The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The game looks very nice, and is fun. However i have gotten so frustrated with this game, to the point where i literally am breaking into tears, screamin at the top of my lungs. What do i mean? Well there are some parts in the game, specifically missions and bandits, that are literally impossible to kill. I mean the mission family matters, whcih i am stuck on for over an hour of gameplay, theres a point where you have to fight literally 10 + wraiths. Include the fact that you cant save in between, this mission is impossible to get past. Some of these missions are so diffciult, i cant have fun with this game.

Pros: Everything you have heard of the game, the story, the combat mechanics, the swords, the upgrades and the secondary quests, witcher contracts and treasure hunts are really high quality. The game is fun. Cons: Falling damage. Cant Alt Tab sometimes, and some other times you will crash the game if you do. Roach (Your horse) can feel clunky and unresponsive in certain situations. Some bugs that can make you look up in the web for a way arround them in quests. So yeah i recomend it, pretty good game, i played it for 80h or so, but i didnt finish all of the secondary quests/witcher contracts.

I realise that this review is going to differ from the majority. The reason for this is, when a game attracts me, I have to examine it as thorougly as I can. I have to get as intimate with it as possible, explore the world in all its details, learn the intricacies of roleplay system. In this case, this close look is what disillusioned me. Yes, most of the game is kind of nicely done. But that's all about it, all there is is a refinement onto a piece of quartz that makes it look like diamond but can never make it into a real diamond. Everything is just "okay", but never more than that. Combat system? The animations look nice but if you look just a little closer you'll see how generic it is. There are dozens of games where the combat system is almost entirely the same. Character development? Well, it's okay, there are a couple dozen of perks that seem to offer you different ways to build a character. If you look just a little deeper, you'll see, however, that so many perks are absolutely useless and just as many are terribly boring, like +5% damage. Almost none of them actually change the gameplay in a meaningful way (notable exception being the Whirl and some alternative spell modes) and some of them make no sense. Dialogue? Well, it's actually pretty well written, and there seem to be several options. However, most of the time options change nothing in the course of dialogue and when you actually have a choice it's unclear what consequences. Notable example being a dialogue option "push Dijkstra aside" resulting in Geralt breaking Dijkstra's leg and as a long-term consequence blocking a whole questline that could affect the ending. Or dialog option "you don't have to always be the best" when talking to Ciri that results in Geralt and Ciri getting drunk and potentially resulting in a bad ending. Open World? Oh boy, now that's a problem. Speaking strictly in numbers, the world is huge, and the amount of locations is overwhelming. It's only when you actually start exploring this world you notice how it serves no meaning. So many locations are almost the same, like crates with generic bandits running around or a nest of monsters with several monsters around. Those serve literally only so that you can come and get your XP and loot. They tell no story, they add nothing to the context of the world, you could literally replacy and of those monsters' nests with some other monsters' nest and no one would notice. Once in maybe a hundred you would actually find something cool, like a stone circle with an elemental and a dead summoner but that's really rare. Quests? Well, there are some nice quests and the stories can be compelling. But when it comes to gameplay, oh my. Developers seem to think that if they gave Geralt witcher senses (which is basically a special mode that highlights tracks, small quest-related objects etc), then it means every single quest has to involve player using them. This makes me ask, how in the world do protagonists of all those games without witcher senses can possibly complete a single quest? Story? Yeah, in comparison to most of the games, the story is pretty good. On the other hand, the game inherited a really rich and awesome world from Sapkowski's books and that's what makes most of the story. In comparison to the potential of the story that can be performed in this setting (example being, obviously, books themselves), the story is shamefully lacking. Many concepts like White Frost, are oversimplified. Many ideas that were meant to be vague (like why actually was Adda born as a striga) are made straightforward. And making Wild Hunt into antagonist is really cheap. In books, the most horrible monster was always a man. Leo Bonhart and Vilgefortz were both regular people. Here, the enemy is an invader from other world, wearing skeleton-like armor and causing cold wherever it goes. As cheap as any other evil lord. I can't call the game "bad". It would be unfair. But I can't close my eyes to the fact that all the refinement, in the end, masks the lack of preciousness, of uniqueness. I can't close my eyes to the fact that the game is only good until you start examining it thoroughly. Afterwards, it's just "okay". A flashy, highly polished piece of quartz.

Great game. Controller required Keyboard and mouse controls can be very Frustrating. Occasional crashes even after patch. Still, much fun to be had.

I provide an in-depth review of The Witcher 3 for PC: https://youtu.be/AL7eoeX6sP0