A linear snore with pretty art and good narration.
The game is practically on rails no matter how much it wants to pretend it isn't; there is almost 0 worthwhile exploration to do, and when there is, barely anything you get feels worthwhile. All of the gear you find in the game is identical outside of differentiating weight/defense ratios.
For a second, I thought there was going to be a basebuilding aspect the game or crafting, but there isn't anything of the sort. The currency in the game feels practically pointless due to how much you get of it, and the 'crafting' is buying a blueprints and giving it to the blacksmith and him giving you an item. There's no input from you. The 'gold' currency is just a 'move the plot forward' currency that you need to do sidequests for, which are almost all entirely mandatory because of it.
The combat is just... okay. It's not bad, but it never evolves from basically the very start. You get a couple tools to play with and differing weapons, but honestly it didn't feel worth it to do anything but use whatever gave the biggest increase in the bar for one-handed/two-handed/-ranged. The combat is too simple and barebones, being the same dodge/punish loop the souls games do but with much simpler attacks on average. If you really enjoy slow paced and methodical pacing though, it could hit for you. But that's all.
So, unfortunately, I just don't see what all the reviews are praising here. The game is pretty and geralts narration is cool, but on a mechanical level the game is a plodding chore without any bite to it, there's not a lot of challenge to be found.
