Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I’m a bit late on my review, as the game was released over 2 months ago, but I prefer to spend quality time playing a game before I send out a review. I meant to post my review after around 50 hours of gaming. I’m currently 250(!) hours in and just now getting around to it. My free time has been so consumed with actually playing the game that I haven’t taken the time to do anything else. That should tell you what you need to know about this game. If it doesn’t, then this should – GO BUY THIS GAME RIGHT NOW!I am a Bethesda fanboy so I hate comparing games to the Elder Scrolls series in terms of how another game stacks up against it. So I will say this, Witcher 3 is by far the best third person RPG I have ever played. CD Projekt Red knocks it out of the park with this game. In an age where games are pushed out half completed, it is refreshing to have a game developer take their time and deliver a home run product from the moment you open the wrapper. Do you remember what it was like to open a game case and have it contain more than just the game itself? You may have to think back several years. That’s why I was shocked when I opened the case and, along with the game itself, it contained a thick manual, a map of the game world, a thank you from CD Projekt Red, and a few other goodies. It took me back to my younger days in a good, nostalgic kind of way.Before I begin my in-depth review, I feel I should state my Witcher series background as a point of reference. I never played Witcher 1 (although I read a quick summary before I began W3). I did play Witcher 2 but, to be quite honest, I never really got that into it. So my review comes as someone who isn’t a biased fanboy, but someone who was actually looking for ways to not like it. And so we begin…Combat: 9/10I’ve read some reviews where the combat was given a poor score as an ‘X’ and ‘Y’ button masher. This couldn’t be farther from the truth, in my opinion. You have your two basic light and heavy attacks, sure, but there is so much else that goes into the combat. Each monster in the game has a unique style of fighting and you must change your fighting style accordingly. Some monsters have quick attacks so it is best to fast attack them because if you try to heavy attack they will hit you before you swing and cancel your attack. Some creatures are slower to attack so you can afford that extra time to hit them with a heavy attack and deal more damage. You can block (some) attacks with a parry. Others you have to backstep or roll away from. With dozens of enemies comes dozens of combat strategies.I haven’t even began to talk about using signs (magic abilities) and preparing for combat with blade oils and potions. Monsters each have weaknesses to certain oils and signs, which are fortunately kept in a Beastiary glossary on the menu screen in case you forget (which is easy to do since there are dozens of unique monsters). If you’re playing on easier difficulties, preparing before entering combat isn’t as important. But if you’re playing on one of the harder difficulties, preparing before battle becomes vital. There are blade oils for each species of monster that you can apply to your weapons that increase damage. Oh yeah, did I mention that there are about a dozen unique bombs and a crossbow at your disposal as well?Movement: 7/10The movement is weird to get used to at first because Geralt doesn’t react immediately after giving him a command. You know, like a real person. Once you get used to it it’s not so bad and I actually prefer it now. With the v1.07 patch, a more reactive movement option was added as an alternative that you can switch to in the Options menu. I used it for about 10 minutes and had to switch back because it didn’t seem as real. The only time when I don’t like the less reactive movement is when I’m in a confined space.The underwater swimming movement was horrid at first but a patch seems to have corrected it some. It’s still not perfect, but it’s better than it was. It’s easy to get caught swimming in circles underwater and almost drowning.Plot/Quests: 10/10It’s been a LONG time since I’ve been as immersed into a game’s story as I have with W3. There are some recurring characters from previous games, so I recommend reading the Wikipedia plot summary if you haven’t played them, but it is not make-or-break to enjoy this game. Apart from the main quest, there are countless side quests. It’s such a great feeling to open the quest log and see 20-30 quests sitting in there. I won’t divulge too much information because it’s hard to do so without giving away spoilers. But there are certain quests that will leave you emotionally drained. I got so invested and emotionally attached to some quests and characters that I was left empty when it was done, and not all of them have happy endings. That is the mark of truly great storytelling. The game also has great replayability because there are 36 different endings that your actions throughout the game determine. I’m currently 100 hours into my second playthrough and it’s like I’m playing the game for the first time because I’m, for the most part, taking different routes on quests that will change the ending.Exploration: 9/10The W3 world is enormous! Easily the most expansive world I’ve ever experienced. On their Wikipedia page, it’s described as 30 times larger than previous Witcher games and 20% larger than Skyrim. That should give you a scale to realize how large this world is. I’ve played Dragon Age: Inquisition which is possibly close to the size of the W3 world (hard to compare since DA:I was several separate regions), but in Inquisition it annoyed me at how large the world was. By the end of the game I was so sick of exploring and hated it when I looked at the world map and realized I still had 3 or 4 more regions to explore. This never happened in W3. There are so many villages, caves, camps, monster nests, and many other things to explore. Despite that, I never felt that it became redundant. I had just as much fun clearing the last cave as I did the first one. The only reason I took 1 star off is because there isn’t an abundant amount of diversity of the landscapes. Of the two main areas, one is a snowy, mountainous region and the other is a sprawling grassland with forests and swamps.Difficulty: ?/10Obviously, difficulty is a hard topic to review because there are 4 different difficulty settings and everyone prefers something different. On my first playthrough I played on the second easiest difficulty. The early parts of the game are tough as you get used to the controls, learn what combat strategy to use against different monsters and people, and as you don’t have many upgraded abilities. Once you get into the groove of things and start upgrading your character, weapons, and armor, it becomes quite easy, in my opinion. On my current playthrough, I’m playing on the hardest difficulty and it’s made the game even more fun. The early game is extremely tough, especially since meditating (in game waiting) doesn’t replenish lost health (which it does in the easier difficulties). But once you get start building your character, it becomes easier and less frustrating while still maintaining enough difficulty to keep combat interesting. On the easier difficulty by mid-game I found myself consistently fighting monsters 10+ levels above me, simply because I could. On the hardest difficulty I would get my face stomped in if I did that. It keeps the combat exciting. If I were to give a suggestion, I would recommend playing on the second hardest difficulty on your first playthrough.RPG Aspects (Character leveling, abilities, crafting, etc.): 10/10Trust me, there are enough RPG elements to keep you interested for the long haul. What I loved about the character leveling is when you reach a certain level (not sure which), the experience needed to get Geralt to the next level is capped at 2000 XP points. So instead of leveling up quickly at the beginning of the game and grinding for a bazillion XP points to increase one level in the later game, it allows you to continue leveling up throughout the game. We all know that slight feeling of excitement when you hit a new character level. This allows for you to keep experiencing that throughout the entire game. There are three main areas to spend your ability points: combat, signs, and alchemy. Each area has 5 sub-areas to spend points on. For example, in the combat tree you can spend points on upgrading fast attack, heavy attack, your crossbow, adrenaline points, and combat defense. You won’t have enough ability points to upgrade them all, which helps the replayability factor. In my first playthrough I wielded light armor and primarily used fast attacks (as light armor offers benefits to fast attack). In my current playthrough I am wielding heavy armor and primarily using heavy attacks (heavy armor benefits heavy attacks). It lets you play the game in an entirely different way. As far as crafting, I don’t even want to venture a guess on how many armor, weapon, bomb, oil, and potion recipes there are. Hundreds upon hundreds. Heck, you can even craft the ingredients that you need to craft the items. You’ll just have to take my word for it that you won’t be disappointed in a lack of crafting.***Overall: 10/10In an age where game developers are pushing out broken content once a year to maximize revenue, it’s refreshing and I appreciate that CD Projekt Red took the time and spent the money to develop a game that is truly one of the best ever released. If you don’t believe me, Google “Witcher 3 reviews” and check out the scores that is was given from gaming websites that criticize games to their bone. In fact, Gamestop awarded Witcher 3 a perfect score, making it one of 9 games EVER to receive that honor. I can’t gush enough about this game. Years from now I will look back on this game as one of the select few to make my personal list of “favorite games ever.” CD Projekt Red has gained another follower and I will most certainly be anxiously their next release. Do yourself a favor and pick up your copy as soon as possible.

Welcome to one of the most complete role-playing open worlds you have ever entered. In "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt," even the most seemingly insignificant characters have the most personal of stories, and every character in the Northern Kingdoms seems to come to life.Developer CD Projekt Red crafts one of the finest open-world role-playing games of this console generation in Wild Hunt, and it's all about the way the world comes to life. Few role-players have this much personality and this many truly 3-D characters, all of whom help weave the tapestry that is these Northern Kingdoms. This is a game that will exact emotion from the gamer, a title that will make you feel and doubt and wonder the longer and deeper you play.You reprise the role of Geralt of Rivia, the star of the previous Witcher games and a grizzled, 3-D hero in his own right. Early on, he's chasing a long lost love, working to find the young child he once nurtured (the titular Ciri), and trying to move on from the events of "The Witcher 2," all at once.He's also a witcher, a member of a rare, genetically enhanced race capable of monster-slaying in this wild world. With that come tinges of mistrust and fear from some you meet. CD Projekt Red never overdoes this effect, though, leaving only slight hints of public fear, never reaching comic-book extremes.There is a great deal of gray in "Wild Hunt," and Geralt often gets to make the call. The decisions are both large and small (Call out the general's motives? Let that woman die?), and you feel as if your moves do shape the future of this world.The Witcher 3 gets this art of subtlety, something that video games are gradually becoming more proficient in in 2015, and it's evident throughout the game, particularly in the women that Geralt pursues.Few games carefully straddle the line between female sexuality and the outcry for feminine toughness in 2015 better than "The Witcher 3."Ciri is as powerful as anyone, and when you take control of her during the game you swiftly discover that. Yennefer, Geralt's romantic love interest and the pursuit that drives the earliest portions of this game, is a powerful sorceress, well capable of holding her own in battle, and no, an early nude scene, tastefully done, takes nothing away from that.Yes, there is occasional nudity in "The Witcher 3," but it rarely feels intrusive. Like much of "Wild Hunt," it comes in a "Game of Thrones" sort of way, just enough to remind you you're playing a mature title, never enough to overshadow the overall experience.CD Projekt Red does everything possible to further enhance its world with beautiful art design and smart technical decisions.Saying "The Witcher 3" simply "looks good" is a near insult to the effort that's gone into this game, the day-night cycles, the way the wind blows against the trees and the grass, the detail on Geralt's garb.Play "Wild Hunt" long enough, and you'll find yourself stopping randomly to take in the beautiful scenery, to appreciate the detail that's gone into the grass, or to stare out into the distance after scaling a mountain. And despite so many characters, nearly everyone you meet has visual personality as well, great care put into scars and wrinkles and moles and body types to generate a vastly unique populace. Even the cut scenes exhibit great care, with shifting camera angles and closeups that emphasize certain characters and expressions.Gameplay, meanwhile, does its best to stay out of the way, functional without any flourishes that take your focus off the story. It's the little things that are the most terrific. Multi-step boss battles let you feel the enormity of massive beasts but never feel frustration. One-button horseback riding without thumbstick navigation along paths lets you ponder the story as you travel a vast kingdom, much as you might do on a car trip.There are crafting and alchemy to delve into as well, each deep but never overdone. The alchemy itself will have you collecting items and leaves, much as many other games you've played, but it never feels rote, not with such a vast array of items and potions to be crafted.Only the combat slips. A sore spot in "The Witcher 2," it's been revamped and made more console-friendly in "Wild Hunt." CD Projekt Red manages to bring combat more in line with today's action games, with parries and a variety of strikes, but the controls can occasionally feel sluggish. Geralt also doesn't move and turn with the fluidity you'd find in, say, "Batman: Arkham City," and the imprecision can feel annoying.So too can the all-too-frequent bugs. As beautiful as "The Witcher 3" may look, graphical errors still abound, with disappearing trees or the occasional moment when Geralt walks through an object. There are unpolished moments, too, especially when Geralt clambers onto a craggy rock face yet appears to be standing on perfectly level ground. You can't fault CD Projekt Red too much because these moments are common in all massive open-worlders, but they're more noticeable here, in large part because of the elegance and detail that permeats so much of the rest of this game. The end result is a terrific role-playing game that any fan of "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" will love. "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" falls just short of perfection because of those nagging little issues. But if you've been looking for your next-generation "Skyrim," you've found it right here.

I think the game is amazing. You will have enough to keep you busy for many hours. One warning for those of us that do not possess the reflexes of a fifteen or twenty five year old, you will find the game very frustrating. I am 69 and was excited to get a game I can play on my Xbox one. But even on easy mode the first area you end up in is basically a breeze, but when you get to the next area of villages you will notice the big enemies the ones that you can get good loot from, are a real challenge to kill unless you possess the reflexes of a 15 or 25 year old. As I said I believe this is a fantastic game, and I am sure there are some older people out there that can play the game and enjoy it. Let’s face the facts these games now are designed for the biggest money audience and that is kids. I have played Assassins creed black flag, Far cry 4, many time over, and can do very well at it even though I don’t really like those kinds of games. I personally like RPG like Fallout 3, Fallout new vagus, Skyrim, kingdoms of amalu and the like. I have played those games through 15 or 20 times each and of course had to put up with the constant overheating with Xbox 360. I was really hoping the next gen gamed wouldn’t leave me behind because I wanted to play the type of games I prefer without over heating consoles. It looks like us older gamers are being left out of the equation on many of the so called next gen games. I am really hoping someday the gaming industry will have more game like the ones I can play for many hours and enjoy them very much. I am not talking about remaking old games for Xbox one, I want games created for xbox one like the ones I enjoy. Now most of the games seem to be geared not only to a young audience but they are incorporating multiplayer aspects into most all the games . Personally I don’t find it fun to play a game when there are literally hundreds of other player running this way and that all around you, and for me that takes the fun of playing because it can be so distracting trying to focus on the game while all this activity is going on around you that has nothing to do with you. You are no longer the hero of the game you are just one of a huge bunch of players. Just my opinion.

I own both a PS4 and an XBOX ONE. Of every title released for either concole, the Witcher 3 is by far the best one I've played. I'm a big fan of RPG style games, and I'd put hours and hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition prior to picking up Witcher 3. While I very much enjoyed DA:I, I decided to pop in the Witcher to see how it was. I haven't stopped playing it since. I tend to get bored with games - I have sort of a video game ADD. I typically play a game for a few hours, get bored of it, play something else and eventually come back to it. Nothing has drawn me away from the Witcher 3. I'm only about 15 hours in, and I couldn't be more entertained.I played through the Witcher 2: Assissin of Kings and really enjoyed that game despite it's flaws. Witcher 2's combat was a little complicated at times, particularly when casting spells. Witcher 3 improves on this completely. Spells are now a simple press of a button. Combat is smooth and is more than just hack and slash. You must parry (reposte), dodge, use spells and in some cases oils to be successful. It's not overly difficult, it just requires a touch of skill that is easily learned after a couple of fights. The looting is great - you can loot almost anything, from a corpse to a bag of grain in some hut. The open world is HUGE. It really seems like it's Skyrim times two. There are plenty of main and side quests to keep you busy - and they generally have substance. Not just a bunch of fetch missions. The story line is very interesting the voice acting is first rate. The graphics are what you'd expect from a next gen game (I have this game for XBOX ONE).PROS: - Excellent story - Great voice acting - Tons of content; lots of missions - Good, fun combat - Lots of enemy variety - Good graphicsCONS - Over the first few days of playing the game, I did encounter a few glitches, such as a failure to load a saved game that forced me to completely reboot the system to make it work. However, a patch has since been released that seems to have fixed the glitches I had experienced. So far, so good.Overall, I can't recommend this game enough. In my opinion, this is $60.00 well spent.

In an age of video gaming that is ridden with unfinished products, or pretty much clones of past releases, there are a few sparkling gems that stand out. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of those gems.Bare with me while I explain a little; Im not ashamed to say that I've never played a past Witcher game, or any other cd project red title that I can think of. So of course I was a little skeptical at first, exspecially after getting my hopes up for other releases. *cough* Destiny *cough* But right outa the box, this game impressed me. (And yes, I bought a physical copy. Can't help the fact that I have crappy Internet where I live.) it comes with a thank you letter, and a promise of free dlc!!! Coming from a market which is saturated with downloadable content that cots the same as the game, this was a breath of fresh air.But what's to say about this game that hasn't already been said? HUGE open world, extreme player choices that change the whole game, and just the overall length. Not to mention intriguing story. As I said, I've never played a previous Witcher title. I felt kinda lost at the beginning, but the game does a very good job of explaining itself. I got to a part that I thought would be the end of the game, seeing as I played it for days by that point (surprise, wasn't the end), but it just continued to surprise me. Almost Reminds me of red dead redemption but your choices actually matter. Even the little things make a huge difference way on down the line.Almost done, just wanna talk about side quests. Most games, even skyrim in some cases had an issue with this, side quests can feel meaningless and seem to have no effect on the work around you. Not so with the Wild Hunt. Like I said before, most of them can have a huge impact later down the line. Don't even get me started on how many hours I wasted collecting the Gwent Cards. Probably the most fun mini game to date.That's all folks! Like so many others, I give this game a 10/10. I was blown away, and very pleased with my purchase. If you are deciding if you should get this game or not, I would suggest that you do. Totally worth the money!