Hearing the witcher franchise happened with the witcher 3 like everybody else, but after trying out couple of hours I realized this game builds what came from before, there is a lot of people that said witcher 3 is a good beginner point and I certainly don't agree with them. Because when Geralt says that character is important to him you don't understand what he meant, because all you can go for is a 3 minute flashback. But after reading the books, I really really get it Geralt and I am glad I did because if I didn't, I would leave this game and not finish it at all.
(Also my thoughts about books are conflicted with how it goes off the rails especially after the 4th book with introducing trillions of characters and can't connect them together naturally and brokes the pacing badly, but at least I can recommend first and second books to everyone because they are not novels, they are short stories that is quick and have excellent pacing also it's slowly develops Geralt to the man we know it today)
Why? Because majority of the main story kinda sucks. You will ask "what the hell do you mean??? Everybody says it's excellent??" Actually yeah it's excellent but only some parts. What I mean is, there is a two story that is going on. One is hunting down a magician that stole the witcher secrets and other is, bonding with your loved ones and teaching a powerful kid to how to live a life. Problem is, magician part of the story is really cliche cartoon like events, what I mean is, you follow the clues to find where the villain is, you run to his door, he escapes and then you repeat this multiple times to comical level, also he is a really boring cliche power loving villain. Just for this reason alone, I thought leaving the game several times.
So as a book reader you can assume that I liked the second part of the story and yes I liked it, especially seeing the previous folk after events of the books and seeing their struggle really touched my heart, also teaching the kid part was really touching as well with how it references ciri without naming it. But one thing really let it down for me is... Really disappointing final act of this game... Kid plot gets rushed, stories of your loved ones doesn't have a proper conclusion, game throws plot back to back with no time to breath and then it ends. Ending really confused me and I had to watch a video to learn really what the heck just happen and I really didn't liked that.
So what I mean is, main story have a potential, but it's all wasted with badly paced events, boring villains, and rushed final act.
World
Maybe people gonna disagree with me, but when it comes to atmosphere witcher 1 is the best, with it's haunting sound effects, people that crying everywhere, constant garbage everywhere etc. You really feel how disgusting this world is. Unfortunately I feel like they don't do that as well in the sequels to make the graphics better and more colorful.
There is one thing bad about the world is... There is so many copy paste npc models that it gets confusing who is who after a while. I am not a fond of that.
There is a slight problem with the world unfortunately and that is walking. There is multiple maps in this game and for some reason only way to go between them is walking to the end of the map. Buy a boat ticket, watch a cutscene and then you can continue and it gets monotonous to walk all the way to the end in every map is an UNDERSTATEMENT. It's pissed me so much that I had to download a faster movement mod, it breaks some of the enemy movement but it's worth it for me.
So I like world but game's systems didn't aged good for it I think.
Side content
This is where the game truly shine in my opinion, I wasn't expecting but side stories is that awesome is that game, why? Because they tie to the main story seamlessly. You solve a person's problem and bum he is there to help in the main story or you want to get more information about the people you met in the main story and bum here is his/her entire life story, not just that there is so many references and connections to the book characters that It resulted with me getting immense pleasure from it. Only side content isn't important I could say is, the hunting missions. Unfortunately they are basic go kill 10 of this 5 of that kind of missions, but other than that I found the side content excellent
Combat
This is the part that many people divided upon, but for me, this is the best game that "gets" the books. People really dislike the combat because it uses hotbar skill system rather than action system like the sequels does. But I think hotbar system helps in it favor in this case, why do you ask?
Because in books, witchers are always "gets prepared" for their next mission and what is hotbar combat is about? Having larger damage numbers and larger defense numbers than the enemy. How do you get that? Finding information about the enemy you will hunt and preparing the correct potions/equipment/magic buffs/oils/stances/swords for the enemy and it really puts you to the mind of the witcher for me and I really liked it.
But there is one vital problem to the combat and that is... You can only do buffs and potions on a campfire and that is bullsh*t right there. Why? Because main story missions loves to suprise you with new enemy variations, so only way to know to prepare is, go into a mission, see the enemy, then load previous save... Or if you are like me, downloading the "mediate anywhere" mod solves everything actually. But in the vanilla it sucks there is no going around it.
Also people really hate, you have to click your attacks like a rythym game but for me it's not such a bad thing, i wasn't that hard to get used to
Lastly inventory. This isn't that much of a loot heavy game, but unfortunately you can't store more than 2 swords to your inventory and only way to store them is go into a bar and store into a chest. I find this really frustrating because sometimes I am not sure if I should get that sword or not and I don't want to return to the bar everytime. You can solve this with storing mod but it's a pain in the vanilla game unfortunately.
Bugs
For me it wasn't that much of a clear experience, t-pose problems, crashes, wrong enemy spawns etc. but one bug really made me nervous... Why? Early in the game, you have a ring to give to a someone so he will let you in. The problem is, next day I open the game it wasn't there. Did I sell it I thought and looked every merchant and it wasn't there, I looked every...where... My previous save was too old so I didn't want to return it either, I almost left the game but I found out that there was an alternate way to get the ring from someone and finally finished the quest. Unfortunately this quest really sticked to my head with the trouble it gave so unfortunately this game isn't bugless even with the enhanced edition somehow.
So if there is a lot of jank in it, then why 4/5? Believe it or not, but for me, world was that much of immersive and side content was that much of impressive to me that it overcomes the jank part for me. If I look at it objectively it's 3/5 but as a personal review, I give this 4/5 with it's world, interesting characters, fun references to the books and enjoyable side content
(Also my thoughts about books are conflicted with how it goes off the rails especially after the 4th book with introducing trillions of characters and can't connect them together naturally and brokes the pacing badly, but at least I can recommend first and second books to everyone because they are not novels, they are short stories that is quick and have excellent pacing also it's slowly develops Geralt to the man we know it today)
Why? Because majority of the main story kinda sucks. You will ask "what the hell do you mean??? Everybody says it's excellent??" Actually yeah it's excellent but only some parts. What I mean is, there is a two story that is going on. One is hunting down a magician that stole the witcher secrets and other is, bonding with your loved ones and teaching a powerful kid to how to live a life. Problem is, magician part of the story is really cliche cartoon like events, what I mean is, you follow the clues to find where the villain is, you run to his door, he escapes and then you repeat this multiple times to comical level, also he is a really boring cliche power loving villain. Just for this reason alone, I thought leaving the game several times.
So as a book reader you can assume that I liked the second part of the story and yes I liked it, especially seeing the previous folk after events of the books and seeing their struggle really touched my heart, also teaching the kid part was really touching as well with how it references ciri without naming it. But one thing really let it down for me is... Really disappointing final act of this game... Kid plot gets rushed, stories of your loved ones doesn't have a proper conclusion, game throws plot back to back with no time to breath and then it ends. Ending really confused me and I had to watch a video to learn really what the heck just happen and I really didn't liked that.
So what I mean is, main story have a potential, but it's all wasted with badly paced events, boring villains, and rushed final act.
World
Maybe people gonna disagree with me, but when it comes to atmosphere witcher 1 is the best, with it's haunting sound effects, people that crying everywhere, constant garbage everywhere etc. You really feel how disgusting this world is. Unfortunately I feel like they don't do that as well in the sequels to make the graphics better and more colorful.
There is one thing bad about the world is... There is so many copy paste npc models that it gets confusing who is who after a while. I am not a fond of that.
There is a slight problem with the world unfortunately and that is walking. There is multiple maps in this game and for some reason only way to go between them is walking to the end of the map. Buy a boat ticket, watch a cutscene and then you can continue and it gets monotonous to walk all the way to the end in every map is an UNDERSTATEMENT. It's pissed me so much that I had to download a faster movement mod, it breaks some of the enemy movement but it's worth it for me.
So I like world but game's systems didn't aged good for it I think.
Side content
This is where the game truly shine in my opinion, I wasn't expecting but side stories is that awesome is that game, why? Because they tie to the main story seamlessly. You solve a person's problem and bum he is there to help in the main story or you want to get more information about the people you met in the main story and bum here is his/her entire life story, not just that there is so many references and connections to the book characters that It resulted with me getting immense pleasure from it. Only side content isn't important I could say is, the hunting missions. Unfortunately they are basic go kill 10 of this 5 of that kind of missions, but other than that I found the side content excellent
Combat
This is the part that many people divided upon, but for me, this is the best game that "gets" the books. People really dislike the combat because it uses hotbar skill system rather than action system like the sequels does. But I think hotbar system helps in it favor in this case, why do you ask?
Because in books, witchers are always "gets prepared" for their next mission and what is hotbar combat is about? Having larger damage numbers and larger defense numbers than the enemy. How do you get that? Finding information about the enemy you will hunt and preparing the correct potions/equipment/magic buffs/oils/stances/swords for the enemy and it really puts you to the mind of the witcher for me and I really liked it.
But there is one vital problem to the combat and that is... You can only do buffs and potions on a campfire and that is bullsh*t right there. Why? Because main story missions loves to suprise you with new enemy variations, so only way to know to prepare is, go into a mission, see the enemy, then load previous save... Or if you are like me, downloading the "mediate anywhere" mod solves everything actually. But in the vanilla it sucks there is no going around it.
Also people really hate, you have to click your attacks like a rythym game but for me it's not such a bad thing, i wasn't that hard to get used to
Lastly inventory. This isn't that much of a loot heavy game, but unfortunately you can't store more than 2 swords to your inventory and only way to store them is go into a bar and store into a chest. I find this really frustrating because sometimes I am not sure if I should get that sword or not and I don't want to return to the bar everytime. You can solve this with storing mod but it's a pain in the vanilla game unfortunately.
Bugs
For me it wasn't that much of a clear experience, t-pose problems, crashes, wrong enemy spawns etc. but one bug really made me nervous... Why? Early in the game, you have a ring to give to a someone so he will let you in. The problem is, next day I open the game it wasn't there. Did I sell it I thought and looked every merchant and it wasn't there, I looked every...where... My previous save was too old so I didn't want to return it either, I almost left the game but I found out that there was an alternate way to get the ring from someone and finally finished the quest. Unfortunately this quest really sticked to my head with the trouble it gave so unfortunately this game isn't bugless even with the enhanced edition somehow.
So if there is a lot of jank in it, then why 4/5? Believe it or not, but for me, world was that much of immersive and side content was that much of impressive to me that it overcomes the jank part for me. If I look at it objectively it's 3/5 but as a personal review, I give this 4/5 with it's world, interesting characters, fun references to the books and enjoyable side content