Wormerine

So sad 😭😭😭

Finished main story of Shadow Gambit. It is another solid real time stealth tactics from Mimimi games. This time around more fantastical setting allowed them to shake up and expand their character roster. Some new enemy types as well, but nothing revolutionary really. As is the studio’s tradition the story, while pretty cliche, is better than one would expect. I didn’t always gel with humour of the sidestories, but it’s been overall a charming adventure. What I am less convinced by, is the new structure to the game. Rather than linear set of mission with pre-determined characters - we get multiple larger island, with couple missions in each, and for most missions we can pick our crew (up to 3) and landing/extraction points. It’s fun, and having different crew members does keep things fresh, but between powerful character kits and multiple ways of engagement, the game felt by far like the easiest (and therefore the least interesting to me) from their 3 games. More disappointingly, the maps didn’t feel particularly distinct - not being able to design level around specific mechanic (footsteps, water, darkness, specific character kit) means even with some unique features all levels played more or less the same. Even, now after just finishing the game I struggle to recall any but two setpiece missions, while I have clear recollection of multiple missions from Shadow Tactics & Deaperados3. I am also not a fan of locking replaying levels and badges until after one beats the main campaign. I just preferred the pace of previous titles - being able to take one mission at a time and 100% before moving forward. There is a reason for it (some progression will require to access to all of the characters), but I don’t really like it.

Welcome to Act2. Fun starts once you leave well tested EA area. By know I just accepted that characters will be acting weird. During my last game session, Baldur’s Gate Laez expressed her relieve that we are finally nearing Moonrise Tower… Honey, I know you haven’t been in the party much, but I think you missed out on some major events.

Unless there is more content on a different path, I don't think there is much - I just had a brief encounter with famous actor antagonist no. 2 and it already had more breath and depth than Kethric content. Thorm has:

Yes, there was some advertising about big name talent playing game's major antagonists. Don't get too excited - he is barely in the game, and you don't get to interact with him much.

I agree with those, though I probably wouldn’t include XCOMs, (same with something like broodwar) as they expand existing campaign, rather than providing something new. To me Blood&Wine is the weakest content in W3 (it is still darn good), but I would put Heart of Stone as best Witcher3 content. Hopefully, Phantom Liberty will be much, much better than Cyberpunk base game. I would also add White March and to lesser extend Deadfire DLCs, being the best content in the respective titles. Possibly Mooncrash is a more refined immersive sim than Prey? Though it’s also such a riff on the original design, that I think opinions might be split, depending what one likes from their immersive sims. Knife of Dundalk/Brigmore Witches > Dishonored Does New Vegas count as a stand-alone expansion to Fallout3? ☺️

Thank you Yahztee edit. Very interesting point about choices we get as a player being already an expression of our character. Perhaps that a reason why I don't get along with class specific lines that don't align with my character - I made a decision regarding my player's profession, dont make a decision for me regarding his personality. It also might be why I love PoE1&2 disposition system so much. We get to make smaller choices, therefore expressing out willingless to roleplay the character a certain why, so when we get those more extreme benevolent/cruel options, they feel rewarding and appropriate - like the game noticing what I am trying to do and supporting it. I feel quite often at odds with BG3, however.

Because otherwise the whole system might as well be completely removed? What if you want to equip salami as your weapon? There is also an achievement for fighting people while being drunk - for that one needs wine in their inventory. It is still streamlined from EA - there the food in the camp storage wouldn't regiester. So you would still send camp to food, but everyonce in a while go to the chest and take some if you were short.

There is absolutely no reason to carry food. Send it to camp. They will be displayed on rest UI anyway.

Throughout the whole game, I had more money, than I have things to buy, AND money has weight in this game. Why would I want more of it? Are the no magical debit cards in this game?

I played it for a bit a while ago. It holds up better than I expected, though no manual aiming does feel a bit odd.

No, that wouldn't be fair. Each of them has multistaged companion quest, and it seemed they are tied to one major location in the world. It also seems those companion quests have branching paths, providing at least some amound of unique content pay playthrough. The stories so far, are rather predicable - you watch 1 minut origin intro during the character creation, and you probably can figure out most story beats of each companion. To me the biggest disappointment comes from how few of the companions there are, and how drastic the contrast is between first act, and... well, I won't say the rest of the game for now, but at least 2nd act. Larian promises a lot in act1, and I don't think the rest of the game quite lives up to the expectation so far.

Ok, just got that screenshot, and it is too good not to share:

I always dislike when goblins in the BV surrender. I think it comes down to it being usually the first area after the grove, and after a lenghty period of time of talking, I am itching for some fight.

I posted a screenshot of him on the first page of this thread - you can judge for yourself. It would say not hot, unless you are very into aging halfings.

Yes, there is the party, in which companions verbally state if you gained enough reputation to get a cuddle. Believe it or not, but this is better that it was in EA. Unfortunately, problems don’t stop after that. Companions don’t take no for an answer and romance with Gale and Wyll still seemed to progress, even though I said no to them during the party. I think Laez might have too, but surprisingly enough she was delicate about it another that it didn’t bother. Both Wyll and Gale though got what seemed like a start of a romantic encounter where my PC was getting all starry eyed, until I said no, and got sad puppy eyes from both blokes. I suspect the issue is that in spite of what Larian claimed there isn’t much non-romance content (not that here is much romance content to begin with). Karlach and Astarion were the only companions that didn’t hit on my PC during the party, and frankly they have been barely preset in act2 - even though Karlach is a permanent member of my party. I will be honest, maybe in different playthroughs companions will show drastically different sides, but so far after act1 they feel very underwhelming - I don’t feel the presence of amount of work that supportively went into it. It would be fine if we got a lot of them, but companion cast seems very underwhelming to me so far - both in the size and narrative depth/consistency of the ensamble. I also have a feeling that decision to not kill off companions haven’t been done early, and the way characters behave when they didn’t witness something feels very off at times.

Yes, I am referring to class dialogue options. It’s been a minxed thing for bard. There were some good ones etc. I know this or can do this because I am a bard, but there has been also some odd ones.

I will agree - and I find it problematic in BG3 due to how much the game defines for you. I had to work really hard to create a character I want to play with what the game gives me. Even so, it’s rather bland as quite often bard specific lines the game gives me don’t line up with how I want to roleplay. That isn’t issue that’s limited to bards - each class comes with pre-selected personality. I found sorcerers lines to be really insufferable in EA. I much prefers PoE1&2’s chanters to bards (as well as its implementation of race/class reactivity).

I would say it is a fair representation of being an artist - they should balance it as it is balanced in real life - underpay bards for everything. 🙂 “Well, I would pay you with this artefact if you were a worrier, but why won’t you do this quest for me for an exposure? No? Well, you clearly aren’t passionate enough about your job”. I do think bard is good to the point of being boring. I haven’t lost many checks and those that I did and cared about, could easily reroll using inspiration. I am out of inspiration - I burned all of it to convince

I don’t think it is BG3 specific - I think that if game reaches wide enough audience, it will attract some individuals not willing to accept any slight against the game. And speaking of slights - Halsin got ousted from my party for a very silly reason. Hotbar still autoadds abilities whenever they are acquired. It’s been annoying - remove weapon skills => switch to torch, and switch back => weapons skills get shoved back into the hotbar. Annoying but I can work around that. What I am not willing to deal with is every Druid spell getting readded to the hotbar after using wildshape. 😐 Now when I am writing it, I suppose it would be enough to keep the spells on the hotbar out of sight (it respects whatever arrangement of spells was made before shapeshifting). Still annoying.

Nah, DLCs are solid. The Spacer’s Choice edition… that’s truly not the best choice.

Right? I was never a fan of underdark and grimforge - I hoped those areas were just unfinished in EA, but it wasn’t the case. I suppose those are Larian’s version of dungeons, but I find their combat design too sloppy to make for a satisfying gameplay. Someone said earlier that story picks up at the end of act2. I am about 15 hours into act2 and I am pretty much where I was after rescuing Halsin - reach the tower. Not much new from companions - they feel much closer to D:OS2 now. Each of them seems to have a story beat in the act (and granted, one of them was pretty awesome), but they are much, much quieter now, and their responses feel more formulaic.