee combat of Skyrim or Dark Souls, it may not have the sci-fi atmosphere of Star Wars, and it will never have the satirical nature of Fallout; but it still rises above all. The first thing you will notice in BG3 is its spectacular character creation. Baldur’s gate gives you the initial option of choosing from 6 premade characters each with their own unique stories or from 2 different options for a custom character. The premade characters of Karlach, Gale, Wyll, Shadowheart, Astarion, and Laezel are all incredible, the real treat are the two customer characters.
The second of the two custom characters is known as The Dark Urge, a creature born of darkness with a shadowy bloodlust and murderous contempt burning your brain. You play as the creation of a dark god and can guide you own story of triumph over your evil nature or play into the sinister nature and give into the dark urge.
The first custom character is the much more popular option, known as Tav (you can change the name). Tav is a blank slate for you to carve your own story into. Both custom characters allow you to choose a race from the plentiful options of elf, dragonborn, human, dwarf, half-elfs barbarians, gnomes, tieflings, half-orcs, halflings and subraces from each option. Beyond the races, players can decide upon a class and subclass each with its own influence on gameplay and story.
To put the game’s ability to cater the story to a custom character to the test, I visited the same in game scene with three different characters. The first of which was a dragonborn ranger, this is where I got the standard dialogue options. The situation is simple, Kagha is the current leader of the Emerald Grove and she caught Mol stealing and if the player chooses to let Kagha do what she pleases, Mol will die.
In this run I am playing as the Dark Urge, and my options are slightly skewed. It’s much harder for my character to help Mol because the standard Dialogue options are replaced with options encouraging my character to not only let Mol die, but to cause her death.
In this final run I am again playing a custom character, instead this time the character is a human paladin of justice. Instead of the standard dialogue seen in the first run I have entirely unique options that only become available if you are playing the specific subclass of a Paladin of Justice. In this scenario I am able to preside over a sort of court where I pass judgment on the crimes of Mol.
Beyond the intricate story that molds itself around the player and the choices of the player, the gameplay is robust and responsive. While the turn based combat may not be an average Call of Duty player’s cup of tea, it is entertaining and rewarding. While some classes handle remarkably similarly, most each bring their own unique spin to the handle and feel of combat. Wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks all make great powerful heros who can easily crack when overwhelmed. Barbarians, fighters, and paladins all make powerful spearheads who can charge into hordes of enemies without a second thought. Druids, clerics, and monks are able to double as support spell casting while fighting from the front lines. Rangers, druids, and bards each have a variety of roles they can take acting as wild cards for their parties.
That doesn’t even begin to mention the capabilities to form a unique play style presented by multi-classing, the act of leveling up in specific classes (for example: half druid half ranger) and the various subclasses for each class. With such astonishing variation in gameplay no two playthroughs of the game will ever be the same.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the the RPG I have ever played, and is easily my current favorite game. I encourage readers to play regardless of whether or not they usually play video games. Go and have your adventure, save the world or condemn it, make friends and destroy enemies, go to Baldur’s Gate
