Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

Be very sure what game you are into before buying this game. It's NOT a RPG, it's NOT an open world adventure. It's a card game with exploration and story tacked on. It's core gameplay suffers the same problems as any card based games suffer from, the RNG elements and the luck of the draw. The story and NON-RNG based puzzles and battles really shine in the game. BUT it is let down by the battles that are RNG based, i.e. regular combat. What's even worse are puzzled based combat with RNG. Whether you are able to complete the puzzle depends on the luck of your draw. This would have been an easy 5/5 star game if there were no RNG battles at all. The puzzle battles really makes you think and find the correct solution to the problem based on the rules of the cards. Personally I cannot stand luck/RNG based combat or gameplay loops. Which is why I am giving this a 3 star only. If you LOVE Gwent, you will love this game. But for people who hate card games or core gameplay that has a huge element of luck, look somewhere else.

TL;DR: If you think a single player card game with some RPG elements can't be challenging, fun and engaging, or if you are tired of GWENT, then you need to try this. ---{Graphics}--- ☑ Masterpiece ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Will do ☐ Bad ☐ Awful ☐ Paint.exe ---{Gameplay}--- ☑ Try not to get addicted ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Nothing special ☐ Ehh ☐ Bad ☐ Just don't ☐ FPS Drop DLC Included ---{Puzzles}--- ☐ Einstein level ☐ Patience lvl 1000 ☐ Good Memory ☑ Strategic Thinking ☑ Fun ☐ Duh ☐ Two years old ☐ Brick intelligence ☐ None, linear gameplay ---{Workshop}--- ☐ New Mods daily ☐ Active Community ☐ Every Week new Mods ☐ Sometimes new Mods ☐ Nexus will save us ☐ No Mods getting released ☑ Workshop not included ---{Audio}--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ Earrape ---{Audience}--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Everyone ---{PC Requirements}--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Minimum ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{Difficulty}--- ☐ Just press a bunch of buttons ☐ Easy ☐ Significant brain usage ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Not so easy ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{Story}--- ☐ Doesn't have any ☐ Something isn't nothing I guess ☐ Not great ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ Will make u cry or smile a lot ---{Game Time}--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of tea ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ Depends on u ☐ Endless ---{Price}--- ☑ Just buy it ☐ Worth the price ☐ Wait for sale ☐ Maybe if u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ Dont throw money into a trash can ☐ Free2Play ---{Bugs}--- ☑ Never had any ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Few bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ Ruining the game ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ~~~~Multiplayer~~~~ None, hence single player :) If you want multiplayer, go check GWENT, it's a fair F2P card game, and has the core mechanics and play style of Thronebreaker (Actually Thronebreaker is built upon GWENT) Disclaimer: Review layout taken from Stahlhelm_TV on steam

A very good game with an interesting story, I enjoyed it a lot.

only 5 hours in atm. Surprised by how complex the deckbuilding and rounds are. Was expecting something similar to w3 gwent or beta gwent, that is, easy to grasp, but also repetative. Got a far more complicated and technical game (so far) and i like it. Also the music is amazing.

So, lets start with... THE GOOD SIDE 1. Storyline is captivating, well-written and full of interesting characters. It made me care about Meve and wanting to make the right choices throughout the game. While Meve is written as a heroic character, the story is not completely black and white, with suprising twists and grey areas. I loved it. 2. Graphics and sound/music design is superb. Thronebreaker undeniably looks beautiful and sounds amazing. 3. Card game mechanics are nicely fit into the story. If you like card games, this one is really cool. Does not come close to actual Gwent in terms of deckbuilding and gameplay, but it's good enough for a single player game. Most battles and puzzles are just "ok". There are only a few that stand out as great and challenging, but also a few that feel luckluster and badly thought out. Unfortunately, there is also... THE BAD SIDE 1. Balance is severely lacking. I played this game on the hardest difficulty and didn't break a sweat once. I swept aside all enemies in the first two chapters using a random deck I threw together in 3 minutes. After building a solid deck at the start of chapter three, I became virtually unstoppable for the rest of the game. There is no need to adapt a deck for specific battles or bosses. There is no need to optimize a deck. A single, unoptimized, general-purpose deck can beat this game. Very disappointing. 2. This is NOT an open world game. The story is completely linear. There is a single path from beginning to end in every chapter. You can skip some standard battles, puzzles and resources, but all important events have to be played one after another. This also kills replayability of this game. I don't expect to ever play Thronebreaker again, since playthroughs would be practically identical. 3. It feels a little bit rushed and unpolished. There are typos in texts and some card descriptions don't match actual effects. Nothing major, but I still found it frequently annoying.