finally got around to playing this after falling in love with the series through witcher 3 for PS4, and while yeah, it wasn't identical to the polished (no pun intended) game i'd come to love in comparison, it definitely still holds it own and definitely was worth jumping into.

BUGS (windows 11, i9 14900hx cpu) after installing, game wouldn't get past the wolf icon after running launcher; found an easy fix here: https://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3091331801 that worked perfectly

for anyone like me (who always starts new franchises with the latest and greatest, then struggles to get into the earlier titles), here's my breakdown:

STORY (8/10): this is like, 50% of the the reason that i got into the witcher in the first place,and this game definitely doesn't fall back at all on this front. characters are lifelike and have a fair amount of complexity to them, ewith unpredictable plot turns and tumultuous intercharacter relationships that definitely had me empathizing with (almost) all the various sides and factions. (i say almost, mostly due to the fact that the king doesn't have any redeeming qualities in my eyes, but, like, i'm also a maoist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt here)
i've played through the story once, but this game DEFINITELY was designed to be played through multiple times, as joining other factions reveals areas, quests, dialogue, and cutscenes that are NOT available otherwise; it's basically an entirely new game from act 2 onward, if you choose to side with a different faction (i.e kinda like the way NIER automata's story develops, but requiring multiple playthroughs instead of just continuing a single save file)
was a little bummed with the final conversation with the "big bad guy", and kinda felt like his backstory fell a little flat, but that's an opinion of mine that apparently doesn't seem to be shared by most of the online community, so i'll give it a pass.

COMBAT (7/10): active, dynamic live combat in a moderately complex rpg shell, lots of perks to pick and choose between, with a large assortment of items to find or use to develop a personalized playing style. i personally went through as a spellsword (i found myself almost exclusively relying on igni or aard in combat, save for the one boss battle that REQUIRED yrden; axii was useful to develop for use in dialogue (though i won't discredit it's combat use as well for others, it's defs not nerfed, i just wanted to be a crazed pyromaniac with swords lmao), but i never once actually found myself using quen, as i could just as easily parry or dodge anything it would've protected me from for a fraction of the stamina cost.
if you're like me, and like to grind and overlevel yourself to an absurd degree, this game is most definitely for you. while it doesn't take crafting as far witcher 3 did, weapons and armour can be modded alongside character perks and mutagens until the game honestly gets kinda broken. by the end of my first playthrough, most of my resistences were so absurdly high that enemy attacks either did no damage, or healed my character by small degrees (especially during the late game dragon battle, in which i was getting knocked down constantly, but never once taking damage in the fight).
the biggest issue that i had with the combat system was the parrying mechanic, as during most of the game (before upgrading perks far enough), even during a perfect parry or riposte, you still take damage to your character ON TOP of using up valuable stamina, stamina that reduces your damage output the further it becomes depleted, leading to me almost exclusively dodge rolling (which for some reason, does not require stamina?), though would've liked to use it if it weren't so poorly implemented.

WORLD/EXPLORATION (4/10): this was my biggest frustration with the game. semi open world, but DID NOT have a fast traveling mechanic, leading me to find myself traveling back and forth over the same all-too-familiar areas time and again, just to rinse and repeat with each additional quest, it definitely got old REAL quick. witcher senses also take a frustratingly long time to refresh too, so when grinding for ingredients and items, i very often found myself running a few feet before stopping and resting until i could scan the area again, as the lighting system in this game makes it pretty hard to find things otherwise. tertiarilly, merchants pay ABSURDLY low prices when selling items, which they then offer to sell back to you at anywhere from 300-1000 TIMES the selling price, making grinding for items an unfortunately necessary ordeal in order to upgrade equipment. that being said, once ingredients were acquired, crafting prices, on the other hand, were actually pretty reasonably priced, and i think i spent max of 200 gold on one of the endgame swords? finally, quest markers just straight up don't exist for many of the optional quests, which, i mean is kinda fine for the most part, as the different areas aren't absurdly large to search, but several of the quests were a SLOG to get through because of it, and i found myself caving and looking at guides to finally figure them out after hours spent trying myself (particularly the endrega nests/cocoons, and the missing drunk guy quests).

OVERALL: (a soft) 7/10 not perfect, kinda quirky, and definitely a little dated, but worth putting at least 40 hours into, and probably another 40 more later on down the road when i decide the play it again differently.

finally got around to playing this after falling in love with the series through witcher 3 for PS4, and while yeah, it wasn't identical to the polished (no pun intended) game i'd come to love in comparison, it definitely still holds it own and definitely was worth jumping into. BUGS (windows 11, i9 14900hx cpu) after installing, game wouldn't get past the wolf icon after running launcher; found an easy fix here: https://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3091331801 that worked perfectly for anyone like me (who always starts new franchises with the latest and greatest, then struggles to get into the earlier titles), here's my breakdown: STORY (8/10): this is like, 50% of the the reason that i got into the witcher in the first place,and this game definitely doesn't fall back at all on this front. characters are lifelike and have a fair amount of complexity to them, ewith unpredictable plot turns and tumultuous intercharacter relationships that definitely had me empathizing with (almost) all the various sides and factions. (i say almost, mostly due to the fact that the king doesn't have any redeeming qualities in my eyes, but, like, i'm also a maoist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt here) i've played through the story once, but this game DEFINITELY was designed to be played through multiple times, as joining other factions reveals areas, quests, dialogue, and cutscenes that are NOT available otherwise; it's basically an entirely new game from act 2 onward, if you choose to side with a different faction (i.e kinda like the way NIER automata's story develops, but requiring multiple playthroughs instead of just continuing a single save file) was a little bummed with the final conversation with the "big bad guy", and kinda felt like his backstory fell a little flat, but that's an opinion of mine that apparently doesn't seem to be shared by most of the online community, so i'll give it a pass. COMBAT (7/10): active, dynamic live combat in a moderately complex rpg shell, lots of perks to pick and choose between, with a large assortment of items to find or use to develop a personalized playing style. i personally went through as a spellsword (i found myself almost exclusively relying on igni or aard in combat, save for the one boss battle that REQUIRED yrden; axii was useful to develop for use in dialogue (though i won't discredit it's combat use as well for others, it's defs not nerfed, i just wanted to be a crazed pyromaniac with swords lmao), but i never once actually found myself using quen, as i could just as easily parry or dodge anything it would've protected me from for a fraction of the stamina cost. if you're like me, and like to grind and overlevel yourself to an absurd degree, this game is most definitely for you. while it doesn't take crafting as far witcher 3 did, weapons and armour can be modded alongside character perks and mutagens until the game honestly gets kinda broken. by the end of my first playthrough, most of my resistences were so absurdly high that enemy attacks either did no damage, or healed my character by small degrees (especially during the late game dragon battle, in which i was getting knocked down constantly, but never once taking damage in the fight). the biggest issue that i had with the combat system was the parrying mechanic, as during most of the game (before upgrading perks far enough), even during a perfect parry or riposte, you still take damage to your character ON TOP of using up valuable stamina, stamina that reduces your damage output the further it becomes depleted, leading to me almost exclusively dodge rolling (which for some reason, does not require stamina?), though would've liked to use it if it weren't so poorly implemented. WORLD/EXPLORATION (4/10): this was my biggest frustration with the game. semi open world, but DID NOT have a fast traveling mechanic, leading me to find myself traveling back and forth over the same all-too-familiar areas time and again, just to rinse and repeat with each additional quest, it definitely got old REAL quick. witcher senses also take a frustratingly long time to refresh too, so when grinding for ingredients and items, i very often found myself running a few feet before stopping and resting until i could scan the area again, as the lighting system in this game makes it pretty hard to find things otherwise. tertiarilly, merchants pay ABSURDLY low prices when selling items, which they then offer to sell back to you at anywhere from 300-1000 TIMES the selling price, making grinding for items an unfortunately necessary ordeal in order to upgrade equipment. that being said, once ingredients were acquired, crafting prices, on the other hand, were actually pretty reasonably priced, and i think i spent max of 200 gold on one of the endgame swords? finally, quest markers just straight up don't exist for many of the optional quests, which, i mean is kinda fine for the most part, as the different areas aren't absurdly large to search, but several of the quests were a SLOG to get through because of it, and i found myself caving and looking at guides to finally figure them out after hours spent trying myself (particularly the endrega nests/cocoons, and the missing drunk guy quests). OVERALL: (a soft) 7/10 not perfect, kinda quirky, and definitely a little dated, but worth putting at least 40 hours into, and probably another 40 more later on down the road when i decide the play it again differently.