I'll start by saying that I really enjoyed this game. The combat system was great! I loved the timing of swinging and switching between styles, I played both OTS and top-down styles of camera, and I have no complaints about controls at all! Different and fantastic, I loved the controls from the get go. The magic system was interesting, but even on my magic-focused play-through, I found the signs to be a little clunky and not nearly so polished as the sword-play. The alchemy was fun, although it discouraged experimentation; if your recipe wasn't exactly right, all it would do is harm you in some way, with no indication of possible beneficial effects. My biggest criticisms, though, were in story and character development. Firstly, the over-abundance of cut scenes that I have no input into served only to frustrate me, teasing me with dialogue that I couldn't direct or affect. Secondly, while there were definitely some hard choices in this game, most antagonists were cartoonishly bad, and the choices about them were easy. The first big decision your character makes in the Outskirts was bland, easy, and unsatisfying. Thirdly, for a game so focused on identity and motivations, why don't they represent various motivations possible for these choices? Obviously you can't account for all of them, but just because you choose to side with one group doesn't mean you have to drink their Kool-Aid! Even a few general dialogue options, to keep Geralt from sounding like a racist or apathetic narcissist, would be nice. Finally, the "romance" system was a joke. Just about every female NPC you meet will throw themselves at you; one literally promises to do it on a nearby rock if you give her a prettier ring than her sister has. This ties into a general abundance of "WTH?" moments in the game's dialogue, probably stemming from translation issues, although I never stopped being jarred by characters saying things like "abso-f******-lutely" and "mother-f*****" in a medieval fantasy world.
