Being Geralt of Australia, it’s only fitting that I address the griffin in the room, Witcher 3 for the Nintendo Switch.
The original graced us with its presence back in 2015 across PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and boy did it do well – it currently sits seventh in the PlayStation 4’s best-selling games with 4.8 million copies sold and 10 million in 2 years across all consoles.
For this reason alone it’s not surprising that it got a port to the Switch, but is it worth paying the money?
Well the short answer is yes… but I’m gonna give you the long answer here.
For starters, the game-play is brilliant, movement in combat and switching through your various signs is seamless and nothing from that part of the game has been lost. Roach moves just like a horse should and the attention to detail is just astounding; how they managed to get the game and all DLC onto the cartridge with no massive download that requires you to go buy an SD card is incredible and I tip my silver sword to them.
In saying that, there are a few things that it’s lacking.
Unfortunately, to fit all the content on the card the graphics have been slightly dropped (see above), this does give it a slight PS3 feel, however, this is primarily visible in the cut-scenes and when talking with NPCs, so you don’t notice it too much when you’re slicing Drowners and dismembering Rotfiends.
My only other tiny criticism is the training at the start of the game. Now, if you’ve played Witcher recently then you won’t need to go through this but if you haven’t, then listen carefully.
When you and Ciri finally get down to the training fields to practice your sword work, don’t swing your sword or do anything until Vesemir tells you to, if you start doing things before the prompts at the top of the screen tell you too then the next ones won’t load up properly and you’re stuck not knowing how to counter which, by the way, is block when the enemy is close to hitting you.
Apart from these two very minor things, CD Project RED have knocked it out of the park with this one, and just in time for the Netflix series with Henry Cavill (honestly I’m still a little upset it’s not Zach McGowan).
Either way, I look forward to Project RED’s next big thing with Cyberpunk 2077.
Witcher 3 Nintendo Switch
4 out of 5 Nerds
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