Every mission in the game holds a weight to it, from political espionage to saving a small commune from bandits. Never did I feel bored with the missions whether main or secondary. The sheer variety of missions is staggering, from the mission type to the content, it’s immense and slightly intimidating to tackle. But I think that’s what makes the game’s mission system so strong. One mission in particular that sticks out to me wasn’t even a main mission in the game, investigating an abandoned and haunted tower in the mission “A Tower Full of Mice” still stick out to me as my favorite secondary quest in the entire campaign. The fantasy RPG turns into a spine tingling horror game for this small slice of gameplay. Listening to the terrified memories of ghosts and exploring a dark tower with a creepy lantern emitting a green light set the ambiance for scares that never go so far as to feel cliché. Moving chairs, doors opening and closing, and spectral figures made me regret playing this mission alone in a dark room at 1:45AM.

With all the glitter and gold, there are a few gripes. I don’t know if its buggy or what, but there are moments when Geralt would be in a fight and he fails to automatically draw his sword, leaving me susceptible to a few hits until I realize that I can’t kill a Drowner with my fists alone. While having Roach is a bloody godsend in this huge open world, controlling him is a chore. His responsiveness is uneven at points and the decision to map jump (tap the button) to the same button you use to get off the horse (hold down the button) was a mistake. I would find myself holding it down too long during frantic runs, forcing Geralt to dismount rather than jump the fence. Gwent also didn’t appeal to me much, in the game you have the option to play a card game similar to war, a nice little distraction but when playing Gwent matches tie in to secondary missions, it feels like the developers were forcing on the player to play these matches or miss out on a slice of the story, at least they didn’t force Gwent sequences into main story missions, that would have been a big thumbs down in my book. I feel like mention the underwater mechanics, but underwater gameplay suck in ever game… so it would feel unfair to dock it points for this. But yeah, swimming underwater sucks… nuff said.

The game runs butter smooth save for very sporadic moments when the fps drops. From combat to riding around, I rarely found myself pulled away from the immersion and this is playing on a PS4, which granted wouldn’t run the game as reliably smooth as it would on say a high end PC running ultra settings.

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt has made me want to play previous games in the series, even prompting me to pick up the first novel from Andrzej Sapkowski to get more of the world’s lore. While I wasn’t onboard for all of the games in the Witcher series, even with only playing this final chapter in the tale of Geralt of Rivia, I found myself immersed in this epic fantasy tale… wishing I took the time to play through previous installments of the series. This is an absolute must play for any fantasy RPG fan, and hell… for any video game fan. This is one game you don’t want to pass you by, else you may find yourself jumping into your own Tardis to jump back to meet your 2015 self to deliver a smack and a “play this damn game!” Batman-esque demand.