I score games significantly more harshly than many others. By following a 5-star scoring system, I waste only one score on games I don't like (1-star), and one score on games I'm indifferent about (2-stars). That leaves me with three scores left to help me differentiate the games I like. Let's get one thing out of the way off the top. I like The Witcher 3, so the only question I have to ask myself now is: How much do I like it? To figure this out I'm going to have to make some odd comparisons to some of my favourite games. So let's get started.

The Witcher is absolutely not a perfect game. There are issues aplenty with it. Some of them are the types of issues you would expect and usually tolerate from an open world game. It's got some janky bits. You can get caught on terrain here and there, some of the open world systems like character movement or scene triggering can occasionally break down, and overall not as much polish can be given to every square inch of a game world so vast. That being said, The Witcher 3 does a relatively admirable job of, for lack of a better descriptor, keeping its shit together.

There are definitely things to poke at. The race mini games are borderline infuriating because your horse, Roach, decides to hit an invisible wall and stop completely about 2-3 times per race. I can't even explain how frustrating this was. It's even making me a little mad right now. This was especially egregious in relatively long races with invisible walls right at the end. You can almost always tell when it's going to happen too. Any bridge or narrow arch was bound to be a stopping point. This problem was particularly bad, but there were many others that weren't disastrous, but perhaps somewhat annoying or immersion-breaking.

There are a ton of things to collect in this game. From weapons and armor, to potions, notes, books, and crafting materials. Considering how much there is to collect in this world, the inventory system is pretty abysmal. Finding out what items you have, what items you need, and how many is a chore at best. Figuring out which notes you've read is impossible, and often important to progress to the next stage of a quest (NOTE: Post-release patching has actually made the inventory MUCH better, but still not perfect). Additionally, you get the same annoying and often arbitrary limitations on carry weight and vendor funds you see in similar games like Skyrim. Managing inventory when you're out in the field isn't fun. Running around to 10 different vendors looking for one with enough money to buy your stuff isn't fun. These issues are made even worse by the lack of any kind of off-character storage (NOTE 2: Storage was also added post-release, good on you CDPR!)

Another bad part about The Witcher that actually turns into a good part is NPC dialogue. I know it's unavoidable, but hearing the same lines over and over again when talking to vendors and other inconsequential NPCs is really dull. Every open world game has this issue, and The Witcher is no exception. Where the Witcher DOES separate itself is in the variety of character voice acting. I can barely remember a single instance of hearing the same voice actor doing the same voice for multiple characters. This is a big pet peeve of mine that Skyrim was extremely guilty of. The Thieves Guild questline alone in Skyrim had the same voice assigned to two different major characters. The Witcher is an absolute gold standard in this category. Not only was there amazing variety, but the individual voice acting performances were incredible. From major characters down to single-visit side quest characters, the performance of the voice acting was truly amazing.

The quality of the voice acting and the craftsmanship of the world combine to make The Witcher all about the characters. The story is quite good, but it's all in service of the characters and your relationships with them. The classic debate will be about who you choose between Triss and Yennefer, but it extends well beyond that. There are literally dozens of memorable characters that I found myself deeply emotionally attached to. It even speaks to the quality of the character development that a Reddit poll asking "Triss or Yennefer" came back almost exactly 50/50 (Although half those people are crazy. Yennefer is the only true choice). I even liked that Geralt himself was a somewhat pre-defined character and not a blank slate for the player to define. Most RPGs let you BE the character. When I played Skyrim, I WAS my character. When I played Mass Effect, I played Shepard as if I WAS Shepard. When I played The Witcher, I felt like Geralt was separate from myself, and I made decisions based on how I thought HE would have made them. That, in my opinion, is why Yennefer was an obvious choice for me. I really REALLY liked Yennefer, but Geralt loved her, so she was the only choice.

Through the reviewing process I found myself naturally drawing comparisons to Skyrim frequently. This isn't a surprise, as they're both quite similar games. Skyrim is a 5-star game in my books, which is a score I only assign to my all-time greats. Skyrim is definitely one of my all-time favourites, and I keep finding myself comparing The Witcher quite favourably to it. I think I'm a bit of a Skyrim apologist, but I can also admit it had its flaws. Keeping that in mind, and looking at how much I enjoyed and was completely immersed in my time with The Witcher 3, I'm more than happy to welcome it to the pantheon of my all-time best. It truly belongs right alongside Skyrim, Bastion, Dark Souls, Mass Effect 2, and several others as one of the best games I have ever played, flaws and all.

And that's not even mentioning Gwent. Aww yeah, Gwent.