After a long absence, we're bringing back gaming reviews.
PROGRESS PROGRESSES
Ever since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
launched over nine years ago, it made open world action RPGs the standard for
new-gen technology, especially in the bang-for-your-buck department. Mass
Effect released shortly after in 2007, setting a new standard for player
control in story direction. By 2009, the action-RPG market was getting crowded
with new intellectual property, including Borderlands and Demon's Souls. Even
Final Fantasy XIII took a strange turn toward the action side of action-RPG
that year.
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| "I'd hate to see the craps this bird takes." |
Now that current-gen systems have been around for
over 1.5 years, we've been waiting a long time for the first open world
action-RPG that would redefine the genre. Watch Dogs and Dragon Age:
Inquisition had their moments, but they still have a last-gen feel to them.
Bloodborne is so action oriented and (nearly) linear that I can't really call it
an open world action-RPG. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt provides the best open
world action-RPG experience so far this generation. You play as Geralt, the
titualar Witcher who makes money by killing monsters with his silver sword.
Sometimes he's pressured into mortal combat against human foes, so he also
carries a steel sword to complete those jobs. Geralt doesn't use a shield. He
parries attacks with his sword and quickly counterattacks.
The game play borrows from most of the best open
world action-RPGs and open world action games. Right from the word
"go," the travel system and town environments reminded me of The
Elder Scrolls series, with a touch of Dragon's Dogma in there. There's lots of
cool little things going on in the towns. Be sure to look out for the grindstones
and workman's benches. They give you fifteen minute buffs to your weapons and
armor.
The most impressive thing about the graphics
turned out to be a big surprise for me. CD Projekt Red has accomplished what
Quantic Dream (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls) and Rockstar Games (L.A. Noire)
spent a fortune trying to get right last generation: people. When I
first watched Geralt speak to Keira Metz, who is by far my favorite NPC of the
entire game, I was nearly floored. Both characters looked gorgeous, and their
dialogue sounded and looked natural
coming out of those well-animated mouths.
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| "Dude. You look like a pro wrestling drop out." |
After completing a few light quests, I started to
get a hang of the inventory system. The menus look and respond a lot like the
Resident Evil menus, although I never ran out of space in TW3. In my 100+ hours
with it, I got frustrated with not being able to store my vast array of
weapons, armor, herbs and crafting materials anywhere. As of July 7, 2015 there
is an online patch available that gives you a storage container, so be sure to
check that out. Without it, the menu system starts to slow down and become a
pain as you try to find one particular item in a sea of noise.
The combat system is a strange and somewhat
satisfying mash-up of Diablo III, Dark Souls and Skyrim. I played on the
difficulty between normal and "hardest," and I didn't need to figure
out the entire control system for a few days before I died. If you play on
normal difficulty, it shouldn't provide too much of a challenge. And that's unfortunate. If the combat in The
Witcher 3 had been scaled down with more enemy variety and attack patterns, it
would easily be my game of the year so for in 2015. As it stands, they shot for
the sun and caught the moon. Geralt has five spells available to him at the beginning
of the game, and he keeps those five spells throughout. Just like in Diablo
III, you can alter the spells and make them more powerful.
When you can time the correct magic attack with a
quick sword strike, it feels pretty good. The problem is, the combat feels the
same after 100 hours as it did after two. One of the more common enemies in the
game, the "Drowner," seem to have gone to the same school of
kung-fu-swordplay as the Nilfgaardian Knights and the feral wolves that Geralt
must fight. I didn't die much, but I never felt a real sense of ownership over
the combat. There's a relatively early boss fight against one of The Wild Hunt
that feels great, but I didn't encounter another fight like it for two weeks
after that.
The cut scenes, dialogue and characters are all
well written, but I never got a feel for what Geralt is really like. There are
numerous references to Witchers not having emotions, but that doesn't come
across a lot of times, especially while talking to his love interests. There are numerous opportunities for Geralt to
shack up with female NPCs, and those storylines are all mostly decent and
respectful. Misogyny still rules the day, however, as Geralt can easily hire
working girls, called "strumpets" in TW3, to get his rocks off.
When it comes to side quests, The Witcher 3
borrowed a lot from Borderlands for their execution. They pop up on message
boards, in towns, and at random locations on the map. They're often a bit silly
in nature, and they always have a cutscene. The process is usually fun, but
after 60 hours or so, I was sick of using my "Witcher Sense" (read:
Arkham City detective vision) to follow yet another trail of footprints, only
to start another cut scene, followed by more tracking, followed by another
cut scene. The quests are too long and layered for their own
good. There were 12 quests I counted where I had to backtrack five or more
times in order to finish a basic side quest. Most of those times, I couldn't
fast travel. I had to follow a slow-moving NPC, or slowly walk a trail so I
wouldn't lose it. There's not enough variety, either. It's hard to dress up
fetch quests when everyone's doing them. I get that. But putting three separate
fetch quests inside of one side quest is too much, especially when the payoff
is so small.
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| "Yup. Me and the horse I rode in on." |
While most action-RPGs hand out XP and money in
massive quantities, TW3 chose to go the opposite route. It took me ages to get
my first 1000 crowns, and leveling up requires very few points, relative to
most games in the genre. That's what makes the side quest payoff structure so
frustrating: Sometimes I'd get a couple hundred points (that's a LOT) for
killing a few wolves in the middle of a mission, other times I'd get 45 points
for completing a massive and dangerous side quest.
Once you get the hang of things and start
experiencing the massive world and its interesting characters, you will
probably get hooked. I sure did. After 20 hours or so, the engaging stories
start bumping into each other. If you find yourself getting frustrated or bored
in the early going, stick with it. Once you meet the Witches of Crookback Bog,
you'll see how the developers used their Dark Souls influences to create some
truly disturbing characters.
If you ever run out of things to do in The
Witcher 3, you really should get checked for video game addiction. This is
Skyrim/Fallout 3 level stuff, folks. And you're not just getting empty fluff
here - unlike "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning." Actually, that's what
I'll call The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It's the game that Kingdoms of Amalur -
Reckoning" should have been. Curt Schilling can suck it.
While The Witcher 3's charms wore off on me
around the 70-80 hour mark, that's no reason for me not to recommend it. It
won't be challenging for my 2015 GOTY, but that has as much to do with the competition
as anything else. If you're a fan of The Elder Scrolls, Assassin's Creed,
Fallout 3, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Dragon's Dogma or Dark Souls, there's
plenty here to like.
-Tom McDaniel