I find myself unimpressed by Witcher 3. What is there to really "redefine the expectations of entire genre" as Witcher 2 and New York times was VERY CORRECT on saying that about TW2 and years down the line we still feel the impact in a very positive way on games.
The graphics are better you say then Witcher 2? In what way when you've got 2d foliage crappy foliage versus the glorious forest of TW2, when textures on the environment are lower resolution and the game runs like piss? The only improvement lies in the facial animations, lip syncing and hair. Everything else is not worth mentioning.
Witcher 2 was a quantum leap in terms of RPG graphics. It is by far away one of the best looking DX9 titles ever made. Witcher 3 is mediocre looking title that is already outmatched.
Gameplay? Marginal improvements to a broken formula, with terrible balance and design. Games like Dark Souls and Lords of the Fallen crush it with ease.
Story? A broken mess written with no consistency or care for the previous games or many of the crucial events in the books that completely ruins/ignores/tacks on the very characters CDPR had written.
That's because none of the principal writers of TW1 or TW2 were left. To give you a post from BSN from Jan Bartkowicz:
http://forum.bioware.com/topic/433687-now-im-playing-the-witcher-2/page-10#entry13692657
Jan Bartkowicz and Sebastian Stephien wrote the vast majority of TW2 and it's main story. A third guy wrote the dwarves, a fourth guy Adam Sliwinski had a far smaller role.
Out of the four W2 writers only ONE guy, the guy who had the smallest impact, remained on the team and is in the credits. Sebastian Stephien, who had been the dialogue writer of TW1 before becoming lead writer, moved on to Cyberpunk while Marcin Blacha, who wrote "additional dialogue" for TW1 and helped with english translation of TW2 suddently became lead writer.
If TW3 has the worst story of the series it's because every single principal writer of TW1 and TW2 did not write TW3 with the exception of Sebastian before he moved on to Cyberpunk. Essentially CDPR....had their junior writing team handling the biggest game in the series.
I can't really fault the writers themselves, but I have to ask CDPR upper management what in the hell where they thinking?! I don't mean just on writing level but on an overall development.
Somehow CDPR management had the brilliant idea that they could deliver a game on three different platforms with their LIMITED experience on console development and on consoles that had not even been
announced let alone released. That they could make the single biggest open world RPG, deliver it with a solid story while starting development on Cyberpunk and thus moving some of their most experienced people, including W2's LEAD WRITER, to that team. and do ALL of this on a 15 million development budget with an initial 80 or so people?
What happened? The development budget more then doubled, the game was delayed TWICE, the graphics coming out bad ( and 2d foliage with flat textures is rather bad considering the system requirements ) because they didn't have the resources to take on the task of making three good versions and instead delivered a single version that ran badly on EVERY machine, the staff overworked to death to make the game ( I remember the Neogaf post claiming this close to a year ago ), the team close to being tripled and Cyberpunk development halted to finish the game.
The overall result? A mediocre game that is by far away considerably worse then TW2 and has done nothing remarkable. It's only achievement is in copying the side quest system from SWTOR and implementing that in a single player situation. ( By side quests I mean monster contracts and the like ). I suppose that's OK....
Best in the series? No way. It's a damned shame.