quick & dirty
Foreword
In the past I’ve had a lot of trouble getting into the Witcher 3 and because of that I have talked a bunch of shit about it on the internet to an audience of 10 people who are contractually obligated to listen. But after finally having it click to the point where I don’t hate it, I have some thoughts about it.
The Nitpicky
-Sometimes the NPCs will randomly start screaming when you are in a village and its very weird and jarring. I think its because a wolf will be in proximity to the village but not in view, either way AHHHHHHHHHH.
-Some of the cutscenes feel off. One time after I cleared out some bandits in an abandoned village the camera zoomed in on Geralt just standing there doing/saying nothing and then all of the sudden the camera switched to villagers appearing out out of thin air walking back into the village. I’m pretty sure I completed a quest without actually accepting it and the game had no idea how to handle it which is kinda jank.
-All of the women are insanely hot and incredibly clean for being peasants and all of Geralt’s love interests have huge knockers for some reason. It just feels weird when they try to play up this world as gritty and sometimes plague ridden but hey I’m not gonna complain too much.
-I ran into an odd glitch where I found an area that was locked off until I did mainline story progression but I still managed to jump a fence and force my way in, everything still worked but there was no indication as to why they wouldn’t let me in, in the first place which made it even more confusing.
-The repeat NPC chatter dialog is annoying as hell and gets grating really quick, in the first area I heard some guy explain how to spell his new name at least 7 times and holy shit PLEASE STOP.
The Dogshit
-If you play on the old default movement you are a fucking psychopath, it is worse than a unity asset flip on that setting. The fact that the game launched with that as the default option is fucking insane and people not really having a problem with it made me question my sanity.
-Combat is basically Batman/Assassins Creed done OK. Which means the game really tries to emphasize the weight of the combat but it just feels floaty and weak (also everyone politely takes their turn to die one by one). Because of way the combat feels the game starts to falter with the sheer amount of combat encounters it throws at you and it unfortunately makes boss fights kinda boring and feel very samey.
-The combat does not work well on slopes and there are a lot of slopes which can make a lot of encounters you just leading enemies to an area where you can hit them which is just lame as hell.
-The entire crafting system feels very clunky and the UI for it is just a mess. Also the entire systems existence is questionable at best, like the game isn’t exactly a thrilling combat experience and this feels like an attempt to add more depth when its already very shallow.
The Good Stuff
-Geralt is one of the best written video game characters and all time and his interactions with people are so interesting to watch play out. Geralt’s voice actor is amazing and lifts him up even more. Geralt is cool as hell and carries a lot of the experience.
-This game is incredibly pretty, I love the art direction a lot and found myself exploring the world just to look at pretty landscapes and go “wow!”.
-The character design on the main characters is stellar and all of the clothing and weapons look very cool. The charters are also animated super expressively in cutscenes and they have all been a treat to watch.
-The quest design is pretty good, the game knows when how to play its cards right (this is not a Gwent joke fuck you) and utilize the combat system the best it can but again the problem is the combat system is mediocre at best.
-The game hits that part of my brain that goes “number go up haha yes” in a good way and kept me engaged long enough to actually enjoy it a bit.
Conclusion
The game is pretty mid but scratches the open world RPG itch nice enough.
