The new baseline for RPG.

User Rating: 10 | The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt PC

This is the game. This is what we have been expecting so long, and it was delivered. There are not many words that can accurately describe this game, but I will give it a shot.

  • Gameplay:

I agree, partly, with what is has been said about this game difficulty. It's true that at a certain point the game becomes easier, but at no point it becomes a hack-n-slash type of game. Every enemy has it's movelist, so knowing which kinds of attacks to expect is half of the battle. The other half comes from reading the Bestiary and knowing what your enemy is weak against (alas, at some point it doesn't becomes necessary as well). I'm currently playing at Blood and Broken Bones! difficulty setting and I say it's about right, so why, in my case, it becomes easier at certain point of the game? Signs. For me, the breaking point was getting the Griffin Set and the Griffin School Techniques skill, which overall granted me a sign intensity of +85% and a Stamina regen of 35 per sec, meaning in less than 3 secs I could cast again (without the aid of potions or anything, just gear). That means I could Aard most mobs into the ground and execute them right away (except some monsters, shielded enemies and the ones that wields two handed weapons which are immune to knockdown, I think). So, except some, most of the regular mobs were a bit easier to go through. Nevertheless there were a number of mobs that couldn't be knocked down like that (All kinds of specters, trolls, golems, vampires, the ones that I've mentioned before, and more) which I had to dealt with either Igni or some good old fashioned combat.

Now, most of the mobs that I couldn't finish with Aard are relatively easy to dodge (not roll), which opened them for a counter-attack (not the one when you parry), but it's not like you can dodge once and hack them for all eternity until they die. They do recover from that and counter attack on their own, so you need to either dodge again, try some signs, bombs (didn't use them much, but they were a bit fun) or whatever you had available at your arsenal. So overall I wouldn't say it was as easy as some makes it to be, but it didn't felt imposible either, I think it was about right.

Also enjoyed how they handled the alchemy system, with the upgrades to bombs, potions and oils and that you only need to create them once and, when they run out, they will be refilled the next time you meditate and have some strong alcohol (Alcolest, usually) in your inventory. It made it way more useful than it was in previous games, where I only used Cat for darkness and maybe Swallow from time to time. In Witcher 3 you WILL use them all, trust me, even Black Blood when you had to fight the Ekimmaras.

  • Graphics:

20 out of 10. Seriously, I don't mind much about the graphics and I value more the gameplay itself, which is why I rather play FF7 or 8 instead of X or X-2 for example), but I think this time it's worth mentioning the GORGEOUS graphics this game has. What I loved most was, by far, the weather, seeing how it combines 2 or more "states" in the scene. For example if you looked up and to the west, you would see dark clouds, but look a little bit to the east and you will still see some light clouds mixed with the sun, perhaps. I don't know how to properly explain this, but I don't care, I just loved that.

Performance wise, I have a 980 and 16GB RAM, and with everything set to ultra, nVidia Hairworks included, I never dropped 45fps (mostly staying in the 50 - 60 fps range) and never exceeded 65ºC temp, but since I couldn't really notice some graphics improvements with certain options, I disabled them (or lowered to high) to get a stable 60fps and a confortable 60ºC (I know 65 it not that much for having everything at ultra and I know it can take a whole lot more of temp but what can I say? I like the cold).

Worth mentioning, had some bugs in the previous versions of the game that seems to have been gone with 1.04. The first one was that at some point of the game it would hang up, "destroy" the screen and just show me the desktop, but I could still play the game in the background (I attacked and it did the attack sound, and so on). Only way to properly keep playing was to restart the game. The second one was that at cutscenes it just wouldn't play, it just froze in place (but I could skip it if I wanted it), and shortly after that it would crash to desktop. At any rate, been playing a while and I think that even on 1.03 those 2 issues are long gone, so we're good.

  • Sound:

Not something I pay attention in games, except specific ones (like the final fantasy soundtrack), and this game is no exception to that. Nice combat music, nice overworld music (which you can download from gog.com or the galaxy client in FLAC I think) and that's it.

  • Story (Quests / Side Quests)

Good so far, I'm almost at the end I think (just finished that thing with the Crones and Imlerith) and it seems legit. There were a couple of times that I was kinda lost, like when everyone knew who Eredin was (The King of the Hunt) and I was like "but when was this dude introduced??". I mean, I knew that there was a king of the hunt, but I think that his name was never mentioned in the games before (except in books in-game on witcher 3). Correct me if I'm wrong. Side quests are a HUGE improvement of what we had in Inquisition, and even more so are the Witcher Contracts. In these special sidequests you need to hunt, and to do so you will use your Batman sen... I mean, your witcher senses to discover clues, follow tracks and so on. What I loved about that is that Geralt makes comments on the clues that it finds and they are belivable. For example on one ocassion you will find horse hoofs and he will comment "Horse hoofs, prints seems deep. Perhaps it was carring something?" (which is later proven true, of course) and remarks like that which makes you belive that he knows what he's doing and doesn't seem farfetched at all.

You will have, of course, your typical "rinse and repeat" kind of activities, like destroying monster nests, liberating areas for settlers to come in (nothing much, you may have a new trader or so in that place and that's it , or at least I failed to notice anything else related to that), smugglers caches (loot), Scavenger Hunts (to find Witcher gear's diagrams, which is far and beyond anything else you could craft) and so on. Every single "?" in the map is a "?" I want to explore (which didn't happen for me with Inquisition) , because is either a new side quest, one of these activities I mentioned, a new town, Place of Power (which enhances a specific sign for 30 mins and gives you an ability point), etc.

Also, Gwent. Gwent is good. Gwent is fun. But Gwent is somewhat easy if you know how to play.

Some tips:

  1. Always have more cards in hand that your opponent, always.
  2. Fill your deck with "spies" cards (the ones that gives you 2 extra cards) to fulfill tip number 1
  3. If the opponent only has one life left, he will NOT pass the turn until he has no other option (for example, if he has a weather card or a scorch card but the card with the highest score is his), so it's in your best interest to drag the match as much as you can so you can finish an eventual third round with ease, and to do this, refer to tips 1 and 2.
  4. Have some decoys cards to "pick up" the spies your opponent uses against you and "return" it to them (and get 2 cards in the process).
  5. If you have spies in your graveyard, use the medics cards and select them to, again, get the extra 2 cards.

So, if you hadn't noticed it by now, you must, absolutelly, without second guessing, have more cards in hand that your opponent. If you do so and try to drag on the match you will find certain AI "rules" that will make it easier to win the match. Of course, fill your deck with Heroes as much as possible. I recommend using the Nilfgardian deck for this.

So yeah, this is it. I think that future RPGs should build upon what the witcher 3 has delivered to us and improve on that. This is a game for the ages and it trully deserves the 10 it got in Gamespot. (or at least it doesn't deserve less than 9.5)