So I finally got around to playing this. I've been meaning to do this for the longest time and I've tried a few times but could never get into the game. This is like my third time playing the game and I just sat down and burned through the game this week. It's much longer than I expected, I'm sure I clocked over 100 hours(Steam has me at 147 but that's almost certainly off). I guess the issue was that I wasn't feeling the combat at all initially and thought it was pretty poor. That coupled with the poor production values and the semi-weird start, made it hard for me to be invested initially. There was also some mods that I used that without them, I would have probably said "Fuck it". The key one being the Meditation mod in that it allowed me to meditate wherever I felt like instead of designated places. It would have been way too aggravating if I had to run to a campsite every time I wanted to skip time in this game. Anyway, after the rough start, I really started to enjoy the game around the 2nd Act. Weirdly enough, it reminded me of Jade Empire. I'm probably going to be lynched for this but I actually liked Jade Empire and the game rekindled similar feelings despite the games having very tenuous links at best. I think it had to do with the mythology aspect(Witcher being more Arthurian while Empire is obviously Eastern), the combat system, the adventure stuff in open areas, and some of the environments.I suppose I should start with my complaints. The voice acting is piss poor. I usually never care about this stuff but good god at Geralt's VA. I understand he's supposed to be emotionless to an extent but the monotone VA work felt like he was just reading off a bunch of lines. Some of the other characters had some laughably bad VA work as well. It was really distracting at times and helped to kill the mood in a few scenes. I will say some of the lines worked because of how monotone Gerald was, so many lines also just are flat. The animations are also somewhat poor but it's a RPG from 2007 so I can forgive that much more easily.The open area segments of this game reminded me of the complaints from Mass Effect 1. Mainly the fucking swamps. These large ass areas that you have to traverse through and are filled with enemies. There were multiple times while playing the game where I wished there was an autorun toggle as I was doing nothing but running through areas. The swamps did nothing but made me feel like the gameplay time was being artificially inflated. Utterly boring at times and annoying at others. While I do like open area stuff like this in RPGs, they can quickly become boring if you're spending six hours, on just running around, in the same area.I should say though that despite me bagging on the swamps, the art direction there is gorgeous. In fact the art direction throughout the game is pretty solid, I just wish they didn't reuse the same areas/assets so much and that I didn't spend so much time in these general areas. I especially loved the concept art that popped up during the loading screeens.In the end, I liked the combat a lot. I had some issues with it initially in that I thought it was boring but it does kinda open up and the flourishes later are fun to watch. When I stated earlier that the combat reminded me of Jade Empire, I think it was the freeflowing aspect in a RPG. It's awesome to fight two armored humans with a sword and midcombo switch to a quick style to fight the Elf that is behind me. At times it did feel kinda clunky like when I had humans and monsters in the same group as you have to switch swords for the enemy type. Speaking of swords and armor, there was a serious dearth in armor. There's only like three different armors total in the game. There's more variety in the swords but most of them are worthless. There are a lot of useless items in the game in general and it kinda reminds me of Skyrim where there might be three different types of bread that you pick up. Makes item management a pain in the ass and that's despite me using a mod that allows me to access a secondary inventory at all times.The standout component of the game though is the writing. There is a lot of trope deconstruction in the game and it threw me for a loop sometimes such as the ending of Act 1. In a good amount of RPGs, it's only natural to help the locals with whatever stupid quests they have. Then at the end of Act 1, you find out the villagers are awful scumbags and that the demon dog is in the right to kill these assholes. The politics aspect was pretty enjoyable as it gave the sense there were larger events at play during the game other than the events you are directly involved with, that helps a lot with immersion, mainly knowing that the world functions with or without you. There was also a big importance placed on the power of illusions and I found that pretty awesome when it played into some of the twists such as with Raymond. I thought it meshed very well together with the political overlay and created this web where the player and Geralt don't know who to trust or even what is real or not. Even with Vincent, the player's first impression of the man is some corrupt fat asshole and it turns out later that he turns into this hulking beast at night that is actually trying to help the poor. Speaking of Vincent, some of the sidequests are long as fuck and are pretty involved which I enjoyed a lot. It helped give a good sense of freedom to the player and also made it feel less railroaded, in that there was something to break up the main storyline. Then there is the consequence system, something Bioware has decided to fuck off with. Bioware could relearn a few things from having real decision points in their game. It really makes your decisions feel critical when you know you're going to miss out on something. Also when your decisions are later thrown back in your face in the epilogue, it makes the player feel as if they helped make that world, for better or worse. There is a real sense of roleplaying in the game as the player is shaping Geralt's identity through their actions. There isn't any bullshit morality meter or even right or wrong decisions but mainly the player having to choose through a bunch of crappy options and trying to make the best decision possible based on their own personal stances. This really stands out especially due to the complexity of the characters and how they might do despicable things but also be somewhat charismatic such as King Foltest. The writing, and game by extension, isn't judging anyone, whether that is the characters or the player.The best bit though is with Alvin. So I spend a decent amount of the game protecting this kid that I don't have any sort of attachment to and it turns out that he's the damn Grandmaster. Like holy shit. It really puts many of the earlier scenes in the game into a completely different perspective. At the end of Act 5, I was thinking that the Grandmaster, as the main villain, was seemingly being evil just for kicks. That was kinda disappointing considering how well everything was written. Then bam, the epilogue. The epilogue pretty much gave a solid reason for the Grandmaster to be doing what he was doing and really helped to flesh him out. Him turning out to be Alvin then just makes the whole game so much better, especially due to the stuff in Act 4 where he keeps saying he'll remember certain stuff and he spits back out to you at the end of the game.I will say though that I did feel the writing was seemingly a bit too referential to other materials at times as there are bits where it seems like the player is supposed to know certain things and you kinda don't. It's mostly background stuff so it's not that big of a deal. I also found some of the dialogue bits a bit unwieldy in that I thought they were never going to end and they just weren't interesting. It felt like reading some of the uninteresting bits of Tolkien at times. I'm sure some people love that stuff but it didn't do anything for me.My favorite segment of the game was probably Act 4 in that I liked the change of scenery, especially considering how much time I spent in those swamps and town. It was nice to see a somewhat normal countryside and village. I also liked just being a Witcher in Act 4 in that there were no politics and it was just you being a badass and hunting things down. Then there is the Lady of the Lake/Holy Grail stuff which scratched the Arthurian history buff in me.In short, I really enjoyed this despite my earlier misgivings. While I still think the game has flaws, it was a fun adventure.