A really great game made by a talented, small, and ambitious team that completely nailed the fantasy they were aiming for. You really feel like a shit-stained-peasant-turned-knight and that feeling never quite goes away—for better and worse.

I don’t have any nuance to add to this conversation, so I’ll summarize it below in a Pros, Cons, and Everything Else list:

Pros:
+ The RPG elements. From learning to read, to keeping up your appearance, to what Henry likes to sleep on best, you always feel firmly planted in Henry’s boots.
+ The progression. Not only does it do hardcore RPG progression well, but you honestly see and feel it. Henry grows with your stats, and over the course of the story when you find out who Henry truly is, it shows. His speech and mannerisms are reflected well in the ongoing narrative, but you also feel it as you learn combos, wear heavier armor, swing a sword better, and read bigger and longer books.
+ The narrative. It slogged a bit in the middle third with some boring quests, but it started strong and ended stronger.
+ The characters. Game of Thrones taught me to be wary of any nobility, but this game, thankfully, bucks that recent trend. Your comrades are true comrades, full of honor (and wine). Oddly refreshing.
+ The world. While I, personally, prefer a little more magic in my fantasy, just a touch, this was once again a breath of fresh air in the current video game landscape. No magic, no goblins, just you, a sword, and other people with swords.
+ Fast travel. What a genius little gimmick.

Cons:
- The world. While beautifully crafted and easy to traverse, there is almost quite literally nothing to see or do. There are some treasure, of course, but you’ll not find any secret, special armor or weapons, no hidden grottos with mysterious creatures, nothing. Witcher 3 this is not.
- The quests. I enjoyed a handful and the latter end of the main story was exciting and brisk, but there’s nothing to latch onto elsewhere. A few characters are fine, some endings are fun, but most of these quests are boring. Some are downright awful.
- The RPG elements. Ahhhhhhh, I said this was a pro earlier; clever, no?? Most of what Warhorse accomplished sticks the landing, but others definitely don’t and often get in the way. The cleanliness and equipment upkeep is brutal and too frequent; persuasion and intimidation are far too easy; equipment is largely lackluster and there’s not much to look forward to. These aren’t deal breaker, but splinters in the woodwork.
- The combat. Fucking hated it for all 70 hours, and I gave it an honest try: master strokes, combos, feints, parrys. When an enemy died in one swing I was in heaven, otherwise I was getting swamped by messy AI or locked into a 1-on-1 for what felt like ages. Hated it, hated it, hated it, and I love old CRPGs.

Everything else:
? The bugs. This is a given for any large, open-world RPG but certain bugs were a pain. That said, I’m surprised at how well this ran! No crashes, and really the only bugs I ran into consistently were enemy AI. Anything else was minor.
? The pacing. It was never awful, but certain missions need to have been thrown in the bin. The monastery? Awful. The coin forging investigation? Way too long. Forcing a (pretty good) DLC quest at the end of the epilogue? C’mon now.
? The DLC. Never fantastic, sometimes bad. Never earth-shatteringly awful.
? The engine. Between this and Hunt: Showdown, I’m not so sure I love the Crytek engine anymore. But! It’s not all bad! The game can really be a looker in sunny fields, the light shining on plates of armor and glistening blood on swords. Other times you’re watching 720p compressed videos and the horizon is filled with 2D sprites of green trees.
? The “realism”. Much like Red Dead 2, the realism seems to ebb and flow with what the designers felt was appropriate. You pick up each individual item, but can transfer to your horse anywhere at any time; alcohol slowly affects Henry instead of all at once like most games, but you can’t drink water or bread to mitigate the effects; clothes affect how people react to you, but you can change on the fly right before their eyes and get better deals. None of this is a deal breaker—the what it does do well only enhances the experience—but this thought wouldn’t leave my mind for the dozen or so hours.

The elements which initially seem impressive in this game end up either tapering off or expose themselves for their lack of depth the more a playthrough goes one.

Combat which initially feels exciting with a variety of different combos and mechanics ends up boiling down almost entirely to using the perfect counter. Moreover the combat system makes it clear that it's designed around 1v1 encounters and that facing multiple opponents is a poor idea, yet constantly puts you up against several enemies at a time.

The story does a good job of grabbing your initial interest, but many of the plot threads which are set up in the beginning fail to conclude or amount to anything meaningful by the game's end.

Quest design occasionally offers unique scenarios with multiple resolutions based on your character build. More often though quest are linear and full of busywork that involves running back and forth between NPCs with little actual choice or decision-making.

The simulation and survival elements which initially draw you into the world quickly devolve into tedious upkeep. Resources are rarely strained due to just how readily they're given out.

This isn't to say the game is all bad, I generally enjoyed my time with it and if I had reviewed it at the 20 hour mark I probably would have given it a 4 star rating. Yet I found myself having less and less fun as I went into the second half of my playthrough and by the end I was thankful for it to be over.