LONG REVIEW (Covers main game + both expansions)
This game is overrated! is probably what your thoughts will be as a person who straight jumped into the 3rd Witcher game, it’s a massive game, and your opinion about it would count after at least 30 hours which is almost the time to play a new game, those who feel overwhelmed by it and found it tedious will probably not wait for ~30 hours to decide. Which is unfortunate, as its only after about 30 hours that this game progresses from something that is tedious/slow/overwhelming to come show itself to be one of the most polished deep video games that's been made to date. And when I say deep I don’t meant it to be very abstract in its writing, or bombarding the player with themes and theories that they couldn’t have up with, in fact there is nothing very deep or unexpected in it. What it has however is a sense of scale that is unsurpassed in any video game I've ever played.
The Witcher 3 continues the story of Geralt of Rivia, a known monster slayer aka Witcher who …you guessed it ..kills monster! After the events of the Witcher 1 & 2 Geralt has restored his memory and now he is searching for his former partner Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt with Yennefer have to look for Ciri who is constantly on run and is being chased by the "Wild Hunt"
The story starts slow as Geralt wants to find Ciri his adopted daughter, the game just like its prequels consists of prologue, acts, epilogue, the prologue starts with a tutorial area called White Orchard which teaches the player about the game and introduces them to its basics, it is this part that is slow and tedious because the game didn’t kick in yet, the game continues with act 1 main goal which is to find Ciri, the story may seem very simple as you have to look for a character but inside the journey Geralt will meet very complex characters and the main quests start going branching paths to side quests who are among the greatest side quests ever written in gaming. The game continues with ACT 2 and takes into the epic battle genre this time, in this act the game has lord of the rings vibes, an epic battle, which then continues on its epic scale into ACT 3, until the epilogue which can vary depending on the player decisions in the game. No matter what ending the player gets it always has something great and emotional behind it.
The story doesn’t end there, after the main game CD project RED introduces an expansion (Hearts of Stone) which is a short story expansion that blew my mind at how smartly written and engaging it is, the expansions introduces one of the most cunning and mysterious villains in history of gaming, and another equally amazing character. Unlike the main game in terms of side quests the quantity is very low, as the main focus here was to tell the short story in the main quest. The expansion also added some of the best boss fights in the whole series, boss fights that were a huge step up from the main game, requiring more mechanics to beat and having more advanced pattern.
The story progresses afterwards to reach the second expansion (Blood and Wine) which marks the end of Geralt journey, in my opinion an expansion one of its kind, very huge area that is also very beautiful, contains some of my favorite characters in the series, the expansion starts as a murder mystery then progresses into something fairytale-like that is full of neat references to famous books and finishes with one of the most memorable boss fights I have ever had in gaming.
It has to be noticed I have not mentioned the other aspects of the game, which I will cover in short. The Gameplay itself is very good, and while the combat and controls may feel clunky at first it won't take much time to get used to them, which afterwards Geralt feels like a dancing swordsman which is what he really is (according to the books and the lore). The combat itself is fairly basic and limited (again because of the lore) and contains light/heavy attack and dodge(side-step)/Roll buttons as well as having signs (mini-magic) it has similarities to Batman combat system, however I find the combat to start getting more advanced and having more depth once the players starts going with alchemy (bombs-oils-decoctions-potions) which basically adds new abilities to the gameplay, on higher difficulties the player needs to take advantage of monsters, read about their weakness and use the Witcher tools to overcome the challenge, the gameplay progresses by increasing levels and unlocking more skills to make various builds and especially around the second expansions it adds another layer to it by adding something called mutations. There are a lot of monsters and each has interesting ideas and design behind them. The dialogue choices are impactful and then there is one of my favorite mini games ever made called Gwent, a tactical card game that is really enjoyable, I sunk many hours into it while forgetting about the quests that im doing.
The Music is Slavic inspired and feels folklorish, its simple music most of the time, not an orchestra type of music, its simple and has as Geralt says "Nice Tune" it contains many memorable soundtracks.
The voice acting is greatly done as well, there is a difference in accents between regions which strongly showcase the different cultures the game tries to portray.
The art direction is simply breathtaking, the game is very screenshot worthy, to understand this point simply go to any thread on the internet and check for Witcher 3 shots, preferably on PC high settings and the amount of details and beautiful art design is mindblowing. It looks amazing.
The character cast is among my favorite, they have great distinct personalities, they have good development and backstory counting the previous games as well, some of the most complex and well written characters in gaming are presented in Witcher series, memorable cast with beautiful design and nice personality. You may notice most characters are not really good and not really bad, its shades of gray as in Witcher world there is no absolute evil or good.
In-Conclusion the game is open world story driven rpg, the main draw behind the game is its worldbuilding and writing which has main & side quests and characters. The game has the other good aspects as well, but if you are into open world story driven rpg games I cannot recommend this one enough, it is a must play game and is truly among the greatest games of all time, its recommended that you at least be familiar with the prequels Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 at least, to further understand the story better and enhance your experience and immersion.
Thank you for Reading! If you liked what i wrote give it a heart so it can pump upwards :)
This game is overrated! is probably what your thoughts will be as a person who straight jumped into the 3rd Witcher game, it’s a massive game, and your opinion about it would count after at least 30 hours which is almost the time to play a new game, those who feel overwhelmed by it and found it tedious will probably not wait for ~30 hours to decide. Which is unfortunate, as its only after about 30 hours that this game progresses from something that is tedious/slow/overwhelming to come show itself to be one of the most polished deep video games that's been made to date. And when I say deep I don’t meant it to be very abstract in its writing, or bombarding the player with themes and theories that they couldn’t have up with, in fact there is nothing very deep or unexpected in it. What it has however is a sense of scale that is unsurpassed in any video game I've ever played.
The Witcher 3 continues the story of Geralt of Rivia, a known monster slayer aka Witcher who …you guessed it ..kills monster! After the events of the Witcher 1 & 2 Geralt has restored his memory and now he is searching for his former partner Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt with Yennefer have to look for Ciri who is constantly on run and is being chased by the "Wild Hunt"
The story starts slow as Geralt wants to find Ciri his adopted daughter, the game just like its prequels consists of prologue, acts, epilogue, the prologue starts with a tutorial area called White Orchard which teaches the player about the game and introduces them to its basics, it is this part that is slow and tedious because the game didn’t kick in yet, the game continues with act 1 main goal which is to find Ciri, the story may seem very simple as you have to look for a character but inside the journey Geralt will meet very complex characters and the main quests start going branching paths to side quests who are among the greatest side quests ever written in gaming. The game continues with ACT 2 and takes into the epic battle genre this time, in this act the game has lord of the rings vibes, an epic battle, which then continues on its epic scale into ACT 3, until the epilogue which can vary depending on the player decisions in the game. No matter what ending the player gets it always has something great and emotional behind it.
The story doesn’t end there, after the main game CD project RED introduces an expansion (Hearts of Stone) which is a short story expansion that blew my mind at how smartly written and engaging it is, the expansions introduces one of the most cunning and mysterious villains in history of gaming, and another equally amazing character. Unlike the main game in terms of side quests the quantity is very low, as the main focus here was to tell the short story in the main quest. The expansion also added some of the best boss fights in the whole series, boss fights that were a huge step up from the main game, requiring more mechanics to beat and having more advanced pattern.
The story progresses afterwards to reach the second expansion (Blood and Wine) which marks the end of Geralt journey, in my opinion an expansion one of its kind, very huge area that is also very beautiful, contains some of my favorite characters in the series, the expansion starts as a murder mystery then progresses into something fairytale-like that is full of neat references to famous books and finishes with one of the most memorable boss fights I have ever had in gaming.
It has to be noticed I have not mentioned the other aspects of the game, which I will cover in short. The Gameplay itself is very good, and while the combat and controls may feel clunky at first it won't take much time to get used to them, which afterwards Geralt feels like a dancing swordsman which is what he really is (according to the books and the lore). The combat itself is fairly basic and limited (again because of the lore) and contains light/heavy attack and dodge(side-step)/Roll buttons as well as having signs (mini-magic) it has similarities to Batman combat system, however I find the combat to start getting more advanced and having more depth once the players starts going with alchemy (bombs-oils-decoctions-potions) which basically adds new abilities to the gameplay, on higher difficulties the player needs to take advantage of monsters, read about their weakness and use the Witcher tools to overcome the challenge, the gameplay progresses by increasing levels and unlocking more skills to make various builds and especially around the second expansions it adds another layer to it by adding something called mutations. There are a lot of monsters and each has interesting ideas and design behind them. The dialogue choices are impactful and then there is one of my favorite mini games ever made called Gwent, a tactical card game that is really enjoyable, I sunk many hours into it while forgetting about the quests that im doing.
The Music is Slavic inspired and feels folklorish, its simple music most of the time, not an orchestra type of music, its simple and has as Geralt says "Nice Tune" it contains many memorable soundtracks.
The voice acting is greatly done as well, there is a difference in accents between regions which strongly showcase the different cultures the game tries to portray.
The art direction is simply breathtaking, the game is very screenshot worthy, to understand this point simply go to any thread on the internet and check for Witcher 3 shots, preferably on PC high settings and the amount of details and beautiful art design is mindblowing. It looks amazing.
The character cast is among my favorite, they have great distinct personalities, they have good development and backstory counting the previous games as well, some of the most complex and well written characters in gaming are presented in Witcher series, memorable cast with beautiful design and nice personality. You may notice most characters are not really good and not really bad, its shades of gray as in Witcher world there is no absolute evil or good.
In-Conclusion the game is open world story driven rpg, the main draw behind the game is its worldbuilding and writing which has main & side quests and characters. The game has the other good aspects as well, but if you are into open world story driven rpg games I cannot recommend this one enough, it is a must play game and is truly among the greatest games of all time, its recommended that you at least be familiar with the prequels Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 at least, to further understand the story better and enhance your experience and immersion.
Thank you for Reading! If you liked what i wrote give it a heart so it can pump upwards :)
Reviewed on Feb 10, 2020