[DISCUSSION] Witcher 3 - Reviews

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What @MadGeralt said. Adrian's goal wasn't to write an essay on the Witcher lore. If you demand from him to include in this brief description of setting every single folklore and mythology Sapkowski referenced in his books... well you clearly missed the point of his article.

The problem is that generic is more or less, depending on the context, a negative connotation that clearly says "the witcher world isnt specific or special in any way, its just generic, it has the general things other fantasy has and nothing particular changing it"

If you didnt read it like that, thats ok, but thats what it means nonetheless.

He could have said slavic mythology and folklore with some traditional fantasy elements, or on the base of traditional races and medieval setting, but generic is literally used to describe an absence of specialty, because its just general.

I don't care much for what he said, but I can perfectly understand @Aes Sídhe.

Plus the witcher is much more than that. Just think for a second, if I come here and tell you "The Witcher formula, both for books and games, is that it’s the Slavic mythology mixed with generic fantasy (e.g. elves and dwarfs)" would that be accurate enough? you know its not, you know that definition completely ignores things like tone, focus on what inside said world, and a lot of other extremely important things.

I'm not saying he should've explained a whole paragraph of course, but its not about quantity, its more about precision. If some game thats not the witcher, descibes itself as slavic mythology with generic fantasy, more than one person if not most, would simply expect Dragon Age inquisition but with slavic creatures and legends, and the definition would certainly both, be perfect for said game, and unrepresentative of the witcher.

The real problem is that the reviewer's use of "generic" leaves knowledgeable readers free to dismiss anything he has to say about the Witcher world as superficial.

I think you may be confused here, we werent talking about the polygon review, the generic thing was said by the Bulletstorm/EthanCarter developer, who was responding to the Polygon review. He probably didnt mean to be negative against TW world, but he said what he said.
 
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I think the problem is a lack of perspective. Tolkien-derived fantasy is NOT "generic"; it has specific origins that Tolkien researched carefully and used deliberately. Only over-familiarity and too many inartistic regurgitations of his work make it appear "generic". And Sapkowski likewise chose the Irish, Welsh, Arthurian, and Tolkien origins of his characters, language, and situations (whether to highlight, lampshade, or lampoon them) just as deliberately, if not so systematically.

The real problem is that the reviewer's use of "generic" leaves knowledgeable readers free to dismiss anything he has to say about the Witcher world as superficial.
 
I kinda find this behavior of reviewing the review truly petty, especially if most people did not even played the game. People have the right to disagree when it comes to art or entertainment, not everyone is going to see the world like that, so it is normal that this would prom up different perspectives. Maybe I am just more comfortable with less positive reviews to the point of welcome them, as a sigh of difference.

Edit: I was talking too this of course https://medium.com/@adrianchm/the-b...on-polygon-s-the-witcher-3-review-f7ac8d7f0a5
 
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I think it's long overdue to hold reviewers to a higher standard. Really, it's a minority that are the problem. Most reviews I've read have been even handed and thoughtful. OT: They are killing it on Metacritic. If the other two platforms are more technically sound I wouldn't be surprised to see it attain a 94 or 95.That's rare territory.
 
I kinda find this behavior of reviewing the review truly petty, especially if most people did not even played the game. People have the right to disagree when it comes to art or entertainment, not everyone is going to see the world like that, so it is normal that this would prom up different perspectives. Maybe I am just more comfortable with less positive reviews to the point of welcome them, as a sigh of difference.

Edit: I was talking too this of course https://medium.com/@adrianchm/the-b...on-polygon-s-the-witcher-3-review-f7ac8d7f0a5

I dont know, all his points make sense and IMO he does not have to have played the game to critizise the review because he uses snippets of the review and common knowledge of the witcher world from previous games to dispute other snippets of the review
 
I kinda find this behavior of reviewing the review truly petty, especially if most people did not even played the game. People have the right to disagree when it comes to art or entertainment, not everyone is going to see the world like that, so it is normal that this would prom up different perspectives. Maybe I am just more comfortable with less positive reviews to the point of welcome them, as a sigh of difference.

Edit: I was talking too this of course https://medium.com/@adrianchm/the-b...on-polygon-s-the-witcher-3-review-f7ac8d7f0a5

This is not about the review score or the review being negative, it is about the reviewer trying to force his own personal agenda through that review.
I fully agree with Adrian, someone has to call BS on this Arthur Gies.
 
Nice. Among the cons, what does this supposed to mean: "Rhythm of the main quest sawtooth" (google-translated)?


it mean that the rythm of the main quest is fluctuating like the form of a saw:


He found the first 15 hour of the main quest very captivating but the next few hours were rather boring for him.

For him there was some quest lasting for several hours where he was just talking with some NPCs and delivering messages at the other end of the wolrd but he liked the main quest as a whole.

Like my fellow countrymen said above Gamekult is a website well-know for his intransigence, there is even a meme mocking this website named "c'est 7" (it's 7) :

a reference to the score Gamekult gave to a lot of AAA games well rated by the worldwide review (for example Dragon Inqusition)
Also the journalist was not a fan of the first two witcher yet he really liked this one and gave him the higest score of the gamekult bareme, they never gave a 10 yet.
 
I guessed so (about the sawtooth). But that's not necessarily a bad thing, to not have the main story on full throttle every time.

---------- Updated at 09:05 PM ----------

Though that's not the first review that mentions some issues with the main sorry, so probably there are some imperfections to it.
 
One thing I didn't really think of earlier... is there really only one type of counter in the game?
While the ones in 2 could be a bit glitchy, at least there was some variation to it. If all you have in 3 is the shoulder push I imagine it's going to get pretty old in the long run. Same thing goes for the execution moves, there's only like five different ones from what I've seen. I hope maybe they can add some more animations for both later, but I somehow doubt that's going to be the sort of things they'll be adding.
 
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[Video=YouTube;7l0vIE62rFk ]https://youtu.be/7l0vIE62rFk[/video]
Another video from PlayStation access (no spoilers) about the gear,weapons,etc.
 
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One thing I didn't really think of earlier... is there really only one type of counter in the game?
While the ones in 2 could be a bit glitchy, at least there was some variation to it. If all you have in 3 is the shoulder push I imagine it's going to get pretty old in the long run. Same thing goes for the execution moves, there's only like five different ones from what I've seen. I hope maybe they can add some more animations for both later, but I somehow doubt that's going to be the sort of things they'll be adding.


There are three defensive skills of relevance. One could be expected to unlock different dodge and roll animations (Fleet footed/footwork), the other two new attack and riposte animations (Counterattack and Murderous Precision).

Can't say for sure that these are going to all have lots of new animations, but I'd be surprised if they had none between them.. coupled with Whirl and Rend I would assume the character of Geralt's 'full on' sword play would be considerably different.

I plan on finding out.

:comeatmebro:
 

"You had some questions about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on PS4, Nath and Dave have some answers. Enjoy this UBER long Witcher feature and feast your eyes on Geralt's world..."


The inventory system explained: 00:54
The differences between the armour and swords: 05:30
A look at the card game, Gwent: 10:20
Exploring Novigrad: 12:30
Climb a mountain and enjoy the view: 18:36
Ciri gameplay: 20:49
The skill tree explained: 21:30
Bare fist fighting: 26:20
The different HUD options: 29:15
A look at the control scheme: 31:17
Geralt vs Roach race: 33:35
Repairing equipment: 34:32
Mace, axe and crossbow combat 36:38
Returning to Kaer Morhen: 38:11
Breaking the law: 38:50
Trying to slay a Wyvern: 40:07
 
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Not him (obviously) but i may not be able to play it when it comes out either, because the post office is my graphics card hostage and probably will hold my CE hostage because my passport has gone out.
 
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