Recent reviews by Fresh Blur - Rinku

Story is great, I don't know if I'd say it's better than the first game, but I would never say that it's worse, even if the cast is a bit more out there. The trials in this game are spectacular, and I honestly can't think of a single one that I found disapointing, they are also mechanically superior, and follow the difficulty progression from the first game, meaning that you won't have to suffer through a heavily tutorialized first trial, which is a nice side bonus.

I'll keep the review short. Is the game worth playing? Yeah. Is the game worth the cost? Yeah, I'd say so. Are the changes made to DDLC+ compared to regular DDCL worth the price though? Probably not, but I don't really regret paying for it.

Great story, the horror elements are used sparingly, but are very effective, and the game really knows how to make you feel. I'd easily recommend it to anyone who's thinking of giving it a shot.

It is possible to make beautiful maps with this tool, but in the end using it is just a frustrating experience.
Multiple actions such as renaming and grouping or applying effects to layers count as a single action, meaning that pressing ctrl+z to undo a single accidental move of a prop can redo several steps of work.
The tool is overall slow and prone to lag, and some times buttons or trying to draw just don't work at all...
In the end, it just feels clunky to use, and adding furniture and the likes to different rooms takes arguably more effort than just drawing by hand.

I'm in a weird spot with this game... I have spent over 100 hours, and might spend more, but I don't actually think I would recommend it. Combat isn't all that great, enemies typically either die instantly or take forever to kill, same for bosses. Controls are a bit clunky, and the fact that you are unable to jump while in combat, but instead roll dodge, has cause me to randomly roll of ledges rather than jumping as a single harpy spotted me right before I moved.

The writing is good, and so is the roleplay, but there is a massive disconnect between what you think you'll say and what you actually end up saying. An early example (this is like 30 minutes in and covers only 1 dialogue option so spoiler wise it should be fine) is when Geralt encounters a foreign commander. I thought the commander seemed like a pretty chill guy, as well as fairly humble, so when he excused his poor language skills I took the option "Well you seem to have mastered the basics" as a neutral to respectful response. In the end Geralt mocked the guy, asking him if the first words he learnt had to do with executing prisoners of war and civilians... That was fun... Later on in a sidequest, I was given several options, one of which was marked with "give the NPC the thing," and a few others, I picked one of the few others, and to my absolute frustration Geralt then gave the NPC the thing without any further input from me.

There are also bugs, and they are intrusive. A great example is using quen to clear yourself of a DoT effect, only to be unable to heal until the shield wears off, casting anew prolongs this state of limbo. Or being unable to open certain containers as you have to be pixel perfect when looking at them to be able to open them, and Geralts flowy and genuinly more realistic movement becomes a curse as moving only half an inch to the right is nearly impossible.

All in all, the above problems have just sapped the fun out of all my playthroughs midway, especially as character progression slows down to a grinding halt later on. I just can't bring myself to finish the game, despite having fun early on.

This is the type of game you are supposed to spend hundreds of hours on, but in reality the game hardly provides you with even 10.

The games idea of "progression" is to set you back to the power of a newly created character whenever you move, fair enough, I can actually accept that, and you get SOME permanent upgrades like sailing speed, gliding speed, etc. It's just too bad that entering a new zone not only zaps all the stats from the gear you've been working towards for hours, but also your exploration items so that you don't benefit from your 'permanent' bonuses. (And aslo, some dungeons tunnel out into different reagions, meaning you can't beat them because your gear is useless halfway through suddently...)

I had fun the first zone through, the sense of discovery and exploration was amazing, by the time I reached the second zone I had already seen everything, but the environment gave me some drive, by the third zone I realized that the game really had nothing left to offer, I had experienced everything by the first zone.

Nice and simple with a surprisingly interesting story.
Over the course of the game the conflicting art styles even kind of grow on you. Definitely worth the price if you enjoy JRPGs.

Both the game and the story are very player reliant, there are no real quests per say, so at the beginning of the game you are supposed to talk to people and they will just say something you might want to do. Note that as far as I've seen there is no quest log, as you don't really get quests, so you'll have to remember what they tell you to do yourself. However this also makes the world quite open, you can in theory go to some late game areas and spend your life savings on an OP weapon or piece of armor very early in the game as there are very few roadblocks aside from stronger monsters, but I'd not recommend it.

Only negative I'd give it straight up is that the beginning of the game might be a bit confusing to new players both due to what I described above (but that's only in the first stages of the game, you get used to it) and that even a party of the weakest monsters around can give you quite serious trouble at level 1, which might scare you off into severely lowering the difficulty.
Rest assured though that if you spend at least a portion of your starting money on some equipment flimsy equipment you should be able to venture into the sewers (the entrances are the 2 wells you can find in the starting town, not a secret area but one I didn't find my first time around) and get up to level 3 you should be able to venture off.

Lastly, here are some key bindings that you may not immediately figure out but that are very important.
Arrow Keys - Movement
Z - Accept/Confirm
X - Deny/Exit
A - "In game" menu
Esc - "System" menu
R. Shift - Opens some menus such as info about the monster you are targeting, the skill you are hovering or some preset level up options in the level up window.

Great game.
An extreme amount of depth and complexity for your character build, nice and atmospheric lore as well as a few rpg elements thrown in for good measure, even though there are very few "true" branches in the story, though the set story you play is more than decent enough if you read up on the earlier mentioned lore through varius notes.

I do have some small gripes with the lack of difficulty settings though, as the game tends to get a little too easy, and that the audio feedback from some of the more powerful looking abilities is a bit lackluster. (although I have not played the game for about a year so the latter may have changed)

Would still definitly recommend it to just about anyone who enjoys slow burn ARPGs though!

Great game, solid story, solid mysteries, nothing is ever quite as obvious as it seems,
The spoiler free verision is simply "the start of the game is a little bit slow but it gets really good"

Is this game perfect? No..
The world is not as connected as it was in the first game (actually it is even more divided than it was in the second game..), a lot of the bosses are estheticly or mechanicly alike (some of them both..) and there are too many gimmick bosses.
However considering theese are comparisons to one of the best games of all time that does not mean much, the game is still great and while the world is not as connected it is designed in a good way, while some bosses are too much alike a few bosses are quite unique.
I'd say that the game is not flawed in any way, it is simply not as perfect as the original but it still deserves several playthroughs from basicly everyone that even moderately enjoy games like this.