Up until the release date, the game was hyped up like crazy and the promotional material from CDPR was showing something quite different from what the game is actually like. It really pains me to put 3 stars after I played The Witcher 3 and absolutely loved it, to then come to this and feel kinda meh about it. I bought The Witcher 3 twice, once on Steam and again on GOG because it was the $h%&. I can't phathom the fact that CDPR was actively stopping reviewers from getting PS4/Xbox One versions and/or publishing gameplay videos recorded on those platforms. Even though the PC version is better in comparison, still I can't turn a blind eye to shady practices like this and more light needs to be shed on this topic. CDPR, you disappointed us when we actually not only had faith in you as a result of TW3, we also liked you for all of the positive interaction with the community and it seems you turned into another Ubisoft which is really sad.
At this point I don't think this game needs any more praise than it already had been given, however I just wanted to express my opinion; CDPR has nailed alot of things, let's begin; the combat animations are alot better than Witcher 2 or even Dragon Age Inquisition for that matter, the controls feel smooth and responsive, that goes for Geralt and every opponent including monsters, speaking of animations, I felt the mouth movements in dialogues were a little behind, so are the character animations when speaking, they just feel robotic and not very well polished, that, however, won't take away the cleverly and amazingly written dialogue, the jokes aren't cringe worthy they're actually funny and made me laugh several times, the spoken lines convery the game's story perfectly, adding to the atmosphere with interesting character personalities that actually carve a place in your memory, many other games don't do the character side justice, I also like the different accents especially the Skellige one, c'mon it's irish everyone loves the irish accent. Okay we're only at the tip of the ice berg, the character limit won't allow me to dive deeper so I'll "try" to make it as brief as possible, so, something else I'm sure everyone that played this game hates, is the "fall 5 feet and you're dead", the legendary Geralt of Rivia, the butcher of Blaviken, dies from a 5 feet fall in the grass, how's that for a news headline, I know it's a minor thing but I think it's worth mentionning, now onto the more good stuff; the story is very well conveyed and interesting, many many well placed plot twists even for secondary side quests, pretty impressive, the graphics are beautiful, armor designs are spot on, overall, it looks next gen and runs pretty well even on midrange hardware, no fps drops and such crap, it just works! although I wish the textures were a little bit more refined as in some places they look dull and dated. Come on, that's not enough characters :( anyways if you're still thinking about buying this game, just do it and make your dreams come true ;)
