Baldur’s Gate 3 – Playthrough 12 – Hugs and Kisses

In my previous BG3 post, we explored the trysts of Amaranth, the protagonist of my 12th playthrough Baldur’s Gate 3.

The last post focused on lust and romance. Now we conclude with Amaranth’s relationships as she came to the end of her adventures.

Hugs

Since I entitled this post “Hugs and Kisses,” let’s see some hugs.

Let’s start by giving Shadowheart a hug.

Gale’s a bit talkative, but he deserves a hug too.

The expression on Karlach’s face as Amaranth hugs her reminds me that, at some point in future playthroughs, my character should have a relationship with her again.

Let’s give Halsin a big ol’ bear hug… or as much of a big hug as we can.

As long as we’re hugging cute and cuddly creatures, let’s give Minsc and Boo a hug too.

We return to Shadowheart at a different point in the game. She’s dealing with her past, and needs a hug even as she sheds tears. Amaranth is willing to oblige her lover and friend.

Kissing an Archdruid

I’ve gone over Shadowheart’s kisses. Let’s look at what it’s like kissing Halsin.

First, there’s the obvious: Halsin is taller than any of the other characters. Amaranth is a “normal-sized” woman, and Halsin towers above her.

So Halsin has to bend down and Amaranth had to extend up to kiss.

When kissing any of the characters in the game, there are at least three different kissing sequences available. The game picks them randomly in successive kisses.

In one of the kisses, Halsin touches his lover’s lips before they kiss. In another, the lover touches Halsin’s lips before they kiss. This is another part of what makes his kisses unique with respect to the other kissable characters in the game.

I managed to capture Amaranth touching Halsin’s lips, but not the other way around.

Through it all, Halsin maintains his commitment to polyamory.

Wrapping up the body count

At this point, not only have my characters romanced every romancable characters in the game, but they’ve also kissed all the kissable characters. Let’s pick up from the playthrough 11 romance post and complete the list.

Minthara kisses fiercely.
Karlach kisses with joy.
Lae’zel kisses shyly, as she’s not used to affection.
Astarion, if you choose a dark path for him, kisses as a power dynamic.
Wyll kisses with a dance.
Gale is inexperienced, and must be encouraged to reach out.
Shadowheart kisses with confidence. The game makes it clear she’s had many lovers, and you benefit from that experience.
The fingers-to-lips and height differential give an almost paternalistic air to Halsin’s kisses. Like Shadowheart, he’s had many lovers; unlike Shadowheart, he’s centuries older and doesn’t quite focus his attention in the same way.Or perhaps he’s being carefully gentle, since he knows his Bear strength might crush you.

This list is not quite complete. As I noted in the previous BG3 post, my playthroughs have not included kissing Astarion on his Light path, and Shadowheart on her Dark path. I may remedy that in the future.

It’s not the size that counts

As I was preparing this blog post, I became curious about how the game’s character modeling handled the mechanics of kissing between characters of various heights.

I understand from a casual comment made by Aliona that actor height was not part of the recording process; that is, they didn’t get either short or tall actors to re-enact each scene. When we see characters looking down or up as they converse, it comes from the game’s models adjusting dynamically.

Would this kiss be different if Amaranth were taller?

I wanted to see this in action. So I restored the game while I still had an old save from the 12th playthrough (consoles have a much more limited number of game saves compared to desktops). Then I had Amaranth use a shape-changing spell to become a “Femme Gnome”, then a “Strong Femme Elf.” I had Amaranth kiss Halsin in both forms.

Some pictures before we start kissing:

At this point in the saved game, both Amaranth and Jaheira are using a Mystic ability that is the equivalent of the Elixir of the Colossus, which makes you huge. This has no effect at all on the kissing sequences, which show the characters as though they were at their normal height.

In the Strong Femme Elf form, amplified by the Elixir, Amaranth towers over everyone else, including Huge Jaheira…

Here is Amaranth in “Femme Gnome” form.

Enough of the posing! Let’s get to the kissing!

I couldn’t quite capture the action: When a tall character (normal or “strong”) kisses a short character (Gnome, Dwarf, Halfling), the taller character will get down on one knee.

Shadowheart is about to kiss a Gnome and she likes it.

Shadowheart’s move, in which she walks behind the lover and kisses their shoulder, looks different when the lover is short.

Halsin also gets down on one knee. Even so, he has to bend his head to kiss Amaranth the Gnome.

Let’s have Amaranth kiss in “Strong Femme Elf” form. We can see how Shadowheart kisses someone who’s taller than she is.

This time it’s Strong Femme Elf Amaranth who has to bend down.

Shadowheart’s signature “kissing from behind” move looks different when her head just reaches the bottom of Strong Femme Elf Amaranth’s deltoids.

As for Halsin, he finally has someone almost of his own height.

It’s more of a power move when Strong Femme Amaranth puts a finger on Halsins’ lips.

Credit where credit is due

The conclusion from all this:

Larian did a brilliant job is crafting the characters’ kissing sequences in BG3. This is a far cry from the static visuals of Divinity Original Sin II. It’s an impressive attention to detail.

It’s all the more remarkable because these sequences were not released until Patch 6, after the game was already a success, and at no additional charge. Larian Studios did it for the same reason I write all these BG3 posts: for the love of the game.

Kudos to the motion-caption actors, their directors, the graphics-design teams, and the animation teams!

Even Withers thinks you did a good job. And he’s really hard to please!

No, not that kind of happy ending

Now let’s got to the end of the game’s story. Among the resolutions you can experience are those of your character’s relationships.

Normally, if your character is in a relationship at the end of the game, you see a sequence that acknowledges the connection. You’re given a choice of how to wrap up the romance’s narrative. I gave an example of this in my playthrough 7 write-up.

Pillow talk from playthrough 7. Gale and Lae’zel chat about this and that.

Amaranth had romanced two characters. I thought I’d be shown the outcome of one romance or the other.

Instead, I was shown both:

And then:

Thus I saw an end (or at least one end) of a complete relationship arc with Halsin.

Even within one of those endgame relationship-arc scenes, there are options that might vary depending on your choices earlier in the game. However, I’m content with what I was offered.

Anyway, I had two happy endings. It was a pleasant conclusion to a fun playthrough.

Did you forget the Moon Lesbians? There were other characters who had happy endings of their own.

Inquiring minds want to know

This concludes the write-up of Amaranth’s amorous adventures, but does not conclude my write-up of playthrough 12. For one thing, I listed all of Amaranth’s trysts, but there were a couple of possibilities you may remember from previous write-ups that were missing:

From playthrough 8: Why didn’t Amaranth meet with this remarkable individual?

And this person. Why didn’t Amaranth arrange an encounter with her? Did she not have enough money to negotiate a reasonable fee for services rendered?

A final question that perhaps it did not occur to you to ask: Why is Shadowheart in skimpy underwear in some of these pictures?

Is it because I’m looking for cheap thrills?

Believe it or not, the answer to that is no… at least this time. (We’ll get to the cheap thrills in a couple of posts.)

At least two of these questions will be answered in my next BG3 post as I continue my write-up of playthrough 12: “Mods – Party of 14.”