The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

I'm giving this ONE final try cause third time's the charm right? My gripes with this game are still the same as before but thanks to the quarantine I now have much more time to spare and have managed to get a decent chunk in.. I think. My initial problem was while Witcher 3 boasts an incredible open world with probably the best side quests any RPG could offer, the gameplay/combat is never the focus of the game but rather its dialogue and "Story". Quite frankly the combat is about as deep as shallow water and the least interesting aspect of the entire experience. Instead of trying to "play" a game, I've come into this third attempt to more or less read/watch an interactive novel of sorts where I sometimes press "Square" on my ds4 a couple of times to dispatch something. I say "Story" because I still haven't reached a point where I've touched on anything that goes past "I need to find Ciri". No, what I've been doing is a bunch of sidequests, most which are quite inane and some quite more involved than I would have initially thought. Though it's the quests that allow me to see Geralt do something silly like participating in a play or beating up a child in a card game on the road to become a Gwent god that really help me enjoy the experience immensely. I've come to expect Geralt to be cool (All he does is press square to win anyway), but seeing him fumble over mundane and normal stuff is quite the treat. Fun ̶n̶o̶v̶e̶l̶ game so far. Enjoying myself now that I'm able to put more time in this without feeling bad about how much time I spend getting nowhere cause I'm beating up a child in a card game or running all over the city helping a dwarf steal rare Gwent cards.... Wait.. this is a game about Gwent isn't it?

Man I really thought "Wild at Heart" was going to be a cute love story through all of this game in between all the "there is no good ending" quests but I did NOT expect it to go that south, jesus. Also Gwent in this game rules once you have the right cards to really customize your deck, I'm having a lot of fun completely swamping a few people with simple card effects such as giving the opponent a card in play that lets the player draw two cards, which in tandem with the right weather effect makes the bonus for the opponent meaningless. Quality combo.

3rd try is the charm, I am fully invested. I don't know if I will beat this game, but I will definetely be playing thru a lot. While I have enjoyed the main quest line, the side quests, and the Witcher Contracts I think are my favorite part. Researching creatures, tracking them, creating materials, and then slaying them is immensely satisfying.

So finished Hearts of Stone, and started Blood and Wine. 65 hours now, which seems a bit low honestly. Going to try and take Blood and Wine a lot slower. But I'm starting to think I might just want to start a whole new fresh playthrough when I'm done. Maybe on the next difficulty up. I was going to play New Game+ but after reading about it, it's not really what I want out of another playthrough.

So it's been a few days and I've made MAD progress. Over 40 hours in now. Can't really talk about the ACTUAL story; because spoilers... But I will say that I'm STILL really loving this game and can't wait to either New Game+ it or jump headlong into the DLC and then NewGame+ it. So much in this game I already want to go back and try, going left when I went right, etc... But as lauded as this game was back in 2015; with the perspective of time and more recent titles I don't think the game was lauded enough. There hasn't been anything to even come close to this game. No RPG, open world game, or Action game. There are just SO MANY stories and they are all so well done. Most open world games have trash for stories and most RPGs have about as much choice as doing A or B. The typical action game normally takes control away from you at key moments to preserve the story or creates artificial barriers to keep you from doing whatever you want. Witcher 3 Wild Hunt from 2015 makes Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 look conservative and lazy.

Made some pretty descent progress. Does anyone else remember the difficulty being broken? Because I've been one shot by a lot of stuff at full health on easy. That doesn't seem very easy to me. Oh, almost forgot the actual progress. Finished 90% of Bloody Baron and have gotten about half way finished with the Ladies of the Wood. Which should tell anyone who has played the game before exactly where I am. I'm about 13 hours for anyone else. lol.