Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

For a fan of the Witcher series this game plays out just like any one of Sapkowski's stories. It's highly engaging with well-made characters and some similar themes to the Witcher series as a whole. You'll make many tough decisions through well animated dialogue sequences that do a great job of immersing you in the story. Gameplay-wise if you are familiar with Gwent (Homecoming Version) you'll be somewhat familiar with Thronebreaker's system. I'm a big fan of Gwent myself so this game was perfect for me (not to mention all the Gwent unlockables). This game is like Gwent on steroids as the battles play for many more points than a typical Gwent match. Whereas Gwent tends to end rounds between 30-60 points Thronebreaker will see you well into the hundreds in the late game. My main critique is that a couple of the puzzle battles are poorly worded where I had to look up the solution. Nothing too bad because there are plenty of online resources for this game. Ultimately the puzzle battles are some of the most creative uses of the card game mechanic I've seen to date. Overall, highly recommended for any Witcher fans and a must buy if you also enjoy Gwent.

But only 4 stars? Yep, there are some bugs left. in battles and some animation issues. And way to mutch collecting ressources. always holding the right mouse button costs a lot of time that was very annoying. There were moments where I was like "oh boi, another big map". Some more battles could be reduced from default 2-round to 1-round battles. That would help to keep me enganged on the red track of the game! :) Dont get me wrong, the sizes of the maps are right, but not the slow collecting stuff and amout of 2 rounded battles. Great Story, Great Characters, Great Writing. Great Illustrations. I would love to play another witcher game in this format or as TW3 :D

I avoided this game for a long time due to the fact that it was a card game. But I was missing out. Thronebreaker tells a very worthwhile tale, with plenty of the trademark Witcher "grey" choices. And somehow the card-based combat manages to not feel cheesy or cheap. It is definitely worth your while if you care at all about a good story. And it's especially worthwhile if you have any interest in the lore/world of the Witcher books/games.

I'm really pleased on how they managed to make Gwent feel so varied. There are two types of encounters: battles, and puzzles. No two encounters are the same. All battles and puzzles seem to matter and have a reason to exist in the larger context of the story. However, some puzzles can be a bit annoying, requiring some really obscure solutions. I had fun with most of them, but some are just awful. Some are also extremely simple and feel like a waste of time compared to the others. There's one particular annoying sequence at the end. For most of the game, the game autosaves right before a battle, puzzle, or important decision, so if you're having trouble you can reload that save, change your strategy and retry the same battle with little to no downtime. Towards the end of the game this changes. You have a really simple, but slow, puzzle, followed by a boss battle. The puzzle is so simple that probably you can do it without thinking about it, but it will still take 1 or 2 minutes. The battle is quite different from all the others you experienced so far, and may require some radical changes in your strategy or deck. Only, this time, the game saves before the long, slow, annoying puzzle. The battle is also slow, with the enemy looking at two cards from each deck every other turn, which involves a slow, long, unzippable animation. He also has an almost infinite supply of cards, so you can pass at what you may think is an advantage (let's say 200+ vs 40), and then watch as he slowly recovers from that. It's just one battle and one puzzle, but the game shows such little respect for your time that is spoils the entire experience. Still a fun game and a good story.

I just finished this game and want to chime in with the praise of the other reviewers. The story of Thronebreaker is about you, Queen Meve, trying to fend off an invasion with your little army. A simple premise, but they tell a very engaging story with it, peppered with all kinds of twists and betrayals. As someone who never read the books and only played Witcher 1 years ago, I also enjoyed how they let one dive in into the world and history of the setting. The progression through the story is essentially linear, with a lot of content to explore on the side-ways. The side-quests are numerous, some involving only a simple decision as to what to do in a given situation and how much resources to expand for it, while most involve armed conflict. They then usually conclude by asking you to make moral decision on what happens to those defeated/saved during battle. This is one of the strong points of the game, as these decisions are not only tough because going with your conscience may not only go against your troops whims, but often it is entirely unclear, what the 'right' choice even is. I was actively pondering at many of them. The 'grey morality' thing is touted a lot with this franchise and Thronebreaker goes wild with it and does it a lot better than I remember Witcher 1 doing it. Then there's the card game. GWENT is not the best card game I ever played, but it does a well enough job at providing depth while having simple rules. Midway-through I thought, I found an optimal deck, but then the game threw a series of fights at me, which had me reconsider and further optimize the composition of my deck. My one critique would be, that the selection of cards at your disposal is fairly limited and only a fraction of what is encountered in the game, due to the cards representing factions and characters you encounter and ally with over the course of the story. Tl;dr If you like Card Games and a good story, play this.