Baldur's Gate 3 shocks me with it's high level of player freedom found in customization, decisions, and consequences, and the compelling stories, both micro and macro, mixed with the expansive gameplay possibilities.

Checkpoint Gaming - Edie W-K - Unscored

Although my time with the game hasn’t been enough to yet form a full critique, I can already tell that Baldur’s Gate 3 is a very impressive feather in Larian Studio’s cap.

GGRecon - Ava Thompson-Powell - Unscored

Larian Studios is on a heck of a hot streak, and Baldur’s Gate 3’s early signs suggest it could be the studio’s biggest success to date. With rich lore and ample customisation for how you approach the world alongside gorgeous visuals, it’s shaping up to be a title that I’ll remember for a long time - and I’m only in Act 1.

GamesRadar+ - Ali Jones - Unscored

For now, suffice to say that Baldur's Gate 3 feels a little bit like Larian has accomplished the impossible. This is an entire, years-long pen-and-paper roleplaying campaign realized in beautiful fidelity, in a way that brings every tiny detail of your mind's eye to life.

GamingTrend - David Flynn, Ron Burke - Unscored

They simply don’t make ‘em like this, and I can’t wait to experience all this game has to offer.

IGN - Leana Hafer - Unscored

On the whole, I really am loving Baldur's Gate 3 so far.

PCGamesN - Paul Kelly - Unscored

Baldur’s Gate 3’s world is beautiful, layered and complex, and challenges you to attack it how you want. And though this is what makes it a little daunting, it’s also what makes me eager to dive back in and see where the adventure is going.

Screen Rant - Cody Gravelle - Unscored

Baldur's Gate 3 is imposing in stature and its best moments are truly memorable, but some early issues with scale suggest an uneven experience.

Wccftech - Francesco De Meo - Unscored

As of now, however, I feel Larian Studios has done a tremendous job, creating one, if not the most engaging cRPG in a very long time.

We Got This Covered - Ash Martinez - 4.5 / 5

An excellent follow-up to its decades-old predecessor, 'Baldur's Gate III' sets a new gold standard for RPGs in the modern age. Though it has its fair share of buggy problems, the vibrant world, intriguing storytelling, and captivating gameplay more than make up for its shortcomings.

ZTGD - Terrence Johnson - 9.5 / 10

The team at Larian Studios are to be commended, Baldur’s Gate 3 is nothing short of a masterpiece when it comes to RPG’s.

eXputer - Huzaifah Durrani - 5 / 5

Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the greatest RPGs of all time, and a testament to the talent of developer Larian Studios.

Thanks to @simple@lemm.ee

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[–] beto@lemmy.studio 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Has anyone played it on the Deck yet? What's the experience like?

[–] Sharpiemarker@feddit.de 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I have. One small caveat is that I was using the deck to stream it from my Desktop where I have much better hardware (and I've noticed that some games play differently locally on the Deck vs streaming, so YMMV).

I played probably 2 hours so far. I wasn't able to get the controls to work comfortably. I tried 2 of the top listed control configs without much success.

There are a lot of camera controls, like camera rotation, elevation changes, etc and they just aren't intuitive. One mapped camera rotation to L1 and R1, one mapped it to the back L and R keys (L4 and R4 I think).

None of the configs seemed to support using the analog sticks or d-pad to navigate/make ui selections so instead you're stuck using the right touchpad to control the mouse cursor and R2 for selecting/left click.

For context, I enjoyed Divinity 2 massively on PC with an Xbox controller, and I feel like it was much more intuitive.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm itching to play it, but until I find a better solution keyboard and mouse might be the best way.

[–] treefrog@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Thanks!

I don't have a steam deck but do have chronic neck issues so playing mouse and keyboard is no longer an option for me.

If the controller support isn't good I'm going to pass for now.

[–] Sharpiemarker@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

but do have chronic neck issues so playing mouse and keyboard is no longer an option for me.

It's like looking in a very hunched over mirror lol. Same neck issues, friend. It's been a difficult transition to couch gaming but the steam deck helps bridge the gap. Can't recommend it enough.

[–] Bluefold@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Controller support is pretty good. I'm playing with a PS5 controller and pretty much the whole interface has been redesigned to fit it. It feels like it was an experience designed to fit the systems of the game opposed to fit a controller onto the PC release of the game.

Most annoying for me was End Turn was mapped to Y/Triangle and I kept pressing it. I swapped it to R2 and haven't had any more slipups.

There's refinements and QoL changes to be made for sure, but I've been surprised at how well it plays so far.

[–] treefrog@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Cool I use a ps controller too.

I'll have to check the game out once my cash flow improved.

[–] KiofKi@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

I'm playing with controller and it works just fine. Only thing I could not yet figure out was how to make t gf e whole party sneak at once.

[–] beto@lemmy.studio 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks! I guess I'll wait a little bit then before giving it a try.

[–] hoodatninja@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the insight this answered a lot of questions re: playing on my deck as well

[–] Usereric1@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would see what digital foundry says before playing it on deck. They have been very good at settings recommendations and performance reviews for games.

[–] quinten@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Hope the text is not too small though

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Played for the last few hours on my new Steam Deck (the one with the big disk). Game wouldn't load and I had to select Experimental Proton or whatever it's called.

Once I did everything has been fine.

Playing handheld and I've had no issues.

The text is readable, but it is smaller than I'd like. I haven't played with any settings so maybe I can fix that. But not an issue while playing.

I'm sure some graphics aren't optimized or something but the game plays and I'm happy.

[–] Madiator2011@lm.madiator.cloud 2 points 1 year ago

Not tested version that came today but saying do not think it's perfect game for deck as most actions relay on using mouse. Also game has some issues with Vulcan so for now I'm using Direct X

[–] Bluefold@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm playing docked on the Deck. Animations and cut scenes play really well. If you can, I'd recommend using a Bluetooth controller as I've found the deck specific controls to not be the best. The controller UI takes a little getting used to but it is pretty good now I've been playing a few hours.

The biggest negative is, naturally, the graphics. It's smooth enough, but there is just a lot of blurriness and weird edging I can't get rid of on any setting. In the close up cut scenes that pretty much goes away. That said, I'm still having a lot of fun and none of that was a deal breaker for me. It runs significantly better than it did in EA for me.

The one 'annoying' thing that has happened is I'm the video cut scenes there is quite a significant audio delay. It is not there for the in-engine ones or during combat. I've only seen two of these though and they're right at the start of the game. I just watched on YouTube to see them properly.