Is The Witcher 3 overrated?

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Basically, if a game has an element in it and the developer doesn't care to make it top-notch, then it either shouldn't be in the game or be in there only very sparingly.

First of all that's a bit unfair, since no game can make every element top-notch, hence why there's no such thing as a perfect game. Just look at the way the spear was handled in Horizon: Zero Dawn, or the climbing for that matter... not great. And secondly, this can be very subjective. Some people think the horse controls in Shadow of the Colossus is garbage.

The main trick to making everything top-notch (or at least good) is for the developer to understand what the core of the game is and what elements are needed to support and enhance the core experience. Witcher 3 has quite a few elements that it really didn't need and feels like are just in there because they are popular vs needed for the game. Many games become diluted because of that. Witcher 3 didn't need the open world, the skill trees, or the loot system at all because none of them really make any sense for a master witcher on a time sensitive quest. All that time spent on extraneous stuff could've been spent making combat good for example or eschewing combat completely and making the game into a real detective game instead of just aping Batman's detective mode. The Game Maker's Toolkit Design by Subtraction [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmSBIyT0ih0] episode can and should be applied to every game.

Horizon, while having its faults, does understand it's core far better than the Witcher 3. The spear was fine in Horizon for what it needed to do in machine combat as it wasn't a melee combat system. The human combat was the issue where the spear could've done more along with being the biggest fault of the game. At least Guerilla knew that they had the make machine combat good first and foremost whereas CDPR did the exact opposite building a combat system around humanoid combat when its main character is a monster hunter, not Batman. I'd rate Horizon as an 8/10 because it could be decently better at certain things.

And your last point about subjectivity is exactly the reason why ANYTHING having an aggregate review score of 90+ is asinine. To get a review score even in the low 90s (let alone the even more ridiculous 98 aggregates) requires such a large percentage of reviewers to find the game a masterpiece, subjectivity has to be basically eschewed for faux objectivity. There's tons of people that don't like several hit games because of valid reasons, where's the negative reviews for hit games that point out those reasons? Look at what happened with Greg Tito's review of GTA5 on this very site, he hated the writing and got bitched at by gamers for giving the game a 7/10, a rather generous score based on just the written review. That's why every game is overrated. Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favorite games and it's overrated too because there's people that hate the horse riding or the empty world or lack of things to do or whatever.

 

[Trunkage]

The other part I'd add is that I think a lot of hate for Witcher comes from the way its designed. If your used to games letting you play your way - do come here. The Witcher isnt designed for role play, exploring, sight seeing or letting you do things your way. You need to take it on its terms, not form your own playstyle. Until I learnt this, I had heaps of trouble geting engaged.

Yennefer is villian, willing to kill people to get what she wants. And this is meant to be a love interest. Its a big turn off and really undermines the main quest.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Yes. Characters that go on and on and on about shit nobody cares about.

Wut?

Like I know you have a pension for shitting on everything, but seriously, wut?

Oh man, you can get a pension for that? I'm more than qualified! Where do I apply?

I think you meant 'penchant' =P

In my opinion, not really. But in a lot of people's, of course.

My main take away from The Witcher 3 is apparent when compared to the likes of AAA titles like Assassin's Creed Origins. CD Projekt Red employs around five to six hundred staff and is, by and large, an independent developer.
Ubisoft Montreal employs over three thousand people and has the publishing power of their parent company to back investment for their development.

Given that TW3 was the third game an indie studio developed, I'm willing to cut some of the jankier aspects of the game some slack. It also helps that I really enjoy the universe of the Witcher and had been dying to just go out and do some basic Witcher contracting since played the first game. The end result was a game that played well enough, looked great and told a consistent story with some excellent character building. On top of the wonderful pro consumer decisions they made with DLC and Expansions. Overrated? Not to me.

'Indie studio'? Yeah right, only if you still consider Valve 'indie.' They're worth 2.3 billion dollars and run one of the most popular digital distribution platforms out there.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I haven't played it, but generally I dislike the term "overrated." As I mentioned in another thread about calling things "overrated" the only time I will ever say something is overrated is when I think something is good, but not good enough to deserve the popularity or praise it gets. Examples of such for me would be FF7. Does TW3 deserve the praise it gets? I don't know.

 

[sXeth]

Has the label 'perfect' or 'without flaws' ever been placed on The Witcher 3 by fans though, or on any other well regarded game? At best you'll have people saying they loved a game so much they choose to ignore the flaws. Maybe this is miscommunication, but people tend to confuse fans saying 'I love this game to death' or 'This is the best game I ever played' with them claiming there is absolutely, positively nothing wrong with it.

Let's see, 17 100 scores right off the critic side of metacritic, 700 and change on the user side. Which is aroundish 20% on the first and 8% on the latter.

So yeah, there's a decent chunk of people saying the game is objectively perfect. There's an even wider swath running along the second-only-to-absolute-perfection band.

You can swing the other way around with the concept too. How many people are quick to throw down the 0/10/, worst game evar stuff on entirely functional games. Even if we exclude games that literally don't function, there's still a ton of horrifically badly executed games out there then whatever iteration Call of Duty is on.

First of all that's a bit unfair, since no game can make every element top-notch, hence why there's no such thing as a perfect game. Just look at the way the spear was handled in Horizon: Zero Dawn, or the climbing for that matter... not great. And secondly, this can be very subjective. Some people think the horse controls in Shadow of the Colossus is garbage.

Well yeah, simpler concepts are easier to execute well. "Tetris is a perfect game" comes up because its a simple concept, executed to its best. You can certainly not enjoy Tetris, or find it simple, but that's a rejection of the concept, not a criticism of the execution.

Fundamentally, with current tech (and even if you had all the budget and talent in the world to apply), the whole living breathing open world stuff really can't come off perfectly. Its too many variables and complex systems to try and merge together. Open World designs also been kind of sluggish since around the mid-90s since designers realized that you can't just simulate our world, because players don't play like actual living beings in games and everything goes to shit. SO there's an ongoing creative struggle for ideas to make a world that interacts with the player and itself organically, but isn't destabilized by some sociopath with a hoarding complex or any of the other behavior that manifest with detached virutal avatars.

Shadow of the Colossus is an interesting example, as a game that did try and stick almost entirely to a small set of core concepts, and you could probably find less obvious gaps in the execution of those concepts because of it.

 

[Abomination]

The Bloody Baron questline alone makes the game amazing.

It is not overrated, it has set the bar by which all other CRPGs can aspire to.

It has some faults, but they are drowned out by all of its positives.

It's not perfect, but it's still the best of its genre out there.

 

[votemarvel]

It's weird for me. I've had the game since release but I've got almost nowhere in it.

When I play the game I love it but when I stop I really don't feel any pull to go back and so I end up going weeks, sometimes months, between playing.

 

[Trunkage]

Yes. Characters that go on and on and on about shit nobody cares about.

Wut?

Like I know you have a pension for shitting on everything, but seriously, wut?

I'm serious. I often intentionally picked the dialogue options that would get the boring assholes to shut up quicker. I know a good talky when I see it and TW3 isn't one.

I'm hit and miss. Anyone in Skellege can shut up, especially the trickster monks. What complete a-holes, using someone's pretentiousness as an excuse for poor behaviour. Whoreson is a waste of space and I still don't care about Dandelion after three games. But Dijkstra, Baron, Kiera and Ciri can keep going. Even Thaler and Avelleon have much to add. It has some of the best characters in gaming but some of the worst too.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oh man, you can get a pension for that? I'm more than qualified! Where do I apply?

I think you meant 'penchant' =P

Hey man, second language, cut me some slack.

Has the label 'perfect' or 'without flaws' ever been placed on The Witcher 3 by fans though, or on any other well regarded game? At best you'll have people saying they loved a game so much they choose to ignore the flaws. Maybe this is miscommunication, but people tend to confuse fans saying 'I love this game to death' or 'This is the best game I ever played' with them claiming there is absolutely, positively nothing wrong with it.

Let's see, 17 100 scores right off the critic side of metacritic, 700 and change on the user side. Which is aroundish 20% on the first and 8% on the latter.

So yeah, there's a decent chunk of people saying the game is objectively perfect. There's an even wider swath running along the second-only-to-absolute-perfection band.

You can swing the other way around with the concept too. How many people are quick to throw down the 0/10/, worst game evar stuff on entirely functional games. Even if we exclude games that literally don't function, there's still a ton of horrifically badly executed games out there then whatever iteration Call of Duty is on.

People need to stop taking review scores so freaking serious, and see them for what they are; a numerical value on the amount of enjoyment the reviewer had overall with the game. See, I doubt you're going to find a review with a 10/10 that throws zero shade on that title.

Wut?

Like I know you have a pension for shitting on everything, but seriously, wut?

I'm serious. I often intentionally picked the dialogue options that would get the boring assholes to shut up quicker. I know a good talky when I see it and TW3 isn't one.

Well, that's more nuanced then your initial criticism of 'people talk about the things in this world, boo'. Which would be an odd thing to complain about considering what the game is and where it takes place.

 

[EscapistAccount]

Overrated is the kind of critique people make when they think they're smarter than the sheeple and can see the truth.

If I was carving a gravestone for the Escapist and wanted a pithy quote to sum it up it'd be 'x is overrated'.

 

[stroopwafel]

If I was carving a gravestone for the Escapist and wanted a pithy quote to sum it up it'd be 'x is overrated'.

Spoiler: No one carves gravestones on the internet I find

 

[Azure-Supernova]

'Indie studio'? Yeah right, only if you still consider Valve 'indie.' They're worth 2.3 billion dollars and run one of the most popular digital distribution platforms out there.

But they fundamentally are an indie studio. They're larger than your average bedroom developer, but they're still on the smaller side for a development team. The Witcher 3's budget was some ?55 million. GTAV clocked in at ?190m. Bear in mind both games are considered AAA, despite having vast disparities in resources.
But the best game to compare TW3 to would probably be Horizon Zero Dawn.

Budget - ?40m vs ?55m
Development time - six vs four years
Team size - 270 vs 240

Despite their similarities, Horizon Zero Dawn was being backed and published by Sony. The Witcher 3 was self funded. That ?55m budget encompasses development and marketing costs, Horizon's doesn't. So whilst CDPR aren't one man and his dog developing a 32 bit, side scrolling platformer in their bedroom; they are by no means comparable to a majority of AAA developers.

 

[stroopwafel]

Yes. Characters that go on and on and on about shit nobody cares about.

Wut?

Like I know you have a pension for shitting on everything, but seriously, wut?

I'm serious. I often intentionally picked the dialogue options that would get the boring assholes to shut up quicker. I know a good talky when I see it and TW3 isn't one.

Yeah, main issue I have with TW3 is way too much boring dialogue. But skipping the dialogue means skipping most of the game as this is what they put most effort in(considering you'll find another talk addict 20 minutes later). Not all of the dialogue is bad, some of it is genuinely great and had me engaged but so much of the talk is just mundane fluff that never gets interesting. Admittedly the quality of the writing is good and so is the delivery but even 'good' writers can pen boring stories. And TW3 is nothing but story b/c as a game neither does it have the exploration of a typical open world RPG(everything is tied to the cobweb of chatty NPC's) nor can the shit combat be considered good gameplay. You are just funneled from one dialogue option to the next. Again, various quests have some genuinely great story moments but when playing a game start to feel like reading a book of which there are way too many boring pages you just wish it had something more to compensate for.

 

[Squilookle]

Sounds like you simply don't like the story in a story-centric game. That doesn't make it shit- it's just not for you. Move along.

 

[Timedraven 117]

I've played it, but the game never grabbed me, I don't like fetch quest games, and it really bugs me the wrong way when I have usable items that I can actively misuse and then lose forever until i get around to making new ones. Now this is not a bad thing, many people LOVE this type of game, Dark Souls is one of them, I don't.

Not saying its bad, I found the story quite intriguing for what I played, and the characters were (Mostly) interesting, where I wanted to learn more about most of them. (Except Yennifer, she's a heartless ***** in my opinion). I also wanted to learn more about the world and the creatures in it, but unfortunately the game heavily lacks in those features and I'm easily distracted with other games so I couldn't find the will to invest more than 10 hours into the game to start with.

But I know people who have played it extensively, and I don't blame them, what it does right it does REALLY right.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

The game would have been infinitely better without the self-insert eternal void of charisma that is geralt voiced by a monotone radiator covered in dirty wet flannels. It's the one gaping huge crack of suspension of disbelief running through the entire experience. Everyone else can be seen as characters inhabiting this lovely world but him. At every single turn it is the one sole problem reminding me this is just a game being voiced by actors reading lines, penetrating every scene like a missed Rolex watch in a Victorian period drama. I adored the moments when, at long last, I could be Ciri and shake off the mortally dull chains of this monotone self-insert Mary Sue... finally! But then it's not a moment before they pull you back to Sir Dullolewanksalone.

It's like taking a trip through a beautiful foreign landscape in a rusty old brown Volvo painted with go-faster stripes and gold-plated rims, except the windows never open and there's no air-conditioning so you're stuck anxiously breathing in your own farts for the whole journey. And everybody else was all like "nah, bro...that's they way it's meant to be done! It's authentic!" Don't patronise me, you fucks, I know when people are trying to pander cheaply to basic shit.

Anyway, been playing Mankind Divided recently and noticed that even though Adam Jenson is essentially the same sort of character, he somehow comes off as believable and part of the world. He doesn't elicit the same intense mental rejection for whatever reason.
Is it because he is mostly robot already? Hmm, probably not, robots can be charming too.
Is it because of his sick-ass late 90s-future shades? Can't rule it out, to be fair.
Is it because not every female inexplicably wants to bang his techno-phallus because 'the writer deemed his bestie character sex Jesus and there's totes nothing you can do about it'? Maybe partly?
Could it be that the minimal intonation of the deep gravelly voice actor puts emphasis behind just enough of the right words to sound more authentic and less like reading lines off a script? More analysis is required there.

Oh well, hopefully their cyberpunk whatevery-doos won't come with the baggage of an established main character with an established chosen voice actor that cannot be replaced without much much anger from established fanbases.

 

[stroopwafel]

The game would have been infinitely better without the self-insert eternal void of charisma that is geralt voiced by a monotone radiator covered in dirty wet flannels.

No, no, no I actually stuck with the game b/c of Geralt. I really liked him. I had the most fun with the game when Geralt was chatting up strumpets, evil vampires, sentient trees, slavic witches etc. The parts with Ciri and all the character drama was the most boring for me. Unfortunately the game spends most of the time with Geralt having to maintain his shit relationships; be they lovers, adversaries, accomplices or what have you. When it steps away from that I found the game super fun.

As for Adam Jensen, yeah he's alright for a middle-aged emo.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

I would really like to hear you elaborate on this.

He can't. He watches that retard from "Worth a Buy" and he simply adopts his opinions as his own. I doubt that he even played TW3 considering his general hatred for third person games, especially third person games that aren't even shooters.

As for me, I think it's the best game ever made.

I played it and beat it 3 years ago. and yes it was not very good. i enjoy some of parts but most of game is boring.

and my friend, i dont always agree with worth a buy. he praise far cry 4/primal and didnot like Doom that much.

 

[stroopwafel]

The game would have been infinitely better without the self-insert eternal void of charisma that is geralt voiced by a monotone radiator covered in dirty wet flannels.

No, no, no I actually stuck with the game b/c of Geralt. I really liked him. I had the most fun with the game when Geralt was chatting up strumpets, evil vampires, sentient trees, slavic witches etc. The parts with Ciri and all the character drama was the most boring for me. Unfortunately the game spends most of the time with Geralt having to maintain his shit relationships; be they lovers, adversaries, accomplices or what have you. When it steps away from that I found the game super fun.

As for Adam Jensen, yeah he's alright for a middle-aged emo.

Ugh, that makes it sound like I might as well just play a dating sim. This is why even for its flaws I?d rather just keep replaying SoulsBorne, or even individual missions from MGSV. They all understand gameplay should be kept at the forefront of a...game. I would probably never have the patience to replay Witcher or even GTA because of all the talking cutscenes, dialog choices, scripted missions, etc. you?re forced to wait for. I generally enjoy playing through the games but only as a one-and-done because I?d rather just watch a few movies than sit through all that more than once.

Just let me play!