RoyaleDuke
Banned
Finally playing through it now, since I found the easy way of getting my lost progress back, developer console commands! I had already replayed the vanilla game a 1/4 of the way through and found most of my oils/bombs/etc that I needed as well as doing the master armorer/swordmaker quests before I said fuck it, and used console commands to get my my character progression where I wanted it to be so I could play Blood and Wine.
Anyway, the fucking visuals and identity of Toussaint is probably the best of any in the genre, but that isn't saying much really since the core game is so incredibly strong, every area of the base game has a distinct vibe to it and a uniquely organic feel. It's believably grim, being in the middle of a war, Novigrad and Oxenfurt are both shiteholes.
Toussaint though? Holy fucking shit you guys.
We're home brehs. The idyllic, Tolkien, fairytale world of Toussaint, toussaint whose culture and people seem divided between France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. A wonderous place that is seemingly the nexus of all good things, but underneath it all there is a festering darkness, which again reminds us of the grounded, gritty world of Geralt of Rivia.
Geralt as a character is interesting, I kind of tried playing him as a dick in the vanilla game since my first two playthroughs of the game (the second one for Heart of Stone), I played a very chivalrous Geralt which is something I tend to do in a lot of games since I tend to try to be a decent person in real life, and honestly when you get to places like Novigrad and Oxenfurt and the greater Velen area it is so hard for me to not have a conscience and actually try to make it a better place.
Blood and Wine I've taken somewhere in the middle, since well these people are rich so they should pay for good witchering services. Whereas most of the people in Velen have a hard enough time just trying to stay alive.
Toussaint is a completely different place, nearly devoid of threat. It's strange in how the peace is almost alien, after spending so much time in the war ravaged world of the regular game. Also, the region of Toussaint is fucking HUGE, this has to be close in size to a large portion of the main game. I'm not too familiar on actual size talk, but a couple of my images above illustrate the distance between certain places in the world.
Namely the really neat subtle visual nod to BOTW.
Is probably one of my favorite recent easter eggs in all of gaming.
I guess the other big thing aside from visuals(The above images were all 1080P, Ultra with Phyx on, no physx Hair AA), would be the story, it has a lot of weird existentialistic tint to it moreso than even the base game, especially when a certain character that I didn't think would ever see the light of day returning in a really interesting way. Which I won't spoil but most people know what I'm talking about.
I love long, existentialistic conversations with depth between characters and there is tons of that here, there is also that familiar sense of twisting of familiar fairytale lore and stereotypes in very smart ways that the base game already managed.
Also the music is absolutely fucking amazing, all of the gwent themes for Blood and Wine are incredible and I need them in the Open Beta card game. NOW.
So people of Neogaf, what do you think of The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine?
Anyway, the fucking visuals and identity of Toussaint is probably the best of any in the genre, but that isn't saying much really since the core game is so incredibly strong, every area of the base game has a distinct vibe to it and a uniquely organic feel. It's believably grim, being in the middle of a war, Novigrad and Oxenfurt are both shiteholes.
Toussaint though? Holy fucking shit you guys.
We're home brehs. The idyllic, Tolkien, fairytale world of Toussaint, toussaint whose culture and people seem divided between France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. A wonderous place that is seemingly the nexus of all good things, but underneath it all there is a festering darkness, which again reminds us of the grounded, gritty world of Geralt of Rivia.
Geralt as a character is interesting, I kind of tried playing him as a dick in the vanilla game since my first two playthroughs of the game (the second one for Heart of Stone), I played a very chivalrous Geralt which is something I tend to do in a lot of games since I tend to try to be a decent person in real life, and honestly when you get to places like Novigrad and Oxenfurt and the greater Velen area it is so hard for me to not have a conscience and actually try to make it a better place.
Blood and Wine I've taken somewhere in the middle, since well these people are rich so they should pay for good witchering services. Whereas most of the people in Velen have a hard enough time just trying to stay alive.
Toussaint is a completely different place, nearly devoid of threat. It's strange in how the peace is almost alien, after spending so much time in the war ravaged world of the regular game. Also, the region of Toussaint is fucking HUGE, this has to be close in size to a large portion of the main game. I'm not too familiar on actual size talk, but a couple of my images above illustrate the distance between certain places in the world.
Namely the really neat subtle visual nod to BOTW.
Is probably one of my favorite recent easter eggs in all of gaming.
I guess the other big thing aside from visuals(The above images were all 1080P, Ultra with Phyx on, no physx Hair AA), would be the story, it has a lot of weird existentialistic tint to it moreso than even the base game, especially when a certain character that I didn't think would ever see the light of day returning in a really interesting way. Which I won't spoil but most people know what I'm talking about.
I love long, existentialistic conversations with depth between characters and there is tons of that here, there is also that familiar sense of twisting of familiar fairytale lore and stereotypes in very smart ways that the base game already managed.
Also the music is absolutely fucking amazing, all of the gwent themes for Blood and Wine are incredible and I need them in the Open Beta card game. NOW.
So people of Neogaf, what do you think of The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine?
