"Guess you'd know, since your mum's a bitch."

Already beat the base game in the PS4 version, but recently revisited, did a shiton of sidequests and beat both DLCs for the first time so thought I'd give an "updated" review on this game.

To cut a long story short, it's still really great and actually a lot better than I remember. Decided to actually put effort into creating a good build for Geralt this time, going down the Forgotten Wolf route and focusing on Aard + Yrden signs, actually investing in Runewrights and the like... it made it a much better experience, the obvious intended way for it to be played. You really could just main the story and not pay attention to any of these things, but you'd be doing such a disservice to your experience, it is really worth the time investment and it's actually quite emotional putting the game down once you finish things with Blood and Wine. The updated visuals are definitely something to boast about as is the other additions to the gameplay that make the game a lot less janky than it was initially, particulary with the awkward camera angles.

Great game, intend on doing a Death March NG+ run for the platinum soon enough, so still many more hours to grind in this great, fantastical world.

It'd be so easy to call this game perfectly imperfect and move on. It's been nearly a decade since this game first came out, after all, and there's nothing to be said about The Witcher 3 that hasn't already been said. A brief summary of my take on the core game?

Its opening 30 or so hours are some of the strongest in all of gaming, so thoroughly engrossing and complicated that it can be all too easy to notice that the game essentially coasts from that point onward on the strength of those opening world building moments and character work in Velen.

While it's important to maintain perspective here - primarily, how pioneering much of the work done here was, much the same as a Super Mario Bros. or Resident Evil 4 for their respective genres - it's just as important to recognize this game isn't foundational in nearly the same ways. Gameplay is clunky, menus far too cumbersome on consoles (that they couldn't get item descriptions to load instantly on PS5 is pretty insane) and more than anything the main story screeches to an absolute halt for dozens of hours once you reach Novigrad, only to ramp back up into a stereotypical apocalypse scenario complete with a raid-like experience and some boss battles whose "epicness" strains against an engine that can't portray that level of action in its cutscenes nor offer anything unique in its combat scenarios.

I've decided to review the DLCs as their own things as I get to them because, well, I might take a break from this for a bit but also because their grandeur honestly deserves to be addressed separately, but I've always imagined a world in which the Wild Hunt and the search for Ciri was paired back considerably if not completely removed from the game so CD Projekt could have just brought Hearts of Stone or Blood and Wine into the main game to begin with. It's when the witcher be witchin' that The Witcher 3 is at its highest highs, and too much of the base game gets mired in Save the World theatrics.

So if this isn't a purely nostalgic experience, I could see someone coming to Witcher 3 fresh, on a PS5 in 2022/23, wondering what all the fuss is about eventually. But I also struggle to envision who that person would be, because as I said even knowing all the beats the first 20-40 hours of this game is so damn excellent...and 40 hours ain't nothin' anyway!

Lastly, while the PS5 upgrade introduces console players to some new Eurojank experiences - and this was already a notoriously wrinkly game, one that I'm reminded I ultimately dropped back in 2015 for Batman: Arkham Knight while the kinks got worked out - that are pretty unfortunate at times (the autosave system being capable of hard locking the entire game, for example) the upgrades by and large are extremely worth it.

Over about 80 hours I played the game roughly half-and-half with map markers turned off and then on, further calcifying my feeling that it's not the map markers that ruin open world games for some people so much as their compulsion to complain about games letting them know where the fun can be found. Much like playing Elden Ring and Horizon: Forbidden West side-by-side this time last year, I understand the novelty of stumbling around Kovir and getting into trouble completely on my own while also deeply appreciating that I could turn Witcher 3 into a podcast game and grind out bandit camps when it came time to line my pockets and start playing the fashion side of the Witcher experience.

Probably the most important upgrades are to the lighting, which are starkly obvious in comparison screenshots but an absolute miracle in motion. This game sometimes approaches Red Dead Redemption levels of atmospheric beauty now, and recasting every possible source of light as such makes the world feel fundamentally modern despite the immense weight of its old bones. On the whole, The Witcher 3 is launched back into the conversation for best looking game around, which is just bizarre to me.

Last of my last notes in this, lol, "brief" review: I love the new Signs system. It makes the combat so much more fluid and a Sign build far more interesting on consoles than it was originally.

This game is still funny as sin, too.

I had originally played the Witcher 3 on PS4 when it was free with PS+. Had you asked me my opinion on the game back then, I would've told you I had no clue what all the hype was about. The movement was clunky, I had no backstory or knowledge of the events that took place in prior games, and it was not at all what I was expecting (i.e. comparing it to the likes of most Bethesda games at the time). I had abandoned the game after only a few hours of playing it.

Fast forward nearly 8 years later, and the game is still hailed as one of the greatest RPG's of all time. So I figured, why not give it another go? I purchased the game for $10.00 on Steam and began playing the freshly polished "next gen" version of the game, and I can honestly say that I am so glad I gave this game a second chance. Having recently completed the base game and both DLC's with over 200+ hours of game time, it is clear to me now why the game is so highly regarded.

The longer you play the Witcher 3, the more you realize how much time and effort was put into making this game, and it just keeps getting better the more invested you become. I was even lucky enough to experience what years of updates, patches, graphical changes, and content has added to this game during my first playthrough (sort of). The Witcher 3 has a level of detail unlike no other, and it is worth experiencing to the fullest. The base game is nothing short of fantastic, but the DLC's are truly special. I would almost say it is worth playing through the main story, even if you're not vibing with it completely, just to experience the Blood and Wine DLC first-hand.

Sure, The Witcher 3 still has it's faults, and I don't regard it as the best game I have ever played. However, if RPG's are your jam, then it will likely be one of the best RPG's you have ever played. You just have to be willing to give it a chance.

Recommended
130.6 hrs at review time
Gameplay 7/10
Music and sound 8/10
Screenplay 9/10
Technical 6/10

At this point, I think it goes without saying that The Witcher 3 is one of THE great RPGs of our time.

I'm currently doing my first ever replay of this game (my first time was in 2020), and it really hasn't aged a day. The enhanced visuals and framerate are just extra polish on an already-brilliant work.

I never agreed with how others felt about the combat, and my current playthrough (on the hardest difficulty) only confirms that the combat in The Witcher 3, like most action games, shines brightest on high difficulties. The game truly encourages you to use every possible mechanic in every single encounter, making even random points of interest thrilling and challenging.

If you haven't played this game, it's on sale constantly, so you really, really should.

O jogo é bom? Sem Dúvidas. É bonito? Sim, principalmente pra sua época em que as maiores referências gráficas eram jogos Cross-gen. E mesmo tendo todas as qualidades, e mesmo sendo a terceira vez que eu jogo, é evidente que o pacing da história é extremamente arrastado, principalmente se vc busca jogar todas as missões, a direção de dublagem em PT-BR varia de tenebrosa pra muito boa, as mudanças pra nova geração são legais, mas em especial, a mudança da câmera não condiz com o resto da gameplay, a Marcha da Morte (dificuldade mais difícil) só é problemática no começo, contra o Imlerith e o Eredin porque de resto, é fácil; E o que mais me chateia é que as escolhas, no geral não mudam o mundo em si, mas sim, escolhas em momentos específicos que fazem isso. No final o jogo ainda é bom, mas para mim, esses defeitos que sempre estiveram ali, e que eu só me toquei agora, me fizeram gostar bem menos do que eu gostava a alguns anos atrás. Mesmo assim ainda é impressionante pensar que a CD fez um jogo com esse escopo sendo indie, e com DLCs incríveis