PixlBit

My wife & I are enjoying The Witcher 3.  I bought a PS4 last week just so I could play it.  So far, I'm getting into the story.  I'm about 10hrs in or so.  I need to do more side missions though.  I'm not strong enough to do some of the missions the game recommends.  My wife complains that the cutscenes are too long and too often.  I like them.  It helps me understand what's going on.  I played The Witcher 2 a long time ago, so I need help getting caught up.  I thought about replaying it again before starting 3, but so far I'm fine.  My wife played through 2 again a couple months ago.  She fills in some of the blanks for me, but our playthroughs aren't exactly the same.  

I bought Persona 4 Golden over a year ago and I hadn't played it.  Hopefully, that will change soon.  I don't own a Vita, but I got a PS tv free with my PS4 purchase last week.  I'm looking forward to seeing the differences between Golden and the original game.  I can't wait to play Persona 5 too.  I really hope it's good.

Witcher 3 is very much a continuation as opposed to a stand alone story. I can imagine things being confusing in the manner in which the game chooses to start things off, then throws you into search in progress, then lots of politics, then hunting. 

yeah Michael W. has been telling me a lot about Witcher 3 and it sounds really great.  It seems like it's more about hunting monsters now, and investigating them, etc. etc.  And also he said the story is embedded with interactions with NPC's which I like.  

I dunno, I'd like to play Witcher 2 first, just because, but I'm excited about this game.  

So far Witcher 2 and 3 feel very different. Witcher 3 is far more open world and emphasizes quest hunts, so lots of backtracking to quest givers, but the quests are actaully interesting and have cutscenes and story associated to them, like short stories. Then there is the overall main story to progress you into new areas. It feels kind of like an MMO. 

After listening to the Arrow podcast, and how they talked about what happened in Flash might effect Arrow, I checked out the season finale. I thought it was a solid finale, and yeah that ending was sad. I liked the helmet easter egg, and thanks to some folks online I understood it. 

I liked the way Flash ran up the skyscrapers into the sky at the end. Wasn't expecting that. Super cool!

I dug that too. At the end scene I was wondering how he was going to get up there. 

The movement is all sorts of fussy. It's like they want to apply realism and physics to increase the immersion, but it just reminds me I don't like that approach, one I think is misguided. It's aggravating when you have to deal with inertia and a wide turn radius when you just want to get somewhere.

The strengths are in the world building and social interaction, so my friend (who owns the game) and I try to take a minimal combat approach to the game.

I agree. The way the guy pauses then suddenly jumps forward when you start movement in any direction is annoying. Especially when trying to stop over something to examine it. It kind of reminds me of Sonic The Hedgehog or Jet Grind Radio, like there isn't a 1:1 movement ratio with controller. I'm enjoying the world and cutscenes and item descriptions though. Oh, and the visual design is great too.  Kind of plays like an MMO though.

I have my gripes with it. Technically, there are moments where it just glitches the fuck out and makes no sense - especially during dialogue scenes. I've had characters shrink, appear in front of the person I was talking to, float around, and various other ridiculous things. I also had the game crash 3 or 4 times - and I'm playing on ps4.

 Other than that though, damn. This is probably going to rank in my top 25 games of all time list. It's emotionally gutpunched me a few times and made me regret decisions I thought were right at the time. It's hardened me, punished me for being altruistic, punished me for being greedy, and just all round made me cautious and untrusting - exactly how I should be in this world.

 That said, I've only just made it Novigrad after like 26 hours of play because, well, there are so many fucking side quests! And most of them are excellent, with brilliant pieces of narrative. 

Apart from that, the gameplay is pretty good. A bit too easy so I had to bump it up, but I enjoy that it forces you to read up on creatures and use everything at your disposal to survive. On normal difficulty, however, it's a standard hack and slash after the first few hours - you barely even have to cast quen anymore! Nor do you have to parry.

 All in all, great game. Probably even better than Mass Effect. Definitely better than Dragon Age. Not quite as good as daikatana though, but then, nothing really is.

That's the voice I was waiting for!

I've been playing on PC and haven't had any real issues so far. I'm only in the second area, No Man's Land..I think it's called. I agree with all the things you said about the narrative, which is what I was looking forward to in this game. The side quests really do feel meaningful and interesting and they feel like short stories nested into a bigger narrative which I love. As for choices, so far they've mainly had impact in the moment, like I did a quest where a dude burned down a house so I tracked him and turned him in and authorities decided to hang him, which I was not expecting. Then I was escorting a goat back to it's owner with a bell, when it ran away and attracted a giant bear which turned into a mini-boss fight. In any case, I find the side quests to be involving and engrossing and really good at building the world without needed to have a cutscene full of exposition.

So, are you completing all the quests before moving on or are you saving those for post game? 

It is like GOY, top 20 all time types of games. I really want to go back and read through the books again too.  

I was completing them all, but then I got a bit overwhelmed and just wanted to meet triss so I did the main story for a bit. I might go back.

 One of the side quests has a choice that leads to some brutal repurcussions. It was a fucking gut punch and a half.

I'm approaching it more like an MMO. I push through the main story then level up through Contracts when I'm under level. I don't think the combat out on the field outside of quests is that impressive honestly. Contracts, Main Story and side missions are boss though.

GOY!

I'm going to listen to Major Nelson's and Axe of the Blood God's podcast about Witcher 3 tonight. I've caught an interview with the devs on Major Nelson earlier this week

I listened to the Axe of the Blood God podcast on Witcher and their pretty divided on it. Basically, the open world fan loves that it's open world and the customizable char w/ tactical turn-based combat fan don't like the action, but the hunts and narrative are great-- according to them.

I always get really sensitive about the combat in RPGs too. What is it with that? However, even though it's more actiony, if it's done well, I'll like it. Sounds like Witcher 3 may have simplified it's combat a little too much and made it too hack 'n' slashy for some people. I do like a good hack 'n' slash game though.

While it is possible to hack through most enemies in the game without use of potions, oils or simply by over leveling, I still found the use of these things beneficial in certain instances. I was fighting a werewolf guarding a cave entrance, and I couldn't seem to do much damage to it and it kept running away and healing itself which really pissed me off. I had to shut the game off and try it again. The second time I used oils, magic and buffs, alos bit more dodging/evading and wore him down. Sometimes combat is super easy, other times it feels like hitting a wall. Combat could have evolved a bit more honestly, but maybe playing on harder modes is the way to go. 

Kat on Axe of the Blood God was talking about having to prepare for each fight. Like you needed an oil to fight the Spectre (I think that's what it was called) otherwise you couldn't damage it and other things like that for different monsters.

Yeah, but if you over level past enemies, you don't really have to do any of that oil stuff. So if you're level 4-5 and fighting a spectre lower lvl than you, then you can just hack away-- usually. That's been the case for me so far and I think I should raise the difficulty I guess. I would say the combat is much easier and accessible than it was in 2 honestly. Using oils was necessary in that game.

Still need to play the past games before delving into this one. I've got the first sitting on my Steam, but i'm lazy to start it.

I recently finished up a playthrough of the second game so I was prepared for this release. I think the 3rd game stands on it's own, but if you need to fill the gaps, 2 is quite awesome.