No I'm sorry, I really am (no I'm not actually, not for the last review either). I didn't finish the last game either. I should stop playing games on their hardest difficulties out of the box for my own sake, but if a game's gameplay isn't fun on it's hardest difficulty, if it isn't engaging and fun, if it doesn't feel fair, it's gameplay isn't all that well polished is it? Now the game is going to test my skill this time around is it? Nothing says good design like being frozen in place even after the animation of a spell or attack has finished, your attempts to dodge completely vain. It is beyond infuriating. It is a poor choice to have such a demonstratedly powerful and capable character through cutscenes all of a sudden fall to a group of grunts. Enemies can block you all day, but not only do you still take damage blocking, but you have very little ability to continue blocking. One person I was talking to was quick to defend this design decision saying it's to encourage players to be agile, use spells tactically, and learn the alchemy system. Geralt is a powerhouse in the game's universe. He is not a thief, acrobat, or tinkerer, at least not primarily (I want to emphasize the player choice aspect here is not wrong, but with no strengths at the beginning of the game at all, he should at least be a good swordsman). He is consistently shown to be a brutal and efficient swordsman. Right off the bat some grunts should be easily dispatched, especially so close to the beginning of the game. And no predictable way to gauge how to break through their block? What the hell is the heavy attack for then? That ugly, out of character orange slash trail? Manipulating the hell out of shitty AI to maneuver around an opponent doesn't feel right the way the game wants you to do it. They could have incentivized tactical play (gadgets and alchemy) and agility without going about it in such a twisted and arbitrary way. The Arkham games (minus origins) do a great job of this.
This game is absolutely terrible. Everything bad about AAA RPGs. Terrible presentation and graphics. Nonsensical, ridiculously bad dialogue. Grind grind grind with no variation, dungeons recycled again and again with no apology. Quests have you going back and forth over and over. A game who's sole challenge is memorizing arbitrary alchemy and monster jargon rather than skill or tactical play. It is an absolute miracle that this game garnered good reviews. The next game is much much better, but still guilty in terms of gameplay, which still suffers from the same thing, and in some ways in a far worse way.
It looks like this was a cheap attempt at a sequelitis cash grab. Since it's a prequel that adds nothing to the continuing story, the disgusting betrayal that is the cheap toon style Worms 3D nonsense, upon numerous complained upon gameplay changes suggested by other reviews, it looks like you can disregard this one in the series.
Mouse smoothing What the fuck were they thinking?
This game is stripped, basic, and unintuitive. How about not being able to select groups larger than 20 at a time eh? Revolutionary amirite? This speaks to the laziness of the developing team behind this game. You ship out an RTS and don't fix such a glaringly obvious problem? Oh it's by design? My ass. There were many other reasons to hate this game but I don't feel like buying it again just to make a more honest and detailed review. When developers ignore the little things that affect a game in a big way, you automatically know they didn't give a shit and that's proof enough why you shouldn't buy this game.
