(This review was written for www.cgtantra.com and is published here :http://cgtantra.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36656 . I am posting here just for personal non-commercial archiving purposes.)
The Witcher 3: Wild
Hunt
Rights,
wrongs …… and all the fun in between !
This review of the ps4
version of the game is 100% story-wise and gameplay-wise spoiler-free to keep your gaming goodness
intact while playing this masterpiece.
“I am Geralt
of Rivia”, this statement outlines the world of The Witcher 3 very appropriately.
How, you may ask? Well, because this statement is true, yet false. Yes, you
play as Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher, a monster hunter by trade but Geralt, as he
proudly introduces himself, is not from Rivia and even his slight Rivian accent
is a fake, a fact not well known among even his friends, and this same theme of
dubiousness runs throughout the whole game. Nothing here is what it seems
like! No character you meet here is what
the world or first impressions would make you believe. Every place, person,
incident, decision or its subsequent result has another layer of motive, doubt,
apprehension or misunderstanding! ………and this makes for an enchanting, exhilarating
ride through a game world so well made that it is difficult to find an equal in
our recent times !
So, my
friend, if you fancy yourself a tale well told, then come! Come, for a Witcher
roams our lands! A Witcher whose tales may well be passed on, for they are
worthy, brave, infallible as a Hero’s feats and yet unsure, aching and
imperfect as our own feeble deeds. Come, for a fire burns and tales flow for
all…. Geralt of Rivia has arrived ! 
The Adventure:
In a world
co-inhabited by sorcerers, dwarves, elves, beasts, witches, werewolves and
humans CD Projekt Red kicks off the adventure with a high quality CGI cut-scene
that gets the ball rolling from the get-go. You, as Geralt , are introduced to
being a Witcher, in exceptionally beautiful graphics to boot, and are set on
the main quest immediately to go find Cirilla, a young girl tied to Geralt by
destiny, a child-surprise as they say, if we go by the detailed mythos of the
Novels set in the Witcher universe. Let’s just say she is a daughter to Geralt.
What ensues is a series of quests to track some important returning characters
from previous games (and novels) which takes you through a highly detailed hand
crafted world full of side quests so good that they can put some full games to
shame !
I am not exaggerating here, as these short
stories from the side-quests evoke empathy towards the side-characters in
simple but such effective ways that a lot of major full releases lack. Also,
true to the game’s theme, every quest you undertake can end up in you doing
exactly the opposite of what you intended while starting the quest. Heroes turn
out to be equally villainous while tormentors turn out to be victims of the
actions of the preachers of good or simple plain survival instincts of others. This
makes the open world come alive with a magic which even the best games of the
genre (Skyrim included) fall severely short of !
You develop an attachment towards the
detailed world as you progress through the game. Anticipation runs high as you
explore each area, as you find insignificant items and seemingly mundane
treasure hunts bring forth highly emotive stories in the wake of their
discovery. I will not mention any story detail here to not spoil the surprise
one feels while playing the game, but it suffices to say that even some
optional treasure hunts paint tragic tales of deceit, misunderstood morals and
lonely penances. Seemingly violent Witcher contracts, quests to kill monsters
for cash, evolve into quests of re-uniting timeless lovers and other times turn
into moral arguments about the right to live, of survival instinct of other
species v/s seemingly irrefutable piousness in human acts of indiscriminate
expansion and the desire to usurp the whole world.
The opposing
perceptions of right and wrong, when viewed from opposing perspectives, is a
theme that runs through everything in this game. Characters, quests, hunts and
even banter among NPCs question the right of the righteous and the wrongs in
the wrongdoings. This is not a world you will forget upon shutting down the
game. Instead, you will find yourself narrating these dilemmas to friends and
family and thinking about your actions in your waking and sleeping hours. In
time, you will start living as
Geralt, the ultimate goal of any RPG !
The Combat:
This rich,
lush world and quest system is ably supported by a robust combat system, which
frankly brings a breath of fresh air and immediacy to a world full of RPGs with slow, clunky or repetitive combat.
Combat in the Witcher requires you to think on the feet and juggle between its
three arms of Swordplay, Signs (ala magic) and Alchemy. Oh, and bombs, never
forget the ever useful bombs! This brings enough variety to fights to not feel
repetitive and enough possibilities to win a fight your way. This caters to the very core concept of being a Witcher,
of slaying monsters and sharing those stories with your friends. The fact that
there are 5 signs, with equal number of alternate modes, two sword attacks
which upgrade to 4 (along with 3 passive abilities), multiple potions which you
learn along the way and bombs which you upgrade to better versions and a
mutagen system to add boosts to your style of play builds up into a system
which lets you add your personality to each fight, lets you build your own
fighting style and lets you have encounters which you can live to tell tales
of. Add to that a very
well explained and the incredibly useful bestiary in the game which details out
the origins and the weaknesses of each monster type, (which must be exploited in order to win a fight, otherwise you might
find yourself at a loss in the fight)
you have a well-built combat system which holds the test of time and
lasts you through the 100 hours you may very well spend in this game.
Button
mashing your sword can get you only so far and very early-on the game makes it
clear that a Witcher needs his kaboom-a-shazaam to jazz up his combat or pack
his bags and leave. You are free to upgrade any aspect as you level up, but a
very clever slot-system for your skill-tree makes it clear that you can focus
on maxing out only one of the three disciplines over the course of the game
while keeping a second discipline leveled up for support. To put in numbers,
you have around 70 skills you can level up but you can slot only 12 at a time
pushing you to make hard choices about your play-style and hone your Witcher towards
a particular specialisation. During my playthrough, I focused on leveling up my
Magic signs (because magic is the coolest form of self-expression in this world
:^)) in such a way to make them almost always ready-to-fire and maxed out my
light sword attack for some knuckle-to-the-bone interludes between all the
fireworks ! My combat style was further boosted by the
Griffin armour set which boosted my sign intensity even further making sure
when I spewed fire from my fingers, I had
roasted monster meat for dinner ! There are three such sets, with very specific
bonuses and handicaps and multitudes of other armours which provide various
boosts.
In my time
with The Witcher 3, which is north of a 100 hours, I was always excited for the
next big fight, and not wary of it, and was still trying to think up new cross
ability combos, which speaks volumes for the combat system when usually combat
in most RPGs end up feeling repetitive and random. Popping a magic shield, then
freezing the enemies only to light them up with my fire-streaming souped-up
Igni sign and then letting them hack you to their fill, as you laugh
maniacally, because every hit they strike regenerates
your health : Priceless !
The Devil is in the details:
…….and in
letting the player be! I cannot explain to you the joys of stealing treasures from right under the noses of high
levelled monsters, one who can kill you with one hit, and running off with the
loot on your sturdy horse …….and the fact that the game lets you have it
without penalties if you can pull it off ! There are no “magical game barriers’
which stop you from doing what you want to, it’s a living breathing open world,
for real this time. I sneaked into Novigrad, a major metropolis in the game,
long before the story wanted me to and add to that I sneaked in without a
mandatory pass required to enter the city…..and the game just let me be and
responded properly by opening up the connected story quests for me.
Usually such
freedom of gameplay comes at the cost of a lackluster or barren world, but
there are no compromises in the Witcher3. The world is unanimously the most
beautiful open world you will set your eyes on (which you can travel by foot,
steed or boats) and each area is lovingly handcrafted to pertain a sense of
place.
The devilish
detailing extends beyond just graphics, though. Each NPC you find in the little
villages located around the map has a name, a profession and usually a side
quest he/she stars in. Each NPC you pass usually has something to say about
you, the current political situation, some quest located in that area or on war
and its wake ! If you check out the Notice board at each village or town, which
lets you pick up side quests, you will notice little stories for almost each of
these NPCs in that village.
The
detailing spills over into dialogue options and the decisions you make too.
Even seemingly disconnected quests have repercussions which affect your options
in other quests or story quests. Friends or foes you make over time can
suddenly make events pop-in out of nowhere affecting your story and gameplay in
some other part of the game. It is difficult to tell how deep this rabbit hole
goes, but I was pleasantly surprised multiple times in my game when thugs or
help poured in from long forgotten characters and conversations.
Talking of
conversations, you have multiple choices which you can make while talking to
other NPCs, but contrary to other RPGs who offer black and white choices,
Witcher 3 differs again. Not only are the choices more like real life, ie. ambiguous
and unsure, but the dialogue also let you back out and change directions
cleverly if the response from the NPC makes you change your mind ! Even during
romances, I was able to commit, half-commit and then even back out of a
relationship within a conversation scene making it feel…..surreal !
In no other
games have I felt so compelled to think well before committing to a dialogue
choice because in The Witcher 3, every decision you make has tangible
repercussions which the game clearly feeds back to you making every decision or
dialogue choice important and dear to your heart. I have found myself
discussing my available choices with friends before taking decisions as many a
times a seemingly just decision can later leave you with a terrible feeling of
guilt. As I said before, in this world, nothing is what it seems !
Oh, and did
I mention the humour ! The game has the same sense of humour that the novels
have and this is one game where more than half of my time was spent smiling
while playing the game. The amount of love put into crafting this game is
simply staggering!
Conclusion:
To put it
simply: This is RPG open-world
gaming at its finest! Un-missable, un-skippable and one where your time spent
in the game isn’t a pastime, it’s a purposeful adventure into your own
conscience, your own sense of right and wrong and your ability to separate the
wheat from the chaff. You might well never be a hero in The Witcher 3, but you can be the one who cares ! Whether what
you do resonates with others or makes you a monster in their eyes is debatable
and unpredictable, just like in real life.
If you are
an Action RPG fan you will be ably satiated with this game and if, like me, you
crave the tales of wonder, you will be in heaven ! Just don’t rush with the
main story, do every side quest that pops up, find hidden areas and take time
with the Witcher contracts as those side activities are where the meat of the
game is. The main storyline is the thread that binds the world together but
doing a Witcher’s deeds in this wind swept world is where all the magic
happens! For this is one lush garden of
little wide eyed tales, pick the ones that feel ripe to you and play them as
you live the life of a Witcher !
Pros:
+Best Side
quests in a game, ever.
+Amazing Fan
service. Novels and previous games are constantly referred to in meaningful
ways.
+The best
living breathing open world, sense of adventure is un-paralleled
+Humour and
the branching dialogue
+ Combat and
leveling up systems
+Superb
graphics
+Decisions
have surprising effects
Cons:
-Main story
can feel aimless in the beginning.
Verdict: “Reviewer’s
Choice: A Must buy! Do not miss this game if adventure runs in your blood “
(*all screenshots taken with the
Share button on a PS4 system)
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