And now for my next trick I shall say unkind things about The Witcher 3.

[omega 616]

My first major complaint is the combat. It's not bad. It basically works as intended. But it is way too damn shallow for a game that fucking long. All you do is press dodge when enemies are trying to twat you about the head and press attack when they aren't. For like 80 fucking hours.

... Isn't that batman?

Sorry, I just don't understand.

Thinking about it, everybody loves for the combat in the batman games, so much so that many other games have copied it but it's the same combat as assassins creed has but that is somehow inferior to batman?

 

[omega 616]

My first major complaint is the combat. It's not bad. It basically works as intended. But it is way too damn shallow for a game that fucking long. All you do is press dodge when enemies are trying to twat you about the head and press attack when they aren't. For like 80 fucking hours.

... Isn't that batman?

Sorry, I just don't understand.

Thinking about it, everybody loves for the combat in the batman games, so much so that many other games have copied it but it's the same combat as assassins creed has but that is somehow inferior to batman?

AC is Batman, but instead of a suite of moves and gadgets, it's just "X" "X" "X". Counter kill, chain, counter kill, chain, and repeat. No combos, no takedowns, just counter kill counter kill counter kill.

You mean no gadgets like the smoke bombs, coins, poison darts, throwing knives etc?

I think the only difference is batman has spidey sense that tells him when an enemy will attack by giving them a little crown, where as AC doesn't.

Witcher just sounds like both of them to me, mash the attack until you see a guy go for you and then you really change it up by pressing a different button, then back to the attack button before you get too much excitement from pressing counter. I'm being a bit harsh 'cos I actually like shadow of mordor and AC2 (all of 2, by which I mean the 3 sub games).

 

[BlackBark]

I really enjoyed this game as a whole. I've played all three Witcher games, but this is the first one I could say I was satisfied with. For me, the standout aspect was the world the game created, especially the characters that inhabited it. Despite the fact that the gameplay was fairly repetitive, such as the combat and the follow the smelly stuff to the next objective, there was always an interesting narrative and characters to add some context to what you were doing.

It was also fun to explore the world. There were loads of quests, pieces of equipment to find and monster ambushes to keep your attention, as well as npcs going about their lives. This is a stark contrast to the bland and lifeless "open world" of MGSV.

Sure, The Witcher is huge and there is loads to do, but you don't have to do everything and it doesn't feel like the game is punishing you for skipping some of the side content. I finished the main story after 60 hours and left quite satisfied even after having not visited about 3/4 of the question marks on the map.

If the combat had been a bit more varied, I would say this game would be among the greatest of all time, but it definitely falls short due to the repetiveness. Still my game of the year at the moment, though.

And yet, a couple of months on, I would have completely and utterly forgotten that the game existed were I not a member of these forums. Which leaves me wondering why.

Yeah, this is what happened to me for the first two games. You know during that scene where you get to fill in your version of events for Witcher 2? I had forgotten the story in its entirety and just ended up selecting random answers.

I've heard this game hailed as the pinnacle of the RPG genre (or ARPG, or WRPG or whatever the fuck we're calling these things now). I don't care enough to argue that, but if this is the best the genre can offer then it seems to me that the genre is in a very sorry state indeed.

I would hardly call it the pinnacle of the RPG genre, but I think it got a lot of things right and that other developers can learn a thing or two from what CDPR have produced. At the time I was playing it, I mainly compared W3 to Dragon Age Inquisition, which was the most similar game I'd played before it, and I think Witcher 3 is vastly superior. It's a step in the right direction for RPGs, at least.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This means we'll never be friends, just so you know

I still can't get enough of it. The story (third playthrough now), the combat, the world, the characters, the EVERYTHING. I love it so much.

Now the thing about pacing. I get what you mean. But for me The Witcher games have always felt like reading a book. A really big book. So pacing was never an issue for me. I see missions like chapters in a book. The fact that writing is phenomenal and characterization is top notch helps immensely. It's as if somebody managed to transform a book into a video game and make it even better. I've never seen storytelling like this in a video game before.

Two of my favorite scenes are not even crucial moments in the game. But these moments are what elevates this game above and beyond everything else I've ever played:

Spoiler

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

The combat was offensively inoffensive for the most part, although I still think it was league's better than oblivion or morrowind despite the fact that fanboys will whine about some mystical complexity that makes it better.

Complexity and depth are two things people mix up way too damn much in gaming. One is bad, the other is good. Simplicity can still be deep, complexity can still be shallow, and neither one are inseparable. I can deal with a deep and complex system that doesn't require a college-level course's worth of research mixed with a bookie's worth of knowledge of stats to understand. I prefer a simple yet deep system thats intuitive, easy to play with but worth every moment of mastering.

 

[omega 616]

My first major complaint is the combat. It's not bad. It basically works as intended. But it is way too damn shallow for a game that fucking long. All you do is press dodge when enemies are trying to twat you about the head and press attack when they aren't. For like 80 fucking hours.

... Isn't that batman?

Sorry, I just don't understand.

Thinking about it, everybody loves for the combat in the batman games, so much so that many other games have copied it but it's the same combat as assassins creed has but that is somehow inferior to batman?

AC is Batman, but instead of a suite of moves and gadgets, it's just "X" "X" "X". Counter kill, chain, counter kill, chain, and repeat. No combos, no takedowns, just counter kill counter kill counter kill.

You mean no gadgets like the smoke bombs, coins, poison darts, throwing knives etc?

I think the only difference is batman has spidey sense that tells him when an enemy will attack by giving them a little crown, where as AC doesn't.

Witcher just sounds like both of them to me, mash the attack until you see a guy go for you and then you really change it up by pressing a different button, then back to the attack button before you get too much excitement from pressing counter. I'm being a bit harsh 'cos I actually like shadow of mordor and AC2 (all of 2, by which I mean the 3 sub games).

Can you actually work those gadgets into combos, and is there even a combo system that builds to finishers in AC? If so, it emerged after I stopped playing the series.

I was genuinely asking, I've played a small amount of AA, so I didn't know you could work gadgets into combat or if the combo system actually does anything.

 

[Redryhno]

So basically your biggest complaints are that the combat is anemic(honestly it's just something the entire series suffers from, they've had trouble implementing all of a Witcher's tools in every game. Witcher1 Swordplay was sorta broken, Witcher2 alchemy was the easy road if you knew what was coming, Witcher3 carried over some of the signs being blatantly OP).

And the other is the pacing being bad? Which is sorta subjective, it's open-world, the pacing was bound to be sorta shit at times. I was just glad there was an RPG that wasn't just a single-player MMO with "get x of y z times in g limit". The side quests actually had some amount of story to them with callbacks to the books(haven't read much of it, there's alot lost in translation I'm to understand so I probably won't be reading anymore) with a pretty nice mix of funny and depressing.

 

[omega 616]

My first major complaint is the combat. It's not bad. It basically works as intended. But it is way too damn shallow for a game that fucking long. All you do is press dodge when enemies are trying to twat you about the head and press attack when they aren't. For like 80 fucking hours.

... Isn't that batman?

Sorry, I just don't understand.

Thinking about it, everybody loves for the combat in the batman games, so much so that many other games have copied it but it's the same combat as assassins creed has but that is somehow inferior to batman?

AC is Batman, but instead of a suite of moves and gadgets, it's just "X" "X" "X". Counter kill, chain, counter kill, chain, and repeat. No combos, no takedowns, just counter kill counter kill counter kill.

You mean no gadgets like the smoke bombs, coins, poison darts, throwing knives etc?

I think the only difference is batman has spidey sense that tells him when an enemy will attack by giving them a little crown, where as AC doesn't.

Witcher just sounds like both of them to me, mash the attack until you see a guy go for you and then you really change it up by pressing a different button, then back to the attack button before you get too much excitement from pressing counter. I'm being a bit harsh 'cos I actually like shadow of mordor and AC2 (all of 2, by which I mean the 3 sub games).

Can you actually work those gadgets into combos, and is there even a combo system that builds to finishers in AC? If so, it emerged after I stopped playing the series.

I was genuinely asking, I've played a small amount of AA, so I didn't know you could work gadgets into combat or if the combo system actually does anything.

I'm asking too, I haven't played AC since Black Flag. Then, you could throw a smoke bomb or a knife to interrupt combat, but it wasn't something you could really blend into it. No finishers either, although I mean, you could just haul off and shoot people.

I got a few hours (read 5 or 6) into "assassins creed: tarzan in the snow" with good ol' Connor and was bored out of my head, so you've played more ass creed than I have.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

The opposite actually, the game is complete without really needing to add something, the lack of mods means you can't artificially increase the length of the game, once it's over it's over.

Well there is one more DLC expansion to go... so its not quite over until its released, then its over.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I got a few hours (read 5 or 6) into "assassins creed: tarzan in the snow" with good ol' Connor and was bored out of my head, so you've played more ass creed than I have.

AC 3 is one of the weakest entries. Black Flag is on a whole different level. Everything about it is better. In fact, it might be the best AC game after AC 2.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I can do that trick, too! Just to a lesser extent.

You can only play as Ciri for a fraction of the game, and only in linear shit in an otherwise open world game? Fuck that shit. I'm not paying full price to immerse in a small chunk of the game. Arkham City taught me that lesson with the painfully underdone catwoman plot. I frikking love batman, especially a Kevin Conroy voiced batman, but still.
Maybe if she had standalone DLC or something?
Gotta wonder how much of a life outside of the linear point a to point b stuff she does? does she get to have snoosnoo on the back of a unicorn? Side quests? Character development because of side quests?

I don't give a shit if the story revolves around geralt, the decision was made to give her an interactive story, but how much effort did she get?

Still, kudos to them for letting you play as her at all.

 

[CeeBod]

I like a lot of things about the Witcher 3 myself - the characters, the dialogue, the cutscenes, the way even minor side quests felt like actual quests rather than "fetch this/kill that delete as appropriate", and the world is a nice place to travel around, especially with the fancy graphics settings and weather effects. Having said that, I still haven't finished it yet - I've put just over 100 hours into it, and I've recently stopped playing it again in order to play Skyrim some more!

I think I'm choosing to play Skyrim over the Witcher 3 because what's great about open world games is the freedom to do almost anything. In a modded Skyrim that really is almost anything, but in the Witcher 3 I can only be Geralt, doing his thing.

 

[The Madman]

Not a surprise, since he's one of the most bland and Marty Sue characters around. So bland and empty that it's super easy for the player to dump themselves into him as an empty vessel.

Too many people overuse that 'Mary Sue' phrase, I'm really starting to hate it. It seems like any time someone doesn't like a character or finds them boring it's become the default go-to passive insult. "Oh no, I guess it's an alright character, just kinda a Mary Sue." might as well be the go-to internet catch-phrase for reviewing stories.

Geralt, for all his ridiculousness, is not even close to the most powerful character in his setting nor is he known for winning every fight he's involved in. In a game that's kinda tricky to portray since, well, you're playing as him and no one likes forced lose scenario, but in the books he's killed by a goddamned kid with a pitchfork. Seriously, that's how the book series ends: He's trying and failing to stop a riot and in the middle of a skirmish is stabbed and left for dead by some random no-name peasant.

Spoiler I guess.

He has clearly defined weaknesses and flaws to match his strengths. A well rounded personality as that of a somewhat wry professional who puts on a big tough act an an emotionless badass but ultimately is a bit of a softy inside, especially when interacting with the closest thing to a 'family' he has. And while ultimately you might not like him, Geralt is not a Mary Sue. By definitely a Mary Sue is a sort of idealized author self-insertion designed for wish fulfillment. Unless your wish is to be a somewhat unhappy cynic who ultimately finds some sliver of happiness only to die anti-climatically, that's not Geralt.

What you can argue with all fairness is the games portrayal of that personality, and I'd even agree with you. Witcher 1 and 2 don't really show much of a character in Geralt and he really is portrayed heavily as a player insert. But as Zhukov mentions I think the devs actually did a far better job of portraying the character from the books in 3, as any sequence in which he talks about or interacts with Ciri demonstrates. There's one scene in the game where you play Geralt recounting his memories with Ciri and it's actually really well done, despite boiling down to just being a scene about a guy talking about someone else and some of the stuff they did together. Great voice acting, excellent portrayal, surprisingly emotional.

And for the record as much as I love Witcher 3, and I really do I think it's a great game, I'd still say Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Hong Kong were my favourite straight up rpg in recent years. Witcher 3 is a damned good game but I find them to be superior rpg.

Incidentally sorry if I came across as a bit of an ass in that post, I realize in retrospect it's unfair to chide someone for something even I freely admit the first two games did a poor job of informing the player of. I guess I'm just really getting tired of seeing the Mary Sue accusation thrown around. My apologies.

 

[sky pies]

The opposite actually, the game is complete without really needing to add something, the lack of mods means you can't artificially increase the length of the game, once it's over it's over.

I really misread you, I missed the 'right length' quote and therefore took "the lack of mods just make the game feel like something that ended" as a complaint erps.