Hello, dear Reader. And by “Reader,” I mean myself, checking this site in a month to re-read what I’ve written and cringing my own skin off. But, yes, hello, and welcome to another installment of “I’ve been busy and haven’t kept up with writing about what I’ve been playing so here’s a massive, rambling catch-up post.” You’re thrilled, I know, I can sense it all the way over here in sleepy Sycamore, Illinois. I’ve played a bunch of games since my last post, and this was meant to be a catch-all where I share thoughts on all of them. The problem is, I started with Baldur’s Gate 3 and, well, I just couldn’t stop writing about it. What makes Baldur’s Gate 3 such a magical experience (in part), is that it really gives you so many opportunities to make your own unique scenes and side stories. You and I may have played the same quest, but our stories of how they played out might vary wildly. I love that. So, with that, here are some of my favorite memories from this incredible game. [SPOILERS all over the place.]
Holy shit, where do I begin? I guess I should start by saying I’d never played any of the previous Baldur’s Gate games or Dungeons & Dragons, though I was passingly familiar with some of the core mechanics and themes. I own a few d20s and the idea of rolling them to determine things is pretty fun. But a year ago I would have said Baldur’s Gate 3 is very far from being on my radar. The previous games seemingly had an excellent reputation with PC RPG players, but that was a world I was mostly unfamiliar with. I didn’t have a PC that could run big, memory-intensive games for most of my life, so other than PC-to-console games like Knights of the Old Republic, I was fine with staying in my lane. The game started getting a ton of buzz just before release, though, and a couple friends were hyping it up and specifically saying it was “my kind of game” (because of all the smooching and the banging, I suspect). So, after I finished Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and some smaller indie games, I decided to dive in. And boy was the water deep.
Having very little knowledge about classes, races, etc., I mostly created my character with vibes (and some stat guidance from a friend). I went with a half-elf druid, largely because I love animals and wanted to talk to them, transform into them, and dole out both physical and magic damage. I also went with the Folk Hero background because my friend said it would synergize better with being a druid, otherwise I would have picked Soldier just because it’s truer to life and I tend to make characters that are pretty much heightened versions of myself. I want to talk about my specific experiences in each Act in some detail, so let me get my general thoughts out now. I was surprised by how much I loved Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s not perfect, but it deserves the hype that it got. It’s not exactly newb friendly, the late game bugs were frequent and (in a couple of instances) extreme, and some of the boss fights felt purposefully unbalanced. Gripes aside, the story was amazing, the characters were top-notch, voice acting was phenomenal, combat was usually very fun (after Act I, for me, anyway), the romances were excellent, and the level of flexibility and personalization when it comes to choices/paths through the game is unparalleled.
With that in mind, let me talk about my path through Act I. Early on I decided, against the advice of the internet and friends, that I wanted to do a completionist attempt. I knew it was impossible to do absolutely everything in a first playthrough, but many people said, “just play it fast and loose and make different choices when you play your next run!” Uh, no. There are far, far too many games I want to play right now, so my next playthrough, if there is one, may be months or years from now. Like Veruca Salt, I want it now, I want it right now. I also want to own a goose, but I digress. So, I used a guide here and there when it felt like I might miss something. I got Shadowheart right away but wasn’t sold on her as my romance partner for a while. She was very quiet and, frankly, suspicious for a chunk of Act I, and I didn’t love the whole being-in-a-cult thing. I recruited an ungrateful Lae’zel, yoinked Gale out of some mystic portal, and let Astarion bite me at camp. Was that a romantic thing? It seems like it might have been the first step in pursuing him as a partner, but I was mostly doing it for practical reasons. In his pitch about his strength and need to feed, he made a solid point. Two of them, actually, that then went into my neck. Badum csh. I also found Karlach and immediately took a liking to her.
When I think of my time in Act I, though, what really stands out is my obsession with saving the Owlbear Mother and all the bombastic drama that came with it. When I approached the Owlbear cave, I was met with bodies, signs of a brutal fight, and ominous sounds coming from the mouth of the cave. As I entered and stepped over even more gored bodies, I was overcome with a kind of fascinated fear. I was ready for a fight but eager to find out what had caused such chaos. When the Owlbear Mother stepped from the shadows, eyeing me cautiously, I felt my heart swell and shrink. She was injured from the waves of absolute asshats that had seemingly attacked her, and she communicated to me that she was just protecting her cub. I respectfully retreated but immediately looked up how to save her. If everyone and anyone was coming after her, as it seems they were, I had to stop them. What I learned would outline my entire Act I playthrough.
As with many things I looked up, there were lots of conflicting opinions and experiences. Some people said it was impossible to save the owlbear mom, some said they had done it by completely eradicating the goblin population in the area. Given that I was already tasked with infiltrating or toppling the local goblin camp anyway, I took up the challenge. The problem? Since I had already triggered the owlbear encounter, I had to do it all without long resting. The next several hours of my time was dedicated to just that. I was level 3 at the time, which meant I was avoiding some of the other goblin encounters near the outposts south and east of the camp proper. I decided to sidestep those for now and freed Sazza the goblin in the refugee camp because she promised me entry to the main goblin camp. She kept her word (on that count), so I made it in and decided to try poisoning the local drinking cauldron because I had read that it “wipes out the camp without any combat necessary!” I turned into a beautiful little kitty, slipped the poison into the pot, and watched as… only a handful of goblins collapsed dead. Welp. At my level, I really wasn’t sure I could take out big groups, so I had to find a way to wipe out the entire camp bit by goblin-y bit.
After taking out most of the front courtyard, I moved to a side area and barely scraped by in defeating some sleeping goblins, then snuck inside. A goblin priestess stopped me and offered to brand me with the Mark of the Absolute. I refused but agreed to chat with her in her office. She was, as I gathered, one of the three goblin leaders I had to take out, so getting her alone seemed ideal. She saw through me and after I failed a dialog check, she attacked. It took me a few attempts, but I was able to take her out before she made too much noise. After isolating and killing a few small groups of goblins, including those watching over a captured druid named Halsin, I found my way to a large throne room occupied by another leader, Dror Ragzlin, and his men. I was feeling a little cocky at that point having taken out so many goblins without resting, so I strolled in and was promptly, painfully, and thoroughly humbled. I would come back to him when I could free Halsin and have him help me. For now, I moved on to the third goblin leader, a drow named Minthara.
Or, as I wished I could call her after our introduction, Minethara. Because I wanted her to be mine. See what I did there? Anyway, let’s move on. If you’ve read any of my Video Game Crushes posts, you might understand by this point that my taste in women swings wildly between cute and coy and mean and sexy. Lady D? Yes. Princess Peach? Also, yes. Minthara is clearly in the mean camp. In my very first encounter with her, eavesdropping on her talking to Sazza and an underling, it was clear that she was a bad, cruel, malevolent person. But, and this is important… she was real hot. Did I have to kill her? Insert sad, misty-eyed emoji here. I turned to the internet once again and found that no, I didn’t have to kill her to progress the story. In fact, the game had just been patched so that I could knock her unconscious, clear out the goblin camp to progress the “good” storyline, and then recruit her into my party later. Huzzah, as the kids say! It sounds so simple typed out like that. At level 3, without any rest, I found it nigh impossible. Part of the problem was that I was just a widdle baby and she was a badass warrior queen with a mean swing (and my heart). The other problems were the goblins in the area preceding her office, and the group on the other side of the wall. Fighting any one of them often alerted the others, leading to failure after failure.
Eventually, I was able to lure a couple of the goblins from the pre-office area away and murder them, then take out the goblins in the next room without alerting my future bae. I saved just before taking her on, and it still took several tries because I had to knock her out and couldn’t use offensive spells, but I eventually won the day. She rested peacefully (okay, maybe a poor word choice after I just clobbered her repeatedly with my staff) while I stole her very cool armor, a parasite, and… her underwear. Hey. Don’t judge me. Have you heard the things people thirst over in this game? If I’m going to horny jail, I’m taking ya’ll with me. Anyway, with Minethara knocked out and the goblin numbers dwindling, I pressed on. Each new encounter tested my fledgling battle skills, and my potion supply was hurting. I saved Volo, found a secret room, tried to free an angry goblin that didn’t want to be saved, and eventually freed Halsin and brought him with me to face Dror Ragzlin. It took luring a couple of his henchgoblins outside of the room and dropping his ass with some grease, but eventually we defeated him and his annoying little gobknobbers.
I felt a wave of relief at this point. I had defeated all three goblin leaders without long resting. It was almost over! What a fool I was, dear reader. It was far from over. Turns out goblins don’t like when you murder their friends. Or leaders. Or steal their boss’ underwear. The room where I encountered the priestess still had goblins in it, the hall leading outside had guards, there was a big ol’ ogre and a couple stray goblins outside the front door, plus the outposts just outside of the camp. Fucking goblins, man. I took a breath, gathered myself, and kept fighting. I outmaneuvered the door guards, overwhelmed the ogre, and outflanked the outskirts crews. It wasn’t as easy as I’m making it sound. It took a good long while, more of my quickly vanishing healing items, and several restarts. I even went back and did a second, comprehensive sweep of the camp just to make sure I got everyone. Once I felt satisfied, and after many long hours, I headed for the owlbear cave. The mom was still there, so I camped at the mouth of the cave, ran excitedly in, and… she was gone. My characters commented that she must have been killed by overeager hunters or goblins. I was heartbroken. Worse, the Owlbear Cub, who I remember reading I could save and tempt to my camp, was also gone. Taken to the goblin camp, supposedly. I went to look for it but there was nothing but piles of dead goblins, killed by my tired and bloodied hands. All that work. All that planning and pain and panty stealing. All for nothing. It seemed I had doomed not only the owlbear mom, but the cub as well. What a fucking day.
The Owlbear Cub did make its way to my camp anyway, though, which was the biggest fucking relief. I also coaxed Scratch the dog to join us, plus Halsin said he would join us later. Before I jump to Act II, let me briefly detail my encounter with one of the biggest pains in my half-elf ass: Auntie Ethel. I’d gotten a side quest to investigate a missing woman, who turned out to be Mayrina, who was actually trying to give her unborn baby to Auntie Ethel to bring her boyfriend back. Normally I fully believe women should have the right to choose to do what they want with their bodies, but in this case, mostly to spite Auntie Ethel, I would make an exception. Making my way deep into the hag’s lair was just one layer of annoyance. Her damned traps were a nuisance, especially at such a low level. When I finally made my way to her, she absolutely roasted me. Split into several versions of herself, overwhelmed me with magic, all the while her minions pelted me. It was chaos, and none of it in my favor. I tried again and again, but the closest I came was getting her HP to about 30%, and that attempt felt like sheer luck. So, I left and went on my gobliny adventures, then hit level 6 not too long after, which unlocked the owlbear transformation for my druid. That’s right. It was time for vengeance.
Look, I know Auntie Ethel had nothing to do with the owlbear mom’s death. But I had a lot of pent-up anger and frustration over it, and Auntie Ethel was an evil, annoying, haggard-ass hoebag that needed to be stopped. So, I came back and unleashed my feathery fury on her. I know I was only a couple of levels higher, but in my owlbear form I felt godly. My secret weapon was my ability to knock enemies down. I would perform a Crushing Leap near Auntie Ethel, knocking her on her warty ass, then as soon as she got up, I’d owlbear slap her and knock her right back down. When I tell you I crushed this lady, I stomped her baby-eating, Multiplicity-starring, fury-inducing ass into dust. And then I used Speak to the Dead to bring her back to life just so I could watch the light leave her eyes again. And then Mayrina was like “lol, like, why did you do that I hate you.” OKAY YOU’RE WELCOME, LADY.
Anyway, on to Act II we go. During the big party between acts, both Lae’zel and Astarion wanted to hook up. As did Gale and Karlach, but they weren’t nearly as surprising. I thought Lae’zel and Astarion both hated my guts, mostly because anytime I did anything they were like “ew, no.” I’d be like “we should rest for the night” and one or both of them would be like “uh, hard disapprove, sleeping is for the weakest of little bitches.” Uh, what? Okay, let’s help this poor, injured animal. “Disapprove, torturing it and slowly draining its lifeblood is the only proper way to dispose of this wretch.” Whatever, man. So, I really thought they would be the last people to try and jump on my dick, but there they were, first in line. I won’t lie, I’ve already admitted to stealing undergarments: I absolutely let Lae’zel show me what she’s working with and then reloaded and pretended it didn’t happen. For story purposes, I didn’t sleep with anyone. I had warmed up to Shadowheart by that point, and as my luck would have it, she was the only one who didn’t want a piece of this. Sigh. We weren’t dating by that point, so I did briefly entertain the thought that I might woo one of the most beautiful people in the game, who just happened to be at the party: Alfira the tiefling bard. Aside from some all-too-brief semi-maybe-possibly-flirting, we sadly went our separate ways.
Starting Act II, I felt, for the first time, capable. Between learning this very complex game, being low level for a fair while, and my whole no-rest-for-the-stupid goblin camp ordeal, Act I had me feeling all kinds of weak. But hitting level 6, getting my owlbear form, and smacking down Auntie Ethel made me feel like a god. Who could stand against such a force of nature? The NPCs were talking a big game about the Underdark, but they were talking to the hag-slaying, goblin-decimating, knicker-stealing god. The Underdark should be quaking in its dimly lit boots. I’d made a mental note to check out a locked door in the goblin camp, and it just so happened to lead right to an abandoned Selûnite outpost in the Underdark. Bingo. We picked our way through the outpost, finding a bunch of oil barrels but not much of interest. It seems there had been some kind of major battle here at some point, as near the end of the outpost there was a massive, locked gate and a breach in the side wall. We went through the hole and down a path to some ruins with a group of petrified dudes. Suckers. For the first time I glanced past them and over a steep ledge to see the glowing mushrooms and twisted landscape of the Underdark. A new dominion, mine for the taking. We just have to – uh, excuse me. What is this floating up in front of…
Holy mother of teeth and eyeballs. “What the actual FUCK is this thing?” I thought, very bravely and with no fear at all, please don’t listen to any rumors you’ve heard to the contrary. This massive mouthball screamed at me and I mustered up all my newly found strength and proceeded to deliver an almighty ass whooping. Sorry, typo. I should have said HE delivered an almighty ass whooping. Because my ass was cooked in a matter of seconds. Before I could even get on all fours to shift into an owlbear, this spherical mouth breather was zapping and crapping all over my team. He started un-petrifying the frozen dudes and I thought “hey, cool, fresh allies.” Uh, no. Fresh jackasses that proceeded to attack us WITH THE GIANT EYEBALL. Thanks, guys. Real cool. Beams were flying, I was crying, everything went to shit within seconds. It was a disaster.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t as much of an all-powerful god as I thought I might be. But I did have a little bit of a brain, so I decided to get strategic. After several failed tests, I decided to take the coward’s way out and set a glorious, fiery trap. Remember those oil barrels? There were a ton of them, so I slowly, so slowly, picked each one up and carried it over to the narrow path leading to the ruins. There, I stacked them high and wide. My plan was to trigger the Spectator (as I learned it was called – not “ugly eye fuck mouth,” as I had taken to calling it in my more panicky moments), lure it with one character to the oil stack, then boom. Blow it higher than that one time I took mushrooms and thought my lungs were melting. My party at that point was me, Shadowheart, Astarion, and Karlach. I left my crew in the outpost, safe and sound, and once the oil barrels were in place I slinked down, caught the Spectator’s eye (get it?), and hightailed back toward the breach in the wall. The Spectator zapped a couple of guys from their stony slumber, then started making its way toward me. Good, good. Come to me, eyehole. When it got to the barrels, I hit it with a fireball and BOOM! Well, more like “whoosh,” unfortunately. The explosion wasn’t as, well, explosive as I’d have liked. It was more like a giant fireball that singed the Spectator’s eyebrow off. It seriously only lost like 10% of its health. And now it was headed our way with two angry elves in tow. Cool. Cool cool cool.
I retreated through the hole in the wall and regrouped with the fam. Just as I was trying to put a positive spin on the situation, the two elves showed up. Luckily for us, the Spectator seemed to float off somewhere. So, we focused on the dudes. Given our environmental advantage, they weren’t too tough. One of them had a bunch of HP but I had Karlach wail away on him while Astarion gave the other guy the old one-two-stabaroo and I bounced back and forth between then with Shadowheart healing and supporting. They were dead in no time. You know what? Maybe I WAS as powerful and badass as I thought I might be. Then, like a bully with great comedic timing, the Spectator floated down from above. It had gone up and over a wall I didn’t even know was open to the world. Now he was in a small, enclosed space with us and, evidently, very pissed about his eyebrow. I was so tempted to reload right there, before he could drift down and blink our party out of existence, but I thought maybe I’d learn something in a noble death. So, I had Astarion circle around for a sneak attack. Karlach drew him forward and started bashing away, I swiped away with my big ol’ murder mittens, and I even had Shadowheart focus on her best spells rather than healing. And in the blink of a massive eye (see what I did there? Because “blink of an eye” is a phrase meaning very fast, but the Spectator also has a very big eye, so I was kind of playing with words there. Furthermore, I interrupted a bad pun about something happening very quickly to over-explain my terrible joke, which is prolonging the delivery, adding a bit of irony at the expense of reader experience), he was dead. Rest in piss, ugly eye fuck mouth.
Anyway, another standout event in Act II for me was recruiting my girl, Minthara. I tried to do all my exploring and side quests before heading to Moonrise Tower, so I’d already freed a pixie, killed a spider dude (he attacked me first!), met the dickish He Who Was and his asshat bird (by “met” I mean did their quest and then killed them), took out some gnarly bosses (and their sexy nurses – I can’t be the only one who was into them!), battled it out big time at the Last Light Inn (lost one of the tieflings, RIP), and more. When I finally found my way to Moonrise, I walked into Minthara standing before Ketheric Thorm, naked and covered in Sazza’s blood (whoops), pleading for her life. Look, I’m not here to judge her for whatever she may have done. Technically speaking I didn’t see her commit any crime outside of being criminally hot. Am I cherry picking to defend her because she’s an absolute smokeshow? The better question is why don’t you mind your business? Anyway, I step in on her behalf and convince them to throw her in the dungeon, where I quickly follow to free her. Once again, I stroll right into the jail like a beefed-up man-god, ready to slay away, and once again I am quickly humbled by the annoying magic users down there. Eventually I’m able to free my girl and we jet. Somehow, she’s not as grateful as I’d have liked, but she’s also not as angry as I’d have expected given that I knocked her out, stole her cool clothes, and currently have her underwear stuffed in my pocket. Let’s just call it even.
Despite my thirsting over that power-hungry murder queen, my actual relationship with Shadowheart was… progressing? Kind of? I was supportive of her or avoided engaging with much of her faith talk, but eventually she started questioning her faith and realizing she was being manipulated. There was hope. I especially liked helping her complete the Gauntlet of Shar, and when it came time to decide the fate of the Nightsong, I left the decision up to her. It was hers to make. And, to my great surprise, she threw the spear away! To me, that showed a lot of growth. Nice one, Shadowbae. Speaking of baes (this game supplies an endless number of them), I was also immediately smitten with a certain devilish little liar who had trapped Wyll in a pretty unfair contract. That’s right, I was down bad for Mizora. If it did nothing else, this game just confirmed for me that I like a sexy mean lady. I can’t even be ashamed at this point. Anyway, after one last side quest (meeting a massive demon named Yurgir who, if I’m being honest, seemed pretty chill so I talked him into killing his minions before helping him break his contract with Raphael. More on them later), I headed into the final battle at Moonrise Tower with Minthara, Shadowheart, and Karlach at my back. It was bloody encounter after bloody encounter, but we fought our way through the castle, down into the flayer-y bowels, and to our final clash with the wannabe-immortal Thorm. He talked a lot of shit earlier but was suddenly like “well, I mean, I don’t want to be bad, I just kinda gotta *sad misty-eyed emoji*.” We didn’t buy it, so we kicked his ass (into a pit of lava or something) and were on to the next.
On the way to Act III and Baldur’s Gate, I did go back and complete the Mountain Pass route as well. After completing most of the Underdark and Shadow Cursed Lands, we moved on to the local Githyanki Creche. The friendly, welcoming Githyanki Creche. At this point, I still wasn’t really getting along with Lae’zel. I was mostly trying to be a good, wholesome, horny character, and she wasn’t having it. Well, she was having the horny bit. But she was aggressive, harsh, and pretty xenophobic, if we’re being honest. I put her in my party for the Creche because it just seemed right, plus she might act as a much-needed diplomat or envoy to help the brash, racist Githyanki see me as an ally. Someone who only wants to help. Yeah, no. From the minute we approached the Creche, they were absolute assholes to me. Worse, they were assholes to Lae’zel. If there’s one way to instantly get me to sympathize with a party member I don’t usually vibe with, it’s to be an asshole to them. Lae’zel may be an unapproachable, stubbornly close-minded curmudgeon, but she’s MY unapproachable, stubbornly close-minded curmudgeon. Every slight, every rude assumption about our skill and intentions, I took note. One of my absolute favorite things to do in these kinds of power fantasy RPGs (besides smoochin’, of course), is to make mean people pay. With their lives, if I have to. And that’s exactly what I did. I wanted to avoid bloodshed, I really did (not), but after I stopped a doctor from killing Lae’zel to get her parasite, a roomful of Githyanki poured in to try and kill us. Silly little beans. I squashed them. Lae’zel still wasn’t convinced that her own people had no regard for her, so we moved on to the Inquisitor, who promptly tried to kill us. We slapped him and his men down, then Vlaakith showed up and after giving her a little sass, I decided to keep things friendly with Lae’zel and played nice with her. After going into the Astral Prism and learning the truth about Vlaakith from my Dream Guardian, we had to hightail it out of there. Problem was, we’d killed a Githyanki doctor. And captain. And Inquisitor. There may have been a less violent way to escape, but the way they talked to my party and disrespected my girl Lae’zel (yeah, that’s right, after this whole ordeal I was a ride or die Lae’zel defender) meant I was ready for some retribution. I told myself I would stop the slaughter only if Lae’zel got upset. She did not. So, I Anakin Skywalkered their asses. I did leave the nursery untouched because I thought Lae’zel would be really mad, but I’ve since learned that there aren’t actually any eggs to crush. Welp. In the end, Lae’zel was not upset but she also wasn’t exactly ready to defy her queen just yet. It’s okay, Lae’Lae (that’s what I call her since we’re bros now. Not to her face). We’ll get there.
Act III opens with a circus, which I’m always a fan of in games. The Circus of the Last Days and its minigames and activities reminded me a lot of the Millennial Fair in Chrono Trigger, for some reason. Maybe it was the vibe, maybe it was the content, and maybe it was the side quest where you have to scour the world to collect a clown’s body parts so that he can be reanimated (a side quest in Chrono Chross). That can’t be a coincidence, right? Anyway, I had a blast at the circus, particularly with the damnable djinn, Akabi. I’d seen a TikTok explaining how to “win” his rigged game of chance, so I put this to use and had such a fun side excursion to Jurassic Pa- er, generic dinosaur land. I had only just recently unlocked the Dilophosaurus form with my druid, so this was a great time to test it out. Being without my party, I was a bit worried that I might get overwhelmed, but I was fine. I was more than fine. I was a fucking acid-spitting dinosaur. I could attack twice, did extra acid damage, had a ranged attack, and could jump on fools from a distance. Hell yeah. I tore through my fellow dinos, got an awesome legendary trident, and skedaddled back to laugh in the djinn’s face. In my mind. The game didn’t let me do it. There was also a station with a very sexy Poison Ivy looking match maker who asked Shadowheart and I some questions before showing us a sweet little romantic scene. To be honest, I actually turned to Minthara first, saying “Shall we, my dear?” To which she replied, “No. And if you refer to me as ‘my dear’ again, I will cut out your tongue.” Ah, love. So fickle. Anyway, after the scene played out, Poison Ivy turned into Poison Knife-y! Er, Bloody Knife-y? I dunno. She turned into Orin the Red, taunting me over… I don’t quite remember. I was too busy falling in love. YES, okay, I know, I am the worst. Orin is not, like, misguided, reformable bad, like Minthara. Orin is, like, sadistic, evil incarnate bad. Minthra might step on me if I asked her to. Orin would step on me in my sleep. On, like, my junk. Wearing six-inch bladed heels. That are on fire and somehow also made of bees. People seem to “get it” when I say I’m into Minthara. When I say I’m into Orin (at least in a superficial, one-night-stand if I survive kind of way, to be clear!), I get no recognition. No “yeah, I get it.” Sigh. What am I gonna do with myself.
We finally made it into the city, and the bustling metro was everything I hoped it would be. There were houses, and buildings, and people. And stuff. It was a city, okay? I found a secret door in the side of a building, re-rolled a million times to break into it, and found an immortal mummy (that I later came back to kill, like you do). I got into an intense and spectacular magic fight in and around a fireworks shop. I tried to hit the fireworks on the top floor from a roof across the street, but the explosion only killed half of the baddies. The other half were less than enthused about my little “prank,” so we got into a very fun magic battle over the streets of Baldur’s Gate, with the city guards passing in the streets below, acting like they don’t see the fireballs flying back and forth above them. Eventually we leapt and teleported over and cleared them out, but not after more epic fighting. It was pretty sweet. Speaking of pretty sweet, after many hours of will-we-won’t-we flirting, I finally hooked up with Shadowheart! And then we went to a brothel that had a pair of drow twins that were apparently very good at their job. I didn’t even say anything and Shadowheart busts out a “I’m down if you are.” What? She has sex one time and she’s already ready to jump into a foursome? The old four-headed horny horse? A human sexipede? The famous quadra-jangle-tangle? Okay, I’ll stop. But I was shocked by Shadowheart’s sudden willingness to jump into bed with these very sexy drows. So, yeah, we did it. I tried to go again, and the twins said they needed “recovery time.” Amateurs.
I may have sexed up Shadowheart and two gorgeous drows, but what about Minthara or Mizora? I’d read that Mizora will approach anyone with a pulse on some lucky night. She propositioned all of my friends who played, and some of them didn’t even like her. I have a pulse… but no luck, apparently, because she never came to me. Too close to home, Larian. Too close to home. Likewise, I never managed to have sex with Minthara, either. She confessed her love, yes, which was all-too welcome. But after I (saved, so that I could reload and not mess things up with Shadowheart, and) openly welcomed her admission and told her I felt the same, she didn’t show up to shag me at night like she was supposed to. I’d waited hours to enjoy the privilege of engaging in sinful coitus with these two viciously sexy bad girls… only to be snubbed. Ain’t that just the way.
Speaking of Shadowheart and Minthara, one of my favorite experiences in the whole game happened in Act III. A random dude approached us and started talking shit to my girl. Some unresolved Church of Shar drama. Shadowheart was, by this point, fully reformed and had abandoned that path, so I was all in on heading straight to the Cloister of Sombre Embrace and “clearing things up” (kicking some ass). Okay, I would have actually been okay with a peaceful resolution, espcially if it’s what Shadowheart wanted. But no. As with many groups in Baldur’s gate, these sassy bitches just wanted a fight. So, we gave it to them. I’m talking big again but when the fighting broke out, so did the shit in my pants. We stood in a large chamber, surrounded by over twenty underlings. Twenty! Worse, many were magic users, so as soon as the fighting started we were being pelted by all kinds of nonsense, including constant Darkness and Bone Chill. My strategy was to leap ahead and get right in Viconia DeVir’s (cool name) face with Karlach and bap bap bap her with a triple hit to soften her up. Yeah, uh, no. She had Protection, so my big hitter was suddenly stranded in the middle of a room full of enemies. Not good. We needed to even the odds, and quick, so as my druid I used the spell I’d learned from the Necromancy of Thay that allowed me to summon four Ghouls, I summoned a Spirit Weapon with Shadowheart, and I transformed into my Dilophosaurus form. Okay, now’s it’s 20+ vs 9ish. Not bad, not bad.
Except, yeah, bad. Karlach fell the next turn as me, Shadowheart, Minthara, and our summoned friends were trying to get a foothold in the entryway. Then Viconia hit us with some massive explosive spell that took a chunk of our health and completely took out three Ghouls and the Spirit Weapon. We were completely overwhelmed and outmatched. I started doing that thing where I plan the next fight as I’m losing this one. “well, NEXT time, I’ll start like this…” Enemies were increasingly surrounding us, and we were hurting, unable to heal because of the damned Bone Chill. I teleported Minthara out of there, hoping to find cover behind a column where I could chug some potions or something. Our last Ghoul fell, and Shadowheart and I were unable to stand up to the horde around us. By the time we fell, we’d probably taken out 5-7 enemies. Viconia and around 15 enemies still stood, some of them chasing Minthara. She had less than 10hp at that point. I knew death was coming but I was determined to take down as many of these turds as I could out of pure spite. If I could, my new goal was just to make it back to the entrance, where Viconia was, and bury my spear into her chest before succumbing to the rest of the fiends. I chugged a potion and got back up to around 85hp before they closed in, then I purposely led them on a bit of a chase getting back to the stairs to thin the crowd a bit. When I made it back, I faced Viconia and channeled all my rage into a final double strike. Crit, baby. She fell. As did more spells and attacks from all around, knocking me down to 4hp. I was cooked, as the kids say. Unless…
…I chugged one of the only two Potions of Invisibility I had, not expecting it to work. These absolute dorkhammers fell for it. Immediately they were all “where is she!? What kind of trickery is this?” They cast Reveal Enemy a couple of times, missing me with both, before giving up. They started to meander back toward their posts as I healed up. I was still outnumbered and would be beset by more Darkness and Bone Chill as soon as I started back in, but I had to do it. As I said, I would take as many out as I could and then reload and try an actual strategy. I took aim at the nearest lackey and ba-bam, he dead. This alerted the others, who immediately began returning to the steps. Minthara could strike twice, frequently crits, and hits super hard, so before the group fully surrounded me again, I was able to take down two more baddies. They did surround me, though, and now it was something like 12 vs 1. Let’s go, bitches. Call an ambulance… but not for me! You see, though they circled me and threw everything they had left at me, they could. Not. Hit me. Minthara was dodging blows like rich people dodge taxes. I saved a short clip on my PS5, and it ends just after the 10th miss in a row. I think it was a combination of the attributes of her cool armor and shield, plus Aura of Protection and Reactions, BUT I like to imagine it was a red-hot rage that caused her to transcend this dimension and vibrate between worlds to dodge these weak, meager blows. Either way, in the end she stood in a pile of corpses, having defeated about 15 enemies on her own. Bad. Ass.
Speaking of tough fights, I’d heard that the Raphael fight was perhaps the hardest in the game, so after the near-shit-show at the Cloister of Sombre Embrace, I decided it would be a good time to head to the House of Hope. I really liked that whole section. Did I sleep with the succubus? Why, yes. Yes, I did. But I also liked the general vibe and mood, set in part by speaking to the various NPCs, filling out Raphael’s personality and backstory (turns out? Not a great dude). After the previously described fight, my big battle with Raphael wasn’t all that bad, actually. I took him out first try, helped in part by our old friend Yurgir! I was hoping he’d tank a lot of the damage Raphael doled out, but he stayed invisible for most of the fight, though he did get in some solid hits. The fight ended with me, Minthara, and Karlach pressing Raphael into a corner and pummeling the shit out of him, as it should be. It was fun fighting with Yurgir, though, and he agreed to help me in the final battle! What a cutie patootie. Which reminds me (not really, bleh), our old friend and skanky-ass-suck-bag-of-the-year-recipient, Auntie Ethel, returned in Act III, ready for me to kick her putrid face in again. It took a few tries because the first time it bugged out and Vanra wouldn’t leave the room and the second time she just kicked my ass, but once I chose the owlbear form over the Dilophosaurus and just kept knocking her wrinkled ass over with my leap attack, she went down for good. God, I hate her. I also fought Orin, who is, as discussed, a very, very bad lady. But who I did not get to smooch, which still makes me sad.
Speaking of the final battle, it was certainly epic but also quite buggy for me. I encountered a bug where one of my characters died for no reason as we went through the portal to face Mother Brain, er, Netherbrain, then after beating the section on my third try, the game wasn’t sure who’d become the Mind Flayer. I chose to free Orpheus and ask him to become the Mind Flayer, which given how quickly he agreed, even with a little sass, I didn’t feel too bad about. I was determined to save Karlach and I sure as hell wasn’t become a Mind Flayer, so it seemed like the best outcome. But after defeating the Netherbrain, Orpheus was still in his animal form going into the cutscene on the dock and I think maybe that confused the game? Or something? Half of my party spoke as if I was the one who’d made the transformation, like Minthara saying “Although in your case, the transformation may be an improvement, iblith,” to which I could respond with things like “I did what I had to do” or “It’s all right. I like what I’ve become.” I didn’t become anything, though? But the ending I got was the correct one, meaning everything else played out as if Orpheus became the Mind Flayer and we destroyed the Netherbrain, so I guess it all ended up alright.
Well, maybe. In the epilogue, where you’re hanging out with all your friends, Gale showed up as an arrogant, condescending god? I don’t remember making decisions that might have led to that, but maybe I missed something? I had always encouraged him to stay grounded and not meddle in the gods’ affairs, but I must have messed something up. Everyone else was cool. Apparently I started an animal rescue with Shadowheart, which is adorable and on-brand. My beloved Owlbear Cub was there, as was Scratch. Wyll was a real MVP and accompanied Karlach to the Hells and, if I’m remembering correctly, they hinted that a cure for her was on the horizon? Amazing. Lae’zel and Astarion had very nice things to say, which just shows how much they’ve both developed from when I first met them. I got to hug Halsin, Minthara was as sexy and menacing as ever, and Withers was his usual droll self. Overall, I was happy with my ending. And more than happy with the game overall, I should say. I wasn’t sure I’d like it or even stick with it going in, given how inexperienced I was with D&D and these systems. It was a pretty steep learning curve, and I still don’t know that I fully “get” some of the systems, but that took a huge backseat to the game’s incredible world, characters, writing, voice acting, and thirsty, depraved stuff. Especially that. After spending 200 hours with it, I don’t know that I’m rushing into a second playtime anytime soon, but I never got to smooch Minthara or Mizora, so I absolutely have to rectify that at some point. Thanks for the memories, Baldur’s Gate 3. Fuck you, Auntie Ethel.
A New Game Plus 