After ~210 hours and almost three months, I've finally completed the game. (I'm a completionist and a slow player who likes to absorb the world carefully and slowly, explore everything, read everything a couple of times, etc.)

The sheer level of complexity in the interconnected stories, dialogues, outcomes, various characters, and factions is simply unbelievable. Hats off to Larian for managing to create such a rich, complex, and meaningful world with hundreds of characters, dozens of factions and interesting groups, vast maps filled with an abundance of intriguing locations to explore, and secrets to uncover—all while being almost completely nonlinear and giving players the opportunity to approach everything in their own way.

Pros:

- Character models and animations (especially facial animations) are some of the best I've ever seen. They add so much to the immersion, no matter how important or unimportant an NPC is.

- Superb voice acting, performed with so much love, passion, and care. Most importantly, it’s done with a deep understanding of the characters being portrayed.

- Generally, the writing is great. It successfully balances Larian's signature humor and silliness with the darker, more macabre, and serious tone of the world and story.

- A diverse cast of memorable companions with their own agendas, personalities, personal stories, and major questlines. I will miss every single one of them.

- Combat is mostly fun and rewarding. It encourages a tactical approach, experimentation, and thinking outside the box.

- Every encounter is a meaningful experience, every battle is hand-crafted, every questline is a story of its own, and every location feels unique. There are no fillers or padding.

- Dozens upon dozens of engaging side stories and quests of varying scale and importance.

- Great level design with incredible attention to detail. Exploring different locations and simply taking in the environment is a joy.

- Memorable and multilayered villains with distinctive personalities and agendas.

- Amazing music by Borislav Slavov. Kirill Pokrovsky would be proud.

- Excellent implementation of D&D rules into a video game.

Cons:

- The game's pacing varies. In the early game, some relationships with companions seem to develop extremely fast. On the other hand, in Act 3, there is a dichotomy between the urgency of the main quest and the sheer number of quests, side stories, and general activities available in the city of Baldur’s Gate.

- Bugs and general unpolish become much more noticeable in Act 3. Luckily, Larian is actively working on ironing out the issues and making the experience truly complete.

- There are some balance issues with combat, gear, and classes, but that’s something likely to be improved over time.

- Inventory and companion management is absolutely horrendous—by far the weakest aspect of the game. Juggling between characters, finding and storing items, etc., is a nightmare. I highly recommend using mods for this.

- I personally don't like that almost every companion is player-sexual. It diminishes their uniqueness and takes away from the immersion when they can all fall in love with you. When everyone is an option, then options are just an illusion.

- The game should include some kind of codex to store all books and notes you find, as well as information about characters you’ve met, enemy types encountered, and other lore details.