Yeah it really was a revelation. I didn’t know much at all going in and was constantly amazed.
I’ve since tried a number of highly touted recent CRPGs and RPGs… and gave up on all of them; BG3 really spoiled me I guess, but I’m also a pretty selective gamer.
If you have the tolerance for dated visuals a lot of the best stuff is in the long since past - Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate 2 are amazing. The Neverwinter Nights series is also great. Fallout 2 is probably one of the best games ever in terms of atmosphere as well as gameplay, but the visuals there are extremely dated. And finally there's also Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.
Holding Fallout 1/2 as the best gaming experiences of my life for a long time, just recently discovered Fallout Nevada and Sonora that some kind talent also ported to WASM/Web — and it finally hit the spot for me after ~25 years.
To be noted: the main appeal of Neverwinter Nights 1 is the player created content. In particular the main campaign of NWN1 is pretty "meh" and is better thought as a showcase of what's possible with the scenario toolkit (the expansion - what we call now DLC - are better in that regard though). The creativity deployed by some creator is quite astonishing; shootout to the Bastard of Kosigan (James Bond-esque adventures in a kinda alternate historical France), and HeX Coda (magipunk setting where you fight as a champion of open-source magick against corporate wizards).
But as somenameforme noted, you have to content with early 2000 production value .
I've played it three times now, start to finish, and I still enjoy Divinity 2 a lot more. Story wise BG3 I think has a slight edge, but combat wise Divinity is just a much better game(imho). Partially this isn't BG3's fault but it's the consequence of relying on D&Ds rules for its combat, but then.....it was their choice to go that way. BG3 but with Divinity's combat system would be my #1 game of all time.
