Baldur's Gate 3 is the biggest rpg of the decade and one of the most successful of all time, for better or for worse. Personally, when I heard that Larian were gonna be the ones making it, I was extremely sceptical and didn't look forward to its release at all. Eventually, I still played it, however, just to see what the fuss was about. Now that patch 8 has released and the game is in its final form, it is only fair to review it at this stage and replay it. This particular playthrough was done while using @orinEsque's highly influential and controversial "No Alphabets" mod removing homosexual ideology from the game and @loregamer and @Silver's "Realms Restored" mod, both hosted EXCLUSIVELY here on rpghq. No Alphabets is thoroughly recommended, basically mandatory, while Realms Restored contains too many subjective changes to too many NPCs for my liking, so use at your own risk. Anyway, big thanks to them!

Since I don't think this game needs any further introduction, let's dive straight in and see if it has deserved all its praise. Full spoilers ahead.

Chargen

Let's start right at the beginning. Like any good rpg, you first have to create a character. You can also forgo this and choose a Larian brand "origin" character that is premade. They also double as your companions, should you choose none of them. If you do that, you're left to choose between a blank slate (not recommended) and the Dark Urge, who is technically also an origin character but won't show up if you don't choose him or her. Dark Urge is widely considered to be the intended way of playing and you only gain content by picking him, so going Durge for your first playthrough is highly recommended. In fact, several things suggest that Dark Urge was just gonna be the default background for everybody but that was changed during EA because people whined about their character being a psycho.

If you've been in a coma ever since you first beat Baldur's Gate 2 on release, you'll be shocked to learn that DnD is in its 5th edition now and it differs greatly from 2nd ed. ADnD. Race selection is mostly the same, with the addition of Tieflings and Githyanki. Classes have subclasses now that you can choose once you hit level 3. Your selection of class also comes with some reactivity, giving you exclusive dialogue options at various point in the game. 5th edition in many ways is a lot more simplified compared to 2nd but I can't tell you that one is strictly better or worse than the other. I like the 5th edition ruleset and think it's alright, which is the same I could say for 2nd edition. Your mileage may wary but I don't think the ruleset is going to be a dealbreaker for anybody.

There's enough depth here for any regular buildfag, the way I see it. Mages do feel a lot weaker than they did back in 2nd ed. but to make up for that, playing a bard is great fun, gives you many unique dialogue checks and actually let's you play some music. 5th ed. has a very boring selection of feats though, with some of them being absolute must takes, greatly reducing build variety. You always take great weapon mastery, sharpshooter, war caster etc. and then you're left with some niche choices or plain old ability score improvement. I wouldn't much recommend ASI though, as controversial as that may be. There's tons of spells, gear and potions that increase your stats, should you need that, there's little point in wasting a feat on it.

A change that I liked a lot is that more spells remain viable for much longer when compared to 2nd ed. Things like Sleep, Hold Person or Fear fell off extremely hard past the early game back in the day but in 5th ed. those remain useful until the end. This does not distract from the fact that martial classes are the undeniable kings of 5th ed. You can go through the entire game without a wizard, most likely even without a cleric but you absolutely cannot do without a fighter, barbarian or monk without completely handicapping yourself for no reason. Same goes for rogues. Traps are nowhere near as lethal as they used to be in previous titles and most doors and chests can just be smashed open with no penalty. Those that can't, usually have keys nearby that open them.

That's not to say that a well built rogue cannot deal some absurdly high sneak attack damage. I personally went for a multiclassed fighter/rogue this time, prioritizing increasing my crit chances via the reduction the champion subclass gets at level 3 and all sorts of items that also increase crit chance. I also chose the assassin subclass. This resulted in a build that can deal well over a hundred damage on a critical sneak attack with the Bhaalist murder aura active and can stay invisible permanently by chaining one shot kills together round after round while wearing the Deathstalker Mantle. Good build, greatly enjoyed instakilling Minsc in the first round after all that big talk he'd been talking. Being able to consistently deal massive burst damage with high accuracy made Tactician difficulty a breeze, with only a few encounters here and there that gave me trouble.

Alignments and racial stat bonuses have since been deemed by the High Committee for Totalitarian Social Justice at WotC to be politically inconvenient and removed. Horrific ethical implications aside, I don't care much about their removal and I caught myself being bothered about it a grand total of zero times. Others may think different, but for me it's a minor thing at best.


On the cosmetic front, the character creator is quite in-depth and you'll have great fun customizing your guy or gal. A rarity for isometric rpgs, you actually get to see your character close up, a ton of times even, meaning that the way your toon looks actually matters somewhat. Once you're done with creating your character, the game will have you make a "Guardian", which is where we come to BG3's first missstep, albeit a minor one. This game is in many ways unfinished and whatever they were going for with the Guardian was left on the cutting room floor.


Your Guardian's appearance has no bearing on anything so go nuts. Once you're done with that, it's off to

Act 1

Going with Dark Urge, you wake up with amnesia aboard a nautiloid, a spelljammer ship used by Illithids. You've got one of their tadpoles in your brain, which is bad because that means that you'll become a Mindflayer sooner or later. With a worm in your head and no memories, you're off to wander around the ship that's been attacked by Githyanki terrorists moments earlier and now you're stuck in Hell.

What sounds like an exciting start is BG3's second missstep. The tutorial area is boring, especially when compared to the masterclass that is the Irenicus dungeon from BG2. While it does a decent job of tutorializing essential mechanics, it does little in the way of grabbing your attention and serves as a terrible plot hook. The amnesia premise is old and played out and extremely impersonal. I am of the opinion that it is vital that a game's plot revolve around the player and not any sort of condition, circumstance or setting. Simply put, someone needs to come and shit on the protagonists couch. BG1 understood that, BG2 refined that but BG3 has regressed to a state even unworthy of the first entry in the series. I am walking around an uninteresting burning wreckage that amounts to a series of round rooms linked together by "sphincters".


While running around the crashing Nautiloid, you come across your very first companion, Lae'zel, and your very second companion, Shadowheart. Which leads me to

Tangent #1: Companions

Before you get your hopes up, let me tell you that this games' companions are bad. Their dialogue is well written and they're voiced and animated very well but they are boring and a serious step down from the previous two entries in the series. First of all, there's a grand total of 10 companions and four of those you may never have in your party. Not like you're missing out on much. Compare this to BG2's 16 for instance.

This reduction in companions could be excused, if the quality of the companions compensated for it. Sadly, it doesn't. You get exactly one single rogue, one single cleric, one single wizard, a warlock (subpar gimmick class), one single fighter and a barbarian (fighter with less money for clothes). In addition, party size has been cut from six to four for no discernable reason. One slot is taken up by the PC, the second by Shadowheart unless the PC is already a healer, leaving you with only two slots to experiment with. Party composition is extremely limited, which also limits the ways in which you can approach individual combat encounters. Since the combat is arguably the game's main draw, this is quite a drawback. Yes, you can freely respec everybody to be any class, if you want to have your immersion obliterated and make up some headcanon why Shadowheart is now a bard. A class is part of a PC's or NPC's character and should not be treated like a job you can switch at any moment.


Aside from a lack of mechanical room to play with, from a narrative perspective, the companions suck as well. You have Lae'zel, who is an extremely one note riff on a Klingon that never evolves, Shadowheart, who is actually alright but suffers heavily from "Tragic Backstory Syndrome", Wyll, who is an unlikable smarmy, self righteous yet somehow bland hypocrite and also suffers from TBS, Astarion, who is a gay vampire that never evolves and the game tries to make us feel sorry for in the last few seconds of his companion quest and Karlach, girlboss extraordinaire with the heaviest case of TBS yet. And let's not forget Gale, who is what every redditor thinks they're like, that's to say unbearably smug yet somehow likeable. I could go through each of their companion quests one by one to further illustrate my point but I think that'd be beyond the scope of this obscure review on an obscure website no one's ever heard of so I'll just leave it at that. It bears special mentioning that Wyll got entirely reworked (read: ruined) between Early Access and the final release, with the Wyll we got, not resembling the original vision at all. Mercifully, the game provides you with tons of excuses to get rid of your companions, so there's that I suppose.

I should speak on how outdated the structure of their quests are, because they follow the bog standard "1 phase per act" blueprint that feels about as organic as Chinese, hormone filled chicken tenders. My, how convenient it is that in every act, every one of my companions discovers something about whatever it is that's bothering them and I'm right there with a free slot in my schedule to help them with that. This sort of structure was outdated back when BG2 came out and has been thoroughly proven to be unnecessary by contemporary rpgs like Wrath of the Righteous, which handled this way better. There is no excuse for a game with about 10 times the budget and resources to fumble this bit. The devs also expect you to manually interrogate them about their background at camp instead of having most of this come up naturally throughout the course of the game. Maybe if they were more interesting, I would've sat through all that dialogue but as it stands, I can't be bothered.


The game's premise also feels the need to contrive a reason for everybody having been on the same nautiloid and be infected with a tadpole. How exactly does this timeline look? Let's take Wyll for example: somehow, he's on the ship the same time as the player, crashes at the same time, but somehow gets to the grove first and establishes himself for enough time to become something of a member of the community and trusted enough to go and train Tiefling kids. As coincidence would have it, Karlach, the woman he'd been hunting, was on the ship as well. But they somehow never met at the crash site and Karlach had enough time to get into a tussle with a group of fake paladins and end up a long way from the crash site. Talk about coincidences. If enough time has elapsed for several crash survivors to go their own way, then how long were I and Shadowheart knocked out on the beach for? How long has Lae'zel been trapped in the cage by the time we find her? How come that Astarion is still just hanging around the crash site, instead of having left about the same time the others did? Why is he hanging around there in the first place? What's his plan? To just stand around and hopefully ambush someone for no reason? This all seems extremely implausible if I'm being quite honest. There was no need to have EVERYONE infected you know, the others except for the PC, Shadowheart and Lae'zel could've come along for other reasons.

Anyway

Once the ship crashlands on a Larian brand beach, you're left to wander around a beautifully made and absolutely huge map, very similar to a BG1 style map. That's to say that exploration is very much free form, giving you the opportunity to stumble into random little side adventures. This is exciting and good, glad to see that at least one lesson was learned from the previous games. The environments are highly interactive and have an imsim-like quality to them, giving you the opportunity to move boxes around and such. Many of these interactions remain superfluous though mechanically speaking but it does help make the world feel believable and alive. One path leads you to a grove of druids, where a bunch of Tiefling refugees have holed up in and that is getting attacked by goblins by the time you get there.

This gives you a first real taste of BG3's combat outside of the laughably simple tutorial encounters. Combat is turn based and thus can drag on for quite a while. Fortunately, however, combat is extremely good and easily the game's strongest point. It features free form movement, without any gamy nuCom style grid. While I was initially apprehensive about the simplified 5e rule system, I found it to have quite a bit of depth and had great fun with in in total. The excellent enemy and encounter design contributed heavily to my enjoyment. There are no random encounters and no trash mobs. Every encounter is tailor made and features one or more unique configurations, not to say gimmicks, giving each of them a puzzle-like quality, the likes of which you don't generally see in an rpg. Great use is made of the terrain, a good amount of verticality and sightlines (relevant to stealth plays). Due to the high interactivity of the environments, you're free to toss explosive barrels at the enemy at your discretion. You can even place them right in front of their noses before you set them off, proving that interactivity =/reactivity. Quite honestly, Larian missed their calling as a developer of turn based tactical games.


Once you've done away with Les Gobelins, you're let into the grove, where you find out that the druids are alt-right mega chuds who HATE the Tiefling refugees because they're RACIST and want them gone. The Tiefugees don't wanna leave, because there's more hostile gooblens on the road that'll kill them on sight. Zevlor, the Tiefling leader wants you to go kill the Gobleaders, Kagha, girlboss of the druids, wants you to just kick the Tieflings out. This is a very classica dyadic quest dynamic. Do you side with the Tieflings or the druids? What do you stand to gain? What do you stand to lose? What do you care anyway? Those are questions I *would* be asking, if Larian didn't completely fumble this absolute layup of a setup. This brings me to

Tangent #2: Quest Design and General Structure

You cannot side with the druids. You read that right. You CANNOT side with the other side in this two-sides quest. This is something that should bother any rpg veteran. If you are yourself a druid and wanna roleplay as a hardline druid nationalist (or something idk) then I'm sorry to say that you have no opportunity to act accordingly. How they missed this is beyond me.

Quest design is all around a bit bad. While you cannot side with the druids, who have somewhat legitimate grievances, you can side with the goblins, who serve a new god called The Absolute (preposterously stupid name) and are part of the Mindflayer cult that's infected you. That's right, you can side with your enemy and help them achieve the victory that would most certainly doom you. Why? Not sure. The game never gives you a good reason for doing so. I think most people would just stumble into this quest branch.

These sorts of questionable choices extend to many other questlines in the game that are too many to list, but it all ties into how BG3 has a massive problem structuring and pacing itself. For example, while running around the wilds, you may come across a temple, where you find some zombie named Withers. Withers is a plot critical NPC, thus unkillable and provides you with the important ability to resurrect companions and hire "Hirelings" to fill out your roster, should you need them. He is also entirely missable. That's correct. Should you never come across him in the temple, then he'll just eventually show up at your camp with no explanation. Why did they do this? This could've been easily avoided by making his discovery part of a mandatory tutorial section. To me, this is indicative of a severe lack of structural planning that plagues the game in many other places as well.


One notable exception to the general subpar quality of quests are the one involving Auntie Ethel, a fantastically executed concept of a hag and recurring villain, who really should've played a bigger role and upstages even the main villains and the Dark Urge's personal quest. While I did say that the amnesiac angle was sorta boring, the buildup and payoff in Durge's quest is actually pretty great. Why? First of all, you get a butler, Sceleritas Fell, easily the best animated, written and voiced character in the entire game and a cool callback to Cespenar, who was your butler in Throne of Bhaal. He provides a much needed amount of levity and comedic relief in an otherwise rather grim storyline. Just in case you don't know, the eponymous Dark Urge refers to your character's psychotic need to kill and having to fight intrusive thoughts about murdering people.


This sounds very messed up and to the game's credit it does absolutely not mess around, though much of the gruesome details are exaggerated to the point of black comedy. We've had similar amnesiac storylines before, most notably in Planescape but while in that game, the assholish ways of your past were and felt far removed, BG3 makes certain that you're confronted by your sick nature regularly. The game has you involuntarily butcher a character early on, just so you get an idea what you're dealing with.This is a crucial and very effective moment in the questline, because from that point on, there's no denying that you, yes YOU, are a vile murderer and you cannot really hide behind the amnesia excuse anymore. If you weren't a killer before, you're one now and now you have to deal with that. This is a genuinely brave piece of writing most games would shy away from.

So About Those Goblins

Whether or not you decide to join the goblins and the destroy the grove for no reason, you eventually get to Goblin HQ, Subsidiary of Absolute Inc., which is a big playground. The game loves to give you those playgrounds, where you can mess around and engineer a solution to whatever problem you're faced with. Where BG3 stumbles in matters of quest design, it does a lot better in giving you things to do and a variety of options to approach things. There's tons of different ways to even enter Goblin HQ and hidden pathways in an out of it, some of which even lead you to some useful loot. Once inside, you can decide to start combat in the courtyard immediately, or just act like you're part of the team and then enter the inner sanctum. There, you'll meet the three goblin leaders, which you can either kill, lead to the grove or even completely ignore and just head towards story progression via a hidden ladder to the Underdark.

Again, this freedom of choice is pretty great, however, there are some caveats. For one, the game misses yet another layup by giving you no non-combat option to get rid of the goblin leaders, though this would've been a prime opportunity for it. Only one of them can be taking out non-conventionally and that's only when you fail multiple skill checks. The other two, you're either forced to fight, ignore or (temporarily) side with. What's more, if you do start combat, involving about a dozen of combatants, the rest of the HQ does not care and will acknowledge none of it. This feels incredibly weird and internally inconsistent and makes me wonder if they thought any of this part of the game through. The other thing is that, while you are given the option of ignoring all of this, there is absolutely no benefit to doing so. In fact, you miss out on tons of content, experience and equipment that way. I suppose it's still nice that the option is there in the first place, even if it makes no sense to take it and stacking a bunch of explosive barrels around Dror Ragzlin and pushing Minthara down a hole is very funny, I'll not deny that.

So you fight the goblins, probably make a quick detour to the Githyanki Crèche that you believe has the cure for your tadpole problem in it and head to

Act 2

We're in the Underdark fellas, technically still in act 1 but it feels like act 2 at any rate. Let's call it act 1.5. You can also skip the Underdark by going through the mountain pass and a highly obnoxious combat encounter but I don't recommend that personally. The Underdark is filled with cool loot and even some interesting locations.

While down beneath the earth, veterans of the series will notice how bland everything looks. Once more, the game has you wandering about the wilderness, except this time it's a bit dim and there's mushrooms instead of trees. The Underdark is supposed to be this utterly alien and incredibly dangerous environment, something that was conveyed very well in BG2 over two decades ago. BG3's Underdark just feels like any old cave that also has roads for some reason. No cool city to explore, no beholder caves to raid. In fact, there's only one single beholder and that one's just a Spectator. It all feels like something that by all rights should've turned out much better.

Instead of a Drow city, you get mushroom fields, glowing trees and even something resembling a dungeon in the Arcane Tower. I said "resembling" because

Tangent #3: This Game Has No Dungeons!

You read that right. The Dungeons and Dragons game has no dungeons. I'm sure the developers thought they were dungeons but rest assured, they're not dungeons. At best, they're the dungeon equivalent of an elevator pitch. "Goblin Fortress", "Wizard Tower", "Vampire Mansion" etc.; concepts that were hardly realized beyond a token effort.

This is frankly inexcusable and disqualifies BG3 from any conversation about the best rpgs of all time if you ask me. Older and contemporary rpgs blow this multimillion, high profile production out of the water without much contest. Larian may understand how to build a playground but has no idea how to build a theme park.


Let's take the Arcane Tower for instance. All the ingredients for a dungeon are there: set up, background lore, puzzles and exploration. However, they are implement so incredibly sparsely that it feels like when you're promised a half pound filet mignon and get handed some meatloaf instead. Yeah, both are made of meat and and about equally as filling but it's not quite the same is it? All the pieces for a memorable dungeon were in place, but Larian never bothered to put them together.

An exception to this is the Grymforge, which feels like a mix between a traditional dungeon and a BG3 brand playground. There's tons of lore to uncover, loot to get, people to interact with and quests to solve, all culminating in a cool and memorable boss and big battle encounter. The Duergar are delightful dickheads, the forge strange and interesting to explore and the adamantine forge is a fantastic reward for uncovering the place's secrets. I wish there were more places like this, it's a rather short detour and it's the game's best dungeon.

On To The Shadowlands

After you're done with that, you can either progress via a passage in the Grymforge or you can return to the previously mentioned mountain pass. The first drops you off at a patrol of Harpers getting attacked by spooky shadow creatures, the second gets you an escorted tour straight to Tilted Moonrise Towers, which is where the bad guys are holed up in. Meanwhile, the first path leads you to Last Light Inn, which is where the good guys are holed up in. Both beginnings to act 2, while very different and both offering great variety, converge rather quickly and are mostly the same past the initial divergence. The Moonrise Towers start is especially recommended for Durge, because it gives some great opportunities for learning more about your mysterious past. Aside from this, I almost prefer that start from a story telling perspective, because it gives you an effective introduction to this act's main villain, Ketheric Thorm.


This introduction is not absent, when you choose the other route but it does come later, when really such a scene must come as early as possible. That is a big shame and I'd even say that that's another one of Larian's misssteps. Going through Last Light first gives you nothing but flavor text (some of which you can even find earlier in act 1) and heaping loads of telling and not showing. This could've been easily avoided by having the introductory section be the same, regardless which way you came and then instead have the rest of the act diverge from that point on, instead of the other way around. This is another case of the game being somewhat badly structured.

Moonrise Towers is a cool area. The prison in the basement is yet another great playground, where you have the option to bust out a group of deep gnome terrorists, where you're extremely free to approach this issue. I'd even say, you're a bit too free, to the point of some of the more non-conventional solutions feeling janky. The "traditional" way, let's call it, has you toss the gnomes a hammer, whereafter they break out, alerting the guards and initiating combat.

You will inevitably find Last Light inn by exploring the map normally, where you will meet returning champion and immortal hagboss Jaheira. How, when and where she ended up here or what she's been up to sinceThrone of Bhaal I'm sure is written somewhere but I don't care. What I care more about is how, when and where she got nerfed into the ground. Last time I saw her, she was an epic level mega druid, powerful enough to slaughter armies and contend with dragons and demigods. And since when is her signature fighting style dual scimitars? That's Drizzt's brand. I suppose that's just something we're supposed to let go. BG3 is a reboot, not a sequel in some ways.

Whereas visually act 2 is extremely dull (it was an extremely stupid choice to have a dimly lit area followed by ANOTHER dimly lit area), narratively, it has a lot to offer. In Last Light, you'll witness first hand some nice CnC. If you saved the Tieflings in the grove, some of em will be there. If you busted the gnomes outta jail, they'll be there as well. Found the ox? You bet he made it too. You'll also encounter very well made Talk-no-Jutsu minibosses throughout the map, the children of General Thorm, and they're actually extremely well done, easily some of the best examples of Talk-no-Jutsu done right.


Instead of just succeeding a single speech/persuasion/deception/intimidation check, you either have to pass several in a row or are presented with several other options relating to many other skills or even your class. In so doing, the devs have successfully avoided the trap of making CHA builds easy mode, a sickness that has plagued the rpg genre ever since Fallout. The Thorms sadly remain the only examples of their kind and I honestly don't see why this philosophy of boss design couldn't have been extended to all bosses. Granted, many other encounters can be at least skipped if you find a certain item for example, rewarding you for thorough exploration, like with Bernard or Ketheric Thorm himself, which I also like a lot.

Last Light can serves as your base of operations, should you choose to play this way. If you are Durge though then you get a very heavy incentive to slaughter the entire place. That's right, I told you they didn't mess around. Through either your own intuition or some additional prodding by Murderbutler, you're pointed in the direction of killing Isobel, the Selunite cleric keeping the Shadowcurse plaguing the land from devouring all life within it. Strategically, this is stupid, morally it's completely reprehensible. But if you do it, you'll get the ability to transform into the returning champion and four armed blender that is the Slayer.

The Slayer is otherwise unavailable until near the very end of the game, making the mass murder definitely worth it, if you're going for an evil Durge run anyway. I don't think I've ever seen a game reward the player for doing something this Stupid Evil. Turns out, more games should do that because boy is it fun to just see how messed up you can make things and get away with it. This point, sadly, also highlights how badly the companions are realized, because by all accounts, after this they should all run screaming in the other direction or put you down themselves. They'll voice their discontent if you talk to them about it, but that's the extent of it. It's not like you're the chosen one who has to be kept alive at all costs. I for one would've found it extremely interesting to be given the Slayer form but as a trade off be forced into a solo playthrough from that point forward. I suppose that would've been a bit difficult to balance the game around though but you know, Wrathfinder did it, just saying.


Whatever you do, you're gonna learn that Ketheric Thorm is immortal, because he's got an Aasimar chained up in the Shadowfell named Sir Aelen, who is a MAN and has never been anything other than a MAN and most definitely NOT a lesbian woman! Small point of contention here, Aelen is definitely not an Aasimar and it's something the devs most certainly got mixed up and the millions of playtesters never questioned. He is clearly an Outsider aligned with his mom Selune, a Deva or something like it. Even the bg3wiki acknowledges this.

Anyway, to get to him you have to go through the Gauntlet of Shar, which a lost Sharran temple. It is also by consensus a terrible excuse for a dungeon and I am inclined to very much agree. The sidequest involving Yurgir, a trapped Orthon, is a lot more fun to do than anything else. What is this "anything else"? A series of three """"""puzzles"""""" that are boring the first time you do em and even more so on any repeat playthroughs. The devs must've known that they had phoned it in on this one because the final door blocking progression can be opened by a Knock spell and all of the puzzles skipped entirely. This is an hilarious oversight on Shar's part.

Once the door's been opened you jump straight into the Shadowfell and fight Balthazar, a disgustingly fat Necromancer. If you're a highly intelligent genius like me though, then you'll have killed him already in the Gauntlet and avoided having to do an annoying boss fight. Again, nice nonlinear choice. One way or another, you'll be faced with Aelen, the Nightsong, as he's called by his fans and can free him from his prison, removing Ketheric Thorm's immortality. If Shadowheart is with you (which she will be in 90% of all cases I think), she'll want to kill him in order to become Shar's chosen. She can be talked out of it or into it. I personally recommend doing it, because you get tons of cool gear and abilities if you do. If you don't, Shadowheart becomes a Selunite and Aelen joins you in the fight against Ketheric Thorm.


You can also hand the Nightsong over to Balthazar, earning you an audience with Ketheric himself. He'll throw you in jail though if you do, after which you'll have to kill him. If you don't, then you'll have to storm Moonrise Tower and then kill him. If you haven't been a bloodthirsty moron, then you'll get Jaheira and her Harpers to conduct a full frontal assault, during which most of them will die but draw enough fire for your party to eventually win the encounter. If they're all dead, you're on your own. I much prefer this option personally, because figuring out how to infiltrate, not storm the tower, not only spares you the agony of sitting through an hour long battle involving about two dozen combatants but it's also more fun and unconventional. What I did for example, was hop over on the docks, throw the guards in the water and then fly up the tower using a potion of flight thrown strategically at the party's feet. This is CnC at its absolute finest, which act 2 is already full of. It's easily the best of all acts.

Atop the Tower you'll find Ketheric and yet more CnC. Having sided with neither the Harpers, nor the Nightsong, nor Balthazar, you'll have to fight him along with his cronies, including a 250 hp drider, that's a pain to hit, gives a huge AoE debuff to your AC and hits like your drunk stepdad. If you sold out the Nightsong, the fight is skipped but you're sent to jail, like I said earlier, and if you freed him he'll fight with you, turning out to be the single best meat shield ever, because he's immortal, won't stay dead and Ketheric tends to aggro on him most of the time. Without that, You'll feel the full brunt of the drider and Ketheric, who is himself incredibly unfun to fight, having a preposterously high AC and virtual immunity to most important debuffs. This fight was hard and was the game's way of punishing me for being Stupid Evil earlier. BG3 giveth and BG3 taketh away.

Thankfully you don't actually have to kill Ketheric Thorm but have to reduce him to about 30% health, whereafter he flees into the Mindflayer colony that's been there the entire time. If you're Durge, you'll find out that you were originally dumped there, before you were shipped off on the nautiloid. Sadly, the game doesn't give you the opportunity to ask Ketheric for more info, seeing as he clearly knows who Durge is. Not like he'd tell you anything but not having the option feels a bit inorganic in that moment. The Mindflayer colony is yet another "dungeon" but fails where all the others fail as well, I won't harp on about it any longer, I think I've made my point.

At the end, you'll discover that Ketheric isn't actually the game's main villain, as you may have been thinking up to this point. It turns out that he's a Paladin of Myrkul, his chosen even, and has enslaved an Elder Brain along with the chosen of the other members of the Dead Three, Orin (no relation to our Orin) and Turkish bastard Lord Enver Gortaş, representing Bhaal and Bane respectively.


Together, the three stooges cooked up a plan to hijack an Elder Brain and build an army full of potential mindflayers controlled via proxy, with the stated final goal being Lord Gort ruling Baldur's Gate and later the world. Ketheric is to launch a false flag attack on the city, Orin to commit acts of terrorism within it and Enver Pasha ultimately stops it all, becoming a hero and getting to be the city's mayor forever. They've also kidnapped Duke Ravengard and mind controlled him so he can make it official. The cult of the Absolute is just a front for the whole operation.

Tangent #4: This Plot Makes Absolutely (heh) No Sense

It really, really doesn't. Let's just begin with the motivation of the antagonists. Even better, let's start with the motivation of the gods they serve. Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul once agreed to split up the portfolio of Jergal, who is now dead (or so we think!). Bane got tyranny, ambition etc., Bhaal got MURDER and Myrkul became god of death. Bhaal specifically explained his choice thus:

"I choose death...I can destroy your kingdom, Bane, by murdering your subjects, and I can starve your kingdom, Myrkul, by staying my hand."

Keep this quote in mind. Why Bane's on board with he plan is rather obvious, he's supporting and funding some guy's megalomaniacal quest for power. Bhaal may as well be on board, since there'll be murder involved. Why, though, is Myrkul participating? He stands to gain nothing from any of it, people will die regardless of what he does. Ketheric will tell you that Myrkul expects him to take over the cult and betray his two allies but to what end is never explained and I couldn't imagine a single good reason. The god of death has no need of any intricate plots in order for people to die, does he? What's he gonna do with the cult?

Let's accept that all three stand to gain something, just for the sake of argument, and say, they all came together and chose their chosen so they could conquer Baldur's Gate, the world or whatever. There is no need to go through the trouble of hijacking an Elder Brain in order to execute the exact same plan. None. Need an army? Have Ketheric raise some zombies. I'm sure Myrkul can spare the odd death knight or two. Bhaal's involvement does not hinge on any tadpoling whatsoever and I couldn't imagine Bane having need of illithid mind control powers.

You'll learn that Mindflayers are in fact soulless, thus robbing gods of their worshippers and power. Having gods behind a plot to turn people into Mindflayers does raise some questions in-game. Bane will, in a semi-hidden dialogue, explain that they're doing the Mindflayer thing to stick it to the other gods. But Bane, you ARE a god yourself and you are also losing potential and actual followers. "You don't spread fear by tending your fields but by burning your enemy's". Um, MORON you are burning YOUR fields too! It's official, Bane does it to own the libs. Amazing.

You'll also later learn that the whole thing was Bhaal's idea. He wants to eradicate all life. When did annihilation become part of portfolio? Remember the quote from earlier? By killing everybody, he just gives up his role as the great balancer between Bane and Myrkul and decides to give Myrkul all the dead he wants. Again, why? And why did he need the help of the others to do this? His chosen alone could enslave the Elder Brain and build a Mindflayer army of his own. No need for this complicated cult front and 4d chess involving the conquest of Baldur's Gate, if just killing people was the endgame.

The Dead Three, aside from Bane, should have anything to do with this. Myrkul gets his dead no matter what he does, has no use for a weird tadpole cult and Bhaal has his followers commit murder fine as is. And even if the three all agreed on this hairbrained scheme, then there still would be no need to rope Mindflayers into this. This plot is complete garbage. Any fan fiction writer could've done better.


Why is Ketheric going along with any of this anyway? He only came to worship Myrkul in order to revive his dead daughter, which he did. She wants nothing to do with him but his main goal seems to and should be getting her back. He tries to kidnap her too. That's where his motivation should start and end. Did Myrkul command him to join up? If so, why? As established earlier, Myrkul also has no real reason to get involved.

It often feels like the writers could not decide whether to make the Mindflayers or the Dead Three the villains, compromised and cobbled together this mess of a plot. Either would've work completely fine on their own and this mish mash we got sacrifices the potential of either. I would've loved to explore alien Mindflayer facilities, hives, cooperate with the Githyanki against them and even see the odd Ulitharid or Alhoon. An adventure taking us to the edges of the planes fighting eldritch horrors beyond space and time would've made for a great and original setup. Likewise, a plot around the Dead Three exclusively would've also worked fantastically, fighting the minions of Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul, one act to each, would've been a more traditional affair but it that would have been fine by me. If they so desperately wanted to shoehorn both parties in there, then at least they could've gone for gathering the Dead Three in an alliance against an impending Mindflayer invasion, whose soullessness would've threatened the very gods themselves.

Imma Be Here All Day, So Let's Just Continue To Act 3

You eventually defeat Ketheric, get his Netherstone, a McGuffin used to control the Elder Brain, and go after the other two and their Netherstones. The game jumps the shark here. Ketheric turns into the avatar of Myrkul himself, creating the most spectacular encounter in the entire game, which no other boss fight past this point can live up to. Ketheric was built up as the main villain but now the player is getting rugpulled and is now left with two other dweebs, that haven't been built up nearly as much, do not possess an equal cool factor and all in all don't feel as threatening as Ketheric. He could've and should've been the game's main villain and he'd have been great. Instead, we get this weird tripartite alliance no one asked for.

Speaking of dweebs, those went to Baldur's Gate, meaning that for the first time since BG1, there's actually a Baldur's Gate in Baldur's Gate. On your way though, your dream guardian is under attack by Githyanki monks, forcing you to enter the Astral Prism that's been protecting you from getting enslaved by the Elder Brain and defend your friend. It is at this point that it is revealed that the dream guardian is a Mindflayer. Decent twist, but if you're anything like me then, you never trusted that weirdo in the first place. In a stark contrast to the excellent CnC of act 2, act 3 opens with the false choice of either siding with the Mindflayer or the Githyanki. If you side with the Yanks and kill the Mindflayer, it's game over, so you'll have to side with him. It turns out that the Prism is a prison for Prince Orpheus, only son of Gith, who has the power to disrupt Elder Brain signals or something. It is actually him who's been keeping the party from transforming, not the Mindflayer, who introduces himself as Da The Emperor.

At this point, the plot falls apart even more. If Orpheus is the source of our protection, then why do we need the Emperor? Why does killing the squid end the protection? Not to get ahead of the plot, but should you decide to send the Emperor away before the final boss, he leaves the Astral Prism, and guess what, NOTHING HAPPENS. Why do we lose our protection in this moment but not in the other? The game seems insistent on having Orpheus ultimately being what stops Elder Brain influence but it pulls this false game over just in order to railroad he player.


Aside from this, the Emperor is actually a great villain, because he keeps pretending to be your friend and to protect you for any other reason than for his own needs and because he's obsessed with turning you into a Mindflayer for some reason. Gaslight, gatekeep, squidboss. The people who side with him unironically have lost the plot and missed the point and I'm sure most of them would be very delighted to see a flyer from Scientology in their mailbox.

After that little incident, it's on to fancy, glorious and exciting Rivington! Rivington is the mandatory outskirts area of the big city region that has you faff about for a couple of hours with things no one really cares about. Sidequests include, finding some idiot's mail, going on an endless and notoriously boring fetch quest for a clown's bodyparts and ending the occupation of a house by illegal settlers, violating international law. There are some better plot hooks here, like the hunt for Cazador, a vampire lord and Astarion's former rapist molester master, and solving the mystery surrounding a string of Bhaalist murders and the emergence of the Stone Lord, boss of a newly formed crime syndicate. Again, lots to do here, but as opposed to previous content, the stuff here is more miss than hit.


Beyond Rivington there's Wyrm's Crossing. The big bridge from BG1 returns, something that we've all been waiting for. I personally really like that they made it historically accurate and put a bunch of dense housing on it, after all, people used to live on bridges back in those times. Visually, the bridge and the city of Baldur's Gate across from it, are visually fantastic, easily some of the best urban environment design I've ever seen in an rpg. The city actually feels medieval with winding roads, chaotic, clearly unplanned layouts, the roofing etc. A minor thing maybe would be that Baldur's Gate feels a lot more like Athkatla from BG2 than Baldur's Gate, and to me it's apparent that they took their design cues mainly from Athkatla. However, it feels a lot emptier in regards to content. Even Wyrm's Crossing for all its elaborate design and verticality has very little content, compared to areas in the previous two acts and even when compared to Baldur's Gate in BG1. It is common for rpgs to run out of steam toward the end but even this dropoff is quite steep.

Act 3's big gimmick, aside from gathering the Netherstones, is gathering allies for your final confrontation with the Elder Brain that's apparently been supercharged by the Crown of Karsus placed on it and has now become the Netherbrain, a world ending threat, capable of reestablishing the Mindflayer empire all on its own, so we're told. If you're Durge, your personal quest concludes in this act as well. In an extremely inelegant and lazy plot dump, you'll randomly keel over and get a vision, explaining that you're a Bhaalspawn. Not a huge shocker to be honest. However, not only are you a Bhaalspawn you are THE Bhaalspawn, the single purest Bhaalspawn ever made. Not born, MADE, basically Bhaalspawn Jesus and former leader of the cult of Bhaal in Baldur's Gate. And not only THAT, the entire plot around the Absolute was your idea.




You were the villain all along. While this is a cool reveal, it could've been executed a lot better than just dumping all of this stuff on you. Orin is your sister and the one who put a tadpole in your head in order to usurp your position as Bhaal's chosen. Now, it is time for REVENGE. You can get your groove back, murder two people using stealth jank and then get the possibility to drip yourself out in mad Bhaalist drip. I guess this as good a time as any to talk a bit about

Tangent #5 Itemization

BG3 has the right idea when it comes to itemization, prioritizing giving out good items very sparingly over showering the player constantly with new, possibly randomized gear. It also makes sure to give items interesting properties instead of just giving bonuses to rolls for example, though many items do that, along with other things. Sometimes, however, it feels like they went a bit overboard with this philosophy and made the properties of many items way too niche to be useful for anybody, unless you headed out with the intention to center your build entirely around dealing acid damage or whatever.

Aside from those, there still are many items that I personally would consider virtually useless but also many others that I'd say are irreplaceable. Both kinds are bad, because the one you'll never use and the other you'll always use, with the result being limited equipment and build variety. There are quite a number of weapons and armor especially that you can get in act 1 that will last you either the entirety of the game or at least until act 3. The adamantine splint armor comes to mind, as does the adamantine shield, the Blood of Lathander, the Soulbreaker Greatsword, the Knife of the Undermountain King and I'm sure many others I'm not even thinking of.


What's more, many items you get as quest rewards are very much underwhelming and often vastly inferior to the stuff you can buy from a vendor. Act 2 is a veritable desert of good items and much of your gear won't find a suitable replacement until act 3. In my opinion, good itemization is a very careful balancing act between flooding you with new stuff and starving you for it for too long. I think BG3 does a decent job at striking that balance but there are many moments where I ended up disappointed at the gear I found and saw no point in using, because I had gotten something better ages ago. All in all, it's far from a dealbreaker but I've seen it done better.

Back To Murdering

Returning champion and your grandpa Sarevok reinitiates you into the cult of Bhaal. This is one of the coolest moments in the game I think. Good revenge stories never get old. This sibling rivalry comes to a head upon getting to the Temple of Bhaal in the Undercity, culminating in a one on one duel to decide who's dad's favorite. The Temple itself is easily the coolest area in the game and while it doesn't really look like the Undercity from BG1, it feels as it should and it's just got the right vibes. The walk down to the Temple, during which you're retold the prophecy of Wise Alaundo, is a great little touch. Someone at Larian made it a priority to throw fans of the previous titles a bone, it seems.

If you've gotten the Slayer form beforehand, then the encounter with Orin often turns into a complete stomp, in either direction that is. While the encounter isn't great mechanically, narratively is absolutely perfect. Truly, the biggest highlight for me. You then are anointed Bhaal's favorite child by the god himself and are ordered to head out to destroy the planet. Again, none of your companions object to this and then act completely shocked when you actually do. Whatever, we've been over this.

There are other pretty cool high level boss fights to be had in act 3. For example, you can go back and fight Sarevok and get his sword and helmet if you win. That fight especially has a distinct puzzle like quality that's fun and interesting to figure out the solution to. Giving him the Deathbringer Assault is also a very nice touch of nostalgia, making Sarevok feel quite lore accurate. Special mention is reserved for the horrid and rancid grindathon that's the fight against Cazador that takes a gorillion years to finish. Not only are there tons of minions to get rid off, including eternally respawning spam bats but Cazador uses these incredibly swingy spells like Call Lightning or Blight that can either damage you for 5 or 500 hp if you fail your save, prompting a quick reload, should that happen at the wrong moment.


Aside from bosses ranging from great to terrible, there are a couple of interesting areas to explore in Baldur's Gate, even if the vast mass of houses and hidden alleyway would suggest that there'd be a lot more of it. Ramazith's Tower, yes, the very same, contains some very good hidden loot, though getting to it isn't the most exciting thing in the world. The sewers are back, minus the carrion crawlers, as is Sorcerous Sundries. Sadly, however, I have to conclude that the city is a lot more style than substance and feels kinda empty at times. The entire act is in service of finding allies for the final battle, which in itself is not that interesting to do from a narrative standpoint, and offers little in the way of more substantial plot development. The game tries its hand at some non conventional stuff, like tasking you with busting out some prisoners of an underwater maximum security correctional facility (it's the Iron Throne, they just dumped it in the ocean), which I thought was a neat little challenge. Aside from that though, it's all rather generic.

Act 3 consist of many different disconnected side stories that only serve to earn yourself a favor from somebody so that they'll help you in the endgame, making for an uninspired narrative structure and pacing that reminds me of a monster-of-the-week TV series. This is coupled with the fact that the remaining two villains, Orin and Gortash do not get nearly enough development or screentime to make them interesting, especially considering that they have to complete with Ketheric in that regard. They tried their best with Orin, having her screw you around with her shapeshifter powers, and as Durge, the conflict with her feels personal enough but as a regular ol' Tav, there is absolute no personality involved there.

Gortash is boring no matter how you slice it. He had potential, being a shrewd inventor sort of guy, who fights you using traps and gadgets, rather than his own raw skills but he's around for what feels like 15 minutes and gets little to no development in that time. You can ally with him in order to battle the Netherbrain but that is yet another false choice, because if you do, he gets obliterated by the brain immediately, and the rest of the game proceeds as it normally would. Speaking of missed potential, the entirety of the upper city of Baldur's Gate was cut, intended to be implemented but then given up on. You gotta understand, Larian only had millions of dollars and several years of outsourced unpaid playtesting via Early Access, you can't expect them to actually FINISH their game, now can you. This is extremely disappointing especially for fans of the series, who would've loved to see the entirety of the city reimagined with modern age technology. BG1's Baldur's Gate felt bigger, because it was, and had a lot more content, and that game is decades old and had only a fraction of the budget. I don't think there's much of an excuse to be found here.

Another bigger problem with act 3 and by extension the whole game is that the level cap is too low at a measly level 12. The actual problem is not the cap itself but that you hit it waaaaaaaaaaaay too early, long before you're even close with being done with act 3. This makes exp useless and takes a ton of incentive out of questing, so unless you really want some item or another that's given as a quest reward, you may as well head straight to the final boss for all the difference it makes. This is yet another indicator of BG3's overarching structuring problem. I can't think of any other rpg that messed up its level pacing to this degree. In BG1 and BG2 you have to put some real effort into even hitting the level cap in the first place and you may not even hit it when going solo and thus sucking up all the exp for yourself. This is something that should've never escaped playtesting and I don't see why the level cap could've been at least 14.


The meaninglessness of exp also means that the otherwise excellent combat starts to wear out its welcome by this point in the game. After close to a hundred hours, the game starts to run out of tricks and gimmicks to make its encounters interesting and the absence of substantial level ups also means that from here on out, you're not gonna see much variation in how you get to approach things anymore. The underwhelming dragon boss or the fanservice cameos by Minsc and Viconia do nothing for me in the absence of an engaging plot and combat. For all the intricate visual design that went into designing the city of Baldur's Gate, it can't help but feel hollow and reeks of wasted potential.

So. You've gathered all the allies you want, hit the level cap and are kitted out with the best magic gear money and blood can buy and got all three Netherstones. You're now ready for the endgame and if you're a crpg veteran then that thought should scare the hell out of you; crpgs have a notorious history of completely pissing the bed in the final moments. BG3's endgame starts off on completely the wrong foot and has you traverse a boring cavern hallway, containing exactly one single encounter that is completely inconsequential because you'll be healed and restored to full only minutes later. Then the game has you do a couple of superfluous checks to try and dominate the Netherbrain. You can fail those at your leisure, the only thing you'll get out of them is a minor health reduction of the final boss. The story still plays out just the same.


It turns out that the Brain is actually just Uka-Uka from Crash 3 and had the entire plot orchestrated in order to be brought the Netherstones and be set free from its shackles. That's right, first we thought, it's the Mindflayers, then we got twisted into thinking it's the Dead Three and then we got twisted right back. It's the old classic triple twist to the original status quo, plus with the reveal of the ultimate villain at the last second. I haven't seen this amount of tripe since I last played a jrpg.

You fail to dominate the Brehn and are told by the Emperor that now only a Mindflayer can dominate the supercharged abomination. He now suggests to eat Orpheus, absorb his power and take the Netherstones to dominate the brain. This raises so many questions with the game's already holey (as in riddled with holes) plot. Why didn't he eat Orpheus earlier? Why doesn't he do it right in that moment in order to make himself indispensable? If you refuse him, he just leaves and joins the Netherbrain. You don't fight him right then and there for who gets to enjoy freedom from the brain, he just throws up his slimy little hands, goes "Well, I tried!" and just gives up. What the hell? And like I said earlier, once he leaves, nothing happens to you, making the game over at the start of act 3 a massive plot hole and choosing to give the Emperor the stones objectively a wrong and stupid decision. So I did what any thinking person with a brain would do, told the squid to get lost and freed Orpheus.

Actually, any thinking person would try and get Omeluum, the friendly Mindflayer you can free from the Iron Throne, to fill in here but that's another plothole the writers in Belgium were too drunk to notice was there, so that's not an option. Once freed, Orpheus is hella pissed and very correctly explains that, had the party been killed by his honor guard, he'd have been freed earlier and able to easily defeat the Brain before it became too powerful. You know, drunk though they may be, but it takes an extremely ballsy kind of writer to just torpedo and obliterate their own plot like this. The guy's 100% right, you and the gang are a pile of morons and the world would have been better for all of your deaths. Oops!

Plot's been torn up, burned and ruined, does the endgame at least play well? While I feel like the endgame may absolutely not be everyone's cup of tea, I for one liked the final battle for Hoover Dam, I mean Baldur's Gate, along with the allies you've been gathering for the past few hours. They just show up and are all gathered in a conveniently not yet destroyed building like it's a high school reunion but I personally can look past this small contrivance, gamey as it may be.


All that stands between the gang and the final boss is one single hugely large encounter, and some weird escape sequence where you have to outrun a cannon barrage from a nearby nautiloid. Both can be skipped entirely using invisibility and having your designated Mindflayer just fly to the end. Not sure if that's intentional but then again they never fixed this, so I suppose Larian entirely meant for the endgame to be trivialized.

The final boss consists of another large encounter on the top of the Netherbrain itself (it's grown by a thousandfold, don't ask), which is prime time to summon all of your allies into combat. This is a cool moment, even if those summons primarily serve to draw fire, except for Yurgir, who's seemingly the only one capable of killing things. You don't need to beat the encounter, all you need to do is spend a turn opening a portal to the Brain's inner psyche or whatever and then engage in a 5 round dps race with it. Do that and you win.

And that's BG3. You get various different ending cutscenes depending on what you've done and if the narrative had been actually engaging then I'd have actually enjoyed them. I don't like ending slides as a concept much anyway, they don't influence the game at all and are only really impactful if the game's plot has been interesting up to that point, which in many rpgs it just isn't. You can get a very sappy anime-esque reunion party at the end, with everyone explaining, what they've been up to since saving the world, but, who cares. There's also a post credits scene with Withers roasting the Dead Three for whatever reason. Whatever they originally planned for that guy evidently did not pan out.

Is THIS The Game Of The Decade? Is THIS, Dare I Say, a Masterpiece?

No. That's the long and short of it. If you're gonna take away only a single thing from this review, let it be that BG3 does not live up to the hype or its reputation. This is not to say that it is bad; if you like the combat, the exploration and exploiting the game's systems, then there's a perfectly fine 7/10 rpg to be found here. If you don't, especially if you can't get anything out of the combat, then I am afraid there's nothing to offer you. I personally had fun, though act 1 drags on a bit on replays due to the lack of meaningful diverging paths you can take and act 3 seems so tacked on, insubstantial and unfinished in places, that I wanted to get it over with as soon as I could. Act 3 has its moments, but aside from that, nothing much else.

I could recommend the game or I couldn't. Either way, it makes little difference. The game's already turned a massive profit and is already being hailed as the new gold standard for video gaming, proof that single player games are not dead and economically viable, a shining example of writing and production as well as game design. They got Swen out here giving hour long interviews like he and Larian are the saviors of the industry, not dissimilar from how people kept praising CDPR after Witcher 3 came out.


I think we all know what became of CDPR and the lofty heights from which they fell. I am not in the business of gassing up mediocre developers just because they released a serviceable game in current year. Truth is, I've played better. BG2 surpasses BG3 in every aspect, except graphics and arguably combat, which to be fair to BG3 is excellent for the most part. However, in total BG2 did tons of things right decades ago, with a fraction of the manpower, budget and testing that Larian did wrong here. BG3 fails in too many areas to be considered one of the greats and comes up short even against titles of its own series.

This game is indicative of how low standards have become, a trend prevalent in other sorts of media as well. They rereleased Revenge of the Sith recently, a movie that was panned in its day, but today, in the absence of anything but Marvel slop, remakes and remasters, looks like Citizen Kane in comparison. Something, something, one eyed man is the king among the blind, something something.

Again, the game's fun, very good in parts even, but that is it. It's worth playing but do not expect a life changing experience or to find your new favorite game of all time. Here's hoping that it attracts tons of more people to the genre and leads them to try better games.

Ringlorn Saga Gaiden is a 2024 spinoff game to Graverobber Foundation’s 2022 retro RPG Ringlorn Saga. If you haven't read that review, you probably should. Assuming the role of a nameless revenant, the player is called back from the grave to right the wrongs of the world. Like its predecessor, Gaiden is meant for those interested in enjoying the Japanese action RPGs of the 1980s, particularly fans of the game Hydlide.


The story begins in the temple of Morrigan, Goddess of Witchcraft. She reveals her motives for having brought the player back from the Cosmos. A Dark Lord has taken over the land and made things unpleasant for the population. Now you get to clean up the mess, but Morrigan doesn’t leave you twisting in the wind; she bestows upon you a special gift: the power to use the strength of your enemies. She also drops a hint that you should seek her children, the other gods. Finally, she kicks you out into the cold, unforgiving world.


The bump combat of Ringlorn Saga returns for Gaiden. Walk into enemies to inflict damage and avoid being walked into. The three damage types return as well: slash, stab, and bash. Monsters are vulnerable to one or more types, which means continually switching between them to defeat foes. Your strength determines how hard you hit; defense keeps you from losing your head. The attack/defense mode helps keep you safe when not in combat. Stay in defense when traveling around, and switch to attack when you need to make something die.

It’s when monsters die that things get interesting in Gaiden. Morrigan promised you the power to use the strength of your enemies. Whenever you kill a monster in your normal form, you become the monster and inherit all of its abilities for a time. If you’ve played Ringlorn Saga’s Temple of Rebirth mode, then you already have an idea of how this works. The only monsters it doesn’t work on are the spectral undead: wisps and ghosts.

Being a monster has loads of benefits. First and foremost is that while you’re a monster, you can’t die. If your hit points reach zero, you revert to revenant form. Second, some monsters are plain better at dishing out punishment and taking it than you are. Finally, some monsters have special abilities, which include flying, opening locks, and being able to squeeze into small spaces.

However, monster mode is temporary; your hit points drain while in monster form and eventually run dry. It’s best to keep an eye on your current health and plan on whose skin you’re going to jump into next. You can also release a monster form early, so there’s no danger in getting stuck with something you can’t use.

Even if you do meet your end, Morrigan sends you back at the cost of some experience because otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a game.



You’d think that the Goddess of Witchcraft would bestow you the gift of magic on top of changing into other stuff, but no; you start off devoid of magical talent. She’s left that to the other gods to handle, which is a major portion of your quest. Each one will give you some kind of relic, granting access to new spells. You’ll also see a memory of your past, filling in the backstory.

Spells are the same as before: stuns, heals, buffs, and the like. To be honest, I used magic very little except to heal myself, and the delay in recharging the magic meter makes casting of limited usefulness. Some monsters give access to magic as well, which means you can cast more spells when you switch, but even then it’s more of a side-grade.


Ringlorn Saga Gaiden’s world is as small as Ringlorn Saga’s, but the place is far more open. Mountains, trees, and water can block your path, but you have the power of transformation. Bats frequent most of the world and provide the power of flight. So, if mountains have you down, fly over them. This change also means no more having to dive into caves just to get to the other side of somewhere and makes gameplay a smoother experience.


While the previous game had some chiptunes alongside some moody pieces, all of the music in Gaiden is downright sullen, befitting the darker world. Again, nothing quite stands out, but all of it is decent.


Other elements make a return for Gaiden, like buried treasures and medicine to keep you from re-dying on the spot. People still don't like talking to you with your weapon out, even if they are all ghosts. Since the world is open, there’s no searching about for keys to get into each dungeon. Gaiden only has one boss to fight, and he’s not difficult to find.



The transformation mechanic plays a big role in the game. You’ll often come across locked doors or chests, and the only way to get them open is to either find a specific item or become a monster armed with a dagger to force them open (which is much easier). There are doors in one dungeon that require the strength of a golem to open. You’ll also find a lot of windows in the game, windows you can fly into and out of if you’re a bat. At one point, I ended up jumping down a well and taking a lot of damage I could have avoided if I’d been a flying monster at the time. It’s a nice mechanic, and Gaiden uses it well to keep things interesting.




Gaiden is shorter than Ringlorn Saga. I clocked an hour and a half from start to finish, and there is, once again, no replay value to speak of. While I had a good time, I don’t know if I had five dollars worth of a good time, which is what Gaiden is currently priced at.

Ringlorn Saga Gaiden is well made and a lot of fun for the short time you’ll get to enjoy it, and it's basically more of the same with an interesting gimmick attached, but if you’re concerned about getting the most for your money, then you’ll want to wait until it’s on sale.

Developed by Bromantic Games, this relaxing indie settlement builder—currently in Early Access—lets you construct and manage a village while meeting every need of your simulated settlers.

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Gameplay

Folklands delivers a complex gameplay loop that will feel familiar to fans of city builders, but its intricate systems can make it more demanding than expected. You start small, with just a Town Center and a handful of settlers, and must meet specific criteria—like gathering enough resources or building certain structures—to grow your settlement into a larger village. Key to this growth are Builder’s Huts, which serve a dual purpose: they provide builders to construct new buildings and maintain existing ones, but only within the hut’s limited range. These huts require a steady supply of planks to function; without them, builders can’t perform maintenance, causing buildings to deteriorate and eventually collapse, forcing you to rebuild from scratch. Buildings are also prone to catching fire, requiring you to construct fire stations—also with a fixed range, meaning you’ll need multiple stations for larger settlements. Fire stations, in turn, need a constant supply of water, adding another resource to manage. One standout feature that sets Folklands apart from other builders is the Exploration Tower: you must actively construct this building and send explorers beyond your settlement’s borders to expand your territory, adding a layer of intentional progression that feels rewarding when you’re not overwhelmed by other tasks.
Sustaining your settlers adds yet another layer of challenge. They live in their huts, but simply building a berry hut or fishing hut isn’t enough to keep them fed—you must construct market stalls and manually stock them with a set amount of food and water. If these stalls aren’t consistently filled, settlers won’t survive, which feels tedious. They could easily fetch water from a well or gather berries themselves. This micromanagement, combined with the need to balance resources like stone, wood, and planks, makes the gameplay feel more stressful than soothing, despite the absence of combat or external threats. The Exploration Tower adds yet another responsibility, as you must manage explorers while keeping the village running smoothly. While the core loop of building, gathering, exploring, and growing your village has potential, Folklands currently feels more like a demanding settlement builder that requires constant attention to avoid collapse, rather than a cozy and relaxing city builder.

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Maps

The Game has procedurally generated maps, adding variety to each playthrough by allowing you to influence the landscape through in-game options, like map size, water level, and resource amount. These settings let you tailor the experience—smaller maps with fewer resources might feel more manageable, while larger maps with higher water levels could offer more space but also new challenges, like limited building areas. I don’t recommend anything above a small map size, due to significant performance issues. Larger maps cause the game to drop to 11-15 frames per second, regardless of whether you’re using a high-end gaming PC or a low-spec machine. The developers are aware of this issue and have been releasing daily hotfixes to improve performance, but at the time of this review, even small maps experience occasional frame dips, with larger maps consistently struggling at 15 FPS.

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Sound

Folklands features a cozy and relaxing soundtrack that provides a soothing backdrop as you manage your settlement, offering a welcome contrast to the game’s currently demanding mechanics.
The Soundtrack is cozy and sounds relaxing while you listen to your settlers mine stone (which has a sharp and high pitched sound) and chop wood (which is a pleasant chopping sound). Overall nothing to complain about, and it gets its job done quite nicely.

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Visuals and Art Direction

Folklands welcomes players with a delightful low-poly art style that feels both modern and nostalgic. Viewed from an isometric perspective, the game’s world is a cozy blend of vibrant greens, warm browns, and autumnal reds and oranges, crafting a whimsical, storybook-like atmosphere. Trees and stones are rendered with simple geometric shapes, giving the game a clean, minimalist look that prioritizes clarity over realism, while the buildings and settlers are far more detailed looking. I really love how the visuals don’t feel cluttered or overwhelming—I can easily tell what each building, like the wooden huts or the storage, is meant to do just by looking at it. The settlers move with basic animations, bringing the settlement to life without adding visual noise, while the soft color palette—lush grass paired with fiery fall foliage—enhances the game’s relaxing vibe. Bromantic Games’ art direction ties this aesthetic together with a clear vision: to create a calming, manageable world. The lack of clutter and easily understandable building designs—like the central storage standing out clearly—make the gameplay feel intuitive, ensuring the player’s focus remains on building, while reinforcing the game’s relaxed pace, perfectly aligning with its promise of a stress-free, creative escape.

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Conclusion

As mentioned, Folklands is in Early Access, and the foundation seems promising. The graphics feel nostalgic, and the colors are vibrant and inviting. The soundtrack adds a cozy layer, and the visuals are a highlight with their clear, uncluttered design. The gameplay is solid but can be improved upon—it’s currently more stressful than relaxing for me, with constant micromanagement and performance issues that detract from the experience. For these reasons, I would not recommend the game at this stage, despite my somewhat positive review. There’s potential here, but it needs more polish to truly deliver on its promise of a cozy settlement builder.

Ringlorn Saga is a top-down, action role-playing game developed by Graverobber Foundation. The player assumes the role of Gerhard the Brave, whose father, King Wilhelm, went missing in a nearby land overtaken by a mysterious magical barrier. It’s a short, retro RPG with simplistic story, gameplay, and aesthetics, designed for those longing for the style of games from the 1980s.



Hydlide was originally developed by T&E Soft in 1984 for the PC-88. From there, it received several ports to different systems, including the NES—the version most people in the West know. Hydlide featured open-world exploration at a time when nearly every RPG was a closed dungeon ecosystem. The game also featured attack and defense modes for protecting the player outside of combat and passive health regeneration instead of having to rest at an inn. Hydlide received several sequels, and the third game was remastered and released on the Sega Genesis as Super Hydlide in 1989.


The game begins with Fiona, Gerhard’s daughter, asking to hear the story of her father, which serves as exposition about King Wilhelm, the barrier, and how the captured lands belonged to an old friend of the family. The good king went off to the barrier and told his sons to wait a month for his return and to assume the worst if he didn’t. A month passed, and, sure enough, no Wilhelm. Gerhard takes it upon himself to look for his father and heads to the barrier, barely making it across the threshold before being clobbered by a sorcerer. He regains consciousness in the home of Adele, a young maiden who has nursed him back to health.






Ringlorn Saga uses bump combat, a mechanic in which you collide with an enemy to decrease its health while preventing it from doing the same to you. All monsters follow a basic “move and turn” pattern, and each time you strike, your power meter decreases; hitting an enemy repeatedly will do almost no damage.

The best tactic is a “stick and move” fighting style: When you approach a critter and attack, it will start following you. Hit the enemy then move away; rinse and repeat. For stronger enemies, this means not getting boxed in while leading them on a merry chase across the battlefield. The faster a monster is, the more dangerous it becomes to hit it more than once per move. Gerhard starts out weak, with basic equipment, and, like all good wimpy heroes, must venture out to kill things and survive to become stronger. Character stats are straightforward and don’t require much explanation: Strength determines how hard you hit, and defense gives you an idea of how much punishment you can take.


Like the original Hydlide, you can switch between defense and attack. While defending, your defense rate goes up and enemies have a harder time killing you. However, you do almost no damage. While attacking, you land harder blows, but you take more damage in return. The best policy is to stay in defense mode while traveling and only switch to attack when you know you can kill something. Gerhard can do three types of damage: slash, stab, and bash. Most monsters are vulnerable to one or more types, so you’ll need to adapt. One caveat to this are the undead, like vampires and ghosts, which are invulnerable to your attacks without a cross item. Once you have that, they take damage like any other monster, which makes the cross a gear check for progression.





Killing monsters nets you experience only; enemies in Ringlorn Saga aren’t unionized, so they don’t get a paycheck. All the gold you find is just that: found. Cash is tucked away in chests, buried across the world and sometimes earned by selling old items to the local merchant in the starting village. Cash comes into play when learning magic, and there was a ring for sale in the village for an outrageous sum of gold that I never could afford. It seems like finding all the gold in the game is a mini challenge. As you level, stronger enemies will appear on the playing field as a crude form of level scaling. The game begins with slimes and spiders, but they are later replaced with tougher beasts like ghosts and sorcerers.

Ringlorn Saga's era-appropriate chip tunes intermingle with synth, bordering on industrial instrumental. As someone who has played most of Graverobber’s other games, I found the music is similar to previous GR titles in style: melancholic and moody. All of the game’s music is decent but not quite memorable.




Gerhard can learn the secrets of magic during his adventure. A local temple will send him on a quest to visit the statues of the gods dotted across the world. A donation of one gold coin to each statue and a final visit back to the temple to the Statue of Morrigan, the Goddess of Witchcraft, will unlock the mystical arts. The priest at the temple taught me several spells and then sent me to another guy to learn more, until even he couldn’t teach me anything else. When I returned to the original guy, he told me I wasn’t strong enough to learn more despite reaching level 15 and being close to finishing the game. So, if there was one last spell for me to pick up, I never received it. Spells offer a variety of tactics, such as: temporarily stunning all monsters, shielding yourself as long as you stay on the current screen, or speeding up health regeneration. Unfortunately, some monsters can do the same magic, too. In combat, it pays to take out spell-casting enemies quickly.



Ringlorn Saga’s world is small. You don't really get lost as much as you get blocked. You often see places you want to go, but mountains wall off certain locales that can only be reached through underground passages. Caves are dark and nasty places, and you’ll need a lantern to see; some caves have items tucked inside as well. Certain areas are locked with keys held by bosses that you eventually encounter.


Boss battles in Ringlorn Saga are the same: You have a conversation with a bad guy, the screen fades, and then some monsters appear. Bosses perform magic and summon extra monsters during the fight. Otherwise, they're like any other monster that can be defeated with the same tactics. Once dispatched, they drop a plot coupon that Gerhard will pick up, after which he passes out, waking back up at Adele’s house, reinforcing the Florence Nightingale Effect.



Ringlorn Saga, overall, is short and sweet. Some content is optional, like getting that ring I mentioned. A few side quests may also be optional and strictly to earn experience. The basic loop comes down to finding a key to a dungeon, clearing it, and killing the boss for the next key until you reach the last dungeon. Bosses always provided some helpful insights on where to go next before they die, so you shouldn’t get too lost, and if you do, there’s always the town bard.

When you reach the final boss and get all the exposition, you stab him until he dies. Towards the end of the game, most monsters couldn't put a dent in me. The final boss still proved to be a challenge, and I relied on healing magic to keep me alive during the last battle.

In addition to the main game, there’s one extra play mode: Temple of Rebirth. In this mode, you start out as a lowly slime in a normal dungeon. The twist? You transform into whatever enemy you kill. You need to work your way up the monster food chain while navigating the dungeon until you reach the final boss.



I enjoyed the game quite a bit, clocking three hours from start to finish, including Temple of Rebirth. At the time of this writing, Ringlorn Saga is $8 on Steam, which is asking a lot for a game with only three hours worth of gameplay and no replay value. Even if I were to track down every scrap of gold to buy that ring I missed and hunt for any other potential secrets, that effort might add an hour extra, at most.

Ringlorn Saga is fun, and a great deal better than the game it takes cues from. It does the retro shtick well, but eight bucks for three hours is way too much. Get this on sale.

Door Kickers 2 is a top-down tactical squad-based game with real-time-with-pause (RTWP) mechanics, thrusting you into the high-stakes world of SWAT operations where every move could be your last.
Developed by KillHouse Games, the studio behind Door Kickers and the spin-off Door Kickers: Action Squad, this sequel builds on their knack for delivering tense, strategic action that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

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World and Background

Set in the real world, the player commands Special Operations Units in daring raids to rescue hostages and neutralize or capture terrorists in a fictional Middle Eastern country called Nowheraki. Single missions include briefings that provide a bit of lore; for example, the FNG missions feature a ranger scouting party discovering small insurgent camps, bases, or workshops that need to be cleared. Campaigns, however, do not have a story, only a theme.

I’m not a big fan of the whole “let’s invent a country” approach. Just use one of the real Arab countries, where conflict has happened or is still ongoing, like Iraq or Syria. I can’t stand developers tiptoeing around these things. I remember how the modern Medal of Honor had to rename the Taliban to “Opposing Force” because, as some put it:

The game sparked controversy among pundits and military families who took umbrage at the notion that gamers could take the role of the Taliban and pretend to kill U.S. soldiers.

That’s nonsense—nobody who fought in Vietnam or World War II ever complained about players being able to control Nazis or the Viet Cong in those games. It is fictional; it's not like every time you kill an online player suddenly a US Marine drops dead.

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Gameplay

The gameplay revolves around planning and execution: you can pause at any time to issue commands, adjust movement paths, and coordinate actions such as breaching doors, deploying flashbangs, or covering angles. The AI reacts dynamically, meaning enemies don’t always behave predictably, requiring adaptability. The game emphasizes careful positioning and synchronization over pure reflexes. You can choose to play in real-time, with the option to pause.

It features a realistic damage system, where both your units and enemies can be taken down quickly if caught off guard. Weapons, gear, and tactics vary depending on the faction you play as, adding variety to your approach.

However, some aspects of the gameplay are less polished. For example, crouching prevents operators from shooting, which can leave them vulnerable to being overrun and shot—potentially ending your current attempt, depending on how you play. This is especially frustrating, because enemies can crouch and blindfire from cover, while your operators sometimes fail to shoot at all, leading to frequent restarts.

One feature that I liked a lot was the grouping.
Take a typical insurgent hideout: you pause, set Group A to breach the door with a charge, Group B to toss a flashbang through the window, and sync it so they hit at once—unpause, and it’s controlled chaos. Campaigns layer on more, with objective chains like clearing a workshop then hitting a supply dump. The maps don’t shuffle, meaning several tries can result in you having the perfect plan. It’s not endless like some roguelikes, but the mix of single missions and Ironman runs keeps you hooked.

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Squads and Equipment

Door Kickers 2 gives you three factions to choose from when forming your squad for missions: US Rangers, Nowheraki SWAT, and CIA. You start with the Rangers, unlocking SWAT and CIA after completing a set number of single missions. US Rangers are well-rounded for direct action, capable of deploying a large number of operators to overwhelm enemies—perfect for the early game. You can enhance them with doctrines, like “Long Range Drills,” which boosts accuracy and engagement speed for long-range targets, or others that improve handguns, rifles, or support roles. Nowheraki SWAT, with older equipment and less training than the Rangers or CIA, still fight with determination, making them a solid choice. The CIA is the toughest to play, operating undercover amidst terrorists with limited equipment and weapons, demanding careful strategy. I like the Rangers best, maybe because of a weird obsession from military movies and Call of Duty games—they look the coolest and have the best gear, from guns to gadgets.

Equipment’s key to making any squad work, unlocked with stars from missions. You get Primary Firearms (ARs to SMGs), Secondary Firearms (pistols for backup), Headgear and Chest for protection, Tactical items like drones or flashbangs, Lethal options like grenades, and Field Upgrades for tweaks like faster reloads. You start basic, but completing missions and campaigns builds your arsenal, letting you go loud or silent as needed.

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Enemies

Door Kickers 2 throws a wide range of enemies at you, mostly terrorists with a few rogue factions mixed in. Turncoat Militias—Nowheraki SWAT gone rogue—are rare but pack the same stats as grunt insurgents, wielding AK-47s. Poor Recruits, armed with double-barrel shotguns, SMLE bolt-action rifles, PM-63s, or AK-47s, aren’t skilled but can ambush if you skip clearing closets or toilets where they cower. Most Insurgents carry AK-47s, wearing white robes and turbans, while a deadlier version in black with AKMs are more professional. Pistol Insurgents, using TT-33s, are the weakest—no armor—but still hurt up close. Veterans, in black garbs with chest rigs, use AKS-74u or FALs, carry two frag grenades (rarely thrown), and blind-fire heavily from cover; grenades are your best bet against them. Rocket Insurgents wield RPG-7s, or a variant with RPG-26s and backup AK-47s—wildly inaccurate, but can wipe a squad with a lucky shot. Sniper Insurgents, also in black, are long-range threats with quick aim, high crits, and armor-piercing shots; smoke helps you close in, or grenades can clear their nests. Machinegunners carry RPK-74s or RPKs with drum mags, some with ammo belts, others with 200-round RP-46s that pierce armor—they blind-fire often, but fall to grenades. Foreign Advisors, in brown robes and white turbans, have sharp senses (110-degree FOV, 2m sight radius), making stealth tough; their SR3-M carbines with AP ammo shred armor fast, backed by rarely-used TT-33s.

Then there’s the Forbidden Tree faction. True Believers, fanatical foreign fighters resembling Advisors, use AK-47s and detonate themselves when badly hurt or close to you. The Emir, a special foe with a vest, uses an AKS-74u (4x scope, 45-round mag), has a 2m sight radius, and self-detonates at 20 HP or less. Executioners are a nightmare in hostage missions—spot a dead ally, and they’ll rush to kill a hostage, or blow themselves up with suicide vests. Suicide Bombers (S-Vests), in white robes, charge you in tight spaces and explode, making them hard to stop without quick shots.

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Sound

Door Kickers 2 has voice acting for the operators, with lines when you pick them, move them around, take out enemies, or leave them idle for a bit. It’s simple stuff—gruff callouts and quick orders—that fits the tactical feel. Gunfire and explosions fill out the rest, keeping things lively without overdoing it. Gunfire sounds different depending on which guns are shot and even silenced weapons have their own distinct sounds. Airstrikes sound impactful and even the A-10 Thunderbolt II has its iconic BRRRRRRT sound.

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Maps

Door Kickers 2 offers maps that range from small to large. Small ones, such as hideouts or backyards, are designed for fast breaches and close calls. Larger ones, like compounds with guards and machine guns, make every decision critical. They vary in size and atmosphere, and although the layouts remain consistent, different enemy patterns provide enough variety to keep the experience engaging.

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Visuals

Door Kickers 2 shifts gears from the first game’s style. Where Door Kickers 1 had a flat, board-game look—simple maps and characters like a Dungeonmaster’s setup—this one goes fully 3D. Environments and operators get more depth: compounds and hideouts have a rugged, lived-in feel, and gear stands out sharper. It’s still top-down, but now it’s got the grit of an FPS, but still keeping things clear and focused.

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Difficulties

There are no selectable difficulty levels; however, the game becomes increasingly challenging the further you progress.

Campaigns do, however, offer an Ironman mode in which you cannot restart, troops face permanent death, but you earn double the rewards.

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Conclusion

Door Kickers 2 is an intense and tactical strategy game that captures the Middle Eastern conflict well, both in audio and visuals. Quick thinking is key, but the ability to pause and issue commands keeps the pressure manageable. Despite minor flaws, like the crouching mechanic, it’s a solid experience with plenty of depth. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys strategy games with a focus on planning and coordination—it offers plenty of variety to keep you engaged.


Link to game on Steam: https://game.page/doorkickers2/RPGHQ