You won’t see me arguing with the writing on BG3, the freedom and interactivity is amazing, but to no one’s surprise it is former Kotaku as its lead writer and the other ones are Tumblr dwellers. Halsin’s random ass polyamory was total BS. The best writing happened with Jaheira, Gale, and Minsc.
But that wasn’t the point. I’m referring to aesthetics. The armors in BG3 don’t cover up the character in a way that completely undermines the features you spend hours in the character customization for. The armors showcase your cool proportions, and most importantly the face and hair by and large.
And regarding stylistic choices, that is fine and all, but why is it so lopsided? Because the female character in Wicked might have kinda longer arms too, but it’s not grossly disproportionate.
It’s always somehow the male characters that end up with the weird and experimental and unsightly designs while the female characters always end with the safe conventionally attractive ones. If the female character weren’t in a hunched posture, she’d actually be fairly good.
But the male characters in this game not only have the exaggerated popeye arms, which is not the largest offender, but those nonexistent calves and thighs are HORRENDOUS anytime you gotta wear any remotely fitting pants.
If you’re not covering those stick legs with the Balak Taw feather wide bell pants or the sailor wide bell pants, or a robe, the character looks absolutely ridiculous and top heavy.
And yes, people can have their stylistic decisions and reasons, but the point of this thread is to give feedback that this stylistic decision regarding the male character is gonna alienate a lot of prospective players.
That’s why I had to bring up my personal example with acquaintances. I’ve been evangelizing this game, because I think it’s an absolute gem outside the player character, but I simply cannot defend the character creation and proportions, and I understand why many people are not connecting with the game, because you first connection to the game is your character.
The armors are way too goofy, I imagine they tried to do a lot of meta reference to Elden Ring, where player characters are usually an eyesore and have super goofy armors, but even then there are a few dignified high fantasy alternative armors that make the character look good.
In current early access, there is not a single cloth helm that isn’t an unholy oversized brim hat covering up all my character’s face and head, or some really ridiculous helm or privateer hat. It is a problem.
The game’s tone does not match the armor offerings. This game has a serious story with gravitas and high fantasy elements, the dialogue is impeccable, and then in a cutscene your character, supposedly of a noble mysterious sacred warrior race is a goofy ass hobo/rascal/peasant-looking character next to the impressive and handtailored looks of Seline, Ellsworth, Baurus, Winnick, and Odessa.
It just looks totally out of place and undermined the tone of the game. I absolutely support some goofy armors to joke around, but we also need more serious attires for at least cloth and leather that aren’t just peasant NPC attires or rags.
There is just no way to make my current caster cloth or leather archer guy look heroic instead of a random wretch from the Sacrament slums.