The open world design is insufferable, making you run around bland-looking landscapes to find quests which you are underlevelled for; the combat is simply bad, with Geralt having ridiculous, long-winded animations for simple actions, adding on to the general laggy feeling of the movement to make controlling Geralt an overly unpleasant experience; the design relies on gear upgrades, meaning that you have to run around levelling up your stuff in a certain way in order to progress the game, going against the entire point of giving the game an open world (playing on Death March, I never found any 'grey' or 'green' quests. I beat a few quests when they were 'yellow', and even one which was 'red', but even my patience and determination has its limits).
I am personally not a huge fan of RPG style games... The over reliance on 'telling', rather than 'showing', really weighs the experience down considering that video games are primarily a visual medium. So, while a game such as Limbo can give you a lot with few words, The Witcher 3 prefers to throw many, many words at you for little to no reason. I dislike the character of Geralt from what I've experienced of him within my twenty or so hours playing this game, and I do not appreciate how every quest involves someone dumping their entire life story on me and expecting me to care. I know, this isn't an objective assessment of the quality of the game, but it just helps to highlight why I found the game so unenjoyable.
To give credit where it's due, though, the graphics in this game look amazing, and the soundtrack seems pretty good. The game also seems fairly polished, with good performance and no major bugs getting in my way. I can also see how some people might enjoy the heavy-handed storytelling of the game, say if they were in the mood to watch a cheesy American-style comedy about a badass womaniser going about his business, being a badass. Even though I generally give ratings based on my experiences with the game, I realise that this website weighs games based on the ratings you give them, so I can concede to increase my rating. It's not a 'bad' game, it's just baffling in how anti-fun its design seems to be in many places, from my own perspective. A misguided effort, if you will.
I am personally not a huge fan of RPG style games... The over reliance on 'telling', rather than 'showing', really weighs the experience down considering that video games are primarily a visual medium. So, while a game such as Limbo can give you a lot with few words, The Witcher 3 prefers to throw many, many words at you for little to no reason. I dislike the character of Geralt from what I've experienced of him within my twenty or so hours playing this game, and I do not appreciate how every quest involves someone dumping their entire life story on me and expecting me to care. I know, this isn't an objective assessment of the quality of the game, but it just helps to highlight why I found the game so unenjoyable.
To give credit where it's due, though, the graphics in this game look amazing, and the soundtrack seems pretty good. The game also seems fairly polished, with good performance and no major bugs getting in my way. I can also see how some people might enjoy the heavy-handed storytelling of the game, say if they were in the mood to watch a cheesy American-style comedy about a badass womaniser going about his business, being a badass. Even though I generally give ratings based on my experiences with the game, I realise that this website weighs games based on the ratings you give them, so I can concede to increase my rating. It's not a 'bad' game, it's just baffling in how anti-fun its design seems to be in many places, from my own perspective. A misguided effort, if you will.
4 Comments
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by the way same goes for stalker, laggy movements, a lot of boring fetch quests, bad gunplay, a lot of anti fun mechanics, i mean its all the same, your review is inconsistent mate. by that i mean you criticize certain game for flaws that you deem acceptable in other games, i mean its opinions and all sure but its inconsistent standards at the end of the day.
STALKER's movement is fine. It has no levelling system so I really couldn't care about the quests in that game most of the time, because unlike The Witcher 3, the quests are not the focus of STALKER. I like the gunplay in STALKER — the AI in the game is really good (until it isn't) and the combat is a lot of fun, unlike The Witcher 3.
I think I am fairly consistent, if you actually let me speak.
I think I am fairly consistent, if you actually let me speak.
As for your other comment, firstly, Silent Hill2isn't my favourite game, that would be King's Field IV. Secondly, the combat is bad in SH2 to a) make you feel like an average person beating monsters with a stick and b) tell you that the combat isn't the focus. The game particularly succeeds in that second part, as when I think of Silent Hill 2, I think of the surreal cutscenes and the overall dreamy atmosphere of the game, and maybe the puzzles, but not the experience of fighting enemies. Same goes for Pathologic — the combat is really not the focus.
The Witcher 3, on the other hand, gives you various abilities to use in combat, as well as throw equipment menus in your face, making you actively engage with the (rather shitty) combat system.
The writing in the game may be the main selling point, but it didn't click with me and I would personally like the game more if the writing wasn't there. Again, maybe if it was written like Pathologic I would enjoy it, but it isn't.
After only 60 hours in Yakuza 0, I'm in Chapter 7, and I don't feel confident stating my opinions on the game just yet. First impressions would be that the combat is mostly good, with the only style I don't really like being Breaker because of its long animations and sluggish feel, like you're not really in control of Majima. The other styles are generally more fun to use, with Brawler being punchy, Thug and Rush being fast and snappy, and Beast being sluggish but very rewarding to use.
The side quests in that game are also actually interesting, and the game is funny, which is a universal antidote against poor writing as far as I am concerned.
In summary... You seem to say that every video game has laggy movement and bad combat, which I disagree with. I'd be more interested in actually hearing your opinions, rather than hearing you try to undermine mine.
The Witcher 3, on the other hand, gives you various abilities to use in combat, as well as throw equipment menus in your face, making you actively engage with the (rather shitty) combat system.
The writing in the game may be the main selling point, but it didn't click with me and I would personally like the game more if the writing wasn't there. Again, maybe if it was written like Pathologic I would enjoy it, but it isn't.
After only 60 hours in Yakuza 0, I'm in Chapter 7, and I don't feel confident stating my opinions on the game just yet. First impressions would be that the combat is mostly good, with the only style I don't really like being Breaker because of its long animations and sluggish feel, like you're not really in control of Majima. The other styles are generally more fun to use, with Brawler being punchy, Thug and Rush being fast and snappy, and Beast being sluggish but very rewarding to use.
The side quests in that game are also actually interesting, and the game is funny, which is a universal antidote against poor writing as far as I am concerned.
In summary... You seem to say that every video game has laggy movement and bad combat, which I disagree with. I'd be more interested in actually hearing your opinions, rather than hearing you try to undermine mine.
carlospandera
2 years ago
the underleveled quests: if you follow the main questline you will not be under-leveled actually you might be over-leveled, even if you are underlevel you can complete quests given they are not very higher leveled than you which makes this a no problem. in fact it makes the quests harder and makes preparation more useful.
the combat has its issues, but its a story driven game, i think its serviceable enough given silent hill 2 is your favorite game you should be able to understand that, silent hill 2 combat is bad too with laggy movements as well. same goes for pathologic another one you like. and this goes along with your anti fun statement at the end, silent hill and pathologic are both games designed to be anti fun, but you loved them.
and i think if the game didnt put many words to explain the purpose and motive behind you taking a quest it will be bad for the context of the writing which is the game main strength and main selling point.
not a bad review and its your opinion and sure, but i do find it inconsistent, dont tell me you loved yakuza 0 and it was a masterpiece too, because its similar to this one, a lot of text, combat mediocre, laggy movements etc etc.