Recent reviews by AdIerceutz

Excellence is the only word that I can think of to describe this game. It excels in too many aspects to count out and its shortcomings are few and far between. Although I don't believe that a piece of entertainment can truly be perfect, I have to say that the Witcher III comes very close to being that.

Let me start off by saying that I am in the odd camp here, having read all of the books before playing the games. Even though it was strange at first seeing the characters I had imagined in my head appear on screen. I eventually adapted and began to admire the game and it's faithfulness to author Sapkowski's work.

With that out of the way we can get into the meat of this review. If I wanted to talk about all the things the game excels at I would be writing for an eternity. Therefore I will limit myself to three topics, those being: Worldbuilding, Gameplay and Narrative.

The world is simply excellent. All of the regions of the game feel very distinct (especially Skellige and Toussaint). They are jampacked with content so you will never find yourself mentally checking out while on the path. Despite there being a plethora of side content, it never feels watered down or low-quality. In fact, the number of quests I genuinely disliked can be counted on one hand. This immersive world is further enhanced by the graphics, which still hold up today, nearly ten years later. Although I will say that playing this game with Ray Tracing on is near impossible since it essentially halves your FPS. The only thing that really stands to harm exploration in this game is the clunky movement, both on foot and on horseback. You will constantly get stuck on things and there is a weird delay to your inputs. This all results in a janky movement system which can become frustrating at times.


The gameplay is good, but is sadly the weakest link in the well-oiled machine that is the Witcher III. Most of my quarrels with the gameplay comes down to it being far too easy. During my first playthrough I played the game on Hard (or the game's equivalent) and found myself breezing through even the toughest of enemies, I nonetheless completed the game on that difficulty. Afterwards I replayed the game with New Game+ and this time chose the highest difficulty. I found myself enjoying the game much more and being forced to interact with mechanics I had previously discarded, such as alchemy or character builds. I therefore came to the conclusion (that many others have) that the Witcher III is best enjoyed on the hardest difficult. This is because it forces you to interact with all the mechanics the game has to offer and it does the best job of selling the "Witcher fantasy". With that said, I never could shake the feeling of wanting something more, just something tiny to amp up the difficulty. That made me realise that a perma-death option would fit this game like a glove and it is a true shame that it was never included. This is something I hope they add in the Witcher IV. In addition to the combat system generally being too easy the game also struggles with making something difficult instead of tedious. The Wraith you fight in Hearts of Stone is a great example of this. I kept retrying the fight 15-20 times just because of the stupid targeting system, which is something that I also hope they fix for the Witcher IV.

I won't spend much time glazing the story simply because I've already read the books and thus came into the game knowing the story was going to be good. In my thoughts, even if the plot would've been mediocre the amazing characters would've carried the story. All you really need to know is that the story is very good but it does require some patience to sit through. Many people quit the game because the prologue is an absolute brick to sit through.

All in all this game is amazing and truly encapsulates the word experience. The few problems I have with this game are more nitpicks than serious issues and can be usually be overlooked.
9/10, great game.

This game is without a doubt one of my favorite games in the total war genre and one that I hold in very high regard. It is however not without its flaws.

To start off, it should be mentioned that Total War: Attila is not for the faint hearted. Those familiar with other games genre may find it to be a black sheep, in the way it handles things. The game has a huge amount of anti player bias, which is present in all Total War games but is especially prevalent in this one. Normally the AI simply gets some economic cheats and some buffs in battle, but Total War: Attila takes it to a whole different level. The enemy is able to support 1.5-2 stacks just off of one region, which is absolutely ridiculous. An even more egregious example is with the hunnic invasion, where if you kill off an entire stack. It will immediately respawn the turn after. As if this wasn't enough, you have to kill Attila 3 times to actually kill him.

I do however find that the anti player bias suits the game well. The feeling of an empire on the brink of collapse is encapsulated well by the cheats the AI get, I think it simply works. Is it annoying to have all your settlements sacked by a horde of barbarians? Of course, but in the end I think the pros outweigh the cons here.


Enough about that, let's get into some new and unique mechanics Total War: Attila offers.

The most iconic one is of course the horde system, which essentially allows you to have a city on the move. This city generates income and replenishment, although you will have to encamp for this to take effect. This is a unique version of playing the game that is fun, although can get a bit repetitive. You can of course settle down at any point, by occupying a settlement.

Another mechanic that is new, is the devastation and razing of provinces and an accompanying fertility system. This gives another option when choosing what to do after you've taken a settlement. It really makes you feel like a barbarian horde with the dying roman empire at your mercy, you are in control of the world.


The campaign is of course not the only part of a total war game and thus, let's take a look at the battles. I have to say, they sadly don't quite live up to the standard of the campaign. They are fine but that's about it. The battles are relatively fast paced with low time to kill between units (especially so in the early game), which often leads to panicked decisions as half your line collapses within a minute. This is caused by the unproportionally high melee attack of some units (I'm looking at you gothic warband) which essentially leads to them slaughtering every early game roman unit. Speaking of roman, they are underpowered as hell in the beginning. Your units have good armour but that's as far as it goes, melee attack and melee defense is atrocious and so is morale. This makes a difficult campaign even harder.

I conveniently saved the performance for last, and that is where Total War: Attila really faulters. I'll be honest, it isn't optimised, it truly isn't. There is no hiding it. It runs like ♥♥♥♥.

To end things off, I would once again like to stress the fact that this game is different from other titles in the genre, and so it really is a hit or miss with most people. It is the dark souls of total war games.


(10pts) Campaign - 9/10
(10pts) Battles - 6/10
(5pts) Performance - 2/5
(5pts) Flavour - 4/5
(5pts) Visuals - 4/5
(5pts) Music - 5/5 (there are some geniune bangers)
(5pts) DLC Support - 3/5 (Age of charlemagne carries the DLCs)
(5pts) Mod Support - 5/5 (Ancient Empires, 1212Ad)
Total: 38/50
Average: 7.6/10