The makers of this game wanted to make a movie, and managed to write some intersting stories if not as good as Witcher 1. The mechanics have gone downhill from witcher 1, intended to lure dopamine junkies and OCD's sufferes with the constant search for the next +1 level item. A gameplay that has no connection to the narrative and story. The game design itself is detached from the arching narrative and is conflicted with itself. Resulting in Abysmal pacing, worse I ever experienced in a RPG. While the graphics and core gameplay improved over Witcher 1, in most aspects the game lost its soul cartering the open world and addictions craze, that CEOs in Ubisoft and EA liked to push for. Could have been a great game if half the content which is filler was thrown away, and instead the time was spent on tightening major questlines involving Roche Or the Witchers which were plain stupid. Overall a mixed experienced for a person who loved the first 2 witchers. Finally getting to play this game and its grandstanding moral lecturering expansion Blood and Wine, has successfuly put me off from trying Cyberpunk, as I learned I can expect more of the same righteous lecturing and nonimmersive dopamine chasing gameplay there.
There's no real player agency when it comes to meaningful choices in Hard West. While the Narrator is addressing you directly. You do this, You do that. What he means is the character does this or that. A character you have no influence on other than helping it with fights. Seems like the devs wanted to be puppeteers and forgot they were making a video game. I could have forgiven them for wanting to be puppeteers, if they didn't write it like I was making the choices. The constant you do this, or that, infuriated me. No, I didn't do all these things. I would never do these things. They went far with the hard sell, and the experience was terrible for it.
