Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Baldur's Gate 3 Impressions - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Greg, Blessing, and Andy give their thoughts on their first 10 hours with Baldur's Gate 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kind of Funnies doing an old school Patreon pledge drive all August long. If you like the content we've made in 2023, we'd like you to consider supporting us on patreon.com slash kind of funny for the month. Just $10 would get you more than 300 exclusive episodes of shows like Kind of Feudy, Gregway, and more. We couldn't do this without you. So thank you for your support. Welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I am Tim Geddes and I'm joined by the new Face Video Games blessing at EOE. Junior. Good afternoon, Tim. The Big Daddy himself in a SummerSlam shirt. Greg Miller.

And on out the group today. We have the Nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Great afternoon, Tim. Great afternoon to you all as well. Of course, this is the kind of funny games cast for each and every week. We get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. We've been doing a lot of previews recently. But today, you're getting a little bit more, or sorry, reviews recently. We're getting more of an impressions, you know, which is a little like the early hours into a video game. we're talking about Balders Gate 3, a video game that I'm pretty sure most of you didn't expect us to talk about here. That kind of funny, but everyone's in your face. Here it is.

We're doing it. You never know what we're going to do. You never know, but you could find out. You'll never know. Subscribe to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games where this video plays every single week. If you want it in a different video place, roosterteeth.com is where you want to go. But if audio is more your thing,

search your favorite podcast feed for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we'll be right there for you. But if you wanted to get the show, ad free. You got to go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. Just like our Patreon producers. Jedi Master Deadpool Delaney Twining and Logan Delaney have done a lot of Delaney. You know, who would have

thought? I never thought I'd have two Delaney's in one set of names. I'm flying a SummerSlam tomorrow and I hope my plane doesn't get Delaneyed. Fuck, man. It was like close. You know? Tomato, tomato. I probably will. Andy had a question

on that. What's your question, Andy? When does this go live, Timothy? This goes live tomorrow on Thursday August 3rd cool so check over on the Twitch channel and the YouTube channel because we're likely live right now playing it me and Mike will be playing it going full

into the role play stuff doing multiplayer we want to get into our characters we want to create them on stream with you all and there's a Twitch integration that allows the chat to vote for certain dialogue choices and things like that cool so we're going to hopefully get into that there's we've gotten a lot of requests about it and it never

seemed like something we were super going to vibe with, but we kind of, I've turned a corner on. Oh, spoiler for the preview. Yeah, we're going to be talking all about that in this episode, but a little more details there. So that would be Thursday, August 3rd. You could watch live on Twitch or YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. But if you can't watch live, that's cool. You'll be able to watch Mike and Andy stream later on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Today, we are brought to you by Honey, Better Help and Shady Rays, but I'll tell you all about that later.

I want to get right into our Balders Gate three impressions. Greg Miller. And what I want to call out, yeah, these are impressions, not a review, right? Absolutely. We have not had enough time with the game. So let's start there. Just going around the table real quick. Andy, how long have you played at Baldur's Gate?

And on what? I'm playing on PC around seven, eight hours around there. Greg. Five or six hours, mainly on Steam Deck. I did play on a PC and a big old TV last night. You know what? Actually, I'd say 10 hours because I've definitely recreated characters and restarted the game.

like at least three or four times. Nice. And then bless, what about you? Yeah, I've also played about seven or eight hours, mainly on Steam deck. Yeah, codes came in late down to the wire on this one, review embargo being launch day of the game. Obviously, we know Larry and moved up the release date, right? They were originally going to be a little bit more toe to toe with Starfield. They said, let's get away from that. Moved it up here for PC, obviously, PlayStation 5 coming that first week of

September. I want to say the sixth, is that right? It is the day of, Starfield. Any Xbox plans for this one? Xbox. We just talked about the news story on Games Daily. They're struggling right now with parity between the S and the X. The idea is that one of the big things for Balders Gate 3 is the co-op, couch co-op, split-screen co-op. And X

can run that S can't right now, so they are working on that, and that's the delay there. And so anyways, yeah, long story short, that Delaney. We got code super... They got a Delaney over there. We did not get enough time with this to actually give it a full pleasure review and drop everything we were doing to go in and play the... And that's going to be true for

pretty much any website you go to, I imagine, as of disembarko. And I will be fascinated because if you see somebody putting a score on this the day it goes, go and give that reviewer all the flowers because I assume that means that they got this code on Sunday and didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't go to the office, just sat there and played.

So bless. What are your impressions so far of Baldersgate 3? A game that, I mean, actually, sorry, before I get to the impression, real quick, were any of you excited for this before getting your hands on it? I started getting excited for it mid-summer, probably about

earlier July when I started to learn a little bit more about what Balders Gate was because I think for me when my my eye my I started first opening to Balders Gate around game awards where there was a trailer and the trailer said like Dungeons and Dragons in it and I was like oh interesting so this is a Dungeons and Dragons game like this is what I'm getting out of this thing and as we got closer to it I realized notice that the developer was Larian and Larian's known for Divinity Original Sin too and just Dominion in general and I've heard such good things about Divinity Original Sin and I'm like okay so this is coming from them. This is going to be Dutch and Dragons. This actually sounds pretty cool. And so for me, I've been in the mode of wanting to get into a deeper computer or C-R-P-G, whether that's computer, classic, or whatever. And yeah, I've been getting more excited for it as we've been

getting closer to it. And now that it's in my hands, like, I'm actually pretty pleased by it. I've been having a lot of fun. And only the first seven hours, I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what it is. But for the surface I've scratched so far, so far I've gotten a pretty cool and interesting story. A lot of deep RPG mechanics that I'm so curious to see where they go and how deep and technical I can get with it. And then also a combat system that I'm kind of like on both sides of of I can see and understand why they have this particular kind of combat system because they're trying to lean in all the way into the D&D systems. It is you taking your base action and then a bonus action. It is you essentially rolling for everything. And that goes for also just the regular dialogue and regular actions you're taking as you're playing. playing the game. There are literal dice rules that the game will bring up if you take like a, I'm going to roll for intimidation or I'm going to roll for whatever this, this property that my character may have. You are, you are adding? Dude literally said, are you excited? Were you excited for the game? Now Bless is just here doing his thing. I'll just try to segue into

my, yes, I'm excited for this game. I love you guys so fucking much. Were you excited? You're doing great. I was, yeah. Sometimes if I wasn't, I wasn't, on camera. I check about watching Crack Andy. No, long-term shirt, I was not excited for this game. Divinity Original Sin, yes, is one that we had heard so many good things about. I tried to play that somewhere during the pandemic, maybe. I remember playing it in the old apartment. Not the old apartment, but you know what I mean.

And I didn't click, it did not click with me. I did not like the combat. So this one I kind of was ignoring until the big presentation they did where they flew people to Belgium and then there was the giant thing. And of course, the guy fucked a bear. I was like, well, now you have my attention. And yeah, finally, you know, really digging into it. We did a PSI Love You about it.

Me and Janet when Blas was out of town about if this could be PlayStation Starfield in terms of can this be the RPG that PlayStation fans flock to since they can't play Starfield on the PlayStation. And reading about the dice rolls, reading about the choices, watching that stream and really seeing the permutations of characters and choices and decisions. And like, you know, we always talk about playing a game and wanting those water cooler moments, right? of like, oh, what did you do here? What is this?

blah, blah. Like, we just witnessed one, right? Where you, Andy wanted to see I was running on Steam decks and you picked up. You were like, you don't have this. You only have three characters. You only have three people in the party? And we're like, me and Bush, like, you were going to have more? Because, you know what I mean?

And it's that idea. And I don't even know who you have versus who I have versus whatever. And like the relationships you have. Like, that shit was what excited me about the game. And so, yeah, I jumped in. I would say with my interests peak. And now I have plenty to say, but I'll wait. Oh, look at that.

And we already talked on this a little bit, but like you, what was your interest or just even understanding of Baldur's Gate going into this? I knew that it was very similar to it, that basically mirrored what Blessing said. It's Larian Studios and everybody loved Divinity, but I have never ever cared about strategy and turn base type games. And once we started getting closer and closer to it and once, honestly, let's be, let's be real. Let's be real. It was fucking the bear. They knew what they were doing. When you could bang the bear, I immediately just thought like, damn, this is giving me the Dragon Age vibes that I've been missing for a while.

I've been missing this mass effect, dragon age stuff of having relationships with characters, forming bonds, you know, killing off people, maybe not meeting people at all in your playthrues. That whole idea really, really intrigued me. And yeah, so I feel like I kind of have. had to be a part of it just to see whether it was worth my time or not, you know. So, plus, I know it's been long awaited, but what do you think about? It's terrible. I'm like a video game.

No, so I've been having a good time. And I think a lot of my good time is reflected from last year. I did a tabletop role-playing game called Blades with some of my friends, right? Which is different from DMD. It was not Yami. No. It's not Addison either. Back up Madison, had to talk to him with years.

Come back, man, it's been a while. It's been a while, right. But no, we were playing Blades in the Dark. And the thing I appreciated about that, that was my first time playing a longer campaign of a tabletop role-playing game. And I appreciated the depth we can get into of really role-playing these characters

and being, like, totally embodying who we wanted these characters to be and playing our classes and bouncing off of our other companion's classes, right? And, like, having this moment of, oh, we're creating our own story here. And from playing Balders Gate 3, I feel like I'm getting so much of that experience of getting to really define how I play.

And for me, I think that is the hallmark of what makes a really good RPG, especially one of these kinds of RPGs, is how open does this game feel? How much do I have the autonomy to do what I want to do? If I want to create a character that, like, right now the character I'm playing is a high half-elf sorcerer character that, like, I'm putting a lot of my chips. Oh, yeah, he's his highest. I'm putting a lot of my stats into things like intimidation or things like persuasion and, you know, tricking other characters and that sort of thing, right? My character is more of a, I'm going to solve problems with my mouth and with my mind, right?

Like, I'm going to talk myself out of these situations and convince people of things as opposed to, like, using my fists. And I've been pleasantly surprised and pleased with how much I've been able to do that and really go, all right, I need to get this character out of this place. let me talk to a guy and like see if I can convince him to help me out. Let me talk to this person and like trick them into giving me the key to this door. And I've been doing quite a bit of that. And it's been really fun, right?

Because you do the roll. You see the dice roll on the screen and you're getting the satisfaction of like, please don't roll one. Please don't roll one. And you roll above whatever you need to get. And it feels like I'm playing an actual tabletop role playing game. Greg Miller from Kindof Funny.com. My question for you is are you playing this way because that's what you want to do in

is the character and who you're role playing as? Or are you kind of being pushed this way because you don't like the combat? So it's a bit of both where when I was first creating my character, one, the character creation is so deep and you have so many options to where going in, that was my plan. Like that's usually my thing with RPGs that let you do this with Out of Roads also. I really wanted to make a character that, again, was less combat focused and more conversation focused. And that's the thing that I liked about that game is that they had the options to open that

up there as well. Here, I was going into it, wanting to create a character. that, yeah, was less combat focused and more conversational. And I have that. But also, yeah, when I get into combat situations, I am like, ooh, I don't like this. And I think it's twofold. One, my character just isn't great in combat. But then also, I think even if my character was great at combat, this is just not a combat system for me.

I am not a strategy combat sort of person. Like I was mentioning earlier, it is you're doing your action phase, then you're doing your bonus thing. But then also playing on Steen deck, I have like this radial wheel with like, five other radial wheels that can switch between to figure out what action I'm going to do. And there's so much, there's so much detail and so many options that I am way overwhelmed when it comes to combat. That's a great way to put it.

And again, you know, this is Baldergate 3. I did not like Divinity. I did not stick around a long time for it. I echo everything you're saying. And especially to jump off of it, like, overwhelmed was such a great word where like,

I was thinking about it today. I like, okay, we're doing the review or the, you know, preview. What do we want to talk about? What do we want to say? and one of them was the idea that like you know we were getting ready to do the Diablo stream before this me fran and gary

and having played so much Diablo like I can drop in and do whatever and understand what's going on but I think now with the seasonal character I just rolled in the fact that I'm still unlocking so many different spells and so many different things right it was so overwhelming to drop into Baldur's Gate 3 and immediately have three radio wheels of different solutions choice this one's green and this one's orange and da da

and it's like there's something to be said for obviously dropping you in the deep end you'll figure it out blah blah blah blah it's not like it's like so brand new i don't know what's happening but it was that when i would do that and go into a fight and lose or whatever i'd be like oh man like i wish there had been a tutorial i wish there had been more of a hey let's get you up to let's start you the one wheel and a few spells and then it expands and blah blah and they they didn't do that i'm sure you know this is a game clearly designed to be replayed a bunch of different times so you can get all these different conversations so you wouldn't want to do it every time there's a whole bunch of stuff happening but

i'm with you of like i don't like the combat system i don't like the way they're doing strategy for it. And again, that's just meet my personal preferences. Like, that's not meant to be a ding against the game. Balders Gate 3 for the six hours I've played it is fantastic. Like, having said, I don't like the combat system, this is still one

where I'm like, I'm not going to play anymore on PC because I'm just not a PC guy. But when it comes to PlayStation and I've gotten through the holiday rush or whatever, I could totally see this being a, let's do a role. Let's go in there and jump in there and see the different things. Yes, Tim. Is there a cross-save situation's

on like will you be able to you can download um when you initially launch it on pc it says create a larian account to which i said absolutely the fuck not but then when you look closer it says you do this to have a cross play sort of situation cross save as well where you could then i guess log into your larian account on your playstation or xbox in the future but i'm not attached to my character enough that that's like the thing for me it's more that i just want to jump in and i would start fresh because again you know i don't like i don't like the strategy i don't like the way combat feels in it but I do love everything surrounding it. Yeah.

Like making your character, getting into the minutia, okay, cool. You know, I'm just, you know, I'm boring as hell. So I just did a human fighter, right, that I named Diana of Themiscarra and like, launch her out there. And it's like, as usual, I'm like, okay, cool, I'm going to be a good guy. I'm going to be a good person, right? Because I'm role playing as Wonder Woman. That immediately went out the window of, oh, you're in there.

You get so many choices for dialogue or for options. And they're not necessarily good or bad, right? I loved the fact that there were so many different like options for answering a conversation and it's like in brackets intelligence or whatever, you know, down the line of all the different traits it could be that you have to remember if you're good at, let alone you come in and you do the dice roll for it. I fucking love the dice roll. I love the D&D. I do wish those when you're making those dialogue choices. I wish it would remind you of like what you put your stats into because I'm like, oh yeah, am I intelligent or am I persuasive. And it doesn't seem like

there's a, um, like an option to like remember to or to remind you of that. Yeah, yeah. I think it's more and again, I think it's so much of it and this doesn't happen often, but this is, you know, both me and bless jumping into a game that isn't necessarily our usual wheelhouse. I think so much of that is, you know, we started the game like a fallout RPG or just like, all right, whatever. And then you get in there like, oh, this shit does matter and I do need. Like I went back to make sure I understood more. So I was making the right choices in that front, uh, to have those conversations to do those things, but to go through to have the conversations with both NPCs and then your party and you go back to the camp and they're dressed different. Such a mass effect thing,

right? When I went back to the camp and Shadow Heart showed up and this like sexy outfit, like, oh, goddamn. All right, cool. Like, this is the ship. I got it. I'm wrapping my head around what's going on. And then stay the fuck away from Shadow Heart. Okay, stay away from me. I wish I could. I mean, she's chatting up this other wizard dude. And I'm like, all right, this wizard dude, get out of my party. You're not, I don't want to hear you all flirting anymore. dude. The wizard. Oh wow.

That was really, really good. She's like in some weird cult or whatever. I'm like, I don't care. Yeah, I don't care. I can be like,

whatever you got to do. Whatever. Kill my family. I don't care. At least she's not, Astyrian. Whoever that vampire dude is, I can't stand him.

Yeah. He's in my party right now. I'm like, you're lucky I'm only, I only have two of you. Very shocked by how many characters you all have. I have like seven and you can only have four in your party. So when I go back to my camp,

there are three additional characters. They're similar to going back to the normity or going back to your main castle, I'm already blanking on what it's called in Dragon Age. I'm very, what did you say? Peach's Castle. Peaches Castle, there it is, from Jagging Age. I'm very much aligned with you all in that,

I don't think this is doing combat bad. It's just doing combat that I don't like. Yeah. I think it's doing turn-based combat in the way that people would expect where there are a lot of choices and you can have your squad mate, shoot an arrow there,

and then run back behind the wall if they need to get cover or whatever. And there's a lot of nuance in there, but what I prefer just being a top-down Diablo slasher, or like Dragon Age, where Dragon Age reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy 7 remake combat where it's not 100% real time. You are freezing time to tell your dude

to use that one attack so it can open you up for this and that, but you're still actively moving around, hacking and slashing, having a lot of fun action-wise. But those are just the games that I have. prefer. So the, whatever I am in a combat scenario, I'm never like the most enthused about it. Yeah. But every, like Greg was mentioning, everything surrounding it, I think is fantastic. All of the characters you meet, the interactions you're having. I love that this is a game that is incredibly overwhelming with all the systems and all the abilities that throws at you. But what

isn't overwhelming is the story. And I'm so glad that the game starts off and I think the most simple way possible. This mind flare put a worm in your eye and you got to get it out of your eye. You got to get this worm from out of your eye because it's like messing with your mind or whatever and it's messing with other people's minds. We got to find a cure.

How do we do that? I think it could have easily been that Balders Gate 3 has all these complex systems and also says, by the way, this kingdom and this king and this region, like none of that shit. It's a, it's you were kind of put on this

Cthuloo, you were put on a Cthuloo style HP Lovecraft ship with these mind fliers and these are creatures that we don't really know a whole lot about. Unless you watch Ranger Things. Yeah, unless you watch Tragedy Things. Or that's also the enemies in Demon Souls and

I believe demons. No, I agree. No, no, pro, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, like, you drop in and then, yeah, like, just go. Yeah. And it makes sense why there's a motley crew, why you have to work together. You don't need to like, you're meeting people's backstories. Whatever. And then you can if you want because the game's so deep with conversations. Yeah, you're meeting a lot of people that were on the ship with you that are also kind of dealing with this problem.

And then it's we got to find a cure. And I love that it starts you off on such a basic, like, step, you know, this is step one of this whole gigantic story that will eventually expand out. Because you then hit moments later on that I won't spoil anything, but I got to a part where I'm like, I think I'm going to save right here. We've been having some issues here today with the internet. net with the power. So we just lost the last couple of minutes. I'm sorry. Don't act like it's our fault, though.

The entire neighborhood lost power. It's bad. Right. Yeah. It's everything on our fault. Someone's fault. PG&E's fault. Yeah.

Hey, back to the conversation now. Okay. It turned out grabbing that hat would break the game in five hours. I would have something to go back to. Whereas this one is so like, I'm dropping save states because, okay,

I don't know if this, if any conversation can go poorly. Yeah. And if that happens, I'm into a fight. And what happens if I die or somebody else gets killed or I, blah, It's like, then it's even the point of like, you know, there was one where I was, you know, going through a bunch of goblins there, you know, there being a bunch of gobbies.

They didn't want me to get through there. I like how you said that. They don't like that. They didn't want me to come through, you know what I mean? So I was like, oh, I'm going to talk my way out of it. Tried to fail the dice roll. Fight breaks out. I die.

Everybody dies. It's a wipe. Come back. I said the game to the easiest difficulty. Oh, really? I didn't. I'm still. And it's still like, not easy for me.

And then I just finished my point. And then I rolled the dice again. got a different die roll, did the conversation the way I wanted to originally go and moved on. I was like, okay, cool. This is interesting to me here with like the amount of choices in the safe state conversation. Like all of you seem to be doing that to some extent. Do you think that that is enhancing your experience or kind of getting in the way of it where you're not satisfied with those decisions or you're just like, I want to tell the story this way.

So it's worth going back and redoing because it's not that the other ways were bad. It's just not what I want. I wish for me, I just want to get competent combat because that's what's happening for me. So, like, you know, there's auto saves, but it's like, you know, even then it'll set you back a few minutes or whatever from where it was. So it's me dropping a thing because if I get in a fight with all these goblins, there's too many goddamn goblins. Or, which has happened to me multiple times in this game, I accidentally steal something. And then everyone who wants to murder me is such a problem. Yeah. Or, you know, you get put into jail and it's like, ah, well, I'll try to get out of jail.

But then they kill me. But then the guys aren't. It's like, you know what? It would be easier to reload the save from 10 minutes ago and just go that way. I'm very much, once I'm competent of it. and again, I think I understand the rules of the world a bit more, I would very much want it to be, I'm playing. And whatever happens is going to happen.

It's, oh, sorry, go for you. I was going to say it's curiosity for me. It's not necessarily like I'm unhappy or it's more of like, what are the game devs? How far are they taking this? You know, because I'm so, first off, I'm so amazed and also just like I'm given extreme anxiety thinking about the amount of work that went into this game. I know that several weeks ago, maybe a month ago, by this point,

they mentioned the hundreds and hundreds of hours of cutscenes and having a lot of other game dev Twitter pop in and be like, wow, what like, I mean, we don't want to say crunch, but like you can't really do that without like having a crazy amount of work happen. So I am like extremely blown away by the quality and by the variety of things that can happen. And I also wanted to point out that, you know, when we did our final final. Finacy 16 review and I pointed, I kept on harping on like the most gigantic, epic, magnificent cutscenes and crazy boss fights. And the side quests are very MMO animations and everything looks very procedural and automated

because you have budgets and you need to put a shitload of money into the other stuff to make it look good and maybe you don't have enough time or money to spend on the other smaller issues of the game. The thing that I really, really love about this game and I'm super impressed by in the way that Horizon Forbidden West impressed me. is that all of these, like, it's very procedural animation. These aren't like, you know,

the mouth moving from these characters that you're talking to is kind of dictated by what they're saying, right? But they're still so expressive in their eye animations and, like, they do such a good job with, like, I'm going to squint right here because I'm angry. And I feel like that doesn't happen a whole lot in a lot of games. Like, of course, the main cutscenes will do that.

But the random side quest where you talk to a random jubriended, groaning over there, like you always notice a difference in love being put in certain areas. This game is just... This guy's deal. This game is really impressing me with the amount of variety and the amount of quality in that variety. One of the things I would call out is, you know, I

would say I've played my... The overwhelming majority's been on Steam Deck. Putting it on TV last night, I was like, oh, fuck, I don't want to play this on Steam Deck again. Like, it looked so much better on there. Not that the Steam Deck were like garbage, I just couldn't get as many details out of it as you did later on.

And I think one of the things to toss out is you can look at it and like you're talking about, oh, we'll lip sync this or like it doesn't look, you know, whatever, amazing, amazing. What I love about it is that it has a defined style. You know what I mean? It has made stylistic choices. And I mean this in the most congratulatory. I mean this is praise. It's where I forget where I was gone on the other side of the diving board there. I mean this is a praise.

It reminds me so much of the style that kingdoms of Amla Reckoning had. and I loved that game. And that was one of the games, you know, that I'm not the orcs and elves guy, but I got so into that game. And I'm talking about the map that it was just up there in the corner. I'm talking about the HUD.

I'm talking about the way dialogue is. Like, there is a style to this game that I just vibe with so much that, again, like I know I am always full of empty, not promises, sometimes promises, but empty like, oh, I'd love to get back to this game. I do really hope and feel like in December, I will be like, cool, things have settled enough.

I'm going to go give this a shot on my PlayStation. And to your point, too, I think it's digestible and approachable, even if you're not into high fantasy. Because I am that person also where, you know, I am not into the idea of a Lord of the Rings. I am not into the idea of something that's super high fantasy.

I'll tell you, I got really excited with that you've been playing this and I was like, I've got to make blessing lots over. But like I think this game is doing such a great job. And maybe this is just general growth from me, just like. First best. Now. Yeah.

Now Panis, like, oh, damn. Maybe I'm just appreciating things more. But I think this game is highlighting a lot of the cool aspects of the D&D world. I think starting off with the Mineflare stuff and being on this Cthulhu ship to start off is a really strong start to get me to go, oh, this is fucking cool. Right. And then from there, they give you, yeah, like, here are a couple of characters that you have this interesting dynamic with because you met in this interesting way. And I think everything they're doing about the presentation of it is making it palpable for me coming in. And, you know, being curious, but not automatically in, right?

I think they're doing a good job of bringing me in. And again, we talk about dropping you into the deep end of mechanics, if you're like us and aren't familiar with these mechanics. The story is the opposite of that again, right? Where even once you get going, it's like, cool, these people need to leave this grove, but they're fighting about it. All right, cool. These goblins are mad about whatever.

It's not like back to the point we were making earlier, for 100 years, this has happened since Queen did, like none of that. Yeah, so far. I want to answer your question about the safe stage stuff. Before you do that, though, bless, let me tell you a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by PayPal Honey, the easy way to save when shopping on your iPhone or computer. Did you know it only takes a few seconds to get it?

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Yeah. So, like, I think for me regarding the safe state stuff, for me, it's the, it being a D&D experience versus a video game experience, right? I think for video games, we have the idea of, oh, I want to get the good ending, or I want to do the right thing, or I want to like go either renegade or Paragon, right? And like, there's nothing in between there. I think this game, because of the D&D side of it, it kind of asks you to want to roll with it and go, hey, you just fucking, you fucked up. You just got to keep going. Like, it is improv at every moment.

It is, hey, just keep going with the story because, hey, you messed up and that's part of this experience. And because we're playing video games, you have that urge to want to reload. load your save, which I've done plenty of times playing this game because at the end of day, it is a video game. But I think that, I think it works because you get both things. Like, I've been trying to play this game, rolling with it as much as possible. So you're role playing a role player right now, but soon you will be a role player. I will play the role, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But I think, I think it works out because of that because you still have the option. Yeah. You looked excited to say something there. I mean, I love the idea of this getting me. to D&D in general. Like I think one thing that I wish I knew

whenever there was a choice to be made is depending on the difficulty of choice or how crazy the stakes might be on a certain dialogue choice or whatever

is like sometimes I see a choice I'm like oh I would like to convince this person to do this and I click into it and you have a 20-sided die

and this one requires 14 points I was like oh fuck I have to have 14 or above on this one. Do I got a bonus though? You don't have a 20-side- I have a bonus one.

Hopefully I get a 13 or whatever and I roll it, it's a 6. I'm like, oh, God damn it, dude. And that person goes, nope, sorry. You're not convincing me, kill that person. I'm like, no. That's fun. It's extremely impressive, man.

And like, again, I just think about the work and effort that went into all this because not only are there a shit ton of MPCs that you can have a lot of different interactions with, but they are also, a lot of those interactions are also based, on, and dialogue choices are based on who you are and what your background is,

which is stuff that I freaking love, man. I love, like, walking up to a group of people, and I am a, I'm a half-high elf d'lf, drow, which is like, Oh, brother. Not a, not a, yeah, not a human and an elf, and a drow banged. And, like, the drow is like,

it's just like, they're, they're an underworld kind of a, snake. No, they're, like, they grew up in caverns and stuff like that. Like, they, how do you spell that D-R-O-W I forgot to mention that

like my guy is Draconic It's kind of like You know We're from different tribes Yeah see and And that's the stuff I love So you might get a dialogue option Where you meet a group of stragglers

That maybe feel like they're unwelcome And I go Hey I can relate to that Because that's the dialogue option I selected which is the Drow like a dialogue option I may not be pronouncing that correctly I did noble birth for mine right

Because Diana Themiscarra You know Wonder Woman being a princess and all And so it's the same thing of, you know, she's from a balder or whatever, right? So she speaks the language. There's been a few times that's popped up that she talks in a different language when they say that. I'm like, oh, that's really cool. And I just want to keep on getting lost in this game.

Like, again, it's such a testament to the quality and craftsmanship of the amount of things that can be done and interacted with. Like, the fact that I'm so into this game, yet I don't really love the combat. And I'm still into it regardless. Like, there are so many cool moments that I'm. I'm used to another video games where there's a moment where you're kind of adventuring around and you see kind of a crack in the floor. And then above it, there's like a wooden crane with a stone hanging above it. And usually what happens is you look at the stone and then you go,

let me select the option that says cut the rope or whatever. But you don't really do that here. What do you do here is you interact with the world the way you would interact with anything else where you bring up your, what is it, 12 or 20 wheel options? And radio wheels as far as you. Yeah, and like the options might be push or jump or shoot an error or whatever. So I walked up to the crane and I'm like, I think this thing is meant to break that little stone down there. Let me hit shoot.

And I hit shoot and then what do you want to shoot? I want to shoot that arrow. Boop, boop. Shoots a thing, boom, creates a hole in the ground. Cool. I can go explore in there. there now. And some of it is really cool and neat to interact with, but the moments that I don't love are, I want to cross this river. I can't, Tim, you can't just run and hit A to jump.

Yeah. You run to the edge. You go into your dialogue wheel and you select jump. Where do you want to jump? I want to jump there. Do that. But sometimes there's three stones. So you have to do that three different times. And it's just like, it gets kind of frustrating and annoying moments like that. You press up on the D-pad. It's your automatic jump. No way. Well, I'm playing on controller. Oh yeah, so I think if you press up in Oh shit, okay, cool, cool, cool. Very cool. Also, the leveling up, just auto level up people for me.

Yeah, occasionally you get to that thing of like, all right, cool, choose a subclass or choose them. But sometimes it's just like, cool, they're just leveled up. Yeah, like in order to level your squad mates up, they don't just automatically do it. It'll alert you to know when they are level upable, which is now a new phrase. And you bring up your whole crew

and then you have to like click their name, then go to level up, and then it'll go level up. But before you do that, you need to select the stuff that you're leveling up. And I'm like,

okay, let me select those. Now you confirm the level of and it becomes another cool animation or whatever. So it gets like, it reminds me of why in moments where we hear people that didn't like Red Dead Red Dead Redemption

because it's like way too immersed in tedious. Yeah, there are moments like that where I'm like, this is the D&D experience. Yeah. This is the level of T,

uh, Tidium. Tidium? Yep. I don't say tidiocrity. Which is a new phrase. You did it. You coined the word.

The level of tedium you can expect. I feel like you're fucking with me. Oh wow. Okay. That's cool as hell. Like that's the, this is an authentic experience. Whether you like it or not,

this is what you're kind of going to have to deal with when playing this game. Yeah. I want to stay away from that, Andy. Like whether you like it or not, you sound like you're pretty into this.

Something's not so sure on. Are you planning to continue playing this? Any even bigger question? Do you think that this is a content? Whoa! I definitely want to continue playing this. I know we have some other stuff on the horizon that will be dropping,

but I am super into it and want to keep on playing it because I'm just so invested in seeing what can happen with these characters and what dialogue choices can be made. Like, again, having that moment last night where I'm like, I think I want to kill this person

and they are really kind of of making sure that I want to kill this person. Like, you can't just hit the button and do it. It's like, whoa, whoa, do you want to do this? Because this is going to, like, drastically change shit. I'm like, I think I want, I want to commit to this. And that level of, that level of commitment you have in those moments shows me, like, the level of commitment these devs have to, like, these changes really, really do matter.

And I definitely want to keep on playing it. I want to get it working on my Steam deck because I can't get it working right now for whatever reason. Raj there. Will it be a contender? I don't know. Rajner showed some footage and so I want to point out if you're an audio person not watching. I do really dig that they have a narrator. Yeah.

Yeah. You have a good dungeon master that's not a dungeon master but like talking and like, oh, this happens, but this doesn't happen. And because of X, Y and Z. You walk up to a stone. A strange object permeates from the stone. And you look at you like, do I want to, do I want to grab it? That's great.

It's really awesome. Yeah. So Greg, what about you? Are you planning to keep playing this? I won't keep playing in this. I'll wait for PlayStation just because you. just because, yeah, I'm not thrilled with how it looks on Steam deck and there's so much going on on the screen. I want it to look big and I don't want to be attached. And I was playing on my PC at

home last night, which isn't the most up-to-date PC, so it wasn't running super well. But, you know, to be realistic, I'm way more excited for Starfield moment-to-moment gameplay. I'm more excited for the story, I think, and the choices here, which is a trade-off. But I think, yeah, I'll wait for PlayStation and probably get to it towards the end of the year. Do you think that it is a contender, if not for you? Do you think that it will be for others? For a certain gamer for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think for a lot of people that are drawn to this kind of role-playing game

or role-playing games in general, I think it will be. For me, no. Again, I don't think the combat systems as good as it could be, and it is clicking immediately. And granted, five hours in, if we had gotten this code earlier and I'd been able to give it two weeks, maybe we have a different conversation about how much I like it, and how much I learned to use it and yada, yada, also if I can play on a PlayStation.

But there's other things in like the map, well, again, I love the style of it, using the map, I often found myself frustrated to a degree of just like, how the fuck am I going to get over there? And I know that's part of the game, obviously, to get me off. But it was like, didn't seem intuitive in times on how to get to certain places or do certain things. But so no, I don't think this wouldn't, this wouldn't not be a top 10 for me. I think for some people, it'll be game of the year candidate. But I think for me and the other games we've seen this year wouldn't do it for me. Plus, where you at. Yeah, I think I'm going to play this the way that Greg talks about playing Legend of Elders here's the Kingdom, where it's going to be one that I dip into throughout whoever knows how long. right like i think the fact that this game is hundreds of hours long or at least has hundreds of hours

of content in it makes me want to take my time and play it through slowly and i think i will keep playing it on my steam deck because i think it does look good enough i know for a fact that if i booted up on pc i'll be blasted with blown away and i that's why i never want to see how the team looks don't show me i never i do not want to see how this game looks no because i like i'm having such a good time playing it on scene deck and i know it looks like it looks janky a bit but it's good enough And that's my thing. I'm like, it's good enough. And playing it handheld is such a great way to do it as opposed to just being stuck

in my desk and I prefer this way. And yeah, like I want to dip into it just over the course of however long. The only time I don't enjoy playing this game is during the combat. But outside of the combat, in every moment I'm having such a blast. And I don't know for me, it'd be a contender only because I don't think I'm going to beat it anytime soon. But I think industry-wide, yeah, like I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of things to say about Baldur's Gate 3 just in the broad conversation of Game of the

across the industry, not necessarily that kind of funny, and especially an RPG of the year. Like, I expect to see this at Game Awards, because it is deep and it commits hard to being what it is. And I have so much respect for doing that. And, like, there is so much joy I'm getting out of it for being that. And, like, to everything Andy was talking about, about cinematics and all these things, right? I had been surprised moment to moment where I talked to a random NPC, like, just any random NPC, and they get into a whole conversation, and that's an interesting moment, where it is. I was talking to a kid at one of the, one of the, you know,

like the grove areas, like one of the settlements. And this kid's like, oh, hey, like, do you want to, do you want this ring? And I'm like, no, what's up with the ring? And he, like, does like a fun little magic trick where he makes it disappear or whatever. And my character is like, oh, that's interesting. My character obviously is like this slate of hand, like trickster kind of guy. So I'm like, hey, let me see that. And like, I kind of do my own match trick with it.

And I impress the kid. And we had this whole interaction. Well, while we were recording, all the power went out. It was a lot scarier than it should have been for everybody involved. but we're back. The powers here for now. So we're going to wrap up the conversation here. Our final thoughts so far on Balders Gate 3.

Bless, let's start with you. Yeah, this game for me has been doing everything right, right? Like, I've been really enjoying the D&D elements. The only part of this game that I feel like I'm not enjoying is the combat stuff, right? And I think that is going to be a teach their own situation. I'm with Andy with what he said earlier of I don't think this game has a bad combat system, but it's definitely not for me. That said, like, I've been so engross with the stuff

is doing with story, with the stuff is doing with world, the stuff is doing with choices, all of the depth that's within all of those things. Very impressive, and yeah, I can't wait to keep playing. Greg. I'm really impressed. I hope and I would expect that it carries the weight of what it's already done. You know what I mean?

Like, it's always harder to say, oh, we've previewed this game. We're previewing this game. I expect it to hold up the entire way through and I think it'll make for a great time if it does. Again, yeah, I'm right there with Busting. This isn't a combat style I vibe with. And it's not that I've never enjoyed a turn-based strategy a game before, right?

Or you can look at something like Valkyria Chronicles that I really did dig and had a very similar thing. I think it's just going to be about getting immersed in it and having more time with it for it to really click and me to really learn it, I guess, more than anything. But I'm excited to give it that shot later on when it comes to PlayStation. I can play it on the big TV that way because, yeah, it's an impressive game for sure.

It's wild that I would prefer a watered-down version of any other sort of combat system. Like, if this game came out with a very mediocre hack and slash sort of combat, and I'd be like, you know, combat's fine, but everything else is great. It's just like that's how much I don't really love. One question we didn't get to dive into because of the power. You talked about you, you're playing on story difficulty, like the easiest difficulty. Is that making it just brain dead and you're flying through it? No, no.

I mean, well, maybe because I'm just brain dead, right? I don't really have a whole lot of experience with games like this, because this isn't Final Fantasy, stand in the line, it's very much like move and click behind all sorts of areas. And you kind of have to understand your surroundings and how to get, like, in order to take advantage of where you're at and the environment and there's a barrel of oil over there. What if I shoot the barrel of oil?

Cool. Oil spilled all over the place. Now I'll have Homeboy shoot a fire spell and that'll explode. Like there's a lot of freedom in that way. I am on the most easiest difficulty so these fights can hopefully just be quicker. You know what I mean? Like that's kind of how I felt about that's what I've done with a lot of scary games back in the day where it's like I just, I don't want to. I don't want to like have to die and have to redo this very scary thing.

So yeah, more of it is just like how can I get? get through it quicker and get back to the meat of the stuff, which is like, who am I going to bang? And that's really all I'm looking forward to, Tim. I've got my, like, so far two companions, not flirting with me. They're flirting with everybody else in the party. So I'm telling those dudes, get the fuck out. All right. And to the get through a quicker thing, that's one thing with the combat system that I'm hoping grows on me.

Because I've been kind of impressed with the area I'm in currently where I just partnered up with a dude that I'm trying to save. and now it is, hey, once we go into the other room, we're going to have to take out this entire camp. And I look through and I'm like, oh, but it's a big camp, which means we're going to be fighting for a minute. And I started that section. And sure enough, I was fighting for, it was like 20 minutes before I was like,

I got to reload because I am not doing good in this. But that said, I still have a lot of respect for what they're doing with it. And I'm so curious to see how other people take to it. Like, I want to see how the hardcore of the Baldur's Gate community take to the combat system. I'm sure it's been similar before. right, but I want to see how even like, I guess the wider RPG fan base as well takes to the combat

system because even though I'm saying it's not for me, I very much see what they're doing with it. I very much see the, oh, it's D&D improv. It is like you said, Andy, oh, I got to shoot this barrel so that oil spills so that I can get my guy with the fire spell to go do this thing. I got to play to my strengths and who I made I made as a character. And so if I'm going through and I'm doing melee attacks and I didn't make a melee attack type character, I am not going to have a good time with this, right? you really got to think on another level and play it literally like it is a tabletop role-playing game and make choices with a lot of intent.

Which is so cool. Which is really cool. And again, I really respect it. But also it's that it's just that push and pull of I am willing to give that amount of myself into the story and the characters and everything else. But when it comes to the combat, that's where I'm like, oh, damn, all right, this is asking a lot. I don't know if I have that much of myself to give. I'd say do not hesitate to drive the lowest difficulty because it doesn't become just one shot.

kills, let me get to everything fast. Let me just reiterate that it could just be that I'm really bad at this sort of style game and I'm not doing things right, but it's still like, people in my party are still getting knocked out every once in a while. Like, it isn't like the most easy just click and win sort of combat even on the easiest difficulty. But the reason that I also prefer the easiest difficulty is not only to make it faster, but I don't enjoy it enough to die over and over and over again.

Like, you know, I enjoy dying a lot in Souls games because I love that sort of combat. So it's very, very different, right? But I would say that the first couple of encounters on the normal difficulty, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I don't know how to get better at this. And because of that, I am going to jump to the easiest. And I still find it to be... I still don't understand.

I still find it to, again, the fact that it's not brain dead is what's perfect for me. I was like, give me the tiniest bit of challenge, but I don't want to just be, shoot that dude, they're dead. Shoot that dude, they're dead. I enjoy that there is still some thinking you have to do in it. Well, that's awesome. Let us know in the comments below.

If they're selling you, if you haven't been interested in this type of game before and giving it a shot, or if this is your thing, tell us how do we get, how do we, what's the fastest way to learn this system and understand it in a different way?

100% if you are a big, Balders Gate, D&D, any of that stuff, then let us know in the comments below. where you're at with Balders Gates. It will be coming out for everybody very, very soon. If not right now, I don't even know. No, it's out on PC as, well, yeah, it's launched day when this post is on for PC. Yeah, so enjoy your times, everybody.

But until next time, I love you all. Thank you for your patience with us with all the stuff. We've been having a day. Goodbye. Is the power out again? No.