Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

At the end of the day, a 20-30 year old game is not going to hold up as well as it did if you play it today. FF7 was cutting edge when it came out. These days it’s got much less going for it. The ships sailed - the best you can hope for is a decent time. It’s just not going to blow your socks off like it did for those who played it back in 97.

@KratosMD yeah that’s fair enough, even so - I highly doubt it could ever have the same impact in 2019 that it had in 97.

I appreciate you taking the time to read such a long post.

Great! I was hoping my explanation of the plot/characters/setting/mechanics would give something of an idea of what the game is like to people who haven't played it. Fire Emblem isn't really as accessible as a lot of Nintendo's other properties, and, while I do think this game makes a lot of changes that opens it up to non-hardcore players, there's still a LOT going on. It's easily one of their most non-typical series with its focus on character development, politics-heavy plotlines, and (comparatively) complex gameplay.

Don't get me wrong: I think the divine pulse mechanic is probably a great addition to the series. And I certainly don't miss resetting a map I've almost completely mastered because a strong enemy got a lucky crit on one of my units and killed him/her. I just think IS needs to work it into the structure of the game better. It feels like it was bolted on at the last minute, but being able to rewind time and undo decisions fundamentally changes the feel of the game.

For one thing (I don't recall if I mentioned this), recent Emblems, including this one, feature a casual mode that makes it where defeated units don't die anyway. But that feels like way overkill when combined with a time-rewinding mechanic. I'd love to see them remove casual mode entirely (because, IMO, it completely alters the way you play the game; FE games aren't meant to be played with expendable pawns like Advance Wars, for example) and just alter the number of charges you get with the divine pulse. Casual mode could have unlimited divine pulses, whereas higher difficulties could make them extremely limited. Either way, the player would still have to think about their movements, even with unlimited pulses. It'd be win/win.

It's a good idea, but I think the game needs to be designed more with it in mind.

It's not a regional thing: they wouldn't work for me, either.

I replaced the links, so go ahead and give them a listen if you're still interested.

It's disappointing, but they're still getting better with it. The only other game to have same-sex marriage options was Fire Emblem: Fates, and your only gay male option in that was a crazy dude who gets off inflicting pain on others, and I believe, since that game had multiple versions, the lone gay and lesbian marriage options were version exclusive. So, relatively nice and normal male classmate and two questionable (in the sense of: "do they even count?) older options are an improvement on the gay male side, and it's WAY better on the lesbian side.

But yeah, hopefully they continue to improve with this.

Ahaha, I hadn't thought about it. Might just be a cute referential easter egg. In this case, it's visual shorthand that tells you how many uses your battalion has during a battle. I believe full HP is the complete Triforce shape.

@kyleforrester87 @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy @KratosMD Hmm, interesting. I got my PSone (and therefore got into gaming proper) a couple years after Final Fantasy VII came out but, even so, I was aware of this juggernaut's all-encompassing reputation, yet I never did (and still never do) hear anything about its predecessor. As was noted, maybe it's a European thing. All I know is that the first game was called "Final Fantasy" because its creator thought it wouldn't sell, or was bored of making fantasy games and wanted it to be his last... and here we are, fifteen core adventures and a hundred spin-offs later. Phew!

Good luck with your trench run, Kratos!

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@Ralizah First up, huge thanks for going back and fixing the musical links. You weren't kidding; that music is fantastic! I reckon "Between Heaven and Earth" is my favourite (it's like "Duel of the Fates" on steroids) but they're all great. "Shambhala (Area 17 Redux)" sounds very Sonic which, as you know, always gets my seal of approval. It's like a lost boss track!

And I take your point about the Casual vs. Divine Pulse trade-off. You did mention a casual mode in your review, and it would seem that the newness of the Divine Pulse mechanic clashes with it somewhat, providing two simultaneous legs up. That's always the problem with layering new systems atop pre-existing expectations and game designs. With any luck, they'll balance it out more in any future installments (which I'm assuming will be a thing, yeah?).

The whole romance thing reminds me of Mass Effect: Andromeda. At launch, you could choose between Gil (your ship's engineer, who was a nice enough guy, I guess, but ended up taking you down a cringeworthy parenthood storyline all about how selfish it'd be not to procreate) and Reyes Vidal (a bisexual flirt who only turned up halfway through, and was later revealed to be a villain). The biggest sting was the trophy for completing three romances; there were enough options for every other relationship combination, but gay male players had to "go straight" or create a female protagonist to unlock it. After months of online outcry, BioWare re-activated the bisexuality of alien teammate Jaal which, for some reason, had been developed and fully voiced, but scrapped ahead of launch. It's almost as though they deliberately wanted a controversy to fuel post-release clicks or something (which they got anyway, because the game was an unfinished mess).

Anyway, enough ranting. Great review, expertly written!

Ok, so I finished up the main campaign of The Witcher 3 (on Switch) and I figured, since this is cutting edge and a brand new game, the world needs a review asap. Also, I have played nothing else since the end of October pretty much so wanted to clear it out.

Firstly, to give context of what I played - I put about 75 hours into the game, completed all main stories, all sidequests that I found (I am sure I missed a few) as well as all Witcher contracts. I have not played the two expansion sets yet and I finished the game at Level 37 I think. I also played on standard difficulty, on the Switch.

Since I played on Switch, I will not bother to focus on graphics etc. too much since I know that graphically it is better on other platforms. I did originally start it on PS4 so have some basis for comparison. Suffice to say that it ran rather well on my Switch though I would have some crashes that occurred every 3-4 hours that required the game to be restarted. Never really resulted in any major time being lost and did not always occur during 'heavy' moments. It did it both docked and handheld and seemed to be sometimes when you were riding or running into an area of the world that was loading in the background.

The game itself is a big open world game and those games have a habit of putting me off as a time starved gamer. In the last few years I have played HZD, Skyrim, BOTW and AC: Odyssey and I find that they take me months to finish in some cases and I need a compelling reason to get into it.

I will admit that I struggled at first with The Witcher 3. You have a sort of mini area of the map that you start in and this is really an extended tutorial where you get lots of types of side missions, discoverables, contracts and then story missions that level you up. I feel the game is at its most obtuse in this opening area. Levels and levellling really do make a big difference in the early part of the game. If you don't prepare and blithely go into combat or missions that you aren't skilled up for, it will be difficult. Depending on your time, you can spend anywhere between 5-8 hours in this area but it really is only after this that the game starts to open up.

This brings me on to one of the areas of the game I found slightly inconsistent and that is levelling. Enemies and missions scale to a certain extent but not entirely. There is a recommended level for taking on missions and contracts. It is possible to undertake levels that are a bit above you and that gives you more XP I believe. At the same time, overlevel too much and the reward is far less. I found this more a pain at the start of the game - after the tutorial area, I found nearly all contracts and a lot of side missions were too high for me to start which made me think I was missing in content and forcing me to do story missions. However, you get more XP for story missions so it actually made sense for to do those first and come back to the side missions later. As the game progressed, I then was in danger of becoming overlevelled, in fact I was for a lot of the story missions. At the same time, I found I kept needing to stop to do side misisons or contracts at a point when I was slightly underlevelled or else they became too easy or gave no real XP. Now I am very poor at learning game systems so I may have been playing it wrong but I did find myself on one area of the map and having to fast travel back to an old area to do a contract because I was in the right XP zone.

What I therefore found was that I found the game tougher at the very start and then easier as it continued. Of course, I could have upped the difficulty if I wanted but to be honest, I was enjoying the story and the flow too much to want to slow it down. Overall, I quite liked the levelling up in that you have limited slots to upgrade your character so you do have to choose your build. You can swap them out but you can't equip everything at the same time. I concentrated on a few signs and mainly sword combat. I felt like I had developed my character in a way I wanted to play and I have seen online lots of variation which works equally well. The other RPG elements didn't do as well for me. There are weapons and upgrades and you need to explore to get the best stuff but I also found that by about mid way, I had good weapons and limited reasons to upgrade them much more. I also found little use for the alchemy and crafting because often. This might have something more to do with the difficulty level. At normal and once levelled up sufficiently, I found that I could get through almost all contracts without needing oils, potions etc. I also found that I was always missing an ingredient whenever I wanted something specific even though I was a big collector of resources. Of course, this is also tied to exploration - the most you explore the more you will get out of the game. It is littered with question marks on the map that signify treasure, monsters, little trinkets or enemies with rewards. I only really did these if I stumbled on them though you could, and I know a few who have, spent ages going through all these.

Combat is, in my mind, a weaker point though it is still fun. It is a semi darks souls feel, in that movement, parrying and selecting when to attack is the name of the game. Hacking and slashing will get you hurt and healing is not automatic in fights and you'll need to run away or use consumables to bolster health during a fight. The use of magical abilities or signs works well in combat and again, you can tailor a fighting style to suit how you play. It is a bit clunky and not as smooth as some games but when you do a fight well, it is pretty satisfying to cleave through some enemies.

The map itself is open world but split into several distinct areas. You can always summon a horse wherever you are which I like, since it means you can navigate freely though the horse controls are a little tank like compared to something like AC:Odyssey (which aped a lot of TW3). Traversing the world is fun and there is also a lot of fast travel points, which to be honest, I used if I was retreading familiar ground. If you do use fast travel a lot though, you will miss a lot of world details and the chance of side missions or characters etc. I have no doubt I have missed some points and missions as I did not 100% explore the map but hey, more to do later if I return.

So I have mainly talked about the mechanics and my niggles but I then want to talk about a few ares where I feel the game truly shined. Firstly, the world. The world itself is fantastical with magic and monsters but it is centred on a few realistic late medieval realm. Peasants are uneducated, poor and often desperate. Nobles via for power and kings wage bloody wars that leave destruction and bodies in their wake. This is really hammered home in the first area. Compared to something such as Skyrim, their are no real thundering vistas accompanied by epic scores. You are more likely to be in a swamp, knee deep in monsters and dead bodies with a sadly haunting melody. This does, in my mind, give the world a unique feel. There is goodness in the world, but mainly there is desperation, evil and a sense that everyone is struggling to survive. People do horrible things in this world, and you are most likely to be tricked. In turn, you can choose how to behaver and this is something else that I liked - there are no obvious binary choices in most conversations and stories. Yes you can be harsher or harder on people or be virtuous but it also doesn't feel like you are being goodie Geralt or baddie Geralt as many RPGs do. The story does branch with multiple endings and outcomes which is great and sometimes your choice can have unintended side effects - being good doesn't always mean the best outcome however it does shape the world and the story behind you. The main storyline is pretty good - maybe not the best every but it moves at a good pace and you have some input on its course. It is more in the side missions that the game shines the best. What appears to be a typical fetch sidequest can branch into a far bigger more complicated story. Some are funny, some are very very gruesome and horrific. There is also a romance subplot where you can choose your way through a love triangle (team Yennefer here). These non mandatory stories and characters also have satisfying subplots that are actually addressed throughout the game, even minor characters have some sort of closure and impact on the ending you see. There are subplots about mad kings, a coven of sorceresses, religious persecutions, evil witches and trade wars. There is even a murder myster thrown in for good measure at one point. The game also fits into a larger narrative and universe, some of which are in the previous 2 games and some of which are in the original books. I actually liked that it essentially starts a story half way through and while you know what is going on, you feel like you are part of a larger world and story which has, for me at least, encouraged me to read the books and check out Henry Cavill's abs.

While the narrative isn't immune from the struggles of large open worlds (where everything seems time critical but you can still spend 4 days digging up treasure and helping locals which NPC's just sit and wait for you) it is probably one of the best implementations of story in an open world game I have seen. Lastly, I can see why gamers seem to love CDPR - this is a game they want you to play and enjoy. There is a lot of love in the world and a celebration when you play it. Just the sound that plays when you finish a mission is addictive and you are rewarded. Also, the game is very large but not really in a time wasting way. There are some cookie cutter elements as you explore but they can also go off in random directions which is, in my mind, a million miles away from the Ubisoft model of huge worlds with standard tasks to do in every area again and again. Anyway, if you like adult fantasy and lots of things to do in a game, I would recommend The Witcher 3. I'll defo go back for the two large DLC story expansions once a bit of time has past.

@Rudy_Manchego That’s a great review of an older game that some of us have yet to play. I’m stuck in the opening hours and the game didn’t quite sink it’s teeth into me. I need to go back to it and reading your review motivates me to do so. You mentioned the four big open world time sinks you’ve played in the last couple years — BotW, Skyrim, HZD and AC Odyssey — how does this compare to those? Which has been your favorite? I’m sure they all have their place and largely it depends on mood, but do you think any of those clearly outshine the others?
I ask because I have a great adoration for Skyrim and HZD and I am playing AC Origins (Odyssey’s little twin brother) and so I can relate to those games if you can compare them to W3. — I see Skyrim as the grandaddy of them all, and HZD as the adopted step-child who does their own thing; and then W3 is the eldest son who has taken Papa Skyrim’s example and just improved on it by adding modern nuance with better story elements. Then AC Odyssey is the little sister who does everything to copy the big brother W3 and does it so much better but is never appreciated because she was just copying him and everyone knows that, even if she does it better sometimes.

@Rudy_Manchego Nice. I was about 60 hours in before taking a break and am smack dab in the middle, I think (I poke around everywhere, though). You touched on my biggest criticism of the game: the terrible XP balancing. Side quests are fun and often well-written, but I've taken to ignoring everything that won't tie into the main story now because I get almost nothing of value for completing them. I might as well be taking on these quests for free. And killing monsters for XP? Forget it. Meanwhile, the game showers you with XP for doing main story stuff... often to an almost ridiculous degree. The game feels built to encourage engaging with side content in every other way, but this one issue really, really hurts it, imo.

Also agree on the weapon thing. Somewhere along the way, I went from having almost no weapons to having so many that I've filled my storage chest with them. And yeah, the weapons I can craft are often not even as good as the ones I can find.

Alchemy is, indeed, pretty pointless. Why would anyone invest points in that part of the skill chart?

Did you ever find any reason to spend money on anything other than repairs for your gear? I'm becoming filthy rich because there's nothing worth spending coin on.

I feel like a lot of the balance issues are a result of this being CDProjektRed's first open world game.

Still worried about this crashing issue you've experienced. It's not normal for a game to crash that often.

@Th3solution Thanks for the kinds words and darn that is a good question.

You are pretty close on your assessment. Skyrim is, in my opinion, very much a make your own adventure game. Pick a direction, explore. I know lots of people that have never completed the main quest in Skyrim because they just enjoyed doing lots of the other content. In a way, you don't finish Skyrim but abandon it.

Breath of the Wild is probably closer to Skyrim, in fact I would suggest that it really takes away exploration and sets it apart and creates a feeling that is quite unique. However, exploration is the key and narrative almost completely disregarded, which is probably my main fault with BOTW. I personally wouldn't see BOTW in the same genre as Skyrim, W3, AC and HZD because it does away with an awful lot of the elements of them.

Excluding BOTW (which I think is amazing), I would say that HZD is my favourite. Firstly, the combat is very addictive as well as satisfying. On top of that, I thought the plot and environmental storyline was also good. I also thought that the size of the world etc. was slightly smaller in terms of the time it took to play and do everything. The world also had a good use of geography and so on.

After that though, certainly TW3. Mechanically, AC:Odyssey is smoother, there are a lot of quality of life improvements but it suffers, in my mind, from a huge grind and too much repetetive content full of Ubisoft tropes. The cynic in me can't help but feel the grind is a deliberate way to get people to spend more on timesavers. The map is insanely huge but unless you clear out every single bandit camp or fort or whatever, you don't even spend much time in each of the beautiful areas. However, AC felt like Origins and Far Cry and every single Ubisoft game ever.

TW3 has its own identity and as an adult themed title, it does not shy away from horror or real moral condundrums. I also began to like the characters and the story and wanted to know more. It felt tighter than AC. I would say that in terms of world, yes W3 is closer to Skyrim but the actual feel for the game is very different - I guess the difference between The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. I've always wanted to visit the Shire but no way do I want to go to Velen in W3.

Put it this way, I'm now reading The Witcher books because it got me intrigued by the world. So don't know if that helps!

@Ralizah Loot became pointless over half way through the game except for repair kits, money and food but then i was super rich because, as you say, I only needed repairs. I got the best Witcher Armour in the base game after doing the master crafting side quest and I got really good weapons that I maintained.

To be honest, with the skill tree, I am like that in almost all games and I focus mainly on healthy, energy and weapon/fighting stats but I know people that like to play weird combos. In Skyrim, my boss focused on being a stealthy archer. I am always very boring in Bloodborne but I know some people skill up Arcane or Bloodtinge builds which seems like deliberately making your life harder!

My advice would be to do contracts and side quests for the story and action and not for XP as you will have more fun. I tended to collect contracts and see if I could take some a few levels higher.

The crashes are odd but searching around it is common. Apparently, clearing the patch and getting the latest version again can clear it up. Sounds like a memory leak somewhere from what I can read. Not sure though. It didn't affect the console so I lived with it but first game I have had that did it. I also turned the Switch on and off regularly.

I mean, it's demonstrably not. Unlike those other games, BotW is an adventure game, as opposed to an RPG. Even going beyond that, though, the game emphasizes openness and exploration to such a radical degree and disposes with so many of their common design elements that it barely even feels like other modern open world titles (there are still a few design similarities, such as the Ubisoft towers and fast travel, though). It's a closer relative to survival mode Minecraft than it is to any of those other games you mentioned, IMO.

I think people go into BotW expecting Zelda-flavored Skyrim and walk away disappointed. Miyamoto even referred to it as an "open air" game to distinquish it from more typical "open world" titles.

Trinen expanded on it:
Nintendo’s senior product marketing manager Bill Trinen explained the idea behind ‘Open Air,’ a term the company came up with to describe the art, gameplay, music, and feel of the new Zelda game. “From my perspective, I look at a lot of open-world games,” Trinen explained, “and the world is a setting for the story the developers want to tell in that space.”

“I look at this game and I see a world that is fully integrated into the exploration and the adventure,” he continued. “It’s not just a world that you’re passing through. It’s sort of a world that you’re a part of. So much of the adventure and exploration is in this outdoor space, and the theme of wilderness collectively seemed like 'Open Air' was the right fit for it.”

Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/22/why-miyamoto-didnt-wa...

@Ralizah You are right but I often see BOTW lumped into the open world category.

In some respects, my biggest annoyance with BOTW was, what I felt, was a lack of reward for exploration. However, I will admit that the sense of freedom and isolation I felt meant BOTW had a such a different vibe. I actually played HZD and BOTW side by side and I saw a lot of comparisons as they launched close together which I thought was completely unfair as neither was attempting to do what the other did. Though i did keep trying to climb up cliffs as Aloy.

@Rudy_Manchego Absolutely do give the DLC a go when you’re ready.

Heart of Stone is a great story with some fantastic characters but Blood and Wine is just superb. It’s a perfect blend of everything great about the game and spoofs the normal fantasy setting wonderfully. They are amazing value for money too.

I agree with the XP scaling issue too. It did feel a little odd having missions from the beginning of the game you can’t do until 30hrs in. I completed the game before they bought in enemy level scaling so it was a shock going back for the DLC.

@Thrillho Don't worry, already got the DLC as part of the full edition on Switch. Torn between wanting to get straight into it and wanting to take a breather. I will go back though which I rarely do for DLC because I know it will be worth it.

I got caught both on my first abandoned run and second run by a contract at the start of velen that started easy then at the end you meet a level 30 spider thing and I clearly hadn't checked the level. I ended up doing that in the last third of the game!

@Rudy_Manchego Both were high-profile, exclusive "open world" games released within a week or so of each other and both set in post-apocalyptic settings filled with robots, so comparisons were inevitable, I think.

I'd say HZD is average in terms of world design/characters/plot, but the combat encounters are so much fun that they almost completely redeem what would otherwise be an average (if utterly gorgeous) game. It has the nuts and bolts of open world game design down (although the beautiful settings are almost completely non-interactive, which is a huge bummer, although not uncommon), though, and aside from some of the meaningless trinkets you pick up, most of the content feels rewarding to engage with. The dungeons were interesting, but they needed puzzles or something. Felt very empty. Fantastic game, though.

BotW has an interesting but underdeveloped back story, poor enemy variety, irritating horses (HZD's mounts were far more fun to use), questionable rewards for exploration, and lousy side-quests, but the mechanics of exploration (climbing, parasailing, etc.), radically open game design, unique approach to atmosphere and sound design, complex and fully interactive environments (complete with exploitable physics systems), and general gameplay loop more than redeem it for me. It essentially invented a new type of open world game. I didn't mind the switch away from big dungeons and towards 100 or so little ones, but they needed a bit more aesthetic diversity to them. Also, the combat shrines were lame. The divine beast dungeons were very interesting insofar as they were one giant puzzle with interconnecting elements, but they felt a bit underdeveloped to me.

So far, I like both games more than The Witcher 3.

Attack of the Toy Tanks - PS4

Platinability - 10/10

A boss game to pick up some sweet golds.

Playability - 7/10

Strangely difficult controls for a game based on Easy Trophies. Rewarding and fun. You have L1 and L2 for forward and backward movement, The left stick for rotating your tank, the right stick for aiming your turret and R2 shoots. It's very immediate with no lag! Shoot those bad tanks.

Graphics 3/10

Not much going on here, colourful but limited. Arena bitmaps and character pixels are recycled and the battles only take place sequentially on single screens.

Sound 2/10

The same kazoo track plays every single time. You have to beat 30 levels for the plat.

Replayability 1/10

Get that plat, delete and smile like a Cheshire cat.

Price it should be - £3
Time it took to beat - 90 minutes
Advice - Some levels are annoying, sometimes standing still is a better option than rolling in to attack.

@themcnoisy “Platinability” ... love that word. 😄

@Ralizah Hmmm it is a tough one on what I liked most. To me, The Witcher 3 is what I would call the best of the traditional 'open world' genre - those like Skyrim, all Ubisoft games etc. It is large, well written, interesting and engaging. Plus I like that the story is a grown up story as opposed to watered down.

BOTW is, as you say, a new genre. I consider it one of the greatest games this generation because I hadn't played something like it. HZD was a traditional open world game except for the combat. It felt like combat was designed first adn the world built around it. I would probably place HZD first then Witcher second.

@Th3solution It's a decent game actually for a couple of hours. Get on it!

@themcnoisy I might just have to do that — I love a quick and easy platinum (if the game is decent) 😛. And there is fewer and fewer Vita games to play and thus looks right at home on the handheld.

Platinability - 10/10

A boss game to pick up some sweet golds

I think after Ralizah's monster Fire Emblem post... a review that takes twenty seconds at most to read was just the thing I needed 😂

Shame I could care less about trophies @themcnoisy but nice one none the less lol

As for @Rudy_Manchego well done on finally getting the Witcher III done and dusted in no small thanks to the delightful little Switch and it's versatility!

I agree with quite a few points you've made. The alchemy especially with both it's actual use and ingredients but as you say that's also probably because I'm also playing it on the medium difficulty where oils and the likes don't really matter at all. Especially if you have a good sword.

Hope you enjoy the DLC's too when you decide to get round to them!