The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt - Maxi-Geek Review
The Witcher has been a series that has gone mostly unnoticed
by the gaming masses, not because it was bad, it was just one of those things,
but when Wild Hunt was announced, everyone took notice and for good reason,
this game is incredible.
The story starts out with a very dramatic cutscene, but then
throws you back into the past, where you can learn the basics of the game,
combat wise at least, it's a nice way to introduce players to some of the
characters that inhabit the world. From here, the story really opens up as
Geralt along with Vesemir as they track down Yennifer, Geralt’s love interest,
after a short interlude and some fun with a Griffin, Geralt meets up with
Yennifer only to learn that his ward, Ciri has returned and is being pursued by
the Wild Hunt.
Tasked by Ciri’s father and ruler of Nilfgaard, Emhyr var
Emreis, who Geralt has had dealings with in the past, so while Geralt accepts
the contract, he does so for his own reasons, not for the kings. It was in this
scene that I noted the characters were not just emoting with their faces, but
also their eyes, which made each character feel more lifelike and the words
they said even more powerful. Throughout the main storyline, it will spin off
into many tangents, some will be small and others will feel like epic quests
all on their own, but the game still manages to make things work, for every new
character, place or creature the game adds, nothing is lost or forgotten. Even
the times when you get to take charge of Ciri and learn parts of her story, the
interactions between her and other characters is still strong.
What the game offers in story is only a fraction of things
compared to what it offers in terms of its raw gameplay, you can take strolls
through the busy city streets, or venture out into the wilds and explore
whatever the game has to throw at you. When you do spend time in any city, from
the large ones to the quaint country hamlets, there are lots of things to see
and do, the people who live in the cities will walk around, performing tasks in
their daily lives or even running away from you, should your actions cause them
too of course. Even making your way from one location to the next can yield
unexpected results and it is in these moments where the game shines.
Each time I entered combat, I had to remind myself to think
before I attacked, when fighting humans, simply running in and hacking away can
work, but when you have people shooting crossbows at you, spearmen and
swordsmen all attacking at once, you need to learn the essence of blocking. But
when you fight a monster, blocking may not be the best approach, so you need to
be able to modify your tactics on the go, depending on what you are fighting.
The combat system is not hard to learn, but learning what you need to do in
each situation can take some time to master, add to that, the different
monsters and beasts you can hunt down, each time you draw your sword it's as
much of a puzzle as it is a fight.
Of course the game is not all about the combat, there are
times when Geralt will need to use his Witcher senses to track down people,
creatures and such. When activated, items that are important with glow with a
red hue, whereas items you can interact with will get an orange one and using
your senses is something that you will do, even when there is no need to.
Perhaps the coolest part of using the Witchers sense is that the screen blurs
around the edges, it zooms in a little towards the middle and the sounds
amplify, so doing it amongst trees will have you hearing branches as they crack
against one another and in towns, mud squelching under people’s feet.
Once you have gotten over the sounds and sights of the
world, you can take a seat and rest at a local tavern and play a game of Gwent,
a card game that was built for the Witcher but is fully playable outside of the
game, sadly my time with Gwent was minimal, outside of collecting the cards,
but from what I have played, it was fun. The amount of cards the game seems to
have is almost limitless, for each monster the game has, there is a card to
match. The monster of the world are slightly more intimidating then those found
in the card game and you will get to experience them all first hand at some
point.
The first monster you face, that will provide a challenge is
the griffin and it's a hefty fight as well, you won’t be able to rush it, you
will need to take your time with it, unlike the smaller creatures, the large
ones require your attention. None more so then the ones will find in the wild,
not on any missions, the first time I located one in the wild, it was so many
levels ahead of me that I actually bolted, a second thought had me think I
could fight it, but that was not the case. After almost succumbing to its talons
I managed to get away, thankfully I located a sign post and fast travelled
away, but it was a stark reminder than no matter how ready I thought I was for
the world, I always needed to watch out for those monsters.
Thankfully, the world contains a large assortment of quests
to take on, some are monster hunter, and others require you to locate plants or
people, using the aforementioned Witcher senses. One of the side quests I
really liked was simple enough, a man was looking for his wife, who went out
into the woods one morning and never returned. After some sleuthing around
town, it was time to head out into the woods, where after a time the missing woman’s
sister came to find me and told me to stop, lie to the grieving husband and
leave it alone, her approaching me made me curious, so I kept looking. I won’t
tell you what happens, but it was nothing like I expected. Which highlights just how good the side quests
are, they are not filler, created by a program within the game, they are each
hand crafted by a member of the dev team and it shows.
There is an issue that presents itself pretty quickly with
how you interact with the world and it was a constant pain throughout my time
playing the game, the interact method. In order to interact with anything, you
need to be close enough to the item and the text prompt needs to tell you can
do it, but if you can’t see that prompt you won’t be able to do anything. There
were times when I was too close to something, to the point of standing on it
and the camera could not see the interact prompt, which resulted in me either
moving back or trying to get the camera into a place where it could see and
while not game breaking, it did cause frustrations that I felt were
unnecessary.
One area the game did excel at was the presentation and no I
am not going to talk about how the game looked nicer before it shipped. The
game looks amazing, from the detail on Geralts armor, to the shacks, castles
and people of the world. When you are interacting with anyone from the game,
you will notice the detail in their faces, the brow will furl when they are
confused, the eyes will look elsewhere when they don’t want to admit something,
it is truly something to behold. The world itself is just as full of detail as
the characters, with the brown muddy plains of Valen to the rain bashed shores
of Skillige and beyond, the world is alive with detail.
Sunlight will crash through the trees, covering the ground
with dancing shadows as the trees move about in the breeze. Walking through
muddy streets towards a battered inn, will leave footprints behind in the mud
and then indoors and while inside, light will bounce around from roaring fires
and just as important the sounds of that fire will echo around the room. Sound
plays just as important a part as what you see, as sometimes you will hear
creatures long before you see them and knowing the sound of a group of drowners
can help you avoid a nasty surprise. The music is also top notch, each time the
music kicked in, I found myself enchanted by the score, it is nothing special
of course, the same soundtrack style can be heard in other games of a similar
style, but that only show just how nice this is.
The final area of presentation that really elevates things
to a whole new level is the voice acting, returning characters maintain their
voices and each of the new characters feels alive. Being able to wander around
and hear people talk about their day, the events of their lives or even singing
a little song helps sell that this is a real world. Travelling between the
places the world offers also means you will get to hear a large variety of
accents, of which there are quite a number. It is clear which parts of the
world the developers took inspiration from, but at no point do things feel
forced, which again is helped by the voices of the regions. But while there are
amazing moments, there are also issues to deal with, the game loads elements as
seamlessly as possible, but on those rare times it can’t everything goes out of
focus and then back into focus when it's ready to resume.
Those happened more when talking to people, either
shopkeepers or important characters, which broke things, but it also happened
when I was moving around the world, exploring and what not. There were other
graphical issues that popped up, things not loading in, Geralt mounting an
invisible horse and then the horse appearing, but the worst I saw was early on
in the game, a large triangle shaped object was sticking out of Geralts head
and there it remained until I loaded into a new section of the game world,
almost 30 minutes later. With a game as large as this, you can give some small leeway
to those smaller or funny issues, but that triangle was quite noticeable, even
in cutscenes. There were other issues with sounds stuttering, which again is a
load issue, but for all these issues, 98% of the game was issue free.
For anyone wondering if they will be able to enjoy The
Witcher 3, if they have not played any of the past games, you can put that to
rest, the game does a great job of putting the history of the games in, without
making it over complicated, you can even answer some questions to help shape
your own version of things. For those thinking the game might be too big, with
too many things to do that you might not finish it all, well that is possible,
but you need to give it a go to be sure.
The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt is a game made by people who are
passionate about what they do, each element has been crafted to provide the
best possible experience to the player and it shows, sure you might see the
occasional issue, but take it with a grain of salt as this is one game you need
to play.
Thanks to CD Projekt Red and Bandai Namco Entertainment Australia for supplying the game for review.
Luke Henderson