The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Review

Finally after much excitement and drooling over the many teasers. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is here for our enjoyment. However does the hype stack up to the final outcome of this project you may ask. I would tell you this much: WOW. It is a mistress with many beautiful things about it. Seemingly orchestrated with life and death, The Witcher 3 shows how much love was given behind the game. It does show a few flaws among the surface, but none completely taking away from the game itself. Let us begin.

The story starts you off in Geralt of Rivia’s shoes yet again in a introduction of you locating a woman named Yennefer. You are presented with a awesome introduction into the game. In a form of a picture book, with crisp looking cgi cut-scenes. You first meet her during a tutorial segment, that brings you into depth of how the use spells, and melee attacks. This part is optional, you can just skip past it all, but I would recommend if you are playing this fresh to the series to be patient and just go through the steps, it will brazen your senses to how to fight. As this is a Open World RPG, I will hold back the best I can for spoilers as I personally enjoy things not ruined for me if I am aiming for Story driven games. However I will not restrict myself if it pertains to any key points to be made for this review. You have been warned.

“The world is in chaos. The air is thick with tension and the smoke of burnt villages. The fearsome empire of Nilfgaard has struck again, ravaging the helpless Northern Kingdoms. The once mighty who tried to use Geralt for their own gain are now gone. In these uncertain times, no one can say what fortune holds in store, who will bring peace to the world and who will cause it only misery. But a force darker and deadlier emerges. The petty men and women commanding tin-plated armies fail to understand that their conflict is child’s play compared to the Wild Hunt, the otherworldly threat which now looms. These ghastly spectral riders have for ages plagued humankind, bringing misery to the world. Yet this time the Wild Hunt seeks one person in particular: the one individual Destiny itself bestowed upon Geralt, the one soul Geralt considers kin. “

– The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Wikia

The game brings you into the lore of the Wild Hunt, and their involvement around Geralt and the world around him. The voice acting is spot on and dazzling among the rush of the plot. All of which brings all of the characters, minor npcs’ included, to complete life. Almost every character has a little story to them, a issue, and a cause. You can simply interact with them if presented with a extermination mark above their heads and dive into their stories. Benefiting you into a little side quest. These side quests give you experience points, as well as a little pocket change to build up Geralt. Every side quest can alter the games final outcome, every choice you make in those quests within the main story also too, can adjust that said ending. Everything about this story bends to your will, I found myself trying to be Lawful Good, always trying to help out villagers along the way. Practically being neutral during engagements with military based clients during my quests. It was not a easy task because the temptation of simply killing someone was right there before my hands due to my annoyance with a character here and there. Sometimes I discovered many times the quests led me into two cruel choices where I had to sit there and quickly, or collectively selected the outcome for some drunk in a beginning town for example for burning down a blacksmith dwarf’s home. The story spanned out to some detective work, which resembles that of Batman: Arkham Origins. More about the Witcher Vision within the game play bit to this review.

The game play handles a lot on the terms of patience, timing, and action combat where every swing could be countered. Every enemy has a weakness or something among your arsenal to give you the advantage. A Silver sword are mostly for beasts, or vile creatures among the wilds. Or the steel sword for your common human enemies. However usage of the weapons is without its limits, you do have to repair armor, and weapons among your journeys. I usually do not mind stopping for a moment, and repairing whatever that needs to be repaired, but one issue comes across so far. Money is very, very valuable. Money comes in forms of trading goods, or just by picking it from dead bodies, or looting homes near by. I found out the best way to make armor in the game is to simply farm a ton of everything. Break it down, keep the scraps like a hoarder. For a little while I was able to scrape by with just my starter gear, with the occasional weapon upgrade from deserters (people who left their causes) finding some decent stuff until I could make my own. Side quests are a must if you wish to get stronger in the game, as they do add up with experience, and wealth. The games maps are freaking huge. With tons of run around with ether a horse, or by foot naturally. I spent hours alone finding undiscovered locations which housed bandit hideouts or simple shrines to give me a free skill point. Not to mention the many freaking challenging monsters luring around them. One of them had some brutally strong level twelve scorpion creature I could not defeat right away. I toke a mental note of where it was and came back to it around level eight. Combat is a lot more casual player friendly, but still giving those veteran players what they want, you would say it is a middle ground. Square is for light attacks with your sword, and triangle is to dish out a heavy attack. A interesting thing about Geralt is he never seems to run out of gas in the tank for swinging. He has the stamina of a fresh rabbit let me tell you. After clearing out a patch of enemies you can loot them for various items, including weapons, armor, and junk you can break down for crafting at the vendors. Those vendors are on the lines of regular merchants, blacksmiths, and alchemist stores. It handles on the traditional sense of you may see how much crowns(money) the vendor has on them, and how much to a maximum you can trade items before their funds are gone. through out the world are hidden recipes that are used to craft better gear for yourself to use. I found making silver swords were the most trickiest thing to do above most of the items I farmed for. Crafting is something I mentioned above however I wanted to really get into it to give you a better idea. To craft an item, you must have a diagram describing how it is produced and the crafting components listed in that diagram. Items can only be crafted with the help of craftsmen, who collect a fee for their work. Craftsmen can be found in towns and villages, especially in their central sections, among other traders. Early on most of the items you need to make the items are with the smith, so all you need to do is farm some crown, buy em up, get a recipe or two. Then make your new chest piece, or boots. Crafting is practically super easy to learn and do. The only challenging part I found was usually running out of money quite a bit. So It usually led to me running around in the wilds killing whatever got in my way. A chore, but rewarding. Bare in mind you do have a weight limit, as I found out within a few hours of off and on grinding. Quests or requests from bounty boards are sorted from witcher quests, which are still secondary, to meeting a client and carrying out the task at hand. Let me tell you, most of the quest range from fairly short, down to lengthily, with meat to them. In some scenarios, you are required to hold and use your witcher vision to look around locations or areas for clues, or follow a travel of scent throughout the world.

Graphically, this game pushes the PS4 to its limits, as the frame rates were at the time of this review is concerned were throttled. Points wondering through out a field, all fine, dandy. Then Bam a few enemies come about and I can feel the performance drop slightly among combat. The soundtrack in the game is AMAZING. Every moment in combat feeling intense and brooding. Not to mention many of the boss battles building intensity with every counter, and swipe among the area of combat. If I can at some point I am going to buy the soundtrack, that’s pretty good.

In closing:

The wait was well worth it. Everything about this game is top notch. The music, the story, the combat, even the country side filled with monsters never once feels dull. The game however does have those slight side effects of proving nothing is completely perfect. On the PlayStation 4 copy there is a bit of a long load time among transitions. Examples are if you die, and switching zones. The game takes forever  to load you in.  I also noticed if you fast travel it is pretty much instant. On the topic of quick travel, I personally felt if you unlock the sign post. You should be able to just flat out just teleport to that spot, without finding another sign. Would save so much more trouble, but again, just a personal negative. The game truly backed up its major claim of AAA status, lacking barely any faults to not really say anything less of a masterpiece. A claim by the developers stating the game would have almost no load times, can be seen in terms of exploration if you were to move about on foot. Otherwise if you were to quick travel, or parish during a battle could range from a short and sweet wait time down to a grueling thirty second downtime. For most gamers who are impatient, could be a nightmare. If anything, if you got some dough in your pocket, get a 1TB SSD and convert your PS4 drive to said item.  Or if you own a XBone, the same thing. Otherwise I can say it is seemingly so the PC is the better of the three platforms. However the game play itself speaks for itself. With plenty to do, tons of things to explore and unlock, this game will keep you busy for a long long time. If you were to purchase the game, do not try to beat it right away, sit back and soak in every quest thrown at you. That my friend is the reward in itself. The journey, before the destination.