It would have been funny to fake a Community Review that was something other than Witcher 3 this week, but too cruel. There’s one game we should be talking about this week. What did you think of it?
Even some of the stuff towards the end would be really cool to talk about, let’s keep this a spoiler free zone. There’s plenty to talk about without spoiling anything, anyway.
This year was all about Bloodborne and The Witcher 3 for me. Both of them have lived up to the hype. Both of them are vying for my Game of the Year, in very different ways. Bloodborne is a lot more polished, less broken, has much better combat, and typically Miyazaki-style understated storytelling. In short, it’s my kind of game.
But The Witcher 3 is still the way I’m leaning, because of its characters, story, dialogue, and world. Those things make up for its failings, because games just aren’t doing what The Witcher 3 is. They aren’t capable of it. Storytelling is usually the bottleneck in games — when was the last time you saw storytelling actually carry its other elements?
I certainly have my issues with it. The weird acceleration and braking in movement that makes looting a chore. Geralt’s style of combat that unnecessarily twirls his sword around like a helicopter when trying to cover distance (despite criticising Ciri of the same thing). And I’m not a big fan of scaling loot. It takes the meaning out of receiving a hyped up sword when it’s no better than the junk you looted from a henchman.
I’m a little wary of some of my games criticism being a bit too “this game needs to be more like Dark Souls”, but there are actually other games that do what The Witcher 3’s combat system is trying to do, but better. There’s no way to meet a forward-rushing enemy with a timed attack, because Geralt’s ballet moves don’t communicate with the enemy’s lunge. Shadow of Mordor did that well. The player needs that power. If you’re not going to have a reliable attack animation for each button, then you need to somehow make this grizzled Witcher capable of taking on a rushing enemy. Something that isn’t yet another problem solved by Axii.
But I kept those complaints to a minimum in my Game Informer review, because I wanted the overall tone to be positive. It really does make up for all of that, and becomes a unique and memorable adventure. I think I could easily spend about 150 hours in it, if I didn’t have things I wanted to do with my life.
How about you? Anyone think I’m being harsh about the combat? What tips would you give your fellow Kotakuers? I noticed a tips post went up a while back, but some I felt were of the “wrong” persuasion, so I might put up another.
How did you like Tywin Lannister? What interesting things have you seen in the world? How has your hunting been?
Comments
124 responses to “Community Review: The Witcher 3”
I like it
I’m only a few hours in, 4 or so. But I’m finding it so rough around the edges that the review scores surprise me a bit. The world is stunning and the adult leaning story is fantastic, but I can’t really get around the fact that the controls, combat and UI are so shonky. Perhaps you get used to it but it makes the core experience of playing it feel a bit laborious and tedious to me.
I’ve gotten used to the UI, it felt clunky at first, but yeah gotten used to it being clunky.
the only thing that shit me is that i need to open/close map every time i need to find the nearest waypoint. I wish that had all the nearby waypoints on the mini map edges. further away they are most transparent. something along those lines.
Yeah so actually THIS IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM! I so fucking hate to bring up the slow loading map and spam the custom waypoint marker and sometimes find out taht the ? was just out of range of my minimap, this makes me so sad that the devs (on many levels) do not know anything about good game design when it comes to feeling of controls and UI :/
Drama queen much?
4 hours in I felt like giving the game a 7.5/10. Now I am 10+ hours in the game is a 10/10.
That is good to know!
There’s a lot of truth to this statement. The rough around the edges bit slowly (but not entirely) fade to the background. It’s like playing a Wii game, yes the resolution is god awful compared to today’s fare but after a bit you notice it less.
I’m the same. I was leaning towards a totally respectable 7.5 at the beginning, but once you delve into it and get used to the controls and UI, something funny happens and the game suddenly takes on this wonderful, enchanting, charming persona that’s hard to fault. I’d happily give it a 9+ now, at about 8 hours in.
for me the ‘roughness’ is because it is made outside the AAA system, we have gotten so use to how games should be, anything that deviates seems rough or wrong.
I find the UI effortless on PC with a controller. The inventory system though needs a SKY UI intervention .
It helps if you played the originals; especially the first. After that game, both Witcher titles felt like masterpieces of UI and controls. Also, it comes down to if you really mind clunkyness in a game. Same sorta thing with Bethesda titles.
Thanks to that WoW article I’ve been playing on the Nostalrius server instead of playing Witcher 3. Damn you all!
It’s alright, I suppose.
I’m enjoying it, haven’t gotten very far in it yet, just been fighting and exploring.
If find the detection of where you can press X/A/action for getting on your horse, looting etc a bit hit and miss, the icon will show and then you press the button and nothing happens, or you move one step to far and the loot icon disappears, other times you can loot everything you can see within a meter or so of you.
I’m enjoying the combat and being able to dance around what you’re fighting to keep out of it’s attack arc.
I also enjoy that the stuff you’re fighting can and will hit/kill other enemies, makes fighting archers fun if you can get them to hit their friends.
The way they’ve done horse riding and them locking to the road so you just have to hold X is great.
I’ve come across a few bugs though, like invisible walls in the middle of the road that I have to turn around and then try to go through again and AI getting stuck on trees.
Best fight I’ve had so far was with a bear that was 3 times my level (this was in white orchard, so yeah not super high levels) but dancing around that bear and avoiding its powerful attacks was great fun, I enjoyed that fight much more than the first ‘boss’ fight.
I love that horse pathing feature. All games need that now!
IIRC Red Dead had it where if you were following an npc all you had to do was hold A/X, but yeah, the Witcher takes the cake by not limiting to just following someone.
I thought the noonwraith fight was quite fun. Having to use that spell-trap thing (I don’t remember the name) made the fight more interesting. Also, I was only level 1, and I’m playing on the hardest difficulty.
EDIT: I’ve barely done anything story-wise. I haven’t even fought the griffin yet, as I need to level up more. Hard mode is hard.
Could never get the trap spell to work on it. How’d you get it to work?
I ended up just having to gung ho slash it to death. Effective, but not as satisfying. Used up most of my food in the process as playing on hard as well.
Yeah I’m not sure how that trap actually works, but I thought I was doing more damage to it while it was within the trap area.
if i recall correctly the magic trap is used to keep the specter from teleporting, making it easier to kill.
You have to use the Trap to be able to cause damage to the Noonwraith. otherwise it’s opaque and you cannot hit it.
Incorrect. You still do damage, just not much. I defeated the noonwraith using only qwen.
Maybe you didn’t have to use it, but I was doing practically no damage otherwise.
While it was inside the trap, it become less wavy (visually), and I did way more damage to it.
Ahk, I was expecting it to get physically trapped or stunned. Definitely felt like I was doing the fight the wrong way.
Yeah I was expecting the same thing too, took the word trap literally.
But you definetly did it right, the trap forces any monster who becomes intangible in to a physical form, it can also slow them.
You’ll need to get the trap working for the ‘named’ Wraiths as they only get tougher, especially when they suddenly split into three wraiths and heal all the damage you inflicted until you slash each one once or send swarms of flesh eating bees at you!. Best tactic I’ve found so far is shield up then lay a trap, stand in middle of trap blocking/parrying and wait for it to attack first block/parry then three quick attacks and roll back into the centre of the trap and wait for it to attack again. Keep laying traps when it expires and if you get hit back away until you get a shield up again. Oils help.
I’m playing on “Blood and Broken Bones” is that what you’re playing on?
The game feels like a challenge at this level and you really have to be aware of what’s going on in combat.
I picked the hardest one. I can’t remember what it’s called.
It’s a huge challenge, and I’ve tried my best to avoid combat when there are more than three enemies. Maybe once I get a few more perks/abilities, I might take on bigger groups.
ah ok, yeah I’m playing on the one just below that.
This is a challenge at this level and you can take on bigger groups of stuff, just gotta mash the dodge button.
Yes the Trap spell thingy (YRDEN?) and Spectre Oil on your blade will kill it fast always stand inside the trap spell thingy so when they appear they become “more solid”, also put the shield thingy spell (QUEN?) on you each time before a fight so if they ambush you you will take less damage.
Oof yeah I’m doing the same, I’m in Velen now and wow there are some extremely high levelled beasties, certainly do level up and do side missions etc to take on the griffin….certainly does make it easier. Good Luck!!!
You’re a harder man than me – I ran from that bear after it’s first couple of swipes… Still managed to get the power stone but I ran from that bear so fast!
Use the confusion sign, use two strong hits before rolling away quickly, then just avoid it till your stamina regens. Works like a charm and let’s you avoid too many hits, even for high level bears.
Not when I was level 1 doing 0 damage to the bear. Had to level up a little and buy new sword to kill that thing. The bear seems to be weak to Agni too.
rolling? just dodge, rolling burns stamina so bad.
But rolling was faster, two strong hits is followed instantly by an attack from bears and roll seemed to exit it’s range much quicker and had less instances of getting hit.
Strangely I’ve never had a problem with stamina and rolling.
Haha I think I was level 1 and I just shat it and ran!
I’m starting to come around, but during the first few hours I couldn’t help but notice all the bugs. I think I am starting to adjust.
I have to say though, Bloodborne in my opinion is leagues ahead of this game. I can’t see any other game coming close to Bloodborne this year.
Can’t really compare blood borne and this game tbh, blood borne’s animations and polish yes is much better but it’s also not a fully open world game, cut scenes are rendered also where as Witcher 3 is the opposite.
Yeah that is true.. I just mean in terms of if I had to pick a better game. Bloodborne would be the clear winner.
It really depends what you’re chasing, i enjoyed bloodborne ( More of a Darksouls Fan) but the lore in the Witcher and story telling behind it is much more enticing to me than the polish and combat of Bloodborne. I think bloodborne can still come a long way and i’d lvoe to see it go further lik ethey went with dark souls 2! but witcher takes the cake for me
I thought the introduction was rather week in comparison to Witcher 2 or Dragon Age Inquisition. The latter did a better job at preparing you for the game mechanics. Otherwise I’m liking it a lot so far bar the combat. Really don’t like it how the game prioritises character animation over user commands. I’m mashing Q and it just feels unresponsive.
Overall I’m enjoying it so far. Currently in Novigrad and itching to finish work and resume playing.
Surprised you’re annoyed by animation restrictions if you played Witcher 2. And if you played Witcher 1, you would really know what it feels to have to wait for Geralt to stop dancing to get another swing.
After about 5-6 hours on x1, I’m having a good time. Seems pretty polished compared to most open world games, you notice some frame rate issues every now and again, but nothing game breaking.
As close to a review score as I will ever give: 2 thumbs up!
It’s probably the best RPG I’ve ever played. Even each side quest has more plot than main quests of other games! The voice acting is fantastic, characters believable, morally grey choices, touching moments and even things that make you sick to the stomach. It’s a living, breathing world and barely anything is generic. You genuinely feel like your choices matter and they impact other things in the world around you. Sometimes you make a decision and the result of it is not what you expected – it can make you feel truly guilty for doing something, and really happy when you do the right thing.
I’m 26 hours in, done a few of the main quests, but genuinely enjoying exploring and experiencing the world. So good. I’m sad that I’m going to finish this sooner or later.
I agree with everything you’ve said.To me,the story arcs are very well written and acted.Even the minor,15 min side quests are varied and well done.I don’t think I’ve seen that in a game before.
This! i love story heavy games.
Speaking of making you sick in the stomach, what did yout think of the Botchling
That was sad man 🙁 Just sad.
Some examples of being sick to the stomach:
* Negotiating the highest reward possible in a small town, the Ealderman reluctantly agreeing and then you explore around to find children sleeping on the floors of their house and the populace complaining about feeling sick from off food or the local butcher able to offer nothing but bones for food.
* Times are so shit that parents are leaving their kids out in the forest to die because it’s “One less mouth to feed” (The worst part is, you hear parents talking about it in towns then later run into kids who were abandoned and in tears)
also the tale the ghost on fyke isle gives about here death.
oh yeah, that made me cringe.
Was a fan of TW2 so I’m kinda biased but the sequel improves over TW2 and makes you feel like the proper monster hunter that Geralt is. Fighting is a lot better as well with proper lock-on and more movement. The whole “Can only make more potions by meditating” is a bit weird but as long as you have the stuff you need you’re fine. The graphics may not be the “Next gen” that has been promised by many developers but it’s up there with the other great looking games of this generation. The UI? Eh, it’s an RPG and was obviously designed for controller in mind.
And am I the only person impressed by the facial animations for non-cutscene conversations?
I’m still very early in the game, but it’s fun so far. I guess the amount of things to do is a bit daunting.
Combat is brutal on the hardest difficulty, and I’ve probably already eaten my body weight in bread and meat.
It is a bit rough around the edges. I had a glitch when chasing down a guy on horseback. When I got next to him, I hacked him with my sword (as you do), and then I got a cutscene with Geralt saying he needs to move the body (I guess I killed him). But then it faded to black, and I got a cutscene with the guy still alive. Then he paid me after I told him I wasn’t giving him the stuff he asked me to get (what a dumbass).
Although I love the old RPG staple of walking into people’s houses and just taking all their stuff. 😀
I’m about 20 hours in, haven’t noticed any serious glitches. Combat is difficult but for those who played the last one it is simple enough to get used to. I highly recommend this game.
I’m level 20 and maybe 55 hours in.I’ve just won a Gwent Tournament and have returned to Skellige.I’ve had sex on a Unicorn,attended a masked ball,killed various monsters,rescued Dandelion,tracked a serial killer,won some horse races,fought pirates,met two trolls obsessed with shoes,and tracked various Witcher gear.The list goes on and on really.I agree that you have to fight the controls sometimes and whistling for Roach is annoying most of the time.Also,finding a quest marker on the map can be frustrating.I am utterly obsessed with Gwent and have spent 20 hours scouring every merchant I can find for cards.I love it!
I’m also somewhat hooked on Gwent, I don’t usually like those types of card games either… Tournament you say…hmm…
I’m someone who’s not really into RPG’s, but I always try to play the well received ones in case I’m missing something. So I would have gotten this eventually if it hadn’t came with Arkham Knight and my 970.
So far (About 5 hours in) I’m enjoying the side quests and exploring the land a lot more than the story missions (could just be me) and I love the main characters and how well they are portrayed. I really feel like a cheesy 80’s action hero, which is right down my ally.
I’d say my only ‘gripes’ with the game are the clunky controls and how much of the world building is done through exposition. The micro stutter is also annoying me, even when I’m supposedly running a locked, v-synced, 60FPS according to Afterburner or Fraps. But I’m sure that’ll get patched. Besides, micro stutter/ frame pacing issues are fairly common with games this gen, so I can’t hold it against just one game for having it.
In all, I’d say that if you’re a Witcher/RPG fan, this will probably be right down your ally. If not, you can probably wait until they iron out the launch kinks/ bugs that plague this generation.
I agree that the writing in this game is far better than Wither 2, and even much better than most games. I wish some of the facial animation was a lot better, as well the the voice acting needs a lot of work. Compare the voice acting to the likes of the Last of Us, and the Witcher 3 is eating dust.
Writing and this really nice looking world are this games highlights.
But like others have complained about the movement of Geralt which is really bad.
Check out his first two steps after you push forward on the controller, they are really slow first two steps which make crisp movements impossible. And moving left to right or back and forwards frequently has the same problem.
Trying to get on your horse, picking up items, or movement on uneven parts of the world like rocks, ledges etc are seemingly from the PS1 era. Most movement seems, janky and sluggish.
The animation and physics of Geralts physical contact on in this games beautiful world are really bad.
The combat is pretty poor imo. You combo sword swipes are really basic inputs with no real value for using combos. All the early enemies will frequently dodge your heavy attacks in general, and dodge them they will often, no matter if I even set them up by setting them on fire. The encounter systems and AI of combat is very unsatisfying. And combine that with the poor control movement, and this game has real gameplay problems.
Witches 3 has a lot going for it, but after 3 times of starting then quitting, the bad combat made me quit for good.
Did you string multiple attacks into Chains (2x Fast, 1x Strong, Sign)? Did you develop your Sword skills past the first 2 trees? Have you tried using Axii? What Diff setting were you on? Did you roll behind an enemy to get behind them?
I can’t agree that the voice acting is dust compared to TLOU. I don’t understand the ‘lag’ with movement. It’s hardly something to complain about.
I already mentioned combing light and heavy is not valued the Way enemy attack patterns are set up . Used Signs frequently staring with shield before encounters started.
The swordplay has to be valuable on its own to judge the swordplay itself. Which I tested before most people ever thought about doing that.
Used axii, and then started on the second highest difficulty before kicking it down one.
Most early enemies approach to combat is very similar. It’s obvious that there is a missing variety of styles with the enemies. And small aspect like The blue creatures disappearing underwater in the swamp section for a fraction, is not impressive as well as enemy attack patterns in general, and their response to my attacks which was very similar across the diversity of the enemies.
As will the strategy of being surrounded seems to be the main point of strategy for the early enemies. Well, I haven’t seen that 1000 times in a lot of games before.
I’m glad no one else bothered defining the combat set up which gets me a negative one by the fanboys out there who refuse to identify the quality of the combat
they dodge heavy attacks? of course they do, with heavy attacks comes a whole slow telegraph that a swing is incoming. Who wouldnt dodge them? The thing about the signs they arent so much for damage at early stages, likewise with the sword play, its not until you start unlocking things and getting better gear does the combat come into its own.
After spending a lot of time poking at it, I’ve eventually figured out pure sign-less sword-fighting, I think. I’ve found that the way to deal with lunging opponents is to parry or dodge and counter-attack.
It’s never actually communicated to you in any way that I’ve yet found whether an attack will be parryable or not, let alone eligible for a riposte. Beasts you can’t really parry in general. Humans wielding heavier weapons like axes. Geralt is remarkably adept at a quick side-step and twisting himself to quick-attack who you’re looking at.
Quen buys you a lot of leeway with enemies that make quick, light attacks, letting you button-mash carve up a pack of dogs, for example, before they’ve barely managed to hit you. Without Quen, it’s all quick-stepping and backing away and making sure nothing gets behind you. Also, I like to take the arrow-parrying skill in one of my slots. It might not be every encounter you get shot at, but when they do, it fucking hurts and the stagger can be even worse. Plus there’s nothing as satisfying as getting it to rank 3 and sending the shot back with double damage. Particularly when the other combatants exclaim about it in shock.
It’s living up to the pedestal I put it on.
I played for about 4 hours so far… just doing the main quest line.
I don’t like the clipping, grass, water, foliage, movement, action button, linear design of questing, cut scenes are too many and long, repetitive spam left click combat. also when you go exploring an area you run into way too hard mobs. Didn’t like the level up points as well they felt useless.
I like the, scope of the game, sexual connotation of being a Witcher and the weather.
Clunky controls and ui,poor animations, button mashing boring combat. Hasn’t hooked me initially. Seems ok 5 hours in but a bit of a let down
Increase the difficulty to address the button-mashing issue. It will severely punish you for button-mashing, forcing you to actually make use of the more nuanced combat elements.
And if ya think that’s bad. Just wait till you come across a Forktail, Wyvern or Griffon.
Let alone Fiends.
Haha. I went exploring too far and ran into a surprise basilisk. An instinctive aard blast while it was diving made it crash head-first into the dirt and leave a trail in a crazy organic response the likes of which I haven’t seen in a boss fight since the totally underrated Dragon’s Dogma. This game is crazy good.
Besides also loving the Witcher 3, I’m up-voting your comment for the sheer fact that you mentioned the amazing game that is Dragon’s Dogma.
The griffon was easy. Just holding parry and dodging the highly telegraphed attacks made it too easy. Sure the harder enemies take me ages to kill and I do barely any damage with each hit but they are easy to avoid so they aren’t hitting me. The combat system just feels dull and disconnected after playing things like shadow of mordor/bloodborne. I’m still not ruling out me liking it further in but my first experience has been mediocre
And punish you it does, though not always in a fair realistic way. It annoys me that when an enemy jumps back and I quickly follow only to attempt the distance covering spinning jump attack when I’m right up in the monsters face.
It seems to me the game thinks the monster is still out of range.
It isn’t all bad though, the dodging looks amazing at times as you spin out of the way with perfect footwork and positioning from a good direction choice and getting clipped when you don’t.
One thing that blew my mind was when fighting two bandits. Both had no health left and did a finisher one one, stabbing him and spinning to cut his head off. The second strayed too close and got caught in the end of my rotation, cleaving him in half from neck to waist.
Am I the only one who feels like it struggles a bit in its second act?
For context, I’m level 17 and have just finished the “city” area between Velen and Skellige (whose name escapes me for some reason) where
you meet dandylion, the dwarf, triss etc and go to masquerade ball, theatre performances, bath houses, brothels the whole shebang.And I mean, the area itself is well designed. The things you do, while not exactly groundbreaking (my girlfriend walked in at one point and said “does every RPG have to have a masquerade ball in it?”) are varied and that’s all well and good. But I found my interest waning.
The start of the game is so strong, and so quickly I comfortably fell into the role of wandering bounty hunter/monster slayer – helper of the ignorant and slayer of the inconceivable.
But once in the city (where the horse movement restraints are particularly taxing) I just felt like token rpg swordsman A completing quest #32B to slay x amounts of thugs/mobsters/witch hunters/irate humans because of .
I’m sure Skellige will be a refreshing change of pace, but anyone else feel a little identity lost in the big city?
Skellige is SO MUCH better than Novigrad. I felt the same with the 2nd Act, kinda rushed through the place to get through it. Take a breather from Novigrad, go roam around the country-side.
Once you get to Skellige – mate. It’s a whole different world. The music tops it off.
I’ve played it for about 59 hours according to GOG Galaxy and ive only just started Act 2. I love attention to detail thats been put in the game. Almost each quest feels like it would be its own 60USD game if they were made by another company.
Bethesda and Bioware have really got to step up their game now with their next lot of RPGs. Bethesda cant get a pass on bugs, quest design, world design now when it comes to fallout and TES because Wild Hunt Has less bugs, is bigger than skyrim, is more densely populated in its cities and towns and the quests are engaging.
Loving it. Surprised, I turned on Hairworks (PC) after the recent patch. Enabled Hairworks for everything.
I lost 5 FPS. 5. Before the patch I lost 25.
The kicker? I’m running a GTX760.
Don’t see any problem with the animations – how are they clunky? Don’t consider it to be boring either. UI isn’t clunky but DOES need improvement.
I’m enjoying it.
The world, and the story, the atmosphere? All wonderful.
… but yeah, I’m finding movement and combat clunky. Plus occasional frame rate stumbles. (PS4)
As y’all said, looting is really quite difficult sometimes for no apparent reason.
Same with getting on Roach.
Ciri’s cool though.
Apparently I have been at it for like 17hrs and feel like I have done nothing but gosh its an amazing game. Easily on the way to being one of my favourites of the last five years. Basically shows up DA:I on absolutely every level. The weather, the lore, the characters, the side quests, everything.
My only two problems 1) putting up with stupid ‘downgrader’ comments out of game 2) even after saving their whole village I still get called a freak in game … there truly is no pleasing everyone, in game or out.
The best part THIS is how the game starts, just imagine how much better it will become in time with patches, mods and feedback.
REDKit.
Hands down, the next Fallout 3 for modding.
Minor spoiler warning.
I have finished the game. It took me from Tuesday morning till Sunday playing about 16 hours each day but I finally did it. I’ve also never posted on Kotaku so I had to create a new account to do this. My goal here is that hopefully even if just one or two more people in the world play The Witcher 3 because of this then I’ll be satisfied, because if you are on the fence about if you will play it. You want to play it. Trust me.
This game is frankly amazing. Yes the UI and control’s can be a bit frustrating at times, but once you are used to it it becomes such an insignificant factor when compared to what else this game offers.
Let’s start with the story. Abso-f**kinglutely amazing. This is some of the best writing I’ve seen in a video game and would compete with some of the best novels too! Congratulations CD Projekt and it’s writing team, you took me on an roller coaster of an adventure. I was entranced and absorbed completely in the experience, even the secondary quests are done well. I won’t delve into details because of major spoilers but there is a scene at a fancy mansion ball with a certain side character (that should of been a main) that had a romance scene that blew me away. For the first time in all the RPG’s I’ve played (I’ve played’em all) I felt like the romance was real… That the people involved were real. I am a 25 year old male and not very much a romantic and this scene was inspiring.
Moving on from that this game also features the best father-daughter relationship ever. EVER. And to finish it off with enough twists and turns and gut wrenching moments to make any person feel like a 14 year old girl watching The Notebook on her period.
The music in The Witcher 3 is also amazing! From the EPIC battle music to the slower paced music that plays when walking through fields, towns and taverns. It’s all very engrossing and I loved every moment of it. There’s even a song from one of the secondary characters that is really moving about Geralt and Yennefer from before the games.
The upper difficulty levels provide a nice challenge to the game that has you preparing for the bigger monsters you’ll face. The game also caters to the more casual players with its easy and normal difficulties being easy so you can enjoy the story more if you prefer. Leveling is satisfying and the skill tree’s have a bit of depth to them and require some forward thinking, even then CD Projekt allow you to respect with a somewhat expensive potion.
The crafting is deep and with a lot of options for customization! My only qualm with this is the inventory system. It definitely need better filters on it.
The only things this game suffers from is clunky movement controls on both Geralt and when he is on the horse and some minor graphical bugs. But nothing game breaking. I also would have preferred not to have been forced with a main romance option. It’s very obvious that one of the characters is the main love interest and has more story to it when I would of preferred the other romance option and to delve more into that!
I don’t like giving games scores but in my opinion this game would probably be about a 9.8/10. If there is one game you MUST play this year it is definitely The Witcher 3!
Edit: Also would like to mention that when I finished this game that I had a genuine feeling of sadness that it ended. That I couldn’t see more of the relationships that had developed and flourished in the game. I have never felt this way about a game before and again I applaud CD Projekt and its work on this game. Truly inspirational.
Installed.
Started game.
DIalogue. . . skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
Walk a few paces
Dialogue. . . skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
Swing a sword
Dialogue. . . skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
Finally start?
Dialogue. . . skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
Attacked by some weird ghouls. Killed them.
Dialogue. . . skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
Picked a few plants and herbs, told I was going the wrong way.
Rode a horse
Dialogue. . . skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
Bored
Exit game
Quit.
I got the game for ‘free’ with my new graphics card.
Im pissed off because in Australia we only get Witcher free with a new Nvidia card. In other parts of the world you get Witcher and Batman free.
I want Batman.
“Buy a GeForce GTX 970M, 980M, or 960, and you’ll snag yourself a copy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt at no charge. Spring for a GTX 970 or 980, and you’ll also get the upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight.”
I’m guessing you bought the lower end card that cam with the witcher?
Where did you copy/paste that from?
I got a 970. Tried contacting Nvidia and Gigabyte about the offer. Both of them said too bad.
*edit*
I see you copy/pasted from an American site. Like I said. . . not available for Australia.
@pointzeroone
I ordered a 970 from Amazon and ended up getting both games.
I checked before ordering to see if ordering form Australia would get both games, but everyone I contacted informed me that Au was only getting the Witcher.
Note: The games weren’t the main reason I ordered from Amazon, but it was a nice bonus. I got my 970 almost $100 cheaper than if I had bought it here, MSI have a global warranty and the postage wasn’t much more than shopping in AU (+-$20).
On top of that the card arrived the same day as the GPU my GF ordered from an Ozzy store on the same day I ordered my 970 from Amazon.
Edit: To your points on the Witcher having too much dialogue: It doesn’t make it bad. It’s an RPG what did you expect?
yep its not a game its an interactive movie
Who the fuck plays an RPG and skips the dialogue to make it more like Batman? c.c
To make it like Batman? No.
I was skipping dialogue to get to some game play. You know, to see if the game is any good?
And if its an RPG to which Im suppose to listen to hours of dialogue then make it interesting. Not just two people standing in front of each other, each taking turns in speaking a long drawn out sentence in the most flat, wooden, uninspired, unemotional voice possible. And theres hours of that shit Im expected to listen to?
Maybe Im jaded?
Or maybe when I sit down to play a game I expect to be able to play a game.
The dialogue IS the game!
I would rather watch a movie with proper actors then
Gotta go with Warcroft on this one. It’s why I love the Souls games and TES/Fallout. For some reason I feel like I’m creating my own story when I play those. Gameplay is vital for me. If I want story and littel else I’ll go and read a novel – a format which will do a far better job of it.
I wanna forge my own legend and make my own stories (the games metioned above allowed me to do that) – Witcher 2 gave me the shits and I’m disinclined to go back for more…
Just one mans view – no need to flame 🙂
Insert Batman disk.
Square, square, square, square, square, square,
square, square, square, square, square, square,
Press triangle when it tells me to.
Square, square, square, square, square, square,
square, square, square, square, square, square,
“Press Y for invincibility!”
Let me guess- you only read books that have pictures in them too right?
Its everything I wanted and more from a sequel to TW2. It maintains the stellar quality of writing and storycraft from the previous games, it has created a massive, beautiful open world just waiting to be explored, has enough depth for series veterans but doesn’t overwhelm newcomers in the way that the first game in the series did.
All in all its all its a fantastic sequel and amazing game in its own right. A perfect ending to the story of one of gaming’s most underrated heroes.
Hitboxes are worse than DkS2. Geralt moves like an NHL10 player. Font size is tiny. Minimap is too large. UI is clunky an ineffectual.
Can’t track multiple quests giving need to pause and get to map/quests. Map edges do not have the quest marker when viewing the full map – been lost for a few good minutes scrolling around the huge (but mostly empty) map to find the marker. Then exit the map. Then go to a signpost. Then try to find the marker on the map again without getting lost in it’s scale before I can actually fast travel.
Inventory management is downright dreadful. Frame rate constantly drops (PS4), lighting is inconsistent, sun is up at 4am and sets at 10pm. Night is so bright it’s day.
Beard grows over time 10/10.
Seriously though, this game is more like a 7.5 or an 8. It’s good, great in parts, but not amazing. Shits all over DA:I in size and fun.
I just assume the night not being super dark was because he’s got cat eyes, and the whole thing of if the moon is out in full night time can be rather bright.
DA:I was the Bradbury of RPGs and games actually…
The game’s morality could be best summed up as “Nothing is black and white.” I completed the side quest about the Baron’s family (Return to Brookback Bog) only to find that due to my actions
in the ‘Beneath the Hilliock” quest the Baron’s wife was cursed and had to die, and not being able to get his daughter or wife back he hung himself in his own keep.I did the quest again from an earlier save, changed my decision, and the Barongets a chance to reconcile with his daughter and shows this by carrying his wife (who is mentally ill) to the ends of the earth for a cure.Both decisions result in the same changes to the Crow’s Perch, but I couldn’t help but think that one decision I make can result in a mind blowing moment 3 or so hours later. It’s got me really hooked on this game.In terms of combat, the game just briefly mentioned “Oh, red skull enemies are baaad for you. Baaaad.” Like Borderlands and Destiny, If an enemy or quest is about 6 or 7 levels higher then they belong to this bracket…but as someone mentioned earlier, dodging and Quen can really stack fights in your favour. Particularly the upgraded Alternate Sign Quen at Rank 3, as you can use it as an active shield to regenerate your HP on being hit (which is useful for walking through mushroom gas fields!) I’ve been able to take out red skull enemies by dodging and using Quen and Yrden, with some Axii in between for that Stun so I can down some potions. Speaking of which, making use of your potions can be a real lifesaver as well, such as one that activates a Quen shield when an attack takes more than 1/3 of your HP. Doing so means you can (if you really want to) slowly whittle down an enemy who is red skulled (though not all the time.)
For those who say that button mashing is too easy…if you want a button mashing RPG play Batman or (dare I say it) Shadow of Mordor. With those games it’s rather easy to block attacks as you are prompted to. In the Wither 3, you don’t get those opportunities, as you have to rely more on seeing what the enemy does (rather than letting the computer tell you.) Granted, the camera can get quite clunky here, and I’ve had those times when I’ve attacked one enemy only for the lock-on to target an enemy who is nowhere near, and therefore miss or get hit by multiple attacks. I still haven’t gotten used to deflecting arrows perfectly back at those who shoot me with them!
I looked at a recent Kotaku article about the changes in the UI since the 2013 E3 showcase. I know that Geralt is a badarse, and he wants to show you all the gear you have on, but I do agree that the screenspace dedicated to items could be expanded. It can be a pain to navigate all your items, and finding that crafting recipe is a neverending motion of scrolling your mousewheel (or pressing the D-Pad) to find the ingredients, and then when you get back into the screen you have to do it again! A UI revamp would be immensely useful, or even just being able to minimize and expand recipe types would be a boon.
As for loot…you will get lots of it. LOTS. People have suggested either dropping off everything in a convenient fast travel location, or activating the 9999 weight mod. You may have to do either, as it accumulates quickly. Unfortunately merchants pay very little for what you offer (generally 5-10% of the item’s nominal value, depending on where you sell it) so orrens can be hard to come by. By and by though, you will just accumulate money through all the quests and exploring you do.
Speaking of exploring, it’s wicked! Obviously there are the numerous question mark areas which can either be a cave, monster nest, place of power, bandit camp, abandoned area…they’re basically mini quests in themselves. It can get dull as each hidden treasure has it’s own associated quest (read the book/note/journal/whatever) but the loot makes up for it. Opening up abandoned areas will also sometimes turn it into a fast travel location. Geralt is horrible though in some movements – during a quest in a tower, I couldn’t spin/stop Geralt fast enough and he fell hurtling down to the ground and died. He fell TWO floors and DIED. In a way the game makes it that exploring should be fun, but you also need to be careful, which can be difficult when you’re running away (then again, both Geralt and Roach will stop before falling into a ravine.) Every death means a load game, and a quick save takes the same time as a normal save to load (roughly a minute on my computer.) What gives? I want to get back into the game, not watch the same cutscene about my story progress (although these are drawn and rendered quite nicely.)
In terms of graphics, a lot of people have condemned CD Red Projeckt of downgrading the graphics. I hate to say it, but the game does look lovely. Comparing it to, say, GTAV is slightly difficult as it is a different setting. You might get (and I do) get 60FPS on GTAV, but there’s so many buildings and cars, and as many people have said, RockStar took the dedicated option of making it the pinnacle masterpiece by releasing it last. In The Witcher 3 you might not get 60FPS (and I don’t) but that’s because view distance and foliage is just ridiculous, and the fact that all consoles had to play nice in terms of delivering similar graphics fidelity…not to mention that they are a smaller company than Rockstar is. Personally, I’m happy with 30-50FPS on QHD at High Settings on SLI 670s (except Hairworks, which can lower my FPS by anything from 5-10FPS.)
Some voice acting can be very jarring, particularly if you replay certain quests to hear the different lines the characters have. I know it’s hard for a multiple choice/ending RPG, but the sudden shift in tones when characters change subjects can be quite noticeable, but thankfully the voice acting is usually up to par. I particularly enjoy the fact that there are many children who have a role in the story and there’s lots of voice acting there too. That’s probably one thing I’ve found missing with games – there’s not many children involved. Possibly due to the fact you’re in a war ravaged environment, helping (or at the same time, not helping) children seems almost a given and your heart will soften (or blacken) for those who you come across.
TLDR; I’d say I’m having a fun time with the game, praising some aspects while having some minor gripes.
Just a heads up in regards to a fairly Major Bug in Act 3.
Click into the spoiler to read it. The spoiler is minor. It details a location, two secondary characters name’s and the quest name – so you know what to look out for.
The quest is called Kings Gambit. Make sure you deal with Cerys and/or Hjalmar BEFORE you make preparations for the Final Quest, / leave Skellige, otherwise you’ll get an infinite loadscreen while attempting to finish it later on in the story.on all platforms?
I’ve only heard about it on PC, not sure about consoles.
Blood and Bones here as well – Love it – changes the game completely and you are forced to pay attention in battles.
Took me what felt a century to take out the first Wild Hunt boss.. Would always rip me to shreds on the last phase.
My friend mentioned this as well but that was one of the only parts in the game that I had no issues with! If you decide to save the botchlings, killing the wraiths I died about 19 times (only had one swallow potion and kept getting cornered by multiple wraiths, got past it once I figured out the attack pattern).
With the Wild Hunt boss, I just kept rolling or dodging out of the way of his attacks, and I think he only hit me once, that one hit really hurt though.
So how important is it to have played (or at least know the story behind) the first two games? Is it OK for a completely n00b to get into it?
It’s definitely on my to-buy list, but the stories about some of the bugs etc mean I’m going to give it a few weeks in the hope they’ll get some of the issues patched out before I start.
I haven’t played the previous two games. Other than feeling that I ‘could’ know the characters better, I don’t feel lost and the story still makes sense.
The games are actually pretty self-contained. Some of the primer guides on Kotaku and Polygon do a really nice job of setting the world-building, recent events and there are a couple cartoonish animated videos which do catch-up nicely as well. I’ll hunt some down and link them when I’m off work.
I actually have The Witcher 2 on PC but never played it. Damn GOG sales…
Here we go…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiqMr0OvQog – Witcher 1 retrospective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSftIRQzYCM – Witcher 2 retrospective.
Also, the Kotaku Article on ‘what you need to know before playing Witcher 2’. Though I fear if I include that link as well it’ll be moderation time. Even two links might be pushing it.
Playing on PS4.
Issues
– fog, water and gasses plus combat make for terribad framerates but other than those scenarios the game runs quite smoothly and looks glorious.
-UI. I feel that a lot of it could be solved by having a dedicated map button, perhaps mapped to R3. The map itself could use a filter to hide discovered/searched ? locations so when I am cleaning up the map I know where I don’t need to go as some of them, most notably the guarded treasure are difficult to tell apart from complete to incomplete.
-Load times. Lordy lord they are bad, bloodborne bad. Windows ME bad.
-Horse stupidity. pathing and navigation in general. When you are not on a road, your horse is a stupid head. I don’t need him to freak out and cut left and right randomly, I want him to run in the direction he is pointing. getting caught on every little rock and pebble as Geralt when trying to move around, it is not quite as bad as Assassins Creed but it is up there.
-Crafting materials page…moving from left to right in a shop to see his wares takes a while due to the load time on the materials page and please give me a button to “mark all as read” for new items and so on.
Positives
-Everything else, game looks and plays fantastically. It has, so far as I can tell, interesting characters and stories and the investigation and research aspect is really quite cool even if it can be superficial a lot of the time.
-I am some 30+ hours played and I am still playing.
I Completely agree with your Horse and Load times. I’m almost surprised that nobody seems to have made a big deal out of the loads (on PS4 at least), when I first start a boss fight, I tend to die 2 or 3 times fairly quickly whilst I figure him out, having to wait over a minute between loads tests the patience a wee bit.
Frame rate drops don’t seem to effect the gameplay too much, but they are really noticeable in some cut scenes.
They have gone with a weird inertia as part of the movement, probably wanting to make it feel more realistic that you have to build up speed and allow slowdown time, but it’s not worked well, and moving around in small confined area’s trying to get dem loots can be pretty damn frustrating!
Still loving it though, like, quite a lot.
uuuuh you’re on the PS4, swipe down/up (can’t remember right now) on the touchpad brings up the map, long press on the right to enter inventory.
You might just be my new favourite anonymous internet voice for today
Holy Crap, if this works I love you!
I dived too deeply into pursuing the story and found myself about two levels below most of the quests I was involved in. Jeez did that griffin give me a hard time! Now I’ve taken the time to get off the beaten track in Velen and loving it. Took on the bloody werewolf one level below the recommended and got punished hard, goodbye mister werewolf, see you in ten levels.
Combat is pretty sketchy, especially against bosses (when you need precision the most). The writing and storytelling is top notch. It feels like your in a novel, fantastic. 8/10
It’s a beast of a game and ill fight anyone who disagrees !!
I’m still playing – up to level 11 now, generally clearing level-appropriate side quests before I do the main plot. I’m playing on PS4. (I also have it on PC but I don’t think my current PC is up to it…)
One thing I have to say: the tiny grey writing on a black background may look stylish in screenshots but it’s extremely irritating. Yes, it lets you fit more on the screen, but that’s why God invented scrollbars.
Voice acting is very good and the characters themselves are not cardboard-cutout quest dispensers. (Waves cheerily at Arcania.) Combat is fluid and changes in approach make a genuine difference; one boss I killed recently was a HARD hitter, but a change in approach (using a couple of bombs and an oil, plus a lot of dodging) resulted in a win after an initial dismal failure. Well, actually several dismal failures. The fact that I felt compelled to keep trying speaks well of the game.
Navigation across the map is pretty easy but I do wish there was a better indication when you stumbled across higher-level content. A level-9 ghoul looks the same as a level-30 ghoul until you get close enough to start attacking, and by that point they’ve frequently spotted you and are coming for blood. As running away is usually effective this isn’t as bad as it might be.
Fast travel only working from signposts is occasionally irritating as I’ll finish a quest and find I have to run for a couple of minutes to get to the nearest signpost. On the other hand, I hadn’t realised that your horse automatically follows the track without steering – I’ll have to make use of that. Speaking of which, your horse (Roach) is a handy addition and mounted combat actually works.
It’s not clear how you’re supposed to deal with MOBs on the open sea
One thing that happens which is common to many RPGs: You start at level 1, even though in theory you’re supposed to be a grizzled veteran. This leads to the absurd situation where your protoge, “Ciri”, in the segments where you control her, is significantly overpowered compared to Geralt. Her HP regeneration in particular would be game-breaking if her presence extended beyond her cameo backflash appearances.
I’ve seen some graphical glitches, but the game has only crashed once.
While I’ve listed quite a few complaints, they’re really nitpicks. The game is great – fluid and flexible combat, believable characters, and seemingly minor actions can have quite significant and unexpected consequences. Your presence matters. It lacks the tactical variety of Dragon Age: Inquisition – but then, I found DA:I made much less allowance for nuanced tactics than the first two games in that series. The Witcher 3 runs in the opposite direction – more options, not less.
With the possible exception of Bloodborne (which I haven’t played yet) it’s definitely the best RPG on PS4 right now. Frankly, I don’t see a better one on the horizon – even FFXV has a hard act to follow. It may well wind up being the best RPG of this generation.
I find that the only way to kill the mobs at sea is to dive into the water and crossbow them…unless you mean fighting mobs on your boat.
Use your crossbow when your under water to deal with the drowners underwater…
Level 18, nearly 19 and as someone said earlier about the variety of the quests, there are so much. In a theatre production, masquerade ball, so many things to do.
I’ll agree about the combat at times, it’s not polished enough, the spinning flashy stuff just doesn’t help when someone is charging at you, and you think you could just step sideways and cut them down.
I do like the dismemberments though. Anyone notice how you can’t actually do any noticeable physical damage to Bears?
The dead and miscarried kid was something else. WowThere are so many things to like about this game.
But my one major almost game breaking issue I have with this game, are the constant loading screens.
I can usually tolerate loading in games every now and then.
I had a c64 so patience is a must.
But with this game. I can be doing nothing but walking around, then all of a sudden it will pause and start loading.
Not because it’s loading an encounter or anything like that. For no reason.
In the middle of a conversation with an NPC. Pause then more loading.
About to climb up a ladder or stairs. Pause. Loading.
Exiting my inventory. Loading. You get the general idea.
I wouldn’t mind if it was for a couple of seconds. But at times it can range from 1 minute to nearly 4.
It really takes me out of the game.
A few times my items in my inventory screen were pixelated. Then my map disappeared while I was walking around.
At times the loading wont stop. I will be stuck on the loading screen.
I have to restart the game.
I am playing it on PS4. I have deleted and re-installed the game several times, which means re-downloading the game patch all over again. Which is a pain. But it hasn’t fixed the problem.
I really don’t know what else to do.
Uhhh, get it on PC? The only load screens PC encounters is your initial “Load into Game” and then whenever you’re fast travelling. Sucks that consoles need them.
It’s adult, it’s unforgiving, it’s huge.
It’s amazing.
I really, really like it. Best game I’ve played since GTA-V, which was the first game I played through to the very end in a long time. Not sure I will be able to put 200+ hours into Witcher 3 to say the same thing.. but it certainly has me hooked like no game has since GTA-V. Even Witcher 2 didn’t have quite the same pull as 3 does… just lovely, lovely gameplay through and through.
I’ve only just finished the prologue area (maybe 4-5 hours game time), but am loving it.
Of course the graphics, story, and world are amazing, is there any need to mention it.
The movement I have grown used to (it helps I’ve played the first 2 games a bit so I knew what to expect). You learn to control your movements in the system once you get used to it; i.e. walking up to a corpse to loot, you learn to let go of the stick a few metres in advance. It’s just like real life, imagine you are running down a fill; one does not simply stop.
What I’ve really noticed with movement is the subtle details; I walk up to person sitting at a camp site, and as I stop, Geralt lifts his foot up onto the log and leans on his knee a little; so realistic and immersive.
Also how when you walk up to steep an incline, instead of just sliding back down while in a perfectly upright position, Geralt actually braces as he slides down the slope a little.
The combat is basically the same story, after a while you just get used to it. The Witcher games have always had the twirly spinning style of combat (so again it helps I’ve played the previous games), it’s just the ‘Witcher’ style.
Also, you can time it right with attacking a charging enemy when you get the hang of it, but in saying that, not all the time. It really depends on the enemy.
Think about if a bear was charging at you full speed, even if you had the skill and reactions to swing a sword in it’s face as it charged at you, it’s momentum would probably still make it plough right through you.
Therefore, at least I’ve found, for most charging enemies you are better off doing a quick sidestep (B button, not to be confused with roll on A button) and then attacking them from behind as they recover from their attack.
This game deserves GOTY just for the Weird Witch Sex! http://gameguidefaq.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-witcher-3-pc-gameplay-first-thoughts.html
Very elaborate graphics