This is one of those games I could almost call amaze-balls, all awards it has received are well deserved. I have played Witcher 3 twice, on normal difficulty once and on hard difficulty again.

The Game

Witcher 3 is a massive open world RPG that tells the third part of the story of Geralt of Rivia, the ultimate witcher who hunts monsters for his living and has now set out to rescue a certain person. In the lore of Witcher his main source of income is solving monster problems but I found that in the game the most effective way to make money was scavenging all kinds of junk and selling it.

Story and Content

Story aspects are where Witcher 3 shines the most, it has one of the best storytelling of any RPG I have played and your choices make a difference in how the story unfolds. The main story is well crafted and paced, and even most of side quests are incredible but there is also a lot of boring content just like in pretty much every open world RPG. Best way to approach this game is to not go full 100% completionist but instead do only the interesting content, that way it never grows stale and provides around 50-100 hours (not counting DLCs) of entertainment depending on how much content you grind. I would personally recommend disabling the undiscovered locations (?-marks) in the map after the first area.

Visuals

Graphics and animations are on their own level and quite an achievement back in 2015 and even today in 2017 no game quite compares to this one in this department. The world is incredibly detailed with a lot of attention to detail, there is lots of small detail most people pay no attention on but it fills the world and makes it feel alive. The cities feel like actual cities with hundreds of NPCs walking around and to top it off they are not disconnected from the world with loading screens like usually in older RPGs such as Skyrim. Facial animations in dialogue and overall animation quality is top notch and unmatched by any other game I have played.

Combat

Combat is quite skill-based and the game can provide true challenge at least at first but once you obtain good gear and skills difficulty kind of fades off even if playing on the hardest difficulty. I havent played Dark Souls but the combat has been compared to it by other people, it is based around dodging and use of abilties, spells and potions. Using the right combination of potions and abilties against specific enemies makes fights considerably easier and studying the enemies from in-game journal plays important role especially on hard difficulty. There are also some aspects of combat I personally find annoying at times, such as stagger and knockdowns caused by enemies which disable player control but these get much less annoying once getting a hang of the combat system.

Looting and Gear

Just like other RPGs this one also has looting and gear collecting but it is quite a bit different in the sense that gear plays a rather secondary role in the game. I found that most of the items I find in the world were not really excting at all and only really the witcher gear acquired from quests was worth using in the end, this led to XP being the most interesting reward from quests and exploring the world for gear wasnt really worth it. Of course there was other things to collect like potion recipes, crafting materials etc but those were something you kind of just get along the way without paying much attention on. I would have hoped more from the game in this area, it could have definitely had more interesting looting going on.

My main gripe

Lastly I need to mention one of which I would consider possibly the biggest flaw of Witcher 3, which is the movement system. Movement is based around momentum and Geralt has weight in his movements like a real person would but in a game this creates rather clumsy controls. There is alternative movement system now in the game but even it does not entirely fix the problems, navigating through narrow doorways will still take time to get used to. Combat movement is also its own problem as when entering combat you will slow down into snails pace for some reason and cannot jump but u can dodge roll, dodge and sprint. Sprinting usually isnt wise as it consumes stamina that is also needed for use of spells, so best way to move is to spam dodges which is not at all practical and I would rather just jog like out of combat.



Still, overall I would give this title a round 10/10, a must play for everyone

This is one of those games I could almost call amaze-balls, all awards it has received are well deserved. I have played Witcher 3 twice, on normal difficulty once and on hard difficulty again. [b]The Game[/b] Witcher 3 is a massive open world RPG that tells the third part of the story of Geralt of Rivia, the ultimate witcher who hunts monsters for his living and has now set out to rescue a certain person. In the lore of Witcher his main source of income is solving monster problems but I found that in the game the most effective way to make money was scavenging all kinds of junk and selling it. [b]Story and Content[/b] Story aspects are where Witcher 3 shines the most, it has one of the best storytelling of any RPG I have played and your choices make a difference in how the story unfolds. The main story is well crafted and paced, and even most of side quests are incredible but there is also a lot of boring content just like in pretty much every open world RPG. Best way to approach this game is to not go full 100% completionist but instead do only the interesting content, that way it never grows stale and provides around 50-100 hours (not counting DLCs) of entertainment depending on how much content you grind. I would personally recommend disabling the undiscovered locations (?-marks) in the map after the first area. [b]Visuals[/b] Graphics and animations are on their own level and quite an achievement back in 2015 and even today in 2017 no game quite compares to this one in this department. The world is incredibly detailed with a lot of attention to detail, there is lots of small detail most people pay no attention on but it fills the world and makes it feel alive. The cities feel like actual cities with hundreds of NPCs walking around and to top it off they are not disconnected from the world with loading screens like usually in older RPGs such as Skyrim. Facial animations in dialogue and overall animation quality is top notch and unmatched by any other game I have played. [b]Combat[/b] Combat is quite skill-based and the game can provide true challenge at least at first but once you obtain good gear and skills difficulty kind of fades off even if playing on the hardest difficulty. I havent played Dark Souls but the combat has been compared to it by other people, it is based around dodging and use of abilties, spells and potions. Using the right combination of potions and abilties against specific enemies makes fights considerably easier and studying the enemies from in-game journal plays important role especially on hard difficulty. There are also some aspects of combat I personally find annoying at times, such as stagger and knockdowns caused by enemies which disable player control but these get much less annoying once getting a hang of the combat system. [b]Looting and Gear[/b] Just like other RPGs this one also has looting and gear collecting but it is quite a bit different in the sense that gear plays a rather secondary role in the game. I found that most of the items I find in the world were not really excting at all and only really the witcher gear acquired from quests was worth using in the end, this led to XP being the most interesting reward from quests and exploring the world for gear wasnt really worth it. Of course there was other things to collect like potion recipes, crafting materials etc but those were something you kind of just get along the way without paying much attention on. I would have hoped more from the game in this area, it could have definitely had more interesting looting going on. [b]My main gripe[/b] Lastly I need to mention one of which I would consider possibly the biggest flaw of Witcher 3, which is the movement system. Movement is based around momentum and Geralt has weight in his movements like a real person would but in a game this creates rather clumsy controls. There is alternative movement system now in the game but even it does not entirely fix the problems, navigating through narrow doorways will still take time to get used to. Combat movement is also its own problem as when entering combat you will slow down into snails pace for some reason and cannot jump but u can dodge roll, dodge and sprint. Sprinting usually isnt wise as it consumes stamina that is also needed for use of spells, so best way to move is to spam dodges which is not at all practical and I would rather just jog like out of combat. [H1]Verdict[/H1] Still, overall I would give this title a round 10/10, a must play for everyone