The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

Worth playing because the good things were really well done and the bad were forgivable. I have many suggestions for improvements because I would like to play more games like this, just with a further evolved combat / character development system and a better written / more involving plot. Not that that matters, I had to buy this game to support quality anti-DRM CRPGs, so it was a no-brainer. I did get into it and played it through though, so here's some points I have. Starting with the negative: - Fight mechanis. Not too bad, but very gamey and cheesy with not much skill and timing involved and every monster / character felt pretty much the same. Some had armor, some blocked a lot and some could trample you. Tactics always the same if you wanted to do it that way: quen, slash, roll. Bombs, potions and other signs completely optional. I wish the Witcher had more real moves you could learn and employ in certain situations instead of generic insta-kill animations (The Witcher gutting a man in full plate armor from groin to neck like he was wearing pajamas, huh?) which get old and start to detract from the immersive experience pretty fast. - Quests and plot could've used some moral conundrums, this would've fleshed out the world and the character much more. The game could be very much more involving if the main choice wasn't "Do I kill this critter with bombs or quen/slash/roll?" but rather "Do I sell this elf to sex slavery for the best armor and weapon in the game?" or "Do I kill this peasant to hide a secret I want to keep from Iorveth / Triss / Whoever?" or "I'm out of money and supplies, but still the baddest dude for miles. Do I rob these townsfolk for their supplies and risk them turning on me or go on underprepared?" -Boss fights. Whether or not they were too difficult, they were way too gamey. My GOTY RPG just turned into a platformer with the kayran and the dragon. I want climactic battles, but it would be nice to be able to have some strategy and planning involved, not to mention character build making a big difference in how they can be defeated. ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE that they make you play that tedious intro fight every time you attempt the draug or whatever it was called. - "Adult" content (sex and nudity) was anything but. Puerile and tacky. Now, a game that is seriously adult could do some pretty moving things with sex (and violence), but this sophomoric T&A buffet isn't even approacing that. Zero emotional depth to any sexual encounter, and zero insight into any human interaction in the writing. Maybe hire someone who's actually HAD sex to write the sex scenes from now on, huh? - Pretty linear game, not that much freedom of movement or exploration. - What were junk items doing in this game, in addition to pissing me right off? Oh, and WHAT WERE THEY THINKING WITH THE SLOW SCROLLING ITEM DESCRIPTIONS IN THE INVENTORY, SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS WHAT THE FUCK! - The ending was extremely forgettable and anti-climactic. Plusses: + The plot was involving enough, slaughtering random monsters in Chapter 1 swamp was slightly unnecessary though. + Characters were mostly enjoyable, some only decent, not many bad. + Tedious running around much improved (reduced) from TW1. + Game ran pretty smoothly with middle-of-the road system while certainly pretty enough for me. + The beginning was chaotic and almost prohibitively difficult. In hindsight, it was a real challenge and still better than boring idiotproof handholding. Once you get the hang of it, it's not that hard either. + Fighting, though flawed, was still enjoyable.

I love The Witcher 3, and this has the potential to be a great game but there were too many occasions where it was unbelievably frustrating. The tutorial is really basic, eg I had to Google how to use mutations. On several occasions I couldn't work out where I had to go. The combat is generally pretty good, but difficult. I don't like the way you have to sit down to take a potion and you can't top up a potion that you've already taken. It means there were a lot of occasions where I had to reload so I could prep before a fight. I guess it's supposed to be a role playing thing but it didn't work for me. I didn't like the boss fights at all for a combination of reasons but especially because of the potion thing I mentioned before. Later on, even on easy difficulty level I found them tough, and more annoying than actually challenging my skill. And I've played all the Souls games so I'm ok with a challenge! The story is reasonably interesting, but I had a hard time remembering which character was which. Later on it's a real political jumble of not very distinctive people and who they fight for. Overall it's worth the money, and I got a good amount of fun from the game, but it's not a patch on Witcher 3.

In principal, Witcher 2 is a great RPG. The stroytelling is much better than it was in its predecessor where the main quest virtually disapperead for 3 acts. The controlls are different but ultimately equally bad in my opinion but this doesn't really matter once you're immersed in the compelling narrative. However, the german version of the game reproducably crashes whenever there are umlauts (ä,ö,ü) displayed during cutscenes. Only a fix made by the community helps, not by preventing the crashes but by replacing the umlauts troughout the whole game. For a fully patched "Enhanced Edition", this is just inexcusable, therefore I substract 3 stars.

The game is visually spectacular with excellent storyline and writing. The detail in the graphics show immense attention to tiny detail to bring the Witcher universe to life. Unfortunately, the most important aspect of a game - the mechanics is totally broken. Quick time events (at least on PC version) are full of bugs and barely work at all. I would advise avoiding this episode of the series and moving straight onto Witcher 3. It looks and sounds nice, but they really dropped the ball when it came to gameplay.

Came back to Witcher 2 after six yeas and the story is still amazing. Every character has some meaning, I'm so happy to bring my memories back