His initial impressions so far:
"gale is sus as fuck
I like the two ladies, but they sadly have friction between them
the white vampire lad is just annoying and sitting in the camp
I like the black swordsman dude, but I’m curious what gale is up to, so swordsy is sitting in camp as well"
He’s been playing a half orc barbarian so he has been doing all the classic barbarian things (broke Shart out of her box with strength, intimidated his way through many situations, etc.)
So far, he went straight to the goblin camp after doing a bit of the Grove content and got demolished by Dror Ragzlin.
He hasn’t found Withers yet. I haven’t spoiled anything to him but have strongly insisted he try to find “the talking mummified man”. I have also recommended following up on Wyll’s “hunt” and promised him he will find “something nice” at the end of it. I will return with more updates once he progresses more.
Gale is sus as fuck at first. He’s too charming. My first thought was “this dude’s hiding something…” and I mean… I was right. It just wasn’t about being evil. I never trust a character that’s immediately nice when everyone up to that point has been a jerk.
It just wasn’t about being evil.
I mean, it can be about evil. If you give Gale enough leash he will take the Karsus weave and the crown, merge them, and become a god.
I didn’t release Withers in my first play through and he still randomly showed up at camp later in Act 1. I don’t remember if he said any “we meet again” stuff but it was weird and possibly a bug.
It’s surprising how many times you need to replay the game to really understand everything a quest or NPC might do. The butterfly effect is strong in this game.
Astarion is my second favorite companion. Karlach is too cool to not be my first favorite, but Astarion with his scheming and sassy attitude is such fun! Astarion was also my most powerful companion, and group face in my first playthrough, so I very much needed him in the party. This time I’m playing as a Bard and don’t need him, but I just added him back to the party to take on Cazador, and he’s still a badass. I’m rolling with him as a Monk/Thief now and he kicks major ass, and doubles as a pack mule.