[Vindictus]

I still think Yen makes a better canonical love interest, now that she's been fleshed out in W3.

[rooster]

I still think Yen makes a better canonical love interest, now that she's been fleshed out in W3.

Geralt clearly loves her more in the game. I think her brusque assertiveness suits his stubborn loner complex better than Triss and all her politics.

[Particle Person]

This thread has been about the Witcher series for about five pages now. Can't we just have a dedicated Witcher thread?

[Vindictus]

Finally finished the Witcher 3 at 72 hours. Unknowingly stumbled into the 'best' ending, so be aware that various decisions throughout all 3 acts (but mostly those regarding Ciri) can strongly influence how the end turns out. Completed every side quest I could, in addition to all contracts. Ignored Gwent completely.

The game was pretty stellar, with the only bad stuff being control of Geralt (including horse racing), and a weird difficulty curve. Previous games allowed pretty fluid control of Geralt, whereas they decided to make it clunky as fuck here which resulted in me falling off of various things throughout the game (sometimes to my death).

Towards the end of the game, major bosses became extremely easy to kill. In fact, everything on blood and bones (or whatever is 1 step below deathmarch) just kind of fell over once I put together the Wolven armour set and built the talents around it in a combat/signs style. Contrast this to earlier on, where some fights (especially those with multiple enemies) are extremely hard. Overpowered talents like Whirl and alt-Quen trivialize much of the later fights, and doing every quest/place of power makes you stronger than just about anything in the late game.

Overall, don't think I've played an RPG quite as good as W3. As noted previously in this thread, it didn't really buck conventions, but nearly everything it does is done extremely well. The story was also pretty solid, which is more than could be said for W2.

[rooster]

Aw yay, I'm glad you liked it. I still haven't beaten it and will likely be taking a long time with it. I just can't stop playing gwent. I beat everyone, now I just need a deck in real life and will be a real loser!

[Vindictus]

Gwent is odd, I never really warmed to it. Whenever I played it, I always seemed to win with ease, despite not having made a special deck outside of cards I just picked up along the way. It's the kind of thing that could use a multiplayer feature because of that.

The only quests I have left to do are Gwent quests and bugged hand ins. Also a few ? marks left on the map. I've no doubt missed a few minor quests as well, so I'll probably go looking for them. The game really is huge, I have no idea how they managed so much content on top of such a good looking game in a traditional 3 year development cycle.

[rooster]

The toughest people to beat in gwent are the Baron and Skelligers.

[garygreen]

Roos, you were right about the open world-ness.  At the particular spot I was at right after White Orchard, it didn't feel like I could roam much.  All the marked locations I kept finding had nothing but high level bros in red, and the story missions were marked red, too, so I wasn't really sure what to do next.  After I advanced a level or two, though, it was fine.

I think this game's best feature is the combat.  Combat felt clunky to me at first, but as I figured out some of the nuances I discovered that's it's really robust.  It rewards skill, and it allows the player to choose lots of different combat styles.  Neat.  I fucking love alchemy.

The game's worst feature to me is inventory management.  I wish it would give me more information about the various uses for the loot I collect.  Much of it is obvious, but I suspect that I'm hanging onto plenty of things I'll never use.  That's pretty common to fantasy RPGs, though.  Skyrim is the worst about it.  I don't understand the need for developers to simulate that kind of realism.  I don't actually need to collect every broken rake in Westeros or whatever.

Also please fucking stop it with placing candles on every fucking box that I'm trying to loot.  FFS.

[Vindictus]

Yeah, the amount of shit I picked up started to bug me. Until I got saddlebags large enough to never worry, anyway.

Second Witcher video is up. It's a bit longer, but I feel he did a good job once again:

[Fortuna]

I rented The Witcher 3. It's brilliant except for the fact that you can only play as one guy. So pretty much my original assessment.

[Saddam Hussein]

But wasn't Triss the one who told him he was in love with a sorceress? Even if she wasn't, he at least says as much to her but she doesn't confirm who it was.

No, I'm pretty sure she didn't, and Geralt didn't bring it up with her.  She makes a point not to tell him anything about his life prior to his amnesia.

Also, she tells you the rose of remembrance will bring back memories, but it's what Philippa uses to enslave Saskia's mind.. sooo..

I'm sure it has more than one magical use.

[rooster]

No, I'm pretty sure she didn't, and Geralt didn't bring it up with her.  She makes a point not to tell him anything about his life prior to his amnesia.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I remember there being dialogue where she alludes to him being in love with a sorceress (or he says that he remembers such) and she doesn't say who it is.

I'm sure it has more than one magical use.

That's all you got? You think it has more than one magical use? Good one.

[Vindictus]

After comparing both romance endings, it is pretty apparent that Yen makes for the more 'canon' one. Can't really add much more without spoiling, although it is a pretty minor part of the overall ending.

[Vindictus]

Final free DLC is a new game difficulty setting after you finish. Keep your character, gear, exp and get tougher monsters. This was one thing I really wanted, and I'm so happy CD Projekt Red had it planned.

[garygreen]

Final free DLC is a new game difficulty setting after you finish. Keep your character, gear, exp and get tougher monsters. This was one thing I really wanted, and I'm so happy CD Projekt Red had it planned.

That's really awesome.  It's an excellent incentive for me to finish the game.

[Saddam Hussein]

So who should I bang/romance? Everyone?

You don't have a whole lot of options in 3. If you try both Triss and Yen then they'll know about it.

And then this happens:



Very amusing.  But speaking of the love interests, I have to say that Yen is a million times better than Triss.  To paraphrase Rushy, Yen feels like an actual character, while Triss is just there to be Geralt's love interest, nothing more, nothing less.  I'm actually kind of irritated now that the first two games didn't have a female lead as interesting as Yen.  Or they could at least have given us one who wasn't as bland as Triss.

I have to complain that the game has included not one, but two (so far) examples of this bullshit.  That just pisses me off.  It feels almost disrespectful in a way; the player uses their skill to win a boss battle, and then the game just handwaves it away and says "nah man you lose anyway."  If a game wants to put the player in a boss fight that they lose, then they shouldn't present it as a regular boss fight that the player has to win to advance the story.

Argh!  They did it again!  And this time it's the worst of all!

(around the 2:15 mark)

What the fuck?  Seriously, what the fuck is this?  They couldn't even be bothered to have it be, I don't know, someone sneaks up behind you and hits you with something heavy.  In fact, they didn't even need to have Geralt be stunned - they could have just shown the guy getting killed in a cutscene while Geralt continues to fight them.  But no, instead they had to show Geralt, the legendary monster-slayer, getting his ass kicked by a drunken yokel in a bar fight.  Unbelievable.

The trick ending to the quest "Possession" is a real letdown.  It should have been you, the player, coming up with a way to trick someone else into thinking they had done something terrible.  It could have made for a very interesting puzzle-like setup that encouraged player creativity.  Instead, they just went with a cutscene that's apparently supposed to shock us.  As if anyone playing the game would think that Geralt would really cook a baby.  And then it requires you to genuinely kill the jarl's innocent men, despite the fact that the whole point of this charade is supposed to be that you've done nothing wrong?  What the fuck?

[Saddam Hussein]

After 138 hours of gameplay, I have finally beaten TW3.  What a gigantic game.  And I'm not even fully done with it - there are still a few sidequests and the Hearts of Stone add-on left to do.  Anyway, this is easily one of the best video games I've ever played.  It has choices, consequences, solid writing, distinctive characters, a sense of humor, and satisfying emotional payouts, all while having the trappings of an unquestionably modern, mainstream title.  It's almost as if gamers aren't complete retards who need every franchise to be as dumbed-down as possible, contrary to what some devs think.   Hell, it's even pretty accessible as a standalone title for newcomers to the series, unlike TW2.  I'd still recommend playing through all three games from the start to anyone who's interested, though, just because I loved guiding Geralt through the series and seeing the consequences of his actions play out in the later titles.

Anyway, time to baw and nitpick.  I'm not a fan of the fistfights in this game.  They just aren't as fun and satisfying as they were with the (admittedly much too easy) QTEs of the last game, and it doesn't feel right that every character you can fight is apparently an experienced boxer capable of skillfully blocking your every punch, promptly counterattacking, etc.  Also, I found the final act to be awfully stretched and padded.  The game would hint that shit was getting real, the action was ramping up, the plot hurtling towards its conclusion - and then pfffffff, all the tension dissipates as I find myself back in the overworld with a quest to "prepare" for what's coming next.  I mean, there's a quest called "Final Preparations" that isn't final by any stretch of the imagination.  It's immediately followed by a quest called "Battle Preparations."  And while I'm not sure how much leeway the devs had to be creative in their portrayal of the world, given that this series is ultimately an adaptation, I wish their portrayal of the Northern Kingdoms had been a little bit less generic and homogeneous.  Is there any real cultural difference between, say, Temeria and Redania?  Finally, Geralt is so zippy that guiding him through precise actions is tricky, like Vindictus noted.

[Particle Person]

Did you ever activate "alternative movement" in the game options? It makes Geralt's movement much more precise.