Hi Devs and Gamers,
The Witcher 3, is easily one of the best best games I've ever played. As a fan of the series I love the momentum, and how the series ended up. I'm playing NG+ now, can't wait for the expansions. I would like to write a little bit detailed impressions, because there were a lot of misleading/subjective info about game all over the internet, kind of effected me, but after playing it, I experienced lots of things differently.
VISUAL:
Honestly I was baffled about all the downgrade speculations. And I was looking at the comparison screenshots and E3 images, felt kind of dissapointed as a loyal fan. But when I put 5-6 hours into game, I saw that this is really not the case. Seriously on Ultra, this game looks amazing, there might be some changes, but I personally don't see a "downgrade". Viewdistance/fog, I can totally see designer s intentions. I love how Novigrad looks misty from Velen on horizon. I'm really not interested in technical justification. I'm more interested in art and style. I'm not interested in seeing every single pixel of the bridge of Novigrad from distance. It just looks like a painting now. The other thing I love, the atmosphere and look changes depending on the time, date, weather and location, so it almost feels like every day feels different. Sometimes it gets vibrant, sometimes misty, sometimes more desaturated and gritty. I think this is an amazingly rich direction, never experienced such thing in an open world game. This game made me think that it's really beyond technical aspects but very artistic individuals worked behind. Every single design; from landscapes to outfits feels really well handcrafted and artfully done. Almost very authentic and internal too. Nothing feels generic in this game. I love the authenticity in terms of art direction. Foliage also feels amazing, every location is different. There are many memorable locations which is really hard to establish in a huge world. It's so nice to recognize places from distances by their silhouettes.
AUDIO:
This is one thing is kind of easy to miss, but usually if the sound design is great, you feel it's existence less. I love the richness and natural approach of sound design. I can feel the place, weather, surroundings without seeing things. Lots of tiny details put into sound design I can greatly appreciate. I also love the direction taken for witcher senses. Music goes down, and I can sense surroundings very contrast, lovely.
Not much to say about music; masterpiece. I think it's spot on. Again; instead of generic epic scores, I love the authentic direction. Every single situation has unique and extremely well done score, using many instruments vocals etc... very strong.
STORY: (!POSSIBLE SPOILERS!)
CD PROJECT I HAVE NO IDEA HOW YOU SCRIPTED THIS MUCH CONTENT WRITING WITHOUT MESSING IT UP. I seriously can't tell how it's done everything is related to each other, tiny secondary quest goes back to some decision I made back in the game. If I did something really unrelated -time wise- comes into dialogue unexpectedly. This is crazy, amazingly rich, mature, well written contracts, side quests, main story. Love the sense of humor too. Also the characters, it's unbelievible how many likable characters this game has. I want to be friends with Lambert and Zoltan
There are lot of great memories based on dialogues and characters.
Also I love the emotional approach in this game, it was great to see Geralt vulnerable, caring. Ciri is great, Yennefer is great. Very good voice acting too of course.
GAMEPLAY:
Overall, I enjoyed this game so much. It was fairly convinient to wonder around, I didn't die much from falling
Seriously if you just roll before landing it's just fine. This is another thing I feel exaggerated a lot. I'm fine with Roach too, could be better maybe, but overall she was pretty reachable, I like the riding mechanics too. Pretty much 1st open world game that I prefer riding rather than running.
GWENT was so much fun.
I like detective mechanics, tracking all those were great.
I have some certain opinions about gameplay;
ALCHEMY; I like this approach better than W2, I always love the alchemy in Witcher universe. It's nice to be able to use in combat, I like the tree as well. There's only one thing though; unlike sign usage, alchemy is not that userfriendly. I usually end up opening inventory and look for potions in the middle of the fight. It would be great If there was an additional row in the quick access menu for potions for example. 2 slots are not enough for alchemy build. And it really slows down the combat.
COMBAT; This is very crucial. I have no idea why a lot of people are being so harsh on Witcher 3 combat system. I play on Deathmarch, it's absolutely fantastic. I use all my skills put all my effort to win battles, and using all the varieties is just so much fun. Potions, oils, bombs, signs, and swordplay itself is great.
I like how Geralt moves, I think this game has one of the most aesthetic and graceful combat animations. W1 was a little repetative and Geralt was trying so hard to make cool moves. In Witcher 3, Geralt seems much more mellow, experienced, skillful, minimal moves but very deadly. I love how he dodges, effective and always facing the opponent. I really like how devs didn't go to a direction like Batman or Assassins Creed combat system. This still looks nice and I feel like I'm doing everything. This also results almost every combat situation is a unique choreography. I really like how Geralt whirls too, badass and super effecting in group fights. I agree combat system can take some time to get used to, but I think thats the only way to have a complex, aesthetic, rewarding and immersing experience system. I don't even wanna talk about comparisons like dark souls or bloodborne combat... It's a joke comparison, they are very different and arcade like...
My only wish would be a little more animation variety, Counter Attack has only 2 animations. And I wonder why they didn't recycle some finisher animations from W2. I like W3 has no cutscene like finishers everyting happens while I'm experiencing, feels I'm all involved, but W2 had pretty good animations to recycle for the existing system just to have more variety.
These are pretty much my overall thoughts about my appreciation. I can totally feel the LOVE you guys put into this game, this is very rare, and I really really apprecciate this. And of course I should give credit to Team how they listen to their fans, trying hard to please them, keeping the quality, raising the bar, and being generous. I think W3 deserves much much more than it's price.
Cheers
Mert
