This game is like a playable art house film, and the playability adds a lot. Aside from one instance where the narrative bleeding into the gameplay kind of misses, the game from beginning to an is pretty focused with its design. It knows when to let the player take reigns and when you take it away to tell them the story. The pacing is great and succinct. The cinematography is stellar. Even the combat is good, even if it may be janky some times. It fits perfectly into what the game is going for, which is not some hack n slash Dynasty Warriors type shit.

And I love the story and setting. I actually didn't know and expect the game to be heavily based in Norse mythology, and also have one of the best, most realistic takes on it. It manages to turn something as ancient and disconnected from us as Norse mythology into a really relatable and personal story about suffering, fighting your demons, not fitting in, and the long history of women being treated like furniture throughout ages.

I really hope Hellblade 2 is firstly as good as this, and also achieves the success it deserves. These are the games that are important to gaming as an art form and we need more of. I'm gonna be super bummed if Ninja Theory suffers the same fate as Arkane and Tango games...

I think I died inside a couple of time while I was suffering at the hand of the game's immaculate design. Nghhh...

But I love this game. At least right now after having just finished it. Everything about it that is not the gameplay is perfect. And even the gameplay was ok before the ending D requirements and the you-know-what kicked in. I don't think even the story is perfect, but I love its attitude and just the general oddity of it, and how much it humanizes all of its characters, even the canon fodder you kill.

I wish a little tiny bit there was a bit more to it though. I have to appreciate what an absolute anomaly and ballsy game or even story it is, but I also can't help but wish that... it was a bit more well-thought out. If it was, it would've been a solid 5/5.

As is usually the case for most Rockstar games, the game's outlook and worldview is pretty damn cynical and grim in this game. People die really easily from a bullet to the head. Justice doesn't come for innocent people, and the only ones who survive are scumbags and evil men... until they're backstabbed or killed by their enemies themselves.

Now this game has an impressive variety of evil characters. Marshals and deputies who care more for talking political ideals than protect their citizens, graver robbers, lying drunks, cheating frauds, angry gamblers, tyrannical dictators who rape women, revolutionary socialists who also rape women, corrupt government officials, companies who make games trashing white culture but dabble in white colonialist and capitalist practices themselves... oh, sorry. I guess that last one wasn't from the game.

And what's really interesting about the main character is that even though he can see through the facade of all of these people, he doesn't do anything to stop them. His own problems are more important to him than even some innocent people's lives. The extent of his insight are some snarky comments. Sure, he isn't racist. He isn't bigoted towards women. He can tell right from wrong in his old age, but he still acts in the interest of all the evil people listed in the paragraph above. Because he wants to get back to his own family. John Marston is a bad person, no matter how honorable you play him.

I really like John Marston as a character. He is a pretty good example of how even people with a good sense of morals can still facilitate evil in light of their own self-interest. He even does less than what he can do without putting his own interests in danger. And it's not unrealistic either; he's a tired man wronged by everyone since birth and he's impatient to quickly put the bad life behind and go back to his own family. And that leads him to killing native Americans, burning innocent people's houses, etc. His callousness causes innocent girls to die for nothing, and him not caring about other people's plight more than his own.

TL;DR the story got me thinking quite a bit. It's a good story.

The gameplay and everything else is fine. It is what you've bargained for when you pick up this kind of game. I'm sure it was more impressive back in 2010 than now, but it's not really bad right now either. It's good.

Some minor complaints are how much the game wastes your time making you riding horses on trips when there's absolutely no reason to. Some rides are nice when laced with interesting conversations, (conversation with Abraham Reyes about revolutionary heroes come to mind) but usually the rides between missions are super boring because of how big the map is.

And the environment... is a bit more scant than I would've liked. I mean GTA V and IV had the same limitations on seventh gen consoles but idk... maybe foliage is more intensive on hardware than buildings.

All in all, the story is the best part of this game. And I thoroughly enjoyed that.

Very early impressions: (not having played other Witcher games)
The combat doesn't bother me at all. It is unusual and unnecessary, but it doesn't really hamper the experience. It is mechanically shallow, and too easy, but that is offset by other aspects of gameplay which keeps the experience fresh.

The story begins in a bizarre way, as if the game itself is also a sequel, and it doesn't really bother to explain much to the player. The only saving grace is that Geralt himself has amnesia, so he's as confused as the player. Unfortunately, he doesn't ask a lot qu- well... he does ask a lot of questions, but he doesn't ask the important ones, imo. He's too aloof, which doesn't help with the player's confusion in the world.

Thankfully, it doesn't get long for you get your bearings if you can withstand this strange alien world long enough. The game does through off the deep end, but you slowly learn how to swim.

The only thing I could tangibly feel being bad and even annoying to an extent is the voice acting; but... even that is charming to an extent in retrospect. It just clashes with the actually good writing of the dialogues. A lot of the jank clashes with what the game is trying to go for quite often, in fact. Random cut-scenes in middle of a wholly different scene, important things randomly happening without much ceremony, complete lack of facial expressions... they're not deal breakers, but they do induce a couple of "wtf"s here and there.

But it's definitely a good game overall. No reason not to play it and skip over to Witcher 2. Just remember its release date and set your expectations accordingly. And try to get past the awfully boring opening. It'll get better once you're set free into the world.

The gameplay (aside from the shooty bang bang) and the way it intertwines with the story is pretty badly designed. You can tell some of the quests were written as "they player goes here and does this" or "the player can either persuade or attack this character to continue the quest" and then passed down to the programmers to implement it and not an ounce more thought was put into them. About 70% of the game feels like a big hack job, which is a lot.

But because it was made in/by a soulless, faceless company with a dumbass director at the helm, there are also thousands of creative and passionate individuals who have been working on this game, and without them this game would've truly dove into video game dustbin head first. The most obvious show of passion is in the environment design. Like, goddamn this game has some of the most picturesque sceneries I've seen in a BGS game ever. Especially the unique places, it genuinely feels like not a single drop of effort was spared in making their design. It is really amazing.

And even the stories and quests get better the more you move away from spotlights and big quests. The same bad design still cripples some of those quests as well, but at least the writers and voice actors all did a stellar job.

I do encourage people to play it and question why it's not that good (or bad even, maybe). Because not all of it is bad. Even if you've played late Fallouts and Elder Scrolls. But in no world should pay 70$ for this. Just no. Find other, cheaper ways to get your hands on it.