Listen here you nerds, I know you're all very excited for the Baldur's Gate and I'm very happy for you. But now it's my time to spring upon you this subtle revelation: They've been making video games like Baldur's Gate 3 for the last decade and change. You could've been playing games that may not have BG3's scope or budget, but are probably better written or have more interesting combat. Since I'm broken and sick, here's a list of things I would recommend now that the illithid tadpole in your brain makes you understand that dice rolls can be fun and exciting.
GAMES I DIDN'T RANK BUT PEOPLE SAY ARE GOOD:
Shadowrun Dragonfall
Shadowrun Hong Kong
Underrail
GAMES I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND:
Torment: Tides of Numenera
The Bard's Tale IV
Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness
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PRETTY GOOD A large portion of Wasteland 2 is "waiting for bars to fill up," which alongside its intentionally archaic skill system and generally medium combat means I'm not gonna tell you it's amazing, but it's also the first one to come from this wave of kickstarter games.
PRETTY GOOD The weird midquel reunion special revival expansion taking place between Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 is still just an incredibly odd thing. But as a new Infinity Engine game made in 2015 it's certainly better than it has any right to be
PRETTY GOOD To be frank, I think anything you could say about Divinity Original Sin is overshadowed by the fact that its sequel is just exponentially better or more interesting in almost any way. That said, it's still quite good, even if you can resolve 90% of combat encounters in this game by crowd controlling the enemy to death.
PRETTY GOOD The number of "Eye of the Beholder-likes" on this list is catastrophically, depressingly low and Vaporum (alongside its sequel) make their way onto this list by virtue of being the only other ones of serious note that aren't Grimrock.
GOOD: Thanks to its 5e baseline, Solasta is probably the closest you're going to get to Baldur's Gate 3 on a mechanical level, even if on a presentation level it's very indie and very jank. There's definitely some "Babby's first homebrew" energy to both the Crown of the Magister campaign and the DLC Lost Valley, but I find these to be endearing, rather than embarrassing.
GOOD Wasteland 3 is a much better game than Wasteland 2 on pretty much every level. I still think its general sense of humor and "wacky" comedy is significantly more miss than hit, but as far as allowing for a solid amount of turn based combat and player expression this one does that.
GOOD Grimrock is technically the earliest game on this list, arguably predating the CRPG renaissance, but as far as a straightforward Dungeon Master/EOTB style game where you sidestep around horrible monsters and throw stones onto pressure plates
GOOD Listen I have a soft spot for Might and Magic X despite the part where it has a budget of approximately $3 and is held together with duct tape and good intentions. There aren't a ton of other games on this list trying to do that Might and Magic focus on exploration, and this one does it well enough. It's got "moxie"
GOOD Clonk kingdom management, frequently awkward exploration, deliciously overambitious russian jank. All of these plus Pathfinder first edition rules, which are the most extra a dungeons and dragons can be.
VERY GOOD There's a melancholy, deathly serious tone to Pillars of Eternity that I think was off-putting to a lot of people who wanted some Baldurian High Adventure, but I'm here to tell you actually making this big high fantasy RPG also Deeply Sad and make lore choices that you'd expect from a sequel in the first game are good. The combat is frankly a little too chaotic for its own good at times and the best content is in the expansions, but fuck man I really like this one.
