Look! The Pie!
Member
After putting in a frankly obscene number of hours over the past month or so, I feel like I need to share my thoughts on this GAF favourite. My first thread, so please be nice-ish...
**light spoilers for base game from here on, if for some reason you're reading this without playing the game first**
My entry into the series is probably a little different to most people here. I haven't read any of the books, nor played the previous games (I did start Assassins of Kings a couple of years back but dropped it after 2-3 hours as I wasn't really feeling it). As a bit of background (and also as a hint of my perhaps-questionable gaming tastes XD), Final Fantasy XV and Dragon Age: Inquisition are two games that get quite a lot of hate thrown at them, and both also happen to be games I unapologetically love. It got to a point where every time I opened a thread about one of them, I'd see dozens of posts pointing out how much better TW3 was at pretty much everything they tried to do. Seeing all this praise lavished on the game, to the detriment of other games I'd greatly enjoyed, had really started to piss me off.
I was also labouring under the misapprehension that Geralt was this edgelord, tryhard character who was basically a template providing yet another self-insert power fantasy for straight male gamers (I'm not quite sure why; I think it's because I'd seen a lot of eye-rolling stuff on GameFAQs and the like about CD Projekt Red "sticking it to SJWs", and the controversy over the romance cards in the first game, implying that the games featured a bevy of female characters who existed only to drop their skirts for the player character, certainly didn't help).
So, to tell the truth, I wasn't looking forward to playing the game much, if at all. It was more of a "Well, time to see what all the fuss is about" kind of thing. I was half expecting to either drop the game halfway through if it hadn't grabbed me by then, or to finish it and then wonder what everyone else had seen in it, like I did with Shadow of the Colossus. (Sorry, fans. It didn't make me feel anything more than indifference.)
As luck would have it, there was a PSN sale the very week I decided to give the game a try, meaning I was able to get the complete edition for just £25. I took the plunge. Now, having just finished the main campaign, I can safely say that not only were my tempered expectations thoroughly shattered, this may be one of my favourite games of all time. And I still have the expansions to go!
Where to start? Let's go with the setting and the exploration aspect.
I'll admit, I felt like I was drowning in information for the first few hours of the game. I had so many names of people, factions and countries thrown at me it was difficult to keep track of who was who, even with the (very helpful) Glossary. But as time went on and I began to familiarise myself with this world, I started to slowly fall in love with it. The conflict between the Nilfgaardians and the Temerian loyalists, the legends of the Wild Hunt, the stories and tales told in books stolen from NPCs' bookshelves, the purging of mages by the witchhunters of the Sacred Flame, Geralt's search for Ciri, his history with Triss and Yennefer...all of it just drew me in, in a way few games do these days. I wanted to find out more of the world's history, to explore the regions and meet the characters tantalisingly referenced off-hand in tomes or mentioned by Geralt himself.
The explorable parts of the world are also notable in that they're actually fun to explore. As something of a completionist, I had a mild panic attack when I saw what looked to be an infinite number of question marks pop up on the Velen map (I still haven't checked out all of them). But I truly loved wandering around the wilderness, taking in the gorgeous panoramas, ferreting out armour diagrams and crafting materials, investigating every monster den and smuggler's cache. In a lot of open world games, this kind of stuff would come across as time-consuming busywork with little tangible reward, but there were countless times when I would diverge off my current path to check out a single marker and then, hours later, find myself on the other side of the map, a handful of minor quests completed, a few levels stronger and approaching dangerous levels of encumbrance. And each time, I felt like the unexpected diversion had actually been an enjoyable and productive use of my limited gaming time. This is open world done right. It helps that the art direction is so strong, with some of the most gorgeous environments, lighting and skyboxes I've ever seen.
The world is also believably designed. Having only two large cities in Novigrad and Oxenfurt, plus a few dozen less distinct villages and hamlets dotted throughout the countryside, is a better approach than having, say, eight or nine medium-sized cities spread throughout the game and only having a few houses and NPCs in each. Speaking of Novigrad, it's probably the best city I've ever seen in an RPG. I love how it's huge without feeling too overwhelming, how the various districts are distinct from one another and yet flow together in a believable and logical way...I've lost dozens of hours in here, and I still feel like there are nooks and crannies I haven't yet visited.
Seriously, how can you not want to explore this place?
Combat is...serviceable. Not as awful as I'd been hearing, but nothing to write home about either. I'll leave it at that.
Characters, on the whole, are great. They actually feel like real, flawed people in that very few of them are outright good or evil. Even people like Triss, who's presented as one of the good guys, has done morally questionable shit (unless I've misunderstood her and Geralt's backstory, she basically hooked up with him knowing he'd lost his memory and was romantically involved with Yen, who was actually a good friend of hers?). I liked that even Geralt's allies weren't above doing shady stuff, and some of them are actually pretty awful people. They all feel like believable inhabitants of the world they live in, with all the moral greyness that entails. (For the record, as much as I liked Triss, Geralt x Yen is the one true pairing. You know I'm right).
I just have to give a shout-out to Priscilla. Quite a minor character in the grand scheme of things, but she's a sweetheart, her introduction scene is one of the best musical interludes I've ever experienced in a game, and her design is aesthetically pleasing whilst also staying true to her occupation and avoiding the weirdly sexualised aspects of some of the other characters. (Hi, Ves. How the fuck have you survived to this point wearing that weird slashed-to-the-navel armour!?). Seriously, Priscilla's great. When she was attacked by the serial killer, I wanted to END him. I was more invested in the fate of this minor character than I have been in the main characters of some of the games I've played this year, and I think that says a great deal about the quality of TW3's writing as a whole.
Other standouts have been Yennefer, the Bloody Baron (but more on him later), Keira Metz, Philippa Eilhart (really, the Lodge as a whole has been great), Vernon Roche (<3) and Ciri, aside from a few annoying moments.
I almost forgot to mention Geralt himself. I'm not sure how accurate the game version is to the character in the books, but man, I adore him.
Just look at this grizzled, strangely handsome bastard. I definitely have a new videogame crush.
Physical attributes aside, though, I think he perfectly straddles the line between self-insert and established character. His dialogue options are just variable enough to allow players to role-play without compromising his overall personality. You can make him act like a mercenary asshole, a more altruistic badass, or as a sarcastic, world-weary snarker, yet he maintains the core of his character throughout. That isn't easy to do, and I have to give CD Projekt Red major props for their execution here. I also loved his relationship with Ciri and how he basically formed a dysfunctional family unit with her and Yen in the third act of the game. Smashing up Avalla'ch's lab <3
I really feel like Geralt's occupation as a witcher was flawlessly integrated into the gameplay and quest design. How you could use signs to manipulate NPCs, investigate monster attacks using witcher senses, check the bestiary to plan your combat tactics, brew oils and decoctions to fight certain monsters...sure, it's all still very videogamey stuff, but it really helped me become immersed in the game and in Geralt as a character.
Speaking of quest design, man, you people weren't kidding when you constantly talked up the Bloody Baron quest. That shit could have been an entire game in itself! And how it seamlessly and unexpectedly connected to the Ladies of the Wood quest...just masterful. I actually think placing these quests so early in the game was to the detriment of the later quests, as although enjoyable and well-written in their own right, they didn't quite live up to the expectations set by the Velen double-whammy.
As for the Ladies themselves...three of the most memorable and disturbing NPCs/creatures I've ever seen in a game, full stop.
I've played a lot of horror games, and these abominations got under my skin in a way that very few videogame nasties have. I read about them in one of the in-game books in the first visit to Vizima, and spent the next dozen hours or so hoping I'd run into them. When I did, they didn't disappoint. The whole buildup to their first appearance, with the trail of treats leading to the swamp, their hideously unsettling theme, their initial depiction in the tapestry followed by their horrifying actual appearance...just amazing. The fact that they have Welsh accents is just the icing on the cake for me. (Just one question...what the fuck happened to the last crone?)
I could go on, but I'll spare you any more of my disjointed rambling.
In closing, while the games mentioned in the first paragraph are still very dear to my heart, I have no problem at all understanding why people were so prone to praise TW3 over them. It's simply because this is the better game, by a pretty huge margin. And that's absolutely fine - I can still enjoy them, whilst acknowledging they fall short in many respects. But this, this game really is something special. I'm talking top 5 of all time, providing the expansions don't spectacularly shit the bed.
I can't believe the number of hours and the level of enjoyment I've gotten out of a game I wasn't even enthusiastic about playing. Best gaming-related £25 I've ever spent, no question.
So, what say you, GAF? Are the expansions as good as the base game? Better? I've just started Hearts of Stone, and I'm pretty ploughing excited, but after ~100 hours I'm considering taking a break to avoid burnout. Also, how do 1 and 2 hold up against this one?
**light spoilers for base game from here on, if for some reason you're reading this without playing the game first**
My entry into the series is probably a little different to most people here. I haven't read any of the books, nor played the previous games (I did start Assassins of Kings a couple of years back but dropped it after 2-3 hours as I wasn't really feeling it). As a bit of background (and also as a hint of my perhaps-questionable gaming tastes XD), Final Fantasy XV and Dragon Age: Inquisition are two games that get quite a lot of hate thrown at them, and both also happen to be games I unapologetically love. It got to a point where every time I opened a thread about one of them, I'd see dozens of posts pointing out how much better TW3 was at pretty much everything they tried to do. Seeing all this praise lavished on the game, to the detriment of other games I'd greatly enjoyed, had really started to piss me off.
I was also labouring under the misapprehension that Geralt was this edgelord, tryhard character who was basically a template providing yet another self-insert power fantasy for straight male gamers (I'm not quite sure why; I think it's because I'd seen a lot of eye-rolling stuff on GameFAQs and the like about CD Projekt Red "sticking it to SJWs", and the controversy over the romance cards in the first game, implying that the games featured a bevy of female characters who existed only to drop their skirts for the player character, certainly didn't help).
So, to tell the truth, I wasn't looking forward to playing the game much, if at all. It was more of a "Well, time to see what all the fuss is about" kind of thing. I was half expecting to either drop the game halfway through if it hadn't grabbed me by then, or to finish it and then wonder what everyone else had seen in it, like I did with Shadow of the Colossus. (Sorry, fans. It didn't make me feel anything more than indifference.)
As luck would have it, there was a PSN sale the very week I decided to give the game a try, meaning I was able to get the complete edition for just £25. I took the plunge. Now, having just finished the main campaign, I can safely say that not only were my tempered expectations thoroughly shattered, this may be one of my favourite games of all time. And I still have the expansions to go!
Where to start? Let's go with the setting and the exploration aspect.
I'll admit, I felt like I was drowning in information for the first few hours of the game. I had so many names of people, factions and countries thrown at me it was difficult to keep track of who was who, even with the (very helpful) Glossary. But as time went on and I began to familiarise myself with this world, I started to slowly fall in love with it. The conflict between the Nilfgaardians and the Temerian loyalists, the legends of the Wild Hunt, the stories and tales told in books stolen from NPCs' bookshelves, the purging of mages by the witchhunters of the Sacred Flame, Geralt's search for Ciri, his history with Triss and Yennefer...all of it just drew me in, in a way few games do these days. I wanted to find out more of the world's history, to explore the regions and meet the characters tantalisingly referenced off-hand in tomes or mentioned by Geralt himself.
The explorable parts of the world are also notable in that they're actually fun to explore. As something of a completionist, I had a mild panic attack when I saw what looked to be an infinite number of question marks pop up on the Velen map (I still haven't checked out all of them). But I truly loved wandering around the wilderness, taking in the gorgeous panoramas, ferreting out armour diagrams and crafting materials, investigating every monster den and smuggler's cache. In a lot of open world games, this kind of stuff would come across as time-consuming busywork with little tangible reward, but there were countless times when I would diverge off my current path to check out a single marker and then, hours later, find myself on the other side of the map, a handful of minor quests completed, a few levels stronger and approaching dangerous levels of encumbrance. And each time, I felt like the unexpected diversion had actually been an enjoyable and productive use of my limited gaming time. This is open world done right. It helps that the art direction is so strong, with some of the most gorgeous environments, lighting and skyboxes I've ever seen.
The world is also believably designed. Having only two large cities in Novigrad and Oxenfurt, plus a few dozen less distinct villages and hamlets dotted throughout the countryside, is a better approach than having, say, eight or nine medium-sized cities spread throughout the game and only having a few houses and NPCs in each. Speaking of Novigrad, it's probably the best city I've ever seen in an RPG. I love how it's huge without feeling too overwhelming, how the various districts are distinct from one another and yet flow together in a believable and logical way...I've lost dozens of hours in here, and I still feel like there are nooks and crannies I haven't yet visited.
Seriously, how can you not want to explore this place?
Combat is...serviceable. Not as awful as I'd been hearing, but nothing to write home about either. I'll leave it at that.
Characters, on the whole, are great. They actually feel like real, flawed people in that very few of them are outright good or evil. Even people like Triss, who's presented as one of the good guys, has done morally questionable shit (unless I've misunderstood her and Geralt's backstory, she basically hooked up with him knowing he'd lost his memory and was romantically involved with Yen, who was actually a good friend of hers?). I liked that even Geralt's allies weren't above doing shady stuff, and some of them are actually pretty awful people. They all feel like believable inhabitants of the world they live in, with all the moral greyness that entails. (For the record, as much as I liked Triss, Geralt x Yen is the one true pairing. You know I'm right).
I just have to give a shout-out to Priscilla. Quite a minor character in the grand scheme of things, but she's a sweetheart, her introduction scene is one of the best musical interludes I've ever experienced in a game, and her design is aesthetically pleasing whilst also staying true to her occupation and avoiding the weirdly sexualised aspects of some of the other characters. (Hi, Ves. How the fuck have you survived to this point wearing that weird slashed-to-the-navel armour!?). Seriously, Priscilla's great. When she was attacked by the serial killer, I wanted to END him. I was more invested in the fate of this minor character than I have been in the main characters of some of the games I've played this year, and I think that says a great deal about the quality of TW3's writing as a whole.
Other standouts have been Yennefer, the Bloody Baron (but more on him later), Keira Metz, Philippa Eilhart (really, the Lodge as a whole has been great), Vernon Roche (<3) and Ciri, aside from a few annoying moments.
But not Dandelion. Man, fuck Dandelion.
I almost forgot to mention Geralt himself. I'm not sure how accurate the game version is to the character in the books, but man, I adore him.
Just look at this grizzled, strangely handsome bastard. I definitely have a new videogame crush.
Sorry, Gladio.
I really feel like Geralt's occupation as a witcher was flawlessly integrated into the gameplay and quest design. How you could use signs to manipulate NPCs, investigate monster attacks using witcher senses, check the bestiary to plan your combat tactics, brew oils and decoctions to fight certain monsters...sure, it's all still very videogamey stuff, but it really helped me become immersed in the game and in Geralt as a character.
Speaking of quest design, man, you people weren't kidding when you constantly talked up the Bloody Baron quest. That shit could have been an entire game in itself! And how it seamlessly and unexpectedly connected to the Ladies of the Wood quest...just masterful. I actually think placing these quests so early in the game was to the detriment of the later quests, as although enjoyable and well-written in their own right, they didn't quite live up to the expectations set by the Velen double-whammy.
As for the Ladies themselves...three of the most memorable and disturbing NPCs/creatures I've ever seen in a game, full stop.
I've played a lot of horror games, and these abominations got under my skin in a way that very few videogame nasties have. I read about them in one of the in-game books in the first visit to Vizima, and spent the next dozen hours or so hoping I'd run into them. When I did, they didn't disappoint. The whole buildup to their first appearance, with the trail of treats leading to the swamp, their hideously unsettling theme, their initial depiction in the tapestry followed by their horrifying actual appearance...just amazing. The fact that they have Welsh accents is just the icing on the cake for me. (Just one question...what the fuck happened to the last crone?)
I could go on, but I'll spare you any more of my disjointed rambling.
In closing, while the games mentioned in the first paragraph are still very dear to my heart, I have no problem at all understanding why people were so prone to praise TW3 over them. It's simply because this is the better game, by a pretty huge margin. And that's absolutely fine - I can still enjoy them, whilst acknowledging they fall short in many respects. But this, this game really is something special. I'm talking top 5 of all time, providing the expansions don't spectacularly shit the bed.
I can't believe the number of hours and the level of enjoyment I've gotten out of a game I wasn't even enthusiastic about playing. Best gaming-related £25 I've ever spent, no question.
So, what say you, GAF? Are the expansions as good as the base game? Better? I've just started Hearts of Stone, and I'm pretty ploughing excited, but after ~100 hours I'm considering taking a break to avoid burnout. Also, how do 1 and 2 hold up against this one?
I also feel the need to state that I didn't touch Gwent at all after my first game (and loss). Triple Triad is still king of in-game card games, sorry not sorry.
