Main Campaign Really Needs an Enhanced Edition after Hearts of Stone [SPOILERS]
With the first expansion pack out, I was wondering how other players feel about the quality of The Witcher 3's original campaign.
Having recently completed the expansion, I felt that Hearts of Stone did many things much better than the original Witcher 3:
From a visual and gameplay perspective, it played around with the atmosphere and look of locations much more (going downright Silent Hill at one point), but even more importantly, it brought very decent boss battles to the table. While it was a swift change to suddenly keep dying numerous times after beating the Wild Hunt's generals to a pulp half-naked in the main game, I found the boss fights in Hearts of Stone unique, satisfying and rewarding, something that cannot be said about the original campaign's final confrontations.
Even more importantly, however, I think that Hearts of Stone highlights many of the storytelling failures in the Wild Hunt. Much has been written about how poorly Eredin and the Hunt are handled in the original game, but getting such new (semi)antagonists like O'Dimm and Olgierd von Everec makes them even more hopeless. Even if the characters from HoS are not incredibly original either, they are presented miles better than any of the Hunt's members (it probably helps that they are actually present in the game).
Another thing that struck me was how much better the break-in mission was in Hearts of Stone than the much-bashed Reason of State. I'm of the opinion that The Witcher 3's portrayal of Radovid is tragically bad (not to mention all the OOC moments for other protagonists at the end of this particular quest), but even in terms of design, ROS is a disaster. Even though one is an assassination and the other one a heist, just the fact that CDPR showed us that they can nail such a mission makes Reason of State a failure of epic proportions.
All in all, Hearts of Stone felt like a really good expansion and like a much more coherent story than what The Witcher 3 delivered in its second and especially third act. I think that this new content makes the shortcomings of the original game even more obvious and that it proves that The Witcher 3 is in dire need of a sizable Enhanced Edition. Obviously, Hearts of Stone is just a short story compared to the original game's narrative, but it also proves that CDPR could significantly improve the original game if the resources were devoted to this goal. Since there is so much unexploited and marred potential in the main narrative, I think it would be pity if the main game did not get the "HoS treatment' after the second expansion is released and before the whole studio moves on to Cybeprunk.
With the first expansion pack out, I was wondering how other players feel about the quality of The Witcher 3's original campaign.
Having recently completed the expansion, I felt that Hearts of Stone did many things much better than the original Witcher 3:
From a visual and gameplay perspective, it played around with the atmosphere and look of locations much more (going downright Silent Hill at one point), but even more importantly, it brought very decent boss battles to the table. While it was a swift change to suddenly keep dying numerous times after beating the Wild Hunt's generals to a pulp half-naked in the main game, I found the boss fights in Hearts of Stone unique, satisfying and rewarding, something that cannot be said about the original campaign's final confrontations.
Even more importantly, however, I think that Hearts of Stone highlights many of the storytelling failures in the Wild Hunt. Much has been written about how poorly Eredin and the Hunt are handled in the original game, but getting such new (semi)antagonists like O'Dimm and Olgierd von Everec makes them even more hopeless. Even if the characters from HoS are not incredibly original either, they are presented miles better than any of the Hunt's members (it probably helps that they are actually present in the game).
Another thing that struck me was how much better the break-in mission was in Hearts of Stone than the much-bashed Reason of State. I'm of the opinion that The Witcher 3's portrayal of Radovid is tragically bad (not to mention all the OOC moments for other protagonists at the end of this particular quest), but even in terms of design, ROS is a disaster. Even though one is an assassination and the other one a heist, just the fact that CDPR showed us that they can nail such a mission makes Reason of State a failure of epic proportions.
All in all, Hearts of Stone felt like a really good expansion and like a much more coherent story than what The Witcher 3 delivered in its second and especially third act. I think that this new content makes the shortcomings of the original game even more obvious and that it proves that The Witcher 3 is in dire need of a sizable Enhanced Edition. Obviously, Hearts of Stone is just a short story compared to the original game's narrative, but it also proves that CDPR could significantly improve the original game if the resources were devoted to this goal. Since there is so much unexploited and marred potential in the main narrative, I think it would be pity if the main game did not get the "HoS treatment' after the second expansion is released and before the whole studio moves on to Cybeprunk.
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