The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt [2015]

[Fenixp]

Drowners are arseholes, they would have obliterated entire Wild Hunt via their bull**** power of "Come on, I dodged that attack!"

 

Edit: Actually, is the word "arsehole" bypassing profanity filter? I thought it's quite widely accepted 'spelling'. Or is it just considered ... Less profane?

Edited January 6, 2016 by Fenixp

[Nonek]

Surely its more profane and specific, the English arse derives from the Latin arsus meaning buttocks, rather than the American insult which denotes any hole in a mule, mouth, anus or whatever.

[HoonDing]

TW1 still had the best bestiary.

[Nonek]

I missed Witcher 2 Forest Trolls, the Rock Trolls of the thrid game were good but i'd have liked to see a variety.

[Nordicus]

Not to mention that Witcher 3 sort of cheats - monsters above your level are artificially strengthened and those below are weakened to make you feel like you're progressing more than you actually are.

That annoyed me so damn much. The difference between an enemy being +5 levels above you, to +6, is absolutely massive because of that extremely apparent boost they get to their stats at that point. It was positively immersion-breaking.

Though I have not noticed a big power difference at other relative levels. I can still potentially die to level 4 drowners as 20+ level at the highest difficulty if I'm not decked out with massive amounts of armor and monster damage resist.

 

Drowners are arseholes, they would have obliterated entire Wild Hunt via their bull**** power of "Come on, I dodged that attack!"

Drowners were probably the most active at "migrating" as groups in my games. It was fun to follow and watch them wreak havoc on some endrega or wolves. Wish there was more of that, I was reminded of STALKER for just a small moment.

[WDeranged]

I'm enjoying Witcher 2 but I'm surprised how much W3 does better.  Writing, voice acting, systems, combat, quests and their integration into the world are all much improved, though I'd say that W2 has the better art direction.

 

One thing that's really annoying me is the inability to consume potions outside of meditation, the game drops you into a ton of scripted combat scenarios and often you have no chance without your potions 

[the_dog_days]

You can meditate outside IF your not in the immediate area of a monster or a location where monsters frequent. Example, you can meditate inside the rundown village outside of Flotsam, but wonder south into the forest proper and you can't.

 

But I agree about the potions. You can drink (if they're equipped to your armor) potions during combat in the first game, and you can drink them during combat in the third, but for some reason you can't in the second. There are several mechanics that existed in the first game and didn't in the second that CD reintroduced in the third (food is another one).

[Lexx]

In TW2 they most likely wanted potions to be "preparation tools" - if you are in combat, it's already too late for preparation.

[WDeranged]

I quite like the idea of preparedness but too often the game warps you away somewhere else and dumps you into combat.  The only solution is to always be prepared and it's too much busy work, I've taken to saving my game constantly so I can always go back and buff up.

[WDeranged]

I've lifted the curse on Henselt and I'm looking forward to clearing the fog so I can get out of this location.  Roche's Act 2 has felt like a drag so far but I did enjoy the hallucination scene, I'm pretty sure those weren't mushrooms though...and I think that chicken was really a **** (rhymes with frock)  

Edited January 11, 2016 by WDeranged

[the_dog_days]

I liked Iorveth's (not sure I spelled that right) path more, although I like Roche more than Iorveth.

 

Minor Spoiler: chapters 2 and 3 are completely different depending on whether you took help from Iorveth or Roche at the end of chapter 1, giving tW2 more replayability than the other two games.

[Lexx]

Never finished Iorveth's path, because I hated the maze like dwarf city. It was such a pain to navigate for me... I tried 3 times, and always stopped there after running around there, being all confused and annoyed and stuff.

[WDeranged]

Never finished Iorveth's path, because I hated the maze like dwarf city. It was such a pain to navigate for me... I tried 3 times, and always stopped there after running around there, being all confused and annoyed and stuff.

 

I didn't like the dwarf city either, that's where I ran out of steam last time I played.  The king's camp has a few cool moments so at least I got through it.

[the_dog_days]

Did either play it on PC? The 360 port has extra walls and doors with loading screens to make it run on a weaker machine. The dawrven city is only confusing at the beginning on PC. As for the mines, now they were confusing.

[WDeranged]

Did either play it on PC? The 360 port has extra walls and doors with loading screens to make it run on a weaker machine. The dawrven city is only confusing at the beginning on PC. As for the mines, now they were confusing.

 

Yeah it was on PC.  I didn't find the city too confusing, it just wasn't to my tastes and I was clueless about the plot (my first Witcher game) so I ended up ditching it for New Vegas.  Now I'm enjoying the game enough to complete it but part of me longs to import that save into Witcher 3 and get back to a game I truly enjoyed every minute of.

[WDeranged]

Well, I completed Witcher 2, wish I could say it was a blast but I only really enjoyed the conversations and a couple of fights.  On the whole it felt like a slog, I hated the interface, disliked the combat and felt frustrated by all the narrow pathways you're forced to traipse back and forth as you quest.

 

I did appreciate the things it did well.  All the politicking, history and intrigue are right up my street and the locations are mostly lovely to look at but ultimately I think Witcher 3 is the game I wanted when W2 was released.

 

*edit*

 

Oh...doors, I freaking hated doors in The Witcher 2 

Edited January 13, 2016 by WDeranged

[WDeranged]

Back in Witcher 3 with my imported save and a better understanding of the lore.  Death March difficulty time 

[the_dog_days]

Ohh, yeah . . . That was one of my biggest gripes about the game, importing is entirely irrelevant. I don't know if you play the first game, but importing from 1 to 2 has a little impact while 2 to 3 has none.

 

Side note: did you kill Letho?

[licketysplit]

I let Letho live. His side quest in W3 is pretty interesting but felt shoehorned in. Yeah this didn't do a good job with the imports, or the relevant plot lines and characters from W2 for that matter. 

[the_dog_days]

I let Letho live. His side quest in W3 is pretty interesting but felt shoehorned in. Yeah this didn't do a good job with the imports, or the relevant plot lines and characters from W2 for that matter.

When you have a trilogy of games, from a direction standpoint I think you have two extremes to choose from; 1: the Mass Effect way, an over arcing story that forces players to play through the whole series (and in ME's case all the DLC too) to get the best endings, or 2: the Witcher way, where each game is self contained and the over arcing story is of a personal note rather than an epic.

 

I'm glad CD went for the latter, but it would have been nice to get some good starter armors at least for importing a save.

Edited January 15, 2016 by the_dog_days

[HoonDing]

If Henselt is alive at the end of W2 I guess Radovid simply kills him?

[marelooke]

If Henselt is alive at the end of W2 I guess Radovid simply kills him?

 

 

Yup, since Henselt always fights on the front lines he gets killed when Radovid invades and the rest of his army joins up with Radovid

 

[WDeranged]

Ohh, yeah . . . That was one of my biggest gripes about the game, importing is entirely irrelevant. I don't know if you play the first game, but importing from 1 to 2 has a little impact while 2 to 3 has none.

 

Side note: did you kill Letho?

 

No I let him and Sile live.  Seems to me that Geralt was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there's the whole Letho sparing you and (previously) saving Yen issue.

Edited January 15, 2016 by WDeranged

[HoonDing]

Still worth importing for some minutiae that are carried over.

[WDeranged]

Still worth importing for some minutiae that are carried over.

 

Yeah I liked that my Blue Stripes tattoo is still there