Solasta isn’t just like Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s better.

Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 for the first time is a special experience. The combat feels clunky. The narrative starts with you flying on some weird space ship filled with walking brain. Yet over time, the game reveals a gripping narrative. In time, you come to realize that every moment is special. When I reached the endgame, I felt like a kid at an amusement park being told it was time to go home.

I played the game a second time and absolutely loved it, but the second play through rehashed old beats. While I saw new pathways, the overall experience was over. You can only truly experience a first kiss once.

Despite my rave reviews, BG3 misses something. There is die rolls, build craft, and even action economies. It is all there. Yet the game lacks a soul as if it were munched by the Soulmonger itself. In translating D&D from tabletop to video game, Larien made a deliberate choice. They removed the crunch.

Broadway vs community theater

BG3 is a spectacular game. The cut scenes are incredible and at times, produce some intense feelings. The voice acting from the entire cast is just amazing. Every actor shines in that game. The writing is top notch. It’s truly a stellar production that will persist for decades much like a Broadway hit such as Wicked or Hamilton.

In contrast, Solasta is a Kickstarter game and it feels like a Kickstarter game. The graphics look like a game made ten years ago. The cut scenes are flat with characters often standing across from each other, saying their lines. The facial animation is astoundingly bad. While you can pick your voice, there’s not many to choose from. My half-orc fighter who resorts to violence speaks in a posh English accent. It’s hilariously out of place.

Whereas BG3 is Broadway, Solasta is community theater. The difference in quality is immense and it should be. BG3 cost over a hundred million dollars to make with the official backing of Wizards of the Coast. Solasta maybe had a million in funding. No more than two.

Yet, Solasta is the better D&D game.

Tactical wargaming

I’ve been playing D&D for a long time now. I played first and second edition as a kid, and jumped onto fifth edition a few years ago. It’s been a culture shock. Modern D&D is about storytelling, role playing, and character development. Old D&D was about killing and puzzle solving. Characters were cheap and disposable.

I do enjoy roleplaying and my group has produced some amazing stories, but at the end of the day, D&D is a game. I know some people do not like that. They would rather it be social interactions with dice mechanics.

That’s fine. I won’t yuck another’s yum. The game has flexibility. That’s the beauty of it. Yet, the game was designed by wargamers in the 1970s. Strategy and tactics are a core part of the experience. So when the DM says, “roll initiative”, I’m ready to get tactical.

Now, BG3 has some incredible cinematic moments, yet when I look back at my two hundred hours of playtime, I can’t remember a single combat encounter. They all blur together. I’m just in the first act of Solasta now, and my last combat encounter left me stunned.

In the game, I was fleeing a lizard horde through some caverns. There was no resting to recover resources. That alone makes a huge difference. You can’t pause the world, sleep, and return like some time lord. The game has a day and night cycle. This means, every spell slot feels weighty.

I fought off one encounter and stumbled into another one. It was brutal. Two of my party members went down, but through some luck combined with some stingy tactics, I was able to overcome.

With Solasta, you don’t see hit percentages. When you attack, you take a gamble just like the TTRPG. You do see the dice being rolled for each attack so you can determine the enemy AC by paying attention. In fact, you see the dice for everything. It’s great. I cheer every time the enemy rolls a 1. It never gets old.

Arrows are also tracked. This mean each shot has significance. It also means, finding arrows is a big deal. You need arrows. Some monsters fly and others stick to the walls.

But it’s not just combat that has the crunch. The game features overland travel. This requires planning and rests. You need rations for long journeys and you might be ambushed along the way. You don’t fast travel between spots. Having just completed Tomb of Annihilation, I absolutely loved this. I felt right home and even considered using a ranger for once. That said, you can fast travel in the same town.

Lastly, the story is straight out of D&D. An outpost has gone missing so you are tasked with finding out the problem. This is an old school hook, straight out of adventures like Keep on the Borderlands. Naturally, things don’t go right but no one believes you so it’s back to the wilderness combined with palace intrigue.

Closing thoughts

BG3 is an amazing. I absolutely love it and look forward to my next playthrough. Yet, BG3 is game for people who love narrative adventure games. Solasta is for people who love tabletop D&D. It’s strange for me to say but Solasta is the game that I wished BG3 to be.

My ideal game is to combine the mechanics of Solasta with the storytelling of BG3. That’s a marriage for the heavens, but until then, I’ll continue to enjoy my first kiss with Solasta. It’s a doozy.