Recente recensies door PDK

Fire Tunic: SS Red Devil

Is that a Horsemen... a Serpent Rider... or a Jabberwock?!

I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate.

The Vorpal Blade went snicker-snack!

In Dark Souls you are surrounded by demons.

In Hexen demons are surrounded by YOUR souls... (if you choose Cleric)

Ride the Serpent

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Know your roots. Yggdrasil is Life.

Probably my favorite Witcher but the whole series is just one big game to me. Each game flows into the next and the finale makes me want to restart it all again and try something new. Each has a flavor of their own and I find that it makes each one compliment the others sort of like Kalkstein's 6/5 theory. It is worth going back and getting used to this for the whole play through experience. Best Alchemy!

This may contain spoilers but I will try very hard to get at the meat and potatoes without spoiling anything. My first playthrough was on Death March with about 95%+ completion/ exploration spanning 144 hours.

Okay let me start by saying GGAT. Greatest Game All Time. Move over Zelda.

Witcher 3 Takes over a few months after the events in Witcher 2. Nilfgaard Is on the Attack once again and the Northern Realms are in shambles. Everything south of Redania is under Nilfgaardian occupation and in a move of genius/insanity King Radovid attacked his, leaderless ally, Kaedwen and taken it has his own. This sets the stage of Red versus Black, Redania versus Nilfgaard, with Temeria serving as a No-Mans-Land growing more destitute and plagued as time goes on. An epic backdrop for this fantastic story to be told.

Our hero Geralt, having recovered his memories, sets out to find his beloved Yennefer of Vengerberg. Geralt received a letter from her saying that she would meet him in White Orchard. So after a fantastic plot filled tutorial our journey really begins. From the very beginning we see that witcher 3 has improved upon 2 in more ways than just stellar graphics. The combat is still very much like 2, but now we have reposte as a staple ability not a researched one. NICE. Second we have a new dodge move, instead of a full roll its a mellow jump back cut that I like to call The Matador. Once I finally got a stong handle on the fighting it became so much fun to mix and match everything. Especially when an almost nonchalant chain of Matador dodges are executed to evade and slice a whole mob of drowners and nekkers without taking a hit. Reposting is also very strong, and for my tastes very fun. Reposting in this game is a nice mix of an Assassin's Creed meets Chivalry: Medieval warfare style. One can not just sit back and cheeze hold reposte and get it to work. It has to be timed perfectly by watching the enemies attack animations like in Chivalry or kind of like the Batman games. There is also the good old hold and wait block as well, but more things will knock back and stun and just negate a turtle blocking style. The larger monsters in the game often cannot be blocked, reposted or Matador'd. So proper, Witcher 2 style, super roll dodges are needed. Whats best of all is that they are all balanced and stong/weak in certain situations so you can and must use the full arsenal to excel. A wonderful job was done making witcher 2 better, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel into something new and most likely stupid. Combat is great in this game. It might not be the end all be all that some people want, however, I love it.

Along with the combat the new gear is well done also. There is a lot more of it. Instead of daggers Geralt gets a crossbow, much to the discontent of Pope innocent II and indigenous griffins. There are way more things to craft. There are Witcher sets as well that are really powerful. They have upgrade tiers as well, so as you progress you can upgrade them to improve their stats and looks and everything else about them. Each set is based on a Witcher school so each has a playstyle focus. Cat increases raw damage ( my favorite, because you know.... I like to hit dragons for 1000 damage a strike and what not) Griffin increases sign intensity, Bear increases adreniline generation and some others. There are more potions, like Whale which increases underwater breathing and new "potions" called Decoctions, which are made from monster specific mutagens that grant long term buffs. For example a favorite decoction of mine is the Ekhidna. When stamina is used (signs) life is regenerated. Combo that with full adrenaline and a Superior Blizzard potion ( signs dont cost stamina with full adrenaline) you truly become The Beatdown and can juggernaut fight most things in a proper Skellige manner.

The skill trees have been tweaked and changed. They are in 3 familiar arcs, but there are way more to play with. I love trying to mix and match skills into uber builds. I had such a nice time in Witcher 2 doing so. Witcher 3 has even more. The major change, however, is to the mutagens. Instead of specific skills with a slot, there are 4 level locked hub/ slots that branch into 3 skills. So say one wants to use Red Mutagens to get 5% more sword damage. First you drag and drop a sword tree skill into one of the 3 "box" slots then in the mutagen slot, that attaches to that box and the 2 others of that hub, you place your Red Mutagen. Giving you 5% more attack power. When you have 3 sword tree skills in a hub with that Red Mutigen you get 15% overall bonus. It makes it so you need fewer mutagens, but it creates a nice tension between which skills to mutagen and which not to. I still really like Witcher 2's style but I like this one just as much.

The open world is a nice addition that most people, Skyrim fans especially, will like. True, witcher 2 was wayyyyy more linear but I felt it was just right. Not too much that you needed way points and a horse and not too little that it was a Call of Duty level. Witcher 3 goes big though, tons of points of interest all over. Secret caves, bandit camps, places of power, side quests, horse races, barfighting, cities, hamlets, military instillations, wild game, monster nests, Special named uber monsters tied to quests. So to make getting around the world easier the player is given 2 new things; Waypoints and a legendary stallion named Epona..oops I mean Roach! Roach is fun to ride, race and jump with. There are times when the movement can get wonky, in thick shrub or when theres junk to block all directions of movement. I did get stuck every now and then and had to put up with the turn around struggle. To go backwords you have to spin the horse around in a small radius, which can be annoying in the previously mentioned instances. I found jumping a lot made the horse control much easier in those sticky spots. Overall though I found Roach to be fun and necessary. I had a blast jumping and sliding off death drop mountain heights and not taking any damage and doing horse wheelies while sliding down snow mountains. Tony Hawk approved horse. The Waypoints are tried and true, bread and butter waypoints. Usually 1 per hamlet and a bunch in the major city hubs.

The major city in the game is Novigrad and it gave me nostalgic feelings of Baldur's Gate and Amn (Docks, Temple, Merchant Square anyone?) . It is the main city due to its wealth, location, and importance to both sides of the war. A sort of Jerusalem in feel. The look is more modern Assassin's creed style, of course, but it felt... right. Yeah theres more filler homes that I cant go into than I would like, but overall theres plenty of merchants and active npcs and guards to make it feel real and enthralling. Even the smaller towns and villages accomplish this and also do a good job of showing the horrors and ruin left in the wake of the war. Novigrad even pulls a sort of Shadows of Amn with the underworld factions being the true powers in play in the city. A good job is done really getting the city to come to life with the plot as well. The radical agents and ideals of the Temple cracking down on mages ( from the happenings at the summit in Loc Muine in 2.) The criminal power plays. The people just trying to endure. All of it splendidly done.

Here we go. The plot. Amazing. This truly is one of the best stories of all time. Not just for a video game, this is a masterpiece on par with Shakespeare. I laughed, I cried, I felt anger and extreme bloodlust at certain characters. I really felt in alighnment with Geralt. As people continued to give Geralt the jerk around, we both became more angry, soon choices almost turned to butchering innocents to save Ciri. In some places I wish the player did have more freedom to kill. Some Final Fantasy Limit Breaks did occur on some poor bastards.............

Witcher 2 is my favorite game. It is a solid RPG with a lot of action and a brilliant story. It is very mature in a lot of its themes and situations. This game is based on novels written by a Polish authornamed Andrzej Sapkowski. You play as Geralt, a Witcher, or a genetically enhanced monster hunter. They have been described as a kind of warrior monk. Geralt drinks special potions that let him far exceed the abilities of normal humans. These potions are needed to battle the various beasts of the realms. Witchers also have a very limited understanding of magical energy called Witcher's Signs. Basically the Signs are spells, like a fireball and a paralysis trap spell and a few others. Geralt is an interesting character because he is not quite human but hes not a monster either. Due to their methods and abilities, however, many in the world see Witchers as freaks and monsters. Which is really what the game's ideology is all about; the greyness in everyone, not the clear cut black and white. Which to me, is a welcome change from the usual: 1) "hey I'm a good guy I will help you" 2) "Not my problem Kachinsky" 3) F*** YOU F*** FACE," that many other game are notorious for. Geralt is often put in positions of just making a choice, not good or evil, just difficult decisions that have a lot of positives and negatives to them. The story is top notch, and eerily real in many of the stuggles of the world.

Geralt has a set of skill trees (sword, magic, alchemy) that the player can advance in any way. All into one or spliced between the three. Sword fighting is a core mechanic though, so no matter how you play, Geralt will always have two swords. A silver sword for monsters, and a normal sword for humans. There are a few other weapons too but mostly its swords. Depending on the player preference combat can be a bit like the Batman games, or the Assassins Creed games. In some ways it can be like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. Weapons and armor play a big part as well and can effect all of the skill trees. Making the game very balanced between gear and character tree choices. Not to the crazy levels of a Diablo game but enough to make for a very quality rpg.

Mostly though, Witcher 2 is a lot like skyrim. I do not want to bash on skyrim here, it is also a great game that a lot of people absolutely love. I feel, however, that Witcher is far better than skyrim and think the people that love skyrim should try the Witcher. Both games have the northern lore and feel. Witcher 2 is no where near as large or open as skyrim. Witcher is much more linear but the story and combat and the world just feel so much better in every way to me. The enemies and the different races were better portrayed during the game. When I came to a new town in skyrim I did not get that feeling of truly new. Just another town and another barbarian guy leading it. Witcher was totally different, you get the feeling of racial tensions and social tensions in every part. The powers that be are very different and each very developed and very human. As it plays out you really see how the choices alter the world, instead of it coming down to "OK I'm a good guy so I will save good guy town." A lot of games try to get that feeling across of the characters true M.O. and demeanor but fail. Witcher acomplishes this very well. Triple AAA quality. Superb graphics, superb voice acting. I enjoyed every character. There were a few times, of course, where some tones were a bit off but that happens in every game. Overall amazing game. When I learned that this game was made by a small studio in Poland I was shocked.

As someone who never read any of the books and did not play the first game, I found that after a second playthrough the story and everyhting started to click and I realised how well done everything really was. The way the game is, one would want to play it at least twice to see both sides of what is going on.
It seems as though more than a few people found the game to be really difficult. It can be, but now there are plenty of guides and discussions about it. The game has a kind of reverse curve for the difficulty. It is much harder in the beginning due to a lack of points in the skill tree and low grade weapons and armor. By the end though, Geralt is pretty much on par with jezuz. I like games of this nature, because being really stong at the end makes it feel like you really acomplished something.

This game also has subtitles in many languages so I found it made a great gift for steam friends who are not natural to the english language.

I would reccommend this game to anyone. Especially anyone who likes Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, Batman, Chivalry, Darksouls, Lord of the Rings or any games like them.