It's Witcher Review time. Story: The games story starts off with pacing difficulties. However these pacing difficulties add to it's believably because in most games you expect to have to be the one that triggers everything. There was only a one time where I lost interest in the story briefly but then the story kicked back and on top of that the story also said "Hey look at these new sidequests you can do. Oh and if you do this sidequest I got another one for you" This may be one of the few times I'll actually like Story padding because of how subplots are woven into them and these subplots are absolutely astonishing. The main questline is astoundingly long and it took me some where from 80-90 hours to beat it but to be fair I was really getting into the side quests When I hear about a side quest I usually end up thinking " Ok lets undertake this uninteresting quick grind and level up for the story." Not in this game. Better yet the game goes so far as to distinguish as to what kind of side quest it is. Sometimes these side quests are tied to some of the choices you made earlier. If you make a certain choice and it turns out to be a fuk up then you have no idea how badly you fuked up. Sometimes it's a simple little one instance type of ordeal. Other times you completely screw over hundreds of people and even character who were very fleshed out in the main story in a sort of butterfly effect. The best part is that the side quests have decisions on the same par with the story decisions. Quests labeled as side quests generally deal with people. You have Witcher Contracts where you are told to hunt a beast to kill it and take it's head as a trophy and these pay very well especially if you haggle with the merchant. It might sound two dimensional at first but when you actually undertake these contracts you learn a story of why this girl is a wraith or what this gravehag did and it almost always pulls on you're heart strings. The fights are not very linear or scripted because you do have choices involved with some of these quests but the one thing they never do is fail to be interesting. The third type of sidequests are called treasure hunts: These can either be detached little go here for good loot quests or they can also provide a story through books which are interesting to read. Gameplay: The gameplay in this game is extremely fun, addictive, and brutal. Combat will vary greatly based upon what skills you choose. You can focus and sword play, signs, or alchemy. Personally I didn't care for alchemy because of how damn cool swordplay and signs become once you unlock abilities. The way the skill tree is set up is that encourages you to reinforce the skills you like and prepare for an upcoming battle or dialogue.You can unlock up to 12 skill slots and you need to place abilities in skill slots for them to become active. If you put a point into blocking arrows and you don't activate the skill then when you try to block an arrow it's goint to hit you. This aspect of the tree I find to be interesting and unique. Next you have mutagen which enhance aspects of your character. I hate mutagens as they often forced me to choose an ability over another in a different tree because the bonuses they provide are so great. I wouldn't mind this so much if I had access to choose any ability I wanted without putting 20 points into a tree just to get that one ability I wanted while I had to forgo upgrades on abilities I liked and pick and equip and ability I didn't like and I often felt like I was wasting points. The combat is very fun and the variety of opponents have different behaviors forcing you to use different tactics instead of button mashing. Sometimes you need to think about who you're going to fight next and apply an oil and other times combat just springs on you. You get forced into situations where you have to think "Should I parry ,should I dodge or should I long dodge? What bomb should I use? Strong attack or fast attack? What sign should I use? What potion should I use?" These are the fundamental questions of every battle and the variety of opponents turns these question into exponentially dividing strategies which rewards the smart player. However when you aren't a smart player and you die I fell like the game just walked up to me and said " Should of used your potions bitch!" The game just feels smug every time I die because in all of the hours of game time I put in the game was always fair. Cheap deaths don't exist in this game and because of this reason I recommend selecting a difficulty that's a little harder than you would normally choose because this game can be very rewarding. I've only a few gripes with the gameplay. The exploration mode feels somewhat clunky as Geralt always seems to walk his first step. Ciri's casual run just looks terrible. I know she's a girl but she's supposed to be this badass with super powers but I can't take her seriously with how just how weak and girly her run looks unless she's sprinting. The Horse doesn't always choose the predictable path When taking advantage of paths. I literally had my horse pull a U turn following a path when I wanted to go straight but for the most part the Horse was beautifully created. The horse in the game is better than the horse in Red Dead Redemption and that's about the highest praise I can think of. The worlds design will make the horse your best friend. The World and Graphics: This world is huge. There are 3 main areas ( Well it's really two but I'm going to count it as 3 because it distinguishes itself), one introduction area, what I consider to be the start to the last act area ( where the story really picks up) and one missed opportunity (looking at you Vizima) All of these areas have a unique and distinctive . Something the devs didn't tell you is that the world is dense and exploration has never felt better. The world also looks amazing and downright beautiful. The weather is also the best I've ever seen in a game (although I do think that wind occurs all to often, I'll make an exception because of how good it looks). The Xbone feature dynamic upscaling and boy is it noticable but they never upscale inconsistently and you can generally have an expectation of when then game will upscale. The only time this game looks bad is during the sex scenes. I don't know what it is but the naked character models just look so awkward and fake when they're kissing and screwing. It's especially strange because the naked characters in the game world at bath houses don't look nearly as bad. Summary: This game is downright amazing. Buy it.