Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

Few weeks ago I didn't know it exist, now I think its as good as the Witcher even though completely different in every way. Great story, lots of decisions to make and feel the impact later on. And then Gwent games at every corner which always feel unique and are even more engaging and dynamic than the games we've played with Geralt. On top of that you build and improve your camp for different bonuses and more cards. Impressive graphics and narration as well. What more could you want from an RPG?

The game seemed a mix of Banner Saga gameplay with the Gwent mechanic from Witcher 3, which seemed a good combinatin to me, as I like both. Unfortunately the game turned out less fun than expected, but still not bad. Pro: - pretty graphics, with a Banner Saga-Disney wibe - quality voice acting - well written characters, CDPR has the best writers in the industry - choices&consequences events - some puzzles are nice to teach card combos Con: - regular Gwent duels are too easy, because the best cards are easily available - story holds no surprises - while the characters are well-written and have great voice acting, most of them are clichés. Stock characters like hippie with a dark past or loveable rogue. - I felt that the puzzles are overdone, your deck not usable in a sizeable portion of the game. (40-50%? not sure) - map navigation and resource collection involves lot’s of backtracking, and is basically a waste of time. The maps are pretty though. Areas of improvement: - 2D map, with linear progression. This would cut the backtracking on the campaign map - save a deck option. Currently, if the player faces a gimmick challenge, the only solution is: loading an earlier save + build a deck around the gimmick + win the duel + rebuild your original deck. - it would be nice to _not_ build the cards at camp, but pick one of three after a battle. This would force the players to adapt their deck to the cards at hand, not just build their winning combo. This would also solve the competitiveness of the AI, as you might end up with only one alchemist or no forager. This is similar to Witcher 3 or Slay the Spire, where you get a random card from your matches, and there are no guaranteed cards. Overall: A good game, but not great. I feel that the Witcher 3 Gwent game is more interesting than this, as long as you don’t play Northern Realms or Empire. I don’t regret buying it, but I am glad I bought at a discount.

If you like Gwent, then you should absolutely try out Thronebreaker. Not only is it quite rewarding to receive unique Gwent items, the card-based puzzles are a great and new take on the Gwent system. Thronebreaker's story is quite good too, so go check it out. That being said: Thronebreaker uses a very restrictive autosave-feature. You get one save-slot per campaign and it autosaves after every decision. I know, I know, there are two schools of thought on this. Some love it, some absolutely hate it. I guess I won't ever understand what the downside is to just letting players decide for themselves, but okay, it is what is it. Why only three stars then? If you want to go the restrictive-autosaves-route, you absolutely have to deliver a near-bug-free experience. Can't get an achievement because you opened a golden chest and the event didn't trigger? Chest's open now, better luck next time. Entered your camp while someone was talking? You might just have locked character progression for a party member, better restart the game from chapter 1. Oh, you thought you bought a whole bunch of wood from that vendor? No, no, you spend your gold to buy a negative amount of gold! Great game and I enjoy it a lot. Worth the money. But it boggles the mind how easy-to-fix bugs like these are still present after two and a half years. I mean, those bad boys are common enough to be mentioned in all the walkthroughs. I strongly recommend creating manual backups of the savefiles at least after every chapter.

This game has the same amazing writing and soundtrack from TW3. The Gwent battles are fun but get less interesting over time. I kinda miss TW3's version of Gwent.

Everything is perfect in this game. Its balance between an exciting plot, making difficult "lesser evil" choices, card battles, and quizzes. Quizzes are nice, they make you think and it took me a while to solve some of them. The other ones were too easy. The characters are well-written. You really sympathize with them, even though you've never seen them before. You understand the motivation of each of them to join Meve's army. And you almost cry when one them is lost forever... And, the most important thing, as for me, this whole game enables a part of the book to unfold in front of you and for each book fan the battle of the bridge must have brought some good memories and flashbacks. It's so cool, guys! Please, develop more games related to some episodes from the books. Thus, perfect for book lovers.