It definitely has too much hand-holding for my tastes.
That said, it also has an impressive amount of non-generic side-quests, superb visuals, fantastic music, brilliant writing, entertaining combat, wonderful mini-games, great C&C, plausible characters, strong open world design, varied exploration, underwater treasures and so on.
In short, I can deal with some hand-holding - much of which can be disabled. However, it's clear that the game wasn't designed around having the mini-map disabled - so it's awkward to play without it.
We can't really blame them for implementing this kind of mainstream gamer element. Without helpers, they wouldn't be able to appeal to gamers like Ovenall, who prefer not to invest themselves too much and who get turned off by challenge.
I'm just happy we can get games made with this kind of passion, instead of the endless Assassin's Creeds released every 6 months.
If that means we'll have to deal with mainstream features, that's nothing new - and it's an easy sacrifice.
My biggest issue with TW3, so far, is a combination of what seems like bad balance and somewhat uneven power progression.
Even on Death March, the game becomes too easy too soon, and the cool active abilities are too few and far between. The loot, while I don't have as big a problem with it as others, could also stand a redesign.
That's about it for negatives, though - and it's clearly a masterpiece when taken as a whole.
Way, way beyond the kinds of games the baiting trolls want to compare it with, due to it having mainstream features.
This is NOT a designed-by-committee game dictated by suits. This one is from the heart.
