Episode 15: Baldur's Gate 3, Act 3

Larian's masterpiece is wrapped up this week - where will CRPGs go from here?

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Adventure Starts Here podcast.
Today we'll be discussing the absolute mammoth that is
Balder's Gate 3. Finally wrapping up with Act
Three. Please be mindful of spoilers
for Balter's Gate 3 as well as some mild spoilers for
Expedition 33 and Balter's Gate 1 and 2.
Also, if you're a regular listener, check out our YouTube

(00:31):
channel at Tashbot on YouTube where Ben has been putting in
some phenomenal work splicing and footage of our playthroughs
for you to watch. Lastly, we changed the format of
our discussion and let us know if you like the more free
flowing style we went with. With all that out of the way,
enjoy our final discussion of Baldur's Gate 3.
It starts a little spicy, so enjoy.

(00:54):
Kill fuck Mary Oren. Catherine Gortash.
Who kill? Fuck.
What were the three? Catherick who?
The Dead 3. Oren Gortash Catherick.
Mary Catherick 'cause he's a devoted husband.
Fuck Oren 'cause she's crazy. Kill Gortash.
Cause what? He's boring?
What does he have to offer? Milk toast.
It's funny 'cause I would marry Gortash and I would fuck Oren

(01:18):
and kill Catherick. I would too.
Exact same with the contingent with Oren that I decide what
happens in the bedroom. Yeah, very true.
I'm not. I'm.
Not Harry Oren. I don't know.
She's fun, that. Tells me a lot about I don't
think I want. Catherick around.
I think I could have Oren aroundthough.
She's a shapeshifter though, so it's also like if.

(01:39):
You get saved for you. She just turns into something
else, you know, like Catherick. I I feel like I get sick of a
shtick after a day or two but like Gortash is dead three times
over. But yeah, the problem with like,
I don't know if any of you choseto kill Catherick, but it
wouldn't actually do anything. It's kind of a wasted slot.
That is a good point. That's kind of a freebie.
Yeah, that's why I did it. I mean, I mean, to me, Ked

(02:04):
Kedery like moved mountains for his family in like not so good
ways. So I feel like he would, he'd,
he'd be a good provider, you know?
But I feel like he would be thatparent where like, like he like
he breaks the boundary in some kind of way and you start
pushing him away and he's like, Nope, come back and he's like
really pushy about it, you know?No, like he's clingy.

(02:27):
Yeah, clingy. Parent helicopter parent for
sure. Yeah, I could see that.
He went to every single one of Isabel's games, soccer games
for. Sure, luckily the prompt was not
it had to do with marrying him. So he's not going to be my
parent because that would be. I mean, that'd be even more
fucked up than it already is. I mean, if you're choosing Oren

(02:48):
then I think by default that makes you her daddy.
That's true. No, it's fits.
Fuck Oren all day dude. Like, you know, she's down for
some weird shit. I'm marrying because you can
fuck her multiple times and likeI said, she could shape shit.
Yeah, but look what you did to her mom.
Dude, I don't. I don't want to be the next on
her shit list. That's why you're.
Married. I want someone more domestic if

(03:08):
I'm going to marry him. That's why I'm marrying Gortash.
My I agree. Greatly improved actually, in
this playthrough. Yeah, and like it like if you
just look at gortash in a vacuum, like dude outside
disregard morals, morals don't fucking matter.
I'm I'm marrying the guy. Fuck it.
Dude just wants to, you know, live a lavish lifestyle.
Sure, secret cultist of Bane, but you, you know, whatever.

(03:33):
He's gonna give me nice clothes and I get to be an arch.
Duke S Or you know, that's true.I didn't think about the fact
that Gortash's entire thing is just that he wants to be a
dictator so I could enact my list exactly dictator.
Yeah, and if you play Dirt, he really, really likes you.
Yeah, that's one. God he is so much fucking better

(03:54):
in a dirge playthrough, like nondirge playthroughs he is just so
he's nothing, he's so nothing. But in Dark Urge it's like, oh
shit, this is actually like fucking.
He's so much better. Yeah, I I was really surprised
at just how much depth they added to him with the Dark Urge

(04:14):
playthrough. And that just speaks to the
broader point that I said when we started all of this, which is
I think Dirge is just the, yeah.That's the best first
playthrough. It is the best.
Jordan, do you have, do you givea shit about like are you ever
going to replay this game? I mean, I might, but I don't
care about spoilers. You sure?
Cuz it's really good. I'm I'm really glad that I

(04:35):
managed to avoid spoilers for itfor like 2 years straight cuz
it's fucking awesome. Yeah, I mean, I'm probably won't
play this game anytime soon and like by the time I would play it
again, I probably forget about whatever you're going to say.
And even if not, I don't think it if it's good enough, it
doesn't matter to me. Well basically darker just like
you're the 4th person in like the Oren Gortash Catherick

(04:58):
squad, but Oren fucked you up and basically removed your
memories because you were supposed to be balls like
chosen. So Gortash is like oh shit
you're back. And it actually makes him like a
significantly more like compelling character because he
knew you. Seems cool.

(05:19):
Jordan, after you killed Oren, did you go into her little
bedroom? No, I don't kill Doran.
I forgot to even interact with anything there.
I don't even. I still don't know if Allison's
dead or not. He's still just tied up there.
He's fine. I have no idea.
I've like, I, I left and then like after I beat the game, I
was like, huh, I never see if I never got Halston off the altar.

(05:44):
Yeah, like if you if you go under a bedroom.
The main thing if you're not in a Dirge playthrough is that you
know, you, you might have seen Dirge when you were hovering
your origin characters at the start of the game.
He's like the White Dragonborn character and you find the body
of the Dark Urge in her bedroom because in the Tav playthrough
she killed the Dark Urge insteadof oh that's cool escaping or

(06:06):
whatever. Yeah, Dark Urge is, is honestly
like, like I regret telling you you shouldn't play it is how
good I thought it was. After playing through the game
with the the being the good guy,I definitely think I should have
been the bad guy. Well, I mean, I don't know if
it's necessarily that the evil playthrough itself was like
super good I I mean, it was likesuper ridiculously evil dirge

(06:31):
was a lot of fun and the ending is fucking nuts.
But just dark urge itself, like,regardless of whether or not
you're like resist urge, evil dirge, whatever.
Like, it gives you such a bettertie in to the overall plot
'cause you're actually involved with it rather.
Than tab yeah, you're you're literally the most important

(06:51):
person. You're the reason why the whole
game happened. Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like TAV is a mistake.
I think. I think Tav's like boring as
shit. I read somewhere, I read
somewhere and I couldn't corroborate it through Google
that originally Larry actually had it.
So that Dark Urge was like the only play through and then they

(07:11):
expanded it to the origin characters and and then Tav or
the other way around. I'm not sure.
But it sure seems like originally they had Dark Urge in
mind as like the play through. Yeah, I feel like at the bare
minimum they probably had the main character being a ball
spawn at the like. That's the first playthrough
they're gonna start just becauseof Balter's Gate one and two, if

(07:33):
nothing else. Yeah, like that's why it makes
sense to me that it would be thestarting point is because of
Balter's gate one and two. You are like the ball spawn of
all fucking ball spawns. Yeah, I imagine that they did
not do it just because probably focus testing.
I assume they probably focus tested a certain cutscene with

(07:55):
Alphira and Act One. And from that feedback, they're
probably like, maybe we should make TAV.
Maybe I mean, I will I feel likethere's an easy solution to
that, which is just like obscurethat behind like some checks to
like resist it or something. I mean, I maybe that goes that
kind of goes like against the point of it maybe and like

(08:16):
undermines some of the stakes ofbeing dark urge.
But I mean, if that was the realproblem, then there's an easy
solution for that, I think. I think that they just created
the ideal video game of all video games and like the game's
a fucking playground. So they just wanted to make sure
that you had as many degrees of freedom as possible.

(08:38):
Yeah, like, I guess if they're gonna put the dark urge in the
game, then then as as well as other main playthroughs that you
could have, then you may as wellgo all in with it, right.
And to do that, you have this like really fucked up murder
scene that happens in the first act to demonstrate, hey, this
can happen. Be careful.
You could kill the fucking Shadowheart that you've been

(08:59):
romancing all game. You better pay attention.
Yeah, that was like the crazy thing about evil dirge.
I I need to go back and look at how like good dirge or resist
dirge ends because there is not a permutation for evil dirge.
That's that's pleasant. It's either you literally kill
the entire world or you're like a schizophrenic crazy person

(09:23):
hunting down your former squad. Like the fact that it has the
option piss yourself was like ohJesus Christ like what happened
here? Yeah, I think, I think the
epilogues are some of my favorite additions to the game
that they made bar none. Because like just to give some

(09:45):
context for Jordan in particular, the original game on
launch, it didn't have an epilogue at all.
Like the little like party with your friends and the game just
ends after the scene on the docks if you know which one I'm
talking about. Yeah, this was actually the

(10:06):
first time I saw any epilogue because I'd never played it
after they patched it in. Yeah, I don't think there was a
single extra like post docs cutscene in the original game.
And then characters like Carlac just get completely shafted
because there is no way for themto have any ending where they

(10:27):
live in a reasonably happy way. Yeah, Carlock was especially
egregious because there were certain permutations in the
original ending setups where if you did things in a certain way,
you wouldn't even see her. She would just die off screen.
It was fucking stupid. Yeah, so that was how my, like,
first game ended, because I beatthis game, I don't know, around

(10:48):
a week after it came out. And the ending I got I, I was
like goody 2 shoes all the way through my very first
playthrough. And the ending was like
horrific. It was like Karlak got turned
into a mind flare. Astarian is like, oh shit, my
tadpole's gone. I'm like burning up in the sun.
Lazel didn't do anything becauseI missed all the Githyanki stuff

(11:12):
and the only person who really had any kind of good ending was
Shadowheart. Everyone else it was just like,
well bye, this sucks. Yeah, that also reminds me about
the original evil ending, where you know when your character
sits down in the throne and like, says they're one voice
line in the entire game. That's when the game ends.

(11:33):
Like there's nothing after that in the original endings, Yeah.
Yeah, the messed up thing Thomasmentioned about the Astarian
ending in the original is that that part where he gets burned
by the sun? I'm pretty sure that happened
even if you ascended him, which isn't supposed to happen.
He's. Yeah, that sounds like a bug,
right? Yeah, that doesn't make any
sense. I I mean, it certainly feels

(11:54):
like a bug, but they just didn'thave anything else to replace it
with, right? What month did this game would
come out? I think it was in the fall like
I think it might have. I think it might have been
September. So in one game of the year with
all this broken shit. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't
broken. It it's, it wasn't broken, it
just didn't have like the most satisfying ending in the world.

(12:16):
Which is apparently the same as what happened in DOS 2.
But the difference, you know, even DOS 2 added those like
panel slides or whatever, kind of like Tides of Numenera did.
But then this game just goes whole goddamn hog and you get
the entire party with all of your characters after and there
is so many there. There are just so many things

(12:36):
that can happen in that party. Like you can get letters from
Ethel if you let her live there.There are so many tiny little
things that will get called backon in the party camp.
Did you get it? I assume you guys like the party
edition? So I did when I experienced it
this playthrough. Withers didn't invite me to a

(12:58):
party, but it was kind of disappointing because I did want
to see like some of the evil permutations of the epilogue.
But because I was a unholy assassin, I basically had to do
a ball set or be tortured for eternity.
So if I did see the applause, I read about certain things in the
evil playthrough I really wantedto see.
Like when I romance Cesarean whowho was ascended, I didn't like

(13:21):
that he was kind of a Dick to me.
So I did get my revenge on him in my ending choice where I just
made him explode basically. But what I wanted to see really,
and this is only something I've read about, is that in the
epilogue, you he's just being a douche and you can forcibly make
him like kneel to you. That's what I wanted to see so

(13:42):
bad. Yeah, and I mean just like
touching on Astarians character in general, like he's a actually
I don't, I don't want to get toofar away from the camp stuff.
Did you guys have more stuff youwanted to say about the camp?
Because I just think it's great.I didn't give a shit about the
camp because there was already like, like I, I didn't like have
a good narrative experience withthe game.

(14:02):
So the time I got to the camp I was like, yeah, whatever.
It didn't really change anythingfor me.
I'm in the same boat as Ben, where it was either my party
died after the nether brain diedor they died in a camp later on.
So there there was no camp, there was just there's this

(14:23):
murder. Oh, right.
What didn't you like about the narrative, Jordan?
Is it anything unique to Act Three or is it just the whole
thing? I mean, it's just kind of like
how everybody should resolve. Like I feel like Shadow Hearts
should resolution. I'd like, I regret her switching
over to saloon. Like I feel like she would have
a better time if she stayed Shar.
And yeah, Carlack has to go through bullshit.

(14:44):
She doesn't get to just fucking be chill and live in.
You have to do some kind of nonsense like compromise ending
and then pass that. Like the main narrative thing is
basically nothing if you're tabbed.
So that's that wasn't interesting.
I'm curious how like Shadowheartrescuing Night Song or no?
I'm sorry, Shadowheart, Killing Night Song and rescuing her

(15:07):
parents would turn out. I figured you wouldn't rescue
her parents if you were still onthe sharp side.
Oh no, I've I've fucking killed the fuck out of them.
Yeah, me too. I mean, they do give you the
option, but it just seems like, I don't know, I feel like you
might get fucked really hard by Char with like in terms of like
gameplay consequences. So I didn't do that and I was

(15:27):
just like, fuck it, just kill him.
But I was just curious, Jordan, what ending did you get with
Karlak Mind Flayer? Oh Yikes.
Oh, that's what. I wanted I looked him up because
it's like the steel watch guy tells you like, hey Carl, you
should get your shit looked at in the the forge.
So before I blew the forge up, Iwas like, I think I missed this.

(15:47):
And then I looked up like the options you can get.
And I was like these all. Fucking suck.
Like I'm not, she's not going down there with will, like fuck
that guy. So I was like, fuck it, I was
just going to let her die. But then she was like, I really
want to be a mind flare, so I was like, whatever.
Oh yeah, that's a shame because like the ending where you go
with her to Averness and Will can come to as like a third
wheel is like my favorite endingin the whole game.

(16:07):
Because what happens is Carlac Tab and Willed, if you let him,
they like jump out of a portal into a Vernus and then Carlac
takes out a bunch of cigars and like lights it with her fingers.
She's like, let's get to work and then just go killing demons.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And like, that's one of the onlylike true positive endings you

(16:29):
can get for Carlac because for whatever Withers reasons, you
get to see her at the party at the end.
And she mentions like, yeah, we found this forge of from Czariel
and we're going to go there and we're going to try to get my
engine fixed. So it's still like gives you
some amount of hope where the other endings are just fucking
depressing. Yeah, and I don't know if you

(16:49):
knew this Jordan or if it's beendiscussed already, but Carlike
was actually added like really late into the development cycle
of the game. So I think a lot of the reason
why her narrative doesn't reallyfeel fleshed out as well,
because it's not. I think it's fine, I think she
just has like a poor resolution I.
Don't know, I think the I think the resolution of her going to

(17:11):
hell with Will and Tab is cool. Yeah, but that's the only good
one in I kind of see Jordan's point because I thought about
this originally where like, if you look at her like story arc
and Gail's story arc, they're kind of similar where they both
have like a bomb in them, but like GAIL gets like become a
fucking God and Carl just gets fucked over.
Just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

(17:31):
It did in my first play through.Yeah, me too.
And that's why I, I made it I, Imade it right for her in this
play through. Act one instantly dark urge.
You see Gail's hand in that portal, you just RIP that shit
off and that's it. RIP bozo, get the fuck out of
here. I.
Read that if you play as Carlack, you can ascend to

(17:51):
heaven with GAIL. Yeah, I think there's, yeah, you
can do something with him, I think is any origin, not just
Carlack I. Think and then that's that's
apparently like what people say is like the best possible
outcome because yeah, she gets to go to heaven with him, but
it's still not like one that I first of all, I don't want to
interact with GAIL and second ofall, I want her to be alive on

(18:12):
fucking Fay room. Wait, I missed it.
Who was your third party member?You had Carlack, Shadowheart and
who? A Jihiro.
But it was really like just Philbecause I got a really like a
fourth character. That's kind of a shame because I
actually think GAIL is one of the more interesting characters
for an evil playthrough. Obviously you're not going to

(18:33):
have him in a full evil darker run.
That's like, I thought he was pretty fun to have in my evil
playthrough that was, again, power at any cost and like his
fucking absolute ambition and desire to get the crown of
cards. So I feel like played well in an
evil playthrough but. But it's like when you say evil
playthrough, it's like a pseudo pseudo evil, right?

(18:53):
Because you have to, you have tosave the Grove, right?
Or otherwise he just leaves. I think he's one of the ones
that can stay. It's Carlack and Will that will
leave. Oh OK, well I guess he just
fucking hated in the heat. Well no that's not true he was
dead. But in a previous playthrough I
did where I did the where I killed the Grove he he fucked

(19:14):
off too. So I guess he just didn't like
me. Yeah, it might have been just
super low approval. Yeah, that's what I was going
to. Say well, while we're on the
subject of dirge, one of the questions Jordan had in the
thing was about egregiously evilshit.
Jordan, did you want to ask him about that since they did the

(19:35):
evil shit? Oh yeah.
What's the most remorseful that you guys were for evil action
that you took either in this play through or any play through
that you've done in this game? So the weird thing is that like
I maybe it's because it was so much time that has passed since
my last playthrough, but I was actually very OK with like all
the evil shit I had to do. I actually loved it.

(19:56):
Revel didn't even a lot of them.But there is one thing that I've
literally never done in a playthrough and it's like I
just, I physically can't do it. It's an act one with Arabella I.
It's tending, it's the evil choice and I just can't do it.
It's letting the snake bite her.I just and it's less about her.
I don't give a fuck about kids, but I just can't deal with the

(20:17):
snake. That's hilarious.
As as as you were describing that I was like, I was like,
wait, who's there? Oh, it's the chick with the oh,
he doesn't care about her. He just doesn't want to see that
fucking. Snake.
It's like you killed every single fucking kid in the Grove.
You don't care about her. You care about the snake.
It's funny. Because I she got bit in mind.

(20:39):
You find the good guy. I fucking, I let that bitch get
bit and then I just was like, all right, now the rest of you
die like I I let him do it and then I killed everyone else in
the fucking room. You know, it's kind of like talk
shit, get hit. It's kind of my thing where I
was like, yeah, she kind of deserved it.
I mean, she did. She really did.
Yeah, that's why I was like, yeah, I'm not intervening.

(21:01):
Let's see what happens and then,oh, tell us those though.
Just tell the parents like got to watch a kid better.
Exactly. Have another one dumbasses.
Take 2. Is that like the only way to
kill a kid in this game? Because I know that like
normally like in just regular expiration if you attack any
children characters they just like spurg out and run away.
You can't actually kill them. Yeah, that's what happened to my

(21:23):
Yenna and my first play through.She like boyed out boy.
I'm sorry that's I. I lied because literally in this
play through Orton stabbed the fuck.
Out of the hell yeah yeah yeah that's true.
Yeah, Yenna was mega dead by theend of my playthrough.
I was confused though. I thought.
I thought Warren takes a party member and she had access to
Shadow Heart but she took Yenna.I think there's only a certain

(21:46):
subset of party members that shecan take, and if they're not
available or they're in your active party, she takes Yenna.
And that's literally the whole reason why Yenna exists in the
game is to be kidnapped if thereare no other valid choices.
I will say actually sacrificing Yenna was a pretty big feels bad

(22:09):
man, because if you speak with dead on her after she dies, all
she talks about is like, oh, just go cook some food for me.
Like how do how do I honour you?Oh, just eat some food.
It's it's not a nice one. Is that is that your choice for
Jordan's? Question, I mean honestly this
was the first evil dirge playthrough I've ever done and

(22:32):
it's pretty hard to top that fucking ending dude.
Like when you mind control your other three party members and
just make them fall to their death and then you just
slaughter literally the whole world.
Yeah, I don't. I don't know if it gets much
worse than. That wait I I'm sorry I I my lie
is too strong. In the evil dirge ending a third

(22:54):
child dies. I just remembered this.
They get impaled by like a ball sword in the chest.
Oh yeah, that little T fling kid.
Yeah, yeah, he's so 3 kids can die.
Yeah, I think for me, like the absolute most fucked up shit is
some of the stuff Thomas was talking about with the vampire
ascendance stuff like, Oh my God, you talk to the people in
the jail cells and it's so fucking sad.

(23:18):
And then you go through with what Astarian is telling you,
that he wants to kill you kill 7000 people just to give him a
power grab. And that's fucked up.
But I think the most fucked up thing is doing that and then
mind controlling him with the evil ending.
Like you went through all of this just to not have an

(23:39):
interior master anymore and now you're mind controlled again.
Get fucked. Oh no I romance.
I ended up like having this my main romance and I think he
earned his gruesome death in theend.
That's just my opinion. Yeah, he's not.
He's not much better. I mean, he looks at that crown
of carses or no, he looks at. In my playthrough it was the

(24:00):
Starion took one look at Orpheuswas was like, I know what you're
thinking, just do it. So he reaped the fucking
whirlwind on that one. Yeah, I asked this question
because after doing like a kind of good play through I ended up
not giving a shit so much about most of the characters where I
was like I think I would have liked just fucking dudes up.

(24:22):
Yeah, like go ahead, Thomas. No, I was just going to say I
feel like I really wanted to like steer you in the direction
of characters to choose, but then I was like, Nah, just let
him natty it because I knew I knew the ones you were picking.
I was like, he's not going to like these.
I mean, the only one that I feellike I should have taken that I

(24:43):
didn't was Lazelle. Is that her name?
Yeah, yeah, she's great. Yeah, I think she's the only one
where I was like, yeah, I probably should have taken her.
But like past that I don't know who else should I have taken.
And especially if you didn't like the other characters,
Lazal's pretty good cuz she alsohates everybody.

(25:03):
But yeah, like something you were getting at is like
potentially liking these characters more if you kept them
evil. And that's kind of a pivot and
one of the major discussion topics that I wanted to have
because like, I think there's a reason for that.
I think that so there's like a common element between all of
the companions at the in this game, or at least the ones that

(25:26):
were like developed for longer. So not Halson, not Menthara,
maybe not Carlac, but all the characters like have this, you
know, critical component affecting them like physically
in some way that the tadpole cures.
And, and a lot of those evil playthroughs, you're just like

(25:46):
giving in to who they were as a person instead of like letting
them evolve and grow past the thing that they had or that they
have in their bodies, I suppose.And so I don't, I don't have
anything written down for this. I I just kind of want to free
ball it and see what you guys have to say.
But I feel like in this playthrough, I finally nailed
down a core theme of this game. And it's because I was listening

(26:10):
to the soundtrack at work and one of the songs came on and it
was called Legacy of Ball. I was like, oh, Legacy of Ball.
That's kind of interesting. It's like, you know, calling
back to the ball to skate one and two.
It's calling back to, you know, everything that happens with
Oren and Act 3 ball is obviouslypretty central across the game
with the Dead 3. But I started realizing that

(26:32):
that like feeling of legacy kindof goes across all the
characters. Like Astarians Legacy is 200
years of pure shit in his words,and the story of the game is
trying to like evolve past that.Shadow Heart was indoctrinated
by a cult. Her story is trying to evolve
past that. Same with GAIL.
He, you know, was indoctrinated into loving Mystra, but like,

(26:56):
his character arc is evolving past that grief and like,
figuring out who he can be, you know, and like getting past the
fucking bomb in his chest and everything else.
And I feel like that element is pretty true.
I think it's pretty true of the villains as well.
Like just look at how being a ball spawn effects Oren.
Look at literally just the legacy of Catholic period.

(27:19):
I think it kind of pervades the game and I'm so just curious to
get your guys thoughts on that. I didn't even think about this
because I was doing some last minute note writing because I
saw those meta questions that Thomas put in there about
Cerevac and Viconia, and I just realized that that's also one of
those legacy things probably that they tried to weave into

(27:40):
the narrative, for better or forworse, that I'm sure we'll get
into later. I think.
You yeah, I mean, I think a coreclash with the legacy thing is
letting Tab be an option becauseI think that's just a giant
mistake. So like I agree with you, Seth,
that like definitely legacy is like a big thing, but when you
play Tab, I feel like you just kind of miss like a huge

(28:01):
component, which it sounds like Dirge gives to legacy because
Tab has no legacy like seeminglyat all.
Yeah, and like that's the thing with Tav.
Like personally I'm glad that Tav is in the game because of
what Tav is supposed to be. And this is also a reason why I
think Dirt should be your first playthrough because Tav is
intended for someone who wants to role play a character.

(28:23):
All of the other characters are obviously pre built.
You don't need to think of a character.
You just you are shadow Heart, you are GAIL, whatever.
But if you're playing Tav, you're pretty much just a
nothing burger with no real tie into the plot other than trying
to cure your tadpole. But Tad becomes very fun the
second you've played some tabletop DND or you have like a

(28:44):
character that you think would just be fun to role play in
Bolter Skate 3. And when you do that, it's
really fun. But if you don't know that going
into it, then yeah, the first play through is going to be kind
of rough. Yeah, no, I I agree 100%
actually. And that's actually a really
good point. I think in the future, if I ever
recommend this game to someone, I think the first question I'm

(29:05):
going to ask is, well, have you played Dungeons and Dragons?
And if they say no, then I'm just going to tell them to play
Dirge. If they say yes, they're kind of
familiar with like the playground of imagination that
the game is, or at least is kindof inheriting from.
And so they can make the story how they will.
But I do think Dirge is like perfect for someone who either

(29:29):
like doesn't conform to those playground experiences very well
or has never played Dungeons andDragons.
I think that would be the way togo.
It's someone who's both of thosethings.
I agree. Yeah, And as far as the legacy
comment goes, I I mean, I think you're exactly right.
I think that I mean legacy and like the concept of harnessing

(29:54):
your own destiny kind of permeates the whole game, right?
So I feel like there's just thisthis constant tug of war with
every single character and it even scales up, right?
Because like Balder's Gate has the legacy of like still being
haunted by the ball spawn, right?
And even that kind of comes back.
But every single character and every single kind of motif in

(30:18):
the game is involved in this tugof war between the past that you
have inherited and the future that you can choose.
And so your run is the Canon, right?
So whatever ending you carve outis the history that this world,
your legacy remembers and is what's etched into the history
books. And I think that's a cool little

(30:39):
feature. Yeah, and I think what you said
about remind me exactly how you said it.
It was like you're either givinginto who you were or becoming a
new person. I forget exactly how you worded
that. It's it's, it's a tug of war
between the past that you are inheriting by virtue of what
happened to you earlier in your life, and the future that you're

(31:01):
electing to choose. Yeah, yeah, exactly like the way
you said that is absolutely I feel is the common factor
between every single companion and that's why I think it's such
a core component to the narrative.
Yeah. And it's interesting because
I'll be honest, I didn't, I didn't really put the narrative

(31:21):
of this game under the same kindof microscope that I usually do
because I knew what it was and Iknew it's kind of, I don't want
to say limp, but it's kind of limp.
So it's cool to cool to evaluatea theme that I didn't really
pick up on very well. So I feel like that's like a

(31:42):
it's a uniting theme. So like if I like, I feel like
if someone, if someone were to ask me like what's Baldur's Gate
3 about, what can I expect from it?
I could probably basically tell them that like it's a game about
people with a bunch of trauma getting together and either
evolving through that trauma or becoming better people or

(32:03):
becoming worse people for it. Now, obviously that doesn't say
as much about the actual events of the game, what you are doing
from point A to point B of the game.
So Jordan, I, I feel like you have a fair bit to say regarding
the narrative on the hater levelif you wanted to go into it.

(32:26):
Because I think that a lot of a lot of the criticisms that I'm
sure that you have right now, we're definitely true on launch.
And it sounds like for a first player experience like yours
that it hasn't improved much. Yeah, I don't think so.
And I think I think it's primarily like the tab thing,
right? Like because I, I feel like dark
urge sounds like it's to be a lot, lot better because then you
have like purpose through the world.
But tab feels like you kind of don't.

(32:47):
And it's just like you got to get the tadpole out of your head
and like you like just watch people around.
You just get like eviscerated orsome shit.
Like some crazy shit can happen to other people, but you're just
like this random guy who just doesn't want to die.
And I think I think it's pretty weak.
And then like, yeah, you don't really get motivation until like
halfway through the game at all.And so you're kind of, at least
for me, I was just playing for my characters and then so when

(33:09):
my characters didn't have resolutions that I found good, I
had nothing left to give a shit about after that to the point of
where I was like, can I be home?I I almost thought about being
like, do the betrayal rug pull at the end where it's like, I'm
the absolute now. I was like, do I want to press
that button? Like it was it was closer than
ever would be on on a like a another game with like a good
dark side. Yeah, I, I, I 100% agree with

(33:32):
you. I think that the narrative of
this game has two big problems. One is the pacing, which we kind
of talked about last episode. I think where act one, there's
like not that much narrative really hooking you in, act 2
kind of lore dumps you. And then act three kind of like
wraps everything up kind of quickly.

(33:54):
And it kind of plays into the second problem, which is what
Jordan was talking about, which is it doesn't really feel like
the main narrative has a whole lot of like magnetism behind it.
Because like the reason I think Act 3 is so good is for
everything other than the narrative.
Because you go in there with your party members, you're like,

(34:17):
all right, Astarians going to finally fuck up Cazador.
He's going to get even with his abuser.
Shadow Heart is going to do whatever with the Church of
Char. And there's like all of these
characters that have all of these really, really intriguing
and just just compelling throughlines throughout the entire

(34:38):
plot. And then at some point you just
have to be like, Oh yeah, this fucking stupid ass brain thing.
I guess I got to go do this now.And so it's it's, it's just kind
of strange how the worst part ofthe narrative is the critical
path. And I will say that's a Larian
thing, because that's exactly how DOS 2 was, by the way.

(35:01):
And like, my feelings on that when I played the game for the
first time, like I hadn't reallyplayed a lot of CRPGS before
this game. I think maybe only Pillars of
Eternity, I think at the time was the only game I played.
Yeah, 'cause I played Disco Elysium after this game.
And I, I saw your criticisms like echoed from other people

(35:23):
and like, I agreed with them. But at the same time, I just
feel like the core events of what happened in this game are
just so fucking cool that I didn't give a shit.
Like you're basically a couple of gods in some cases literally
with GAIL, but you're you're fucking climbing a fucking elder

(35:43):
brain with an ancient netherese artifacts slapped on there and
you're fighting a fucking mind controlled red dragon with
ilithids behind it. Like that's just fucking cool,
right? Is is this a case where the rule
of cool didn't apply? I don't think the rule of cool
applies because it doesn't applyit until the literal end of the

(36:03):
game. Like there's so little, there's
so little appropriate build up that like yes, the finale is
cool, but like I said, it's there's not a shit ton of cool
stuff before that. Yeah, and, and I think even like

(36:24):
a narrative in a gameplay segue where that last encounter to me
was such like a slog that anything that could have been
cool, which it wasn't that cool because I don't really have like
the back story that you guys do of like knowing what's going on
in the world is completely gone.Because I'm like what the fuck,
man? Even with knowledge of the back
story, I just thought about whatyou say with the rule of cool

(36:47):
Seth. And like I'm not like the Super
biggest DND guy. Like 99% of my DND experience is
from playing like Baldur's Gate one and two and playing skate
tournament and stuff like that and Iceland, Dale, all those
like interplay Black Isle games.But like I my experience with
mind Flayer is that they were kind of like just trash mobs and

(37:08):
Baldur's Gate 2 in the sewers. I mean they were very lethal
trash mobs, but they were essentially like trash mobs.
So when I played three and I sawthe that the big bad was just a
giant brain, I thought it was kind of lame, to be honest.
Like it's just it's. Just a yeah, I agree with that.
I agree. I I do have to say, upon playing

(37:29):
through the game again multiple times, like it's, you know, the
first time, kind of a cool surprise, especially if you know
what an elder brain is. But upon repeat playthroughs,
yeah, those cutscenes do just kind of look doofy.
I mean, honestly, for me, like the cutscene at the end of act 2
where they like pan over and it's just a big floating brain
with a spinal cord is, I'm goingto be honest, it's fucking

(37:51):
corny. It is, it's corny as shit.
I, I, I think that that might, that's maybe the core issue with
the narrative is just a lack of a lack of the villains ever
really feeling compelling, I guess 'cause like, I don't know,

(38:13):
you never really interface with the absolute slash, the nether
brain. So it's just kind of like there
in the background and then by the time that you get to
Gortash, you're killing Gortash.Oren feels pretty cool because
she's constantly showing up. I I think that the problem is
they just don't really introduceor have enough scenes with the

(38:35):
villains before you're just kindof killing them.
So they don't really like, they just feel so disconnected from
everything else that's going on.There's no gravity behind them.
Like even like Catherick, he's not around long enough to have
like a nice amount of gravity. And another thing I think is
weird, like it's like when you show up in act three, like it's
like, Oh my God, the armies of hell are coming and then they're

(38:56):
fucking not. So it's like, OK, I guess
there's not a lot of consequenceto the Zelda brain thing.
I always felt like that was a pretty big problem in my first
playthrough. Like I actually made a point to
like walk around this time and see like what the effects of the
absolute marching on Balder's Gate is, and it's actually
explained. It's just very weak because of

(39:19):
how the game presents it. So what happens when you see the
Elder Brain for the first time in the Dead Three?
You're down there in Catherick'sbasement.
You know, like the fucking DND nerds that they are.
They say that Catherick's army is going to March on the
Boulder's Gate, and Cortash's army will defeat them and he'll
be the savior that saved the city.
OK, cool. But then the entire army marches

(39:43):
at the end of the ACT. You're only able to leave the
ACT because they marched. And so if you go to the front
gates in Rivington, when you first get there in act three, it
basically just says, yeah, there's a lot of dead guys out
there who killed all of them. We're good.
I'm like, wasn't there supposed to be a showdown?
But they did at the same time. They they told you, yeah,

(40:05):
Gortash is the hero and now he'sthe arc Juke.
But yeah, just the way that's presented is very strangers.
Like there was a climax that youdidn't get to see.
It's very jarring. Yeah, that's weird because like
if you go around and you talk tosome NPCS, they'll they'll like
express some level of anxiety. Like if there's, I know for sure
there's an NPC and the bank who if you talk to her, she'll be

(40:26):
like, yeah, I'm taking all my money and leaving.
And if you're smart, you will too because of the absolute army
marching or whatever. Yeah, it seems.
It seems very disconnected and weird like, and I think that's
kind of like something I like, Ithink there's like a lack of
consequence for that. The narrative has like, it's
kind of like the main characterswhat drives consequence.

(40:48):
But like the villains don't do anything that like gives you or
like a reason to hate them or anything.
You know, they're just kind of they and.
And honestly one of the biggest parts that bugs me, like on kind
of an autistic level, but in a way that I think it also affects
the broader narrative. You got the Dead 3.
It's 3 villains, Paul Merkel andfucking Bane.

(41:09):
You have three acts to this gameand you're not going to put any
of them in act one? What the?
Fuck. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Early access thing for sure thatwe that we talked about the last
episode or whenever like it. It definitely was like, yeah,
don't put them in yet so that wedon't spoil or whatever.
And I think it's a pretty big miss narratively.
Yeah, I agree. I think with this game, what

(41:30):
this game really, really, reallyneeded was a John Irenicus.
If this game had a John Irenicus, it would have like
transcended space and time. Yeah.
And I think that like having something like that to represent
the absolute, I kind of brought it up in the last episode, just
if you had some kind of figure to tie in like physically to who

(41:53):
the absolute is, it would be better.
And you kind of get that in Act 3.
But by then it's too little too late.
Oh, giant squid boy. OK, dead.
Like you just needed something and they waited too late for it.
I wanted to touch real quick on what Jordan said earlier about
kind of lack of consequence. So I wanted to talk about a

(42:13):
lifted Maxing and Jordan, I don't think that you used a
single tadpole, right? Your play through yeah.
So the reality is there is 0 consequence.
You can pop that shit like Molly, like it doesn't fucking
matter. Just as much brain matter you
can replace with tadpoles the better.
It's all gameplay upside 0 narrative consequence.

(42:34):
Except if you take like the Super tadpole, you get like
veins on your face, but you get to fucking fly, which is the
ultimate quality of life. It's better than everything.
You just get to fly everywhere and it's like, there's no reason
not to do it. And considering like the entire
game you're supposed to be led to believe that like turning
into a mind flare is horrible. Like they do literally nothing

(42:57):
like to punish you for kind of pushing the limits on that.
Yeah, I, I think because I remember you mentioning that
like a long, long time ago, likewhen we were in Act 1.
And I think it's another like, weird issue of conveyance that
Larian made, just like how they try to like, rush you on time
and act one of like, oh shit, like you need to figure out this
tadpole now, not now. But there's no consequence.

(43:17):
It's like the same exact thing with the tadpole of where it's
like, you better not fucking do this.
But as what you're telling me, it sounds like it doesn't
fucking matter. And actually you probably should
do this. I will say, despite having no
actual gameplay consequences, I still almost never go full I'll
if it because I don't want to look ugly.

(43:38):
Same. I used to think that but there's
mods now so it's not. That being said, I did I so that
being said I did not. There is a mod to like
completely remove it. I only use the partial removal.
So it's just, it's still there, but it's like not.
Yeah, because it's it's hard to look at.

(43:59):
I mean Speaking of it is Speaking of mods to remove shit.
Dude I'm fucking. I'm so sick of how bloody my
character was the whole fucking game.
Like I was going to install likea remove blood from cutscene mod
but like I don't know like I don't remember why.
That's like annoying dependencies or something but
it's just like why? Why am I always bloody every
time I'm talking to anybody in acutscene?
You got to make water and like climb in a puddle bro.
There's all sorts of ways to getthat shit off of you.

(44:21):
Now you know why. Now you know why every single
caster in tabletop always takes prestidigitation.
Every single time they will takethat canter.
No gameplay impact. But you know, I don't want to
smell like butt crack every timeI go into a fancy castle, you
know? That's actually kind of like a
pseudo consequence of not leading to long rest because

(44:41):
when you long rest, I think likethe game kind of treats that as
taking a shower as well. So if you if you rest often, you
wouldn't, you probably wouldn't be so blunt in dialogue, but if
you're min maxing you, you're not resting so.
And also if I go on the date with Carlack, apparently the
long rest happens after that, soI'm just fucking bloody as shit
while we're in the fucking boot top restaurant.
Maybe she likes. That kind of like appropriate,

(45:04):
but I'm sick of seeing like I just have blood all over me all
the time. The same thing happens if you
like, you go to the circus and you get some of that face paint
and you make yourself look like a clown.
If you put that on and go on a date with Carlac, you have the
clown paint on for the entire thing.
Does she comment on it? I think that's too much, right?
No, no. Yeah, that's that's too much.

(45:26):
Be sick though. That being said, there are some
pretty crazy things that can happen in this game like that.
Not that specifically, but I remember a couple years ago I
read on the Baldestgate 3 subreddit that someone found
like the rarest possible permutation of an ending
sequence you can get. So there's one class called the
Wild Mage for it's like a wizardsubclass.

(45:49):
Or is it sorcerer? I can't remember Regardless.
OK regardless, their gimmick is that every time that they cast
any magic, there's always a chance that something random
will happen. Sometimes good, sometimes bad,
always random. And this person accidentally got
us an ending set of where the last spell they cast in the

(46:11):
entire game caused their party members to turn into cats.
So in the ending sequence when the characters need to talk,
they were cats and they meowed. What the fuck?
Yeah, it was pretty crazy. I had no idea that that if you
have a character that's an animal in a cutscene, they don't
do their dialogue. I guess so.

(46:35):
I haven't seen it myself, but I read about it and I saw like
clips of it like years ago. So I know that it happened.
So if you. Do that and then you have speak
with animals going. Can you understand them?
I need to know this. I'm about to boot the fucking
game up right now. That sounds awesome.
Jesus, I have no idea. But I'm so curious about the
speak with animals thing. Holy shit someone needs to
answer that. And I get the feeling that

(46:58):
because it's kind of like a systematic outcome, they
probably don't have lines recorded for or do they just
play like the regular lines thatyou would?
Yeah, like, say. That's what I would expect.
Maybe. I mean who knows, they'll
probably like bitch about havingto be a cat or something.
Well, how did you guys feel? You know, we've talked about the

(47:21):
thematic pivots between each act, but this one is probably
the most severe of them because there's there's no easing into
act three like there is into theShadow Cursed Lands with the
underdark. Did you guys feel like that was
OK? Because I remember feeling very

(47:42):
distinctly like, you know, that that meme of the guy that's like
inside looking at his computer and he closes the curtains when
the sun is shining through. That's how I felt when I got to
act three the first time. Like Oh my God, it's so fucking
bright. I think for me it was more I
didn't like the Act one to Act 2, so Act 2 to Act three.
I was like, OK, we're back in a cool place.

(48:04):
I think, I think Act 2 to Act three actually does a really
good job of easing you in because a bunch of reasons
actually. So first of all, as soon as you
leave Act 2, it's not like you're in Rivington.
You're in that like little interstitial campsite, I forget
the name of it, and that's whereit kind of lure dumps you on
some Githyanki shit. You go talk to the emperor.

(48:27):
And then from there is when you go into Rivington and you see
all the refugees and you're kindof getting the sense that like
there's a bunch of people and they're all running from this
army. And by the time you get into
Boulders Gate 3, I feel like you're kind of eased into the
idea of like being in this superpopulated city space.
Yeah, that's fair. I think if it didn't have that

(48:51):
little campsite, like if you went straight into Rivington
from Act 2, that that would havebeen a mistake for sure.
Yeah, like it isn't just, you know, you blink and suddenly
you're in fucking daytime in themiddle of the city.
It does do that. That's true.
I think I would like that better.
If you just come up from a sewerhole and then suddenly you're

(49:12):
just, if the city's just muscling and busting around you,
I think that'd be fucking awesome.
I mean, I, I do feel like that, that scene that Thomas is
describing, do you guys feel like it's a little out of place?
Like it's important for the act three transition for sure, but
like it feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere.
Do you guys feel similarly? Like you mean like Githyanki

(49:34):
showed up to fight the emperor scene?
Yeah, yeah. I did feel weird, but it was
happening. I was like, what the fuck's
going on? I mean in my opinion everything
with the dream visitor slash emperor is abrupt and cringe so.
Agreed, including when he has his shirt off and sitting next
to you. Oh, you can fuck him.

(49:55):
Oh, I know. And he got.
That's what I did. Well, tell me a little bit more
about like everything with the Emperor feeling abrupt, because
I mean, that's definitely true for the reveal that he's
Balderon. That kind of comes out fucking
nowhere. But I feel like everything else
like like if I just took his back story at face value by

(50:16):
being an adventurer, he got stuck in the actual prism after
becoming an elephant. I feel like most of that works.
I think in a vacuum I actually do like the idea of he of him
being Balderon. The execution leaves a little
bit to be desired, but I think the idea is good.
But I don't know, I feel like it's kind of a similar idea with

(50:38):
the villains in the game where II just don't feel like you spend
enough time with them because like, think about it, right?
Like a playthrough of this game is going to be like somewhere in
the realm of like 60 to 100 hours, depending on how many
roses you smell, right. And of a percentage of that,

(50:59):
it's like less than 30 that's really spent in any kind of
scenes with the emperor or the villains or like just a critical
path in general. Like it's such a small fraction
of your overall experience with the game because you're going to
spend so much time doing side quests, like going around
talking to people, trying to work through romances, doing

(51:22):
your companion quests. And like, there's just not
enough. Like there's, there's just not
enough deference to stuff like the emperor and the villains.
And yeah, like I said, there's just not enough time spent.
And maybe that's a good thing, cuz I mean, this game's already
huge, so. I guess it's kind of rough cuz

(51:44):
it's like one of, I don't know if this is necessary like the
best way to do it like in terms of video game writing, but
having the side quest kind of like have connections back to
the main story helps. And in this game, they didn't
really, except for the fact thatdepending on the outcomes of
those like companion quests, youget like a helper at the in like

(52:08):
the final battle. But it's kind of like a
contrived, like, OK, one of yourcompanions now has an army under
their control and they'll help you or someone else has an army
and they'll help you, which I guess is technically connected
to the main story. But I also thought that the the
whole like Mass Effect to like like collect all the all the
helpers for the final battle things kind of lame a little

(52:32):
bit. I don't really have a reason for
it, but it's just I didn't like it in Mass Effect 2 and I didn't
like it here either. I've never really thought about
why I have like this general distaste for that kind of.
You like a Final Fantasy 4 when you're fighting the final boss
and they'll show up and they go.You could do it.
I if I played Final Fantasy 4, it was back when I was like 10

(52:54):
years old, so I don't even. Remember, because I don't like
it in this game because like, they can die permanently or
whatever. That would make you feel like a
fucking moron. So I just didn't summon them.
So. Here's the reason.
Here's the reason I don't like it is because the worst part of
the combat is anytime there's a fuck load of people in the
combat and all that does is add shit to the combat.

(53:15):
Oh yeah. Yeah, I, I never, well, I did
some of them just to see what they did, but it's almost always
like a net negative because likeusing one of your like green
actions to some of them is almost always worse than your
Tavern brawler just fucking telling someone.
Yeah, like spending your entire action to some of the night song
that does like 10 radiant damageevery turn.

(53:37):
Yeah, I don't know about that investment.
Oh and that's the worst night song specifically.
She never heals from the battle in act 2, so if she ever gets
hit she comes in. Does she never think about like
taking a nap or something? Like what the fuck is wrong with
her? Doesn't I mean the mortal?
Yeah, I think she, I think. She's a national guy, but why

(53:59):
can't she die? She's she's an Asmar, right?
Is that what she is? I forget.
I thought she was an Asmar, but she's an Asmar.
But I think she's like fucking first generation daughter of
Soluna, so she's probably a bit stronger than that.
I have a quick question about the companion things in the
final act before we move on. So obviously as Dirge I didn't

(54:22):
really make a whole lot of friends along the way, one might
say. But one person who did show up
was Ceravac. But I did not see any way to
summon anything related to Ceravac or ball spawn or like
anything. What the hell does he actually
do? So you so I didn't have Ceravac

(54:45):
alive because I went back to himafter killing Oren and he tried
to take my place, which didn't happen.
So he became a corpse, But if I I assume it's probably the same
helper you get from when you become an unholy assassin,
whereas you just get to summon the unholy assassin.
Yeah, and they're not very useful.

(55:06):
Yeah, I think the Unholy Assassin 1 is just that you
don't get anything bonus for like actually being fully evil
Max Dirge and having Sarah Ivakalive and everything.
Huh, that's weird. Also, I forgot to go back to
Sarah Ivaka and you just reminded me of that.
Oh well. Yeah, like I, I wouldn't bet
because I thought he was gonna like, give me a reward, but no,
he was just like, you took out one of my rivals and I'm gonna

(55:27):
take you out. And I was like, no, you're not.
Classic ball spawn shit. I mean, the one thing I'll say
with that final encounter is that, yeah, even though a lot of
the options are like pretty fucking weak, number one, I'm
pretty flabbergasted by the sheer amount of them that there
are. I can count them up real quick,
but there there's a lot more than at least Jordan you

(55:49):
probably think, but at least when it comes to like using the
action does some of the dudes, Istill appreciate that there are
like passive ones that you get that are actually like pretty
strong, you know, wait. Which ones are those?
Or what's an example of some? If you kept Arabella alive all
the way to the end and you did all of her Questi stuff, then I

(56:11):
think everyone gets freedom of movement.
Oh, that does sound dope. And that's you don't have to use
an action word. That's just like you said, a
passive. Yeah, I'm not sure about that
one specifically, but I know there's a bunch that are
passives and that might be one of them.
Yeah, this playthrough I experimented with one.
I did. I used like.
Then this was funny. So I did an evil dirge where

(56:33):
basically I sided with the Emperor and I killed the fuck
out of Orpheus. I come out into like that final
battle area and Vos confronts meand then I just roll the dice
and he's like, oh don't I don't care that you killed Orpheus,
you must have a good reason. So he let me his aid.
So I summoned the red dragon andit did like nothing but leave a

(56:53):
fire puddle on the ground that basically reminded me of
Divinity Original Sin 2 because all it did was just hurt me
every time I walked over it. And when you got hurt by it was
like super fire. So your turn ended it it it was
annoying. Oh, basically it was just a net
negative to use it. Oh, the.
Big one is actually a house and if you do everything with him
and act 2 then you get plus one to all your abilities, chords

(57:14):
and +2 movement speed. That does sound pretty good.
Unfortunately, Helsing did not join my party this time around.
Just did you murder eyes Ethel too?
Because she's a she's a gather your allies quest too.
I did not. I I left her alone because I had
no role-playing reason to go kill her.

(57:35):
Same thing with Raphael. I didn't do the House of Hope at
all because I had no role-playing reason to go there
this playthrough. So I just didn't.
I did because I wanted to break my contract, although I was
very, very curious about how thegame would end if I tried to not
give him the Crown of Carsus. But also I did not think that

(57:57):
would go well for me. Did you do House of Hope,
Jordan? No.
Oh. What that's like a highlight of
the game? That's like the best part of the
game IMO. Yeah, I mean, the game I, I felt
like I was like, OK, I'm not going to fuck with the Emperor,
and I didn't want the fucking hammer or whatever the fuck it
is to break out Orpheus. So I was just like, yeah, also,

(58:20):
I didn't know how to get into itbecause I thought you just had
to. I thought you just did the deal
with Raphael or you didn't. It was until I beat the game
where I was like, oh, you're going to like break into the
fucking house, Hope. Yeah, you have to like go find
Hellsick or whatever. And there's and this is like
another point to like doing dirge where like all these

(58:42):
characters who seem kind of likerandom and out of nowhere in a
tab playthrough, like just have more back story.
So like Hellsick was actually involved with with the with
Dirge and Gortash and all them like doing the original heist of
getting the crown of Karsis. And that's how you like get back
into the House of hope is that she basically helped you out

(59:04):
again like she did when she helped you get the crown in the
1st place. So like you go there and she
like tells you about a ritual. You have to like, do a literal
ritual where there's a pentagramon the ground, either place
certain items on the ground and that's how you get to the House
of Hope. Yeah, like I went in it to it,
like investigate it and then like I found that pentagram and
everything and then like I was like, Oh well, I guess there's

(59:25):
nothing to do here. And then just left like needed
Raphael. Yeah, it's a, it's a really cool
dungeon because you get in thereand it's almost like a, you
know, it's basically a heist, right?
Like a fucking heist in hell. So you're like dressed as
servants of the House of Hope. And if at any point you like
break the dress or you start combat accidentally, it will

(59:47):
summon Raphael and like cue everything and make everything
hostile. But like the intended thing is
that all of that happens once you take the take the Orphic
hammer. But then there's also a lot of
other cool stuff in there. Like if you take the deal with
Raphael and you get the hammer, you don't have a reason to go to
the House of Hope anymore, right?

(01:00:07):
Wrong. Because you can go there and
tear your contract in half. And if you go there, then you
find out that Mole also had a contract and you can give Mole
the contract that they signed with Raphael.
So that's like a whole other element.
You know, you go in fucking Raphael's boudoir and there's
incubus that he's been fucking. Who takes on his form?

(01:00:29):
Because Raphael is a fucking narcissist.
So he just fucks himself every night.
That's great. It's got some great loot, it's a
lot of fun. Yeah, this shit has the best
loot in the game. There's so much cool shit in
there. I also appreciate the infinite
long rest fountain. Yeah, very true.
I also really like the characterHope.

(01:00:50):
I think the character Hope is awesome.
Yeah, I really like how like her.
I don't know if it's necessarilyhow her lines are delivered or
how they're written, but the combination of it is very good.
Yeah, she is a really good voiceactress.
And I think, I think she is really well written because she
has this like, weird, like schizophrenic dichotomy between

(01:01:13):
like, Oh my God, we're all goingto die.
But also, you know, things are going to be all right.
So the like frenetic way she bounces between it makes her a
super fun character. Yeah, I think she's one of those
ones where like if I ever find away to insert that character
into a tabletop setting, I'm gonna do it.

(01:01:34):
Maybe not that character specifically, but that kind of
archetype where that's how she'stalking.
Cuz that that kind of character just feels like it's straight
out of DND and I fucking love it.
Yeah, definitely. I have a question actually I
meant to do this on this playthrough and I forgot but if
you just knock out her sister inthe Raphael combat is there any

(01:01:55):
like reactivity to that? If you'd like keep her alive,
there's got to be but I accidentally accidentally one
shot her without turning on lethal attacks I.
Think. So.
I feel like I remember reading about this because the easiest
way to do it is by banishing her.
I'm going to Google search whileyou guys talk about that.
Yeah, I think House of Hope, House of Hope and Wormway are

(01:02:19):
the two best dungeons in this whole game and honestly are in
my eyes what make act three likejust 25 ish hours of perfect
video game. Like there is not a single thing
about act three that I would change.
There's things about Act one andtwo I would change, including

(01:02:40):
the build up to Act 3, but Act three itself?
Absolute perfection. I I looked it up, if Korilla
survives then it's not a lot of reactivity, but Hope does
acknowledge that she's happy that you kept her sister alive.
Also, did you guys know that youcan encounter Korilla in act
one? Yeah, I did.

(01:03:01):
Or Act two Act 2 I did I I did not know about act one where?
She like act 2, You're thinking about how she just like randomly
pops in and is like watching you, right?
That's what you're thinking of. Yeah, when you first enter
Raithwin. And then I only noticed that
this playthrough was the first time I ever saw her there.
I knew that there was someone watched.
I knew that someone was like watching me behind a wall, but I

(01:03:23):
never looked to see who it was. But this time I walked in with
sneak mode specifically so I could see that person, and I saw
it was her. I was like, huh?
They're that's funny. Yeah.
If you in act one when you go tothe goblin camp and you talk to
gut the priestess like the very first one of the three that you
have to kill if you talk to her.Oh yeah, I did see her.
You're right. I I saw her this.

(01:03:44):
Way yeah, like if you actually take her up on it and you drank
the potion that's gonna quote UNquote cure you, then it actually
just like, knocks you out and gut ties you up in her jail cell
and you're just like straight upstuck there.
You can't do anything. But Korilla comes into your jail
cell and is like, I'm gonna get you out of here.
Basically like being sent by Raphael because he sees you as a

(01:04:06):
potential asset. And then that's how you're
introduced to Raphael, which I think is so fucking cool.
Like it's just one of those things where it's like, wow,
they have so many different layers for how you can do shit
in this game, and that's just another really cool one.
Yeah, that's awesome. I didn't even know about that
one. But yeah, like what?
You got what you were saying, Thomas, about Act three being 25

(01:04:29):
hours of pure video gaming. What were some of your guys's
favorite or least favorite things about the gameplay of Act
3? I don't know if I have a least
favorite. So my favorite thing is
definitely just getting the levelled up if lifted power,

(01:04:50):
specifically just flight. That's the only one I really
care about and it just, it just makes going through the game so
much more fun. It feels like you can.
There were like certain points in the game where I remember
when we tasked System Shock 1 and I remember I was doing
platforming with like the rocketboots and I would get to certain

(01:05:10):
places. I would be like, this is
definitely not what you're supposed to be doing.
You're supposed to like do something else to get here.
And I felt like being able to fly in Boulder to get through
was like the same thing where there were so many things that
like I could do in so many different places I could go to
that I shouldn't be able to. That felt like I was sequence
breaking. And it, that was pretty fun.

(01:05:34):
The thing that I disliked. I let's see, I'd have to think
about it. Actually, I think I, I think my
least favorite part is actually probably Rivington because I
kind of forgot that that's a part of Act 3.
To be honest with you. I feel like it's kind of a weak

(01:05:54):
intro. I feel like they should have
just well, I mean, I guess I don't know how to wrap my head
around this because I was literally just thinking it as I
was sitting here, but I feel like there would have been a
better way to introduce act three.
If you cut out Rivington and thekind of nonsensical, useless,
doesn't go anywhere refugee sidequest project and just made it

(01:06:18):
into Southern worms rock. I think it's called and the
circus. And I think if you cut
everything else out of the introof act three, I think it would
have played a little better. I just think Rivington's kind of
weak. It's it's the weak link of act
3, but it which is not saying much because it's still good.

(01:06:38):
It's just probably the weakest part in my opinion.
And you saying that just reminded me about how you were
talking about the the fireworks quest and how there wasn't that
much evil reactivity. And I think that's also there
were like certain points of the game that I was disappointed by.
Like for instance, when I was doing the Oren thingy and she

(01:07:01):
was like, you better do what I say or I'm going to kill Yenna.
And I was like, fucking do it. So she did.
And then in the cutscene my character was like revolted.
She was like, disgusted of like.What are you?
Doing this like this is what I want.
So like the fact that they didn't like reflect that
accurately was kind of disappointing, but.
Yeah, but that's when that's when Larian Studios has given

(01:07:25):
you a prompt and you have to justify why is my character
acting like this in this way? And the only way it could be is
you butchered that killing. It could have been so much
better. Yeah, that would be nice.
But it the the facial expressionthat they used was too specific
for that. It wasn't ambiguous enough.

(01:07:47):
How did you feel about RivingtonJordan?
It all kind of like I, I don't know, actually, like I thought
Rivington is where the circus was.
So until Tom said the circus, I was like, is that not where it?
Will it is. Rivington OK, yeah, I thought it
was fine. I like, I like Rivington.
It was cool. I like the circus.
I don't like Rivington. Yeah, I was going to say I, I, I
do feel like the circus is the only good part about everything.

(01:08:09):
What else is in Remington? They got all the refugees they
got. The.
The. Yeah, there's the stuff with the
Guild down by the beach. Oh, I forgot to do that part in
this playthrough. And like, there's like that one
dude that always says Cook in every line.

(01:08:31):
Is that where that is? I never interacted with that
guy. That sounds awesome though.
And then, yeah, he's on the beach and he just, he literally
just finds a way to fit in the word cook in every single line
that he's guessed. And then the only other stuff
there is what, like the monk temple in the post office quest
which are just like kind of meh.Yeah, there's also the GUR if

(01:08:52):
you're doing the Asterian quest line.
And this was the first time where I just straight up killed
them there because like, I knew that in my other playthroughs,
if I didn't kill them there, andI did like anything with
Asterian, they were going to come attack me anyway.
So I was like, I'm just going tonip this in the bud and
Rivington just just kill him in broad daylight.
For the record, I am considering, I think it's Worms

(01:09:14):
Rock separate from Rivington because like there's two
checkpoints in that spot, right?There's one to get into Worms
Rock and there's one to get intoBalder's Gate.
And the one after you get through Rivington it, that
part's really good. I love that part of the game.
Just to just to make it clear, Ithink you're talking about worms
crossing worms Rock is. Yeah, like Fortress.

(01:09:35):
After you cross the big bridge, yeah.
Yeah, no, you're right. I couldn't remember.
I knew it was Worm something, but yeah.
Yeah, like Worms Crossing has like it has the bedroom where
the lady turns into a mind flareand you have to kill it.
I mean, everything in the brothel period.
Stuff with Wolbrine is there andthe other deep gnomes if you

(01:09:58):
left them alive. I I I always think fondly of
Worms Crossing, but I am kind of, I think I am kind of in the
camp with you guys where Rivington, other than the
circus, it's kind of just boring.
Like, yeah, what what's the mostnarratively that happens there?
Oran shows up and trolls you like.
I like, I think the the point isto like set the stage for all of

(01:10:20):
these like refugees and kind of drive home the drama of what's
going on. But then after Rivington,
there's no more drama. So it all just kind of falls
flat. Jordan, you liked the Oren
appearances? I wish.
I wish like half the MCS were her.
I wish it was literally like yougo to pet a cat and it was Oren.
I wish it was just like a super comedy bit of I wanted her to be

(01:10:40):
everywhere. Every MPC I talked to I was like
please be oren please be Oren. And I only got 2 of them.
I don't know how many there are but I was like fuck.
There's a lot. I I can think of four off the
top of my head. There's the blacksmith, which is
a pretty obvious one. There's the dryad in the circus.
I think that one's kind of dumb because it, that one really
comes out of nowhere. There's like a injured dude on

(01:11:02):
the beaches that she can be and.I like the the reporter, the
reporter. Yeah, the news reporter.
There's like a yeah, yeah. And The thing is like the in
every play, every playthrough isdifferent.
Like she's not gonna always be those four.
She'll just be like one or two of them.
Yeah, I wish she was like 20 things.
I wish like you went to open a door and it was Oren like, I
wish it was shit like that. It's weird how few mimics this

(01:11:27):
game has. I think there's like one or two,
but there should be more mimics.All right, so I kind of
lambasted my least favorite partof Act Three, but the best part
of Act 3, honestly, I mean, it'shard to pick, but I'm going to
go ahead and say it's the triumvirate of optional
dungeons, which I am defining asHouse of Hope, Laura Atkins,

(01:11:49):
Loro Atkins Tower, and the otherone I was just talking about,
Wormway. Those three dungeons are like
legit some of the best dungeoneering in any video game
ever. It was actually a lot of fun,
like when I first played the game because I was like super

(01:12:10):
far ahead of the curve. Like I think I've told you guys
before, I literally wrote the original wiki article for the
House of Hope. And so having to like figure all
of that shit out like in the Worm way and House of Hope in
Little Atkins Tower especially, I think is a really cool
dungeon, like a little puzzle dungeon.
I fucking love all of them. I think they're all 10 out of

(01:12:31):
10. I think I agree with that
assessment, but replacing Laroakan's tower with Cazidor's
mansion? I was, I was considering the
companion stuff separate, but yeah.
OK. Yeah, Yeah, I think that is
accurate. All those dungeons are really,

(01:12:51):
really good. Like especially Wormway.
It's one of those ones where youget to it and you're like,
there's no way there's more to this fucking game and there's an
entire goddamn dungeon down. There, there's a fucking level
16 dragon winning a fucking Draco lich who just so happened
to be Balderon's former lover. That's fucking crazy.

(01:13:15):
The Emperor really enjoyed riding that dragon, if you know
what I mean. What do you mean?
Gay sex. Well, regardless of some of our
opinions on the emperor, I do kind of want to discuss like
there's a lot of different interpretations of that

(01:13:37):
character. And I'm just curious if you guys
kind of fall in the same camp asI do with it where like he's
clearly like an ends justify themeans kind of guy.
But this motherfucker is lying to you at every single fucking
turn possible. Like he could have told you a
little bit more early in the game and it it would have been
fine. But like throughout the entire

(01:13:57):
game, he's lying to you to basically justify his own ends.
And there's all this fucked up shit in his back story that we
can go into that he did along those lines.
But like, what are your guys's vibes on the Emperor?
Fuck that guy. I was such a huge simp for him
in my first playthrough. I fucking ran defense for that
guy. No, he's a piece of shit.

(01:14:18):
And in this playthrough I never trust him for a single second.
And then I was like, Nah, I'm breaking this Orpheus guy out.
And his immediate reaction is all right, well, I guess I'm
going to go join the absolute now.
So yeah, that guy can eat shit as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah, I don't like that he's painted in such like a positive
light in the game because yeah, I wish I just fucking dunked on
him the whole time. I don't mind that he's painted

(01:14:40):
it in positive light because it's the mind Flayer thing,
right? Like they're, they're
manipulative, they're fucking with you.
They're just trying to like get their like best outcome from the
situation. So I think the fact that he is
kind of like confusingly good, like, I don't know, I guess.
I guess it's, it's, it's, I can't wrap my head around it,

(01:15:05):
but I, I think he's portrayed very well actually, in terms of
like how he's a manipulative sonof a bitch.
I think that for for me, I wish like your companions would chime
in more and then like we don't shouldn't trust this guy or
anything because like, I don't know, the game just kind of felt
like that this guy was supposed to be like someone that you
should be helping. Except the quest descriptions

(01:15:27):
for the House of hope. Shit, that's like the first time
that I felt like the game was like, Yo you should betray the
emperor. I feel like I feel like you can
interrogate your party members about them like you can.
There's so many dialogue optionsof with them for like what do
you think of these tadpoles? Do you think we should use this
mega tadpole? Yeah, and they.
Don't like it but. Then they don't talk about the

(01:15:48):
Emperor. Yeah, I mean that that's always
like surrounding whether or not to activate the powers of the
tadpole. I don't, I, I think Jordan's
right in that they don't really offer their opinion much on the
Emperor, which I do think would be appropriate.
Like, wouldn't it be interestingto see how GAIL relates his
experiences with Mystra with your relationship with the
Emperor or Shadowheart? You know, literally trickery

(01:16:09):
domain. Maybe she has some shit to say,
especially since she had the Astral Prism.
Yeah, I think that's a good point for sure.
Yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm not gonna run defense for the
Emperor cuz I think as a character they didn't do a good
job of writing him. No, that's the opposite of what

(01:16:30):
I mean. I think they did a good job of
writing him, but they did not doa good job of interweaving him
into the story, which I guess kind of plays into what you guys
are saying. Exactly.
Yeah, he's not a bad character, but yeah, he's not a good, like,
function. And again, I think it's weird
that like, your party members don't have opinions of him
really, but they have opinions of like tadpoles like Seth Mason

(01:16:50):
mentioned. I guess I kind of consider their
opinion of the tadpoles to be anextension of their opinions of
him since like, his whole thing is use the fucking tadpoles.
I'm giving you these. Use these fucking things.
I think the Emperor is just likea cool idea.
Like if you read what the emperor is like in a wiki

(01:17:12):
article, you'd be like, that's areally novel way to like have
like a kind of like a pseudo villain.
But I think you're right. And that like, because like I've
done so many playthroughs, I just look forward to just
fucking betraying them in the end.
Every time It's just I go into Act 3:00 every single time you
like, I'm the status guy. I do think, I do think it's a
mistake to have them have you create a character for him in

(01:17:34):
the beginning of the game. I think that I think that was a
stupid idea. I think they should have just
had it be some like fucking pre built thing.
Have you create a character for him?
Yeah, you create a model for thedream visitor.
I created that. Yeah.
I don't remember that at all. Same thing that happened to day
nine, yeah. Day 9 clicked random, got some
ridiculous ass thing and comedy ensued.

(01:17:58):
Oh. That's funny, I just had some
like normal looking chick. Yeah.
So that's the that's the amount of punch that having you create
an another character has is thatmost people forget they even did
it. I don't remember that at all.
Yeah, and I, I don't know about you guys, but every time that

(01:18:19):
I've like booted up another playthrough, I either don't give
a shit about what my dream guardian looks like other than
not having some of the options that they put in the game, or I
just can never get it to look like what I want because there
are fewer options than there arefor building your actual
character. But Oh yeah, like if anything,

(01:18:41):
even though I think it's really well hidden, I think that the
Emperor might be almost like tooable to be agreed upon that he's
a bad dude, if that makes sense.Like you find out what he did
the Stellmane and you're like, oh, OK, so he is actually just
evil. Like there is no question

(01:19:03):
anymore. Or like Withers straight up
answering the question about I think it's Withers that says
this where he says that I'll if it's actually don't have souls,
he just straight up fucking answers the question.
And then that removes a lot of the ambiguity surrounding like,
Carlax ending or like whether Baldurin has any memories of his
past life now, now that he's an I'll with it.

(01:19:26):
Yeah. I feel like it just gets a
little bit messy once you start incorporating that stuff.
Yeah. But at the same time, I feel
like that stuff is like off to the side and obfuscated enough
that if they're, if they if their goal was to set out and
create an ambiguous villain where even by the time the
credits roll, you're not 100% sure whether or not they were a

(01:19:48):
good guy. And those gaps can only be
filled in by information that islike, I guess not super.
It's not in front of your face. Like you'd have to go out of
your way to find it. I think that they did a good job
of that. Yeah.
I mean, I think you're correct on what you're saying.

(01:20:09):
I'm just saying that like, once you actually know everything,
it's a little bit unambiguous for like a corollary example to
the opposite. Someone like Verso, like you
find out that he's been lying toyou, is continuing to lie to
you. And you know, he's kind of been
the son of a bitch for the entire game.
But by the time the credits roll, there's still kind of a
question whether or not what he did was justified.

(01:20:31):
But that doesn't feel true for the Emperor.
He has. He's not like a main villain.
So I'm not going to expect the level of complexity as someone
like Verso. But yeah, I don't know, I don't.
Even though I like the scene where he gives Stalmain a
fucking aneurysm, it feels a little bit too on the nose I

(01:20:51):
guess is another way of saying what I'm saying.
I've got a question because like, you know, how many of the
endings, like if you choose the emperor, he acts as like your
mind flayer. So has what happens if you don't
stab him and you like one quote side with him.
I assume it's bad for you, but I've just I've I've just never

(01:21:13):
been curious to look it up because I've never considered
doing it. But like I was thinking about
like how to make him likeable, like to the point where you
would fully side with him. And I'm pretty sure, just my gut
feelings that he probably betrayed.
If you do what? You know at the very end when
he's, when you choose him as like your mind flare for the
final battle and he, you have him cast like the level 9 Karsis

(01:21:37):
spell to control the ground and you have the choice of stabbing
him or not stabbing him. What happens if you let him
continue? Because I, I, I've never done
it. I don't even know what.
They're talking like the very end scenes when you're on the
docks. Yeah, yeah, the very no, he's
before the yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where I'm thinking, no,
he's chill. He just goes away.

(01:21:59):
That's like pretty much the end.Yeah, he says like a couple
lines, like I'm glad that we were able to have a fruitful
relationship together and then he just fucks off if I'm
thinking the same thing. Oh wow, I mean it has to be
because it sounds like he did the job and then record with him
so he doesn't backstab you. So is.
He really a bad guy then? I mean, yeah, he treated people
like shit, but within the confines of this story, is he a

(01:22:22):
bad guy? He's not a villain, but he's a
bad guy. Yeah, I mean, I think just like
consistently lying to you throughout the entire game about
everything. And you know, again, the thing
with Stellmaine is what tips it over the edge for me.
Yeah, but I get I'm throwing allthis Stellmaine and and all the
other shit out because I'm saying within the context of

(01:22:43):
Baldur's Gate 3 and the events of the War of the Absolute, it
sounds like all he's doing is acting in the best interest of
the people of Fahrun. Well, I guess the question would
be whether or not you think thatOrpheus is a better way to solve

(01:23:04):
that than keeping him imprisoned.
Right? That because, I mean, the
Emperor is obviously biased. He wants to live.
That's like his entire fucking thing.
He just escaped a mind flayer. He's an adventurer and he wants
to live. Or not a mind flayer, but an
elder brain thrall. And the only reason he doesn't
want to give up Orpheus is because he knows that Orpheus
would kill him as soon as he didthat.

(01:23:24):
And Orpheus is also, you know, protecting his mental.
I feel like if the only goal wasto stop the elder brain, freeing
Orpheus is probably the play. Yeah, that's true.
That is definitely true. If you free Orpheus, does he
always kill the emperor? I believe in every permutation

(01:23:48):
where you free Orpheus, the Emperor immediately fucks off
and just is absorbed like he goes back to the Elder Brain's
thrall. Yeah, he's in the last encounter
with the Crown of Karsus, with the Red dragon.
He shows up there. Oh, so then you kill him there
basically. Yeah.
Yeah. And like.

(01:24:08):
He's just choosing like the winning, the quote UN quote
winning team. In his opinion, that's all he
does, yeah. Because because again, that's
the that's the Emperor's whole MO Dude just wants to live, and
even living under an elder BrainThrall is apparently better than
being killed by Orpheus. Yeah, because like I said, like

(01:24:29):
the reason I ran so much defensefor him the first time was I
couldn't. I'd like, I knew he was
manipulative and I knew he was kind of a piece of shit, but
like I was saying before, he wasoperating in my best interest.
But in this playthrough, as soonas I freed Orpheus, he he
literally just goes, I'm going to go join the absolute now and
just disappears. It's like, oh OK, this guy

(01:24:49):
sucks. I feel like at this point we've
actually gotten through a lot ofour discussion topics.
We have a couple other things here and there, but do you guys
have any big things that you want to get up I.
Don't know what you guys like about the Game Boy.
What? Do you mean?

(01:25:11):
Like the combat specifically? Like what are highlights of the
combat for you guys? I think that the.
Variety and the freedom to do like so many things in like a in
a burst of SIM kind of way. But yeah, I mean that's.
It and on top of that and also like there's like a whole
separate from that, there's likea whole like meta gaming thing

(01:25:31):
that you can get pretty deep into with like all the different
multi classes that you can do. Yeah, I agree with that.
Like I think the beauty of this game is that it's it's just
Minecraft with Dungeons and Dragons stapled on top of it.
Like the game is just a playground where you can do
anything. And just the number of possible

(01:25:55):
permutations of how you can approach combat and what you can
do inside of that combat, just, I mean, this game amazes me
every time I play it. Yeah, I mean, if you want my
just like straightforward and honest answer with the
disclaimer that I have not played I think Solosta, which is
like the only other digital 5E game that is halfway decent.

(01:26:19):
Baldur's Gate 3 is the only way to play a good version of
digital 5E that just doesn't really exist anywhere else.
And it's also like one of the only ways to play it solo if
you're not playing tabletop and such.
So like when I started playing the game, I just played a shit
load because I just want to playa lot of five EI enjoy tabletop
for other reasons I can get into, but Baltic day three does

(01:26:42):
a really good job of replicatingit.
A lot of build variety, a lot ofunique items.
They remove a lot of the restrictions from 5E that I
don't like and they just made ita roaring good time If you want
like the one thing that I enjoy in tabletop that is similar in
Baltic day three, I just like rolling a bunch of dice.
You know, you upcast fireball tolike seventh level and you're
rolling like 12D6. That's a lot of fun to just

(01:27:04):
throw all those dice out there and do a bunch of damage.
And it's kind of similar in Bulger Gate 3 where you know you
don't have that physical action of throwing the dice, which is a
lot of the fun there. But you do get a fuck ton of
numbers popping up on your screen and all the little dice
sound effects when you cast Fireball on like 10 targets.
And I guess to maybe answer moresuccinctly, I just like those

(01:27:26):
really visceral feelings like that one that I described
hitting a big AOE effect on top of like Thomas was describing in
the channel earlier of hitting anatural crit or a natural 20
crit, especially with like a divine Smite.
Like all that just feels great. Yeah, the net, the the critz on
Divine Smite are like the best thing ever.
Between the visual and the soundeffect, it's just like you feel

(01:27:50):
like you just brought down the fucking wrath of God on
somebody. And another thing about the
combat I like is, is actually, even though I criticize it for
his zeal with Maxine, because I really do think it's super fun
to just be able to like especially in the city of
Baldur's Gate, there's it's an urban environment, there's so
many rooftops and you can just fly on top of the rooftops and

(01:28:12):
just snipe enemies and they can't do anything to you.
And it just feels like very, very satisfying to just be that
overpowering just because you can just fly around and shoot
lasers and shit. I think that's in a lot of that
has to do with like the environmental design as well.
Like they're just fun playgrounds to just cause
devastation. Yeah, and I think I gained a

(01:28:35):
new, I gained a new perspective on this as well from playing
honor mode rules for the first time.
Because like I think without, assomeone like very familiar with
five East and Dungeons and Dragons in general, I didn't
have those like barriers of entry that other people had.
And so like the first time I played this game, I played it on

(01:28:58):
tactician and it just felt so easy.
Like I I didn't consider that a bad thing, but that gets turned
on it's fucking head in honor mode because there is some
fucked up shit. And having that additional
challenge in spite of the fact that I was using a bunch of
overpowered builds, he added a degree of excitement of the

(01:29:23):
combat that made me appreciate it even more the fucking third
time around. Yeah, I was, I was definitely
going to bring up honor mode because I think one of the main
things that I enjoy on repeat playthroughs is like, what do
you do when you when you do another playthrough?
It's probably because you eitherwant to do a good or evil run

(01:29:43):
like 1 you didn't do before. You probably want to play with
some new classes and that element of like, OK, I know that
Ethel is going to be a pain in the ass.
And honor mode gives her this like really annoying ability
where she just hard counters what you would do and a normal
playthrough because when you cast a spell, she makes more
clones of herself. So you can't magic missile all

(01:30:04):
of them. And being able to go into that.
And kind of like Ben was saying with the immersive SIM quality
of just figuring it out, like it's a puzzle and being prepared
for it. And like, especially if you're
not following a guide for Honor Mode, that shit is really
engaging. Just making sure you're prepared
at all times. I think Honor Mode is amazing

(01:30:27):
even when it gets a little bit sloggy in terms of its
difficulties. Yeah, dude, like, this was the
first playthrough where I did Kazador's dungeon, which is
crazy, I know, but I, I wasn't familiar with the Cazador fight.
I'd only ever seen like a picture of the arena, but I
didn't know how the actual fightworked.
And so the first time I went in there, I I did it like you're

(01:30:51):
meant to like standing on the seven ritual things and like
killing the guys kind of slowly as you whittle, whittle it down.
That fight is so fucking hard. And so after I was done, I was
like, all right, like that fightwas really tough.
It took me a few tries and now I'm going to ascend Asterian and

(01:31:14):
I'm stupid. And I was like thinking that
killing all 7 dudes was going toallow me to ascend Asterian.
And so as soon as I, I couldn't get like any dialogue option to
do, I was like, wait, what did Ido?
How did I fuck up? And I was like, oh wait, I'm
fucking dumb. And so then I went back and I
tried doing the ascended fight or the Cazador fight again

(01:31:37):
without killing any of the sevendudes.
And that is that is the hardest fight in the fucking game.
I was thinking that Raphael was going to be really hard.
I was thinking that Anne Sewer was going to be pretty hard.
No, dude, fucking 7 vampire Cazador is the most ridiculous
fight in that whole game. And it's a lot of that has to do

(01:31:58):
with honor mode with that fuckedup aura that he has where you
cannot walk it, you can't get upto him without taking like 70
damage, and the fucking aura takes up like half of the arena.
And so having that be an entirely new experience that I
had never had in a game that up to that point, I had probably
around 160 hours in and there was still a combat that like

(01:32:23):
really stretched my brain for how in the fuck can I do this?
I mean, I don't see how you can't like the combat in this
game. I actually can because in this
playthrough I do have like lots of positive feelings about the
honor mode rule set, but I foundmyself being pretty frustrated

(01:32:45):
with the tactician part of it. Not because of the difficulty,
but because like, and this is definitely like a self-inflicted
problem, but like I save scums alot.
So for this play through, like Ithink near the beginning of act
3, I actually just switched it to explore with the honor mode

(01:33:06):
rule set and I thought that was way more fun than doing
tactician. Oh shit, I didn't even make it
the same. Just just it was just so it was
it. It does.
And I think Jordan mentioned this like back in the previous
tashes of ball to get 3. But like missing attacks is just
such a feel bad. And it's it's one of the main
problems with doing like a tabletop adaptation of a into a

(01:33:27):
video game is when you have dice, you're going to miss more
often than like a Final Fantasy where pretty much the only way
you can miss is if you get like the blind status effect.
You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I agree
completely. I think for me like, so I don't,
I don't have like a sandbox imagination mindset.
So like that part is completely lost on me.

(01:33:49):
So then when you go past that, it's just like if you miss and
if you like so every fight that has more than like 10 enemies in
it, it feels like an absolute fucking nightmare.
Like I just look at the top bar and it's just like, I don't it's
45 minutes if I don't want to dothis.
Because like even if I was playing Final Fantasy 7 and and
like random encounter happened and then there was just a sea of
fucking saw Huggins, I would turn the game off.

(01:34:10):
I'll go play something else. So like this game, every time I
get in the combat like that, it was just like God fucking damn
it. And then you get stuck here and
like it's like 70% hit chance miss and then you get crit by
the enemy twice in a row and you're like this sucks at.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean for me, I don't mind that
stuff cuz like to me this game is just XCOM with Minecraft on
top of it. And to me that is like, I don't

(01:34:32):
know, the like incredible, I guess.
Yeah, like I, I guess the question I have is like, like,
this is obviously this isn't theonly game where there's like
potential for high rates of failure, right?
And just keep in mind, as I'm asking this, I'm someone who
loves Darkest Dungeon, so I'm a bit more inclined towards that

(01:34:53):
level of RNG than others perhaps.
But like, like, what is it exactly about that feeling of
missing that feels bad because like, in theory your enemies
have as much chance of it as youdo, But why does it?
It sounds like it feels particularly bad in this game
compared to other games you've played.

(01:35:13):
I think it's because of how manyenemies are in the combat.
Like when you so like when you think of it as like a 5 to 1
turn ratio of like, OK, I have 40 party members and I'm against
20 dudes. That means that if I miss, they
get there's five actions that are happening that didn't happen
because I missed. Whereas with one of them misses,
they still took four actions andDarkest Dungeon.
If there was 20 enemies, that game would be awful.
If you it felt like you missed because there's three, it kind

(01:35:33):
of feels a little more fair because they can miss because
you're on like evil playing field.
But I think like being outnumbered is why it feels
shitty. It's kind of funny because
that's actually like as Adm and tabletop that you really have to
keep in mind too. Like that's one of the things
with the action economy is not only is more enemies on the
opposing side going to make the encounter exponentially harder,

(01:35:54):
you as the DM also have to manage all those instead of
having something digital that follows all of it for you.
So maybe your players are playing a fighter and a warlock
where their turn is just, I hit it and I cast Eldridge blast and
it takes less than 5 minutes. And then it gets to your turn
and you're like, oh, I put 30 enemies in this encounter.
Hold on. Let me just roll all of their

(01:36:15):
dice at the same time and then move all of them on this battle
map and it takes like fucking half an hour to take one turn.
So I just, I just it's kind of interesting hearing what I know
is a critique or something you have to keep in mind and
tabletop also applied here. What were you going to say,
Thomas? Like I, I think I mentioned

(01:36:36):
earlier that like big combats inthis game are the most annoying
thing by far, which is what makes me think kind of I, I
don't really think too fondly onthe final encounter because it's
just a big long stupid combat. But in hearing Jordan's
criticism, I'm going to go aheadand assume that Jordan did not

(01:36:57):
do the Viconia fight because I think if he did, he would rate
this game like a three out of 10.
That fight is. That fight is nothing but a shit
load of enemies who are all casting fog and blinding you
and. They all have 100 health at
least. I don't think I did.
I know you did. Of hope, but not house.

(01:37:17):
Of hope House of grief with shadow heart.
Yeah. No, I did that.
Yeah, I did that. Oh yeah, cuz you Oh yeah, cuz
you did Shadow Hearts quiz. Yeah, that one, that one wasn't
that bad. What the hell, that would be
like the worst for what you're describing.
That combat's huge. I think it's just because I was
on explorer like and there isn'treally that big challenge on

(01:37:38):
explorer and I went to explorer because the shit was annoying.
So like I'd like because I couldfucking basically just like one
shot. The problem basically just like
kill is if Iconia like the main bitch, like kill her basically
she gets a turn and then I kill her and then I kill like the
other two big guards and then it's just dudes casting the
darkness things to no avail. The out of combat wasn't that

(01:37:59):
bad, yeah. So to be fair, tactician is
pretty much the same thing. You one shot her but you might
have to like reload because yourman.
Man also the that fight that fight with evil Shadowheart is
awesome because like 3/4 of the people in that room just join
you and end up fucking up Viconia.
Oh, that's cool. And that shit is the fucking

(01:38:21):
worst. I think only on honor mode is
where they get radiant retort. So your guardians doesn't work,
your radiance of dawn doesn't work, none of that shit.
You got to do it fucking natty. Yeah, like, I think my favorite
encounter in the game was with Merkel because it was like a
small encounter with like, cool shit that the boss did, But

(01:38:43):
every other encounter is just like, hey, here's one dude that
does a lot of things and then here's 12 dudes that also do
annoying shit. You probably would have liked
the answer. Or fight a lot, I bet.
Yeah. That is pretty similar.
Yeah, it's just you versus a bigass fuck off dragon.
Yeah, I didn't do that quest because I was like, do I want to
do this? And then I went to the Wikipedia

(01:39:03):
page of what the quest is and itjust kept scrolling and I was
like, now that's too long. I mean, it's like a whole bunch
and it's, Oh yeah, maybe not, maybe not quite as long as House
of Hope, but similar. It's definitely.
As long as House of Hope. You get a chess puzzle though.
You just get to do chess. Oh, it's like System Shock.

(01:39:25):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that that that
whole that whole thing leading up to answer is just a it's just
a puzzle dungeon. There's one combat and it's like
a scripted just survive for fourturns combat.
Ah yes, the cast globe of invulnerability encounter.
I enjoy that one. Where?
Yeah, the only. I don't know if it's just a

(01:39:49):
keyboard mouse experience, but every time I had to interact
with a puzzle, I fucking hated it.
I just felt like I didn't know what the what the options were
or like how to interface with things or like if I missed a
whatever, like I can tell it notperception check or something.
Like I just, yeah. Yeah, because of like like alt
not highlighting everything right?

(01:40:09):
It only shows what? I don't even know what the fuck
it shows. Yeah, I I don't either.
It's it's fucking line. Is it anyway?
Yeah, it's nothing. Yeah, I I can't believe that
cause again, like if I because I've never had the experience of
playing on keyboard mouse like for a playthrough, I have no
idea how you would do like that Act 2 library puzzle if you just

(01:40:34):
gotta hover over every single book on every single bookshelf.
Like what the fuck? It's so weird.
The thing that has made me like like I'll never switch over to
controller if I play this game again is the auto loot mod.
Oh my God that thing was a godsend because it just auto
loots everything it puts it intolike an infinite bag of holding.

(01:40:57):
I just put the three different bags it gives me into my hot bar
and I never had to worry about shit again.
Yeah, that sounds sick. Yeah, that mod is compulsory
even though it's pretty goddamn broken because yeah, all it does
is just auto loot things in likea 30m radius, which is huge.
I thought you're going to say like functionally it had issues

(01:41:18):
because there was like a highlight everything mod that
like I saw people saying that like there's a lot of issues
with it or something. So I didn't even like install
it. I think the auto loot mod might
still be like really fucked up and overpowered because I think
it, I think it unlocks some containers.
Like sometimes I would use the skilled and I would see the word
unlocked and I was like, that's cool.

(01:41:40):
It's in my bag of holding now. Jordan, did you still sorry?
Go ahead. I was going to say, I mean like
if something's locked and you can lock pick and I think that
that's a trivial task anyway with save loads.
So go ahead, Seth. I was just going to ask if did
you still want to talk about like some of our standout

(01:42:00):
narrative points for Act three, or do you feel like we touched
on that already? Did I write that down as a
question? Yeah.
Yeah, I I feel like we already talked about it because mainly
the point of that question was Ithought that it there were,
there were none. So why don't you guys tell me
what the good ones were? I mean, I I do feel like

(01:42:23):
everything with Oren is actuallypretty good.
Oh yeah, Gortash is not good, but Oren, everything with Oren
is quite good. Oren Oren is awesome.
I love the Temple of Ball. Yeah, I think the main problem
is like basically the nether brain.
Like I think the nether brain sucks like.
Yeah, Nether Nether brain and Gortash both very kind of
shitty. Yeah.

(01:42:44):
To to just fanfic right for myself for a second, like I wish
that fucking like the crown got knocked off the the brain's head
and then the brain's on your side and then the crown
manifests into like some God fucking thing or something like,
I don't know, make that shit happen.
And then you fight the crown like with the elder brain on
your side. That would be fucking.
That sounds that sounds like a fucking JRPG.
Use it as a mouse. That's what I grew up with.

(01:43:05):
I grew up with these games. I grew up with JRPGS so that's
why that's. That's actually so serious.
You're talking about like outlandish ways that this game
could have been. This is very much a non
sequitur, but I think it's worthbringing up because it is about
Baldur's Gate 3. But George Zeet originally wrote
like his idea for what Baldur's Gate 3 could be.

(01:43:26):
So you do you care? Do you guys care about spoilers
of Baldur's Gate 2? I don't care.
OK, so one of the endings of Baldur's Gate 2, specifically
Throne of Ball, is that you can literally just become Ball.
And that's just like your fate. You become a God and you're,
you're the new God of murder. And so his idea was that like,
because Throne of Ball was like Dragon Ball Z basically in terms

(01:43:49):
of power scaling, he was like Baldur's Gate 3 means you should
go beyond that. What he wanted to do was you
were the you were Ball and you played as like an avatar.
You just sent an avatar of yourself to like just do stuff.
And your party members would also be gods.
So like Mr. would send her avatar and she'd be in your

(01:44:11):
party and you just have like a party of gods, just like just
doing godly shit. And I just thought that was just
an interesting Balder's day three fast.
Yeah, that would. Be awesome.
That. Sounds like crazy deviation.
Sounds like wrath of the righteous.
Yeah, Is that what? Is that what?
Segued in A Mask of the Betrayerout of curiosity.

(01:44:33):
I have no idea. I just know that he wrote, he
wrote something like that. Like that's like if he he were
to do Baldur's Gate 3, that's what he would have done.
Yeah, to be honest, it sounds narratively cool, but that would
have been a fucking nightmare toplay.
Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Like I I feel like there's a very low chance it could have
been a good video. It's a it's a cool ass idea.

(01:44:54):
It's a cool ass idea until you realize what it's actually like
to be like level 50 in Throne ofBall.
And I mean casting buffs and shit is so annoying.
When you think about it though, isn't that actually what's going
on in Balder's Gate 3? Like every character is the
chosen of a God. Like the the main cast is just
the chosen of Jurgle. So isn't that literally just

(01:45:16):
what's happening? We're just playing the avatars
instead of the gods. I guess so, yeah, kind of, I
guess, I don't know, maybe it's just the way that he wrote.
But like, my impression was thatyou were literally bald, but
just like just sending out like a simple acrim of yourself so
that you're never in danger or something like that.
You're just you should treat things as a God and you have

(01:45:37):
like godly solutions like that. Yeah, like you got to realize
like at the end of Boulder Skate3 you're level 12.
At the end of Throne of Ball you're what, like level 40 ish
somewhere like that, yeah. And yeah, the the power scaling
by the end of that shit like theDragon Ball Z comparison is not
far off. Well, I still need a.

(01:45:59):
Shadow. Is that a Bolter's Gate 2
expansion? Yeah, so, so when people, when
people say the Boulder's Gate trilogy, they're talking about
Bolter's Gate 1-2 and Throne of Ball.
Oh, that's very confusing now that there's a bolter's gate
three. Yeah.
Yeah. So what is is there?
Like what's the Max level in D&Dthen?
It's 20. It's 20.

(01:46:21):
They just said fuck it. Oh good.
And it, it doesn't play nice like the the rules get really
fucky wacky. And it it really, it really does
not work that well to be honest with you.
Yeah, like if if you go on like AD and D subreddit and ask like,
man, I'm really having trouble challenging my party of level 4,

(01:46:42):
my party of four level 20 adventures, what should I throw
at them? And they're just like a new
campaign. That's the only thing you can
do. Thomas, you wrote down some
stuff about the performances of Minsk.
What exactly did you want to talk about with that?

(01:47:04):
I guess I was just curious abouthow you guys felt about the not
the portrayal of the character itself, but the actual
performance between OG Baldersgate, which is the iconic
Jim Cummings playing Minsk versus Matt Mercer.

(01:47:24):
And I don't I, I guess I don't really have like the strongest
opinions in the world. I was just curious what you guys
think, because that shit pissed off a lot of boomers and I think
if they were good to get anyone to replace Jim Cummings, Matt
Mercer was a good choice. But yeah, I'm just curious what
you guys think. Yeah, I think Jim Cummings is a

(01:47:45):
fucking legend. So I think thinking of it as a
replacement is a bad idea, because that guy's really
fucking good. Yeah, I think there was a reason
why they couldn't use him, but Ithink it had to do like so there
was kind of like an issue with hiring him.
But regardless, I think that Matthew Murphy did a good job
because I know that Matthew Mercer is like a big deal and

(01:48:06):
like very well known, but I actually don't know anything
about him other than the fact that I've seen his name in a
bunch of places. But I thought his minx was
pretty. Good, I mean separating it out
for the performance. And this is a hot take.
I hope I don't get a lot of hate.
Probably will from external individuals.

(01:48:27):
Pretty sure Matt Mercer only gotthe role because he was the GM
of the most popular D&D podcast by a lot.
No, I, I, I agree with that, butI actually think that that's a
positive. I actually think that that's
like a cool like bone to throw out to the Dungeons and Dragons
community like writ large. Yeah, I agree.

(01:48:51):
But as someone that's listened to 600 hours of Critical Role,
you know, I, I cannot hear Minsk.
I can only hear Matthew Mercer even though his performance was
good. Yeah, that's fair.
I. Mean it is Matthew Mercer and
then he like at the end of his words, he brings an accent and
it's it is kind of like weird. That's just Matthew Mercer voice
acting. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna

(01:49:14):
hate on the guy, 'cause he's amazing.
But. He has a good voice.
He does not have the widest range in the known universe.
Yeah, I mean, he has a good Scottish accent because he is in
fact part Scottish. In one of the campaigns he did a
lot of like French accents and German accents, and those were

(01:49:34):
pretty good. Like, he's definitely talented.
I don't want anyone to think that.
I don't think that Matt Mercer is talented, but I don't know.
I think there's a lot of optionsthey could have gone with.
I think he should have voiced a different character to be
honest. I think giving him Minsk of all
people, as Matthew Mercer did, it didn't play into either of

(01:49:57):
their strengths. Let's just put it that way.
I don't think it was bad, but yeah, could have been better.
Yeah, I don't know. For me again, and this is just
like kind of like my standards for voice acting where basically
you're good enough or your chaosWars and he was good, more than
good enough, at least for me personally.

(01:50:20):
Important question, was there anyone in this game, NPCS
included, that did not pass the Chaos Wars test?
I think everybody did at least agood job.
I don't think anyone sounded like Final Fantasy 16.
Throw away NPCS where it's like what the hell?
And that shit's crazy considering how many NPCS are

(01:50:42):
voiced. Yeah, I think it's just having a
good director basically. So real quick, I do want to just
like bring up what Jordan just wrote in Discord.
Yeah, he, Jim Cummings apparently was just busy and
that is all. Just, it wasn't clear because
he's. Yeah, exactly because.

(01:51:03):
And I, and I do want to make that clear because I am a huge
fan of Jim Cummings. Like if you've ever watched a
Disney movie, you're a fan of Jim Cummings.
I don't want to slander the guy or speak I'll of him when it's
not warranted. He fucking rules.
Anyway, sorry for derailing a little bit.
I have a question as as dark urge, when you are tasked with

(01:51:28):
becoming the unholy assassin, isthere like a tree of people that
can be a part of that like assassination before you bathe
in blood? Or is it always that little
elephant detective? Fucker, I'm pretty sure that's
always the elephant. I've yeah, I've only ever seen
the elephant person and I was very glad to.

(01:51:49):
Bear that thing's head. And I was very confused as that
was the literal first time Minthar broke her oath and I
don't know why why why that would like that.
Of all the things I. Did in this game and my evil
dirge playthrough. Killing that elephant was the
one thing that broke Minthar's oath and I do not get.
I mean, I, I just want to give ashout out to the fact that I

(01:52:12):
went to the murder tribunal. I embodied Sarah Vac on Explorer
because I didn't feel like doingmuch more past that point.
Murdered Sarah Vac because I didn't want to be an unholy
assassin going to the room whereLittle Elephant Man is.
And then you know what? I just fucking killed him
anyway. I was tired of hearing his

(01:52:32):
voice. No consequences.
Very true. Yeah.
I was just curious if that's like a thing that can that's
controlled somewhere else or if it's just always him, so or her.
Isn't it a her? Does not sound like a her.
Oh, I'm not. I'm not sure I'm.
Pretty sure they refer to fucking elephant thing as a her.

(01:52:53):
I could be wrong and that reallyconfused me when I saw that, but
I'm pretty sure that is the case.
I'm not sure. Yeah, I think that might be one
of those things specifically to do with Ball that's kind of
locked in. That and also Gildro the the the
blacksmith that Oregon can impersonate.
Regardless of whether or not he gets impersonated in your

(01:53:15):
playthrough, I think that when you go into the Temple Ball,
he's always going to be one of the corpses on like one of the
the stone slabs. But I I might be wrong on that
so maybe not. I don't think I am though,
because every playthrough I've played he's I've always seen his
corpse there in the Temple of Ball.
I kind of want to. So I kind of want to

(01:53:38):
specifically ask Thomas his feelings on Astarian.
I know Thomas fucked up the romance and stuff, but I know
that you hadn't done playthroughwith the Syrian before so I
wanted to ask you about that, but also just to like ask
everyone for your favorite companion in your playthrough.

(01:53:59):
Did you feel like they were donewell?
Do you feel like more could havebeen done for their character?
Are you satisfied with it? How are the feels?
My favorite was Menthara and I don't think they did enough.
Like I I was hoping for so much more content and all I got was

(01:54:19):
just great writing but no thingsto do with her including
romance. I was like, where's?
Where's the content? 100% agreed.
I was gonna say that pretty muchword for word.
Menthara is like the absolute best part of an evil
playthrough. An absolutely fucking incredible

(01:54:40):
character, charming in the most evil kind of way.
Just a really hot mom. And I really am disappointed
that there's no companion quest or like additional content with
her. As far as the Starean goes, I'm
gonna make some enemies here, so.

(01:55:01):
My God. I'll preface this by saying I
did in fact fuck up his romance.I think maybe by boning Menthara
in the goblin camp is what may be caused that.
I read a lot of things about howyou could salvage it in act 2
but I could not get any of thosethings to trigger.
So my new RP just became being the most evil man in the world

(01:55:25):
who doesn't is asexual I guess. And so a lot of my perspective
on Astarian is kind of baked from not romancing him, which I
think probably changes one's perspective of his character a
lot. And don't get me wrong, Astarian
is fucking incredible. That is probably the single best

(01:55:48):
video game performance of an individual character.
And the only thing I think is debatable is like choose your
own adventure from Expedition 33.
But really well written, but doesn't really kind of reach the
highs that he had been hyped up to me.

(01:56:11):
I'll just say that like he was really good, but I felt like the
way people talked about him, I was in for like the most wild
emotional ride of my entire life.
But instead it was just really good and there's nothing wrong
with that. It's just I felt like the way it
was hyped up is a little, it's alittle underwhelming compared to
the hype that I got. And I'm gonna blame that on him,

(01:56:34):
on me fucking up the romance. One thing I'll mention, I won't
go too far into it since, you know, it just sounds like you
didn't get everything since you didn't do the romance.
But you know, I would just recommend like looking into it a
little bit because I think there's some good details in
there that you probably missed if you continue to percolate on

(01:56:54):
that thought. Yeah, and if I do another
playthrough I will 100,000% do aresist dirge playthrough and I
will not fuck up the Astarian romance.
What did I use? Sesh.
What do I feel about hysteria? No, the original question I was

(01:57:15):
asking about do you feel like your favorite companion was done
justice? No, that's where like Carl, I
got shitty ending. Yeah, I feel like we we went
through that at length. Yeah, and it's unfortunate
because to get her one good ending, you have to do like the
most things about out of like any character like that one
dungeon, the one that you were talking about the the worm way

(01:57:38):
with Will where you fight the big dragon.
You you basically have to do that quest to get her really.
And there's like, yeah, cuz, cuzyou need Will to become the
blade of Averness. Oh wow, yeah, I forgot about
that. Well, she.
Unless you're a romantic I thought then you can also go
with her to Averness. But like, if you if you aren't

(01:58:00):
romancing Karlak, then you do have to do that in order to
like, convince her to go to Averness.
I thought she could go by herself.
I'm pretty sure she can't. I if they did that's that was
definitely patched in because I know when I originally did it,
you either did it right or you got to I.
Saw everybody say with Will likeshe goes to Averness with Will

(01:58:24):
so I don't know if there is a way to do it but when I was
looking into it everyone always mentioned with Will which is why
I didn't do it because I was like fuck Will.
I'm I'm pretty sure you can do her by herself, her with will,
her with you, or all three of you.
I'm pretty sure all of those arepossible.
Pretty cool. I I knew that all of them were

(01:58:44):
possible except for by herself. I'd I'd have to look into that.
I'll take your word for it because I know that you know a
fucked up about this game, but that surprises me and I feel
like it was probably added afterthe fact if it's if it's there.
It's possible. I mean, isn't when they first
had her ending of going to a Vernus like they had they

(01:59:05):
rewrote it since then or something?
Wasn't it like more bleak? You didn't have the the
epilogue, so basically I wouldn't call it bleak, but it
basically ends with you having like an action movie sequence of
you and Carlac running at a bunch of demons or axes.
Yeah, 'cause they added that cutscene before they added the

(01:59:26):
epilogue. You.
Know oh, so then so that happensand then there's an epilogue
where you're like, wow, I'm gladwe killed everybody in a Vernus
or something. In the epilogue, what happens is
that Carlock talks about you andher and Will's adventure in
Furnace and how you guys found like maybe like some schematics
to improve her heart so that shecan go back to Fey Rune.

(01:59:47):
Is that correct or my? Yeah, it's something like.
Inaccurate. It's something along the lines
of like, we found one of Zariel's hell forges that we
think can be used to repair my heart.
So it's like kind of a. Optimistic note AKA it's AD and
D1 shot that I want to run. So, but so your epilogue like

(02:00:08):
isn't a Withers party like you're just epiloguing in hell
with them. That is Withers party.
That is Withers party. And yeah, he just uses his
magical Withers bullshit to allow you and Carla to attend.
Yeah, it's the same thing where like if GAIL becomes a God, he
gets invited Withers. Yeah, I, I, it sounds like

(02:00:30):
that's like the preferred way, but I don't like how the game
railroads do. Like Carlack is like really like
I want to be the fucking mind flayer.
Pick me. Yeah, I fell for that my first
time too, don't worry. Especially when that's like, you
know, post mortem the worst choice by a lot unfortunately.

(02:00:50):
It feels slightly better than letting her die.
The the problem is if you go offof what our chosen, if you go
off what our God Withers says I'll if it's don't have souls,
meaning when she becomes an I'llif it then she she is dead.
Yeah, but at least she's not dead.

(02:01:15):
At least she can. She can still say some words to
you. Yeah, she's still being
ventriloquized. Kind of Terry schiavoed with it,
but still kind of there. Weekend at Carlax.
Yeah, I also think, I think it'sweird like so if shadow shadow
almost a shadow verse, if shadowheart is stays on Char's side,

(02:01:36):
you still find her parents. Yeah, yeah.
And you get a choice and everyone who does an evil
playthrough makes that that choice where basically you just
turn them into fucking living batteries for.
Your char powers. I will say that that that is
probably up there with one of the like most feels bad

(02:01:59):
decisions of the entire evil playthrough because she is like
even though she has performed every evil deed up to that
point, she is so doubtful in that moment.
Like like you can very much tellshe has absolutely 0 desire to
do this until you talk her into it.
And then immediately after that Charles like snaps her fingers

(02:02:22):
and is just right back to not remembering shit that one
doesn't. Yeah, I forgot that's how that
goes. Yeah.
Yeah, because Shadowheart run isso good.
Yeah, because she Shadowheart comes back and she just looks at
these two fucking like puddles of goo on the floor.
Just like who the fuck are they?Oh well, I'm super powerful now.

(02:02:44):
See, that seems so much better than fucking mopey ass fucking
saloon Shadowheart. Would they?
She dies. Like like unironically, and this
is part of the reason I brought up the legacy thing earlier, is
like both with her and Astarian,they just seem so much happier.
Like letting them do the thing that they say all game that they

(02:03:05):
want to do. But like once you start digging
into it, it's just so sad. But like, yeah, Karlak as the
Mother Superior just running around the Sword Coast
recruiting people into the cult of Char.
Like dude, there's no one more attractive than evil shadow
heart at that party. No one comes close.
Facts. But that was something I was
confused by. So I know like when you do like

(02:03:26):
the good shadow heart playthrough, she like changes
her hair. It's like white.
And then in this playthrough, maybe I wasn't paying attention,
but she was like she she she also does that like she does she
change her hair? She's she says she does.
But when I looked at her, it waslike it's still black.
Maybe I'm just confused. Did she like?
Have a Yeah, she has different bangs.

(02:03:48):
Oh, OK, so that's it. That's.
Yeah, yeah. How are you sobering me with
this? I just.
See her now I got a haircut. Yeah, she she makes a like way
bigger deal of it than what is actually like justified, but it
does change. So funny.
Mama Shara says I did a good job.

(02:04:11):
Yeah, I think in in retrospect of all the the companions,
because by now I've I have done every single one of their like A
to B quests. I think Shadow Hearts is my
favorite. Astarians is good too, but I
think it's second to Shadow Heart.
I don't know, I feel like just that scene where he stabs

(02:04:33):
Cazador is just so goddamn good.It is really good.
That one and the scene with Sebastian in the jail cell, That
one. You know, I'm going to be
honest, a big problem that I hadwith the whole Cazador thing.
Again, this was the first time Idid any of the Cazador shit so
I'd never really seen him in a cutscene and he looks so much

(02:04:54):
like Shang Sung that it just bothered me.
It's funny, Yeah. He's a funny looking dude.
Like so this is you, You guys know the subreddit OK buddy?
Yeah, it's it's a meme subreddit.
So for so for this is like a couple years ago, maybe like 2
years ago like but like the biggest meme was just people

(02:05:18):
taking screenshots of a modded Kazor who's.
Pregnant. That was just like.
The biggest thing on that subreddit, anytime you went
there it was just memes of pregnant Kazidor and that's it.
What the hell? But why?
It's it's the fucking OK buddy culture.
Oh my God, that's funny. Did did you guys like the fact

(02:05:43):
that both Kazador and Laroacan, both of them are kind of bitch
boys? Like you know, they're like a
side villains in Act 3? Did they feel like they
fulfilled their role well? Laroacan, I'm gonna say yes
because I think he is like, he just kind of seems like he's

(02:06:05):
supposed to be like that sheistybitch boy who just wants the
Night Song. And I think he like hams up the
role enough that it works. Whereas Kasador I don't think
really gets enough screen time to justify what he is.
I think Cazador could have used like some Flaketh treatment

(02:06:25):
where he like shows up every nowand then somehow.
Throw him on the fucking pile ofvillains that needed more screen
time in this game, yeah. To have him be like fucking
Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7 to Assyrian or something where
he just antagonizes him randomlyacross the place.
Exactly. That'd be cool actually.
Everyone needs a little Missouriin their life, you know.

(02:06:48):
Speak. Did you guys fuck her?
Oh, that was no, because in an evil playthrough she's.
Not there. There's no will in an evil.
Could you kill her? That was no, it's if you if you
kill the Grove and will. Leaves 'cause there's no.
Evil. And he takes Mizora with her.
He takes the only good part of him with her.

(02:07:09):
I have fucked Mizora and other playthroughs though.
Yeah, and then I would immediately reload because every
time I did, the romance breaks up a video.
Of the same person I like. I have the no romance limit mod
so I could just turn it back on but even then like everybody
chastising me I was like fuckingfine I'll fucking load fucking
pussies. It wasn't even a more, yeah, it

(02:07:32):
wasn't even a more fucked up scene than the evil shadow heart
romance scene. And they still get mad at you
for it. What's the evil shadow heart
romance scene? Oh, it's so good.
I fucking love it. It reminds me of a scene from
Penny Dreadful, but basically she reveals to you that she had
taken a vial of Night Song's blood after you killed her, and

(02:07:56):
she says that like it. Oh, she.
Pours it on the statue of Solunate.
It's truly. Become like a fucking servant of
Char. You have to commit an act of
wickedness. And so to do that, yeah, she
pours the Blood of the Night Song onto a statue of Saluna and
you fuck in front of it, and you're both just covered in the

(02:08:17):
Night Song's blood by the. God, that's awesome.
That is so good. That is fucking metal.
It's so. Good.
And Thomas, it reminds me of that scene from Penny Dreadful
where they like, kill the guy and they're coming in blood.
Dude, who the fuck are all of these cucks that I heard

(02:08:37):
criticizing the evil playthroughin this game saying?
Like I heard nothing but bad things about the evil
playthrough initially, like whenthe game came out.
I don't know how much they've added since then.
Which is what spurred me to playWrath of the Righteous because
everyone was like yeah don't even bother playing the evil
playthrough, just go play Wrath of the Righteous.
So I took that to heart. But God damn the evil
playthrough is fucking awesome. But I think there's a couple

(02:09:01):
things like #1 and the evil playthrough was definitely
extremely buggy on launch. Like Menthara especially was
just a buggy mess there. There was just a lot of quality
issues when it came from that. And outside of that, like how
much of that feeling is coming from the fact that there's now
an actually good evil ending foryou?

(02:09:23):
You know, 'cause I mean I didn'texist.
I didn't know what the evil ending was before so.
The only extent of the evil ending was being able to mind
control everyone and that was it.
Not even the scene that you saw.Literally just like a scene
where you're on top of the brainand everyone has glowy eyes and
that's it. OK yeah what a suck if I if I

(02:09:43):
didn't get the whole like sea ofblood blood moon fucking still
image at the end. Yeah, you wouldn't.
You wouldn't have gotten that and you wouldn't have gotten the
scene where you like mind controlled all of Balters gate
into killing themselves or getting or whatever.
Sorry, that's what you're going to.
Say I was going to say this gameis single handedly responsible

(02:10:05):
for me thinking that like playing evil places might not be
that bad because I think the good place was just like boring
as fuck. Like I think I would have had
such a better time. Like I think I would still need
the perspective of knowing that the good playthrough is such a
nothing burger that like OK now like let's just fucking fuck
shit up. But still it was just like.
I mean. Don't give a fuck.

(02:10:25):
If. I would argue that the issue is
less about being good and more about being Ted.
I think if if you have an aversion to evil shit in video
games, the evil ending for Dark urge, dude, it's fucked up.
There's you won't, you won't like it if you have an aversion
to doing evil shit 'cause it is fucking gnarly and your party is

(02:10:48):
dead. All of them are dead, no matter
what. The problem is, I don't.
I don't really care about the characters, so I'm OK with that.
I guess what I'm saying like I didn't have such a good
experience with the with the, with a good run that I would
think a bad run would be like, oh, I don't like this.
I do have a. Point in the sense where like

(02:11:08):
like when I played Wrath of the Righteous, like there were a lot
of the good aligned characters that I just didn't really like
so it was fun to just bully themas an evil character.
Exactly, like it'd be fun as fuck to cut Kale's hand off and
shove that shit back in the portal.
No, you keep it. You keep it.

(02:11:29):
He going back you. Can fucking give it to the
murder tribunal. Does does he die if you do that
or is it just Oh yeah. Yeah, he does.
Fuck. It's the best.
That's the absolute best reason to do a dirge playthrough is he
don't have to deal with this fucking like whatever that act
one thing where you have to likefeed him items.
Fuck that. That's funny.

(02:11:51):
Yeah, yeah, the the evil playthrough like 'cause I agree
with you. My first playthrough when I was
a goody 2 shoes, it was like I romance shadow Heart and she got
a good ending. But I guess I I spoke about this
already, but yeah, everyone elsewas like, it was like a a
tragedy the way that they're playthrough ended.

(02:12:11):
Well, I feel like we've gotten through pretty much all of our
main discussion topics. Is there anything else you guys
want to touch on before we do some of the more meta going
forward stuff? Act 3 is probably the greatest
single sequence in a video game of all time.

(02:12:33):
That's all I'll say. It's it's so weird because like
I, I think you're right as a whole, even though there's like
nothing individually that would make me think that it's just all
together is I mean. It has flaws.
We've been, we've talked about the flaws, but God damn is
everything else just overridden by how much fucking fun it is?

(02:12:56):
I had something that I still don't know if it's a bug and I
just wanted to bring up to if you guys can confirm.
So after I blew up the steel forge I tried to go to Worms
Fortress via the Baldur's Gate side and like the Emperor won't
let me walk up to the gate because he says the brains
there. Is that supposed to happen?

(02:13:18):
I don't. What?
You're trying are. You talking about like, are you
talking about where? We're trying to get like, so you
blow up the steel forge and Cortez no longer has the the
steel forge dudes like protecting him, so you want to
go kill him. But then if I try to go to where
he was, the emperor's like the brains here, you can't go there
and he teleports me back. Oh, that's kind of weird.

(02:13:40):
He shouldn't do that because like, I mean, it makes sense
that like you can't fast shove him, right?
Because Gortash is mad at you because he destroyed his army.
I think that's actually surprising because I thought
that even like, if you try to walk to the actual Baldur's
Gate, you know, near like where Figaro is the guy that like is
going to get murdered if you didn't stop the murders.

(02:14:02):
Like when you walk near that area, the the nether brain is
like very powerful there. And like it makes it clear in
like no uncertain terms that you'll basically lose the game
if you keep walking. And I think that if you keep
walking, you actually do lose the game, right?
Like does Emperor actually come and save you?
No, yeah, he teleport you back. I've never tried it because I
heard that you. Just lose.
Yeah. So when I got to the gate, he

(02:14:23):
goes like, all right, if you're not going to listen, I'll make
you listen. And then he just teleport you
back to the start of the bridge.I had to go to the other side
and the drawbridge is up and I had to jump down to go through
like the prison entrance at the ground, which I didn't know was
there. I had to look that shit up.
That's really weird. Yeah.
I'd never get yeah, that's really weird.

(02:14:45):
Something about this sounds really familiar.
It feels like it almost should be intentional but when I looked
it up like there was only like 2Reddit threads talking about it
and they said like yeah you haveto go through this entrance
thing it's a bug but like I it'sI have no idea.
Was this after you had killed Oren?
It was no, I, I didn't kill Oren.
I I was. No, he, he, he did the the steel

(02:15:07):
foundry. He stopped the production of the
I went to the. Submarine shit.
And then after I did all that and Gortash is pissed at me,
then I went and blew up his steel forge.
And then that's when I couldn't get in because the Emperor told
me the brain's there, even though the brain wasn't there
when I actually got inside. That that sounds like a bug.
I can't. I don't.
I don't think I've ever experienced that.

(02:15:27):
And that's. Really weird.
I don't know what I did to make that happen.
And then the other thing that happened related to that was as
a paladin, when I blew up the steel forge and broke my oath,
which I don't know why it did. But then the fucker who unbreaks
who gives me the oath back nevershowed up when I went to my
camp. So I was just like, all right,
we've got some. Oath from them.
Now, which oath were you? Shit.

(02:15:50):
I'm just curious because I that that is something that I really
don't like in the game is like I'd like the reactivity from
breaking your oaths and the amount of things that they took
into account is really cool. But also for something so
punishing they really don't spell it out for you very well.
It's very open to interpretationfor some reason.

(02:16:10):
Both of the ancients, yeah, I have no idea.
AI Overview AI Overview says Oath of Devotion is often broken
when destroying the Foundry, especially if it incites or
involves violence against the Ghanians who are not directly
attacking you. Yeah, I don't know.

(02:16:31):
I guess like if. If somehow like one of them died
or something, I don't know. That if I had to guess, that
would probably be it. Like there was still a living
one inside and it killed him when you blew it up or
something. That's kind of dumb though.
That's what I assumed, but I wasjust like, OK whatever, I'll
just pay the 2000 gold the fuck the guy wants.
And then he just never showed up.
I was like, all right, well, I guess I'm just all broken now.

(02:16:52):
Sounds like yeah, it sounds likeyour game was bugged as shit it.
Was fucked up, I long rested like 6 times and he just never
showed up. Oh, and he just never showed up.
That's kind of weird. He was there in my camp because
when I broke my oath, I actuallydidn't mind being an oath
breaker because I think that theoath breaker subclass is
actually cooler than just being a regular paladin.

(02:17:15):
Like you get special abilities just for breaking your oath.
It's not like a downgrade. It's like a side grade.
And then even then, like I went to the camp not to like bargain
with him. I just fucking killed him
because he was just level 12. What's he to me?
Nothing has killed him. Yeah, I learned that the oath
breaker was sick when trying to figure out like, am I doing

(02:17:35):
something wrong to get my oath back?
And people were like, just play oath breaker, oath breaker sick
or whatever. And I was like, huh, whatever.
It was basically at the end of the game anyway.
So I was like, I'm not, I'm not too worried about it.
Yeah, I feel you said you downloaded a couple mods, right?
And no romance limit. I guess that one should be fine.
I don't know, I feel like every time I've downloaded mods it

(02:17:58):
causes a fucked ton of random. It wouldn't.
It wouldn't surprise me, yeah. Just wanted to ask the question
that Thomas wrote in here, whichis where should we expect CRPGS
to go from here? What's the next achievable
iterative step look like? And like Jordan, I'm curious

(02:18:18):
when you answer this, like what?What could Baldur's Gate 3 have
done to less sour your opinion of it?
I think those those are two different questions for me.
Which one do you want me to answer first?
You can just do the one that I asked, the iterative step one.

(02:18:42):
It's going to be LLM related, where an LLM is going to drive
all of the scenarios and you're going to be able to have like
actual reactivity to where if you do something, the characters
are going to be able to react tominutiae that you do.
And they're going to do that viajust large language models being
able to handle all of those requests.
Do the rest of you agree? Do you think that's what it's

(02:19:03):
going to be? What I think of CRPGSI guess
because here's what you just described.
It isn't the same exact thing asNeverwinter Nights and
Neverwinter Nights too. But in those games there's like
a multiplayer mode that's centred around like having an
actual DM that can control the world and like spawn mobs and

(02:19:23):
like make them say stuff and shit.
So it's not exactly what you're looking for because you want
like true like AI level reality.I'm not saying I want that.
I'm saying that's what's going to come next.
I like. I like.
You're saying that that's what will.
Happen if you want to beat Bald is Gate 3, you're not going to
try to make more content. You're going to try to figure
out a pipeline to be able to generate more content rather

(02:19:45):
than just throw $200 million at it.
I, I actually kind of agree, which is why I'm disappointed
because I thought that they weremaking like a level editor,
right? But I haven't heard about it.
And then I heard that they're not working on this game
anymore, right? So it's just not going to.
Happen. I mean, there's there's custom
campaigns that people are making.
I think there's a couple out there already.

(02:20:05):
You just can't get them through the mod manager, I don't think,
because it requires advanced scripting.
Yeah, the the mod tools allow for like some degree of custom
campaign stuff, but I think theydidn't want to run afoul of
Wizards so they didn't make it like ultra powerful to where you
can like just straight up make 100% original campaigns.

(02:20:29):
I could be wrong. People are working on stuff like
that, just not through the mod manager like there.
There are custom campaigns out there.
Is that because they didn't wantBoulder Gate 3 to be like a
literal competitor to Dungeons and Dragons?
Because I remember reading something about that like a
couple years back where there was like a was it called?

(02:20:50):
Like what's the online version of DND where it's?
Like DND Beyond? Like store, yeah, we're like,
Boulder's Gate 3 was like a legitimate competitor to DND
Beyond, where people were like, why would I do DND Beyond when I
can just play Boulder's Gate 3? Yeah, I don't know.
I haven't heard anything concrete, but I everyone,

(02:21:13):
because The thing is, I think ifI remember correctly is the the
mod kit allowed for a lot of custom campaign, like a lot more
creative control, but they had it had to get like jail broken
somehow is what I'm trying to say.
And I think people figured out how to do that, but I don't know

(02:21:35):
how powerful the tools become orif that's even still like a
thing you can do. But I just remember a lot of
people speculating that it was because of what you're saying,
basically. I think custom campaigns for
this game sound fucking sick. Yeah, it'd be awesome.
A lot of the older Infinity Engine games had custom

(02:21:56):
campaigns that were really cool.Yeah, I think there was one
campaign a group of people were working on, like a really big
one where you go to Menzo Branzen, which would be fucking
awesome. Oh yeah, to answer the question,
I don't actually agree that LLMSare the next step, purely
because of the processing power that would be required to run a

(02:22:19):
local language model. That would like cause a lot of
heartache for a lot of people currently, but down the road I
can definitely see that being a thing.
I think it could be ran on the server and it's like a single
player communicating with the server and the server like
processes all of that at a speedthat's insane.
I mean, yes, but that's so expensive for the developer that

(02:22:43):
like that's, that is an insane cost.
I'm not saying it'll never happen.
I just don't think that's the next step.
I, well, I don't, I don't know what the next step of because I
don't think anybody's beating Balder's Gate anytime soon.
So I think you're just going to have like 5 to 8 years of like
nothing that really competes with this game in the same way.
And then they figure out how to make the technology work.

(02:23:07):
Yeah, because like, that's the thing, right?
You had all those AAA developerslike I think either right after
or right before Balder's Gate 3 came out, who were like, yeah,
don't expect people to be makinggames like this.
Yeah. Yeah.
So when I read this question, what's the next achievable
iterative step look like? I didn't think about it in like
a whole different type of game that Jordan was thinking of.

(02:23:29):
Like with all of them. I was thinking like, if there's
a next step that's like legitimate, that's like
recognized by like everyone at large is like some being
something amazing. It can only be Larry and none of
these other fucking CRB. Developers are going.
To do it, they can't. They just they just have.
They do not have it in. Them that's like.
It's going to whatever it is, it's.

(02:23:50):
Going to be what I mean alcat. No, fuck no.
Alcat's great. Alcat.
They're. They're not.
ALCAT could not make something marketable if their fucking
company depended on it. I love alcat, I think Wrath the
Righteous is straight or better than Balder's a three, but they
are not it when it comes to likemainstream appeal.
Making something that's like fucking like that seismically

(02:24:11):
effects the industry. It's not going to be ALCAT,
it'll be Larian guaranteed. Yeah.
I mean, that's like kind of a segue into a question I I wanted
to ask. Like, you know, Larian now has
all of this money. They've proven they can do it.
Part of the question is, will the next iterative step of this
be in Five East or is it just going to be DOS 3?

(02:24:34):
DOS 3. They're.
Going to make DOS 3 come. On come.
On three be reasonable they are going to make DOS he.
Yeah. He will make them mistake, I
know, yeah. He is, absolutely.
He he should do shadow run or some or some maybe sci-fi, but
like he's gonna do DOS 3. It's gonna be such a fucking

(02:24:55):
disappointment. I hate that so much.
Well. OK, I think I read they they
have two concurrent projects going right now, right?
Like that's that's that's like aconfirmed thing as far as I'm
aware. If one of those, if one of those
is not Divinity Original Sin three, I will fucking.
I don't want to commit to anything crazy, but there's no

(02:25:20):
fucking way that's not TOS 3. I know it's going to happen, but
I remember even when I was talking to you about this, like
like in the past, I think you had mentioned like it would be
so in character for Zven to takeall these poured into Divinity.
Just make a fucking Divinity game.
Like are you I'm telling? You that that that's like this.

(02:25:40):
Fucking Sven made Balder's Gate 3 so that he could crank up the
production value on fucking Divinity like that.
That's just the truth of it has one goal in mind.
That's the only games they've made for 20 years until Balder's
Gate 3I. Think it'd be very cool if they

(02:26:00):
did something sci-fi though likemen said with like Shadowrun or
something. I think that'd be really.
Cool. Oh, that'd be cool.
Anything outside of divinity obvious although I mean.
Yeah, I'll be happy for you. I'll be happy for like.
Two or something. Like anything, literally
anything other than divinity please.
Yeah, I mean I. Because divinity has the worst

(02:26:21):
world. Of all time, yeah it's not
close. It's so fucking bad.
As someone who actually does like Divinity Original Sin 2 if
God dude it was so insane tryingto piece together the world
building because it's 20, it's 20 years of world building but
none of it's connected between any of the games.
It's just a jumbled fucking shitshow.

(02:26:43):
It is. It's crazy how bad of a job
they've done developing everything around that world.
It's ridiculous, and I mean that's something we touched on
in act one, right, where like Larian having the world already
built for them was, you know, kind of the perfect storm.
And you know, that's as much as I would want like something

(02:27:03):
potentially sci-fi made by them.I haven't played Shadowrun but
man if if that world is as bad as you guys are saying with Dos
the the world of divinity then Ihope I'm not in for some
extremely cringe cyber world bullshit.
So Divinity Original Sin 2 it itshares a lot of DNA with

(02:27:25):
Baldur's Gate 3, for better and for worse.
Like a lot of the same flaws that are in Baldur's Gate three
are in Divinity Original Sin 2. The problem is that Divinity is
not as good everywhere else in such an overwhelming way the way
that Baldr's Gate 3 is. So those flaws feel a lot more

(02:27:47):
damaging, I guess. I still think it's like an eight
8 1/2 out of 10 kind of game. Like it is a good game.
But yeah, you just, you got to prepare for Divinity Original
Sin 3 because it's coming. Well, although we although we
just went into divinity with that, I was kind of more curious

(02:28:09):
along the lines of like, do you guys think that 5E is just
tapped at this point in terms oflike what a video game can
achieve with it? Like do they need to go to
Pathfinder? Are there going to need to be
more new custom systems like fillings of eternity?
Is is 5 E cooked? For me, because, like, I mean

(02:28:33):
for all the shit that I just talked about Larian and their
divinity projects, like they have a lot of range.
Like they make a lot of different games.
Like they made like a game called like dragon commit, like
divinity dragon commander, whereit's like a like a strategy game
where you fly on the back of a dragon and just like breathe
fire on people like they have a lot of range.

(02:28:55):
It doesn't like for me, like when I say that they're the
whatever the next big step is, it's not going to be because of
the game having like a complex tabletop system.
It's going to be the production value.
That's that's all it is for me. That's what's going to drive
like the big what? What's going to wow everybody

(02:29:17):
and impress everyone for good reason.
Because I mean, when it comes toCRPGS, they are in a class of
their own when it comes to production value where even it's
just like everyone else is like just fucking poverty compared to
them in the in the. Genre like it's I feel like if

(02:29:39):
you could take all of the like narrative and gameplay designers
from Alcat and smush them together with the like resources
and production value of Obsidian, it still would not add
up to Larian. Yeah, I.

(02:30:04):
Feel like all that is pretty surprising given it.
It is funny to hear you guys kind of praise Larian so much,
even though my only experience of you guys speaking about it
before Baldur's Gate 3 was roasting the fuck out of
divinity. Oh yeah.
It's it's it's very much a love hate relationship and I hate
that's event. Is it going to muddle that bike

(02:30:24):
back? To divine is the anti Ben.
I I think of I think of Larian as the When did Bulger Skate 3
come out? 2023 I think of I think of
Larian as the 2023 version of From Software where they did
Jack fuck of anything of any real value.

(02:30:46):
Do not come at me with your King's Quest bullshit.
I do not fucking or King's Fieldbullshit.
I do not care. But then once they hit gold it
like forgave all sins like and past transgressions like
creating something of such like transcendent value will do that.

(02:31:07):
And Larian 100% did that. Do you guys think that something
like of similar quality to Baldur's Gate but more on the
scale of something like Disco Elysium could surpass Baldur's
Gate 3 and what it did? Or is that like a requirement
that scale? The scales are requirement
because Larian does not do like small focus narratives.

(02:31:29):
Well, like, as as we see in Baldur's Gate 3, like the
narrative is the one major flaw with this game, but it makes up
for it with spectacle, scale, freedom, and just operating
within the 5V rule set in a way that like only Celasta is even
in the ballpark of. But don't, don't play, Celasta

(02:31:54):
noted. Well, in that case, you guys
want to give our ratings. User yeah.
Sure. Why don't we start at the top
with Ben? This is pretty easy for me.
I said it. I mean, I literally said what my

(02:32:15):
rating is going to be for the past 2 balls to hit 3 episodes.
It's I mean, regardless of all the flaws, it's still a 10 out
of 10. There are very, very, very few
games that I will ever replay ever again in my old age.
I'm about to turn 39 later this year.
I don't, I just can't bring myself to replay games, but I

(02:32:35):
gladly replayed this game for this and I might play it again
next year or in two years and that's all I got.
I do love this game and warts and all, doesn't matter.
How about you, Thomas? I mean, yeah, right.

(02:32:58):
Like, I'm not going to vacillateon how important like the
Balder's Gate games have been tome and my development as a
living, breathing human, becauseI did that in the first episode.
But I do just want to restate for the record that without
these games, I would not be the human being that I am today.
So like from it being the very first PC game I ever installed

(02:33:19):
on my family's computer to reading the fucking Philip
Athens novelization in my closetwith a flashlight like to now 20
some odd years later. Like to me, it's just amazing
what this game manages to capture.
And we've, we've talked about some of the flaws, which are
mostly, but not exclusively relegated to the narrative.

(02:33:42):
But like taken as a whole, this game did something that in my
opinion, nothing else has ever done.
And I, I can't even tell you howlong it made me just this game
did something that nothing else has ever done and which is make
me feel like that 10 year old inthe fucking closet with a
flashlight again. So like in a world that feels so

(02:34:06):
jaded and cynical, everyday reprieve from that shit and an
opportunity to step into the mind of my much younger self is
a feeling that literally I don'tknow if any other game has ever
done it in my adult years so well.
I do think that there's flies inthe ointment here and there.
It's like it's is it by a strictdefinition a 10 out of 10

(02:34:29):
perfect masterpiece? No, But am I going to give it a
10 out of 10 anyway? Absolutely.
The fuck yes. So eat shit.
This is one of the greatest games of all time.
Can't wait to see what Larian has cooking next, even if it is
Divinity Original Sin 3. That's 210 out of 10s.
What do we got from Jordan? Out of 10 out of 10.

(02:34:55):
So yeah. So for me, I don't I I never
ever, ever liked the combat evenlike a little bit and it only
got worse. That's like the game went on
even like going to explore. I didn't really like it.
And then you have, we already talked about how bad like the
main story and everything was and I like how engaging it was
and then how bad the resolution for the companions that I cared

(02:35:15):
about was. And then for good things though,
I think like the music is fucking awesome.
And yeah, I think Raphael's theme and then Down by the River
are like 2 just like of the bestvideo game songs that there are.
And then just like the overall like writing for the dialogue is
super fucking good. And I kind of wish like every

(02:35:36):
game kind of adapted like that way to write and of course like
the reactivity and everything islike an engineering marvel.
But for for me when I got to actthree, it was basically like so
me and Tom played Dragon Quest 11 like 4 years ago.
And by the time we got to the post game, like so Cole was
basically always telling us, oh,it's going to get better.

(02:35:57):
You just need to get to this. Oh, it's going to get better.
You just need to get to this. And then by the time we get to
the post game, we had the optionto either beat beat the game or
do like basically the equivalentof companion quest.
We just basically beat the game because it's like, I don't
really care about anything that you set up.
So that's kind of like where I got to in Act 3 where like I
didn't do basically any of the dungeons because by the time I
got there and I saw like where my companions resolutions and
everything went, I was like, I don't really want to experience

(02:36:20):
everything because what I have experienced hasn't been great.
So my going back and looking at all of the ratings that I have
for games that I've given specifically in this, it's like
I definitely didn't enjoy this game as much as I enjoyed Final
Fantasy 16. So by rating standards, that
means this game needs to be about a 6 1/2.

(02:36:40):
And I don't think that it is a 61/2 game, but I think my first
playthrough experience was a 6 1/2.
So I think with how we do ratings, that's what it needs to
be. Oh shit.
Yeah, my overshot it, I thought,and I was aiming low actually.
I was I super. Overshot it, it's damn.

(02:37:03):
I don't think the game the game isn't that bad and I think if I
did another playthrough of Dark Urge, I'd probably be around
like an 8, eight and a half nine.
But I mean. I had a bad first experience I
think. If you ask me, as soon as Ben
posted your screenshot of the end of game achievement and I
saw that your recently played hours were like 12, I was like,

(02:37:27):
oh, he's going to hate this fucking game.
This is a game that you really do have to like, take the time,
stop and smell the flowers and just like do everything because
it's so much more rewarding to like put that time in.
Yeah, I think that's why I would.

(02:37:48):
I would like it more in a dirge because I feel like it would
probably have earned me wanting to put that time in.
But it was kind of like that Dragon Quest Eleven thing of
where it's like everything that I've seen so far hasn't been,
hasn't lived up to what I wantedit to be.
So why would I give it more basically?
And if you ever do go back and play Dirge, I'll be really
curious to hear what you think, because some of my like, super

(02:38:14):
positive feelings about that playthrough are just the way
that it ties back into the original trilogy.
And it solved a lot of problems that we never talked about.
Like how originally I thought Sarah Vox inclusion was just
like masturbatory fan service. But when you go back and
actually play Darker, just like,oh wait, this is actually
fucking awesome that he's here. So yeah.

(02:38:37):
Yeah, but that might know. Gravity with me and the fact
that he was there was weird. I could say that.
Yeah, like when you play it as Tav or I mean any other origin
then it just feels like a ham fisted, like why the fuck is
Sarah walk back in this game? But obviously that character is
going to be core to the dirge experience.
So yeah, it's it is strange to me that that isn't the default,

(02:39:00):
or at least not more incorporated into Tav, you know?
My thing is Sven specifically said when this game was released
like don't play dark urge for the first time.
Like play a tab your first time and maybe Divinity Original Sin
3 is gonna suck. I was just about to say that
Sven saying that doesn't surprise me at all, 'cause he

(02:39:22):
he. Made divinity all right.
As for my rating, I mean, I already spoiled it on the
Tashpot website and in previous episodes I believe that I've
already touched on like how muchthis game affected me, how much
it affected positively my relationship with Cass.

(02:39:43):
Lovely Cass, if you ever listen to this, it was a very important
game in my life. It came at a perfect moment for
me. And if there's like I, I wrote
stuff down for this and I put itin the comment thing to read on
the Tashpod website. But listen, if if there's any,

(02:40:06):
if there's anything I can say about this game is that it is a
source of inspiration for me. And I feel like there is no
better thing that you can say about a game than that the game
will live forever in my head. Game will live forever, period.
Because it's a great game that'sgoing to go down as one of the
goats. And I'm hoping that despite my

(02:40:26):
lower rating of Act One. That this game still scores
higher than Expedition 33. Because I do enjoy this game
better than an expedition 33. It's a 10.
Jordan tanked any possibility ofthat, I'm afraid.
Oh no, I just. I just meant for my personal
rating. Yeah, like, again, I don't think

(02:40:47):
6.5 is like not a fair rating for what this game is, but yeah,
I had to just go back and be like, did I enjoy this game more
than System Shock? Yes, as much as Final Fantasy
16? No.
Then that means it's a six and a.
Half and here's the thing. If I got that Karlick ending, I
I would have fucking uninsoled and I've I've never seen that
and because I just can't do it like fucking.

(02:41:09):
Look, I also don't know like if when I play the game for the
first time, if I would have loved it as much as I did if it
wasn't for like cast playing side by side with me and I'm
seeing like all this other shit that didn't happen in my
playthrough, you know, like that, you know, that does affect
your experience for sure. Yeah, and, and my experience
with like, basically salvaging the desire to even play this by

(02:41:32):
playing Divinity Original Sin 2 about two weeks before Baldur's
Gate 3 came out, and then just kind of being like, you know
what? I will play BG 3 and then like
just absolutely falling in love with it just head over heels and
like, you guys don't understand,dude, I, I was playing this
game. This is the game that inspired

(02:41:53):
me to start playing video games at work.
That is Baldur's Gate 3. And so even when I wasn't
playing Baldur's Gate three, I was on the subreddit in the new
section and I was like helping people and I was like answering
questions. I probably had like 1000
comments in that subreddit because I was just so obsessed

(02:42:13):
and enamoured with the game thatanyone who was like, hey, how do
I do this? I was like, I know how to do
that. I'm going to tell them.
And I got so involved with like discussion and everything else
and like, just being on that, like bleeding edge of a game
that I've absolutely fucking loved was a big part of the
experience. Yeah, I think another big thing

(02:42:39):
is a gift. The more familiar you are with
D&D, probably the more you're going to love the game.
And as someone who's basically not familiar with it at all,
that was like another big like friction point, because the game
I think does a terrible job of explaining how to play D&D in
it. Yeah.
And I think that's totally fair.I guess like I, I have so, so

(02:42:59):
many people I know and so many people I'm friends with are like
so familiar with DND that it didn't even occur to me to be
like maybe I should tell Jordan to watch like a 5 minute
overview on how DND works beforeyou install this game.
Because like, the rules are really simple, but if the game
never tells you them then it's not really doing you any favors

(02:43:21):
as as you learned. It it's surprising to me that
the game's as popular as it is and it can get away with not
having like a tutorial at all for how DND works.
Like how many people are like, like put up with it basically.
You might also be underestimating just how many
people have played DND enough tolike know.
The that's true too. It might be like all of the TT
people. You also might be

(02:43:42):
underestimating just how many people play on Explorer and
nothing else. True, yeah.
I mean you could literally just explorer and then just use
attack on everything and beat the game.
Yeah, and and like I'm like I mentioned in the first episode
too, like a big criticism of this game when it came out was
this game is too fucking hard, like specifically for people
without 5 experience. So it's not like you are alone

(02:44:05):
in that feeling. Yeah.
And like, I don't even, I don't think difficult is the right
word. It's like tedious, cumbersome
and overwhelming. Like it's because I never the
game even when I was on tactician didn't feel I'm sure
it's difficult on honor. Like I especially like one save
on or whatever the fuck you callthat.
Shit like that sounds like a nightmare.
But like I don't think baseline the game is difficult.

(02:44:27):
I just think if you don't have the DND background it's just a
fucking lot to absorb and the game does you no favors and
helping out. I I think that if you don't know
what's broken, it is a a very difficult game.
I I think that's definitely true.
I think difficulty matters too. Like obviously like Explorer,
that's not true and even Technician doesn't feel that

(02:44:47):
true. But I think on the actual
difficult difficulties, for surethat's true.
Yeah, like, I mean, the thing tokeep in mind is I was playing
Honor mode and I googled basically what are the four most
broken builds in the whole game and I still struggled in some
fights. So like the the game is just
hard. Oh, for sure, like there's no,
there's no doubt at the higher difficulties, like it's a hard

(02:45:09):
game. Like what the the honor
mechanics that you guys talk about just makes it seem like
it's fucking crazy the shit thatyou need to do to beat them.
Yeah, and that's also why I really enjoyed not necessarily
going all the way down to explore, but maybe playing on
normal with the Honor mode rule set.
I did that for a little bit and I think that's like at least for

(02:45:31):
me personally, it might be like the ideal and the most fun way
to play through the game becauseyou get all the cool honor mode
mechanics, but you don't you miss less and that's it's it's
like dopamine, like it's when you miss, you just lose.
You get the anti go to. See what I said before we even
started this echoed, which is that my favorite playthrough is

(02:45:53):
a custom playthrough with the honor mode rule set and you just
crank up, you know, your proficiency bonus your, you
know, you have the amount of camp supplies that you need to
long rest. You double the amount of gold
that you get. I love doing playthroughs like
that. Yeah, that sounds sick.
Well shit fellas, next week's gonna be the first week that
hasn't been Bulberg's Gate 3 or Hello Charlotte in a a month and

(02:46:16):
1/2. What the fuck are we?
What are we playing next? Week we don't know.
We get to do Well, yeah, don't get soaked in two weeks.
I will play I. Will play with your right.
Slop in in a week I I can do it.If if you want to get to act 3.
I'll do it. It's going to be a lot.
That's a lot. I can do it.
I took Friday off. It's my birthday.

(02:46:39):
It's my birthday. I'll spend it playing so long.
It's up to Ben, then. I'm not going to get to out to
act 3, but I I don't want to like if we want to do silk song
next week, I'm fine with that and I'll just do my analysis
based on what I experienced. And for what it's worth after

(02:47:00):
modding the game, I like the game a lot.
But I will I know this is the Ballers get 3 episode and this
is more like a teaser for the next one but for Silk song my
rating. And you need 2.
Is very, very, very different when you take the base game
versus my modifications. I mean I I have two ratings too

(02:47:22):
based on if I can use cheat engine or not.
So the more I play the game, theless I think the that rating
separates. I took it all fucking natty,
boys. I took it all natty.
Yeah, that's my plan too. So I'll be curious to see like,
at what point, Like I get to where it's like, God, I wish I
was fucking cheat engineering because yeah, I mean, so far the

(02:47:44):
game's been fucking easy, but I guess I haven't done anything.
Have you ever gone up to a map thing yet where you haven't had
enough rosaries to use it? Oh yeah, many times.
That's just annoying. You're you're going to be fine.
We we give no free ads. All this is discussion for these
lovely people to hear next week.See you.
Bye, Craig.