The Witcher (2007)

This game is a dark, narrative-driven RPG developed by CD Projekt Red, introducing the gritty world of Geralt of Rivia, on his first appearance in videogame history, a monster hunter navigating political intrigue and moral ambiguity. Based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, the game stands out for its mature storytelling, branching dialogue choices, and deep lore rooted in Slavic mythology. The alchemy and timed-click combat system is unique, though it can feel clunky and awkward at times, which I confess that this was turned me off from actually finishing the entire game, so I dropped it after a few hours.

While the original release suffered from technical issues and long load times, the Enhanced Edition addressed many of these problems, so despite the game's design problems, if you are willing to play this, don't go for the original, and instead get the enhanced version. Visually and mechanically dated today, the game is still a compelling experience for those who value story and atmosphere over polish. It’s a flawed gem that laid the groundwork for one of the most respected RPG series in gaming.

The game’s strongest asset is its oppressive, lived-in atmosphere, the villages feel hostile and morally compromised, monsters are often tragic rather than purely evil, and quests frequently subvert traditional RPG expectations by refusing to offer clean resolutions. The main character reinforces this tone, as neutrality is constantly tested by racism, war, and human cruelty. Even side quests are richly written, often leaving you uneasy about the consequences of your actions, which was relatively rare for RPGs at the time.

From a historical perspective, the very first Witcher entry is fascinating as a foundation rather than a finished masterpiece. Many systems feel experimental, with a lot of ambition, especially in how your choices ripple across the story rather than being resolved immediately. Its haunting OST and bleak visual identity further enhances its unique personality. While it may be difficult to recommend this title for today's standards, its influence and narrative confidence make it an important RPG, one that clearly hinted at the greatness the series would later achieve.

The Witcher is a very fun game with an amazing world, but the story and mechanics leave much to be desired. I loved exploring Vizima and found all the quests and side quests to be satisfying and enjoyable to complete.

The combat was not as horrid as it's often made out to be, but it can be incredibly frustrating and buggy. The level-up mechanics did give a great sense of progression.

The story is my main gripe. It has a main plot that isn't too interesting and isn't resolved well. But the rest of the many many hours of main quests rarely have anything to do with this story, but more to do with saving citizens. Now, I'm fine with that, but they should have either been side quests or we should have had more interesting revelations and events in the main story line.

Either way, I still found it a very enjoyable game but would hesitate to recommend it to anyone. I'm excited to continue the series though!

See my full review here: https://watchreadgame.com/the-witcher-1/

3.00/5.00

I started playing The Witcher 3 in my old PS4... after getting rid of my stupid PS4, I decided to play all the trilogy in my new PC.

I was surprised about this game and I understand why there is a second and third part. Even this game is an Action RPG... is quite slow and you need a strategy. Not just clicking buttons/keys to attack. The Witcher 2 and 3 are quite the same but I think... less than The Witcher (1). There are quite challenging battles at some points.

The argument is good and the end... oh! the end! Just awesome! This game is a 10/10. You must play it. Mandatory.

I picked up the Witcher series on Humble. I had been meaning to play it for years, but life had other plans. When I finally decided to jump in to the series, I told myself to accept it for the aging game it was.

I think I did that - which is why I wish I had played it upon it's release.

The controls feel SUPER clunky. The whole click to attack thing, but maybe you don't know if the attack has started due to muddled graphics, or a debuff, or whatever, so you click again, only to find out that, no, you were in the middle of an attack so you just ruined your combo and have to restart. This gets specifically egregious in the last quarter of the game.

I don't fault the graphics for looking old because, they're old.

I don't know if I missed the tooltip at the beginning or what, but I wish I'd have noticed that there were three different camera styles, each one reacting different to mouse movement and button clicking. I think this was awesome and haven't seen many games that did this. Prefer a more FPS approach where the viewport tracks with mouse movement? Hit f3. What a click-to-move, but still rotate the camera? Hit f2. A Baldur's Gate clone? f1. Pretty nice whereas most games are like, 'no shithead, you will view this game the way WE meant to.'

Story is decent and I like Geralt's attitude towards things, it made it amusing to play. But by an large it's definitely a game that shows it's age and I'm curious how it'll live up to the next 10 years.

Rating: 7.5/10

CD Projekt Red would go on to make two masterpieces in this trilogy, but the foundation was obviously built with the first. This is a completely solid RPG with a ton of issues, one of which is the combat. I'm so glad they evolved the combat for the next two, because it's really frustrating and repetitive here, what with just clicking then clicking again at the right time to hit a combo. I kind of appreciate what they were attempting but it's a weird mixture that doesn't quite work; it also doesn't help when you click to attack an enemy and it doesn't do what you want.

Outside of that, I just find the game incredibly clunk. Witcher 2 was a little clunky as well but it really didn't matter. Here it does, and it detracts from the experience. They just couldn't seem to put all the ideas and systems together in a way that was endearing.

However, the story is still entertaining, even if the game does involve a lot of just walking back and forth in areas. I suppose you get to know the places you visit, but again, this is just the beginning of what will become something truly magnificent, once they figured out what worked and how to streamline it. Everything just gets better with 2 and 3.

Project Red really has a cool way of doing things and making these virtual environments that just have a presence about them. Lore is outstanding and based on a culturally popular (polski) book series. Seems to translate rather well. If you like interesting people places characters and monsters, it's pretty fun. Loads of quests seem to revolve around new monster types as yo uuncover them (you are essnetially a monster hunter like a hel sing or belmoney, its your profession) so there is a lot of emphasis on reasearch of the monsters, tehir weaknesses and their lore, and this kind of translates into the game. the game has a kind of Dark Souls type of feel. The combat is a similiar fast paced third person dance with your monsters, and you have to know your monsters attacks and such in order to engage successfully with them. It has also a almost strange eastern euro zelda type of feel (for lack of anything else to compare it to) Most of the game is spent on combat and exploration. Exploration takes place in Acts that are somewhat limiited or confiend to certain areas, so it is not true open world but it feels essnetially like a huge sprawling level that emulates an OW.

The drawbacks here are, the combat is really fine tuned dance of death and there is not much room for error. you have to have a proper strat and get timing right. iirc, it's pseudo 'smart pause' so you can sort of plan your next move whether its a second strike, a potion drink, smoke bomb, etc. i personally found it way too tedious and awkward. Geralte is very much a kind of swashbuckling rogue type of playstyle in that he is an agile but frailish glass cannon type of scrappy fighter. Not some tanky knight. You have to do special backstabby type attacks. engage enemies one at a time, use various kinds of 'trickery' dodge, roll, use smokebombs, flashbangs and all that jazz.

Another drawback is the time investment is enormous with levelling, and you can level wrong it could be because it's polski but i found the RPG system somewhat unnatural. I found myself painfully grinding to no end in sight before braving the next area. and this is something i did not like because it took me away from adventure and into drudgery of hunting endless creatures to beef up a character because i didnt really know how to play the game 'as intended'

Therefore, this is kind of a big time investment into: learning the combat, and learning how the mechanics work and levelling. You also literally invest lots of gold in your gear, and you dont have a lot of gold or resources so you have to choose, and choose right. buff a steel sword instead of a silver? that coudl be bad! put the wrong rune on your silver? That could be bad...

Yet player interaction with the environment and NPCs is really good in the game. Lore is top notch. Anyone who liked the Shadowrun universe would of course be very curious to see what PR does with cyberpunk2020, it seems like a perfect fit with the style of this game.

The dice based gambling minigame in this game is pretty fun too. It's one of the better minigames i've come across in a game and i didnt find outright annoying. Unfortunately you are going to have to play it to complete some sidequests and the game can take a bit of time (which makes losing particularly frustrating)

Tons of Mods for this. Another game with tons of mods is Thief. Both games (as old as they are) have enough good mods that I might just go back and check them out someday.