Neue Rezensionen von Geralt of Rivia

This game owns, like a lot. I can't emphasize enough how refreshing it felt to play something that's just new, you know? It wasn't a sequel, it wasn't a spinoff, it was just a completely original gothic vampire game, and it was a lot of fun. This is exactly the sort of creativity we need in gaming.

I think the most concise way to describe the experience is "If a slightly worse Dragon Age and a slightly worse Dark Souls had a kid." I don't say this to disparage the game, but to explain that it does have some shortcomings. The combat is fairly fun, but maybe a few notches below the games that do it perfectly. The RPG elements are great, but feel a little bit inferior to the greatest examples out there (think, Dragon Age Origins or Witcher 3).

But overall, the game is a solid 9/10 as far as I am concerned. The atmosphere, the music, the graphics, the voice acting, the writing all come together to make an amazing experience. And while some of the systems in play feel underwhelming or like they lack any sort of logial conclusion, and some of the writing feels "forced" in how it tries to draw parallels to our own society, at the end of the day I came away from the experience feeling absolutely blown away and with a big smile on my face. I can't say enough good things about the aesthetics and music of this game, it is absolutely stellar stuff. And I felt completely connected to the writing, from the main story all the way down to the less important NPCs and their stories.

Great job, DONTNOD Entertainment. You've certainly made a fan of me, and I am looking forward to your future titles.

I wholeheartedly recommend this game... If what you're looking for is a WoW clone. It really is as simple as that. This is a VERY well done WoW clone that offers a nice amount of content and manages to do so in a fantasy world that is aesthetically pleasing and quite a bit more grim than Azeroth. Obviously, there is no competing with the sheer of amount of content to be found in WoW, but there are plenty of quests, dungeons, skirmishes (mini dungeons, basically), and PvP battles to stay entertained for at least a little while.

This game really excels at its combat. It's basically WoW, but with live combat. You have to physically move out of the way of attacks, time your charges, and make decisions in real time instead of relying on complicated ability rotations (though there is a bit of that; you still have to know when to use your abilities and how to use them effectively). There is a really nice tactile, impactful feel to all of it, which really helps in keeping the game addicting and satisfying.

The graphics/aesthetics/and lore are all superior to WoW imo. The game takes place in the "Forgotten Realms" DnD setting, and this means a good bit of grim fantasy, and plenty of history and characters to pore over and get to know. The lore is there, but the questing itself does quite a terrible job of telling engaging stories, and at the end of the day it's all just quite dull, forgettable, and nothing special. If you've quested in WoW, you've quested in Neverwinter. It's fetch quests galore. But the environment at least is fun to look at and be in because of the fact that the game is set in a world with a slew of backstory, and a distinctly classic fantasy aesthetic. The game is very nice looking, striking just the right balance between cartoonism and realism. WoW goes full cartoon. Neverwinter grounds itself in realism, with touches of cartoonism. It works well and makes for an aesthetic that I think people will prefer if they tend to go for dark fantasy over cartoonish fantasy. Simply put, it's a good looking game, probably the best looking MMO I have had the pleasure of playing. If you can max it, you're in for some nice visuals.

The weakest part is by far the fact that it's a F2P game, which results in some weird currency things and in-game inconveniences (such as limited bag space, limited companion levels, etc), followed by the fact that - you guessed it - it's a WoW clone. The thing that is its greatest virtue is also its greatest vice.

The fact that it's a WoW clone means zero innovation, zero sandbox elements, and literally nothing new! If you go into this expecting to play WoW but with a slightly more fun combat system and a different set of lore, you will be very pleasantly surprised and have an amazing experience without potentially having to pay a dime. If you go into it expecting anything else, you will be sorely disappointed. What this game does well is be WoW - or be as close to WoW as possible without actually being WoW. In my mind, the MMO genre is long overdue for a sandbox revival. I want player driven economies, unbound best in slot gear that is craftable by players and freely tradeable amongst everyone, no quest paths but instead organic exploration, and quests that take you across the entire game world as you hunt down resources and NPCs, driven by engaging narratives and characters. I want PvP where you lose all your items if you die. And I want all of that combined with the advances in the genre that the theme park MMO has made over the last decade: PvE dungeons, raids, and all that good stuff. That would be an amazing game. But WoW isn't that, and by extension, neither is Neverwinter.

If you want the WoW experience but are tired of WoW itself, this is probably the game for you. If you want the WoW experience but don't want to pay a subscription fee, this is probably the game for you. If you want to play a game that takes place in the Forgotten Realms DND Universe, this is probably the game for you (but in that case also take a look at Baldur's Gate I and Baldur's Gate II). If you want anything else, stay away.

DISCLAIMER: My character at the time of this writing is level 26. The cap is 60. I still have not been able to figure out the "Professions" system so there is nothing written here about it. I also don't know anything about the end game, as it is outside the bounds of my knowledge at present to comment on that. Idk if either the Professions system or the end game are any good. Also, I have read several times that if you get serious about this game, there are indeed limitations in place that may drive you to pay money so that you can progress. A quick look at the store page will reveal that this has some serious potential to get ridiculously expensive (I saw one pack going for $199, wtf?). I'd say paying a little money is okay (maybe $50 or $60 total, as that would equal about 1 game purchase), but if you find yourself dishing out what averages out to more than $15 a month, you really might as well just subscribe to WoW. That way at least there is no gated content, and there's a whole lot more content available as a whole as well as a more active, mature playerbase (which means less spam and more opportunity to communicate - which is pretty important in a Massive Multiplayer game). There's really no reason to pay more for a "F2P" game than you would be paying for WoW, unless you have already played this game and have decided that you enjoy it enough to be putting that much money into it, in which case, you don't need me to tell you the pros and cons haha!