The Witcher 3 packs a punch with content!
a review of the Witcher 3:Wild Hunt’s story, combat and content
Overall appearance
The Witcher 3 is a game full of gorgeous land betwixt valleys of fields with mountains trying to grab the sky with their iced peaks and blistering snow, yet to contrast this tranquil beauty unspeakable creatures roam at night causing havoc amongst innocent peasants. Kings sit high upon thrones commanding soldiers to their deaths, as the Witcher (Geralt) wonders the plains of Temeria in search of a lost apprentice. Whatever, your idea of a fantasy world the Witcher builds on top of this featuring creatures from multiple mythological backgrounds and European inspired land, to compliment itself. It’s a world full of diversity that works well with its capabilities.
The combat
The Witcher’s combat is fairly simple to grasp and even has an optional tutorial for you to try out at the start in Kaer Morhen, allowing you to test gadgets like bombs which can be used to blind foes and stun them for a brief moment. There is also the great addition of signs which act as spells so you can burn people alive or turn a enemy into an ally for a brief amount of time, spicing up what could’ve have been pure sword fights. However, I found myself most of the time not using potions that are meant to increase health or damage. Most importantly, potions cause an increase in toxicity which is a small bar that can be seen in the character inventory screen shown as a percentage like 75% or 20%, limiting you (Geralt) to drinking an insane amount of potions and becoming an overpowered potion junkie. Eventually, if you drink too many potions you will just start to lose health which is a good idea in theory, but not so much for me when actually playing the game where I decided to increase my abilities with heavy and light attacks because the sword fights against human enemies are just too cool with epic finishers that have enemies losing their head in mid-air. In addition, with a helpful Bestiary added to the game it provides a nice slice of lore and some background information to the creatures you fight, as well as combat tips or oils, that can be made similarly to potions to create a temporary damage to your silver sword to increase the damage you deal against a type of enemy your fighting, like a Necrophage(A zombie like enemy that relies on the dead bodies of past battles as a healthy source of protein!)
When fighting humans and other foes you can counter attack before they attack acting as a parry for it to work which never really seems to happen with me when I play so instead I got well acquainted with using a dodge roll to help get 1–2 hits on my enemy after they have swung their sword or tongue.
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Story and side-quests…
As the badass himself Geralt travels across picturesque glades and sails among deep siren-infested waters, to find the Emperor’s daughter Ciri that has been on fleeing from city to elven ruin, running away from the Mysterious Wild Hunt: a small army of mystic elves in dark, corpse-inspired armour. At the start the Witcher makes a smooth transition into setting the scene, with location and how you are treated by society and its occupants like Witch-hunters and peasants that both show a great distaste for the Witcher. On the flipside people desperately look for the help of the Witcher, to find lost relatives or clues to the massacres of small villages, that only leave Geralt as the one to solve these problems. Early you move from town to town gradually across small pockets of land with some optional quests asking you to go to big cities or far-off islands at later levels.When starting of you may find bounties for monsters that need to be killed, allowing you as a player to learn about a new enemy, level up and gain some coin. This method provides a short way to get on par with a story difficulty or just explore new areas with ease. As you digress through Witcher you come across big decisions around the world you can influence through the course of your actions or choice of words, which are reflected in different ways whether it be the cause of death, or change to an area adding a layer of complexity to basic decisions that some may overlook.
Slaying like a boss
Onto slaying the demons and horrors that almost loom around every corner, even in cities these creatures lurk amongst men like wolves in sheep’s clothing.One creature that does lurk in the city of Oxenfurt is Gael the katakan; skinny, rich and thirsty this human sized bat, sadly matches the same description as a modern day rapper, but rather prefers the blood of drunk folk after a night out and the exquisite rings and jewelry that they carry for itself to wear and swagger about with. A creature with some style made this bounty interesting for me, as it forces you to be drunk to lure it out making the casual monster hunt different instead of being the typical find and kill mission that becomes stale, over the course of my time playing.
Now for me personally I enjoy a fun boss battle with epic phases and some quirk to it, but the Witcher fails in that sense to the point where you can spam light or heavy attacks and show some love towards the dodge button, but it also makes use of bestiary showing exploits and weaknesses within monsters as you will need to use specific signs or concoctions to make an enemy vulnerable to attack or easier to fight against.
Final verdict
- Content packed and keeps the player busy for a long time
- Basic combat that’s very easy to understand but could have been improved upon for a more varied and skill based experience
- Big story as mentioned before in relation to content that allows players who haven’t touched past games understand and still learn some lore about the world of Witcher
- Has gorgeous visuals for all platforms and a plethora of creatures from folklore and legends to slay
This has been the first Witcher game I have ever played and have found it fun writing a review on something like this for the first time, leaving some parts/details for the reader to find out for themselves if they’re interested in a Fantasy world with long narratives and a high amount of exploration and killing to do.
