The Witcher III

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Alex79
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Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Alex79 »

Ok, so full disclosure – I have not finished this game yet. However, with my play through currently standing at 80 hours – longer than all 6 Uncharted games combined – I feel I have played enough to form some opinions! First things first, what a beautiful world. It’s easy to become complacent with the graphics of games these days, it’s very rare a truly ugly game is released nowadays, but I will never tire of those immaculate rolling hills and countryside. Those snow capped mountains, the perfect lighthouses standing proud along the exquisite coastline and the satisfying spurt of blood from a Drowners neck as you hack his head off in one clean blow. It is utterly, utterly beautiful and a world I can lose hours in just wandering about exploring (aside: I never, ever use fast travel. It feels like I’m cheating myself out of a journey).

Politics aside, I found several of the characters in this game some of the best written, most well realised characters in gaming. The Bloody Baron's tragic story line about a frustrated oaf of a man struggling with his own demons and guilt and taking them out on his family really resonated with me. He was a despicable lout, but there was something about his pathetic misfortune brought about entirely of his own doing that really brought the character to life. I enjoyed conversations with Sigismund Dijkstra, another boasting show off, the King Of Beggars had a certain silent menace to him, and even Dandelion, an irritating fool of a man, was fun to converse with. On the whole, I think the writing and voice acting was of such quality that most of the characters were believable and I have spent so much time with these people I almost felt like I knew them.

I have too many stand out moments to mention them all, so I’ll speak only of the first time I was amazed. I was sailing and a tall tower caught my eye. I sailed over, jumped out of the boat and started to explore. The tower held some dark secrets, and as I searched I slowly began to work out some terrible experiments on humans had been taking place within it’s walls. I spent almost an hour creeping around and it was only hours later when I got given a mission specific to that area I realised I’d discovered Fyke Island before the game had sent me there. The whole world is full of stories to uncover, mysteries to unravel, and the main questline really is just a tiny part of the tale the land has to tell.

I won't go on any more. People have a lot to say about this game, but in summary – it’s amazing, and one of the most consistently interesting games I’ve ever played. And I didn’t even mention the hours I’ve lost to Gwent.

THREE WORD REVIEW: Epic. Literally epic.
Todinho

Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Todinho »

Great write-up on the difficulty Thirdman you took the words right outta my mouth on that one.

Witcher 3 is a difficult game for me to come to a conclusion, some parts I absolutelly adore while others I just hate and while overall I think Witcher 3 is a great game that has rightfully become the new benchmark for open-world RPGs I can never shake the feeling that it disapointed me.

Some of my biggest problems stem from CD Projekt complete disregard of player choice in their previous games, while the witcher series never promised Mass effect style choices affecting multiples games the way they just ignored or brushed aside most consequences of previous games was to me a big slap in the face, especially given that I chose Iorverth path on Witcher 2 because not only is Iorverth completelly absent from this game, other then a mention that he may have died off screen, but all the events that happened in his path are rendered utterlly meaningless. Roche's path doesnt fare much better with almost all of it being ignored but at the very least he and temeria have a role in the game where Iorverth and the scoiatel are completelly absent, to make a comparison to bioware just imagine if in Mass effect you saved Wrex only for him to die off screen and have the entire genophage storyline be completelly dropped, this is what they've done with Iorverth and his storyline in Witcher 3, the only real choice that matters from previous games is if Letho survived or not everything else is pratically thrown out the window.

Another problem I have is that when it comes to it's main story Witcher 3 really falls short of it's predecessor, Assassin of kings was this complex political story where all character involved were well developed with their own set of goals, motives and justification for their actions, there were constant twists and turns leading to a conclusion that despite what you did didnt leave the world in a much better state.
Wild Hunt by contrast is your typical chosen one saves the world story you see a dime a dozen in fantasy,only you barely play as the chosen one throught the game, and the titular antagonists that were so ominous in the previous games turn out the be your typical bad guys you've seen 100 times before, that not to say the moral ambiguity and political plot are a completelly absent in this one they certainlly are present but are now more reserved to the background and sidequests.

The last criticism I have storywise is how many times I felt disconnected from Geralt in this game and let me explain what I mean, with witcher 1 Geralt wakes up with Amnesia this was a great way to not only introduce the world to the player that most likelly never even heard about the books but also to get the player in sync with the character they are playing andbeing able to mold his personality somewhat given his blank slate, in witcher 3 however Geralt has all his memory back and characters from the books that were barely mentioned or never even introduced in the games start showing up, Geralt knew them but I the player didnt, at times it was like being in a party with a friend only you dont know anybody there but he does, they didnt get this wrong all the time, characters like Ciri,Yennefer and Dijkstra were introduced well enough that I understood well enough their relationship but meanwhile in Skeliga I hated everybody there and wondered why Geralt was so buddy buddy with them.
Im not saying the game shouldnt have done this and Im sure it made alot of book readers very happy that characters they really liked were finnaly getting their time to shine in the games, but to me it was salt on the wound that many of my favorite characters from the games didnt return but I was getting a bunch of book ones that I never heard of nor cared for.

While witcher 3 disapointed me storywise in some ways in others absolutelly blew me away, especially when it comes to characters and sidequests, the Bloody Baron questline is already famous for it's rich characters, moral ambiguity and it's multiple possible conclusions so it doesnt require further praise from me, I want talk about my favorite sidequest in the whole game which is the entire sequence with Triss in Novigrad, in fact Triss might be my favorite character in Witcher 3 which is quite an achivement because I didnt like her all that much in Witcher 1, while I didnt care for the Wild Hunt and saving the world I was deeply invested in what would happen to her and I was commited to getting those two stranged lovers back together. It was a great questline that not only developed Triss character in a way we havent seen before but also Geralt showing how vulnerable he could be, all that culminates in a, admitedly cliché, moment at the docs that is one of the absolute highlights of the game for me.

Other then the sidequests the game also uses it's open world not only to portray the effects of war on regular people really well but also by having little details that flesh out the world and characters all the more, like how if you pay attention to what the Baron's men say to each other and what the peasants talk about them you realize how bad they really are and how worse things might get if the Bloody Baron leaves, also in the beginning of the game if you pay attention it becomes very clear that Vesemir was the one who ruined the local peasant food shipment to the Nilfgaardians which later makes the peasant be punnished in a cutscene, the game is full of these little details many may not even notice but add alot of depth to the world and it's characters.

Gameplaywise the game is stellar in almost every way mantaining the essence of what makes the witcher combat so unique and rewarding but also streamlining it to a great degree, the game also nails more then ever the feeling of being a witcher, of walking around towns, finding contratcs, preparing and fighting monsters. This gameplay loop works really well especially given that the monster contracts are both challenging and varied throught the game, be it a werewolf, a griffon or a wyvern the fights are always interesting and you can easilly lose yourself in the game just doing the contracts. Other then the worse handling horse I've used in a game and what ThirdMan said in his post there's little to complain about the gameplay and I think Witcher 3 is easilly the best game in the series and the best western action rpg gameplaywise I've ever played.

Like I said overall I think Witcher 3 is an undeniably great game and even my complaints seem small given the game many virtues but still the first thing that comes to mind when I think about Witcher 3 are the issues I have with it and not it's great qualities that made so many people fall in love with it. I think this is that masterpiece I will never be able to fully enjoy.
odrzut

Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by odrzut »

Sorry for derailing the thread in previous post, it's my pet peeve. Anyway - on to non-political stuff.

I liked Witcher 3 very much (I'm Sapkowski fanboy, so it isn't surprising). The open world is very detailed and full of good quests and stories you can discover, the characters are interesting and different from each other, source material is mostly handled with respect (with few exceptions).

I also think fighting system in TW3 is quite good for an RPG. If you compare it to Bloodborn or Dark Souls I can understand where people come from, but these games are all about combat. I think more fair comparison would be Skyrim, Dragon Age:Inquisition, or Fallout 4, and from these I liked combat in TW3 the most. It still has place for improvement, of course - mostly it needs more polish - better hitboxes and more fluid and responsive animations. Jumping in fight would be nice too.

Also - the music was very good, and quite original. Hiring folk/metal band to help was a great idea.

When it comes to disadvantages - I didn't care much for the loot system and scaling. Kill a monster a few levels above you thanks to good planing/preparation, or good reflexes - and you get a sword that is slightly worse than what you currently use, or if it's better - you can't use it yet anyway. There were no meaningful decisions for player added because of the level requirements for weapons, because unlike in classic RPGs - the requirements were on the overall level, not on stats you could improve when leveling up. So - the requirements aren't adding any depth or trade-offs to the game, they are just an inconvenience for the player to make balancing easier.

Also - I'm a little sad that you don't need to buy books about monsters to get the bestiary info and to gather ingredients from them. I liked that very much in Witcher 1.

Another problem is - the main quest was a little weaker than the best side quests. Wild Hunt was too "epic fantasy evil" for the Witcher universe, where the main theme is - evil is caused by regular people being assholes to each other, not by some magic thingy. And it made some changes in the lore compared to the books. For example The White Frost was most probably supposed to be just a regular Ice Age in the books, not some personification of entropy.

Still, the problems are inconsequential in the end, because quality and quantity of stuff to do and see makes up for them. And the universe sucks you in and make you care like no other game I played.
ToQi

Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by ToQi »

The Witcher 3 and expansions are a totemic achievement of the whole medium, despite being saddled with some very esoteric video game problems like bugs, loading issues during important quests and a design structure which invites open-world fatigue.

It's an overall triumph: colourful and characterful; funny yet poignant; sweeping yet soulful and intimate. I played Gwent for all of three minutes, but still managed to squeeze over 100 hours out of the game and am seriously considering a replay after watching Danny O'Dwyer's Noclip documentaries.

There were multiple moments, including the Novigrad stage play, which reminded me of my favourite game of all, Final Fantasy 7; a beloved epic which also mixed world-threatening melodrama with daft humour. FF7 also drew heavily from the Japanese culture of its creators, just as The Witcher 3 could only have been a Polish creation.

Also, no developer has endeared themselves to me as quickly, or as fully, as CD Projekt Red thanks to the 'thanks for buying our game' note and soundtrack CD in the box. This meant I didn't even hesitate to buy the expansions at full price, in order to reciprocate their sense of generosity. And their transparency with the recent documentaries continues this.

A masterpiece of design, world-building, storytelling, art, animation and music. My goodwill towards it and its developers knows no bounds.
ToQi

Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by ToQi »

Just occurred to me with FF7 comparisons: both featured amnesiac, emotionaly stunted, genetically altered protagonists who are in a love triangle which the player can manipulate.
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Alex79
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Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Alex79 »

See also: 90% of JRPGs :lol:
nickturner13

Re: Our next-but-one podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by nickturner13 »

Alex79uk wrote: October 15th, 2017, 7:14 pm And I didn’t even mention the hours I’ve lost to Gwent.
This is a good point, I totally forgot to mention Gwent in my post before.... I really enjoyed Gwent, I've not really played a card game anything like it before, and very much enjoyed playing against the various people I met as I explored.

Earning new cards, developing different play styles... that is a complete game within itself!

I don't know if there's a specific app to play that on it's own like Hearthstone, but I feel it would be great as a standalone game if there was.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Flabyo »

Yeah, Gwent as a stand alone title is still in early access on both the PC and XBO. It’s more fully featured than the version in Witcher 3, many more cards and strategies.

I think it’s just had it’s first major eSports event as well, won by Lifecoach (who very publicly abandoned playing Hearthstone tournaments a few months back).
nickturner13

Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by nickturner13 »

Ah-ha! I'd heard something about this but not really bothered to check it out in detail. Downloading now...
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Alex79
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Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Alex79 »

Also (and I only learned this from the recent C&R interview with the e-sport coach) the stand alone title is much deeper and complex than the in game version. I adored playing Gwent in game though. It got to the point where you're thinking 3 or 4 moves ahead, tactically playing weaker cards etc, even the W3 version was pretty deep once you played against the better characters. Loved it!

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't read Flabyo's reply before I repeated basically what he'd said!
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Alex79
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Re: Our next podcast recording (21.10.17): The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Post by Alex79 »

It's probably a bit late to throw this in, but I wondered if anyone else managed to get this game working via remote play on Vita? I couldn't. When using remote play, Geralt had a mind of his own and was constantly walking. It made the game impossible. Never had an issue with any other game, and the game worked fine when playing remote play to PC so there must have been a really specific bug in there somewhere which was disappointing as I was looking forward to playing The Witcher 3 in bed! I did email the devs but was told they were too busy on their next project to be fixing any more W3 bugs.
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Re: The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone / The Witcher III: Blood and Wine

Post by Simonsloth »

This is my first post so bear with me. I feel like a bit of a voyeur who has escalated given I’ve listened to your podcast for years but never got round to posting.

My experience with the Witcher series began with the main game which overall I found an incredibly enjoyable and well made experience which gave me many hours of entertainment. I actually started the main game after all the DLC had arrived so some of the hearts of Stone content was less easy to delineate from the core experience.

I must say that when I think back to my fondest moments playing the game I struggle to think of many which aren’t from the expansions.

Hearts of stone was strong with great characters like gaunter o’dimm (an excellent gwent card also) and Olgierd Von Everec. This however had similar tones to the main game so not necessarily able to stand out when compared to blood and wine.

The whimsical nature of blood and wine really resonated with me initially feeling like a Sunday afternoon matinee to the main game’s post watershed tone. Although I doubt very many matinees would have as much nudity or violence. Elements like the highbrow tournament and its gallant knights existing almost impossibly within the same world as Geralt’s gruff juxtaposed antihero all made an incredibly rich and diverse experience. Initially it appeared almost like a fantasy within a fantasy until gradually the wool is pulled from your eyes and the initial cheery atmosphere turns several shades darker.

My favourite example would be the naive young knight Guillaume’s mindless pursuit of his lady which ordinarily would end with the helpless damsel in his arms.

Instead he ended up drunk, angry and resentful towards my Geralt still unable to process his failure in winning his love’s heart which was completely unobtainable in the first place.

Another highlight was the quest in which geralt finds himself in a bank trying to reopen his account to get access to his savings. This leads to a hilariously frustrating wild goose chase within the bank itself involving clerks who task him not with slaying a beast but to complete the appropriate form and take it to the correct department. This mission had shades of one of my favourite films Terry Gilliam’s Brazil in it and consequently lead to several laugh out loud moments. It’s a testament to CD Projekt Red’s bravery that this sort of quest even made it into the game. To some people it may have come across as a mindless fetch quest to me it was comedy gold.

There are so many other great ideas and moments which in my eyes elevate it above the wild hunt. In a year where uncharted and dishonored have released standalone spin offs of high quality expanding upon the universe I wonder whether this would have followed suit if released now...I’m glad it didn’t.

This was MY Geralt in MY adventure and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
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Re: The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone / The Witcher III: Blood and Wine

Post by ashman86 »

Hearts of Stone begins with a seemingly rote witcher contract in which the player is tasked with slaying an amphibian monster dwelling in the sewers below Oxenfurt. As you work your way into the beast's lair--joined by none other than Shani from the first Witcher (and the book series)--you come across the corpses of would-be brides who had met their ends in search of a frog prince, and of course, when at last you've gutted the grotesque thing, you learn that the monster was indeed a cursed prince, and killing him means that Geralt has committed a grave offense.

I could write a dozen posts on this expansion alone because there's so much to love: the wedding with Shani, the Hollywood-esque heist (complete with montage-y cutscenes), the Silent Hills-like design of the Caretaker in the graveyard, the way the game goes full-on horror once you hit the Von Everec manor, and the list goes on. For brevity's sake, I'll focus on some of my favorite characters instead.

We see the return of Gaunter O'Dimm, a character who seemed perfectly harmless if somewhat enigmatic during the prologue of The Witcher 3's primary campaign, who reveals himself to be Master Mirror, a powerful and malevolent being and one who I maintain is among the most compelling villains the series has to offer. His true nature is never really revealed even at the conclusion of the story, but I've seen some players suggesting that he's meant to be evil incarnate or literally The Devil, and I couldn't help but notice his initials were G.O.D.. The way he shows up randomly among the NPCs throughout Hearts of Stone's wedding chapter is utterly unnerving. I love it.

And then we have the Von Everecs. Olgeird is nearly as compelling as O'Dimm, but he's an altogether more tragic figure. He's charming and intellectual but brutal and loathsome. I hated him for what he did to Iris, and my heart broke for her. I was all but ready to turn him over to O'Dimm at the end of the quest, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. His is the heart of stone the story's title references, and I took pity on him when the time came.

Blood and Wine is a very different experience by comparison. Toussaint is easily one of my favorite environments in the entire series--the music, the colors, the atmosphere. It's high fantasy with a Witcher-y flair, and it's marvelous. The story it tells is not quite as nuanced or as layered as Hearts of Stone's, but that isn't to say it lacks depth or complexity. Regis is a wonderful character, and Detlaff, while a bit more two-dimensional than Olgeird, makes for a sympathetic villain who's neither really good nor evil.

I'm a sucker (pun shamelessly intended) for a good vampire story, have been ever since the Legacy of Kain series, and I was originally disappointed by the lack of vampires in The Witcher 3. Blood and Wine makes up for that in full and satisfyingly paints the picture of a macabre underworld living beneath the seemingly picturesque Beuclair. One of the most adrenaline-inducing moments of the expansion sees you storming a keep with both Detlaff and Regis by your side as they dash from soldier to solider, leaving pink clouds of gore behind them as they do. Awesome.

But the highlights for me are still the sidequests. The Land of a Thousand fables, with all its twisted fairy tales, really stands out. I'm still creeped out thinking about Rapunzel having hanged herself by her own hair. As does the quest that forces Geralt to navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth that is the banking system. Meeting the Lady in the Lake again induced a pang of nostalgia for me, particularly when she returned Aerondight to me. And I'm dying to find out what the Cane and Rinse panelists chose for the bird girl in "A Knight's Tale," too.

Oh, and one of my personal favorites was the spoon-collecting wight in "La Cage Au Fou," whose house is littered with spoons. It manages to take a mundane, everyday object and make it feel terrifying. The way the spoons hanging from the trees clinked together in the wind gave me chills, and if you read the journals throughout the house, it's heavily implied that our own Master Mirror had a hand in the wight's curse.

In the end, Blood and Wine feels like a suitably epic capstone to Geralt of Rivia's journey. The final boss fight is... weird but pretty cool in a real bad acid-trip kind of way, and I appreciated the chance to catch up with my love interest (or Ciri or... Dandelion, if you make poor life choices) outside Corvo Bianco, but I think the game's most successful concluding moment is the one that Regis and Geralt share together once everything is said and done. One of the Witcher 3's strengths is in given the player moments of quiet, melancholic reflection, and this one feels particularly poignant not only because Regis reveals how serious of a transgression he's made by killing Detlaff but because you, the player, must come to realize that your own story in this world has come to its end.

Thankfully, there's always New Game Plus.
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Re: The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone / The Witcher III: Blood and Wine

Post by Hunter30 »

I gushed about the core game and I'm afraid I'm going to continue gushing here. What a way to cap off a great trilogy of games.

Despite my clear affection for the DLC though, if anything I feel like I underappreciated it when playing. After 100-odd hours spent completing the main game, I had a slight element of 'Witcher fatigue'. I found myself clicking through conversations more quickly than I had been, and taking the gorgeous verdant environment of Toussaint a little for granted, galloping through it on Roach in a bid to quickly get from A to B, not pausing to look around as much as I perhaps should have.

Maybe I should have allowed some time to elapse before embarking on the DLC to help keep it fresh, but nevertheless, I still had an absolute blast. More of the same brilliant writing and epic scope, like a huge slice of rich chocolate fudge cake at the end of an already stomach-stretching banquet.

The highlight of Hearts of Stone for me had to be Gaunter O'Dimm, perhaps the most memorable, and formidable, villain in the game. Dripping malevolence from every pore, this really did feel like an enemy around whom even the mighty Geralt had to tread very carefully. I thought the way the writers managed that relationship was superb. It would have been so easy to get the balance wrong, and either make Geralt seem too subservient, and spoil the flavour of his character, or make him as flippant as he sometimes is towards other antagonists, and undermine O'Dimm's supposed power. They got that spot on in my view. And that scene with the spoon. I think I've compared The Witcher to Game of Thrones before, and that sudden act of violence, as brutal as it was unexpected, is a good example of the similarities between the two.

As for Blood and Wine, for that amount of quality content to exist as part of a DLC package is quite frankly ridiculous. It could almost exist as a small standalone RPG in its own right. I loved the fairytale atmosphere, the Don Quixote references, Regis's soothing voice (sometimes I would close my eyes when he was speaking - yes, I know I'm weird). It also featured Paperchase, one of my favourite quests in the whole game. As a civil servant I found the send-up of infuriating bureaucracy both hilarious and very relatable. No combat in that one if I remember rightly, just some walking around and some brilliant writing.

You may mention this in the podcast, but in case you don't, the 10th anniversary video which CD Projekt RED released in September (just a couple of minutes long and available on YouTube) is a must-see for Witcher fans who have finished this DLC. Reminiscent of a very short and non-playable version of Mass Effect's Citadel DLC, it's a heartfelt way to round off your time with Geralt & Co.
Todinho

Re: Our next podcast recording (10.12.17): The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone / The Witcher III: Blood and Wine

Post by Todinho »

Despite my issues with witcher 3 it's still a game I really enjoyed, so much in fact that I recently replayed it and for the first time tried the expansions, im glad that I did because there are some incredible moments in the DLC that in my opinion were really missing from the main game.

For starters Hearts of Stone has in many ways a better story then the Wild Hunt, the concept of Geralt being caught in the middle of a faustian bargain is very interesting to begin with but it's the addition of the 2 great antagonists that really make it shine. Alot of praise has been levelled at Gaunter O Dimm already and I can only echo that,despite not being a physical threat at any point he's without a doubt the most intimidating villain the series has ever had while at the same time being really compelling, every time he was on screen I just wanted to see more of him, I really liked his calm and unassuming personality which was a great juxtaposition to his sinister nature. Olgierd Von Everec is in some ways the opposite, he's the loud boisterous warrior but on the inside is a broken man, in fact the story is really more about him then anything else. The story itself is very well paced and keeps a nice balance between lighthearted moments like the party and tragedy like when you visit the painted world, my favorite moment however was right at the very end with the mad dash in trying to figure out the riddle and I have to say that solving it at literally the last second was incredibly satisfying.

The Main story is where my praise for Hearts of Stone ends however because as an "expansion" it's very light, the entirety of it takes place in a suspiciously empty part of the main map, there are only 1 or 2 sidequests of note to be found here and they filled the map with these almost copy pasted fallen knight camps, doing some of the side content here it was the first time that Wticher 3 felt very by the numbers and a step down from the main game, the expansion also adds whats maybe the worst enemy type in the franchise's history, arachnomorphs. These creatures exacerbate all the problems with the combat system being incredibly fast and really hard to keep up while dealing a ton of damage, the were no fun at all to fight.
As a result while I think the story of HoS is a great story as an expansion I dont think it stands on it's own.

Blood and Wine on the other hand is almost the complete opposite the expansion introduces not only a whole new region with tons to do but it's also the best looking region out of the entire game, while witcher 3 always looked great Toussaint just blew my mind, and it was not just the visuals but the sound as well the soundtrack here is superb and once again while I liked the soundtrack in the main game the music here is just on another level. What I liked the most about the region was the whole Dom Quixote in reverse vibe,very well estabilished with the introduction to the region where a Knight charges at a Windmill only to see it smashed by Giant, with Geralt being the only sane person in this fantasy land. Gameplaywise it was not only very fun to explore but it also had some great side content, though I still felt like there were a few too many side quests that felt like a checklist, say the Wine wars questline, the Statue and some others but overall it was very good.

As for the main story it starts well enough with a murder mystery and quickly it becomes clear that vampires will play a big role which was something I really liked since I always wanted to know more about them since the first game and we do get alot of that, there some great moments throught like the tragic story of the woman turned into a Wight and visiting a fantasy land full of twisted fairy tales. If Im being honest however the main story really falls apart at the end, Syanna just doesnt have alot of depth to her given that she's introduced at the end of the story, she has a tragic backstory but it really isnt very well fleshed out and her reconciliation with her sister at the end feels really unearned.
Worse then that however is Detlaff whose character makes absolutelly no sense, one momment he is portrayed as this noble tragic figure and the other he's just a crazy murderer, this is a guy that was so disgusted with himself for killing a man he knew for a few days that he cut his own hand off yet when he finds out that his girlfriend lied to him he goes on a killing spree murdering hundreds of people that have nothing to with it, he has the restraint not to kill her when he finds out but when he call for a meeting for her to explain herself he immediatly tries to kill her without giving her any time to talk, he just makes no sense. Some other plot points are frankly stupid as well with the worst being the child defending a vampire that is sucking his blood despite seeing all his friends being butchered by one not 5 minutes ago!
The writing at the ending just took a nosedive and it felt really rushed and despite having a great final boss, Blood and Wine just kinda of ends in a way that's not very satisfying, even the post credits where you can reunite with your love interest in Corvo Bianco was really underwhelming and a very flat note to go out on since this is maybe the last we'll see from the Witcher universe.

While CDProjekt has moved on to Cyberpunk and has stated that have no interest in continuing Geralt's story, after playing the expansions I cant help but want more, not even a full priced game but just something the size of Blood and Wine exploring other regions of the world and maybe just maybe revisiting some characters from witcher 2 they forgot ;)
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Re: The Witcher III

Post by Miririn »

Apologies in advance for venting about a minor character in a six year old game...

It was interesting digging up this thread from years ago while I'm mid-game, because while I think a lot of the writing and story-telling in this game is masterfully done, some other parts really don't work for me, and I was curious to read other people's opinions. Namely I finally, FINALLY struggled to the end of the neverending Triss Novigrad missions, having loathed Triss as a character and loathed how she was written*, and was curious if anyone else felt the same way. Was interested to see this thread because she seems relatively popular so it may just be me/my bad taste. Or it may be that I've been in a bad mood/gloomy this week and am being unnecessarily harsh on the Triss sections of the game.

* When I did some reading around and discovered she's a relatively minor character in the book it made sense to me because in the game she felt very fanfic insert to me. I felt like characters were constantly telling me how great she was and how crazy I was to spurn her and even Yen seems cool with her and all my dialogue options towards her were very gentle and there were no opportunities for anything interesting, any friction, anything but "oh this woman, isn't it awful you broke up with her, she's hot and she can do magic isn't that cool and she is never anything but sugary sweet to you". I have never been happier to have (literally) put a character on a boat.

And this may have been handled in the previous two games, I don't know, but I found it bizarre that the game took an opportunity for complex conflict (namely Triss manipulating Geralt the amnesiac into being with her), and just... didn't deal with it in any interesting way, despite other quests like Bloody Baron exploring morally complex situations and characters. I love a messed up, complicated character, so theoretically someone like Triss if written well would be right up my alley, but I thought the writing was really bad for her. I don't like a complex, flawed character when the narrative treats him/her as if butter wouldn't melt and it was driving me crazy that I never had any dialogue options that brought up how it was pretty messed up that she had started a relationship with Geralt when he was an amnesiac and then purposefully didn't tell him things. It's the kind of story that would play out entirely differently if a man who fancied an amnesiac woman lied to her about her having a boyfriend or a family so he could manipulate her into staying with him. That the game never ever gave me/Geralt the option to actually deal with the fallout of being used in that way and instead gave me numerous saccharine Triss quests made it all feel like pointless "pick your sexy waifu" crap. I got so annoyed during the dinner party sidequest (a quest I thought "Red Dead Redemption 2" handled better) that I ended up putting away my Switch and re-playing TLOU2 for a few hours to remind myself that I didn't hate everything. :P

I did try to look up the appeal of Triss and most answers I found (outside of the thoughtful and interesting discussion here) was that she was "hot", had "red hair", and was "nice" to Geralt (unlike Yennefer who is, apparently, a "bitch"). A boring, infuriating, underbaked romance plot that stood out like a sore thumb in a game that very often presents thoughtful and complicated characters.

Thank you for letting me (unfairly?) vent I feel like I have exorcised some of the demons within me. (Some of my IRL friends who have played this game love Triss so I kept my lip buttoned in our game chat, when throughout the Triss sections I basically morphed into Elaine watching "The English Patient": https://youtu.be/T5qalNX5G94 )

Re the sexism stuff, I don't mind all the Plague Maidens and that, love myths about wild and rageful monster women (Medusa, Scylla, yamamba, hannya, witches, sirens etc etc) and I love dark/tragic/disturbing stories so I agree that it's better when both male and female characters are involved in stories like that. It was more the fanservice stuff like the female rebel soldier lady with a plunging neckline literally to her navel, as well as all the dumb GoT style sexposition, that bugged me. I'll put up with it, though, because if you're a woman who reads/watches a lot of epic Western fantasy fiction, you do sadly become sort of immune to it (unless you stick exclusively to Robin Hobb or Ursula le Guin type stuff). However, I do kind if appreciate that this game has adult women who like adult men and (if you select the right options) they decide to just go at it and shag on unicorns or whatever - because compared to some of the "Fire Emblem", "NieR" type extremely young-looking women who wear bikini outfits and it's all faux-coy anime blushing crap where you get trophies for stuff like looking up their skirts teeheeteehee... it at least feels less... creepy.

Edit to rant - I find it completely bewildering that people are so angry about the sex scene in TLOU2 when it's at least rooted in character and context and is somewhat believable (in that it's two normal-looking people having normal-looking sex) and is included as a way to further the plot and character arcs, rather than it just being p*rny fanservice. In some ways it feels that even though games have proved to snooty culture critics that they can be emotionally complex and have mature storylines (like TW3), many games are still stuck in an immature place when it comes to the portrayal of sex and romance. And I'm not a prude - trashy or silly or OTT sex stuff has a place, it's just weird when otherwise "serious" games like this one indulge in it. It always makes me think of that SNL skit where they reveal the reason GoT has so many cringe sex scenes is because the show is directed by a teenage boy.
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Jon Cheetham
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Re: The Witcher III

Post by Jon Cheetham »

I'm also interested in what Triss' deal is. I've just started Witcher II and she seems to be set up as the main love interest in that one, so it'll be good to see where they go with it and then maybe I'll revisit the stuff in Novigrad. I ended up with her getting on the boat too, which ends the "romance" portion of her quest since I sort of thought it would be selfish for Geralt to ask her to stay in a city where mages are being hunted down and hanged!

I haven't read the books, watched the Netflix series which was excellent tho and throughout that and The Witcher III Yennefer definitely comes across as a richer, more relatable and likeable character in many ways.
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Miririn
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Re: The Witcher III

Post by Miririn »

Ah yeah it might be just that I was grumpy and I got my nose out of joint, maybe some day I'll replay her sections and try to be fairer. Especially as C&R strives to be objective and not ranty and that's a good example I should be trying to follow! Except I'm petty and ranty at heart... :oops:

I think the last time I encountered a character in a fantasy story who I was clearly meant to like but who I ended up loathing with the fire of a thousand suns was Kettricken in the Farseer books by Robin Hobb. So in a way disliking Triss was a nostalgic throwback to my younger years. :P
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ratsoalbion
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Re: The Witcher III

Post by ratsoalbion »

It's perfectly cool to be ranty if something legitimately gets to you!

We're 100% pro subjectivity, it's only when folks can't tell the difference between their own experiences and other people's that we get twitchy.
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