This is without a doubt the weakest entry in The Witcher series. Mainly for two reasons: The design of the gameplay is just bad compared to the other games and the game is very short. Key prompt boxing fights... really? That was probably the worst choice of all the bad ones. And throughout the game there are just many questionable controls. It seems they made it with consoles (controllers) in mind and that is always bad in my book. It simplifies and stupifies the gameplay and the control of the character. Another thing is the map and the general navigation of the game. It is at times very frustrating. The last of the bad is the way the quests play out and how you trigger them. It is very easy to miss something or fail a quest. If you don't do things in a very specific order that is. Still it is not a bad game. There is a lot to love for story based Rpg lovers. It looks great, and the biggest strength of the game is the story and the variety of characters. As always there is a good replay value. You will need to play it at least twice to truly experience the game (Iorveth and Roche paths). The crafting and economy of the game requires you to work quite a lot. You inventory space is limited and you don't earn a lot of money or ressources. Wether that is good or bad is up to the player i guess. I'm not a big fan of constantly filled inventory space because crafting materials fill up everything. 3,5/5 Not a bad game, but some questionable design choices. They removed it all in the 3rd game so i guess they learned.
I tried this game several times and gave it around 15 hours before i gave up. I really can't see why it is so hyped. Maybe it just didn't stand the test of time and i should have played it 11 years ago. I am sure i would have enjoyed it a bit more. But as it is i find Fallout 4 to be a better game on practically all accounts and i was just bored with this one. The graphics are horrible to look at. Everything is either grey or brown. You can't even distinguish loot from the ground it lies on... it is all just a brown/grey mess. The pace of the game is incredibly slow. You basically can't run, so it is walking to every new location (they call it running, but it really isn't). Crafting and levelling up is also very slow progressing and tedious (after 15 hours i didn't craft a single thing as my level was either too low or i didn't have the materials). You can't store items as easily or convenient either and picking stuff up makes you overburdened in minutes. Then there is the story. Admittedly i didn't get far into the main story, but the characters are very bland and one dimensional and the quests pretty straight forward, nothing special about what i experienced.
