Been playing this for a few hours last night, on the normal setting. Only managed to kill the griffin after like 7 attempts or something, but it's the first Witcher game I've ever played though, so I was expecting a challenge of some sort, and am kind of glad I'm not just breezing through it all. The 'just story' setting may well be the best way to take it all in with a bare minimum of gaming frustration to interrupt the narrative flow, but unless you really are utterly unable to progress after 30+ goes at a certain part, I wouldn't recommend that approach at all. It should feel reasonably perilous, that adds to the overall sense of adventure, and whether that's through trying to adapt to a slight sense of clunkiness (controlling a kind of knight decked out in heavy armour should be a little bit clunky! haha) or just a mad difficulty curve in general (like Demon's Souls, for me), you should persevere on normal, just as the designers intended for most players [or at least not the piss-easy setting], especially given how wonderfully helpful the save system is on this, and the easily skippable cutscenes and dialogue. I think it's a good thing to have to really consider whether you can feasibly take those enemies up ahead on, or should just avoid them till you're stronger, that adds a strategic element, and it'll give the game added satisfaction longevity for yous too, it'll feel far more rewaring in general... although I wouldn't try and tackle the harder settings myself just yet; that might be a touch too infuriating.
As for the rest of it, the proper flesh & blood of RPGs, the presentation and storytelling is just absolutely amazing. The world really is beautiful to look at and listen too, and I'm finding myself not wanting to fast travel at all. Gwent is fun in its own right too, hoping to rake in some coin with that at some stage (though will probably get my arse handed to me then!). I even sort of like how sometimes slightly uncooperative your trusty steed Roach can be, it gives him that bit more personality. The characterisation and writing is just brilliant across the board, and the natural lighting and general aesthetic attention to detail is pretty bloody extraordinary. Technically speaking, on PS4 the only noticeable framerate issues I've had has been with most busy and detailed cinematics, the game itself has played smoothly for me when no other applications have been running in the background, which is genuinely impressive given the visuals and scope of it all.
