The Witcher 3 | Review Thread

The reviews say pretty much everything I wanted to hear, but those technical issues still have me worried. Especially annoying that they didn't send out Xb1 review copies.
 
I'm starting to get a little worried about the combat..

Witcher 2 combat almost made me stop playing a few times. W3 really needs to be a big step up in that regard.

Well, Kotaku said it was fun and the IGN (?) review said it was basic. I don't mind basic. I can deal with basic. I just don't want it to feel terrible to play, like TW2 did.
 
I'm wondering why this is scoring so high when almost every review says there are loads of fetch quests, the combat isn't great, the framerate is struggling and there are a lot of bugs on PS4?
 
Funny story, from the Triss POV in Blood of Elves, Witchers give off a pleasant vibration sensation when touched by a magic user.

So she is literally using Geralt as her personal vibrator?

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I thought it was the PC version still waiting on a big performance patch. The review copies already had a performance patch to help, although more bug fixes are on the way.

Don't we have conflicting reports on that? One review saying they have day 1 patch and another saying they don't have day 1 patch.
 
That's lovely, but unless Geralt is wearing a vibrating codpiece, that water is completely unrealistic. Or maybe he just gives new meaning to the phrase "rippling thighs."

I'll explain it away as a side effect of the sign quen, which creates a barrier around Geralt. Yeah, that'll work.
Funny story, from the Triss POV in Blood of Elves, Witchers give off a pleasant vibration sensation when touched by a magic user.

Oh, wow. That's... weird. Witchers are just like their medallions.

So, about that "insider" that told us to wait for reviews....lol

I couldn't take him seriously... his posts reeked of someone with an axe to grind, verified or not. There's probably some kernel of truth to what he's saying, but nothing that lined up with his version of reality.
 
GAF's most anticipated title for 2015 per the poll, right? looking like a good call, gafhivemind.

I guess I'm in now too. I give myself over to the hype.

edit:


....
where would one get one of these vibrating codpieces, and how much are they?

Third most anticipated IIRC, the others were MGSV and Uncharted 4
 
That's what I'm saying.

Still feel like they'll be hiding in here somewhere, but as someone who has an irrational fear of spiders (and most insects in general) I ran into way too many of them in shit like Skyrim or the last Dragon Age. I actually modded those fuckers out of Skyrim on PC.

I feel you. When I played Dragon Age inquisition and I saw those caves with Webbing all over the entrances on the Storm Coast my heart rate spiked.
 
What's that? Have I missed something hilarious?

I don't really see what's hilarious about it or why people are being so derisive in bringing this up:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=132704069&postcount=310

it looks like many gaffers are painting CDP as some magical dev studio with only the best of interests of the gamers in mind. Trust me they are not. The bullshitting with the Witcher 3 started from day 1. PR is creating an overblown vision of a game that doesn't exist while the team is in crazy crunch time for over a year now. There's some bad shit going on that if GAF knew GAF would not like.

Well in the end it's my words vs CDP PR. I mean why should You belive my if I have no solid evidence to show? But that's kind of my point, CDP build a very good realationship with gamers and now it's paying off as oppose to say EA. I do have inside knowledge, I did have contact with the game but again NDA and such plus I'm just a dude on the internet. my only point is that GAF should take everything CDP says with a grain of salt.

EDIT: Just to some up my messy line of thinking - don't preorder tha game (especially on consols) wait for the reviews, then decide or don't pay attention to a random dude on the internet and do what you want with your money.

This is from October. There's a couple of things worth touching on there. One, the game may have indeed been in a troubled state but still turned out ok. 10/10 reviews don't necessarily mean that production was smooth. Two, if working conditions were bad then they were bad. Just because we are getting a great product as a result doesn't undermine complaints about long crunch times.

Or, maybe the person was jaded and exaggerating out of bitterness. I don't know. A number of things could be at play here. But just because the final product delivered doesn't mean that these posts are automatically BS.
 
Well, Kotaku said it was fun and the IGN (?) review said it was basic. I don't mind basic. I can deal with basic. I just don't want it to feel terrible to play, like TW2 did.

Quite a few of the reviews I scanned over mentioned improvements in combat over TW2 at least.
 
Define "fetch quest"

If it's "Go kill X of this enemy and bring me back their hides", I doubt there is any of that in the game.

if it's "go into this deep cave and bring me the magical item you find", I wouldn't call that a "fetch quest" in the sense of the above example.

I expect Witcher has none of the prior, and more of the latter.

Thats a fetch quest dude...
 
I don't think there are any problems with the Xbox or PC versions of the game. The reason why not all publications have a review yet and all the current reviews are based on the PS4 build is that only copies for debug PS4 consoles have been sent out.

Not even regular PS4 copies have been sent out yet. The regular keys should be sent out in the end of the week. I can provide proof (email sent by CDPR's PR) if requested.
 
I'm wondering why this is scoring so high when almost every review says there are loads of fetch quests, the combat isn't great, the framerate is struggling and there are a lot of bugs on PS4?

A good number of reviews have praised the quest and combat system--which ones are you reading? It sounds like a lot of it may come down to personal preference, considering the widely varied opinions.
 
I couldn't take him seriously... his posts reeked of someone with an axe to grind, verified or not. There's probably some kernel of truth to what he's saying, but nothing that lined up with his version of reality.

I am not saying he was or was not full of shit but werent his comments before delay? I assume if the game had released last year it would have had to be rushed and probably broke.
 
Thats a fetch quest dude...

Quoting myself from a previous thread (and echoing others in this thread):

All RPG quests can be reduced to either kill or fetch quests, how the quests are presented is what matters. Is it fleshed out and is there a nice and engaging story behind the quest, or did the devs not even bother with creating any sort of narrative? The latter is a straightforward fetch quest, the former is not.
 
No XBO copies were sent out for review.



They didn't send any PC copies out, reasons unknown. They did mention that they have been hammering on performance for past two weeks, but I doubt that as reason for holding PC copies back as this hammering should also affect PS4 version.

so the PConly and XboxOnly review sites got nothing?
 
Im going to wait two months. By then people will be able to tell me if the game is as full of bullshit as Dragon Age Inquisiton. Seem like everyone was saying DAI is amazing when it came out.
 
Quoting myself from a previous thread (and echoing others in this thread):

Personally, I consider it more than a fetch quest if the specifics of the mission actually have purpose and impact in the world. Dragon Age had SOME of these--I liked the quests that led to actual advantages in the world, rebuilding a farm, etc.--but too many were inconsequential.

In TW3, it sounds like even "fetch quests" will have consequences that impact the game world, even if they're not felt until later or in just a small way.
 
For people concerned about the bad enemy AI, how many games have legitimately GOOD AI? Not very many at all. It's unfortunate that it's not an area that has progressed in game design, but also not really a game stopping issue amongst the entire package of Witcher 3.

Basic combat I'm ok with. It's an open world game. I'm just happy the combat is not incredibly janky looking like most other open world games.


Not sure when I'll be able to buy this, might have to wait a month, but I'm more pumped than ever after reading/watching these reviews.
 
Thats a fetch quest dude...

And this is "bad"???

If this is an unacceptable quest, what the hell is acceptable?

My point is that there are good fetch quests, and bad fetch quests. I'm sure the developer was insisting that there would be no "bad" fetch quests.
 
Well, Kotaku said it was fun and the IGN (?) review said it was basic. I don't mind basic. I can deal with basic. I just don't want it to feel terrible to play, like TW2 did.

Same. I don't mind basic, but the combat in TW2 felt awful. Really unresponsive, long animations you couldn't cancel, the unsatisfying hit-and-run roll fest.

I'm sure it's gonna be better than TW2 but I'm hoping for drastic improvements.
 
When people criticise fetch quests, they're referring to vapid wastes of time, like traditional MMO quests where you kill X of Y for Z, with zero context or consequence. I seriously doubt the Witcher 3 has much of that, just like the previous games.

Which is funny, because the Witcher is perfectly set up for "kill x" missions, being a monster slayer and all. But they still manage to give more context and meaning to that sort of thing, especially for larger threats.
I am not saying he was or was not full of shit but werent his comments before delay? I assume if the game had released last year it would have had to be rushed and probably broke.

Oh yeah, of course.

Seeing Steve's quotes (above) I forgot that he was only saying "wait & see" so I shouldn't be too hard on him.

Re: the crunch times, I do wonder how that stuff works in countries with less established software/game development histories. With how bad it can be in even the established countries, I have to assume it's worse.
 
I'm wondering why this is scoring so high when almost every review says there are loads of fetch quests, the combat isn't great, the framerate is struggling and there are a lot of bugs on PS4?

because sometimes a game ends up being more than just the sum of its (flawed) parts
 
Same. I don't mind basic, but the combat in TW2 felt awful. Really unresponsive, long animations you couldn't cancel, the unsatisfying hit-and-run roll fest.

I'm sure it's gonna be better than TW2 but I'm hoping for drastic improvements.
Recent preview from guy on YouTube said it's like witcher 2 but refined.You can use potions in combat, can cancel animations, etc...
 
Back in 14 or 13 somebody said that GAF shouldn't hold CDPR with such high regard and that they work their people to death. Also that we should wait for witcher 3 reviews because the bad environment would show on the game's quality.

Lol. Glad it seems like they were wrong, then.

e: just now noticed Steve's post. Glad the game turned out well, that is. It's terrible if they were as overworked as it sounds.
 
I don't mind fetch quests, so long as there's SOMETHING to do besides kill whoever has what you need to fetch.

A little more depth than say:

A = you
C= fetch item(s)
B= everything in between A and C that must die

A-------->B---------->C

Like, let me, oh I don't know, impress a crowd with magic tricks to get a certain person to let me have a certain thing, but only after I try to set her up with this guy she's been hot after for weeks. And to get this guy to notice her, I need to - make his current love interest 'magically' fall out of love with him and reject him. (OPTION 1. Tragic Accident, OPTION 2. Create a lie, OPTION 3. Threaten family)- Sounds like a trite WB/CW network show plot, I admit, but it's at least interesting.
 
This is Neogaf, indeed.

Game is getting universally praised (though with problems, like any other game in the spectrum) and people are making this thread a mess...

I understand not liking some things, like the combat (I never played Witcher 2, as my RIG never allowed me, but I'm changing that with a new i5 970 rig) or the performance. These are deal breakers to some people.

It's a shame though, because the strong points seems to make the game excellent and a worthy sequel to the games that I'm growing to love.
 
I would hope so.

If the combat is anything like TW2 this is a no-go for me.

Unfortunately it seems the combat is very similar to Witcher 2.

I didn't enjoy TW2 combat at all, so I'm probably gonna start TW3 on the easy difficulty setting. I can turn it up later on anyway if the combat turns out to be fun after all.
 
Regarding combat and conflicting reviews, tried to pick some of the bigger media outlets:

Gamespot
The Witcher 2's combat was overly demanding at the outset, but The Witcher 3 is substantially easier; I recommend, in fact, that you choose a difficulty level one notch higher than the one you would typically choose, presuming you don't default to the most stringent one straight away. Even when things get easy, however, the combat is always satisfying, due to the crunchiness of landing blows, the howls of human foes scorched by your Igni sign, and the fearsome behavior of necrophages, wandering ghosts, and beasts of the indescribable sort. It's easy to get sidetracked and outlevel story quests, but even lesser beasts require a bit of finesse; drowners attack in numbers, for instance, knocking you about and making it difficult to swing, while winged beasts swoop in for a smackdown and require you to blast them down with a flash of fire, a shockwave, or a crossbow bolt.

Game Informer
Great writing and intense decisions aside, the gameplay has also vastly improved. This is the most accessible entry yet, thanks to different difficulty settings, a better interface, more lenient weight restrictions, and a less demanding alchemy system. Combat is much more responsive and action-packed compared to the stilted experience of past entries. This doesn't sacrifice any of the difficulty; outside of playing on story mode, a great deal of strategy is required in the tense battles. Exploiting enemy weaknesses with spells, crafting potions to give you an edge, blocking at the right time for counterattacks, and dodging in the nick of time are still of the utmost importance.

IGN
All of this shines through in The Witcher 3’s responsive, brutal real-time combat. Where combat in this series has up until this point felt vague and even a bit clunky, here it’s so fluid and satisfying that I walk around hoping for bandits to jump me just so I can repel their attacks with magical barriers, parry their blows with uncanny precision, and relieve them of life and/or limb with the occasional gory flourish. The Witcher has always done a great job of making me feel that I’ve outsmarted my foes, but for the first time here, controlling Geralt feels tangibly badass with every successful fight.

Kotaku
Wild Hunt’s combat is a significant improvement over The Witcher 2. It finally feels as though the PC-focused CD Projekt Red has warmed to controller-based combat, and the majority of the game’s controls sit happily beneath the player’s fingers. The left trigger puts Geralt into a guarded posture, ready to ward off most regular attacks. Players are given two buttons for dodging; a short dodge that doesn’t drain any stamina and a longer roll that does. Attacks involve stringing together various combinations of heavy and light thrusts. Geralt and his foes are animation-locked a la Monster Hunter and the Souls games, meaning combat is as much about careful timing and tactical position as it is about aggressive offense.

Geralt’s combat animations are remarkably detailed and fluid, and they have a tangible impact on the way the game plays. I regularly felt as though I was in control of an intelligent fighter and was impressed by how smoothly Geralt shifted his posture and focus to move between enemies, even on a crowded battlefield. Part of The Witcher’s appeal is the promise to let you feel like a wily, unstoppable badass, and Geralt’s elegant move-set and expanded arsenal accomplish that goal far more ably than previous games in the series.

Games Radar
The slippery framerate exacerbates issues with the combat system, which remains largely unchanged from the Witcher 2, and has inherited all of its problems. You attack by stringing together light and strong slaps with your sword, and can use an array of magical signs to protect yourself or pulverise others. The essential Quen spell casts a shield that negates a blow. Igni roasts enemies with a flame blast. Yrden lays a trap that slows them to a drunken crawl. Aard pushes them back with concussive force, and Axii stupifies enemies.

The long-range dodge can theoretically be used to dive out of the way of monster swipes and the new short-range dodge is designed to let you pirouette around strikes so you can counter, but both are very inconsistent in practice. Expect to take a lot of unfair hits, even in cases when the enemy's strike clearly sailed past you. This problem is instantly fixed when you step into Ciri's shoes for one of her brief playable flashback sequences. Her dodge is a short-range teleport, and is immediately more satisfying.

Metro
In terms of the actual combat some elements have been simplified form the previous games, but only in the sense that it’s now faster and more intuitive. The clumsy combos of the last game, whose animations couldn’t be interrupted, are long gone and although Geralt is visibly older than before he feels more spry and athletic when in action.

Lesser enemies can also be studied beforehand for an advantage in combat, with Geralt possessing a supersense that not only lets him track smells and footprints but also highlights weak points on a foe, which can then be aimed at specifically using a brief slow motion effect. Despite all this the combat in itself isn’t anything extraordinary, but it strikes just the right balance of complexity and accessibility given everything else that’s going on in the game.
 
Well, TW2's combat was god awful (on m+k especially) and they didn't patch it in any way. So don't count on it?

Loved the combat on M+K, didn't like it with Xbox360 gamepad (and I play most games with him now).. you see, people have different tastes and preferences
 
This is from October. There's a couple of things worth touching on there. One, the game may have indeed been in a troubled state but still turned out ok. 10/10 reviews don't necessarily mean that production was smooth. Two, if working conditions were bad then they were bad. Just because we are getting a great product as a result doesn't undermine complaints about long crunch times.

Or, maybe the person was jaded and exaggerating out of bitterness. I don't know. A number of things could be at play here. But just because the final product delivered doesn't mean that these posts are automatically BS.

This is absolutely true. Look at Red Dead Redemption...phenomenal end product but the troubles they had with getting that game together are no secret.
 
So she is literally using Geralt as her personal vibrator?





Don't we have conflicting reports on that? One review saying they have day 1 patch and another saying they don't have day 1 patch.

CDPR told reviewers that the PS4 review copies they sent out already had the day 1 patch applied. PC copies were not sent out because they're still working on the day 1 patch - which will likely be ready shortly as PC copies are going out tomorrow.
 
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