Review RPG Codex Review: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[Paul_cz]

Review doesn't mention that right from the moment in which you realize that you can't shag the var Attre twins, despite Rosa specifically asking for "private lessons", fencing lessons you know, the thing you're doing with your "sword", the story goes downhill right up to the end. CDProjekt really dropped the ball here.

5/10 would not read again.

On a serious note, yeah, I forgot about that quest. Definitely a dropped ball thing there, the whole end of the quest is just a total meh.

It is bizzare reading this, since I actually found it refreshing that it flipped my expectations, while doing so logically. Really great quest for me.
Hell, after the quest I would not want to shag Var Attre even if I could.

 

[Angthoron]

Review doesn't mention that right from the moment in which you realize that you can't shag the var Attre twins, despite Rosa specifically asking for "private lessons", fencing lessons you know, the thing you're doing with your "sword", the story goes downhill right up to the end. CDProjekt really dropped the ball here.

5/10 would not read again.

On a serious note, yeah, I forgot about that quest. Definitely a dropped ball thing there, the whole end of the quest is just a total meh.

It is bizzare reading this, since I actually found it refreshing that it flipped my expectations, while doing so logically. Really great quest for me.
Hell, after the quest I would not want to shag Var Attre even if I could.

Well, my gripes with that quest are:

1) Pacing is off. The character running off is basically used to hand-wave the situation and move her from the bridge to the village. Geralt falling for it is pretty weird, too.
2) Abruptness of the resolution. Yeah, she gets jumped, yeah, she gets bitchy (by the way, shouldn't she maybe at least try to draw the sword? I get it, it was bravado all along but...), but it all runs down to "You're a bitch" from Geralt to a stupid rich girl that probably almost got killed.
3) Which, by the way, is pretty weird coming from W3 Geralt, since he tends to show more compassion to backstabbing bandits (Letho's quest)
4) Oh, she's showing nationalistic attitudes all of a sudden? Wow, hey, it's almost like she almost got herself raped and killed, Geralt, you're great at post-crisis support bro.

So yeah. I felt the quest was badly paced and railroaded into "You're a bitch, woman" kind of a situation. It could've been made much better. And no, I don't mean that it needed sex scenes. Just, you know, more tied to the situation. Most of W3 quests do this really well. This one, no.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Well, my gripes with that quest are:

1) Pacing is off. The character running off is basically used to hand-wave the situation and move her from the bridge to the village. Geralt falling for it is pretty weird, too.
2) Abruptness of the resolution. Yeah, she gets jumped, yeah, she gets bitchy (by the way, shouldn't she maybe at least try to draw the sword? I get it, it was bravado all along but...), but it all runs down to "You're a bitch" from Geralt to a stupid rich girl that probably almost got killed.
3) Which, by the way, is pretty weird coming from W3 Geralt, since he tends to show more compassion to backstabbing bandits (Letho's quest)
4) Oh, she's showing nationalistic attitudes all of a sudden? Wow, hey, it's almost like she almost got herself raped and killed, Geralt, you're great at post-crisis support bro.

So yeah. I felt the quest was badly paced and railroaded into "You're a bitch, woman" kind of a situation. It could've been made much better. And no, I don't mean that it needed sex scenes. Just, you know, more tied to the situation. Most of W3 quests do this really well. This one, no.

Yeah, while the overall quality of the writing is nothing to sneeze at, there are these occasional weird moments where your options and/or the outcome can feel abrupt.
Another examples is that quest about the totem/curse (Nihi...something?) in Skellige. You are given the option to force a man to abandon his family or to kill the bitter herbalist lass that cursed him, and the game doesn't even bother to let you a chance to argue with her, to point "Hey cunt, try to be a bit less bitter and bitchy or it could end poorly for you".

 

[Zero Credibility]

So I finally gave in and played this game. It has big problems, no questions about it. The biggest for me is how every item you find in the world is equally worthless. It just kills the will to explore. But the game is actually kind of fun (unlike some games I could mention). Has some nice views (climbed the top of the highest mountain in Skelige, then skied down to the sea) and some nice touches here and there.

Spoiler

Was walking in Novigrad after the mage quest and found some witch hunters burning a mage on the stake - the one you meet at the masquerade in fact. He tries to save himself by pointing you out, but you can just walk by and let him burn. Instead I took out the sword, killed them all, freed him and then verbally slapped him for being a jackass instead of asking for help. The best part is that there was no exclamation mark to signal "quest here!". I like that. There was a similar moment in Velen with a mob hanging a deserter - I'm pretty sure if you fail to help him the first time you are there they will hang him. A bit of C&C, even if somewhat superficial.

Also what I found annoying is the lack of (pretty bloody obvious) choices sometimes.

Spoiler

Like, another mob is about to kill a guy for dealing bad drugs that end up killing some kids. He claims he is innocent, but there is no evidence for or against him apart from the word of the angry mob. You can either say that there is no evidence and kill the mob, or say that drug dealers are scum and let them kill him. No third option. Why, if only there was a way to magically influence someone’s mind in the game and get them to admit if they are really guilty or not. If only.

Also, I picked Triss as a waifu because, well who the fuck is Yen anyway? (no, I didn't read the books). When you first meet her she is very upset that Gerald was with Triss and if you try to reason with her by saying that you actually lost your memory, she brushes it off as a poor excuse. The fuck?! If there is a better excuse I don't fucking know it. She knows Gerald is telling the truth because she also lost her memory. So, she expected him to remain faithful to her, even if he didn't know who the fuck she was? Later, after finally breaking up with her this comes up again and when I tried to again reason with her again she ends up teleporting me in the lake and saying the next time she might do it two miles up. Seriously, that bitch is crazy and I don't even get to call her out on it.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Another examples is that quest about the totem/curse (Nihi...something?) in Skellige. You are given the option to force a man to abandon his family or to kill the bitter herbalist lass that cursed him, and the game doesn't even bother to let you a chance to argue with her, to point "Hey cunt, try to be a bit less bitter and bitchy or it could end poorly for you".

Oh yeah, that one. Fucking hell, why can't I go to the bitch and explain to her just what is going to happen if she doesn't lift the curse herself? Even if she is suicidal enough to refuse (and I really doubt anyone would), at least give the option to talk to her. It's such an obviously missing option it makes me think it was deliberately omitted to make the quest as grimdark as possible.

 

[made]

Review doesn't mention that right from the moment in which you realize that you can't shag the var Attre twins, despite Rosa specifically asking for "private lessons", fencing lessons you know, the thing you're doing with your "sword", the story goes downhill right up to the end. CDProjekt really dropped the ball here.

5/10 would not read again.

I bet it also doesn't mention that you can't shag the alchemist in WE despite the obvious... chemistry between her and Geralt. I got the impression that originally they planned many more casual sex encounters but then CDPR pussied out and decided to cut them at the last moment. A good review would duly condemn that fact.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

They need to fix this in some free DLC. This is a serious issue that devalues the product.

 

[hivemind]

Wow, Geralt is looking for his daughter and meeting the lost love of his life in the process while also regularly encountering another woman that he loved while his memory was bonkers, why doesn't he engage in casual encounter with every hot wench he comes across ??!

 

[Angthoron]

Yes, if anything, the problem is in the opposite.

 

[Eyestabber]

Now, the million dollar question:

Triss or Yen, Angthoron?

RIP Shani lovers

Oxenfurt is DLC.

Spoiler

But she probably won't be there

There is no option for exporting TW1 decisions into TW3, no "trilogy save". So if Shani were to show up, they would have to "reset" her relationship with Geralt. It would only make us TW1 players rage even harder with stuff like "OMG, WE NEVER HAD ANYTHING!/HOW COME SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER OUR THING!?". It's best to just let it go. Tbh, Shani was a pretty generic "nice girl", nothing worth grabbing pitchforks for.

 

[Rivmusique]

Best sex card was the clerk chick. Or the hay girl. Maybe the milk broad. Will they be coming back?

 

[Angthoron]

Now, the million dollar question:

Triss or Yen, Angthoron?

RIP Shani lovers

Oxenfurt is DLC.

Spoiler

But she probably won't be there

There is no option for exporting TW1 decisions into TW3, no "trilogy save". So if Shani were to show up, they would have to "reset" her relationship with Geralt. It would only make us TW1 players rage even harder with stuff like "OMG, WE NEVER HAD ANYTHING!/HOW COME SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER OUR THING!?". It's best to just let it go. Tbh, Shani was a pretty generic "nice girl", nothing worth grabbing pitchforks for.

Shani gets like one whole mention in the entire series of novels. Don't expect her as a major character. Triss is pushing it enough as it is.

 

[Carrion]

The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that the game's writing is not all that praiseworthy.

Velen really is brilliantly written, both the main storyline and the individual characters there. You have characters that feel believeable, have their likeable side as well as some major flaws, and the characterisation is miles beyond your usual "good guy with a dark past" or "asshole who means good" archetypes of morally grey characters you see in games. The storyline manages to remain consistent about its themes and has a very satisfying conclusion.

After that the quality of writing drops quite a bit. There are still some great characters in the game, the quality of dialogue remains high most of the time and some individual scenes are simply outstanding, but the storylines as a whole don't manage to explore any meaningful themes in depth, making them feel rather shallow and unsatisfying compared to Velen. Many of the characters also come off as fairly simplistic archetypes, something that CDPR have usually tried to avoid or at least twist in some way in the past. In Novigrad, especially, the game starts to drift more and more towards black and white characterisation, having clear good guys with practically no flaws at all and bad guys whose badness is constantly rubbed in your face. You get a completely paranoid religious fanatic who loves to burn people at the stake, a crime boss whose favorite pastime is nailing whores on his walls, a formerly harsh but adequate ruler that has now turned into a drooling lunatic that organizes mass murders for fun... These guys make Bernard Loredo seem like a stable and likeable if a bit misunderstood Sunday school kid in comparison. Skellige isn't much better, offering some slightly more complex political scenarios and raising some valid questions but ultimately not doing a whole lot with them, Yennefer being pretty much the only character that even warrants a discussion about whether her actions are justifiable or not.

The politics are just a huge missed opportunity. The story being more personal and less political this time is perfectly fine, but when your main conflict only really has two sides, it's just sad how simplified it all is considering how elaborate the politics of the previous game were. Everything basically comes down to one or two decisions the player gets to make, and the game makes even that a very straightforward affair, demonizing a certain individual throughout the whole game and not even allowing you to have any in-depth conversations about the pros and cons of each possible end result. Your choices regarding politics and the state of the world have little to no effect on the main quest or any other quest for that matter, being almost entirely on the background for the whole time.

The main story is functional during the first act, when it barely moves at all. When things finally start moving forward, the quality drops massively and it all becomes awfully shallow. Many aspects of it make little sense or go nowhere, and even though almost all of the individual quests are good and interesting, they don't form a coherent or satisfying whole. You go on a hunt for certain individuals that are supposedly important but don't really do anything. You embark on a search for an artifact the game just pulled out of its ass because it... does something. The only twist about the main quest is that there is no twist. The bad guys are essentially non-characters, just a bunch of evil-looking guys with deep voices that spout out a few generic taunts and that's pretty much it, which is a gigantic missed opportunity considering their backstory and the fact that they have a very good reason for doing what they do. I mean, they seem like perfect villains for the CDPR writing team, being considered evil but ultimately sharing motives that are very similar to those of humans', but instead their portrayal is as one-dimensional it gets (in before joke about all that travelling between dimensions). Oh, and of course there's a deus ex machina at the end as well, just because.

Maybe it's the lack of time, maybe the fact that the writing team was almost entirely different than it was in the previous game, but the main story is just so disappointing considering the quality of the first two games. I really wanted to love it, but it's just not very good. The general level of writing is still high, the side stories are mostly excellent, the game has a ton of great characters and most of the dialogue flows so naturally that it quite simply puts almost every other game to shame, but all things considered, I'm not sure if it's even the best-written Witcher game as a whole.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

.

Well, while I *do* think this is overall the "best written Witcher game" (precisely for most of the reasons you pointed) and I found some of your complaints not unfounded but maybe stressed a bit more than their relevance should require, one thing I absolutely agree with you is the Wild hunt coming off as extremely one-dimensional.
Eredin especially is almost a caricature, he manages to seem even less interesting and meaningful as a character than his own lieutenants, which is saying a lot, since they weren't exactly sparking personalities either.

Then again, even the flawed nodes in the narrative flow aren't bad enough to negate what good is in.

P.S. As we are on topic: personally I would have gladly done without the "White frost" overarching theme entirely and kept the story even more personal, about "saving your daughter" rather than saving the world (well, allowing someone else to save it, really).

 

[hivemind]

Really interesting how a game can murder another game of a completely different genre.l

 

[Eyestabber]

Hello Kitty Island Adventures murders Planescape: Torment, Fallout and BG2, yet there is no Codex review for it because Angthoron and others keep playing popamole crap like TW3 instead of playing the REAL hardcore stuff.

 

[Carrion]

Then again, even the flawed nodes in the narrative flow aren't bad enough to negate what good is in.

That's definitely true, and if the writing wasn't so damn good most of the time it'd be easy to just ignore the somewhat rushed ending or a few undeveloped characters. It's just weird to see CDPR stumble so badly in areas that they've handled superbly before.

 

[Angthoron]

Anybody pls do invisible inc review..So far this game murders witcher 3 retarded hunt

Why don't you write a review for it, friend? Or are you ready to pay one of us for our valuable time playing and reviewing the game of a completely different genre, for a completely different subsection of the site?

Really interesting how a game can murder another game of a completely different genre.l

An apple will totally murder an orange, man.

 

[Excidium II]

I like how random Geralt is sometimes, partly because of the truncated dialog choices

Thugs threaten my life -> honourable fistfight to subdue and make them see sense
Hobo gets caught after scamming me out of 150 crowns -> swordfight to the death ending with beheading and awesome pose

 

[Angthoron]

I like how random Geralt is sometimes, partly because of the truncated dialog choices

Thugs threaten my life -> honourable fistfight to subdue and make them see sense
Hobo gets caught after scamming me out of 150 crowns -> swordfight to the death ending with beheading and awesome pose

And then there's that Keira Metz moment...

 

[Zep Zepo]

So..i never played a Twitcher game before this (don't count the time I played twitcher 1 for about 30 minutes and kept getting slaughterd over and over by some dog-wolf because of lag and bad framerate and rage quit).?

But, I fucked both Yen and Triss (and a few others)...but i never got the thing where they plot against you. Where does that trigger? All I got was something about yen throwing the bed out of the window cause of Trish. And nothing else to the end game.

Zep--

 

[Zero Credibility]

I like how random Geralt is sometimes, partly because of the truncated dialog choices

Thugs threaten my life -> honourable fistfight to subdue and make them see sense
Hobo gets caught after scamming me out of 150 crowns -> swordfight to the death ending with beheading and awesome pose

Just had that moment. Thugs harasing an inkeeper, two dialog options (something like this):

1. I'll make you leave.
2. Don't make me force you.

I pick two because it sounds slightly less likely to end in violence. What Gerald then actualy says:

Swords out. Let's end this.

The fuck... even the thugs were shocked by this.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Just had that moment. Thugs harasing an inkeeper, two dialog options (something like this):

1. I'll make you leave.
2. Don't make me force you.

I pick two because it sounds slightly less likely to end in violence. What Gerald then actualy says:

Swords out. Let's end this.

The fuck... even the thugs were shocked by this.

Wait, was that the quest about drunken vikings occupying the brothel?
Because if it is, I don't remember it going down in this way.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Nah, that's the one where you run around with Ciri thanking people.

 

[Excidium II]

Just got really disappointed

Spoiler

Yen is a shaver...

After she complimented Geralt for letting his beard grow I was but then