Baldur's Gate 3 Playthrough #1 42/54 achievements

 I FINALLY got to play it. Finally. I've wanted to play it since it came out in 2023. 5e? I'm in.

First character:

I had all these plans over the years but I blanked on character creation. Just went with default pretty non-binary Elf as a Fighter, got bored of that and respecedd to Hexblade 1 Paladin 11. Smite was so good, having SAD for my 20+ in Charisma, Hex Weaponry, Eldritch Blast go brr, Paladin tankiness. I broke my Oath by being too morally flexible, the breaking point was letting the Hag live. Oathbreaker was OK but I think I would have preferred to stay Vengeance.

Companions/The Party:

Lae'zel was my first companion and she stayed the whole game! I liked her honesty and could tolerate her whole alien POV. Anytime I felt she was too harsh or direct or whatever I just reminded myself she was from another plane of existence. She really like my whole 'do things my way' approach so ended up falling in love with my character. Woo! She went Barbarian Berserker 9 Fighter Champion 3 IIRC.

Gale I rescued from a portal and I liked his wit and friendly nature so he was in. I kept him as a Wizard for a little bit but as soon as I could I re-specced him as a Life Cleric. I was playing on Balanced so didn't need THAT much healing so re-specced him again as a Light Cleric and he was very useful in Act 2 especially.

Astarion I kept along and made him my Assassin 3/Gloomstalker 6/Fighter 3 I think was the split. He was my designated Thief/Sneaky guy. Enemies LOVED trying to find him while he was Bonus Action Hidden. 

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Most fights would open with Astarion shooting something 3 times and hiding, Laezel raging and walloping stuff 3 times, my Tav and Gale reacting to whatever the situation was afterward. Gale was a bit up and down - bleh in Act 1, excellent in Act 2, mixed in Act 3. I chalk it up to not being familair with what was possible: started to enjoy throwing around Wall of Fire and whatnot by the end with him. Much simpler with Astarion and Laezel. My Tav was a tank by the end, dishing out radiant smites and explosive damage so was great.

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I briefly had Shadowheart in the party but she wildly underperformed (I read later due to her poor build) but next time when I run with her, Wyll and Karlach I'll respec her as a better cleric.

Act 1

What a dense first Act! I tried to beat the Commander before he got backup cambions... and failed. The cambions killed me. So I reloaded for the first time. Got off the ship and collected my party, found the grove, side with them.

I pretty much did every single quest in Act 1, I think, bar one or two. I killed a lot of people. I found the Hag and broke my Oath to get her sweet hair +1 to my Charisma.

I tried to hear the Goblins out, managing to diplo my way into their camp and trust but seeing all the slaves, and murder, and torture... I was like, fuck these guys. Was really handy strategy here and later on: befriend a side just enough, hear them out, then betray them and kill them en masse or in groups. I was able to sort of systematically wipe out the goblins and get their delicious experience points.

I was level 7 when I left the first act, which is a lot. I also acquired the legendary weapon, the Blood of Lathander, for my Oathbreaker-Hexblade monstrosity Tav so I was well set up for a trip to the Shadowlands.

Act 2

The Shadowlands were really easy for me - a Light Cleric and Radiant Paladin? A Gloomstalker rogue? GWM Barb Laezel? It all just clicked. Once again found myself siding with the 'good' guys in a no-brainer.

Sheart ditched me after I cleared the Trials of Shar without her, first companion to no bueno. Fine. Wasn't using you anyway!

Act 3

I was level 10, almost level 11 (out of 12 level cap) by the time I reached BG so was telling myself I wouldn't do every quest; leave some content for next time.

There is a lot to do in the city, I LOVED everything to do with the circus,

Killing Orin was tough but managed to knock her off the battlefield with Illithid push.

Ansur was easy with the one Scroll of Otiluke's I had used there.

Gortash was too tough/I lost the will to push on so I resolved to keep him until he gets himself killed by the Nether brain later.

I accidentally made the Emperor the wielder of the final spell of the game and missed out on becoming an illithid! I had a head canon as my Tav being a Illithidphile(?) so was annoyed when I realised I missed it, at the very end of game. Luckily I reloaded and fixed it later, as below.

I expect when I return on Tactician and Honour Mode I'll be using Act 3 a lot more to get experience points so I'm kind of glad I skipped a lot of the content.

Ending

I finished it December 30th 2025 but I think in my eagerness to skip bits of dialogue it didn't show me any character-specific endings? I didn't actually fully finish any of the companion quests so maybe that's why. Did a quick search there and seems like it's usually pretty quick. I did finish it 3 times back to back:

1. Gale-bombed the brain. Partially because I could not kill the red dragon/mindflayer spellcasters/etc the way I wanted to. Cut to BG citizens cleaning up corpses and celebrating lmao.

2. Reloaded further back and became a mindflayer myself (as I had originally meant to) fought and subdued the brain. Domination. Everything was so much easier the second run to the Nether brain; partially because I knew what I was doing this time but also Mindflayer Tav was what I really wanted. I didn't mean to make the Emperor the Orpheus vessel or whatever but missed the dialogue cue for what I wanted. Good thing I had a save.

3. Reloaded at the choice at end 'dominate or destroy' and destroyed it. Mindflayer Tav killed themselves after. Seemed 'canon' as an ending as what I neglected to mention is Laezel was my lover but got pissed and left the party/attacked when I disregarded Voss too much. Had to recruit a Dwarf Barb off Withers at the pre-endgame checkpoint. So Tav killed themselves to stop the hunger/maybe be rejoined with Laezel somehow in Sovengard/destroyed the Netherbrain-Crown etc.

Astarion remarked that he could be in sunlight in the 3rd ending. Karlach died as I hadn't done her questline. Laezel was in all 3 endings so nothing to see there. Gale was his usual cheery self but didn't go to see Mystra so his quest wasn't 100%. Wyll was free from his bondage so I was happy with that. Shadowheart ditched me in Act 2 because I didn't bring her to the Trials of Shar.

Next time

Will definitely go back to it in a few months but was so burnt out by the end. I need to play through on Tactician and Honour mode so that's a whole thing to look forward to. Will probably get the full endings with the companions then. I had reached level 12 early in Act 3 so kind of lost interest in seeing all quests through, but I tell myself I will have plenty to look forward to in a second or third run! Also there's all the Dark Urge stuff to do. One of those runs will be a Durge playthrough!

I'm really looking forward to the second run but am completely wiped out from BG3. Haven't binged a Christmas game like that since Twilight Princess came out on the Nintendo Wii.

2025 retrospective

2025 was better than 2024; it's pretty much all been great since July 2022. Here's to a better 2026!

Overview/Timeline

January -

February -

March - Theo is 13!!! A teenager!

April -

May -

June -

July -

August -

September -

October -

November -

December - 5 exams, Xmas chill/NYE

Music

Minutes on YouTube Premium were not correctly tracked so it gave me some pathetic number that doesn't reflect that 100s of hours of walking/exercising/sitting around listening to music so I am going to give that as much effort as they did.

Top 5 tracks according to Premium: N/A because they fucked up.

My actual top 5 (ish)

1. Just Close Your Eyes (Story of the Year)

2. Ashes to Ashes

3. Slide

4. You Are You Are I Am I Am

5. Elevated

Top track(s) by month:

January no forever maykay; brighten up my life stunning February y2j; natasha b these words; cody kingdom; shallow gaga-cooper March aj styles i am i am; cody epic; MSP Motorcycle Emptiness April Bear Claws, Holy Mountain, Shinya Aoki DDT entrance May     luchasaurus, epic Cody; ascending MI:final reckoning June     save a prayer duran duran, orange crush REM July     ashes to ashes, black hat vincent pedulla, pressure queen/bowie; elevated August come up and see me; aj styles (last tna one); circles post malone September aj styles (last tna one), slide calvin harris; john farnham voice October only exception/true believer paramore/hayley; just close your eyes (waterproof blonde) November christian cage waterproof blonde just close your eyes; various reverbs December christian cage just close your eyes (story of the year), vince mcmahon theme

Movies/TV (week starting; yellow best non-2025 movie, green best 2025 movie)

Jan 1 juror #2 Jan 6 a real pain Jan 13 absolution Jan 20 flight risk Jan 27 elvis Feb 3 lee Feb 10 killers of the flower moon Feb 17 rocky 3

Mar 3 Mickey 17

Mar 31 minecraft Apr 7 ghostCatAnzu (jff) Apr 14 postcard to earth Apr 21 sinners

Jun 16 28 YEARS LATER

Jul 7   still he waits (FF)

Jul 21 superman Jul 28 fantastic 4 Aug 4 naked gun re Aug 11 big short Aug 18 la confidential westport Aug 25 weapons Sep 1 pulp fic

Oct 6 ooba Oct 13 smashing machine (10th)

Nov 17 fog of war

Dec 8 FNAF 2

Dec 15 mononoke Dec 22 nausica

Games by month 2025

• January - Star Ocean 2 R, Civ 6, Age of Empires 3

• February - Smackdown 2: Know Your Role!, LA Noire, Aoe3/2

• March - Civ 4, Holdfast, Majora's Mask 3 heart challenge

• April - Civ4, New Vegas

• May - civ4, fortnite

• June - lttp; OW 100%; cv6

• July - re4r, Marvel Rivals, civ6, DayZ

• August - DayZ

• September - DayZ, Kingmaker

• October - DayZ, Heavy Rain

• November - DayZ

• December - New Vegas, Gears of War 1 Reloaded; Baldur's Gate 3

Reading

I read nothing this year! Will try to rectify in 2026. Something about going to bed at 5am and not reading beforehand.

Exercise

Walking

I walked 180 times, so once every 2 days at least and covered 1500+ kilometres.x

Cycle

I cycled 75 times for 854km. So a bit down from the year before but it was mostly for work. I'm giving it a break for a bit but maybe start again in mid to late January.

Running

I ran 20 times for 133km, so maybe half of what I did in 2024 but fine as I started in August and finished by November. Will hopefully go back to it properly in 2026.

Lifting

Chest/bb - still doing 2 chest and triceps a week and 2 back and biceps.

Planks - did a lot less this year but blame that on work/exhaustion; 

Travel

Las Vegas, April. Got to see the Hoover Dam, Boulder City, Lake Mead. Mania 41!

Mayo July climbed Croagh Patrick again

Sligo August Hagstravaganza

ICELAND October/November

Work/College

Worked February to October, was good money, 4 days a week and easy work. Went back to UoG in September so quit to focus on that.

Writing

Didn't write anything other than a few notes but hoping to go back in 2026.

Wrestling

My fandom is mainly now: know who has what belts in the major companies, watch the occasional AEW/WWE PPV if I'm up late for it/I remember it's on; casually follow what's happening via Twitter/clips/podcasts.

D&D/board gaming

No D&D, played some Britannia, TIME Stories,

My own weird shit

Personal challenges per month (cycling, running, walking, post per x etc) will continue!

Necut? Is ALIVE

Writing? SOON

The superschedule/mood per day/day rating/month rating - TBC

The blog itself

2026 - no restrictions, minimum 1 post

Huge drop-off in my effort here, mainly due to commitments elsewhere. Also, a deliberate 'leave less of a digitial footprint/people don't need to know your business' attitude since early 2025.

Plans for 2026

Finish college, acquire internship/fake email job, save money again.

November 2025 Heavy Rain completion 55/56 / Star Ocean 2 R 100% complete 51/51

 All I had left to do in Heavy Rain was:

1. Perfect ending: heroine, helpless, innocent left; ethan arrested/freed;Madison saves the day ending
2. happy birthday: first chapter do optimal day
3. kamikaze: perfect car drive?
4. pride kept: take off no clothing only a button?
5. im not afraid: twins no mistakes QTE
6. best friends: good day w/ shaun, 2 rides, buy candy, leave

I completed all of these except for I'm not Afraid (might do it next year).

16th October - Happy Birthday and Best Friends

Gods bless the guides people write.

With the help of a guide I easily cleared both of these, though really they just remind you exactly what to do. I don't think I ever did the technical drawing as Ethan before for example.

Also for the second one I remember not being able to do the boomerang game properly so completely evaded doing that.

18th October - Pride Kept and All Endings

Madison was going to be the big damn hero in this second full playthrough. I had gotten the first 50 achievements in my first playthrough of Heavy Rain way back in October 2023 in abotu 20 hours; playing through once then reloading to get different endings.

Madison went to the clerb and only opened one button before lamping the seedy nightclub boss. Achievement get.

Madison escaped the killers house, Norman was dead in the junkyard, Scott was wandering the streets and Ethan was in jail - Helpless ending unlocked. Then I reloaded.

With Ethan in jail and Madison single/unforgiven, she would save the day by finding Shaun all by herself. Thus Madison unlocked the Heroine ending and Ethan got the Innocent ending.

20th October - Kamikaze

On the night of the 19th / morning of the 20th I booted up Heavy Rain and went straight in and completed this after two attempts. Had to go through the whole garage sequence twice. I was following a guide of course so just paused every time I completed a Quick Time Event and checked what was next. In retrospect some of them seem obvious now but whatever.

I was considering loading up the Twins chapter but fuck it. Maybe next year or some other time.

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I loaded up Star Ocean 2 R instead. I had cleared most of the achievements in 2023 when I first got it and at the start of this year I got all the Rena-related ones. All that was left was Cooking Master/Beat Yarma and the achievement for 100% completion tied to that.

I blitzed through on a Claude playthrough on Universe difficulty. I briefly tried Chaos but it was insane. Some other time. I got as far as Energy Nede easily enough then got tired of it. R is good but it's too polished. Being able to skip every dialogue and even most battles now just makes me miss the PSX version.

So I loaded up an old completed file where all my characters were level 255 and happened to be right at Fun City - I must have been trying to do this before.

25th October Five-Star Chef/Master of the Star Ocean

I had briefly attempted the Cooking Master once or twice before in the remake but did not understand it at all.

I watched a bit of a video of someone beating all the contestants. That helped me figure out what was necessary to do. You just gotta press X or click the left mouse button right before the white circle closes in on the dish you are about to make.

It took me a few attempts but I eventually got into the rhythm of it. Some of the contestants kicked my ass but then after replaying some of them I noted they would randomly fuck up and get KO'd. So I either beat all of them legit by points or by Pressure KO, either from me or by their own hand. I'd take anything.

Yarma himself was tough, besting me the first time but I got him on the second attempt. This unlocked the achivement and the final 100% achievement together. All of this took maybe an hour or so.

I could go back and keep playing my Claude Universe mode playthrough but eh. Something that's bothered me for a long time was not beating Universe on the PSX after clearing it normally and on Galaxy almost all the way. I think IIRC I got as far as Indalecio Limiter OFF on Galaxy (yep). I think I still have that save file on a memory card so might need to do that somehow then do Universe Mode on PSX. I think I just miss the old version.

October 2025 Pathfinder:Kingmaker in Sep 2025

 I got three more achievements in this run in September; I stopped playing around HATEOT. I'd seen enough.

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Evil Is My Name - Make three special 'Evil' story choices.

Comrades-in-Arms - Succeed in all available companion quests and win the loyalty of your comrades.

Prosperous Kingdom - Raise all kingdom stats to the 10th rank.

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Evil is my name was easy enough as I was playing a Chaotic Evil character. It's still kind of uncomfortable picking the dick options in this game. I'd definitely play as an evil character again and be a dick if I wasn't trying to max out companion loyalty too.

Max comrade loyalty was not too bad either; just made sure to do every companion quest as they came up. Juggling all these things with making the perfect kingdom was a little tough. No need to do the full DLC companion questline so it finally popped after completing all the OG companion quests.

Finally, Prosperous Kingdom was not too bad once I knew what to do - complete all Problems and don't be too focussed on Opportunities. I reloaded a few disaster result Problems. Not too many, but they were punishing. I almost always had a few Crisis Points for every Problem but not always.

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I could probably have grinded out the 100 random encounters one but I found myself tiring of Kingmaker. Might give Wrath of the Righteous a go next year.

September 2025 - Time Stories middle 3 Expedition/Mask/Lumen

 An update on the T.I.M.E Stories Campaign and my attempt to finish all 9 of the original 'White Cycle'.

Expedition Endurance

We did this 4th though I think it was the 5th expansion. Oh well.

I was the Dog; I can't remember the exact composition of the party after that.

We spent a blue and a pink token (latter I think it was for the final boss fight)

We got 40 points so chose a pink and blue token to replace those lost.

Under The Mask

We all changed vessels a lot in this one. I was one of the guards at the start. Royce was the priestess with the re-roll; Dave was the guy who could read and various others as was Billy; they changed a lot.

More fun than I remember; we got 51 points and a green and blue token.

Lumen Fidei

We played this one briefly then stopped as we were out of time;

We used a blue token in one of the initial runs.

The fight with the crusaders is ridiculous (if you don't have beer or whatever to pay them off).

TBC.

August 2025 - DayZ again (100% complete 5th October 2025)

 I usually play a load of DayZ around July/August these last few years. 

Finally drove a car!

Or three!

And a boat!

Did not manage to get the 'kill a survivor at 300 metres' achievement yet, but had a good attempt at it on 31st of August 2025; shot my friend at 300+ with a Sporter but too weak; they died of blood loss probably but it say my best shot of a survivor was over 300 metres (thanks Rangefinder).

July 2025 - Outer Worlds 100% completion (3 more playthroughs)

Outer Worlds 2 is coming out soon and I wanted to play OW1 again so I did. I also picked up the DLCs on sale at some point so could finally get the 20+ achievements from them too. These are 3 more playthroughs after my initial playthrough in 2024.

Playthrough #1 (Hard)

I stumbled across a comment somewhere containing a link to a video of a streamer completing OW1 in like 30 minutes so I copied what he did and finished it in around 4 hours on hard difficulty in early June. The key is to shoot the main npc quest givers in the head, nullifying entire arcs of the story and moving you forward to the next one.

I just had Parvati as my companion and had to heal a lot but managed it fine. I didn't even have to shoot a single shot in the final area. 

Playthrough #2 (Supernova)

A week later in mid-June I booted the game up again on Supernova difficulty. I died a lot but took my time and grinded here and there and it was not too difficult. Lots of dying but the limited saves attached to this difficulty was not too hard to manipulate.

Playthrough #3 (Normal/DLCs)

After completing it on Supernova, I played it again the next day on Normal difficulty. So much easier. I also skipped a lot of the missions by assassinating the major NPCs but also had to stop and grind experience as I planned to do both of the DLCs.

The Gorgon DLC was decent, a bit too dark and lonely for my liking. It needed a few more interesting people to talk to. 

The Eridanos DLC was better, I enjoyed the whole murder investigation angle. 

Afterward all I had left to do was the 50 stealth kills achievement. I got that in a few minutes after re-speccing as a stealth sniper. That was actually a lot of fun, almost wished I had done it earlier. I can always get the enhanced edition if I want to get all the achievements again.