Alright, my first playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3 is done and dusted. This run weighed in at about 143 hours being very thorough overall. This is a game that benefits from playing it a couple times, so there is definitely still a lot of meat on the bone, as it were. For this initial playthrough, I rolled with a *Silver Dragonborn Warlock*. Future runs will include playing the **Dark Urge** arc and probably a more neutral run beyond that.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3046502300

There is definitely so much that can be said about the game, that narrowing it all down into a reviewable format can be a challenge. So, I think I'll begin like this: **Baldur's Gate 3** is the epitome of a full tabletop D&D campaign, in video game form. It's a sweeping adventure, taking your party through a variety of locations with myriad side quests and a very high degree of cause and effect. Almost every action has real consequences and the story shapes itself based on your decisions.

The adventure takes you from level one to level twelve. This effectively means that much like the tabletop experience, things can be very challenging until you gain some experience. In my experience, this means that things really start to open up for you around party level four, when you've started to stack both abilities and equipment. By the time you get to 12th level, your group will be pretty OP. Lae'zal and Karlach on their own were taking down bosses in one to two turns in my playthrough.

Fortunately, your party shares experience, so the inactive party members keep pace with your active members, level-wise. You also have a camp storage chest for equipment, making it easier to gear up characters as you swap them in and out of your active group. You have four active party members, but your complete adventuring party is substantially larger and very diverse.

The writing was exceptional. Dialogue was on point, quests all made sense, and everything wraps up well. Similarly, the world building was both vast and intricate. There is real life breathed into all the different locations. Graphically, this game is a stunner that never stops giving, from locations to battle effects and everything in between.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039236594

Similarly, the voice acting was excellence bar none. I can't think of any duds. Everybody was believable and evocative. **Larian** did a great job of maximizing their VA talent. A lot of work also went into the OST. It's incredibly atmospheric and appropriate.

The turn based gameplay was straight up fun. Not only does the game offer a ton of ways to approach each battle, but it does so in a way that allows for a lot of planning, which allows you to apply so many strategies that it actually makes the game more impressive. The environment plays a roll, there is interactivity between elemental effects, and that's just scratching the surface. The possibilities are nearly limitless in how combat plays out.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3046502486

Really, I could go on and on and on and on about this game. My favorite location in the game was the Undercity Ruins, my favorite boss was Orin, and my favorite party member was Karlach, although Lae'zal was just barely behind her in my ranking.

I played on the Steam Deck. It functioned very well, deserves the verified rating being playable out of box, and based on what I'm seeing of experiences on other rigs, it seems like the streamlined specs for the Steam Deck actually made it perform better in many instances.

So, game issues. The main issue I encountered were FPS drops, although I noticed that this improved as patches were released throughout my several weeks long playthrough. I had one hard crash. There were a couple weird instances of turns not ending properly in combat. I also never did figure out how to adjust party order on the Steam Deck outside of removing and re-adding party members. It seemed to happen randomly otherwise. There were also a few instances of poor pathing leading to clipping and NPCs/summons getting stuck on things like walls and chests.

I will note that while there is a lot of talk about canon vs non canon story, I found that by simply not rush clicking dialogue, you realize BG3 is fully canon. It is however set 100+ years after the events of BG2, and I realize that creates a disconnect for some people.

For me, **Baldur's Gate 3** was everything I'd hoped it would be and more. Is it perfect? No. Is it a fantastic and amazing experience? Absolutely. It's an easy recommendation. For completionists, this game will easily give you 400+ hours of fun. If you only intend to play it once, you'll still easily get over 100 hours out of it. It's a must play for CRPG fans and a should play for anyone else.