The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)

It finally happened: I got burned out on Baldur's Gate 3. I started a new playthrough with a custom character because I wanted to roleplay as, well, myself, and sped through the game (which is a relative term, mind) and got up to where I was on my original playthrough, which is the Shadow Cursed Lands. I'm currently in the Temple of Shar doing that stuff and just...gotta stop.

That's okay because now I'm moving on to The Witcher 3. I played this for about 30 hours back in the day, in 2015, when I was still a college student and before I had discovered the absolute majesty of Dark Souls. It's crazy that I genuinely group games like that in my head: before Dark Souls III, and after Dark Souls III.

Anyway, I remember bits and pieces of TW3, but what I didn't remember is how crappy the gameplay is. Don't get me wrong - it's impressive in its own right for what it is and for the time it came out, but today, this game is rough. Movement is simply bad and the sword combat is barely serviceable. It doesn't help that I am coming in with 2,000+ hours of Souls and Sekiro muscle memory, but that highlights what I mean here - this game was designed and created before the Souls renaissance, a time that sees combat being made to be more controlled and deliberate. Here, it's just stylistic and flashy.

But I'll get through the main story as quickly and as fairly as I can - promised a friend I'd do so.

Just finished the game :))

Story, Quests Design, Characters, Aestethic: 10 Not so much to say here. This game feels like a movie from the main quest to the most optional piece of content.

Gameplay: 6 The character controller is weird. Both during basic movement and advanced combat I felt I wasn't in control of Geralt. In my opinion they sacrificed responsiveness for the sake of realism and it backfired... too often I've seen my witcher do stupid stuff but with a very cool cinematographic animation (why a quick attack involves a pirouette? c'mon). Crafting is fine but I'm really not into those kind of mechanics so I'm not going to criticise them. The RPG mechanics are fine but nothing special. It's basically a skill tree with multipliers. Also, I find the leveling up to be quite artificial as only completing quests provide you Exp. Meaning that killing a lvl40 beast at level 1 (masochism) will be pointless if you're not completing a quest. I think that gaining experience like in Bethesda games would have been better, don't you think?

Final notes As of 2024 it's a game so cheap that you have to play it. A wonderful experience that is almost 10yo and that didn't suffer aging (yet). For the future, I wish CDprojekt to be more daring with what they offer. I mean... the exaggerated options menu lets you change almost every aspect of the game, and for how beautiful this may sound, I think it shows that they thought of the gameplay as an accessory to the story. I think the gameplay lacks uniqueness and I hope they'll be braver with the fourth.

Byee

Finished my 2nd playthrough of the game with the goal of completing all the add-on content and main game quests I skipped over when I played it on release....holy hell was it long! I've been playing in my spare time on weekday evenings when I felt like it - Started in mid May and just finished today (Aug 3). I didn't track the total time, but it had to of been at least 140 hours.

It's fun, but I cannot imagine ever setting aside the time to play through the entire thing again. Truth be told, I had to force myself through the later half of Blood and Wine, simply because I was starting to get exhausted from playing it.

I was going to do 2nd playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition next, in advance of Veilguard's release this fall, but I think I'm going to have to take a break from any uber-length games instead.

5/5

I played this game originally in 2015 and then replayed it in 2016 with both the DLCs, and absolutely loved it at the time.

I have gone through and replayed the base game after the next-gen update - on a mixture of PC and PS5 (cross-save is amazing). It is as good as ever. The characters and writing here will always be some of my favourite - it's riveting to watch and inhabit the character of Geralt in particular who's philosophising will never get old.

The way choice and consequence is built into a crafted story is something that I hadn't seen done this well until this game, and only Cyberpunk has done it this well since.

The world building is excellent and really pulls you in. You get to grips with the political landscape and racial tensions just by wandering the world. The games art style aged beautifully and the environments are on par with games releasing in 2024.

The combat, while not the most in-depth, is very serviceable, especially on the hardest difficulty using potions and oils. The additions made in the next-gen update are great, and quick signs in particular are huge for enabling sign-based builds.

The story, writing and time-and-place of this game in my life will always leave it as an all-timer for me. I adore this game.

The next step is to replay the DLCs for the first time which I am looking forward to immensely.

I played this game for the first time nine years after it was released and it still lives up to the hype. I was little intimidated to start it because I knew what a time sink it would be. I put more hours into Witcher 3 then any other game in a long time. I finished all Witcher contracts and side quests, except I avoided everything related to Gwent.

I really never got bored of exploring the world, discovering the question marks, the fighting, or questing. A few of the mechanics seemed kind of pointless but the nice thing is you can ignore parts of the game and focus on what you enjoy. I ignored alchemy for the most part and collected far more items from crafting then I'd ever use. I supposed the magic system could have used a few more spells.

I give the devs credit for putting together memorable characters, a comprehensible winding story, tons of lore, and a huge yet still interesting open world.

I'm debating if I want to get the DLC. Maybe some day, but for now I want to try playing something different for a while.

First of all, I think it's important to mention that I was a big fan of the first Witcher game when it came out and it was for me the first time ever that I played a RPG where your choices actually mattered for the story. Witcher 1 had a really nice dark slawic atmosphere as well and was for me a connaisseur pc-rpg.

I had high expectations for W3 and the game could not really live up to that. I do not like RPGs as much as I used to, to be fair, but there's some things people praise about this game that I am quite irritated about.

Well, W3 can be a very beautiful game. Be it Novigrad that looks like a polish harbour city (Gdansk!), be it the moody landscapes of Skellige in wind and rain or the medieval villages, swamps and forests of Nilfgard. I played W3 in polish and that adds a lot to the atmosphere as well. Sometimes the colour palette is just to bright for the dark atmosphere of this game, though. There's way too many bright red tones and albeit that gives it its own touch, it doesn't really fit in.

There's some very memorable encounters like the three witches, the baron who lost his daughter and the werewolf in the herbarium. The creatures you find and have to kill along the way (or spare their lives) are taken from slawic myths and polish folk tales. I always googled them and was amazed that all these things actually existed. The world building is great, being based on those mature fantasy novels really pays off for Witcher.

There's one thing I hate about this game, and that is how Geralt moves. The way you walk feels terrible, walking in general feels terrible. Turning around is a pain in the ass, walking through a city just feels so clumsy like an elephant trying to skateboard. Such a mistake must not happen and I have zero understanding for this.

Okay, so the two biggest disappointments of this game were the story and the fighting. I know many people praise the quest design, but that goes for some side quests maybe. The main quest in general is below average and not really interesting. Looking for clues for your daughter? Again and again? I don't know, that felt a little cheap for me. I actually didn't care where Ciri went. The political intrigue of W1 was way more engaging.

I have seen people saying the combat is well done in this game and I have no idea why. It's among the worst fighting experiences I had in action rpgs. In the beginning, fights are way too hard, later on they are way too easy. It's just hit, hit, dodge, hit, hit. I mean, okay, Dark Souls is also not more than that, that's okay. But it's the same attack animation all the time, and it doesn't look nice or feel nice. The combat feel is superficially quick, unsatisfying, it's just below average.

The main story and the fighting system being below average would be okay, I guess many will agree on this, but you can't just neglect how important that is. The main story and the fighting make a HUGE part of this game, if not the biggest.

Intro

TW3 is an open world third-person action game. You travel across a huge game world smacking things with your swords and signs. There's a million quests and a fun card game.

The Good

TW3 definitely has a lot going for it:

• Neat world-building.
• A bunch of decent quests.
• Everything looks nice.
• Gwent is fun.
• Decent variety in skills.
• Enemies in all shapes and sizes.

The Bad

• Everytime you load a save the game plays a storybook video that can't be disabled without a mod.

• Looting still sucks. Seriously, three games into the series and they still can't get something this basic right. Looting corpses is a bit better, looting containers is still a pain, especially when near other things that you can activate with E. I also still have no idea why harvesting plants opens up a container menu - especially considering when you play as Siri she just harvests automatically.

The Ugly

• CDPR loves to waste your time

There are far too many pointless quests. The four core item sets have 6 levels each and each of those comes with 3 quests to find blueprints. That's 72 quests just to upgrade four sets. I don't think i've ever played any game that has such gratuitous quests, not even MMOs.

There's a pointless weight limit. There's a pointless fast travel restriction. There's a pointless XP penalty for doing quests 6 levels below your current one (50% penalty!). There's a pointless randomisation system for rare loot. These things can be fixed by mods but shouldn't exist in the first place.

TW3 has enough good content for a good 50 hour game. Probably 60-70 with the DLC. But instead they waste your time by giving you worthless quests and making you deal with bullshit systems.

• The interface is a tragedy

One of the main elements of the game is the bestiary system. Each (type of) monster has different weaknesses and specific items to use against them. But the inventory shows icons instead of names and doesn't sort those alphabetically. Bad inventories are common nowadays but TW3 stands out especially in this regard. Oh, and the bestiary itself? Dozens of entries divided in 10 categories without a search function...

The game also fails to properly show what quest items can and cannot be used. It has identical icons for different weapons. And the crafting menu doesn't have an option to filter items based on their level, meaning you have an endless list of pointless crap. Also, just the sheer volume of different things this game throws at you is utterly ridiculous.

• The skill system makes combat suck

Initially i enjoyed combat, it definitely is a step up from TW 1&2. Signs have alternate uses, there's a crossbow and the rhythm is nice - at first.

Unlike combat, the skill system has gotten progressively worse. In TW1 you could buy most basic skills, specialise in several advanced ones and become an expert in a handful. In TW3 the three main skill trees require you to put 8/20/28 points in them to unlock level 3/4/5. Skills have a ton of tiers that only affect one attack type/sign. Even worse, there are only 12 slots for all skills - including "neutral" skills. And on top of all that there are mutagens that only boost skills of the same tree. In TW3 you absolutely have to specialise in melee or magic, which makes combat less interesting.

The absolute worst thing about TW3 is that combat gets more boring over time. After around level 30 magic damage gets worse and worse meaning you have to switch to melee. Melee is still limited to the same sword and four options; light attack/heavy attack/block/dodge. Battles are reduced to the same handful of steps. Cast shield sign, smack enemy, dodge enemy. And even when magic still is a viable damage option you always have to wait for the damn stamina bar.

Conclusion

If TW3 was a pizza there wouldn't be enough tomato sauce to cover half the pie, and it would have gorgonzola and aubergine, but also pineapple and string cheese.

With content spread so thin, everything taking too much time (even with a fast travel from anywhere mod) and the overall shallow nature of the game it feels like a MMORPG - not like a proper single-player open world game.

It's easy to see the appeal. I totally got sucked in too for a 100 hours. But it's not a good game. Due to all the amateurish design it gets worse long before you're halfway done. If you're going to play this keep that in mind and use the mods i linked here for the sake of your own sanity. I'm so glad i can uninstall it now.

The Witcher 3 is easily one of the greatest fantasy RPGs I have ever played. The world-building far surpasses any other. Especially with cities such as Novigrad, one of the only full-sized fully-populated cities I've ever played in. The gameplay was mostly good, but some of the combat mechanics are my main gripe with the game (i.e. being unable to exit the combat stance when you want to jump or run away). The story itself is simple but executed very well and contains many unforgettable and personable characters. Finally, the game finally lost the misogynistic tendencies it fell into with the previous games, and expertly wove in some social commentary. I highly recommend this game to anyone with 70+ hours to spare. It's a masterpiece.

4.75/5.00

Full Review: https://watchreadgame.com/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/

The first DLC, Hearts of Stone, is far more artistic and experimental than the main game. It blends genres such as horror, mystery, action, and romance. It molds different art styles, contains wonderfully creepy and unique bosses, and reintroduces us to one of my favorite Witcher characters, Shani. The story is very well told and is worth picking up along with the main game.

4.50/5.00

Full Review: https://watchreadgame.com/the-witcher-3-hearts-of-stone/

The second DLC, Blood and Wine, is probably the best DLC I have ever played. It incorporates a new and unique story like the first DLC, but also includes new mechanics, monsters, mutagens, and by far the most beautiful map I have ever seen in any game, let alone a DLC. Blood and Wine also serves as the perfect conclusion to The Witcher series as a whole. This DLC is a must play if you have done everything before it.

4.75/5.00

Full Review: https://watchreadgame.com/the-witcher-3-blood-and-wine/

Now that it's all done and settled, I feel an intense longing and loneliness for the story and characters of the game. Seriously... not many games can have you invested for over 100 hours and then make you want to immediately replay it. The characters feel like true friends and the world feels like living in a city you've always dreamed of. Even though none of the above 3 reviews gave it a 5/5, it deserves it. The feeling it leaves you with shows how masterfully done this game was. To me, now having let it sit for a day, it is clear that this is the best open world RPG I have played.

Final Score: 5.00/5.00 (but to be honest, it's better than many 5/5 games I've played)

Complete Write-up on My Final Thoughts and the Series as a Whole: https://watchreadgame.com/the-witcher-final-thoughts/

I recently replayed the Witcher 3 for the fun of it. My original review was one of the first one’s I wrote on Grouvee and it shows. At this point everyone and their dog has heard about how great this game is ad nauseam. I want to say my piece, so forgive me for adding onto the accolades.

Like I suspect most people, I didn’t play any of the previous Witcher games and the Wild Hunt was my intro to the series. You can play this game without needing knowledge from the other games or books. The main story is pretty self contained and while there are references to past events and Geralt does meet plenty of characters he has a past with, it doesn’t effect your ability to follow the plot and if you really want to get caught up, there’s an encyclopedia detailing all the characters. I actually don’t mind that Geralt knows a bunch of people beforehand. It helps with the world building and making you feel like you are a part of the world versus the usual, “I just came out of a hole in the ground and know nothing and no one.”

The graphics in this game are holding up real well after 5 years. The people look like real people with a wide variety of faces and features, can’t get enough of those sorceresses. The armors Geralt wears all have great texturing to give the appearance of leather, metal, or cloth. The huge world looks great with the dark swampy woods looking creepy, the peasant villages looking warm and homily, and the major city is a cobblestone wonder to behold.

The world you get to explore is broken down into sections. The largest map contains the city of Novigrad and the surrounding woods and battlefields. After that there’s the islands of Skelliege, which is basically fantasy Scandinavia. While I really loved exploring the misty islands, it did feel a bit Skyrim derivate just due to timing. You also have a small tutorial town that isn’t much use revisiting and the Witcher castle of Kaer Morhen. There are plenty of little areas to explore on the map, marked by little question marks. Honestly I never felt compelled to go explore every nook and cranny, it usually just led to a bandit camp or monster nest. There isn’t many random encounters or the type of enviromental storytelling that you’d see in a Bethesda game in these small out of the way locations.

CD Project Red went above and beyond with the music. In a neat move, the physical game CD came with a copy of the OST. All of the music is orchestral pieces using typical mevieval instruments. A lot of the catchiest tunes feature the Hurdy Gurdy and it may be one of my new favorite, weird instruments.

If I had to pick something I’d call the “weakest” part of the game, it would be the combat. It’s still not bad, but I did feel like sometimes fights would devolve into wailing my sword around. This happened more when I was fighting hordes of monsters or a squad of dudes. The boss fights with big monsters or Wild Hunt lieutenants were much more enjoyable. This game is probably the closest I’ll get to a Dark Souls-esque game. Most fights are about hopping in, taking a swip or two then rolling back. You can mix it up with the use of magic signs and performing successful counter attacks. Really you can make the combat as complex as you want because there is some advantages to pre-planning your battles with the use of sword oils and equiping the bombs a particular creature might be weak too. Admittedly I’m better with gunplay than swordplay, so some of my difficulty with combat is my own fault.

Now comes the meat and potatoes of this game the characters and story. All the people Geralt meets and works with is what really makes this game. They all have distinct personalities. While I like that Geralt knows people in the world, the fact he knows people in high places, along with his special powers, does get him real close on the bank of Lake Mary Sue. CD Project Red just dodges that bullet by never really reveling in the power fantasy. Yes, Geralt does sleep with about every sorceress he meets, but he also isn’t the “last best hope for humanity” that honor goes to Ciri. Geralt is a likeable protaganist which is important for a 60+ hour game. He’s got a deadpan wit and knows when to cut loose. Miss “Lady of Space-time”, Ciri, is the 2nd player character you control in certain scenarios. She has some powerful moves and as such you usually don’t play for her longer than to beat a few grunts up and maybe a boss. She’s a fiery tomboy of a princess. She gets told to sit in the corner while other people handle the action, to little success. The father-daughter relationship between Geralt and Ciri is well written, especially since most any other woman Geralt interacts with seems to want to jump his bones. Yennefer is a bit cold & distant, but she does have a soft spot for Geralt and Ciri. I romanced Triss my first go around, because redhead, but on game 2 I went with Yennefer. Going with Yen does make Triss feel like a bit of an irrelevant 3rd wheel for the last act of the game. Geralt’s Witcher pals feel like those work friends everyone has, drinking with them is a highlight of the game. There’s plenty of other characters that factor in Geralt’s story that deserve mention, but this review would be double the length.

The main baddie of the game is the subtitled Wild Hunt, led by King Eriden. At first they seem like this other worldly force clad in their death metal armor that rides across the sky like the four horsemen. As the story progress we learn they are actually dimension jumping elves. In my opinion, I would’ve kept them as sorta spectral ghost riders, makes them seem like a more powerful, unstopable force that brings frozen death in it’s wake vs just a very well-trained elf army that manipulates the dimension of the White Frost.

As for the story, there’s plenty of jokes in regards to how the Witcher is an extremely long game. This game is based on a series of Polish books and it shows. The game lives in that dark, gray world of nothing really turning out well that exemplifies Eastern Europe literature. The 60+ hour story is also broke down into chapters that feel like different books. And while something like Days Gone’s 60 hour story feels like it drags on and meanders, Witcher 3 hits the ground running with little filler, and any filler there is is at least interesting. Outside the main stories is the Witcher contracts which I really enjoy getting to play as the medieval Orkin man. It’s engaging just to watch Geralt ply his trade and use his vast knowledge to investigate crime scenes.

Now, the first main story beat, after tutorial town and getting hired by the Emperor to find his daughter, is helping the Bloody Baron. When I first overheard a random NPC mention the Bloody Baron I figured it would be the typical open world affair where he’s the big bad held up in his fortress and you have to go reclaiming areas to get at him. I was wrong. You meet him and learn his wife and daughter have left him. As the story progresses you learn he’s a bit of an abusive drunk, and while most stories would’ve end there, the Witcher wades further into risky territory. Sure, the Baron’s a wife beater, but we learn his wife was no saint, and he is a conflicted man who doesn’t like what he’s become. Where most games would just stop with the lesson of “domestic abuse is bad, m’kay”, Witcher takes a deeper look at it, not necessarily saying they support it, but showing it in shades of gray, not black and white.

After that you go to Novigrad, the only city with no loyalty to a particular king. The city is in the throws of a witch hunt and you have to help Triss escape with the other mages. This requires getting help from the city’s underworld which introduces us to Djistkra. A man who has history with Geralt, via the book series. It is a little off-putting trying to catch up on their history, but Djistkra became one of my favorites. His cheeky banter with Geralt is good for a chuckle.

The third story beat takes you to Skelliege in your search for Ciri. Here you have to help another old friend, Cracht an Crate, get his son or daughter elected king. This felt the most like a typical medieval fantasy game as you go around to all the local lords, or jarls, and try to shore up votes for the new queen while investigating an attack at the royal feast, lots of high court nobility stuff. It was almost a little too typical and definitely more black and white vs. Shades of gray.

Finally you find Ciri and call upon all your friends to mount a defense against the Wild Hunt at the Witcher hold of Kaer Morhen. It’s a big set piece moment where everything comes together. All your friends from Novigrad, Skelliege, and Velen show up to help out and the Wild Hunt are relentless in their assault. Admittedly after the end of this battle I feel the story stumbles a bit. It felt like the climax we had built to, but there’s still a few hours of game left.

You make a quick trip to Novigrad to tie up a few loose ends, one which involves helping Djistkra assassinate the mad king of Redania. After that you head back to Skelliege to find a magic summoning stone and finally take on Eriden. After that final boss fight, your big choices come to bear on whether Ciri survives the battle and if she becomes the new empress or if she continues the life of a Witcher.

CD Project Red has released 2 DLCs. Heart of Stone takes place in the main game world, making use of the city of Oxenfurt and brings back a love interest from Witcher 1, Shani. You also meet my favorite character in the whole game, Gaunter O’Dimm. He is the Witcher’s devil and he is just written so well, it isn’t funny. He waxes philosophically, has some great lines, and he isn’t portrayed as super evil, just more of a trader of deals. The Blood and Wine DLC is a little bigger and takes Geralt to a new area, the land of Toussiant, aka France. This DLC is much more light-hearted and meant to work as the send off to Geralt and friends as you get a sappy ending of Geralt living at on a winery with all his friends visiting. The main meat of Blood and Wine involves stopping a vampire uprising.

All in all, the Witcher 3 deserves all the praise that gets showered on it at every conceivable second. I saw one review here mention that the Witcher 3 marked the end of fantasy open world games. I’ll compound on that by saying, yes the Witcher 3 is to fantasy games what Unforgiven was to Western movies. Both were pieces of art that took every trope of their respective genre and showed them love while also deconstructing those tropes. They were a complete package and anything that comes after them either has to completely reinvent the genre wheel or be considered derivative. So, any new fantasy game will be undoubtedly compared to the Witcher 3 and it will be some time before anything can top it.

The Witcher 3 is one of the most overrated, circlejerked games I have ever played. I don't understand how anybody loves this game. Apparently, this is the highest rated game on Grouvee. I just don't get it.

Where do I even start with this travesty? To start the music. It's just people screaming. Like that doesn't tear my ears apart. The visuals are so bad and the game is so poorly optimized. I have 2 Titan RTX's in my PC and it still looks and runs like dogshit. Go look at a real video game like Call of Duty Ghosts if you want inspiration from professionals. Just look at this game. It looks worse than Minecraft and that's a game that came out in 1986.

I never once felt immersed in the atmosphere with horrible graphics like these. The combat is absolutely horrible; all you have to do is dodge and swing. I never once used any magic because it was so useless. They tried wayyyyyyy too hard to have as amazing combat as Dark Souls 2 and it shows. They took inspiration from Breath of the Wild by having a weapon degradation system. In BOTW, your weapon breaks, big deal, just use Cryonis like an intelligent human being. In the Witcher, use a twig. I'm sure that will kill this big ass Griffin. People are raving over the sex scenes but all I see is Geralt having sex with an old lady. I don't want to see that shit. That's gross. I just want to nut to hot women and that's why I spent $15 on this game. The horse controls are so clunky. The story is so goddamn boring that it is as hard to comprehend it as Kingdom Hearts. If I were looking for a good story, I'd just play Hotel Mario. According to howlongtobeat.com, the main story is 50 hours long, so why the fuck is a plot this short so goddamn bloated?

And please, tell me why people would want to bang Geralt. He looks like a melted action figure with a wig.

This game should've been free. But the bastards at CDProjektBlue had to make this game $60 at launch, which is preposterous. There is nothing that I got out of it. It's just not worth it. I can't believe that I spent $15 dollars on this game including DLC. Speaking of DLC, horrible practices from DVDProjektGreen. If you ever tell me that I am just nitpicking and biased, you are wrong. Get the fuck out. This game is a disgrace to the gaming industry and I hope that no one ever remembers this abysmal game. Just go play Bubsy 3D or Devil May Cry 2 instead.

FINAL RATING: 0/10

P.S. Click on the blurred text below.

P.P.S. According to r/Witcher, there was a secret HD texture pack that you can install from mediafire. The worst thing about it is that it is 2 terabytes large. MY HARD DRIVE ISN’T EVEN THAT LARGE! IT’S ONLY 250 GB!

Happy April Fools Day 2020. I actually haven't played it. :)

A couple of years ago I started playing The Witcher 3 on the PS4 and was frustrated pretty early on in the game. In the tutorial mission I realized falling just a short distance lowers your HP considerably. And I was overwhelmed by the open world, the fact I didn't save on time before dying once and I didn't understand Gwent. The font was too small. I felt like I had no clue what the story was about. So after two or three hours I shelfed the game never expecting to play it again.

STORY

Well, I'm happy a friend gifted it to me last Christmas, and have spent the last month playing through 60 hours of this gigantic beast of a game (on a PC this time). I watched a few short recap videos and got a general idea of the setting it takes place in. Just playing a bit more than I did last time and actually focusing on the story, I felt like this game, as the third installation in the trilogy, does a very good job at not expecting you to have played any of the other two, or read any of the books. There's a healthy amount of exposition in the dialogue and of course one can always open up the menu and read about any of the characters. What matters most: The game works very well by itself. It made me care about a few of the characters, some of the major decisions feel like they have an (emotional) impact. The story in itself is fun and not too overly complicated, either. Only in the last act I was disappointed, it really felt a little bit rushed, and was way easier than I expected (and prepared for...).

What I must mention is that I couldn't care much less about medieval fantasy worlds. Never been a fan of dragons, trolls and elves, especially ugly monsters, and I'm still not. But this game made it fun even for me, which must mean something. I think it's the protagonist himself, Geralt, who holds it together and could probably make just about any scenario work. The latter is just the world in which this story of complicated, unfortunately entwined relationships unfold.

GAMEPLAY

I really like the combat system. It's fun. Sometimes a bit clunky, but fun. There's only one thing: Quen is absolutely overpowered. Combine with adrenaline point skills, and you pretty much got yourself an infinite amount of protection. Just dodge, hit, repeat. The good thing: I like it. I like an overpowered magical shield that lets me beat opponents of higher levels than me (on normal difficulty at least). A shield that even deals 25% of the damage it absorbs back. That being said, I think I died more from falling from too great heights (I know that it's probably realistic, but it's not the most fun) than from opponents overpowering me. You can even hit water hogs with Aard and they'll just fall to the ground, only requiring the push of a button to then execute them. Releasing the quen shield before it even cost you any stamina gives you the chance of doing the same to nearby enemies, meaning that technically you can just press the Quen button over and over again until someone falls down, which does happen fairly often.

Anyway, sometimes there's a slow motion dismembering cam that's triggered when you kill the last opponent in a given place and it's a lot of fun. The dismembering in general is quite enjoyable to watch.

Horseback riding on the other hand is not that fun. Doesn't feel very smooth, and frankly it's not even that much faster than simply walking, which made me not call Roach that often. I mostly walked or swam through the world. Also climbing is not possible with Roach, and with the many hills and mountains in this world, you're often better off just walking. The races are incredibly easy to win as well. You pretty much just... ride. When stamina runs out, you wait for a second and keep riding. People behind you won't be able to pass through in most places.

Anyway, 5/5

I'm just pointing out little flaws that the grandiose story, dialogue and humour (humour's comparably great in this game!) far outweigh, which makes it easy for me to give it five out of five stars. There's a few of other things I didn't enjoy but it's just not enough to make me remove a star. This game is great and I'm very much looking forward to whatever CD Projekt Red has to offer next. Oh, another open-world roleplaying adventure in a scenario I like much more than The Witcher's?! This game's going to be overkill. I cannot wait.

PS: Gwent is incredibly fun, but also mostly easy to beat because the AI usually isn't the best. Of course it doesn't help you at all in the story, but it's probably the best game in a game I've seen in any open world adventure game (or any game for that matter). I really enjoyed collecting cards and making my Northern Realms deck better and better. It's a very refreshing little distraction from the sometimes overwhelming, often intertwined storylines.

So, I started Witcher 3, blacked out, and lost 4 months of my life. No big deal.

In the meantime, I stepped into the shoes of Geralt of Rivia, persistently gruff and devastatingly sexy monster hunter / dad / professional meddler. And I loved it.

I went in completely blind—knowing only that it was, "Kinda like Skyrim" in the words of my husband—and loved every minute. And considering that's around 8,400 minutes so far, that's saying something.

I'm not going to explain the game, since it's one of the most played games in... ever? But here are some of my reactions catalogued on my Twitter as I played:

SO BASICALLY, I LOVE IT.

As of writing this, I've finished literally every quest except the ones within Blood and Wine DLC, which I'm working on currently. And I mean eeeeeveryyyy quest. I've investigated all ? spots on the map in all regions, and I've done every contract, secondary quest, scavenger hunt, etc. Like, I am OBSESSED with this game. Right now, I'm just worrying about upgrading my armor so I can wrap up the final DLC in style.

If I was pressed to make a critique of Witcher 3, I'd say that it could really include some women who aren't rail-thin with giant boobs, beacuse I found that it was really easy to tell apart and retain mental snapshots of most of the main male players (Djikstra, Dudu, Dandelion, Geralt, Letho, Lambert, Crach, etc.) because they are all built differently and carry themselves in different ways, but as charming and unique as their personalities were, characters like Triss, Shani, Cerys, Ves, Keira, and most any woman who wasn't Yen or Ciri were easier to forget the nuances of between long stretches of questing. It wasn't noticeably a hindrance, but I could definitely see how their characterization could stand out more if there were more variation in appearance beyond color swaps and costumes.

That said, something I loved about Witcher 3 is that the women completely drive the plot. It's Ciri's story, and Geralt is just meddling and helping and tagging along where he can. Sure, you play as him, but your only true gain is loot and satisfaction, which is pretty weak compared to Ciri, who gets to save the world and go through the full character arc. She makes friends, meets a mentor, travels, finds her calling... all the while, Geralt is just Also There. Incredible.

And when things get complicated, does Geralt take on the challenge? No way! He's not qualified. Instead, we call upon the Lodge of Sorceresses, or whichever member is handy at the moment. It was refreshing that, in Witcher 3, the leading women characters are the experts, scholars, and sources of power, and not just props to hoist Geralt up or prizes to be won (though there's no small amount of smooching to be had.)

Much like Geralt, I mostly care about gold, card games, nature, and petty interpersonal drama. I found Geralt super relatable, effortlessly badass in a non-annoying way, and endearing to a fault. He manages to be a compelling main character in every possible way, and I am definitely hooked.

As someone who works with interactive narrative, I occasionally caught Witcher 3 cutting corners with the choose-your-own dialogue routes. But uhhHHH the game is HUGE, so how could they not?! My surprise isn't that a few cut corners exist, but that there weren't more. It's astounding how deep the branched storylines manage to run throughout the game, all things considered! I thought the writing team did an exceptional job of knowing when to hide the conversational seams and when to really hammer in the custom experience. The narrative immersion is spot-on and the stakes, no matter how small, always have clearly defined weight and motivation. It has everything I look for in my own work, and a lot of great examples to set the standard by.

As far as the gameplay itself... I have nothing bad to say. Attacking is fun and satisfying, no matter how you do it. Collectibles feel attainable and have both gameplay and narrative value. Extra skills are desirable without being gamebreaking. The controls, as Geralt, as great. As Ciri, also great. I will say that the horse riding controls feel really unwieldy, but that's a pretty minor problem, considering.

All in all, this has become one of my favorite games ever!

I'm ready to light some candles, sit in a summoning circle, and chant "Witcher 4 Starring Ciri" until it mystically appears, even if it takes a few years.

EDIT: IT TOOK 5 YEARS BUT YOU'RE WELCOME, MOTHERFUCKERS

Going through the hype of the Witcher 3 being ranked very high was something that gave me doubts. That doubt started to fade away as soon as i reached the famous "Bloody Baron" quest. At the beginning of the game the player may get a feeling of being overwhelmed especially after finishing the tutorial area, however if the player takes some time to take things a bit by bit im sure things will get better.

The Witcher 3 is one of the few games that i was expecting high quality from it and it succeeded to deliver that expectation. Includes (Heart of Stone DLC) (Yet to play Blood and Wine - will review it later)

The world is beautiful, the graphics are still looking good (i dont care a lot about graphics).

The art and design in the game is also well done, the monster design for example, each monster has its own design and the landscape design aims for realism, so when you enter a house or you go through a city or a cave i felt immersed in it.

The music is very nice to listen to, some of it may become repetitive after many hours through the game, but if you turn them off you will enjoy the sounds of the nature. The soundtracks overall are full of folklorist vibes and are unique in their own way. The Voice-overs (or voice-acting) is some of the best i have ever came across, really well made, the accents the game mimics is hilarious, each region has its own tone to the language, and almost every action you do includes certain lines.

Story: Very well written, im sure it also helped me watching and learning about the previous titles before playing the 3rd. The story gives interesting enough premise (searching for Yen) and while it may start slow, the side quests will leave the player busy for a while, the side quest are mostly well written too mind you, this game does good job in creating interesting side missions for the player with tricky decisions and outcomes. The pacing is slow but its just right for an open world title filled with side quests to do, the content is complex enough (political themes, social themes, fantasy, coming of age, grey moral situations and many more) its a big story and its also damn well plausible, i dont think i have come across a cheesy act or a moment in the game, its nicely explained and connected its not too vague or too simple, its just right. Great conclusion as well with 3 different major endings each has its own unique vibe be it sad or bittersweet or happy, there is also another minor ending depending on side quests, So another great point for the game is how side quests impact the world. RPG elements are not as deep as cRPG games, but they do their job well, many times certain decision may sound great but after a while in the game world time you will find out that something has happened due to that decision and whether you like it or not it gives the player the feeling of impacting the world and living with the consequences of the decisions that he made.

The Gameplay is great as well, the control you have in the dialogue for instance is really cool, the combat is good enough for an open rpg stroy driven game, you have different builds, combat which has 2 attacks and can be upgraded to include 2 more new movesets and extra special stats, the crossbow for long range combat, the adrenaline perks for players who love to keep attacking (kinda like extra action) the 2nd tree includes sign which are like mini-magic you have 5 signs each equally important for tackling different situations, i liked Aard the most, its epic. Next you have 3rd tree which is Alchemy, the alchemy deals with potions and bombs and oils, a witcher tools you use to overcome hard or tough monster encounters, while sometimes the game may feel manageable without these, its extra fun to use them anyway, and you will get more and better experience from the gameplay if you use its full potential, i always use them. The 4th tree is a random non-special perks which can be called "General" it offers some nice addition to the builds you wanna do. The fighting consists of 2 Swords a Crossbow, Bombs, Oils, Decoctions (i''ll cover that later) Potions. You have to dodge, there is 2 kinds of dodging as well the first one is the side-step a quick dodge made to evade ranged attacks or fast attacks, the 2nd one is Roll, which is made to dodge big things or something huge coming to smash you. Each monster has its own moves which they attack with it, and there are lots of them, each unique with strengths and weaknesses and each belongs to a major category of species. Next there is the crafting: a huge timesink, i still didnt craft a lot, but from what i played the crafting system is interesting, you have a lot of tools, the tools can be dismantled for other minor tools from it, then you have stuff from monsters and things like herbs for potions, the mutagen part helps with crafting something called mutagens which create decoctions. Decoctions are something that gives like a special ability, each decoctions is unique in its own way. There is a system called toxicity which plays a part in making you choose which potions or decoctions you want to use, this gives a limit and prevents abuse, so great gameplay mechanic. The horse controls are annoying, i got used to them after a while but i still believe they could be vastly improved. Gwent is a minigame which is a card game and i admit i spent many many hours playing it, its a great mini game with some nice little strategies. So overall the Gameplay itself is great and full of different things to do if the player is willing ofcourse, i enjoyed it.

Characters are simply the best thing about this game, after finishing the game i had that empty feeling. Great variety of cast, well presented and well concluded, each character has its unique distinct personality. Great development and backstory as well, in my opinion its impossible for someone to not find a character to relate to during the play time.

I feel i overstayed my welcome writing this much lol so i'll summarize!

• Gorgeous Graphics that still holds up.
• Amazing & detailed world and character and monster art design.
• Fantastic music and voice acting.
• Rich story with deep dialogue that gives choices and impact on the world.
• Superb Character cast.
• Breathing alive world.
• Deep side quests with great writing.
• Great Gameplay variety with many things to do.
• Interesting world to explore.
• In-depth world-building.
• One of the best Mini-games ever made: Gwent.

Some issues:

• Overwhelming at the beginning which causes some players to give up and lose interest.
• Not combat focused, for players who are all about combat it may feel disappointing, because Geralt is limited to 2 swords and there are no weapons or tank builds pure magic or transformation like Skyrim. Lack of different movesets in combat as well.
• Economy is sometimes frustrating.
• Horse controls.

Overall The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt deserves its praises as one of the best games of all time. I played it and i enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading and im sorry for grammar mistakes as English is not my native language.

Oh my god was this game tedious. For every God of War, for every Horizon Zero Dawn, for every Breath of the Wild, there's one of these. So much hype for this game, great recommendations from friends, and it fell so flat for me. The Witcher 3 almost ruined gaming for me: while playing it, I went long stretches without playing anything, and had no desire to turn on my PS4.

There's not a single good thing I can say about this game. It was slow, boring, and the gameplay was utterly lackluster (unless you consider choosing what to say in a dialogue "gameplay"). Even the graphics seem outdated today. Everything I hated about this game: terrible & slow inventory management, awkward controls, collecting items around the world was ultimately fairly pointless, long (so long) dialogue scenes, gameplay was pretty much all "use witcher senses to find X", almost no puzzles, easy combat (especially when over-leveled), and so many loading screens!! I hated the storyline, didn't identify at all with Geralt, and found most of the "romance" to be exceptionally crude. I can't believe I put 60 hours into this game, hate-playing it until the very end.

So, this is going to be a really long, messy review, because The Witcher 3 is a long, messy game. Also, though I've given it three stars, think of it as being on the high end of three stars, if that makes sense. If I could give this game 3.5 stars, I absolutely would.

I honestly have no idea where to start with this whole thing, because The Witcher 3 just has so much content to offer. I'll start off with the gameplay and combat, because that's the easiest to talk about. I find it to be pretty mediocre. The ironic thing about the combat, since you're playing as a character who hunts down monsters for coin, is that the human/human combat is much, much better than the human/monster combat, though the vaguely humanoid-sized monsters are at least okay to deal with. Pirouetting and countering sword strikes and whatnot actually feels pretty solid when you're up against people, while dealing with bigger monsters mostly involves hitting the dodge button every now and again and trying to find where the hitboxes actually are. Going up against bigger monsters basically just feels really awkward, unlike in Horizon: Zero Dawn, for example, where that's basically the best part of the game. In The Witcher 3, though, you're basically rolling around and trying to smack at your Griffins and your Wyverns with your dinky little silver sword. Also, you can press a button and Geralt shoots some magic out of his hand, which is fun. Burning people/monsters is always satisfying, and creating a shield around yourself is always useful. All of the Signs are useful, really.

All in all, though, I think the combat is fine. I think criticism of the combat has been brought up ad nauseam as part of the game's inevitable backlash - it all works fine, despite the issues I had with it. I found it fairly easy to master, though (I did play on normal difficulty, to be fair), and the game becomes trivially easy towards the end, especially as you get better gear. But, at the end of the day, the combat is fine. I wouldn't call it a selling point of the game, but, y'know, it's fine.

The quest design is solid, though repetitive, and there will come a point where you get really, really bored of turning on your special vision so you can follow tracks or smells or whatever. Still, I have no real complaints here. It all works pretty well.

The menus in this game are absolutely tragic, though.

And, now, on to the story. The story is definitely mostly good, though the most notable thing about the story is just how much of it there is, between the main quests and the side quests, and how even with that quantity, the quality never really suffers that much. Most of the story is pretty standard dark fantasy fare, it's just presented with more polish than video games normally manage. Even the most trivial Witcher's contracts are presented with in-game cutscenes and dialogue to give some context to the monsters you'll be killing.

I'm personally not a fan of Geralt - I find him to be a terrible bore, while the game seems to constantly insist that he's the coolest dude around. His generically scratchy voice doesn't help, either.

The main questline (and the side quests that branch directly off of it) is mostly good, though it does fluctuate in quality. The oft-mentioned Bloody Baron questline does pretty much live up to the hype, though it's a little "everything but the kitchen sink" in terms of quality, as the writers decided to just chuck in everything from infidelity to domestic abuse to PTSD to abortions to, naturally, an issue that every family has to deal with - witches. It also makes one wonder if one of the writers lost a bet and had to write a #notalldomesticabusers story (alright, I'm done with the jokes) It's so M O R A L L Y G R E Y (okay, now I'm done). But, seriously, the Bloody Baron questline really is emotional and tragic, and features what might be the only really interesting choice in the game (free the tree spirit or not). At least, it's the only choice that really stuck with me.

There are other main questlines that aren't so great. The Dandelion questline is truly awful, the writers seeing fit to just bounce you from one quest-giver to another, making you do stupid favors for every asshole in the city. I mean, to be fair, the entire arc of the game is like this, it's just that other parts hide it better. In the Dandelion questline, though, pretty much nothing you do is particularly interesting or memorable, so I really appreciated spending hours of my life slogging through it.

The Skellige questline is actually kind of fun - getting to influence the decision of who's to be the new monarch of the Isles is interesting, and the whole "turn partygoers into bears to kill other partygoers" gambit was pretty hilarious (and gruesome). Also, the way the whole ascension to the throne conspiracy wraps up is really funny. The evidence you find just isn't enough to pin it on the really obvious suspect, but then the suspect's son comes up and is all, "mama, but you did do all the bad stuff, how could you?" Really great stuff. The finding Ciri aspect of the story isn't so interesting, but when is it ever?

The rest of the story, from finally finding Ciri to taking out the evil elves, feels weirdly rushed, especially since the game just forced you to spend however much time chasing after Dandelion. The game also finally begins to explain anything at all about the bad elves, which they probably should have done during any of the tens and tens of hours before this point, but whatever. And, honestly, it's such a relief finally finding Ciri since the game drags it out so much.

Also, the ugly dude the Bloody Baron, uh, owned, I guess, is actually the elf who's been helping out Ciri this whole time. Who would have thought he'd be important, with his super organic and not-contrived-at-all introduction during the Bloody Baron questline?

Mean elves attack the big Witcher castle (I know it's called Kaer Mohren, calm down), Ciri begins training her powers, you confront the witches again, and then you just straight-up kill one of the meany elven generals (the swole one first). It's a surprisingly easy boss fight, since he's built up as being this ferocious fighter and you can really just dodge your way to victory. Again, I played this game on the normal difficulty, but still. I was expecting a bit more.

There's a mission towards the end where you go to seek the support of one of the more diplomatic mean elves, and you end up hopping through different dimensions to get there. This level is actually pretty fun and unique, and seeing Geralt trying to navigate in completely different environments is interesting. And then, you can basically move right into the final, climactic conflict between Geralt & co. and the mean elves, and you have to go through two more easy yet tedious boss fights with the scary mage elf and the big boss elf. The big boss elf, Eredin, is surprisingly easy to fight, he just has a big health bar so the fight takes a decent amount of time. Again, it's weird how rushed this part of the game feels, especially since everything before this is so sprawling and lacking in any real sense of forward momentum.

And then, the ending comes and Ciri chooses to save the world from the White Frost with the help of her elf friend. Or, she did in my playthrough, at least. Also, I didn't tell Emhyr about Ciri, because fuck that guy.

So, this is a lot of writing to say that I enjoyed the game, just not as much as a lot of other people did. The level of polish is insanely high, there's no denying that, and I hope more games continue to strive for what CDPR have accomplished in that regard. To me, though, at the end of the day all of that polish just resulted in a game with an exhaustingly long, pretty good story and servicable, so-so combat.

This review probably sucks but I needed to vomit out my thoughts about this game somewhere

This game was a journey. A looong loooong journey. But one I think is definitely worth taking.

You play as Geralt a witcher who is looking for his (kind of) daughter, Ciri. Throughout the story you can explore, take on quests, accept witcher contracts, upgrade your equipment and make some really tough choices.

First off this game is beautiful, many times I would have to stop and take a screenshot because the enviroments were awe inspiring. The facial animations are also pretty great too with most of them looking almost like real life. And the voice acting is also top notch.

The main three reasons I love the game though is the characters and the exploration and the quests. All of the main characters are lovable in different ways with the main character Geralt being great too. And thats hard to do in an rpg with players making different choices so that the player character can feel completely unrelatable. But with all the choices in the Witcher 3, I could see Geralt making either choice most of the time so that was cool.

These choices are also almost always difficult to make because sometimes you want both outcomes to come true. Its reminiscent of the kind of tough choices you make in Tell Tale's Walking Dead games and whenever these moments came up I just sat there contemplating the different options for minutes on end. And sometimes the outcome wasn't what I wanted but I usually just lived with my consequences and it made the story more interesting.

I loved the dynamic between Geralt and all his friends, Triss, Yennefer, and Ciri especially. But even with a lot of the side characters, theres a lot to like, no one feels exactly the same except for maybe some repeated voices which is almost unavoidable with a game this big.

Then there are the quests. Quests in this game are almost always interesting. You nearly never get a quest that says kill x amount of y or go grab this and give it to that guy and when you are asked to do those things theres much more to it than that, with lots of them having twists and unexpected turns. The other side quests as well as the main story have multiple parts to their missions which make them feel more grand than kill this bandit and thats it. It might be something like kill this bandit, but when you get there you find that this bandit is actually the brother of the quest giver and you may have a choice to switch sides. Things like that make nearly every quest worth doing.

One complaint I have with the game is the combat. It is fun and fluid but at times it can get kind of repetitive and easy once you master dodging and blocking. But this is a minor complaint for me, your mileage may vary. You may like it or hate it, for me it just got kind of tiresome at at some points. Another point against it would be some glitches that are expected in a huge game like this so they don't usually bother me too much, as long as they're not too egregious.

-Pros: -beautifully crafted open world with many places to explore -lots of multi-layered quests -tons of likable characters (and hated ones) -really interesting lore you can get lost in

-Cons: -combat can get easy after a while -some glitches

Overall, I think this is a pretty amazing experience in gaming. To have a beautiful huge open world and many likable characters and great quests is something not many companies have pulled off, but CD Projekt Red has, so hats off to you guys.

PS. Can't wait for Cyberpunk 2077, looks like its gonna be incredible.

Not long ago the second and final DLC for the Witcher 3 was released. In honor of that, I'm doing a long-overdue review of the whole game, including both DLCs. First of all, the DLCs each play as separate campaigns of significant length. The first could be completed just before the end of the main Wild Hunt campaign (but is best done post-game), the second should definitely be post-game. With that out of the way ...

I have not played Witcher 1 or 2 (mainly because they were not on Playstation), and I wish I had. Because this game is EPIC. Not only does the main campaign feature an amazing story, each of the two side campaigns have their own unique stories which are maybe even more compelling than the main plot.

The Witcher takes place in a pseudo-European, dark fantasy world based on books by the same name. A long time ago this world overlapped with others in an event called the Conjunction of Spheres. A bunch of creatures from those other worlds became trapped in our world. Some of these are elves and such, but most are vampires. To fight these, people created witchers--mutant monster hunters with superhuman abilities. Only later, they decided witchers were kind of like monsters too, and they hated them. Until they need one.

The world is deliciously dark--which I love--and draws a lot of inspiration from Slavic mythology. It's not all Slavic myth, though. You have other fantasy/myth staples here and there, like djinn and so forth.

It's a massively open world reminiscent of Skyrim. I mean HUGE, with so many places to explore, quests to complete, and monsters to hunt you could basically invest a bazillion hours into the game and not do everything.

Gameplay took a little getting used to at first. Once I got the hang of it (hint, dodge monsters, parry humans), though, it ran fairly smoothly. I played it mostly as a swordsman, but you can customize Geralt to focus more on alchemy or signs (magic) and all styles of play are intended to be effective. The DLC introduces further options for customization and even a use for ability points once you have otherwise reached the cap.

I played on the medium difficulty, which only occasionally proved challenging. The combat system was rewarding and never grew tedious.

What I think I liked even more than that, though, was the plot. Witcher stars Geralt and occasionally his adopted daughter Ciri. It also gives a lot of time and development to numerous NPCs in ways that make your choices seem like they actually matter. In this way, the game is somewhat reminiscent of Dragon Age games, though I found the story more compelling in Witcher. Unlike in the former, I never got bored in dialog with NPCs, never felt compelled to skip ahead.

I highly recommend this game. 10 out of 10.