The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete Edition

After 50 hours of gametime, I have just started the third and last act. The breaking point of starting to really dislike this game was the idiotic quest in the Isles of Mist where that dwarf fell asleep 4 times during the escort quest and you had to manually wake him up every time. This padding of gametime is not needed for such a long game. It really hurts the game by making it even longer than it has to be. Also lots of quality dips in the last part of the game, like the mouse cursor being visible and movable ALL the time, during cutscenes, loading screens and during actual gameplay. Also the GOG overlay causes severe camera movemement stutter so I had to disable the GOG Galaxy overlay. At this time, I can't just uninstall the game because I have spent too many hours of it. "Too big to fail" comes to mind, where I have to finish it, or else these 50 hours are just wasted for nothing.

"The Witcher 3 is the best game I've ever played" is a common statement made by people who have played it, citing excellent stories, gameplay, graphics, soundtrack, etc. I never understood it, personally, as, of all the footage I had seen, very little of it looked anywhere near appealing. So when I had the ability to purchase the entire franchise cheap thanks to my GOG welcome sale, I figured I'd give it a go, as I didn't feel like shelling out $50 for The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition on its own when I could get it, along with the enhanced editions of the first and second games, for only $30. Do I feel like I spent my money well? For that price, yes, I do. But if I had spent full price, not really. It could be that I need to play it further than I have to really get what's so "great" about this game. I can honestly admit that it surprised me, I expected much less. But at the same time, I can't help but think that this game is just beyond overrated. Typically, if a game is good, it can capture me pretty much instantaneously (this happened most recently with Fallout 4). The Witcher 3 still hasn't captured me, TRULY captured me. Yes, I've enjoyed my time playing it thus far but the reviews saying it's a "masterpiece of RPG", "best game ever" etc make me wonder if they were written by fanboys of the series or company, because to me, it's really just an above average action-adventure game with an open world. Don't get me wrong, there are some big upsides to this game. From the gorgeous graphics and amazing facial animations to the nice soundtrack, relatively decent combat system and solid story delivery, it is a good experience. While the story itself feels really cheesy (at least in my opinion), CDPR did a good job with delivering that story to the point that it felt actually realistic and emotional. So overall, it's a solid game, enjoyable, but overrated. As I've said many times before, it's an above average open-world action-adventure game. Not a masterpiece RPG. 3.75/5

Pros: • Great voice acting. • If you like open-worlds this game features one the richest I’ve encountered. Lots of stuff to explore. • Top notch graphics. • The music is cool, even though it lacks variety in certain locations (particularly Velen, which has the worst, most annoying sound track except the swamp battle theme). Cons: • The plot may be hard to comprehend if you’re unfamiliar with the previous installments. • This game is not gameplay oriented but rather story driven. Combat (swordfighting) is hardly satisfying. It’s not as bad as in Skyrim but not as good as in Dark Souls. It could be easily repaired if the developers implemented two things: stamina-drain on dodging and attacking as well as improvement of the parry system. Right now, the standard tactic is to hit and dodge infinitely which is boring and unrewarding. Also it’s quite easy to parry human opponents but parrying monsters is nigh-impossible. The parry window should be extended for them. Either this or the system should be reworked to something which resembles Batman Arkham series combat. • I’m in two minds when it comes to animations. The ones used in cutscenes are pretty good, but the ones used in dialogues (which you see 90% of the time) are absolutely horrible. They’re sluggish and lifeless. The same, though to a lesser degree, concerns Geralt’s movement. His animations are unresponsive and too long. • There are lots of points of interest on the map. Usually they’re either bandit camps or guarded treasures. However, since combat isn’t the games forte, visiting them is a chore. Besides there is simply too many of them. Instead of adding such fillers the developers should have worked on new interesting quests or improving combat—which brings me to the point that the game is simply to big. There’s too much of everything. Witcher 2 made a much better job in this regard—being much more consise.

- Buy GOTY version. Blood&Wine is one game itself. No reason to buy base game only While game is great and I love it, it is fair to tell you about CD Project's failures: - manual is nonexistent. While W1 and W2 were well documented - combat is garbage. You have no control which target you will attack, you will get hit because game makes moves that are useless. Fight more than 1 enemy and you'll puke. You do not fight enemies but against game moving Geralt into deadly situation against your will and common sense - you either butcher everybody or spit blood to win over the system - no pleasure to win by being smarter than your enemy - horse is such coward that mounted combat without 1 potion is impossible - horse follow mouse - no free camera - bad skill development - you cannot use all skills yet you have to buy them to get something you want No quick swap of the active skills - no inventory management (3d time in a row!!!) - you cannot grab sword because it is above your level. Rocket science probably - disabled granny with rotten stick 1-hit kills you; unharmed by 5 dwarf-made premium sword strikes due to level difference. Level difference is dealt in very bad way - at first potions last "no time". Weak? OK. Lifespan? No way! - you cannot meditate / pass time without alchemy activation. So it always consume 1 alcohol if you have used any potion (1 or 10 makes no difference) and do not even asks you which one. Total failure. - expensive runes and glyphs cannot be removed from armor and sword only destroyed - that prevents you to apply them early in the game. And later - they are not that important - shopping has also some flaws - and so on - some quest choices are dubious at best TO SUM UP: Many issues I have described can be solved by few mods. Unfortunately I was unable to deal with combat, yet. Be ready to mod your game Do not take it as rant: I love and play W3, would buy it again - one of the best games I have ever played but it is fair to tell what is wrong

Best game I have ever played.