Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Nintendo Switch

As expected

So far I have purchased Witcher 3 six times. Half were gifts for friends. Still got my moneys worth.It is a steller fantasy game with a vast world with a wonderful story with amazing characters. You play as Geralt who is one of the least interesting characters in the game. In all honesty it is the side characters that really pulled me in. The Crookback Bog section with the Baron and Jonny are some highlights.Gameplay is more bland. Dodge, slash, magic, eat, and repeat. Block can be added with humans but is useless against monters. Its not bad but lacking compared to BotW in terms of gameplay.This is when I would talk about graphics and sound. The Witcher 3 is one of the best looking games when modding on PC today. The xb1x looks great, the PS4 looks good but suffers from fps drops like the og xbone. Then theres Switch. The Switch features dynamic resolution of 720 docked, but dips well below. On PC you can't even replicate it. The textures are muddy, the vegetation are poor, load times are long, and pop in is glaring, but this is all understandable seeing how this system only uses 18 watts. Less than a TV.But for me its the fps drops that bother me. The Switch is brought to its knees here. For those of us on PC we could tell you this game is less reliant on ram or vram and more on raw CPU and GPU performance. The Switch just can not stream data fast enough and the cpu is getting hammered in sections. There is little chance CDPR can get anymore blood from this stone with a patch. Update 2/20: there are a bunch of new graphics options. Most are interesting to play with, but two are really useful. Depth of Field can be turned off as it does give you a few extra frames and the resolution is sub hd to 720p max you may want to mess with. But a major game changer is Sharpening. It should be an option on everything. Typically on PC we use post effects to enable this on games under 4k. It boost clarity to an amazing degree with little hit to performance. Turn this ON HIGH. With this option it may be the prettiest game on the Switch. Thank you CDPR for these extras.So if you are playing docked only please come to your senses. 32gig cart is great and all, but this is by far the most expensive and weakest version. If you play portable or hybrid than the competition does not really exist. So by all means buy it. All my criticisms are still there and blurrier but... Its Witcher on the GO! It is one of the best looking Switch games and by far the most ambitious. Not to mention it is one of the best games ever. So go out to jury duty, weddings, trips, see family, hop on a unicorn with Yen, save some orphans, and kill some griffins.

I’m new to this franchise. Never played it on any gaming console other than Switch. It’s a very fun game to play. Something outside the box for sure. Great characters, fun plots, and addicting game play. An open world RPG that holds your hand the whole way. That said, it’s down right blurry. It looks like a PS2 game at times. Sure, it’s amazing that CDPR put this insanely huge game on one switch cartridge with all of the extra DLC, but at what cost? And keep in mind I have never even seen how apparently amazing this game can look on a PC or even a PS4. I hoped it would look at least as good as Skyrim does on Switch but not even close. At times I can’t even tell Geralt’s body from the trees. It’s annoying and hurts my eyes and graphics aren’t even that important to me. That said, this is still addicting, pretty much glitch free FOR THE MOST PART unlike Bethesda games (broken Skyrim especially), and is a real joy to play. It’s a port that plays well but looks rubbish IMHO docked. I don’t care how amazing it is that they fit it all on one tiny cartridge.So should you buy it on Switch? If only playing portable, yes as much of the visual issues are lessened on the small screen. If you have no other option but Switch, yes. You played it on a more powerful machine and have a Switch, probably no. It looked so blurry that I almost quit the game after the first 10 hours of play. Granted, I mostly play docked these days. And still, I will play it for days because the rest of it is that wonderful.Gameplay = 10Story = 10Graphics on Switch = 4 at best (7 or 8 now after update 3.6)Update: They released update 3.6 recently allowing for serious graphics and gameplay tweaks that now make this game look waaaaay better than it has any business looking on the Switch. Even docked it now looks as good as Skyrim on the Switch. That’s beyond impressive for this huge game on a mobile system. Major kudos to the company for making us happy because this game was barely playable docked before the update with all of the blurriness going on. So happy now. Thank you!