Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2017
I have been a fan of The Witcher since the very first game (on PC) back in 2007. Now, nearly 10 years later, the saga of Geralt of Rivia comes to a conclusion. A beautiful and wonderful conclusion. However, this does NOT mean that Witcher 3 is perfect. All this talk of "it's the greatest RPG ever" and such-the-like is simple hyperbole. Below I will describe the pluses, and minuses of the game (and yes, there are quite a few minuses):
The Witcher III Wild Hunt is an action, open-world, role-playing game. The graphics are gorgeous, the music is wonderful, and the voice-acting is superb. "The Complete Edition" is as it sounds. It includes: the main game, the first add-on, "Hearts of Stone" and the huge second add-on "Blood and Wine". It also includes some 16 DLCs. Thus, if you have yet to purchase the game, THIS is easily worth your money! Everything is on disc, no need to download anything. Now then, let's talk about the game itself:
GRAPHICS
=========
The Witcher 3 is a beautiful game. The character models look just as good as the CGI characters (such as Tarkin) in the latest Star Wars film ("Rouge One")! The world itself is dynamic, with rain, snow, lightening, night and day. There are distinct areas of the world, from swamps to mountains. You may, even get a chance to visit other worlds...
So yes, it is most beautiful.
MUSIC
======
The Witcher series has always had amazing music. This third installment is no different. While much of the music is rehashed themes, this in no way means that they are not beautiful. Also, there are some truly haunting pieces such as the wonderful "Lullaby of Woe" composed by Marcin Przybyłowicz. Everything from the battle music, to simple walking around and listening to music at the taverns is superb. The music is easily as good as any Hollywood production, and in my opinion, better and more memorable than the vast majority of films and games.
STORYLINE
==========
Easily, one of the best storylines ever in an RPG. While, it is helpful if you played the first two games, or at least Witcher 2, is is not necessary. There is plenty of backstory and in-game appendices for you to catch-up on everything. That said, this is an epic story that is beautifully told. One of the strengths of The Witcher is that YOUR CHOICES DIRECTLY IMPACT THE STORY. Of course this is not a new concept, but your decisions, sometimes small ones, have consequences. The Witcher (the first two games) is a bit infamous for leading you down dark paths. That is, you make a decision you feel is "right" and sometimes the consequences turn out to be "bad". In the Witcher 3 that is not the case. You can usually (although not always) tell if your decision was helpful or negative. That said, The Witcher never presents you with clear "good vs evil" morality questions. Oh no, in this world morality is blurred, and hard questions are asked. For example: do you sacrifice someone innocent to save other lives? There are no easy answers necessarily, and fortunately you can play however you want, which is one of the beautiful things about this series.
MATURE CONTENT
===============
The original Witcher (on PC) was the first game I played where characters regularly dropped F-bombs as well as other four-letter words. It was also the first game I played where you met characters that were tortured, raped, and otherwise endured difficult and horrible lives. As in real life, the rich were scheming, the poor were downtrodden, and people struggled to survive. The Witcher is basically medieval Europe, with dwarves, elves, and magic. As a Witcher, you hunt monsters. More often than not, the monsters are humans. Yes, the Witcher shows the truly ugly side of humanity. You will see innocent people tortured, people burned alive, and other horrendous acts. You can satiate your desires at a brothel, or not. You will find characters that find you attractive and offer you a warm night on their bed, and there are two main love interests for you. However, be careful how you treat them! As in real life, your choices matter and don't think words do not get around! While again much of the world is beautiful, it is overshadowed by humanity's ugliness. The entire main campaign, and the amazing "Hearts of Stone" campaign deal with bleak lives, broken dreams, lost hopes, and a cold world. That said, not everything is bleak, and you're out there to make the world slightly better. Lastly, I will say that the final add-on, "Blood and Wine" which takes place after the main campaign, takes a far more optimistic view of humanity's inherent potential for truth and righteousness.
PLAY CONTROL
=============
Witcher III is an action RPG. While many of the fights are fun, this is where the game starts to show its weakness. Controlling Geralt is NOT hard, but not as easy as it should be. He moves very quickly, and you will not necessarily go exactly where you want. However, this is 1000 times worse on horseback! While the prospect of going to battle mounted on your horse sounds fabulous, this concept is completely broken in Witcher III. I only used my horse when I could not fast travel and had to cover large distances, otherwise you were basically a sitting duck on your horse! This may sound strange, but once you play the game you'll understand why. It's VERY hard to hit anyone while on your horse. You swing slowly, and most of the time miss. On the other hand, your enemies can continually peg you will on your horse until you die. Sounds broken? It is. This was laughably a bad job by CD Projekt RED (the developers). In fact, I would go so far as to say that some of the game mechanics (such as horseback riding) are perhaps the worst I have ever seen in a current-generation AAA game. Truly, horrendous. I honestly do not understand how this made it past testing? Furthermore, good luck while trying the races. Your horse can gallop, only to find herself stuck on some tiny rock. What do I mean? Your horse will run, and for no reason, continue to gallop but not actually move anywhere because there is some rock or something like that slightly blocking your way. In other words, BROKEN. I personally would advise you to SKIP the horrible horseback races or most anything to do with horseback riding. Another staple of The Witcher series is fistfighting. It returns in Witcher III, but sadly the controls are broken. To win basically any match, all you need to do is hit the "strong attack" button over and over. Your opponent will try to protect himself, but you'll eventually get in some hits and over time he will go down, regardless of what his level is compared to your own. Sadly, there's really no skill involved, and if you try to do anything else (quick jabs, blocking) chances are your opponent will get in hits on you and take you down. So again, this is just an example of poor play control in the game, and frankly, you do not really get anything interesting from winning the boxing matches. In general, most of the enemy fights are fun, although by the time you face your 1000th drowner, you may be a bit tired of the whole thing. At any rate, in general fighting is fine. However, while fighting you can not jump over ANYTHING. So, you may be trying to back away from an enemy, only to find yourself stuck by a small little fence. WHY can Geralt not just jump over it?! That, is something you will have to ask the developers, and it is also something you will find annoying I assure you.
HUGE WORLD (too large?)
===========
Witcher III is the largest game in the series, by far. Over 300 hundred quests you can undertake! Easily, a couple hundred hours or more of game time if you try to complete them all. Some of the quests are truly spectacular and lead to other quests and the writing is simply breathtaking. Other times, the quests are OK or forgettable. Yet other times, the quests are boring and frustrating. For example, MANY quests are: find some monsters guarding some treasure. Dispose of the monsters. Find a note describing hidden treasure nearby. Use your Witcher senses to find the treasure. The first few times you do this it's great. By the 50th time you do this, ho-hum. Why even bother? Well, you will need lots of money in the game, and the best way to make money is to find treasure (weapons and armor) and sell them. Also, you will often find yourselves in some dark cavern. You kill said monster or found said item, then you need to find your way out, which is not always so easy. You may in fact run around for a few minutes wondering where the heck you're going! Is this really necessary in today's games? No. If done properly, there would have been an easy way to exit the dungeon/tomb, as was the case with Skyrim (NB: I don't plan to compare the two games, both are great in their own right). By the way the two games are similar in some ways and dissimilar in other. Both are fantastic RPGs in their own right. All in all, I think Witcher III would have been better had they cut out quite a few boring/useless quests, and replaced them with longer but more interesting quests with more reward. There are other quests that have nothing to do with killing monsters. The game itself has an admittedly very fun mini-game called "Gwent". Gwent is a card-game, and throughout much of the game, you will find characters that you can play for money, or other "rare" Gwent cards. This is surprisingly addictive and enjoyable. By comparison, the mini-game in Witcher II was rolling dice. Gwent is far more sophisticated and complex. However, it too, does get old after awhile, which once again speaks at just how large this game truly is. Another point to consider are the rewards you get for completing quests. At one point in the game, you will help and a master swordsmith and armorsmith. In both instances, as a reward, you will receive a "masterpiece" -the only problem, both the armor and sword you will receive are likely to be far inferior of what you already are using! Throughout the game, you will receive this or that sword "it's been in the family for ages" and yet it is quite disappointingly useless except as income (you sell it).
BUGS
=====
All the Witcher games have had some bugs. However, Witcher III is the first game in the series where I ran across a few game-breaking bugs. The worst is what I call the "controller bug". This ONLY happened to me in Witcher III, and you can search for it online (lots of talk about this). While I can not say this is necessarily due to Witcher III, I can say this only occurred when I played Witcher III on my PS4 and has never occurred in any other game. Basically, at one point, the controller just stopped working. The ONLY way I got this to work properly is by updating my PS4. I had to do this twice. First time I updated to 4.06 and the second to 4.07. In both instances that fixed the problem. I am guessing here, but I think somehow Witcher III permanently messed up the software on the controller, and by updating it reset the controls and thus the controller work. I assure you, it was NOT because the controller itself had any hardware issue (I in fact tested it with a brand new controller). By the way, if this occurred to you (Witcher 3, PS4 controller issues) I would like to hear about it. Other bugs in the game included being unable to finish some missions for various reasons, and having to reload a previous save. Other bugs included no music, no dialogue, no sound effects. In order to fix those, reset the system. All games have bugs, but I have never seen quite so many recently as with Witcher III. That said, yes, I did run into a number of bugs in Skyrim (I know, Bethseda), yet all those were minor compared to Witcher III.
PROS
=====
+Beautiful graphics.
+Superb music.
+Huge, open world.
+Wonderful voice acting.
+Mature content.
+Spectacular writing and script.
+Gwent (minigame) is very well done and fun!
+Good challenge on the higher difficulty.
CONS
=====
-Poor play control at times.
-Many quests are boring and repetitive.
-TONS of weapons and armor, most won't mean a thing to you.
-Bugs, including game-breaking bugs.
LAST WORDS
===========
I have no regret about following Geralt on his journey's all these years! The epic conclusion was bitter-sweet, as it should be! The story is truly remarkable, although the game itself could honestly have been better. While this may sound strange to many, if I had to play one of the games again (Witcher, Witcher 2, Witcher 3) I would play the original Witcher. Both the original and Witcher 2 were more streamlined. The storyline in Witcher 3 is the best in the series, but ultimately I feel that this is one game I am happy to have played, and happy I am done with it. Overall, I was slightly disappointed with the game because of the somewhat frustrating mechanics, bugs, and numerous useless quests (such as horse racing, fistfighting, and generic "find the treasure" quests). Admittedly, I spent more time exploring the land than I needed to (I could have just done the main quests). However, I wanted to see everything I could, and was hoping for more variety and excitement than what I got. All in all, I am certainly not sorry I spent as much time as I did with Geralt, Ciri, Yennifer, Triss (ah, Triss...), and all the other folks from the Witcher universe. Thank you, for the memories.
Final Score: 90/100
(4.5 stars)
