So I bought The Witcher 3 back when it released, hyped about it, then I played it for like an hour max and I just couldn't get into it. Then I played it again some a year afterwards for a few hours that I liked more but still didn't get me hooked and it was still very early game. Finally, a week or two back I once again started playing it determined to finish it, and boy did I really get hooked this time. Playing hours on end, every day.
The start was slow but once it got interesting it really got interesting. There's so much depth to the story and gameplay that I just haven't seen in any game before. Yes yes the combat itself is a bit on the simple side but it was surrounded by so much more than that like preparing yourself for fighting witcher contracts. Figuring out which potions, oils and signs to focus on before a fight made it so much more interesting than just walking in hacking away which at times works for sure but other times it will be an easy way to die without doing any damage at all to the monster.
Story was also beautifully told, the main story was decent but the main draw to me was the side stories. They were so interesting, well written and more often than not had a twist that went somewhere you couldn't have predicted. While you could argue that if it always has a twist that it's no longer surprising but it's very appreciated that they did play with expectations to keep it interesting. While I was a bit disappointed that the consequences weren't quite as fleshed out as I was led to believe, it did leave a strong impression when I had made a choice that resulted in an entire village being wiped out becoming a ghost town.
Now the things that they did really well that I would like to see more companies do is humor, deeper relationships and enemy variety. Witcher 3 is a mature game for sure, blood and guts, sex, tragedy, but it also knows to relax every now and then. Geralt's sarcasm always brought out a chuckle and partying with your Witcher friends was so much fun and a welcome break from the action, I wish more devs figured out to do this so it's not always just hours and hours of action and angry grunting. Now I know this is the third entry in the franchise but it was a breath of fresh air to see Geralt managing a current relationship, which is of course something you can choose to engage in or not but when I played it he and Yen were like an old married couple which is in stark contrast to say, Bioware games where a romance is a quick end game "reward" or Bethesda where it's basically a background perk.
As for the enemy variety goes it was one of the best things about the game. Really puts to shame everyone else doing similar kinds of games that just doesn't put in the effort that a small Polish developer managed to pull of. When going to hunt a monster you never really knew what it was, thanks to the variety of types and the fact that many enemies are more rare made sure hunting something unknown could be tense even late in the game. Not to mention the awesome monster designs. Contrast this with Bethesda as an example who use a very limited amount of enemy types that you fight often it's never tense or surprising when finding yet another Draugr lord, dragon, ghoul or deathclaw.
There's so much more I could praise like the beautiful world they built but I wanted to mention bugs as a closer. I did have a few annoying ones like sound being messed up, music would disappear and voices wouldn't be heard. Not to mention Roach who when not glitched would get stuck on a tiny piece of terrain sticking up. Wasn't ever anything that ruined the game, though I reckon it used to be in a worse condition around release.
TL:DR, I finally finished Witcher 3, loved it, can definitely see now why it got so much praise. 10/10 best game this gen so far. Though I remain open for something like RDR2 or TLoU2 to dethrone it.
