Review RPG Codex Review: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

[HiddenX]

Good review - I'm just level 13 (60 hours), but I agree with most the review.
The only thing I really don't like are the steering controls for the character, they feel imprecise, especially in combat.

You can't click you opponents to death on high difficulty settings. Potions & drugs are a necessary to survive in this case.

 

[Telengard]

the best-written RPG since Torment

Yeah that's IGN level 11/10 bullshit.

The game only recently came out, crying greatest thing ever for every new half decent game is fucking ridiculous.

Well, Torment is the Codex's Citizen Kane.

 

[crawlkill]

It's not clear whether you're praising [or] criticizing it.

he's doing both? it's clearly a recommendation to pick it up with an acknowledgment of its faults. a good review exists to tell you about a product and to advise you on whether the author thinks you should bother experiencing it or not, not to adopt a fervent position one way or the other.

 

[Perkel]

Good review. This is essentially what i think of game.

amazing story fag game with wonderful world to explore. It has problems but ultimately those problems are small compared to what game provides.

Also you can drink potions in inventory even in combat though there are few you can't like swallow if you didn't prepare it.

Review didn't mention about banality of loot system an "lvl" though which is something important for people to know imo.

I don't like your assessment of the character system. Unlike other AAA games you actually need some planning because there is a limited amount of points to distribute AND skills need to be slotted to actually give any effect. You didn't even care to mention that. Also dismissing it as just sawyerian 5% increases when most of the talents go beyond that by providing fun choices between aditional effects, new abilities or changing your playstyle.

Maybe he's implying that so do actual Sawyerian increases.

People see anything that looks like +5%, they immediately get turned off I guess

At start i also thought it is just 5% 2% etc but most of the skills aside from that add something new to combat.

Like for example Queen. Each skill gives Queen different use aside from sign power+1%
I think only sword tree has most of +5%

 

[crawlkill]

People see anything that looks like +5%, they immediately get turned off I guess

which is doubly entertaining, because if you told them "+1" in an explicitly d20 system they'd be all over it. nerds cannot into math.

 

[Prime Junta]

avoiding the pitfalls of cheap shock value

Hmh.

Spoiler

Going through Whoreson Jr.'s place full of dead naked whores nailed to walls? Listening to Triss being tortured in the next room? Having the ealdorman cut off his ear in front of you? Close up on someone's face as she's being burned at the stake?

I wonder what the Codex does consider cheap shock value...

 

[Excidium II]

Moira Brown

 

[Darth Roxor]

The Endless Paths of Od Nua

 

[crawlkill]

avoiding the pitfalls of cheap shock value

Hmh.

Spoiler

Going through Whoreson Jr.'s place full of dead naked whores nailed to walls? Listening to Triss being tortured in the next room? Having the ealdorman cut off his ear in front of you? Close up on someone's face as she's being burned at the stake?

I wonder what the Codex does consider cheap shock value...

I read an interpretation that suggested Triss was actually in control the whole time and she was just hamming it up for the torturer. haven't gotten there yet myself, but I gather she tells you to trust her and not to interrupt no matter what you hear? I think there's more to it than this dismissal suggests. and the ear-off-cutting was startling and unique in its off-puttingness and grotesquery, as well as being clearly contextualized and connected to another idea about the Ladies (boys' first haircut=tapestry=the crones live off the bodies of their serfs), so I was all about that. shocking things are only "for shock value" if they're stock material; you can be shocking creatively and have that be cool. not sure one way or the other about stakeburning. dead whores are obviously more WomenInRefrigerators bullshit and, yes, pure "shock value."

 

[Excidium II]

I read an interpretation that suggested Triss was actually in control the whole time and she was just hamming it up for the torturer. haven't gotten there yet myself, but I gather she tells you to trust her and not to interrupt no matter what you hear? I think there's more to it than this dismissal suggests.

Spoiler

Except her hand is all bloody on the sequence after that.

I don't know if the torture ever goes beyond pulling nails off because her screams and menge wanting to force me to drink that shit made me snap

 

[Prime Junta]

I read an interpretation that suggested Triss was actually in control the whole time and she was just hamming it up for the torturer.

Na, Geralt asks her about her hand later and she says "It'll heal."

(Those weren't the only examples either. I ran across two more serial killers torturing people in various creative ways, all depicted in loving detail. I agree about the writing in general, but it does fall into cheap shock value from time to time and the game is worse for it IMO. Vizima Confidential was gruesome without doing that. Trying to out-Game of Thrones Game of Thrones is not necessarily a good idea.)

 

[Perkel]

Yeah, as much as I like the game - and Angthoron's review - I have to concede that this was a bit of a stretch. Surely, at the very least, MotB should be rated higher than TW3 in the writing department?

Writting is sum of parts. Story, journey, quest writting, character writting are different things that contribute to it.
Story in TW3 is average. Has its ups and down but it is nothing amazing, journey itself is interesting like Bloody Baron quest lilne, assault or KR etc.
Now quest writting, character writting this is where TW shines much more even than PST and MotB and it is consistent though whole game. Game is grounded much more than PST or MotB but at the same time it doesn't mind delving into weird stuff. Ton of quests are really interesting often ending in unpredictable way. Finally we have C&C which at this point is best in genre. Non banal C&C that doesn't lay on silver platter answer for you usually and you can make mistakes without even knowing it. Finally Counsequence of C&C which usually comes much later in game. Returning to villages you "helped" later in game often shows you what happened after that choice. Deserter which you helped now works in field, village later is burned to the ground etc.
What is imo the best part is that none of quest have any typical fetch quests writting and desing. Even in that goat quest you need to do something other than just find marker and go back to place.

It's just shit after Velen.

Disagree Novigrad area has the best sidequests and Novigrad itself is best designed city imo in rpgs. Also Velen is lower part of map where whole upper part is Novigrad.

Hmh.

Spoiler

Going through Whoreson Jr.'s place full of dead naked whores nailed to walls? Listening to Triss being tortured in the next room? Having the ealdorman cut off his ear in front of you? Close up on someone's face as she's being burned at the stake?

I wonder what the Codex does consider cheap shock value...

Whores and stake is now cheap shock value ? Also Geralt knew who she was (Cyntia from TW2 and other doppelanger from books).
Whoreson part is only imo where it was cheap. Though not killing him imo has better consequence for Geralt story than killing him (part of resolving loose ends quest line)

 

[circ]

I also disagree with the use of "Sawyerian" because he's very much against meaningless +whatevers that have no discernible effect.

What you perceive in a game is ultimately what matters the most -- Mass Effect had tons of weapons but they were barely differentiated. They had incremental stat differences only.

"What's the chance that a 5 percent difference is going to make you take the enemy down in one fewer hit? If it takes me four shots, but the fourth shot killed him a little more, that doesn't mean anything to me," Sawyer said.

In Alpha Protocol, "The player could get abilities to upgrade their stealth but often they couldn't see the effects in the game," he said. It was widely considered to have a broken stealth system. "It was a cool idea but certain aspects of it didn't feel good because it didn't feedback to the player."

Pillars of Eternity.

 

[hivemind]

Really good for a triple A game.

I actually kinda liked the "slotting your skills" idea where you can link them with the mutagens for extra effects, but sadly the execution of it was just boring as fuck with 3 types of mutagens in total and the abilities themselves being stat boosts 9/10 times.

 

[crawlkill]

I read an interpretation that suggested Triss was actually in control the whole time and she was just hamming it up for the torturer. haven't gotten there yet myself, but I gather she tells you to trust her and not to interrupt no matter what you hear? I think there's more to it than this dismissal suggests.

Spoiler

Except her hand is all bloody on the sequence after that.

I don't know if the torture ever goes beyond pulling nails off because her screams and menge wanting to force me to drink that shit made me snap

Na, Geralt asks her about her hand later and she says "It'll heal."

that doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't in control! it suggests she's a tough bitch who doesn't care about a few nails when they get her where she wants to be. plenty of heroic men in fiction survive torture for a cause to show how rugged and rough they are. is it that strange that a woman should?

but that's just one interpretation--like I said, haven't gotten there yet, and it sounds like the more straightforward interpretation's at least as valid.

 

[Prime Junta]

The RPG mechanics just don't matter, that's the problem. No matter how you allocate your stats, it's still swish, swish, swish, Sign, swish, swish, swish. All the fights go the same way. At least in TW1 putting a pip into a tree got you a new move and you had to pay a little attention to the rhythm and sound to get it right. There was some feel of progression and your character-building choices making a difference. With TW3, nothing really changes. You just go from L3 ghouls to L9 ghouls to L12 ghouls to L16 ghouls to L19 ghouls to L24 ghouls eventually to L34 ghouls.

I haven't (quite) finished the game, but so far there hasn't been a single remotely memorable fight. I.e. yeah it's a great game, certainly the best AAA RPG in years... except that there's no game to the game. Not even to the extent TW1 had it. Story, scenery, sound, music, writing, voice acting, etc etc etc., but where's the damn game?

 

[made]

Novigrad itself is best designed city imo in rpgs.

Visually, yes. It feels very life-like, almost like walking around Danzig. Content-wise it's abysmal. Cutscene upon cutscene interspersed with mindless busywork, the whole Jaskier/theater theme that just keeps going on and on until you scream at the screen NO MORE OF THIS SHIT - then the game suddenly comes up with one of the better quests in the game (Carnal Sins), as if to compensate you for your suffering. Pray that at this point you're not long past caring. This is also the place where you ultimately realize how broken the XP system is as you get chunks of experience for doing basically fuck all whereas out in the wild, hunting and exploring, the bar barely moves at all.

If, as I'm sure we can all agree, the Baron is the new Citizen Kane of gaming, then Novigrad is the Phantom Manace.

 

[Angthoron]

Good review, other than a couple errors in it.
Specifically when its talking about boxing minigame, it says you can roll, etc. but you actually cant, your movement is severely impaired, the minigame is more about timing counters than it is about moving around.

Other than that i agree with p. much everything it says.

Huh? In my copy you can. Dunno if it was a bug, but I certainly rolled around like crazy every time I got parry-stunned.

I don't like your assessment of the character system. Unlike other AAA games you actually need some planning because there is a limited amount of points to distribute AND skills need to be slotted to actually give any effect. You didn't even care to mention that. Also dismissing it as just sawyerian 5% increases when most of the talents go beyond that by providing fun choices between aditional effects, new abilities or changing your playstyle.

Also "It's all invalid because level is what matters most anyway" is p. dumb. Your skill choices can make beating red level monsters much easier

I had to cut for space a bit. It was in the original draft. Yeah, you can plan and slot, and you're right - you can make the process of killing skull mobs faster, but the level stat trumps everything so badly that it's ridiculous. The system is actually Sawyer on Steroids otherwise, since it's % increase AND limited by the slotting - but fortunately that's invalidated by the level stat anyway. I really should have mentioned the slotting and the mutagens though, that is definitely my bad. Might amend that.

Still - if the levels didn't govern so much, the things you mention would be so much more visible. As it is, you only start seeing the effects of your SP choices in the late game, and the actual main impressions form in the early game to most. Do I really have to limp to endgame to start appreciating the system? I should hope not, but there you go. Hopefully patches or mods will fix it - I hear there's some W2 mod that improves combat by a ton, the same will likely happen here. Hell, just the level ranges on mobs in respective zones would go a long way to rectify things, what's the use of dumping L30+ mobs in Velen for example?

Has no F.O.V. slider. At patch sixth come release.

Oh noes.

Advertises as PC RPG. Plays as console.

What is the difference between an RPG and a ARPG, pray tell.

Codex bothers. "Officially" too.

Decline. Did not read. Do not have to. Decline.

Die in a fire.

Aww, and here I was telling other mods that your inane posting is 'k. What a way to thank me, I cry tears.

Codex Curator Group has a new entry!

Also, thanks to felipepepe for the title 'shoop.

Unsubscribed.

You'd like the game if you had a proper gaming mouse

Now, the million dollar question:

Triss or Yen, Angthoron?

Aughhhhhh. 2 playthroughs!

 

[Perkel]

Novigrad itself is best designed city imo in rpgs.

Visually, yes. It feels very life-like, almost like walking around Danzig. Content-wise it's abysmal. Cutscene upon cutscene interspersed with mindless busywork, the whole Jaskier/theater theme that just keeps going on and on until you scream at the screen NO MORE OF THIS SHIT - then the game suddenly comes up with one of the better quests in the game (Carnal Sins), as if to compensate you for your suffering. Pray that at this point you're not long past caring. This is also the place where you ultimately realize how broken the XP system is as you get chunks of experience for doing basically fuck all whereas out in the wild, hunting and exploring, the bar barely moves at all.

If, as I'm sure we can all agree, the Baron is the new Citizen Kane of gaming, then Novigrad is the Phantom Manace.

Disagree completely. Yes main quests in that area are weaker than Velen part but sidequest are as good as Velen. Also novigrad isn't just the city it is whole area including Oxenfurt. City itself has less quest than whole velen but whole Novigrad area has about the same.

 

[Excidium II]

Still - if the levels didn't govern so much, the things you mention would be so much more visible. As it is, you only start seeing the effects of your SP choices in the late game, and the actual main impressions form in the early game to most. Do I really have to limp to endgame to start appreciating the system? I should hope not, but there you go.

That's true, I think you only get something resembling a build by level 15~20

what's the use of dumping L30+ mobs in Velen for example?

I think their objective was to get the NO LEVEL SCALING message across

 

[Morkar Left]

Angthoron

Thanks for the review! Haven't played the game so far but following the discussions about it seems your review is accurate and all in all the game seems to be like I imagine. The level system seems to suck hard and the story and visuals seems to be what makes the game entertaining.

Don't you mind doing a PoE review, too? Just to be sure, you know...

 

[Prime Junta]

Actually, take back what I just said. There is an actual game in TW3. Gwent.

 

[Angthoron]

Angthoron

Thanks for the review! Haven't played the game so far but following the discussions about it seems your review is accurate and all in all the game seems to be like I imagine. The level system seems to suck hard and the story and visuals seems to be what makes the game entertaining.

The level system is kinda crap, yeah. I can see it getting fixed in the future though, and even now, you don't really have to run around the countryside killing everything, so it's 'k. The other problem is controls/camera, but one hopes that gets fixed soon, too. Story is brilliant, CnC is very well done, visuals/sounds are great. It's a proper "flawed gem" in my books, albeit console-centric.

Don't you mind doing a PoE review, too? Just to be sure, you know...

I have some ideas for it, but don't know if I'll go for a "Codex Front Page" thing. Hell, I remember the days when people with opinions on a game made a thread in the forum, might try that one.

 

[crawlkill]

Novigrad itself is best designed city imo in rpgs.

Visually, yes. It feels very life-like, almost like walking around Danzig. Content-wise it's abysmal. Cutscene upon cutscene interspersed with mindless busywork, the whole Jaskier/theater theme that just keeps going on and on until you scream at the screen NO MORE OF THIS SHIT

is this that song in the burlesque-ish club you're mentioning? I actually really liked it -except- that apparently they couldn't cut from one shot to another without an awkward pause, so it didn't feel like a "connected" song. that was a big flaw. it had one of my favorite moments in the entire game, though: that guard walking past outside the window and then walking back to do a slow double-take and watch the singer. it might be the single most creative use of camera and animation I've ever seen in a video game. not a high bar, but it's always great when games treat visual storytelling as important. have you ever seen a character walk backwards to verify what he'd seen in a game before? I can't think of a case. walking backwards is usually limited to multiplayer models and bugs.

 

[Paul_cz]

There are few inacuraccies in the review that bring it down, but otherwise it was good read.
The game is an astonishing achievement. Perfect ? No, of course not. Better than anything that came out in AAA space in the last decade? Well of course.

The people who complain that Baron storyline is the highpoint of the game - it is not. The rest of the game is also written to similarly high quality. But it does not all deal with such heavy themes, so of course it will not hit "teh feelz" as hard as Baron did. But there is shitload to enjoy in every part of the game.