The Witcher (2007)

Completed chapter 1. I liked how the story took a twist there and recommended this game to a friend.
Now she's been playing it non-stop for 3-4 days and still didn't finish the game.

I really liked the stories she told me about chapters 2 and 3, but I'm not sure if I want to keep playing a game that requires so much time to beat, while being so addictive. (A lot of time in this game is spent on backtracking, inventory managing, repetitive fights, looting)
I really like the adventure story we're given here, the music, the locations and the atmosphere but still feel bad each time this game draws me in for way more playtime than I planned. Addictive in a bad way.

Decent game. Would have given it 3-stars if it was not so old. Pros:

• Fun and unforgettable characters.
• Great climate (a mix of medieval, polish mythology/culture and fantasy elements).
• Nice scenery.
• Funny dialogues.
• 40+ hours of game time.
• Girls ;) Cons:

• Did not like the RPG elements such as talents and inventory / gear / items.
• Most of the side quests were boring and unrewarding.
• The main story was decent at best.
• The combat system was very clumsy, at times it felt like it was bugged.
• A lot of crashes (especially during late game).
• Very repetitive at times, A LOT of going back and forth which at one point made me want to quit.
• Resting / meditating.

I feel like none of my review is really gonna be treading new ground. I was told to avoid this one and just start with the second game, but I hate starting a franchise anywhere other than the beginning. They told me that the combat was clunky and kinda boring, the story is decent, and anything relating to female characters is insulting.

They were right. Didn't stop me from doing every quest and putting 60 hours into this game, but it was very mediocre.

Recommended Mods

You shouldn't play this as it is a bad game, but here's a list of recommended mods anyway:

• Leuvaarden Buys Salamandra Badges - A minor 'fix' that makes total sense in context.

• Missing Kalkstein and Leuvaarden Clues Fix - A bug fix.

• Many Items - Teleport scroll, access storage and meditate anywhere make the game far less painful to play.

I just finished watching The Witcher TV series season 1 on Netflix. I was surprised, it was actually really good! The first few episodes were a bit slow, and it took a while for me to warm to the characters, but after a while I was totally hooked. There are 8 episodes, each is about an hour long, and a second season has been confirmed.

The series isn't at all like the games, it's based upon the books and set in a period of time before the games (I think?). Think of it as a B-grade Game of Thrones or something, though I might actually prefer this show. Has anyone else watched it? Worth checking out, even if you're not a fan of the games. In fact, the reason I ended up watching it was because my friend urged me to, and she hadn't even heard of the Witcher games.

I'd heard this is one of the best RPG stories of all time, it's fine.

I'd heard that the combat is unbearable and obtuse. It's boring, but fine (on easy).

The ideas behind this game are interesting if you're engrossed in the world of the Witcher books, which I was. I enjoyed running into characters I had read about and while I didn't utilize it, I think if I had more patience it would have been interesting to go through the whole witcher schtick of imbibing the correct potions before a battle, trying to use signs strategically etc. But there is a lot that makes that seem very annoying to consider. A lot of combat is frustrating even on easy (though I almost never died), so if there had been actually something at stake, I don't know what I would have done.

Probably fine for people who really want to get max time in the witcher world, probably a safe skip at this time for everyone else.

I should be about 6 hours in and I have to say that it's not getting better.

Combat is not only extremely rough, but borderline broken. Fights consistently start instantly after a load screen (sometimes even before) and your character will have his sword sheathed and will take his sweet time getting ready while enemies are clobbering at him. Special abilities are triggered with right click, but for some reason it's completely unreliable. It's got a huge delay, sometimes it doesn't even register and some other times it doesn't even work! Stunned enemies can be one-hit killed while they are on the ground but, again, often your character will stand still near a fallen enemy doing nothing. And even if he does, the killing animation can be so unbearable slow and lengthy that other enemies can kill you in the meantime. There's a "pain" mechanic in which enemies can reduce your effectiveness, but they also stun you for several seconds and if you're fighting with two of them, they can easily stun-lock you to death.

Ostensibly an "Enhanced edition", the broken combat makes it look like an early beta.

The setting is generic as I get out, the voice acting and dialogues are wooden and haven't found any memorable character so far (special note to the horrible "romance" system). And yet... it's got something that keeps me in and I don't know what.

Decided to give it a go (another free game). It's a bit janky and the presentation is painfully generic. It's notoriously sexists. First, there's only one important female character and who needs to be assisted by the male player, is wearing a low cut shirt. Then, there's a cutscene with a second female character (also showing cleavage) who was just a damsel in distress (telegraphed from a mile away).

But it's got to get good at some point, isn't it?

Finished Chapter 2. I already knew that this game would take me around 35-40 hours to finish. But didn't know that the first 2 chapters would take 24 hours to finish! Wow. Minor spoilers now:

---Spoiler--- I really like the main and side quests in this game. Geralt is not "the chosen one" to "save the world from ending". Because when you make the main quest extremely important, then I lose interest in side quests. Take Skyrim for example, which is one of my favorite games by the way... Why should I care about companions or mages or getting married or adopting kids? Same goes for Mass Effect. It's THE END OF THE WORLD unless I stop it! But here, the main quest doesn't hold you from doing side quests, in fact, you have to do side quests because of a very simple reason: you need money. At least I needed money in my play style. You need money to buy better equipment, to bribe guards, to buy books so you can have knowledge about plants and monsters, you need money to get items essential to your progress, you even need money for each time you go to the swamp area! That's why I enjoyed doing side quests and they didn't feel like a chore.

My biggest problem about the second chapter's main quest, the story was hard to follow if you don't finish the whole chapter in one playthrough. I played roughly 1-2 hours each day and kept forgetting names and relations. Who is innocent, who's guilty, who's telling the truth? I ended up killing Ramsmeat but was there another way around? I don't know. The setting suddenly took a different turn with sephirots and the mysterious tower and being able to teleport, so it felt a little out of place for me. And the fact that all sephirots happen to be in the same area(chapter)? Wow, Geralt must be really lucky!

But the most annoying aspect of the game -no it's not the combat- is the inventory and the endless items. I thought liquors and fruits and foods were worthless, so I sold them and stop collecting. But then I realized I needed a very specific liquor for the main quest and some fruits also for the main quest. So from now on, I don't know if I should keep collecting them or not?

---Spoiler---

I hated this game at first. The combat is like a QTE mini-game, where you concentrate on a tiny icon in the screen and try to press left click at the right time. Sometimes the click doesn't register, or you swing your weapon and nothing happens. The difference between your other weapons is vague, or I still didn't figure that out. My inventory was full of "junk" and I didn't know what to do with them. The learning curve was a bit steep for me. For instance, I didn't realise I had upgrade points until I was level 3!

BUT, the game is playable. Towards the end of the first chapter I started to like the game when more magic abilities are introduced and the combat became a little more interesting with tougher enemies. I crafted some potions and started to make my items more useful. But the food is useless, as in every other RPG. The story was tense and choices were meaningful. Geralt is an interesting character. Unfortunately there are also problems with dialogue mechanics which make the game clunky and UI is confusing compared to minimal designs of modern games. Wish they had tried to fix those problems when they have released the "Enhanced" version.

The first chapter took me more than 6 hours to finish. Which means, I'm still very far from being able to play Witcher III...