Tafdolphin wrote:The Witcher 3 Blood and Wine
After 4 years, 3 countries and more personal change than in any other time in my life, I finally finished the last piece of Witcher content.
And I don't know how to feel.
4 years is no exaggeration. This is a game I'd go back to time and time again, often just to exist in the world. In spare moments I'd fire it up and just walk around Novigrad, or Ard Skellig, taking in an atmosphere that no other game has managed to conjure before or since. Just watching the people go about their circular, systematic chores and lives. I'd maybe do a side mission or two, very rarely a main quest, stringing everything out as I didn't want the experience to end. I didn't want to be in a world where there was no more of the Witcher for me to play. But I slowly made progress, completing the main campaign about 2 years back then starting in on the expansions.
I started playing back when I lived in Australia, on a crappy grey-market TV propped up on a chest of drawers. When I moved back to the UK the game came with me. And now I've finished it all here in France. I don't think any other playthrough has been with me as long as this one.
The game itself is now my favourite ever, I think. My memories of playing through FFVII in 98, getting all my characters to max level, will probably never be topped as my favourite gaming experience but without the benefit of childhood nostalgia this came damn close. Despite its clunky combat and often awkward controls CDPR created an honest to god world here. Perhaps not the biggest, perhaps not the most interactive, but they managed to make everything feel more real than any other game. And the writing...perhaps the best in this generation. Main quests like The Bloody Baron typically receive the most praise, but the level of consistency is stunning, with barely a single interaction being anything less than superlative.
I'm genuinely sad it's over. Since its announcement I assumed some of this would be countered by anticipation for the followup of Cyberpunk, but although I'm still excited for that game the missteps CDPR continue to make around it is deeply troubling. But I suppose we'll see about all that when it arrives next year.
But for now, I'm just happy this game exists and that I have the memories of it I do.
Good post. Keen to get into the series, I have 2 but I am right at the start of it.
Anyway -
Borderlands 2 - and this is a long one for me actually clocking in at 2 years and six months. Admittedly this is more to do with me dipping in and out of it then anything else.
Avoiding all discussion of Pitchford entirely, Extremely good. I'm probably the last person on this board to finish it so I wont go into details of the game play but it built on the first ones solid foundation brilliantly, the story and humor really take it to another level and you can lose hours in it without even realising. Hopefully 3 can address some of the more dated aspects of it such as the slightly clunky fast travel system some annoying navigation issues and the Co-op level scaling, or more accurately lack of it. Looking forward to it now, I think a shall make an effort to get the DLC played before September.