Witcher 3 fans... need an opinion
the_spyder
Member Posts: 5,018
in Off-Topic
Ok, so Witcher 3 has been out for a while and it has gotten glowing reviews. So I am kind of thinking about looking into it but wanted some input/opinions.
Now let me start out that I tried and tried and TRIED to like Witcher 1, but just could not get into it. Basically I thought that the combat was a bit wonky (I never got out of the first section so I don't know if it GOT more elegant or not) and I absolutely hated the magic system. I also didn't really like the fact that you had to play "Their" character instead of playing my own, but I can probably get past that bit.
I never even tried Witcher 2 because I couldn't get into Witcher 1.
So my question is, given the above do you think I will be wasting money if I invest in Witcher 3? I hear the franchise has gotten better over the years. People have said that W3 is better than sliced bread and all.
Oh, and I would be playing this on a PS4 (horrors, I know but there it is).
Now let me start out that I tried and tried and TRIED to like Witcher 1, but just could not get into it. Basically I thought that the combat was a bit wonky (I never got out of the first section so I don't know if it GOT more elegant or not) and I absolutely hated the magic system. I also didn't really like the fact that you had to play "Their" character instead of playing my own, but I can probably get past that bit.
I never even tried Witcher 2 because I couldn't get into Witcher 1.
So my question is, given the above do you think I will be wasting money if I invest in Witcher 3? I hear the franchise has gotten better over the years. People have said that W3 is better than sliced bread and all.
Oh, and I would be playing this on a PS4 (horrors, I know but there it is).
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(Personally I'm part of the 1% of people that prefer the Witcher 1's combat system)
Personally, I put the Witcher 3 up there with BG2 as one of the best games ever.
The strengths of having to play only one pre-made character is that the playing experience is streamlined and accessible yet also allows a lot of freedom of exploration and choice. You do get to decide your character's relationship with NPCs.
Witcher 2 on the other hand is a game I rank at top 5 best RPG's I ever played. Sure, I would have liked to finish the first one before playing the second one, but it's well worth playing anyways, I assure you. I will play W3 sooner or later (need a new comp I guess) as well.
I too prefer to create my own player character, but Geralt is kinda badass, and it's somewhat similar to play Shephard in ME etc (even though ME offers some customization, Shephard is still Shephard). After som time, he becomes "you" even if you didn't create him from scratch. In W2 you can choose your focus, combat, alchemy or 'magic', or a little of anything. So you can tailor Geralt to your prefered playstyle at least.
Question, is the magic system any better in 2 and 3 than it was in 1? I remember really not liking it at all (what little I actually saw of it in the 4 tries I made at playing the game).
It depends of what do you mean. You still can upgrade Signs and you can also earn alternative mode for those Signs. For example, normally Ard knocks off and/or stund the enemies at middle range via telekinetic blast, but in alternative mode, you stun and knock off enemies all around you, at cost of longer casting time and decreased chance to stun etc. Basic Igni attacks with a fire wave, but alternative creates a focused channeled flamethrower-like spell. There are alternative versions of other Signs but I've never tried those so far.
Also, Signs are using your stamina, which is also used for running, jumping, rolling on the ground, but is not used in parrying or normal dodges (which I recommend over rolling in most situations).
Still, you are the Witcher. Your swords will remain your primary weapons, but Signs can be very useful nonetheless. Just don't expect to destroy your enemies with Signs alone.
In my defense, I got as far as the three witches (for those who know the game) but gosh darn it, I had enough by then.
The good:
The story is deep, the characters are well rounded. Even side quests have a lot of time and thought put into them.
The combat is fun and gives you enough options to keep the game interesting. A lot of people tend to min max into one specific build, but I can honestly say this is not needed, even on Deathmarch difficulty a mixed build will get you through every fight quite easily.
Even when you are forced into changing characters, the game is still fun, I have never seen this in any other game, when forced into playing Catwomen in that Batman game, half the time I would just stop and do something else. When I hit a Ciri section in W3 I actually get excited.
Gwent is the best mini game in any game ever, once you start playing you will have an insatiable need to collect every card.
There are no mandatory stealth and or vehicle sections, well there are horse races, but they take like 1 min to do and can be skipped most of the time.
The very few times in the game you have to do a dreaded escort mission, the NPC actually moves at your speed, making the whole process almost painless.
The map is huge.
Yennefer is in it.
The weird little things you can do in combat, like using the Axii sign on a Alghoul to make in retact it's spikes.
The not so good:
They lied about the amount of monster types in the game, they said 80 and that's true if bosses and reskins are counted, but it's really more like 40 maybe 50.
The sex scenes had to be made more pc for console, so the they don't hold up to W2.
Dandelion is still a tool.
There are no giant boss monsters, nothing like the mutated Kayren or Dragon battle from W2.
Saskia and Iorveth don't make an apperance "will proably be added in the next DLC", in fact the entire Scoia'tael is underplayed.
If you want a great game get W3, most of my complaints don't actually affect you, now that I'm looking at them. Maybe even consider getting W2 first, that game is also amazing.
Ok, I can be wrong. I've been throught game only once so far, and I never really tried to exploit the game yet.
And Yrden is usefull when fighting many enemies at once. It slows them down pretty hard.
As it starts as a 19% slow it's a decent pick up for a potion popper or sword swinger with no sign power at all, but doesn't really have a place in a sign build.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is available with a 50% discount on GoG.com. One of the best games of this year.
http://www.gog.com/?pp=f6e1126cedebf23e1463aee73f9df08783640400 (the sale included vanilla IE games as well)
Additionally there are very few loading screens in the game, once you are on a map (total of 4 large maps in the game) everything is fully connected, including all buildings and dungeons.
I guess in part I miss having a party, don't thoroughly enjoy the action style combat, which makes it tiring sometimes to play through to the parts I do like, the world, npcs and narrative aspects. The other major thing is I don't really like Geralt at all, I don't thoroughly hate him, but I don't really like him, and get tired of being stuck as him and feeling of having little RP opportunities with him.
So of the 3, I probably most enjoyed the first strangely enough, but I'm very much the odd one out, and it's pretty much entirely the result of my own biases, there is allot of stuff I see in this game and what CDProjekt RED have done that is really impressive. And perhaps once I get time to come back into Witcher 3 it will capture me, it certainly had things in it I did like if I can just get to liking the combat and tolerating Geralt more
Anyway, for what I've heard, if you don't have my biases you should enjoy it allot
- The Soundtrack. It's so wonderful and bring that sentiment Medieval and dream type environment
- Gameplay. Contingent upon trouble it's turns out to be profound and makes you truly to pretend Witcher.
- Open World. It's HUGE, thus different! That makes Witcher 3 one of the best recreations of that type ever. Furthermore, on account of the divine beings, diversion has quick travel.
- The Plot. It's likewise so immense and wide! Engineers made glossary, on the off chance that you missed something vital.
- Graphics. It's awesome
In this way, it's an artful culmination and must have.
These tweets (and they will continue) offer quite a big review, actually:
The battle mechanics are so incredibly boring that no matter how hard I try to like this game, I just don't. I've played maybe 15 hours or so, not long enough to really choose any particular battle style with upgraded signs etc. I've just put points into fast attack and tried to roll and attack.
I feel so sad. I want to love the game because it IS a great game in all aspects except the action, but since those parts are so dominant, I just can't push on.
Anyone else felt the same?
Edit: Another example is how your amulet shifts around when Gerald walks around during cutscenes.
Figuring out what's going on with the combat/magic/crafting system in Witcher one can be fairly complicated and actually takes a bit of thought - especially if you're playing on a higher than normal difficulty. It's up to you what sort of play experience you want in the first game. If you want the satisfaction of having to use every possible mechanic to succeed, then playing at a higher difficulty can be rewarding, or if you just want to peruse the story and enjoy some stuff, that's fine too. Witcher 1 was a great game - once you take the time to learn how it works. It's a bit like playing a technology character in Arcanum if you ever played that game - it can be equal parts frustrating and incredibly rewarding lol.
Witcher two made a lot of the game play less esoteric and added some layers to combat that, I felt, were fairly intuitive, but definitely oriented more towards 3rd person gameplay than "over-the-top" camera style (which was offered in witcher 1 - and was my preferred way to look at things purely because of my familiarity with isometric games). On the whole though, 2 was a little less interesting than one to me, maybe, it suffered for being a sequel since a lot of the "wow" factor of the setting and characters was expended in the first game. Still not a bad game by any means, but I preferred the first.
All I'll say about 3 though, is that it was a tour de force.
It never bothered me that they made me play Geralt - since he's a blank slate all the same. Not that being able to create your own character usually amounts to much anyways (since it's pretty rare for cosmetic choices made during character creation to have any influence over the game anyhow). He even changes to reflect the choices you've made (relative to if you take other paths) - which is the real narrative strength of games that have you play a specific character - because the player becomes a sort of puppet master over the character and *they* as well as the world, respond to your decisions.
My point is, yes, SOME control needs to be maintained by the writers but not necessarily to the point where you HAVE to play Lara Croft (or Geralt in this case) simply for the story line to have any personal connection to the character.
I had wondered the same thing but then I watched the video.