I'm currently in Gauntlet of Shar, 85 hours so far. One might think "Wow, so much content". And yes, there is. But the problem is, if this was game made the way these type of games were made back in golden days of cRPG, it would take half that time to go through that content - and that's at the most. Between dev's choice of horrid camera angle for isometric cRPG (yes I know there is camera mod), even worse inventory system and pretty much wrong choice of overarching gameplay mechanism, the game is sometimes excruciatingly slow to play.

Now what I mean by wrong choice of overarching gameplay mechanism? Basically, this game is made as continuous dungeon crawler - which neither BG1 or BG2, nor all those old RPGs we love and compare BG3 to, are. I even, at times, feel more like I'm playing something like Commandos: Behind Enemy lines or Desperados, instead of proper take on BG sequel. Yes, there are terrific areas, with lot to see and discover, but content is way, way too condensed and everything is clumped so tight. Not only does this make for really lousy world building, given that everything is made to feel like set pieces and not living, breathing world, but the gameplay suffers from lack of quiet moments where you just explore and search for new info and quests without dangers of someone jumping you. And no, Druid Grove, Goblin Camp and Last light Inn don't count as towns, they are way, way too small for that.

Add to this some of the nonsensical butchering of D&D 5e rules (to the detriment of tactical combat), terrible UI, mind baffling gameplay issues (like with characters who are in combat, waiting their turn, and characters who are not in combat that can stroll around in real time), mostly subpar companions (compared to BG 1&2), plot that makes both you and your companions from the start feel like you're at least level 5 or 6, instead of level 1 nobodies, tons of bugs, and BG3 really ends up as a good game, but not a great game.

Now, yeah, it sound all very harsh, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit cause there's a lot of really good stuff in it. I know that my choices will eventually boil down to 2 actual choices, but nevertheless I'm making choices and wondering what would it be if I made them differently - and for that alone it is worth it. Design of the areas is (mostly) really good, despite all the shit that camera gives you constantly. Where it's supposed to be interesting, dungeon crawling is pretty good. I just wish overall gameplay was actually much better, and game's grand design making it feel more like proper BG sequel (in which you had overworld and you had to take care of where you rest for fear of being ambushed in the night - you know, like in every fucking DnD edition ever, including 5e) and gaming "journalist" not hyping it as second coming, cause it's not. Out of recent-ish cRPGs something like The Age of Decadence might be called innovative, but that is really low budget and unpolished for many to notice. Disco Elysium is innovative and polished. And something as old as Ultima VII ('92) is epitome of innovative, even today. BG3 is no Ultima VII. It is a good game, being heavily propped by being D&D and having Hasbro, and all the people that rely on D&D 5e popularity, to push it in gaming media.

So far, my verdict is Good (which translates to 7/10).

I'm on the PS5, so I'm still salivating to get my hands on this game. Not long to go now.
If it feels like the 90s, it's not a bad thing for me. I hear it's pretty woke in places, so I *wish* it was more like the nineties on that score at least.
I think I can still enjoy it and navigate through it with my old world sensibilities. Might even add to the feeling of being in a strange world in a way :D

Well I do think it's a bit weird that BG3 is being singled out for being a finished product on release, I wouldn't really consider it a rarity, sure you can list many examples of games that were in a bad state at launch, but there are also tons that were perfectly fine. I guess the scope makes it more impressive to be fair, but I certainly wouldn't say unfinished games have become standard even if there's more of them than there should be for sure.

And I don't really agree with "90s games didn't need any patches", it's true in some cases, but like I said in others you just had to live with it. I've encountered plenty of cases of unfinished content or bugs and if you look it up on the game's wiki it's just sort of like "oh yea that's just a thing".

I do think some modern games have a more lax idea of what a game should look like on release than what was common in the 90s, but far from all of them and I would also say some probably put more effort into polishing the game up than what was standard back then.

Ehh, these descriptions in political angles is misguided for this game, but these days the political camp see politics in everything. Therefore the game is woke, as it gives you full options for romance and sexual identity, it's just freedom of player choice in everything. On the other hand this game is accused of racism and misogyny, just for depicting racism and misogyny exist in the world, including this fantasy world. In reality the game takes no real political stance. You can play whatever way you want. If you want to murder all tieflings for how they look you can. If you want a homosexual relationship you can have that as well. So if the game is woke or conservative is just a question of player choices.

There are so many games that are released today that are simply unplayable on release.

That wasn't a common thing in the 90s.

Baldurs gate at 50 GB, cant wait for tonigh to play the goty 2023

Tomb Raider, Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 1-3, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7-9, Goleneye 007 and the list goes on.

I disagree.

I still dont know what class i am going to play...

I was thinking ranger beastmaster.

Play all of them, you can multiclass. It is a bit obscure, on the level-up screen there is a tiny button which let's you choose a different class.

So not even true for the console side. I hadn't played console back then, so I assumed what the poster before said may be true for console.