Note that is a rant and is not very coherent and I've not finished it yet. I'm forcing myself to complete it as I'm a fan of BG1 and 2 but is a chore to play.
There are people, including on this site, that are praising BG3 for role-playing along the lines "sure is woke but I can role-play how ever I want".
My experience is exactly the opposite. Just few things I noticed.
1.The dialogue options are not satisfactory.
I've showed no interest in the druid elf dude but he offers you sex despite barely speaking with him and you can't get mad at and say "you degenerate either leave my camp or die". In fact you can't tell any companion to leave the camp permanent. You can't even tell that to other people that show up in your camp.
There are a bunch of abrasive NPCs that you can't tell them, bitch either tone it down or there is going to be violence. Sometimes you get intimidation checks but this is not what I'm aiming at, but the proper response to a bitch that treats you like shit despite being a group of heavily armed individuals that should be known at one point.
There is no nuance to refugees, either you support it or you are evil. You have no reasonable path for them. The game also pushes "the poor refugees" angle like crazy. Even the druid dude says something along the lines of baldurs gate people deserve death for being reluctant to take in the refugees.
As an example, there are some refugees squatting in someone's house and you can't use money to buy them accommodations elsewhere or better yet, give them money and supplies and get the frell out of there, there is a freaking army heading their way. And of course they treat you like a monster if you chose to evict them.
I understand there are some shady things with the dude who owns the house but that is just further manipulation from the writers to make it reasonable for refugees to take over ones house without the owners permission.
The lesbo priestess of Selune and her lover are bitches in how they act towards the priestesses father sacrificing himself to save her from death. The avatar of female frequency smashes his head several times in anger, sure he kept her locked up but it was towards saving the one she supposedly loves. I should be able to point that out to them.
- Sometimes ignores your choices or tries to force "the right choice". I told the lesbos to not come to my camp but they came anyway. Why is my character ok with having them there against his will and no dialogue option later to talk about it?
There was another scene with Wyll trying to sneak in the camp to kill Karlach, I told him to leave and never return, frankly he should have died there but I was merciful. The game tries over and over to make you take him in your party despite not making any sense.
- Several times my character is acting gay against my will. I've never gave any indication of being interested in Gale but suddenly I can see my character throwing seductive looks towards him and then sitting right next to him. I would expect the gay action to happen only if you show interest.
The same with the emperor. I was 100% against him from the start but it does not stop my character to sit down and throw glances like we are best buds, including a strange scene with him with his shirt off. Again I told him he was a monster from the start, why is the monster flirting with me.
- Evil choices are not well thought off. For example, if you choose to give Nightsong to Lorroakan you get no reward despite being a contract and he mentions a huge reward. You can call on them later but that made 0 sense. And this happens in several quests.
In previous games the evil choice was designed to be tempting. Better rewards to test you as a player, was an interesting idea.
- The role-playing of some NPCs is just over the top. You get the 3 bad guys do a captain-planet summon and one of them is an edgy emo dude. You also get some over the top evil guys that are cartoonish evil with no depth or anything that would make them interesting.
I've seen NWN2 mods that had better NPC role playing then this game.
There are some nice one, Lae'zel and Shadowheart are surprisingly interesting and their reactions seem more natural for their personalities. I understand that Lae'zel wants to have sex with you but I must have missed that part.
Baldur's Gate 2 is one of my favourite games ever and I'm not touching this cash grab and nostalgia bait. The Bhaalspawn saga ended with Throne of Bhaal and no attempts to revive it 20 years later will change my mind.
There is nobody left to fight that matters. Sarevok was set up very early in BG1 when he murdered Gorien while coming for the protagonist leading to the revelation about the protagonist's parentage. Irenicus is introduced immediately at the start of BG2 and stomps the shit out of everyone who is dumb enough to get in his way signifying just how important he values the protagonist. While not the actual final antagonist the ToB expansion revolves around Bhaal so much it's named for him. When the dust settles the number of Bhaalspawn left is either one or none, not counting the one who teleport when scared because he can die in Saradush if you don't cast a Horror spell on him so his fate isn't important.
But because D&D is now trendy various groups and grifters are looking to milk the hobby and related media for everything they can, which inevitably means dumbing the games down in order to appeal to an even larger audience now.
You owe these parasites nothing. They likely view you as little more than nothing. When these franchises fail the ones who drove them into the ground neither care or suffer any consequences since they will still fall into a new job doing the same shit in a different spot. You owe them nothing.
While I wouldn't trust any modern developer to make it, I would accept a divine campaign for a third game centered around cementing your place in the pantheon.
Problem there is embracing your divinity is only one of the ending options, you can give it up to live as a mortal and bang elves.
Seriously, every single romance option in the original BG2 was some kind of elf. Jaheira: whiny elf. Aerie: wingless Avariel. Viconia: emo elf. Anomen: basically a whiny elf despite being human. Bonus love triangle event: Haer'Dahlis: pirate/Jack Sparrow elf.
Anyway, the devs elf fetish aside, many sequels to games which can end in multiple ways have the same problem of picking what is canon and deciding which may end up pissing off large portions of the fan base if one still exists.
Mass Effect Andromeda got around this by relocating so far away, and having originally taken place before 3 ended so the ending ironically wouldn't matter, that it didn't matter what the story was. Mostly because it was shit and never actually completed, but still.
There are Witcher comics set after 3 which face the same problem and ended up just going with several options which made sense for the most part but also ignored character development that took place in some of the games. In the comic Geralt chooses Yen over Triss, Ciri survives, and for some dumb reason Dandelion breaks up with Priscilla despite her being probably the best and last option left to him for an actual wife since every other woman he's hooked up with knows he's an annoying twat. There is multiple dialogue in the third game where Dandelion makes clear the way he feels about Priscilla is different from every other woman he's known and yet the comic ends the relationship off panel.
Accepting or rejecting the collective divine essence of Bhaal however is such a significant event, no matter the outcome, it would mean having to make two completely separate games just as a baseline and modern devs can barely make one game these days, let alone two.
Jahiera, Misc and Sarevok make an appearance. Is the reason why I wanted to play.
So far, Jahiera is kind of boring and old but not as bad as Luke in the new star wars, she is still a Harper and she is out there fighting. I was just hoping she would be more impressive considering she was in both BG1 and BG 2. She also does not seem particularly wise, just meh.
Better that than to kill off her husband and make her gay. Seems to be a trend these days to ruin legacy characters in the worst ways possible.
You are the problem then.
The fact that they make an appearance at all is reason enough for me to condemn this whole farce of a game.
People just can't fathom that what's already been given to them is enough. They want more. They always want more and damn the consequences.
Now you've defaced a masterpiece.
Was it worth it?
Sadly, no
The fact that they do makes me exceptionally angry.
Just think about how ridiculous it is to have them show up again centuries later.
In all three cases it makes sense within the world.
Viconia definitely had an ending if you romanced her 👀