I can say this game could be definitely worth the money - if it was released in a polished state. I give it a recommendation just to show appreciation for all incredible the work done by environment artists, actors, writers, level designers and people involved in the narrative development.
However, I couldn't say the same kind words about game designers and the job game does on the gameplay in general. I play it on Duelist mode and all the little problems with gameplay design on this difficulty are really fun killers.
First of all, even with limited stamina you can sustain dodge chains indefinitely. There is no penalty for amount of loot you carry or equipment type. So on lvl6, during nighttime I slaughtered Stonewood camp and freed the guy easy. This was kind of fun, considering I die from 2-3 regular attacks and one from bosses, but felt bit cheesy. This is probably the least of my worries, but I felt they could have done a better job making higher difficulty into a more explore-gear-up mode, for a story-heavy game.
Next is automatic target locking. It is insanely frustrating as it is followed by a camera lock that limits your field of view. But then comes the next problem - after certain abilities (esp control ones), your lock automatically moves to next target. So I stun the dude, want to mash attack... BAM miss. I am not sure how this went past testing, but definitely needs fixing. Having played Lies of P and Wukong without hard-lock and never had the kind of issues I had with camera movement in this game.
On top of this, you can get stuck in between two tiny chairs and banged from all sides while you are trying to piano blocks and dodges. Not sure who came up with an idea of having character strict follow props collision rather than flow around such areas - but this is not fun at all. Same two chairs pose no difficulty for Coen while exploring. Fighting multiple enemies is thus extremely dependent on the terrain.
No poise on enemies makes no sense either. Yes I can control them a bit with active abilities or riposte, but not by hitting them 5 times with my sword in the face.
Also no idea why on earth Inventory/Abilities UI can be activated during combat. You can't use potions or food not added to quickslots while in combat. But you can accidentally open UI to ruin your flow.
One thing I never expected is that Witcher 3 devs will fail to deliver satisfying combat mechanics. Yet this game is bordeline in that regard. It has too much - witchcraft, swordmastery, vampire, all thrown at you in a very short time span. Yet you can do most of the job in human with dirty trick and in vampire with Claw Art + Blood Drain, while throwing dodges and blocks around.
All this above is topped with the cherry of you spending precious time resource on leveling abilities and acquiring new perks. This has to be removed from the game, it is absolutely insane to upgrade a passive skill and shift into the night right after.
Finally, unlike many UE5 releases I played recently, game crashes quite often after you reload in certain locations and stuttering is annoying as well. But I'm sure they will figure this part out no problem.
Please polish the gameplay - blocking and riposte must be doable when fighting multiple enemies, instead of getting backstabbed. Like special abilities execute with full "cinematic mode" - but block is sure a high risk commitment, especially considering dodging is so easy. Fix collision on props. Fix target lock camera, remove the lock transfer on crowd control. TLDR, enable smooth combat flow like in Witcher 3 rather then this situation when I'm fighting Coen and his opponents at the same time lol.
Last thing - limit inventory space. Having 200kg worth of inventory on Duelist makes no sense. I want to make choices and be motivated to go sell my stuff, rather than carry a truckload's worth and still run with lightspeed...
But despite all said above, still 10/10 game please go buy, just don't play it on higher difficulties until it gets polished enough / stutter fixed.
