Games of 2015 no 5: The Witcher 3

[Administrator]

Win my heart and I will forgive you: it's so simple. I don't mind the niggling bits if I love something overall - I can even write them off as charming quirks of character. But abuse my heart and upend my smile and the flaws, well, they become sprouts in my Christmas pudding: disgusting.
The Witcher 3 isn't perfect. How could it realistically fulfil all of those dreams - how can any game, any thing? I thought the combat was repetitive; I thought I'd use more magic, more potions, but really I just dodged and hit. I thought there were too many supplementary activities, and as good as they were, the novelty wore off. By the time I hit Skellige about half-way through the game, those hard grey knuckles of islands, I was fatigued - so I started ignoring things and following the main story blinkered. A burden of riches.
But I loved its characters' ugliness, its world's dirtiness, its equipment's realness. I loved the incidental voices in villages, the farts, the odd things people would say - and the mish-mash of Welsh/Irish/Scottish/Cornish accents in which they said it. And I loved the swearing.
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