Current Events > I want to love video games again: Dark Souls 3, or The Witcher 3, or..?

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Witcher has always interested me, I love open world games where's lots to travel and explore. It's the only game I know virtually nothing about.

Dark Souls III was hard as balls, and I'm A) a bad gamer. My reflexes are slow and my moment-to-moment problem solving is bad. But I'm also B) a patient gamer when it comes to grinding. The different between this and say, Monster Hunter, is that your grinding pays off very apparently with new materials you obtain. In Dark Souls, it's pretty hard to quantify your own growth. I stopped playing when I got to the Road of Sacrifices because I couldn't get past it.

DR1, 2 and 3: I played DR1 almost 6 or 7 years ago, so I'd play it again before diving into 2. Loved, loved, DR1.

FFXV: Started this, loved it, got to the end, another game came up, never bothered to go back. This is the game I'm closest to beating I think.

LiEat is some cute indie game made on RPGMaker that I could probably hash out in a day or two.

The Outer Worlds, I think I'm almost done? And every month I don't beat it is another month I have to pay for Gamepass on PC lol. This one is probably the most fiscally appropriate one.

I just feel completely disillusioned by video games and need something that will make me love them again. I know inside that I do, but I just can't get over this depressive lump of laziness.

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Dark Souls is my favorite game series, so I will never NOT recommend it, x.x

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Since you're close to beating it: Final Fantasy the Fifteenth.

Then Witcher 3 because it is such a beautiful, fun game.

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PS: You can get the original Witcher game 100% free from GOG: https://www.gog.com/gwent-welcome-bonus (I believe that option still exists, it's been around for a couple of years). If you do get it, you should definitely get a speed enhancement mod for it.

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I really enjoyed Witcher 3, but when putting it up against Dark Souls 3, I give the edge to Dark Souls 3.

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I honestly feel labelling Witcher 3 as an open world game is an insult to it. It's such an incredibly rich game, with so much detail and plot and care put into every single thing. It feels nothing like the empty open world genre where you just do a bunch of repetitive fetch quests across a large map. It feels every bit as rich as a shorter plot focused game, but somehow it just has hundreds of hours of content. The characters are complex and memorable, and your choices have weight and impact on every quest.

There's 36 different endings to the game, let that sink in. There's what, 350 quests in the game and it never really feels like you're doing the same thing twice. It's an RPG for people who hate RPGs.

The expansions (particularly Blood and Wine) are so vast that it feels unfair to call it an expansion. Blood and Wine may as well be a sequel.

Sorry for sounding like a fanboy, but I really think it has to be played. I was gobsmacked by it. It was a groundbreaking videogame achievement.

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Witcher 3.
I played it for the first time all of April because of a stay-at-home order / lockdown in my state due to COVID-19.
Damn great game.
It felt a little boring and slow at first. But once I got to the Bloody Baron and all the Bloody Baron related stuff, that's when the game started to get AMAZING!!!
Also, I'm do NOT normally do side quests in games. However, this is one of those games where I would STRONGLY recommend doing the side quests because a lot of the side quests are freaking brilliant. In other words, if you are one of those people who only wants to play the main quests and ignore the side quests, do NOT do it with this game. Play the side quests, they are that damn awesome (and yes, they do strongly relate to the main quest. Honestly, many of those side quests should have been in the main quest).

Anyway, I spent the entire month of April just playing Witcher 3.
Took me about 100 hours. HOWEVER, it was an extremely well paced 100 hours (this isn't one of those games where you have to do mindless grinding for hours which artificially extends the game or do stupid filler bullshit like find acorns... Playstation 2's Legend of Alon D'ar's "find 30 acorns" bullshit comes to mind. LMAO) and those 100 hours are going to go by very quickly once you start getting into the game. Once again, you might find it a little boring at first, but things start to get interesting during the Bloody Baron missions.

On a side note, I have not played the optional Witcher 3 DLC (Blood & Wine) but it's something I plan to do later this year (after I finished the main quest to Witcher 3 I started the month of May with Final Fantasy 7 remake).
So yes, go play Witcher 3. Awesome game!!!

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I am quite willing to echo other posters' endorsements of Witcher 3. It is an excellent game and at times, tugs on one's heartstrings far more than any video game should be capable of.

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GrandConjuraton posted...

Dark Souls is my favorite game series, so I will never NOT recommend it, x.x

boxington posted...

I give the edge to Dark Souls 3.

Do you think fun will outweigh the frustration for a bad gamer such as myself?

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if you're not familiar with the Souls series, I feel like Witcher 3 is more accessible to the average gamer, and the story, writing, character interactions, world, etc. are all really compelling.

but for straight up gameplay, I prefer Dark Souls 3. it also has a great world, art direction, lore, and all that, though.

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boxington posted...

I feel like Witcher 3 is more accessible to the average gamer, and the story, writing, character interactions, world, etc. are all really compelling.

Yeah, the point is to get me back into games, not be afraid of them >_>

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There's nothing scary about Witcher 3 lol, it's a really solid experience. I do recommend playing it on the hardest difficulty just because you eventually do get the combat rhythm down and the challenge makes it more exciting before that happens. But the difficulty scales pretty well, you can still enjoy it a lot as a straight up adventure game on easier difficulties.

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Can i change difficulty during the playthrough if hard proves too difficult for a shitty gamer such as myself?

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Pretty sure you can, yeah

Yes it's in the options and you can switch it on the fly.

If you're on PC there's also a mod that turns every combat encounter into a game of Gwent >_>

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Hexenherz posted...

If you're on PC there's also a mod that turns every combat encounter into a game of Gwent >_>

Is Gwent fun or tedious? I didn't mind Triple Triad.

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Senran Kagura Peach Ball

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Lol I wouldn't recommend using the mod for a playthrough of the game, it was more of a gimmick thing.

It's a really fun game on its own right though. You can buy cards from various vendors and also challenge certain characters to matches to win more unique cards.

For a side activity in a game it's really well thought out imo. They even developed a full standalone version of it, too.

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I'll probably not play it on my first play though.
New Vegas is one of my favourite games and I haven't ever played a game of Caravan.

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Yeah from what I remember it's totally optional, but I think it's worth checking out. It also has its own difficulty slider!!

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ApherosyLove posted...

Is Gwent fun or tedious? I didn't mind Triple Triad.

Personally really like Gwent. Great mini game. But you absolutely need to buy some half decent cards. If you ever see cards at a shop, snag them there.

Additionally, you get a random card every time to beat an NPC until you exhaust that pool of cards. Try to play and beat every player you find if you want all the cards. Of course feel free to skip this if you don't like the card game lol.

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ApherosyLove posted...

Is Gwent fun or tedious? I didn't mind Triple Triad.

I thought Gwent sucked...at first. It felt initially like they were shoehorning in a way to make money with merchandise, and to begin with your cards suck so you lose a lot of games and don't understand the mechanics. Mainly though I was a bit dubious about playing a AAA fantasy action RPG only to waste time playing a ruddy card game.

And eventually I became a total addict. And now I am replaying the game primarily because I want to play more gwent. Gwent is awesome. And it's fun to go around collecting cards, like macabre pokemon.

There's a couple of times in the main story where you play gwent and winning has a better outcome, so there's some incentive to be good at it. Really, it's just about collecting a good deck and understanding how to use it.

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