I will definitely play RDR2 next year. I have heard nothing but good things. However, I must first beat Witcher 3.
On that note: Many people have told me that Witcher 3 avoids falling into the common traps of open-world games. Specifically, pointless fetch quests. However, while I am really enjoying the game, I have noticed a lot of the same meandering and errand running that sometimes annoys me about open-world games. Still a phenomenal game, just not as revolutionary as people made it out to be. This is all in my humble opinion, of course!
For those who have played Witcher 3: Do you agree with me, or do you think that I am underselling its superiority to other open-world titles?
To me, it is a sum of it's parts. I think the Witcher 3 is fantastic in terms of storyline/quests in terms of open world titles. A lot of choices matter, even in the optional companion quests. Furthermore, there are side quests (completely seperate from the main story) that even take into account choices made in previous unrelated side quests. Same goes for item usage, for example that item that allows you to see ghosts. In most games, such a mechanic would be abused throughout the game, rendering it "gamey", but in the Witcher 3 it has it's use somewhere else where it makes sense in the narrative. It feels organic to me in a way. But it are a lot of small factors that make it stand out to me, not a single large deviation that is easy to put into words, if that makes sense.
Furthermore, I think the world design is fantastic. The map makes sense geographically. For example, Novigrad is not just an extremely well designed city, the area surrounding it also makes sense (farms, poor folks, soldiers on patrol, lower to no enemy count etc.). Overall, I think it was a wise decision to create several separate maps, instead of one. It makes the game feel more like a grand journey (if you stick to the narrative's locations, especially early on). The game also has plenty of linear sections not accessible via the open world, it knows when to be open world or not. Some of the highlights of the Witcher 3 for me where some of the linear main missions.
Offcourse there are a lot of "fetch" quests, but to be honest I feel that is just part of the genre and I am not sure how a game like this would even be without them (it kind of is how life works in general). What I do think is that you should never do a lot of the small sidequests. They are there for if you need a bit of xp or if you want to space the game out, but the smaller quests are typical RPG fare. But even those frequently feature a narrative (most notably the Witcher duties, which make sense for Geralt to actually do). I recently played Dragon Age: Inquisition, Assassins Creed: Syndicate, and Final Fantasy XV and the regular sidequests are horrible compared to The Witcher 3.
And the DLC's are amazing btw.
Topic: Video Game Thread v. Wii4One (Read 483405 times)
