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?