A serious look at a serious game
This makes me want to play the game, again, again and again
We've all been waiting for this one. You have too, admit it. With this third installment I dare say the Witcher series has made it up there with Mass Effect as far as epic and grandeur go. From the story, to the characters, to the environments and of course topping it off with gameplay that doesn't leave you bored, this just might one of the best titles we've seen this in the last 2 years! Don't look at me that way, just read on and you'll see why this is a must-have.
Story
We once again take on the role of Geralt, this time him being even older. He's had it with war and taking sides, now only focusing on himself and what he's after - Yennefer. The women he loved before losing his memory. His search leads him to Vizima, where Emperor Emhyr of Nilfgaard sits on the throne now. Emhyr makes an offer Geralt can't refuse - to find Ciri, a young female Witcher and former student at Kaer Morhen.
Can't wait to try this gal! As a playable character, I mean...yes...
Now, Geralt ends up working with the empire he was fighting against in the previous game, for his own reasons of course. Having looked after her and trained her from a young age, Ciri means a great deal to Geralt and she's in danger. The Wild Hunt, a name synonymous with fear is after her. For now, Geralt can only guess as to the reason why, but one thing is clear - he must protect her. So, he and Yennefer go their separate ways only minutes after they met, in hopes of finding Ciri before the Elven riders do.
Interestingly enough, this plot was actually foreshadowed in the very first game when you met the King of the Wild Hunt. While the memories regained in Witcher 2 are familiar to everyone and an obvious setup for the third game, not many remember that first encounter.
A reminder of the King of The Wild Hunt's prophecy
Characters
A forgotten lover, a current lover...Geralt, how do you do it?
Let's start with our Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, White Wolf (or "Gwynbleidd" in Elvish), Butcher of Blaviken, Ravix of Fourhorn. A lot of titles for one man. As far as main characters go, I must admit he's one of my favorites to play as. Rarely does a video game make such an amazing character that I fully adopt the role. Plus, now we get his trusty steed - Roach! No, not that Roche, this is another Roach. The horse riding tutorial inspired some very nasty images...
Geralt is much older now, but looks even more dangerous and awesome than ever. Though I always thought he looked awesome, I did have issues with his appearance in the second game. I'm not sure exactly why, but in Witcher 2 he wasn't aesthetically quite right. Maybe it was the hair or his facial design? Whatever it was, they cleared it up, but introduced a different flaw. The armor looks horrible. Horrible isn't even the right word for it.
I accept that armor doesn't need to be stylish (this isn't Final Fantasy after all), but at least it shouldn't make Geralt look like the Clown of Kaedwen. Lack of fashion taste aside, most of the armor you can craft actually makes him look fat. I have no idea why. It's not a question of design, since some armor sets do complement his figure, but the majority seem to except him to gain weight in his adventures. It's not like he found the armor either, the smith crafted it for him. Shouldn't his measurements have been taken into consideration? None of the other characters seem to have this problem.
On a totally opposite note - the Wild Hunt is every bit as fearsome as one would expect. I remember the wraith-like quality they had in the first game, but this is completely different. Now they're physical and real and their armor blows Geralt's ridiculous attire out of the water! Just look at that battle gear! Even their voices have been stylized to chill. That's what I call a proper villain.
Meet your foes. Scary looking bunch, eh?
Finally, since no one really cares about all the would-be emperors, barons, kings etc. let's get to the females. We all know that one of the main points of controversy in the Witcher games is their portrayal of graphic nudity and sex. You'll be glad to know that despite any protests, CD Projekt kept the sexual content in their third game too. There are plenty of gorgeous, curvaceous, women to choose from. Yennefer of course, whom you'll meet very early on, Triss is back too, as well as other faces you may or may not be familiar with. Fret not, your bed will not be empty.
Graphics
One of the most beautiful and engaging worlds ever crafted in gaming history
Since I mentioned the lovely curves, I should probably mention all the other lovely visuals in the game. They're to die for. Of course, we've all come to expect great things from the Witcher games in terms of visual appeal.
Again, you get a very specific set of graphics options, most of them unique to Witcher 3. Hairworks is the first one. It's a new feature that makes hair especially realistic. When it's enabled, every thread of hair moves and sways in accordance with the character and the wind. It also knocks about 15-20 FPS, so it's reserved for only the most powerful systems.
Another cool feature is the foliage visibility slider. The world in Witcher 3 is packed with nature. There's a lot of tall grass, bushes, trees etc. Forget any other open world game you've seen, it's not even close this. Normally, a landscape this lush would drain your PCs resources faster than the American economy. Thanks to this little slider, you can control how much of said foliage is visible at any given point.
Possibly the coolest thing I've seen in this game is the wind. It affects everything. Every leaf of every branch of every tree and all the grass too. I've never felt the power of a storm in a video game quite like this. Usually we get all the lightning, thunder and rain, with the whole thing being an annoyance. Here, we can see all the trees bend over as the fierce wind blows at them from the side. It's quite a sight to behold!
Look at those trees sway... Who you callin' a freak?!
To top it all off, other than the very demanding hairworks option, everything else is very well optimized. Though Witcher games are notorious for being demanding, I found it surprising how well this worked on my PC, considering it's actually below the listed minimum requirements. I set most of the options to medium or high and it still ran smooth, which is more than can be said for most modern releases. Extra points for that!
Atmosphere
Yes, this game actually has a certain atmosphere that sets it apart from other RPGs. For those of you unfamiliar with the previous games, you will be surprised at how daring CD Projekt is in their tone for this title. Those of you who have played the first two games, you'll be happy to know that this one retains the expected level of maturity.
Pretty much sums up the mature factor of Witcher 3
I can think of no better relevant comparison than Game of Thrones. It is a show well known for not pulling any punches and being very realistic in its portrayal of that era. Likewise, the Witcher series does the same and is also based on a series of novels, coincidently. The level of violence is extreme, bloodshed is common, there's nudity, swearing, drinking, gambling, lots of racism... You get the idea, right? Oh, and it's all very graphic and in your face. It is a serious game, not a kiddy ride.
You'll become aware of this quite fast, as the very beginning of the game already has a few surprises in store. Some eye-candy Yennefer and a child meeting a very gruesome death. If any of this upsets you, then you'd best stop here and go back to My Little Pony adventures.
Don't worry, she turns around...eventually...
It only gets more intense from that point on. Trust me, even I cringed a bit during the first main quest, at the screams of a man being whipped. The voice-acting is nothing to laugh at, for sure. Speaking of which...
Voice-acting
This is one of the most entertaining conversations in the entire game. Take the road by the lake and don't miss it!
Instead of talking about sound, which is something that game companies don't get wrong anymore, let's talk about voice-acting. With all these fancy cutscenes and recorded dialogue, it's becoming more and more important to have the right voices for characters. So far, Witcher doesn't disappoint. Quite the contrary!
Geralt's voice actor was always top notch and only gets better with each reincarnation. All the main characters have decent and specific voices. By specific I mean that you can usually recognize them by voice alone. They have character. Most importantly, there's always that one character with that one slap-across-the-face amazing voice. Do you remember the detective, Raymond Maarloeve, from the first game? I certainly remember talking to him way more often than needed, just to hear him say "White Wolf".
Witcher 3 also has one such voice to leave you dumbstruck in awe (or jumping on the edge of your seat with goofy cheer). The actor for Emperor Emhyr. To avoid spoiling it for anyone, I'm just going to say it's this guy. Don't click if you don't want to know! May I add it's the most goddamn appropriate casting decision ever made in the history of gaming? Okay, maybe not the entire history, but it's pretty far up there.
Gameplay
35 minutes of authentic Witcher 3 gameplay footage from the developers. Doesn't get more real than this!
They polished and polished and fixed and changed and now the gameplay is as shiny as it gets! It still takes a little bit to get used to Geralt's movements, but much less so than in the previous games. Combat is a step up from the previous game and a huge leap up from the first one, but it takes more skill. Enemies will stun you more often, even while you block. Certain ones will dodge your attacks more often than you expect. Hit-and-run tactics are not as viable as they used to be.
To emphasize a point, this is the first game where I actually found myself using Yrden - and quite often. It makes a trap around Geralt and slows down any enemies that enter. With the new sneaky foes it becomes a must. In fact, I found myself using all the signs much more often than before. The one thing that could've used more polish is looting. Sometimes you can quickly grab everything in sight, but there's that one bag in the middle of all the bags you just can't seem to target properly to loot.
Your first big fight. Get ready, it's quite the change of pace.
Character building has gotten yet another complete revamp. This one might be the best yet, though it seems overwhelming at first. There are a lot of abilities and each one can take several points. Plus, you don't even get to choose all of them. Instead you have an allotment of how many abilities you can equip based on your character level. Though the mutagens don't just improve a single ability now, instead being tailored to an entire branch. Once you get the hang of it and the points start rolling in (especially from the places of power), it becomes quite simple. Invest in what you like. Enough said.
The Alchemy system also got a slight change, though I'm not really sure if I like the change. Now, instead of mixing each potion you use, you mix a potion only once to "unlock it". Then it gets refilled each time you rest as long as you have alcohol. From a gaming perspective this makes sense, because you don't need to worry about saving you reagents and have access to a greater amount of potions. On the other hand, I find it ridiculous to mix a potion only once and use it indefinitely.
I must also take this opportunity to stress how relieved I am that the menus actually work. I believe we're all familiar with what consoles have done to the RPG genre. Just take a look at Skyrim, designed for consoles and compare it to Morrowind, it's PC based ancestor. Do I need to mention Dragon Age: Inquistion? Witcher 3 actually managed to strike a good compromise between PC and console menu navigation.
The biggest change is the fact that the game now has an open world. Almost. It's more like a world map divided into areas and each area is completely open to explore, with multiple villages, cities and so on. These area maps are large and there aren't any set paths, so it is basically an open world. Careful of the fall damage though, it can get very nasty!
Traveling
With the open world, they needed to add mounts. In this case, horses. Sorry guys, you won't be mounting any griffins here. However, I've never found horses as valuable or practical in a game up until now. I know there's open world games out there that add any mounts in just so they'd be there, supposedly to speed up travel. Then they add a fast travel system by clicking across the map, thus rendering horses utterly pointless.
Your trusty steed, with Hairworks.
Witcher 3 combines the two splendidly! Mounting and dismounting Roche (more bad images...), is quick and the riding (oh god!) handles like a dream. You don't ever feel like using a horse is slowing you down. In fact, since there's a lot of empty space between points of interest, there's a real point to using the horse, even with the fast travel system. You see, CD Projekt had the brilliant idea of restricting fast travel by making it usable only from signposts, which mark major points on the map (like villages or crossroads). So, if for nothing else, you'll be using your mount to reach these posts after an adventure in the distant wilderness.
You also get more traveling options via boat. Since a horse can't swim across water, you are given boats to traverse the rivers. No surprise, their navigation is also perfectly smooth, even with the water-bobbing. Did I mention that the boat bobs with the water? You have to set the water quality in your graphics options to "High" for this to work. Believe me, you'll want to, otherwise it looks completely ridiculous.
Steer, steer, steer your boat, gently to the town...
Side content
Monster lair, monster lair, monster lair...oh, another monster lair.
If you look at your map, you'll see there are a lot of "?" marks on it (if not, then visit a notice board first). These are all points of interest which hold some form of treasure, challenge, battle or bonus. Each area map is littered with these, so there's a lot of extra content and goodies to pick up. Except, this is also the only flaw in the game - dead weight. Moving to an open world is always a risky move, because it demands all that new space be filled up. While Witcher 3 isn't as bad as most games, it still has a few too many copies of bandit camps, monster dens, guarded treasure etc. Even in the very first map you encounter 4-5 bandit camps.
The issue here? It's just a bandit camp where you kill, loot and forget it ever existed. Props should still be given to the fact that there is a reason behind their existence somewhere on the notice board, but it doesn't change the fact that this is just a disguised "Clear x/5 bandit camps" task. Yes, there's a huge map and it needs to be filled up. I don't mind some running around, but dead weight is dead weight. It's there to fill a void or extend time, not offer any real substance. Apart from the very first area, Witcher 3 has too much dead weight, period.
An example of side content that's NOT dead weight is in the new gambling game - gwent. Forget those dull poker dice, this is a real game within a game! If you're into any sort of trading cards (and most of us RPG players are), you'll really enjoy this. You get to build a deck and face other opponents who also have their decks. If you beat your opponent you win a card, which you can add to your deck. Some cards you can even buy of merchants who sell them. This is side content, but it's side content with its own point. It's engaging, it's gives players another major goal to work towards, a change of pace even. If it's not your thing, you can skip it entirely and not miss out on anything of particular value for the main game.
Difficulty
See that ominous red skull? It means "Run for your life!"
Difficulty is an important issue in games today. Some games are too easy, some are too hard and some make no sense. Yet, there is a treasure that comes every so often, such as Witcher 3, that manages to strike a perfect balance.
You get 4 difficulty options and they are what they say they are. If you want to play simply for the story and not worry about dying, then the first option is for you. If you're a fan of the Dark Souls series, you may prefer the final option. I consider myself an average player (that, and I don't have the time for mastering a game anymore) so I went with the second option.
I was worried it may get too easy. It doesn't, not really. It's tough enough that I have to use alchemy and signs along with sword combat to overcome a fight. Yet, it's not so hard that I have to dodge perfectly to survive. At the same time, I've yet to encounter a difficulty spike. Certain areas can get difficult, but hey, you should improve your playing too right?
Verdict - 10...argh...9.5/10
I want to give Witcher 3 a 10. I really, really do, but I just can't. If I did, then I'd have to lower my standards for every other game and the developers will have won. Witcher 3 is an incredible game in every sense, except the dead weight and looting. Minor flaws aside, the graphics are top notch and well optimized on PC, the gameplay is fluid, the story is as engaging as it gets, the atmosphere is gritty and mature, it's all there. Definitely a title deserving of its high asking price of $60. In case you don't accept a .5 rating, then consider it a 10. CD Projekt have done it again!
Finally, let's see what the developers have to say about their game... Well, I'm sold.
