Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

This game was billed as an RPG, it is not. It was billed as a full game, it is not. This is a mobile port they spent some time making run on modern PCs, but it is nothing more than this. For the asking price of this game, do yourself a favour and buy literally anything else on the site and play that instead. This is not an example of polish nor quality from CDPR. The Bad: The animations are poor, characters flip in and out of the screen like they are being drawn on a flip board. You can tell they are models, but they are essentially static. Terrible tutorial. You will not get far if you do not know how to play Gwent already and have experience with CCG in general. The tutorial assumes you understand the mechanics and does not explain combat very well at all. Bad storytelling: You are given dialogue choices, often with a 'Kind' 'Pragmatic' 'Cruel' lean for each. You are told there will be an impact. No matter what you choose, the result will be the same. Right at the start of the game you're given the option to be merciful for some civilians and no matter what you choose, the outcome is always the same dialogue and a negative result. Not an RPG: The game is billed as one, but it is not an RPG. It's a CCG/Strategy/Narrative hybrid. It is a cobble-together of gameplay elements that work well when fleshed out, but CDPR did not flesh them out here, as it's at heart a basically a mobile game. You don't build a character. You do not have stats, you only have your deck. It's a mobile game: I have said this many times, but nothing examples this more for me than when I encountered my very first treasure chest in game, opened it, and was rewarded not with an in-game item, but a card for the stand alone Gwent game. Not even the same game! Thronebreaker is actually an advertisement for another game entirely from the same developer. That's a strike against any company doing this. The Good: Voice acting is fine, story is interesting, game is a stable piece of software.

I was not able to win fight because of gamebreaking bug. I can not stand something like that. And that was half year after release of game. So... thats it. This is my score.

It's just what I expected from CDPR to release, absolutely stunning!!!

I first heard of Thronebreaker 1 year ago back when it was announced. I didn't expect anything at all from the game and bought it one day before release just out of my sole interest for the Witcher universe, since I consider it the best among its peers - LotR and aSoIaF alike. Now, after 30 hours, my expectations are fulfilled manifold. If you share my enthusiasm for fantasy worlds and Witcher in particular - this game is for you. Gameplay, which is Gwent, isn't for everyone. It didn't hinder me nor did I love it. What makes the game is the story and visuals. Some of the best artists work at CDPR and their work I find astounding - very fitting for the universe. While not having much visual representation, it still manages to immerse you via superb voice acting and sound effects. Music is, as customary to the Witcher, 10/10. It feels like a good book and leaves much to player's imagination without setting bounds due to gameplay limitations. Is that a good thing? Depends on your imagination. Hopefuly the sales are enough and they start working on the next tale. P.S. Gernichora from Ysgith is the most atrocious and terrifying creature the art team has designed in all 4 games. Well done.

Ah Thronebreaker... After months of waiting it has finally arrived along with Homecoming (which I leave OUT of this review). After finishing the game here are some thoughts (version 1.0); The game is set in the pre-witcher era, centered around the ruler-Queen 'Meve' of Rivia and Lyria. It connects to the eventual 'battle at the bridge' where the Geralt of Rivia storyline starts. The game transitions between dialogues, where you make some tough choices, open maps which you can explore and loot and alot of Gwent fights in between. In alot of ways the game plays like a Telltale series game, with Visuals similar to some Telltale games (realistic shellshaded cartoony). The visuals and story are a great adition to the universe. The choices you make have short and long term consequences which is also nice. Now for the Gwent gameplay in between... On this I am torn. The concept is you can build your own army, by adding units (which turn into cards) to your deck, depending on gameplay choices some units stay, some go. The mechanics are a little different from the multiplayer Gwent, but very fun. Some fights are standard Gwent battles, others are puzzles with special rules. However, after the first chapter it seems like as you 'build' your army/deck, the enemies retain their weak cards/decks. There is NO challenge at all. I played this game on the 'hardest' difficulty, and at times it felt like I could win while playing with my eyes closed, having 5-10x as many points on the field as my opponent. This HIGHLY undermines the overal gameplay. Resources, carefull management are all redundant because you win anyway... The looting system also is not balanced, I ended the game with around 20.000 gold, having unlocked everything. Why would you care to loot after this point? Sometimes the game throws a 'hard' decision at you in which you lose some gold for example. This is never a problem though...