...but for the horrible RT implementation. How on earth does it lose you 40 fps on average in performance mode on 3070 RTX? Optimise your darn games
I'm bothered to write this review only because this mind boggling game has a sequel coming, somehow. I will not be diving into too much detail, but my biggest point is that the combat system makes the game nearly unplayable if your goal is to have fun. This point is so robust that the attempt to elaborate on that feels overwhelming, but I will try- the system that is rigidly based on the medieval combat manuals has two important effects. One, every punk ass robber that jumps you from the bushes squares up in the perfect Nerberhut stance. Ridiculous. Daft even. Hilarious. Even in the heat of battle, as your opponents grin, grunt, sweat and shout they retain the perfect posture of a medieval martial arts drawing. The fluidity and natural feel of combat is ruined, and it feels almost like weird turn-based bullshit. Second, 2 on 1 combat is near certain death, no matter how well armed and armoured you are because the system forces you to lock on one of the combatatnts (how else can you remain in the perfect Vom Tag stance????). This means that the other combatant that isn't locked on will just walk around you with d*ck in hand and malicious intent and vapourize you while you're too busy switching between Alber and Pflug to deal with a guy wearing a straw hat kitting you with a stick. My other complain is that the game hassles you for no reason. You have to eat, you have to sleep, if you have an injured ankle you have to drop your quest, no matter what, and go to bed and sleep it off. You're bleeding and have just 1 bandage? Get ready for a 50/50 gamble that you will just bleed out to death, on which every npc will remark but nobody will help you. You don't have bandages and the apothecary is far away? Sad, that is certain death. Not like you could tear up your clothes for bandages, that would be unrealistic. The definition of realism in this game is "whetever annoys you the most" This game is not fun. It is not meant to be fun. It is made for HEMA neckbeards.
First thing I want to quickly mention is that the patch 1.52 was supposed to fix a whole bunch of issues, and that's what lured me in- a promise of gameplay unobstracted by glitches and bugs. And let me tell you, if that game came out playing like that, I would still think it was rushed and underdeveloped. Now to the main complaint. I just finished the game after 13 hours of playing. For comparison, Witcher 3 was 40 hours. Barman Arkham City was 12,5 hours, and it wasn't an RPG of supposedly epic proportions Cyberpunk supposedly was, it was a comic book action game. But more doesn't have to always mean better, some will say. Right, side quests in Witcher 3 completely broke the immersion by dragging you away from the main questline. Seemingly CD Project Red didn't know how to stop making the player choose between playing a card game and saving the world, so they just decided to cut the content completely. Except, now the situation is reversed. The main questline, about 8 hours long (what is it?! A Battlefield campaign?!) constantly makes sure you don't get to explore and get busi with side quest- you get hurried by calls (V come IMMEDIATELY, V see you ASAP, Vee you have to come here right now, viee...!). Those sidequests I managed to finish ammounted to 4 hours more or less. The articles on the internet claim that on average it takes 22 hours to beat the main questline. How did I do that? No idea. Aparently I have a knack for speedrunning.
