Decadanceitout - Some Skill At Conkers.

Love Astarion's reactions is this scene. Oh hells no, my idiot partner's -1 impulse control strikes again...

man the ending of BG3 was kinda... rough, ngl. Like, not the fights and stuff, that was about what I expected, but the cutscenes post final battle were... something.

HEAVY SPOILERS for Baldur's Gate 3 ending under the cut

listen man, I can respect not giving everyone a perfectly happy ending, but Karlach's fate felt unfair. It felt like there had been a way to save her in development, but it got scrapped somewhere in the process. why even have the quest with Dammon and the infernal iron if all you can do is delay the inevitable.

Astarion's wasn't much better. If you tell him not to use the ritual to ascend, he just. stays a vampire spawn forever then?? the whole 'oh I can stand in the sunlight' bit was just for laughs?? I was horrified tbh.

Gale's romance scene was... fine. Like, perfectly servicable, sure, but choosing what to do with the crown was his literal companion quest! and you don't even get to see it resolved, he just SAYS what he'll do with it. PLEASE.

Shadowheart had one (1) appearance and one (1) line of dialogue in my ending and that was a quip about Astarion's sad fate. Thanks.

No mention of the Emperor after killing the netherbrain with Orpheus. Really? He's just dead, apparently. Nvm that it was like... the original founder of the city. No no, just dead, don't even see him die if you didn't kill him during the fight.

NO EPILOGUE AT ALL COME ON MAN. I would've taken poorly written SLIDES over nothing at all.

The post-credit scene with Withers feels... so, so redundant? Like, why is he waxing poetic about foes who weren't even the stars of the show? It really felt like a version of that scene should've come earlier, maybe around the start of act 3.

There's a ton of other little stuff that I would've loved to see resolved, but those were my main gripes. It just felt veeeery rushed right at the end there which is pretty disappointing, considering how entirely excellent the rest of the game is. Like, I don't want games to be these infinite projects that studios revisit and expand on (in anything other than expansions) bc they didn't get it quite right the first time around, bc that shit isn't sustainable, but man.

bg3 / reductress articles - part 2

(part 1 here)

Gale. This was literally the last thing I wanted to know.

What was that about Gale's pubes and the netherese orb??

this:

Karlach: How's the orb treating you, Gale?

Gale: Oh, quite well as a matter of fact. Since it was stabilised, it's been humming along nicely.

devnote:

Gale: I have noticed one adverse side-effect. I seem to be losing hair in some, er, unexpected places.

devnote:

Karlach: I can only imagine.