The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

13 years have passed since the launch and you can notice with the graphics and the clunky gameplay. Of course, at that time, in 2007 we had Bioshock, Halo 3, Assassins creed and Crysis, Portal and a lot of other good games, but, what makes The Witcher special? As I said, the first The Witcher has clunky controls, the combat system is not polished, you can't jump even small gaps and the same models repeat every single time. But everyone agree with one thing, the atmosphere its really good. It looks like a tight budget game (it is) but sometimes have nice details like birds, dogs, npc's that interact with anothers. The story its OK in the begining, and with more you play it gets better. My recomendation is, if you want to fully enter The Witcher world, you can play it if you want, honestly i dont think there's a problem if you don't want. Sometimes the game is in 1 dollar if you don't want to spend 10 instead. On my case, I first played the third game, but i dropped because I really like the game and I wanted to play the other 2 to understand what's going on, and also make a long playthrough with the saves of the other 2 games.

I bought this game because I've heard good things about the Witcher franchise and I wanted to play them in sequence to see if it'd be to my liking. Well, IT WAS. Ehem... The graphics are obviously dated but not to the extent of being an eyesore or distracting; seems like around the 15 year mark game visuals are just too abstract for my liking but that's me personally. Combat is simple, but not so simple that it'll put you to sleep. It's mainly about click timing and style changes, but you do still have to be mindful of position/movement, target selection and when, where and how to use your signs and alchemy. That is unless you're playing on easy, in which case nighty night! The main character is pretty neat, Geralt is basically whatever you make him. Some people are cringy edgelords so as thus so too will Geralt be. I personally found him to be a well meaning if not slightly passive aggressive guy just trying to make a living. There is the potential for optional sex cutscenes called 'romance cards' but unless you're struggling with sex addiction even worse than I am, you should only expect to see one. Maybe two. If at any point in time you want to see Shani's grandma naked, call your sponsor and/or therapist immediately! The story is really interesting in my opinion because you can take the middle road or pick a side. For instance there's some freaking cannibal living in the swamps who doesn't want you to kill him because he doesn't eat children. Well, if you're a fedora tipping centrist then by all means let him live. I for one don't think the cannibal and the cannibalized are the same! In the end the story leads you to beat down this idiot named Azar Javed who is basically the biggest 3brain of all time. Have fun! My gripes with this game are that the Beast boss is way, way too hard for a low level boss, and I admit I used cheese strats to beat it. The other is that the Kikimore Queen boss is kind of buggy. But yeah, the game is good and you should play it!

Many people will tell you to skip this game and play The Witcher 2, but I fully recommend The Witcher, it's worth your time.

If you can get over the fighting mechanics and are willing to install a few mods, this game is just good as TW3: A very well written main story, many interesting side quests, large open world, nice music, choices that influence the world. Recommended mods: Rise of the White Wolf, Witcher 3 Character Faces by Hiuuz, Perfect Blood, Sound & Texture Overhaul

My suggestion for The Witcher, if it is not quite what you are looking for at first, wait until you play the second chapter a bit, since it opens up a lot more at that point, not unlike other Witcher games. Be sure to check out the high quality mods for this game to help it into the 2020s, if you are not simply wanting a vintage experience. Upscale mod cut scenes alone are nice. I enjoy playing this type of game on PC using a controller. This game is not designed nor does this one on GOG support this. I used AntiMicroX to assign the keyboard/mouse to an xbox controller on the PC, worked great. Give it a try if you are a controller person, and this is a hurdle for this game. AntiMicroX is on github.