I cannot for the life of me get into this game. I've had it since release and was really hyped for it. I've just tipped over to lvl 19 and I just find the game dull and a bore to play.
The dialogue is so monotonously boring that I never flesh out any conversations. The facial animation is jarring and feel like I've seen better in previous generations. I don't particularly find the robots that interesting. I've had to change so many settings in the game for it to be playable to me. The audio mix is totally off...why put external dialogue on the centre channel when you're free roaming...how am I supposed to locate where the voice of "OVER HERE, HELP!" is?
The controls stick movement is all off, the HUD is annoying, the contextual position the camera stays in is stupid and the the way the camera gets tighter to the character depending on where she is ridiculous. Oh, guys, here's this new town for you to explore but we're not going to let you see any of it because we're going to lock the camera really tight to the character so it's really hard to navigate and see...
I think mainly the dialogue is the worst thing about it and it's really hard to overcome. It's pants.
I feel like I've been spoiled by the Witchers adult themes, execution and animation.
I totally agree about the camera and some of your points but at the same time can't get what spoiled you so much in the Witcher 3 that makes you so bored of this when its every element was average apart from a buch of dialogues.
The combat was bad, the main story padded and shallow and the animations and collision detection atrocious... and the RPG elements were way off. It's like people really don't want anything to ever be better than Witcher
I completed it and have no problems playing other games. In fact, Zelda leaves it in the dust as a game and I'm even enjoying Horizon slightly more because of the combat and the setting.
Is it just adult themes? Because I can't remember too many that I haven't seen in other games? I don't really get it, a game with just as repetitive gameplay (and shallow) as everything else, dialogues that aren't always interesting (because it's not like every conversation was really meaningful, most were just there for the hell of it) and many serious flaws suddenly becomes the holy grail to measure other games against... Even the characters weren't that great. There were maybe three with a bit more depth, the rest was pretty much a collection of fantasy tropes: an annoying bard, an ironic dwarf and a sassy sorceress...
It has its merits and some great sidequests and I enjoyed it overall but I don't see why Horizon should be treated as its inferior sibling because of dialogues when its focus lies elsewhere and it's a different game. It's not perfect, I agree but I'm quite glad it's not another "mature" medieval dialogue simulator with the same setting over and over again.
About facial animations, Witcher's are pretty average as well and I did in fact seen better in previous generation. It's called L.A Noire
While Horizon is rather weak in this regard, it has better looking faces and Witcher's facial animations aren't really good enough to make a true difference to me. Also, considering you spend most time in both games running around, I'd wager Witcher 3's running animations from 1999 and clunky horse riding have way more impact
Both games are overhyped IMO but Witcher 3 got more undeserved attention. It might appeal to people who absolutely love typical fantasy but other than that I can't see why anyone wouldn't enjoy other games because of it.
