There are only a few games which make you write a review and this is one of them. I guess it touched some soul strings and left me in somewhat emotional state. The story is depressing and provokes you asking yourself "What would I do?" It's sci-fi at its best and point & click at it's best. The author even randomized some of the events, so your run would probably be different from mine.
There were at least 3 times I expected the end, but the game went on and on and on... Although it's a solid metroidvania with fun mechanics and puzzles, the setting is boring and half the game you're just waiting for it to be finished.
There is an opportunity to play this game without fights, let me show you how I failed mine. I chose a loremaster and spent most of stats in intelligence, perception and charisma. But I wasn't sure if it was possible to complete the game with no fighting at all. So several points were spent in spears and dodging and the majority in Lore, Persuasion, Streatwise and Crafting. I completed only a few missions in starting village Teron and proceeded to Outpost, where I naturally as a loremaster fixed some kind of mechanism and agreed to be escorted to another city. This event suddenly initiated Act II and without a second thought, I explored new city and made lots of saves. Finally I realized that I cannot simply return to the first city and that all quests and opportunities were gone. Problems started to snowball immediately, because I lacked precious skills to pass checks and complete quests. With despair and help of official game wiki, I however managed to make some progress, but stuck in the Act III. There are 2 specific locations which I need to pass. The first one is Dead River, but I lack required lore and craft skills to resolve things peacefully and unable to kill even a single scorpion. The second one is Hellgate: here I lack streetwise and persuasion as well as combat skills to deal with constructs. There are also no side quests left which I'm able to finish. Although the game looks interesting and realistic in some ways, its design flaws ruin the whole enjoyment. It's possible to notify a player, that he'll lose the ability to return and finish his business. And it's possible to provide more solutions keeping in mind lots and lots of character builds (at least for main story line). The game leaves me with a feeling that the weekend was lost.
+ Immersive and intriguing story + Puzzle solutions make sense + Characters feel realistic and appealing + Nicely created cyberpunk vibe + Music adds to atmosphere not distracts from it + Game looks mature + Nor too long, nor too short - Story is quite linear - Some puzzles are very straightforward (you simply have a limited amount of options to try) - Complications with fullscreen - No pause button Simply buy it if you enjoy LucasArt or WadjetEye stuff.
Due to lots of positive reviews to this game I expected a good RPG filled with fascinating story, felling charaсters and challenging battles. And I received some bugs, tedious quests, annoying fight system, absolute simplicity of all the battles (the ability to change the difficulty setting appears only in the beginning of the game) and plenty of sex themes. Also I'm not a fan of Sapkowski and see no reasons why I could love this game it simply looks like cheap junk for me.
