I know; it's been a while but the bulk of my time goes to pursuing my career as a writer so my author blog has been getting the attention. You probably noticed but I'm not one of those gamers that runs straight to the store on release day to pump out the fastest reviews that people read first. I am however a deep diver, one that will completely immerse myself in one solid title for months at a time. I set up camp and live there.
I keep telling people, I should have been a beta tester. If there is a way to break a completed game, I will find it.
First off, despite the many dated videos griping about the glitches, I ran into precious few and enjoyed tapping the Share button to record the two or three instances that entertained me. I might edit this post and post them once I crawl through my library and cut them into clips. I don't count Roach's weird pole and fence dances as a glitch. For one, I didn't use the horse much but to complete races. I haven't yet played a game where riding a horse wasn't awkward so I avoid it like the plague anyway. Things that break the 'believability' or 'mood' factor in the free roaming parts of the game are amusing to me. Namely when people or animals walk right through you in conversations even. I may have mentioned that I am never so immersed that imperfections kill an experience.
Let me shoot right out of the gate with my biggest hang-up because it's really my only complaint. The battle system and the button setups are crap. I never got used to them and often pressed one button when I meant to do something else. It wasn't intuitive to my experience in this genre. It certainly wasn't unplayable but Geralt had the tendency to react too slowly to a button press or get caught on stupid obstacles. Buttons that shared a function were often bungled in combat. I'd want to climb or jump but if your weapon is drawn in combat mode, he has no clue how to handle it. The only real solution is to set drawing weapons to manual but it's annoying all by itself remembering which sword went to which for in a pinch. When I'm also juggling the Sign wheel and healing and guzzling potions, there's no real flow because of the interruptions in function. And really that's it for the cons.
It's a beautiful game. At first, the story wasn't that gripping, but I found I warmed to it. If you haven't bought it yet, definitely get the Complete Edition. The absolute best stories and features are part of the DLC. Ive heard it was a low budget game, that it wasn't predicted to be very good, but boy, was that off. The attention to facial expressions and movement is almost flawless. Again, there are some throwaways in the animation that don't measure up to perfect, but this is some of the best animation I've seen in facial expression for sure. When Geralt screws up his face in amusement or Shani shoots him a skeptical look at his bravado, you catch yourself mimicking it because muscles actually move like that.
If you're not into subquests, skip them. You're not going to find anything innovative there, but sometimes I like the predictability of these missions. There's always some little quirk in conversation or hidden bit of knowledge or humor that makes it worth it for me.
One of the best consequence systems in a game. Your choices actually have some far reaching consequences here. As much as I love Dragon Age, Witcher 3 beat it in terms of story variability. You can choose to badger people to pay you more, but sometimes choosing virtue can yield a bigger reward later. On the flip side, sometimes your do-gooder heart just means someone else gets shit on later. Life is like that and the right thing doesn't always mean a happy ending.
I've never read the books and the game doesn't really make me want to. The themes are very familiar,creatures you've seen in fantasy before, places that exist, just with unique names slapped on them. The Witcher concept is kind of unique but not wildly unpredictable. Nevertheless, the logic holds up and the story is interesting. I like that it is dark, intelligent and emotional-- right up my alley. The twisted fairy tales theme is fun and familiar for me. I've done it a time or two myself.
Overall, it earns Game of the Year status. I think Geralt is retiring but I wouldn't mind another Witcher game, maybe shifting over to one of the nearly extinct young Cat School witchers. It would be a little too cliche to have Ciri pick up the torch, but I wouldn't hate it. She's a bit of a Mary Sue at this point but she was an excellent secondary character. I want to know more about the Cat and Manticore schools, one dying out, the other extinct. Okay, maybe the longtime fans wouldn't agree or would be happy to tell me it's already in other games, but I've learned that going retro is often not that impressive. The first Dragon Age was an eyesore after Inquisition although the second was decent. I already find it weird that Bioware is taking to making their characters increasingly more unattractive. The huge leap in graphics between games is bad enough.
Check out Witcher 3 if you haven't. I'm not going to go back for the other games, but I wouldn't hate to continue my interest in possible future entries.
E3 has at least one bit of truly exciting news ahead. Kingdom Hearts 3 is getting a release date. A lot of Dragon Age fans want more info on the fourth game, some already uneasy that Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem might sink them before we see Dragon Age to completion but let's be real: the only movement we've seen in the DA arena are announcements that there are writers at the ready. I'm not expecting to see substantial news in the next three years or a release date for the next five. It's the current climate in developing these big beautiful bastards and rushing them has never yielded anything fans weren't disappointed by. I'm patient; KH3 will appease me.
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