Well over a hundred hours of content. Incredible world-building, compelling story, great characters, deep gameplay mechanics, fantastic voice acting, amazingly detailed world design and just overall super immersive, everything you could ever want from a RPG experience and then some. It's no wonder the game is heralded as one of the best of all time, it's certainly one of my favorites.

P.S. Gwent is one of the most fun and addictive mini-games in an RPG since Blitzball, you can easily spend hours just playing it alone.

Nunca é tarde para apreciar e falar sobre um dos melhores jogos já feitos de todos os tempos. The Witcher 3 é simplesmente incrível em todos os aspectos! História e imersão absurdos, gráficos nem se fala, personagens e missões memoráveis, inclusive até missões secundárias têm cenas, diálogos e mecânicas próprias, o que aumenta ainda mais o grau de imersão.

A história de Geralt de Rívia, que perde o protagonismo diversas vezes para Cirilla Fiona, é uma das melhores tramas que eu já vi ser produzida em jogos eletrônicos, por ser incrivelmente densa e abrangente. Vai desde ficção, criaturas mágicas etc, até temas reais e até mesmo delicados, como preconceito, política e valores morais. Constitui uma boa sequência (embora não oficial) para os livros de Andrzej Sapkowski. Como um bom fã de RPG, esse certamente marcou a minha vida.

Únicos "problemas" (facilmente ignoráveis) são alguns aspectos da movimentação e do combate, mas ainda assim estes são muito bons e tais problemas não prejudicam a experiência geral do jogo!

I absolutely HATE myself for not playing The Witcher 3 sooner, what have I been doing with my life missing out on this masterpiece!

I’ll be honest I really wasn’t enjoying this game at first. I wasn’t all into the story for the first 20 hours or so and I didn’t like the combat aspect as the controls felt off to me but after practicing more and more I got used to it and had a great time, still had moments where the combat was off to me. Other than that combat was fun and dynamic and had some of the most memorable fights I’ve ever had playing a video game. Had a great time experimenting with the signs you can use and the crossbow you can shoot. Everything from fighting formidable opponents to fighting a diverse amount of monsters really got my blood pumping for more. Something else I didn’t like was having to have specific items in order to make progress in secondary quests or in Witcher Contracts. The reason I didn’t like is because I just didn’t want to stop what I was doing to go out into the world to get all the items I need to make a bomb, potion or oil which was crucial to defeat some monsters. And the world is massive! I honestly took my time to a certain degree while trying to get through the story as soon as I could and still ended up taking 100 hours to finish the game and even at that I barely even scratched the surface of what I can discover and do in the world which did feel overwhelmingly stressful sometimes but I simply told myself I don’t need to do everything to love this game but I do wish I had more time to see it all for the sake of my love for The Witcher 3. For an RPG, this one is definitely immersive as hell, this game will treat you as a smart person but then again the outcomes may not always be in your favor. Some choices happen right away and some just randomly happen out of nowhere MANY hours later. And let me say this game is absolutely gorgeous. The world tells a story within itself and I love the dark fantasy setting for this game. The graphics look great and it’s visually beautiful as there’s many towns, villages, cities, caves, ruins, dungeons etc, to see and they all never feel boring or the same with the variety of detail they all have and had a damn good time exploring this world on the back of Roach which Skillige being my favorite part of the game to explore. And the music just compliments all of that with ambient music that fits the vibe or ominous music that definitely gives you the feeling something dark or disturbing is going to happen and I loved it A LOT.

Story was way better than I thought! As mentioned before I wasn’t all that interested in the story as I found it pretty boring for the first 20 hours or so. As I did more secondary quests I loved the story for all of them as I felt like my time was never wasted. There’s so many characters that may just seem like they don’t matter but they really can have an impact on you and just never got bored of meeting new characters even if didn’t like them and wanted them dead. I loved Ciri and her journey, thought she was amazing character that can definitely handle herself, loved the Baron even if he did twisted things, loved Yennefer even if she was toxic and bossy sometimes, I REALLY love Triss with her easy going attitude and there’s many more characters that I loved and had a special connection with Geralt. I love his serious and emotionless character and while being widely hated by many people since they believe Witchers to be heartless which isn’t true since they can feel love, pain and sadness. Other than that, the main story was amazing, had climactic moments that felt like I was nearing the end of the game when I actually wasn’t and that’s not to mention the secondary quests and Witcher Contracts that all had great storytelling as well.

CDPR definitely outdid themselves with this incredible game! I personally wouldn’t say this is my favorite video game of all time since I’m not the biggest fan of the setting, had a love hate relationship with the combat and still don’t like how I had to stop doing in some secondary quests or Witcher Contracts to have what I need to make progress as all of that did stress me out. But I can definitely say for sure this is my favorite RPG of all time with how I felt immersed with this world of The Witcher 3.

So The famous Witcher 3... The game that did it all! The game that have the best gameplay, best atmosphere, best story, best characters, best side quests, best side content! Best at everything it does!!

If so, then why I left disappointed?

Overbloated World
So, this time Witcher goes full open world!... So how is it then...? It was boring. Too boring in fact. Why? Because world feels like big for the sake of it. Game world feels empty, only important places are just the settlements and it's just the %5 part of the map. I understand that they want to varied up the world with seperating to 4 maps and adding how many places to visit as they can. But the problem is it's designed to look good, not functional. What I mean is, the most you do in the maps are uncovering the question marks beside main and side quests and they are ubisoft quality at best. Copy paste enemy camps or monster camps or boring loot chests everyhere. After I realized that, open word lost all of it's magic for me. Only thing I did after that is, go to the another fast travel point and use it to arrive to another quest location. That's it. Neat thing is, some of the places doesn't have enough fast travel points. So you know what that means? More horse riding of course. It would be bearable maybe if the horse riding did work but it doesn't.. this game's movement physics and horse riding sucks literally. You and horse keep stuck at smallest peeble or wood, physics takes precedemment over input, so if it's a slope and you start sliding, say goodbye to your controller because it will refuse to listen you, horse refuse to do listen your input as well when it's near a wall or fence and makes tight places infuriating. Also depending on the location you are, jump button changes it's mind and does it's own thing, for example if you are near the sea, it's always does the dive move, or if you are near a wall, it decides to climb on it even if you didn't intend to and animation lock you depending on how long the wall is etc. Strange thing is, people like to dunk on red dead 2 but at least it's horse riding works (also world feels more alive with the constant random events it throws at you), but still acts like witcher 3 is the masterpiece??? If you can say rdr2 have this problem, I am sorry but witcher 3 have as well. Only thing I can say good about the world is, there is optional caves to fight a strong monster then collect it's loot. At least it felt a bit more handcrafted then rest of the side activities. Other good thing is Novigrad city is feels handcrafted with how full of content it is compared to the rest of the settlements. But even with that, I couldn't shake off the boredom with the world.

Badly paced Main Story
Main story is all about Ciri, where is Ciri? What happend to Ciri? How Ciri disappeared etc.
And it's boring for me as well. Why? Because story feels like it doesn't progress until the last quarter of the game.
You go into a place, ask Ciri, find someone knowledgeable, that person shows you previous location last Ciri showed, you investigate the place, ask the people that happened to see her, watch a flashback of it, then with the flashback information, you learn about an another place where Ciri can be. Repeat this 4 damn times. Then you come to the last quarter of the game, game decides to finally progress the story. In the last quarter game becomes more interesting yes, but also feels rushed as well. What I mean is, there is a lot of cool moments but the big "Threat" of this game feels undercooked. He is poorly explained and just does things because he is the cliche, I want power kind of bad guy. I know for a fact that he acts the same in the books as well, but that doesn't mean game couldn't add on his own depth to him. But unfortunately it didn't, because of this, the "confrontation" part of it feels underwhelming. At least Geralt's friends feels pretty fleshed out so emotional moments still hit you but unfortunately pacing issues and boring cliche villains makes it the main story a meh for me.

Gameplay
It's miles better than Witcher 2, because this time it works... but that's all I can say... it works. But it's not enough to carry an 80 hour game for me. It's an "rpg" but doesn't have enough variety in it for some reason. The most you can do is, get a more flashy version of your magic spells, other than that most of things are just more numbers, that's it. Also I said it's better than witcher 2 but that's not a big compliment, combat still feels doesn't flow that well, because animations are too long, you still don't feel like you are in control entirely, like I would go as far as to say this game just loooooves to eat your inputs and that's just bad. Also Enemies are not interesting either, there is giant enemy type, ghost enemy type, flying enemy type, fast jumping type, 4 legged dog like type and that's it. Their numbers can look big but when the animations look the same but only with a different skin, it gets boring as well. So what that's result of this? Repetitive game. You feel like doing the same attacks to the same enemies again and again. There is not enough variation for anything for this long of a game unfortunately. It gets boring.

Side Content
I already talked about the side content a bit on the world part. Enemy camps, monster camps, Treasure hunts, monster caves, side quests, and also free skill giving statues to find and famous gwent card game as well. The most interesting part of them is side quests of course and some of the monster caves. Of course like all the other previous witcher games, this game have good sidequests as well. There is cliche kill that, kill this ones, also there is full of twist and depthful ones as well. Some of them is even more interesing than the entire main story for me and that's pretty nice. But for some reason people act like this was special to witcher 3? That was same for the previous games as well, even in witcher 1, there was a lot of sidequests that explore characters backstories, shows cruel part of the world, gives you desicion to shape someones future as well. So I didn't understand when people said this is what makes Witcher 3 special. Yeah it's good. Also gwent card game is pretty fun as well. But like I said in the world part unfortunately most of the content is copy paste enemy camps or boring treasure hunts. So I can't say it's a full slam dunk for it's favor.

Glitches
I thought, with the next gen update, I was gonna get the best witcher 3 experience... I didn't get that unfortunately. There is still a lot of glitches. The ones that I come across is, when riding horse with full speed and jumping from it near a locked door, I somehow get glitched and teleported past the door. Some "locked" doors don't have colitions and you can walk past them for some reason (especially Whoreson Junior's hideout for some reason have a lot of them), flying enemies or charging enemies keep stuck inside walls when they attack, horse keeps glitches it's legs when you try to progress through a downward slope and other shit I forgot.
But one of them was really anoyying and that was a side quest not counted glitch. For some reason, in one of the treasure hunt side quest, after I found the chest, opened it and collect everything, it didn't count but also removed the chest as well... Do you know what I had to do? Load a previous save... imagine my frustration.... I was pissed off! Not suprising to see Cyberpunk and it's glitches now actually. Especially if this is the "complete experience"

So yeah, I did not have much fun with this game, maybe if it had better pacing I would say this is a better Witcher 1 game, but unfortunately all the padding with overbloating it's content doesn't vibe for me. For this reason I give it 3/5. It's a meh for me. I didn't saw the masterpiece of the game everybody talked about unfortunately

When I first started The Witcher 3 I really didn't like it. I don't think the first few hours were particularly fun or interesting. Now that I've finished it, I find myself thinking about it all the time.

The thing about The Witcher 3 is that it's often hailed as one of the greatest open-world RPGs of all time, and as an open-world game I think that's a huge overstatement. It's GORGEOUS to look at at all times, even years after its release, don't get me wrong, but its open world is mostly full of bandit camps, places of power (which are basically a kind of upgrade station) and a whole bunch of other stuff that's been largely copy and pasted. There is some interesting variation to be found (this isn't a Bethesda or Ubisoft open-world game) and you'll stumble upon a few things that break the mould, but it's not a shade on a game like Breath of the Wild in this regard.

As an RPG though, fuck yeah. This game really challenged my perception of what an RPG should be. I'd always believed that a good RPG should give you some say over your backstory and should give you a meaningful degree of customisation, but Geralt is Geralt - with an already fleshed-out backstory from novels and previous games and all you can change about him per say is his haircut and armour. Still, as Geralt, you get to make so many fascinating decisions. None that would ever be out of character for him, but ones that are still very morally grey and constantly complex. This isn't a "do you kill the innocent civilian or do you not kill the innocent civilian" kinda game, not even once.

The role you're playing is Geralt, and that's fine, the fact that such a thing is pulled off without ever feeling the character's identity is being compromised is very impressive, and it was playing this game and embodying this character that made me broaden my notion of what an RPG could and maybe even should be. People often point to the Bloody Baron questline as the one that sold them on the game's writing and dilemmas and that's a great one for sure - but for me, the "Ladies Of The Wood" questline and all the chin-scratching decisions it was forcing me to make are what made me realise that I was really quite liking this game after all.

Shortly after, I find myself playing for hours every day. Rowing myself to a tower on a secluded isle in the middle of a giant lake, solving the mystery of a werewolf in the bottom of a hut in the woods, entering Novigrad for the first time...The game as an open-world one might not be amazing mechanically, but the world itself is still amazing, and I think that's an important distinction that most don't make.

The Witcher 3 is gorgeous, so many vast and sprawling landscapes will lay themselves out before you as one of the best videogame soundtracks of the last 10 years will completely ensnare you in its world. Exploration isn't as rewarding as it could be, combat is easily exploitable, but there are very few games written with this much maturity, intrigue and competency in worldbuilding out there today. You can tell that these games are based on novels, because they often feel like they were written by a true writer. Even when the base game's villains underwhelm, CDProjektRed outdo themselves with an original character in the DLC "Hearts of Stone" that I think might be the best antagonist in any videogame ever. Note how I say "antagonist", not "villain". And if the base game somehow wasn't beautiful enough for you, wait until "Blood and Wine" comes along to melt your fucking eyeballs.

Do yourself a favour and go in unspoiled, and don't let the first few hours of this game colour your experience too much. Moreso than a game, it's exactly that - an experience, cliche as it may be to say at such a point. No game with decisions and characters as rich as this could ever be anything but.

I don't dislike The Witcher 3, I just didn't really click with the world in the same way many others did and consider the narrative to be one of the least important factors in getting me into a game, so all that I had left was a relatively straightforward open world RPG with a clunky combat system.

I've said I'm going to give it another punt when the next-gen update patch drops because, unlike a lot of games that I bin off before I finish it, I can SEE there's something in here that I like - it just didn't grip me and left me feeling that this was just a less creative Elder Scrolls game with tits in it.

I gave it a 6 at first, but I remembered that you can pay a DLC to have the women (except for Ciri) in a more skimpy outfit. And I installed like 20 mods improving the game and making it more fluid, so…yeah. Maybe my rating would be lower without those.

Also, the treatment of women in this game is kinda weird. Nearly every girl character is over-sexualized. Triss casually gets away with r*ping Gerald, and you can cheat countless times without repercussions. Except for that DLC's le funny xd ending. Cheating is one of the main plots of the first DLC, too.

The gameplay, although flawed, didn't bother me that much, but it did feel too easy. Especially at the end game, in the highest difficulty and with a mod that made it even more difficult.

Story is okay, side stuff is actually more interesting than the main campaign, which feels rushed at points. The last DLC's campaign is a huge improvement, though.

★★½ – Average ✅

Gwent > Main game

I still enjoyed my 40 or so hours with Witcher 3 (since I wouldn't have gone through all that otherwise), but I heavily disagree with the massive amount of praise the game received. It has its strengths, sure, but some other parts of the game feel so uneven or underdeveloped.

In the spirit of fairness, I'll start with the good stuff. Chief among them is the presentation. To think this game out 9 years ago and looks like a game that would come out now is baffling. Texture detail is top-notch, environments are beautiful, and those skyboxes are breathtaking. Also a big fan of some of the music, even as someone who doesn't typically love its genre.

The side quests are also in a league of their own and deserve immense praise. Not every side quest is super in-depth, but the vast majority have the quality of a main quest only without the longer storylines (excluding some). It's astounding how some of the weaker side quests even have the writing of some of the best main quests in other games.

However, I can't quite say the same about the main quests. I don't think it's quite as much of a fault of the story itself which is well-written, but rather the way the game is paced. The first 20 hours are an absolute slog as the game tries to set up its world, characters, and setting but often finds itself ignoring the main plot to do so. There are some smaller story elements revealed, but they take a backseat to tell smaller stories in two of the game's major regions. These have some impact on the later parts of the story, but not enough to justify the time investment. The second act of the game is probably the strongest by far, while the third act often feels like this weird mix of an epilogue and an ending that just didn't work for me.

However, what trumps that for me is the rather piss-poor combat. It's a melee system with a very restricted moveset (don't think I got another move until I was about two thirds of the way through) meaning that one battle doesn't change much if at all from the next. I can count the amount of times on one hand that I was challenged by a fight in the game, and I was playing on the second highest difficulty.

This primarily stems from the most effective tactic, being to use Quen, then alternate between fast attacking and dodging. It's very rare you don't win a fight doing this, and you can even get multiple fast attacks in before dodging if you understand the fight. Even with that however, it's still grossly repetitive. It angered me at first, though after the first while, I got it to where I was simply bored and wanted to move onto the next story beat.

I'm still happy about the time I put into this game despite how much I would've disagreed with that at around 10 hours in, but it's hard for me to ignore a lot of the game's faults. I'll likely still check out Blood and Wine + Hearts of Stone eventually, but that'll likely be pretty far down the priority list.

Me faltam palavras para resumir a experiência incrível que The Witcher 3 é, me surpreendeu demais, o universo do jogo é algo muito bem criado e aproveitado, esse jogo é simplesmente uma aula de um verdadeiro RPG, joguei na dificuldade marcha da morte, o que tornou o combate que não é de um ritmo agradável, numa espécie de soulslike, meu gênero favorito, as quedas de FPS por ter jogado no switch não incomodaram e a experiência como um todo foi fantástica, história extremamente boa, side quests muito bem elaboradas, o sistema de criação do jogo é muito bom e o fator RPG de definir finais de personagens específicos é incrível, ainda jogarei as DLCS sem dúvidas, ao lado de Elden Ring, eu diria que esse jogo é o melhor RPG que já joguei.

Review in progress:
Some of the best writing and storytelling I've experienced in a game. I felt compelled to do every side quest because they all had intestering stories to tell. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself has its shortcomings. The combat feels stiff compared to other action games like Dark Souls. The frequent "detective" segments don't require any actual thinking and feel like a missed opportunity. There isn't enough incentive to explore the world outside of quests. Despite these flaws, I still had a really good time.

If you are in the video game sphere at all you have heard about The Witcher 3. I don’t care if the only game you’ve ever played is Super Mario 64 remaster for the Nintendo DS, someone somewhere at some time has demanded you play The Witcher 3. It’s god’s gift to mankind! CD Projekt Red single-handedly saved the industry with this game! It has broken relationships, forged friendships, and dominated internet conversation for five years now. Why is this one so revered, and hailed by video game snobs as the greatest of all time?

Because of the Netflix series, you’re likely familiar with the premise of this world by now. Geralt is a Witcher, essentially a contract monster hunter imbued with magical enhancements. He was raised from birth to kill monsters after going through a painful transformative process, The Trials of the Grasses. The story of TW3 catches us as Geralt is on the tail end of middle-aged, starting to feel weary of adventuring. The first scene of the game makes a splash, dunking you the classic “Penis in a Bathtub” scene, setting the tone magnificently.

Ciri, Geralt’s adopted daughter, is on the run because a gang of hooligans (the titular Wild Hunt) is trying to chase her down. He goes on a quest to get to her before the baddies, retracing her steps across the beautiful lands of Nilfgard and beyond. You’ll meet love interests Yennefer and Triss along the way and choose between them. Let’s be real, this game is a dating sim that has a bonus 100 hour RPG to hide how horny it actually is. Geralt does actually get around quite a lot, and what’s not to like? The ladies love his demon cat eyes, long, unkempt hair, and monster-juice smell. This is not the fault of the game as it’s quite present in the novels as well, but there’s definitely a catering to the audience of 13-year old boys living vicariously through Geralt as a big, physically dominating man who has hot sorceresses fighting over him. That’s not necessarily a criticism, just an observation.
For all its flaws in over sexualizing women, TW3 has three 3-Dimensional, believable, realistic women who have meaningful goals and act in pursuit of achieving those goals. You know, like humans.

THE BAD STUFF

Why is this game only pretty good? Why would you say that, you heathen? Well my biggest and really only complaint is that it feels like ass to play. The first thing you need to do in the options menu is switch movement to Alternative, which makes it feel better but still awful. Trying to move Geralt the way you want him to move is one of the major challenges of the game, to be honest. He accelerates and decelerates seemingly at random, can’t jump in half an inch of water, and dies from falling 8 feet. Roach (his horse) controls better than the horses in a lot of games, so props for that.

Combat ends up being a mix of smashing R1 (fast attack) and using Quen (the shield spell) every time your mana gauge fills up. Dodging is almost useless, because Geralt never rolls the way you want him to. You get five spells right out the gate, but Quen is the only one that is useful for about 90% of it. You could use Aard (wind blast) or Igni (fire) for fighting, but you’re just wasting mana. Quen is infinitely more powerful, especially once you upgrade to the exploding shield. Basically, combat is a slog, Geralt does not react to control inputs in a smooth way, and spells are totally unbalanced giving you no reason to diversify your fighting style.

THE GOOD STUFF

Now that I’ve gotten that stuff out of the way, everything I have to say from here on out is glowing praise. I won’t give away more of the plot, because the story is the best part about this game. Not just the main story, either. Almost every side quest is written with the depth and care you’d normally never see in a giant open-world RPG like this, because the development team just doesn’t have the time. Well, CDPR made time. For any other complaints I may have, I’ll attest to TW3 having consistently the best-written side quests in any RPG I’ve ever played. Again I will avoid spoilers, but the quest with the Bloody Baron and the baby made me cry real human tears, which is something that has only happened two other times in video games (the endings of Nier Automata and Final Fantasy XV).

Even as I’ve described how much I hated the gameplay of TW3, I kept playing it for ~50 hours and finished the story. Because it was that damn intriguing. All of these characters are so well crafted, each of them feels real. Again, it sounds basic, but the fact that each character has identifiable goals and takes action to reach those goals consistently is the highest praise I can offer a writer. The most basic part of character design is often the most forgotten one.

This world is incredible. The City of Novigrad is a technical masterpiece. There are thousands of NPCs in it, each with a daily routine, each going about their business. This is the closest a video game has ever gotten to putting you into a city from Dungeons and Dragons. Many of the NPCs have something to say, but most do not. That’s okay, that’s the exchange you make for having an appropriate number of them. This world feels alive in a way that puts Skyrim and Fallout to shame.
This city is unbelievably big and packed with interesting NPCs and quests. It really makes you feel like a Witcher.

Outside of Novigrad, you’ll traverse dozens of distinct environments and biomes. Lush jungles, freezing tundras, salty marshes, and precipitous crags dot the beautifully rendered landscapes and their vivid colors. If you’ve read my other reviews, you’ll know the quickest way to my heart is bright, distinct, vivid colors in a game. I cannot gush enough about the artwork and design of these villages and natural environments.

The creatures are designed with astounding skill and are somehow both memorable and varied. I’d currently say the Fallout series has the best roster of enemies in video games, but the Witcher 3 cuts a close second.

The music is excellent. It takes hints from modern fantasy styles but leans more heavily on traditional Polish instruments and styles to create a strange new kind of sound. Something that reminds you you’re in another world but still keeps you grounded to the gritty, immersive open world and the danger within it. The barbaric calling and deep throat chanting resonate with the heavy use of plucked strings to create something real and distinct, something you haven’t heard before but will feel. I will easily nominate The Witcher 3 for top 5 game soundtracks of all time.

I haven’t talked a lot about the finer RPG points of this game, but that’s because I didn’t find them to matter much towards my enjoyment. There’s a pretty deep crafting/alchemy system, but I literally never used it because I didn’t care about it. That’s a plus from me. It’s there if you want it, but if not, no problem. The upgrade trees give you small boosts here and there, but ultimately won’t influence your fighting style because Quen + Spam sword attacks is your best bet no matter what. I loved the idea of applying special oils to your sword to fight specific enemies, but these oils were rarely found in the wild and mostly required crafting, which I don’t enjoy. You can also upgrade your weapons and equipment as you progress through the game, and equip weapons with stones that slightly alter their abilities. Again, I’m glad it’s there, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it. On higher difficulties you will need to utilize enchanting and alchemy to survive, but I played most of the game on easy mode so I could experience the world without too much confrontation. The menus could have used some work, but hey, it’s functional.

There are also some UI problems that I need explained to me. Why can’t I consume food from the menu? I have to equip it to Up or Down on the D-pad and then exit the menu and consume it there. Sometimes I eat the wrong thing, and I’ve got no idea why. The writing is tiny as hell, and if you’re on a TV you’ll need to use a mod to see it from 10 ft away. Luckily you can alter the HUD elements and hide them if you wish, because they really get in the way of enjoying the real treat of the game, which is the world around you.

Final Verdict: 8.0/10 — Toss a Coin to Your Witcher (to Buy this Game)

For all its shortcomings in gameplay, the Witcher 3 manages to be an artistic masterpiece. The monster designs are imaginative and mostly unmatched, both across video games and film/TV. The vivid colors that are used to create the varied landscapes are gorgeous, and there is always someone or something to see when you arrive somewhere new. I would not describe this game as “fun” to play, but I would describe it as a great game altogether. The deeper RPG elements are there to mess around with if you’d like, but are easily avoided for those like me that just want to explore a huge fantasy world. It ain’t the second coming of Jesus, but if you like open world, fantasy, or great stories (or all of the above), you owe it to yourself to walk in Geralt’s shoes.

Um jogo que me fez ficar dias seguidos sem fazer mais nada a não ser jogar, ele tem praticamente tudo o que você precisa pra ficar preso jogando. A trilha sonora é maravilhosa, a direção de arte é maravilhosa, a gameplay traduz perfeitamente as mecânicas dos bruxos da história de uma maneira super fluída e intuitiva, e além disso também tem uma história sensacional, e os personagens são extremamente bem construídos e marcantes, o jogo faz você ir criando um vínculo muito forte com eles, fora o fato da história ter vários finais dependendo das suas escolhas, não só isso mas você também tem as missões secundárias que agregam pro universo que é gigante, tem também o gwent, um jogo de carta super divertido, só o gwent te gera dezenas e dezenas de horas dentro de um outro jogo, os caras inventaram o melhor jogo dentro de outro jogo de todos. Um jogão da porra, merece todo o reconhecimento que tem na minha opinião.

What an amazing adventure that was. One thing I've always loved about the Witcher series is the atmosphere. Playing this game really makes me feel like I'm in this medieval-ish world. The only other games to make me feel like that were Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077.
The story is as incredible as always, and the gameplay gets better each game.

But my favourite thing though is how the Witcher games kinda turns you into a witcher in real life. For example, making difficult decisions, the alchemy and knowing how to use them, different tools, the different types of monsters, what they're weak against, different types of oils and knowing which monster falls into which category to use which oil, using the right signs strategically, etc…
For me, that's really been the most enjoyable experience while playing this game because I really felt like I am somewhat of a witcher myself.

That was just the gameplay, now let's talk about the story. I love games where your choices actually have an impact on the world, and this game really delivers. You're a simple witcher, yet you're often tasked with choosing between so many difficult decisions and most of the time having to choose between the lesser of two evils. Put together the gameplay and the story with great music, and you have yourselves a masterpiece of a game.
Exploring Skellige was the most enjoyable between all the locations thanks to its great music.

All in all, I love the game and can't wait to see what comes next.

Let it be on record that CD Projekt Red is a master at worldbuilding and narrative prose, which oozes out of every nook and cranny from White Orchard to Toussaint. That said they are probably too tied to the craft of making a genuine true-to-Geralt game that they intentionally cut down design decisions that would actually make the gameplay good.

Narratively, Witcher 3 stands atop very well if not completely amazing. The first Act of the story is decently well paced although the bits before Velen were uninteresting save for some bits of the fanservice to bookreaders that wasn't really enough to tide me over, but overall it's remarkably well written from the quest-tied sidequests to the entire arcs relegated to Novigrad and Skellige. The second Act is phenomenal, with one particular quest that is probably my favorite of the game because it also ties in the gameplay decently too. The third act however is a crock of utter shit and it's clear that the finale was a rushed first draft which is a real shame. But despite this, the cavalcade of great well fleshed out characters and remarkably well done prose left me more than satisfied upon finishing.

Gameplay wise, other than the strong world and map design it falls completely on its face. Combat ranges from Quen to win to potion knowledge tests that are not interesting to concoct or plan around. There are a few exceptions but generally the combat is so restrictive and asinine to pull off and especially with how often you do it that it brings the whole game down terribly. A major sticking point I'll throw as evidence against it is that you have no freedom over which animation Geralt uses when attacking any enemy. It's a clear attempt to make Geralt play out his movements in the book but because you're so restricted to any random particular animation you get near enemies, combat on higher difficulties requires you to play so utterly safe and in such an uninteresting way and on lower difficulties is not satisfying at all as it becomes pure mashing. There's no sweet spot to be had here.

A couple bullet points of the DLC to add onto this before concluding:

Hearts of Stone has the best narrative storytelling especially with the quest within the world of the painting. It also has combat encounters that require a bit more thinking and leaves this DLC particularly in a fantastic corner.

Blood and Wine is 2 parts fantastic characterization and worldbuilding and one part a garbage final act that ends up actually worse than TW3 base's final act. It's still phenomenal overall due to the highs it gets to but what an absolute disappointment in the end.

Overall I find Witcher 3 to be a very good game, and I hope CD Projekt Red learns from their mistakes with Cyberpunk to actually make the gameplay part good instead of just their writing team.

I played this as an antidote to Cyberpunk, and while initially the storytelling and world were so much richer I felt great, I quickly felt an amazing sense of opinion whiplash.

I've tried three times to play this game, and three times I have bounced. The reason: the combat just outright sucks complete ass. A 100 hour RPG with terrible combat? I could get past that if the RPG systems were deep and rewarding or the sense of adventure was great. While the traversal has its strengths, ultimately you are just wandering a generic fantasy environment looking for bad loot in sacs for most of the game.

The combat is too central to this game to be written off. It's impossible to enjoy. Even the biggest fans admit it's broken and simplistic. The way Geralt's animations work with attacks being determined based on distance to enemies makes it absolutely impossible to anticipate exactly how he will attack leading to an extremely unsatisfying flow for combat.

Even movement feels awful with that GTA-style accelerated movement where you turn like a drunken sailor. At the end of the day, a game that feels this AWFUL to play is a waste of time beyond a few hours. No matter how good the writing is. If the writing is the ONLY redeeming quality I struggle to see how this is so beloved. But yes, the writing is good.

The ultimate irony for me is that after blasting Cyberpunk, I find myself drawn back to it, because while its narrative is dogshit, the gameplay is actually satisfying and isn't that the whole point?