Posted July 20, 2018
The Witcher 3, in my opinion cannot ever be the best RPG because it’s not even an RPG. It is one of the best games I have played in ages but it’s just not an RPG game. Yes you role play as the witcher but that’s really NOT what constitutes a Role Playing Game; by extension any game where you play as a character through any section of story is a "role playing game". So that is not it. (If you think that is what an RPG is STOP READING and go play another "RPG" like assassins creed, this is my opinion)
Most Role playing computer games are based on the Dungeons and dragons/pathfinder etc. type engine. Yes, they were! Created to have on open forum to see how you (whoever you want to be) would (do whatever you though was best) to (overcome some obstacle) in (some fantastic place). Provided you have a more appropriate build you start playing.
These are the four main tags that mark a true RPG game. So please don’t read this as an inclusive review of the of witcher outright but rather the compliance to my concept of a TURE or PURE RPG.
AKA: Ratings in terms of RPG purity.
1. Character creation. Witcher 3 scores 2/10. I’m not explaining that further than saying you can't even pick your name. #WarCleric4Life
Baldur's Gate 1998 - Go build your own unique character, full in your own back story if you want.
2. Personalized play style. 3/10. Yes you can make the Albino cat man say bad words and not be a nice person but that is about as far as the role playing immersion goes. Do I bang her or not? Take the poor persons money or not? Bow to the king or not? These are about the only ways you can affect change in the world. They have books called "choose your own adventure", they are fun reads but you are not writing your own story. For weapons its axe or sword is the only real choice you have to make.
Mount and blade - your call to ride as Don Quixote fighting mighty windmills or owning the mill and letting you champions kill the belligerent drunk in the bar. Both work.
3. Overcome adversity. 3/10 Zero free thought required. You don’t need to listen to the hours of great dialog or even think to play this game. You can just mash a waste of the game, time and money but you can skip the movies and mash light strike and role and mash when looting or smelling for red, then run to the next marker and repeat. Even on higher difficulty levels it just slows down combat. No noticeable improvement in AI just more health and damage for the enemies. I’m not saying that combat is easy or unskilled but hack and slash seem to solve everything with a little rethought other than visiting traders to upgrade loot and buy food.
This can be said of most games but when you kill a giant in the witcher 3 it’s 9/10 times with a silver sword.
When you kill a giant in Skyrim it’s with ANYTHING, turn that thing into a chicken and club it to death with an iron club. Hide in rocks and shoot arrows at it till it dies. Lay traps and piss of its mammoths then they chase raise creatures to defeat the giant and his pets while you catch butterfly’s nearby.
4. The immersive world. 4/10 Beautiful but what happened? An immersive lore and interesting story is not all that is needed for an immersive RPG world. Yes you can interact with lights, loot able objects and friendly NPC then fight with hostile spawns, but what, nobody’s seems to mind you robbing them blind the NPCs in the village don’t know how to walk. I didn’t get the immersion of spending ages getting roach to run for a few minutes at a time to get somewhere you have already been. It’s not like the time even matters you don’t get hungry or tired. in an immersive world I got super bumbed when I ran into a dog at level 2 and got flattened since I could hardly damage the super high level critter, I though I was supposed be some hard ass monster slayed and he can’t even hurt a mangy dog. I understand how levels work but that’s a massive immersion breaker for me. Almost all RPG games I play I go crazy and try kill something out of my level range early on and usually get broken but that’s because it’s hard to kill a hobgoblin with a rake. Not a sickly dog with a sword.
This game has pretty much the same interaction mechanics as the later farcry games series.
The most immersive RPG might just go to Life is feudal. you can interact with anything provided you know how.
Role playing games were here before computers and if we let games like this masterpiece of gaming further cloud what a role playing game really is, we will lose the genre forever. AGAIN THE WITCHER 3 IS AWESOME BUT CALLING IT A ROLE PLAYING GAME DETRACTS FROM ACTUAL RPG GAMES. SPLIT THE GENRA.
By definition of the genre you should be able to full in your own character sheet. Interact with the world as you choose, and have your control over your characters’ development and skills provided it is lore friendly.
The witcher 3 does this about 3/10 times. If a game is RPG 30% of the time it’s not really and RPG. The witcher 3 in my mind is the dungeon crawler to end all others.
A true role playing game should be as close to sandbox as possible, and on this front the witcher gave us a game that looks, sounds and smells like an RGP but just did not get it.
Most Role playing computer games are based on the Dungeons and dragons/pathfinder etc. type engine. Yes, they were! Created to have on open forum to see how you (whoever you want to be) would (do whatever you though was best) to (overcome some obstacle) in (some fantastic place). Provided you have a more appropriate build you start playing.
These are the four main tags that mark a true RPG game. So please don’t read this as an inclusive review of the of witcher outright but rather the compliance to my concept of a TURE or PURE RPG.
AKA: Ratings in terms of RPG purity.
1. Character creation. Witcher 3 scores 2/10. I’m not explaining that further than saying you can't even pick your name. #WarCleric4Life
Baldur's Gate 1998 - Go build your own unique character, full in your own back story if you want.
2. Personalized play style. 3/10. Yes you can make the Albino cat man say bad words and not be a nice person but that is about as far as the role playing immersion goes. Do I bang her or not? Take the poor persons money or not? Bow to the king or not? These are about the only ways you can affect change in the world. They have books called "choose your own adventure", they are fun reads but you are not writing your own story. For weapons its axe or sword is the only real choice you have to make.
Mount and blade - your call to ride as Don Quixote fighting mighty windmills or owning the mill and letting you champions kill the belligerent drunk in the bar. Both work.
3. Overcome adversity. 3/10 Zero free thought required. You don’t need to listen to the hours of great dialog or even think to play this game. You can just mash a waste of the game, time and money but you can skip the movies and mash light strike and role and mash when looting or smelling for red, then run to the next marker and repeat. Even on higher difficulty levels it just slows down combat. No noticeable improvement in AI just more health and damage for the enemies. I’m not saying that combat is easy or unskilled but hack and slash seem to solve everything with a little rethought other than visiting traders to upgrade loot and buy food.
This can be said of most games but when you kill a giant in the witcher 3 it’s 9/10 times with a silver sword.
When you kill a giant in Skyrim it’s with ANYTHING, turn that thing into a chicken and club it to death with an iron club. Hide in rocks and shoot arrows at it till it dies. Lay traps and piss of its mammoths then they chase raise creatures to defeat the giant and his pets while you catch butterfly’s nearby.
4. The immersive world. 4/10 Beautiful but what happened? An immersive lore and interesting story is not all that is needed for an immersive RPG world. Yes you can interact with lights, loot able objects and friendly NPC then fight with hostile spawns, but what, nobody’s seems to mind you robbing them blind the NPCs in the village don’t know how to walk. I didn’t get the immersion of spending ages getting roach to run for a few minutes at a time to get somewhere you have already been. It’s not like the time even matters you don’t get hungry or tired. in an immersive world I got super bumbed when I ran into a dog at level 2 and got flattened since I could hardly damage the super high level critter, I though I was supposed be some hard ass monster slayed and he can’t even hurt a mangy dog. I understand how levels work but that’s a massive immersion breaker for me. Almost all RPG games I play I go crazy and try kill something out of my level range early on and usually get broken but that’s because it’s hard to kill a hobgoblin with a rake. Not a sickly dog with a sword.
This game has pretty much the same interaction mechanics as the later farcry games series.
The most immersive RPG might just go to Life is feudal. you can interact with anything provided you know how.
Role playing games were here before computers and if we let games like this masterpiece of gaming further cloud what a role playing game really is, we will lose the genre forever. AGAIN THE WITCHER 3 IS AWESOME BUT CALLING IT A ROLE PLAYING GAME DETRACTS FROM ACTUAL RPG GAMES. SPLIT THE GENRA.
By definition of the genre you should be able to full in your own character sheet. Interact with the world as you choose, and have your control over your characters’ development and skills provided it is lore friendly.
The witcher 3 does this about 3/10 times. If a game is RPG 30% of the time it’s not really and RPG. The witcher 3 in my mind is the dungeon crawler to end all others.
A true role playing game should be as close to sandbox as possible, and on this front the witcher gave us a game that looks, sounds and smells like an RGP but just did not get it.
