Over the course of the last couple years, I’ve noticed I have a tendency to write a “My Final Thoughts On Video Game” blog post once I finish a video game. Pretty much every game I’ve played and written about in more than one post falls into this pattern. Except for Baldur’s Gate 3, which is probably good because this is the sixth time I’ve written about the game since it was fully released in early August and I have no doubts in my mind that I will write about it again. Today, I’m condensing another month of playtime into a single post because I not only returned to the game much sooner than I exepected (likely because it is a more manageable investment of my time to play it on my PS5 than on my PC since I can more easily kick myself off my couch than I can kick myself out of my desk chair), but I’ve moved from playing a single file to playing through several at once. It is a significant depature from my gaming habits with games of this size and complexity, though I’ll admit that this falls more closely in line with how I used to play games back in college and high school. What is most noteworthy to me about all this is the last time I played a large RPG with significant story variability on a console was in college. I’ve played every major RPG (and any other game with a story that is altered by player choices or moral alignment) on my PC since 2012 and don’t know if I’ll ever going to go back to that now that I’ve broken away from it.

Sure, my computer will likely be the machine that performs better, aside from the periods of time where the latest consoles surpass my aging computer and I haven’t yet budgeted for upgrading or replacing my PC (which is where I’m at right now since a PS5 was a lot cheaper than a new gaming PC), but there’s more to it than mere performance. It’s a lot easier to put my PS5 aside for the night since I’m much more likely to doze off on my couch where I’m incredibly comfortable than at my computer where I’m comfortable but not enough that I might doze off. Plus, I’m so much further from the screen on any console than on my PC and while text size can become an issue at this distance, most modern games allow you to increase the text size so it rarely stops me. It’s just so much more pleasant an experience on my console, from my comfortable couch, where I won’t accidentally stay up until four in the morning. The latest I accidentally stay up on my couch is about two in the morning. That’s still not a good thing, but it hasn’t been a problem lately, since I’ve always been tired enough to stop playing at the time I’ve set as a part of my efforts to fix my sleep schedule and my comfortable spot on the couch means I’ll actually notice it when I’m feeling tired enough to sleep.

I’m genuinely enjoying the game so much more on my couch that I might buy other major RPGs from the past few years for my PS5 since I might be able to get through the second playthrough I’ve been wanting but unable to bring myself to complete if I’m in a more comfortable environment (I’m looking right at you, Dragon Age: Inquisition). As much as I enjoy computer gaming, I’ve come to realize I much prefer playing on a console. I have so many steam games that I was excited to play and then never played because I couldn’t bring myself to boot up my computer. Yet I’ve played every single game I’ve ever bought for my Switch, even the ones that didn’t look as exciting or that were incredibly emotionally draining. I really don’t know why I prefer it beyond the comfort thing, but I clearly feel like booting up my computer for a game is a more significant investment of my time and energy than playing a game on any of my consoles is. This is the first time I’ve bought a game on both my PC and a console and actually played them back-to-back, so I’ve never really had the opportunity to do so direct a comparison before. Usually I buy the console game years later because I never got around to finishing it on my PC.

As far as BG3 on my PS5 goes, I’m appreciating a lot of the work the developer, Larian, has done to continue fixing the game since release. There’s still stuff that is broken and the game is absolutely not something you should ever leave running while your PS5 is in rest mode (face textures, and only face textures, stop loading their higher quality versions when you boot the game back up a day later), but it feels like a much more pleasant experience than when I was playing on my PC. Sure, it helps that my PS5 is probably more powerful than my PC by a noteworthy margin, but there’s a lot fewer hiccups in the game itself than there used to be. Plus, now that I know more or less how events go, I’m able to pay more attention to the characters since I don’t have to spend much time agonizing over what the results of my decisions will be. Until, of course, I get to a new decision that I didn’t make in my first playthrough because I wound up being an incredibly good person after running into the horrors that were a part of playing a Dark Urge character. Now, on my actually evil Dark Urge character, I’m leaning into those horrible moments and taking a break with my Karlach or Paladin save files when I need to get away from how incredibly awful my Dark Urge character is. It’s a really enjoyable way to play the game since I can just swap between the various stages those files are at, depending on if I want to be doing something challenging, repeating something I’m super familiar with now, or exploring the characterization offered by playing as a specific Origin Character (Karlach is an ABSOLUTE DELIGHT to pilot around).

I think there’s still some issues with the PS5 port, of course. The one that has been absolutely stymying at times is that there’s no way to swap between ranged/melee weapons on the PS5. There’s a whole dedicated button on the UI to swap between them on the PC version and while it’s difficult to do with a controller on the PC, it is still possible with a bit of work. No such luck on the PS5, though. Better make sure you save a bonus action ability so you can force your character to swap from their ranged weapons to their melee weapons once you’ve attacked your distant target. The other issue is the radial menus. Sure, you can edit them if you want, putting the actions you want in whatever place you want, but the way the game adds or forgets to add things to them is incredibly frustrating. If I cast a spell as part of a class action, any new actions required to apply it to a new target (like when you’ve cast Speak With Dead or Hex) will automatically populate whatever empty spaces exist on my radial menus. If I cast the same spell because of a magic item, the reapplication action doesn’t show up. I have to manually add it back to the radial menus every time.

Pretty much everything else is fine, if a bit more onerous to do. It is clear this was a game designed for the mouse and keyboard that has been fairly well-adapted to support controller. Aside from the problems above that seem to be the loss of a feature or a bug, I don’t really have any ideas for how they could improve things. Spellcasters just get so many spells. There’s just so many items. There’s not much you can do other than force people to click though a massive list of menus and the game is pretty good about making sure you can at least figure out which set of menus you’d like to click through to get to things (the limitless radial menus or the clunky character detail menus). The somewhat imprecise controls of the joysticks make it easy to click on the wrong thing in conversation or list menus and the need to run through a selection window over a bunch of items rather than direct a cursor can be annoying, but those are small gripes in the face of how much easier the game is to play on my couch than my PC. The game has otherwise done a really good job of anticipating what things you’ll want and making them readily available on your controler, sometimes in a way that feels even better than on the keyboard. It is so much easier to do a group stealth action on the controller than it is on the PC and stuff like jumping is just as easy. Plus, have “examine” at the press of a single button makes up for not being able to use a scroll wheel to look through enemy character sheets (having to move a selection box over to the items on the character sheet and then move the box downward is slow and clunky).

Other than the controls interface, it’s mostly the same game. The only other difference I’ve noted is how much cooler my room is when I’m playing on my PS5 than on my poor, old PC. I don’t know if I’ll stick each file I’ve started out to the final boss, but I’m currently enjoying my time bouncing around the world as the mood strikes me. It’s been very relaxing to play in a way that it never quite got on my PC. Maybe because I already know how everything will end, maybe because I’m not losing as much sleep, or maybe just because I’m sitting on my incredibly comfortable couch. While I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually (it’s not like I’m going to stop thinking about this just because I wrote about it), I’m perfectly content to accept things as they are right now and continue my efforts to unwind and relax after the stress of last month. I’m sure I’ll get back to new game eventually, but there’s still plenty of choices to make in BG3 that I haven’t made yet and I’m excited to see how they all play out over the course of the game. I hope it won’t take me as long to beat each file, though. 130 hours is a lot of time to spend on each run.