I hate to say this, but for me its definitely Witcher 3
It felt decent at best when it came out in 2015, but now? Tried to adjust to Witcher 3's
combat in 2022.
The reason the combat doesn't work is that, you either have a lock-on auto flow combat system like AC, Ghost of Tsushima, Batman Arkham or you have a hitbox based combat system like Souls game or other major action games such as DMC, Ninja Gaiden. But somehow Witcher 3 trying to mix them both, on one side the attack auto tracks, but at the same time its hitbox based meaning it could be missed base on its hitbox, but since you have little control over the attack direction, this makes every attack landing or not feels like lottery, this is the main reason for its impression of "floaty combat". Adding its incredible input latency, has to be one of the worst combat system ever.
And the movement is also terrible, both on foot and horse, I swear the input latency is at least 200ms, try to play any game with responsive controls, and go back to Witcher 3 its like you are playing a online game with a bad connection. Not to mention it doesn't even bother to implement an internal dead-zone setting, the character move forward in large step by just softly touching the analog stick, and the entire game felt like walking on ice with the sensation of slipperiness when every time you try to halt the character movement it still walk few step afterwards, good lord they didn't include a horse crashing mechanic like they did in RDR2 (which works fine with RDR2's control), with movement this bad it could break the game.
People that argue its an RPG, so combat should be forgiven, but look at its character progression system which is the core of RPG, basically every ability you've learned are meaningless passive skill that adds bonus, there are nothing that adds to the table of the already dull combat, from start to finish you basically use the same set of ability with no sense of progression.
The potion system is needlessly frustrating, I know they try to make it realistic, but doing chores over and over is not fun.
The main Story is also pretty boring, 50 hours just to
find one person, pseudo-medieval language does not justify its boring plotline, try to convert the language they use into modern language and you'll understand what I mean, and emotionless acting from most of the cast with poker face is not helping either. Good writing does not only mean the writer had the ability to play with language, it also need a good plotline and good acting, a good story is a story that is still good even without saying much words, Show don't Tell is a golden rule still applied to this day.
The most praised element has the be the side quest people are hyped about, but how are these quest more than a glorified fetch quest? You mean following foot print and gather evidence that doesn't involve player agency(you don't solve anything, the main character come to his own conclusive) some how make the side quest fun?
But but but, what about the Love sim? No, every women Geralt meets just automatically all over him like he is the most attractive human being in the world, with minimal character development and romantic escalations felt unrealistic, but it sure does satisfy this dominant male fantasy. Persona 5 which also offers love sim does this way better, for example Sadayo Kawakami start from despising the protagonist but ending with loving him through player decision have much more player agency and better character development.
This game is the typical example of people blindly follows metacritic score, I'm not saying that metacritic is mostly wrong, but after playing most of highly received open world hits such as Skyrim, RDR2, BotW, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, AC, Fallout, GTA, Batman Arkham, and recently Elden Ring, Witcher 3 has to be one of those game that I felt trickery and betrayal the most by the reviewers.
Skyrim for a 2011 game, I've been having a better time adjusting to its combat than Witcher 3, it offer much better exploration, player agency and character progression, and its a RPG too!
I know I sound extremely harsh to the game, but there is no better way of putting it,
I just can't lie to myself anymore, everything I've stated I said it with sincerity and honesty.
For those of you that love Witcher 3 and felt offended, I'm sorry,
just ignore my statement, there is no way you are going to convince me this game is good.