Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

Recommended for all card game lovers! here is my reason for the recommmendation: i always like to play Gwent card game in original Witcher game, and hoping one day to enjoy it further in other style. while Gwent the game is pvp, which is too tense for me, Throne Breaker just hit where i want for Gwent card experience （mainly pve and with all the Gwent based puzzles）. Besides the very attracting card play, the typical witcher-like moral choices RPG elements also fuled the game, where player make CRITICAL choices and see it impact the story and play style (through impacts to cards and resources). In all, the card play is fun as Gwent is (whats good for me is, not as tense as pvp play), story line is rich, moral choices make the story more fun. A great game! cant wait for its succeeder!

I have been a Gwent player since its very first days and I have seen the game change for the better and for worse. I got Thronebreaker as soon as it came out, because it seemed like the new Gwent with some extras, hoping for some relaxing single-player games and puzzles. Little did I know Thronebreaker is only partially about Gwent. Narration and story-telling blew me out - it is flat out superb. Finely written story is accompanied by beautiful 2D animated scenes and, most notably, fully voiced. Yes, all of the characters, even the narrator. Every mundane banter, every cutscene. And it is not just any voice-over: quality, variety and acting are what you would expect from AAA titles, not a little spin-off game. Speaking about little... it is not. I remember those single-player campaigns from Hearthstone that were similarly priced. I was of course expecting more from CDProjekt, but they still managed to surprise me positively. The game offers you more gameplay than majority of blockbusters. Don't get me wrong - many games offer 50+ hours of gameplay by forcing you to repeat certain portions of the game, or by filling it with mindless, repetitive activities and FEDEX quests. It's not the case. Here we are speaking about story-driven gameplay with Gwent puzzles and battles here and there. I have seen some complaints about the difficulty level. I believe for experienced Gwent players that may be valid - although for most of us difficulty would seem about right. I still found myself struggling a little bit with some of the puzzles, but even on the highest difficulty standard battles do not pose a great challenge for anybody that is well accommodated with Gwent. This is a game that I can with clear consciousness recommend to anybody. It has a lot to offer for fans of puzzles, visual novels, card games, RPGs, and Witcher universe. If you're a fan of any of the above, you'll have a great time. If you're a fan of all of the above, JUST GET IT!

It is much more than just Gwent's single player campaign. A 40 hour long RPG (battles played through Gwent) with a fantastic story, tough choices, colorful characters ant beatiful locations. The narrative feels like a very well voice acted audiobook, very much reminded me of the Witcher books. Anyone who enjoyed the Witcher games or books will love this (there is even an option to skip battles on the easiest difficulty, for the ones that don't like Gwent). Overall a fantastic game, definitely surpassed my expectations.

This game is decent, but playing it after finishing Witcher trilogy, it feels disapointing in many ways. Narration is the strongest point of this game. It makes the story, environment, characters all very much a part of the Witcher universe. I would definitely recommend this game just for the story. However, there is one flaw as with many RPG adventure games. Without giving spoilers, some in story decisions seem very arbitrary at time when they occur, sometimes the outcomes of your decisions don't make much sense and it's obvious that their purpose is only to (not) give you some sort of reward. Combat of this game feels balanced, fun and you would wish it would never end. It rewards you for altering your deck to counter the enemy. Yet there are some unexplained interactions that will make you feel cheated first time you encounter them, since they will most likely make you lose and restart the combat. Puzzles are unique, fit very nicely into the game in a way that they don't disrupt the flow, and they help the player learn more complicated game mechanics / combos. The difficulty of them varies but on hardest game difficulty they are not too hard. World exploration is tedious at best. Scenes are pretty, not repetitive, overall very nice to look at, but you move through them in a snails pace and you have to be on a lookout for scraps. Scrap management is the weakest part of the game and would make it more fun if it just was not included in the game. You will not need to loot all scrap in the game to make cards that you need, but you will feel obligated to do so because you never know. This might apply to only a minuscule fraction of players, but If you play on a nonstandard xbox 360 controller, y axis is flipped around and there is no fix for that. It's not a big negative, since the game plays comfortably with just mouse in hand.

I bought Thronebreaker knowing I liked Gwent enough to play a game about Gwent, but also knowing I'm not a card game's addict. But to be entirely honest, I played Thronebreaker because it was a CDPR game, and the great studio behind my favourite games deserved, no matter what, my money. It took me some time before I decided to launch the game, simply because, like any other modern gamers, my game library is a bit overflowing, and oddly enough, I tend to procrastinate the games I know I'll like a lot. Wait for the right time, the right mindset, etc. It took less than 10 minutes to get back all those feelings The Witcher serie gave me. Fantastic music, superb ambiance and a setting which, despite being Fantasy, looked more real that most games. From there, just keep going. The story guides you, the storytelling is great, your choices are dark and difficult, and the game describes it the best way it could each time you're making one : "You've chosen one evil over another one". And I don't think anything could summarize it better than that. It's a human tale, first and foremost, a tale of mistakes and evil, a tale of war and companionship. A grey tale. Like before in the Witcher games, nothing is black or white, none of your choice are good and more often than not, you choose what feels like the lesser evil to you, never knowing if that choice was indeed the lesser evil, and often regretting it as you find out about its consequence. Gwent wise, the game has a smart way to use Gwent to make everything feels fresh. Most battles are only one round (2 rounds may have been too much), there are some smart and fun puzzle, you unlock themed cards as you go. It feels good playing Gwent this way. If there was only one little flaw I could list, it would be the fact your tactical choices matter little. You can't lose a battle (well, you can but you just restart the battle), so some of those choices between fight and flee are often redundant.