From ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ to ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ to the same-day drop of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’ and ‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder,’ 2023 has been a fantastic year for gamers. But where does it stand historically in the GOAT gaming year debate?
To me, it fell into the same trap basically every cRPG falls into; late game combat is a chore. Once the number of enemies and skills you have to juggle gets high enough, you can’t realistically use real-time on the harder fights, but you can run into so many enemies that turn-based takes forever.
I don’t even really mean that as a criticism of Larian, since nobody else ever managed to fix that issue either. It’s a big reason why the genre died off for so long.
Real-time isn’t an option at all in BG3, and RTWP always felt messy to me anyway, even as I’m now playing Pillars of Eternity. Especially in a lot of those old Infinity Engine games, it felt like it incentivized devs to add more trash mobs, as opposed to paying closer attention to pacing and encounter design.
I totally apologize, you’ve unlocked a memory. It’s so good in KOTOR that my brain doesn’t remember it’s a cRPG. I’m really hoping that if it gets a remake, it keeps all the guts of the original combat system, and doesn’t get simplified to a toggle between real time and pause.
What made BG3 “antiquated” to you? Just the nature of it being a cRPG? I thought it had some really good modern game design.
To me, it fell into the same trap basically every cRPG falls into; late game combat is a chore. Once the number of enemies and skills you have to juggle gets high enough, you can’t realistically use real-time on the harder fights, but you can run into so many enemies that turn-based takes forever.
I don’t even really mean that as a criticism of Larian, since nobody else ever managed to fix that issue either. It’s a big reason why the genre died off for so long.
Real-time isn’t an option at all in BG3, and RTWP always felt messy to me anyway, even as I’m now playing Pillars of Eternity. Especially in a lot of those old Infinity Engine games, it felt like it incentivized devs to add more trash mobs, as opposed to paying closer attention to pacing and encounter design.
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I totally apologize, you’ve unlocked a memory. It’s so good in KOTOR that my brain doesn’t remember it’s a cRPG. I’m really hoping that if it gets a remake, it keeps all the guts of the original combat system, and doesn’t get simplified to a toggle between real time and pause.