The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

The Witcher is one of the best rpgs of all times. It has some flaws, but they are not enough to spoil the impression. Personally i had quite a few crashes. Combat looks awkward especially in third person view. But story and characters are great.

The Witcher world is so vast throughout all the games, and it starts with this little gem. The simple mechanics are so beautiful, and it really paved the way for the future installments. 10/10 would play again, just to learn all about the lore all over again. 10/10

The Witcher is a game that gets a lot of high talk amongst industry moguls, and indeed it did have use of consequence in a dynamic world and story (though it follows a generally linear plotline), a strong sidequest system, a solid combat system which promoted forward planning, and other mechanics which encouraged the player to learn about the world they were in. All these things make it a significant title in the history of the genre. However, this game has so many and so grevious faults that after 26 hours of grinning-and-bearing-it, I finally threw in the towel on it. The main story was very generic, for a start - and it made this clear from the beginning, with an atrociously uninstructive, unintroductive and poorly paced opening sequence - with you the player suffering amnesia, and a sorceror planning to... good God, I'm not even sure. There was a sorceror and he was evil for some reason apparently. Admittedly, the setup of the Witcher's lot was interesting, with the people relying on your monster-hunting services while at the same time despising you, and meanwhile your own character not being too friendly to others making an intriguing setup. But any bright ideas in this lot would be impossible to bring to light with the game's execution. By this I mean the mediocre English voice acting and script writing, which left characters as dull as dishwater. Not aided by the mere handful of character models (and voice actor/esses) available, which were reused time and time again with exception for the most important characters in the narrative. It has to be said, however, that the animation is solid, with posture being used well within engine limitations to convey character and combat animations feeling fluid and real. The downpoint of the animation, though excusable, is the lip-syncing, which brings me on to the dialogue screens. The dialogue screens are potentially hugely immersion-breaking, with the world waiting for you to have your conversation, and then also waiting for the second-long loading screen between gameplay and dialogue. Remark the time I walked into an ambush of a dozen enemies who jumped me, ran up to me, and stood patiently while my helpful tour guide remarked on the area's unique history. All this might have been bearable had it not been for the Witcher's shocking portrayal of women. I can barely tell the difference between townswomen and prostitutes; they have such ridiculous cleavage showing, and certainly all of the lead female characters have been sexualised, including Shani, a medical friend of yours who helps plague victims dressed in her barely existent skirt that leaves both her legs wholly exposed. And to mention the women-who-sell-sex* - yes, it's fair to say there would be prostitution, but not on every street corner! Not at every hour of the day! Not wandering the docks at lunchtime! Not ready to give their stock gratis to any man who approaches them with a bunch of tulips! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Overall, this game had me excited for the storytelling and the important, consequential choices the game's narrative had to offer, but if they were there, they were hidden far behind the rubbish dump that is this game. Play this if you want a prime example of staggering incompetence.

I love this game and frankly, I was told about it before I got it and it fully deserved the hype. Although, technically a linear game, it felt very open in terms of the space and environment. It does encourage exploration as there was no area that I could truly see as empty. It's games like these that have just enough things to do in the space that they have that feel fulfilling to complete instead of big open spaces with little to nothing to do. This game in particular, along with its surprisingly open environment, which even has the beginnings of a live environment (monkeys and other animals crawling around, ambient voices in towns, hisses in the night and maybe howling) has a story that draws you in as well. Admittedly, the game is dark but it is also fairly scary. The music and the darkness in the environment of some areas truly give you goosebumps. Your main quest is to unravel a mystery or mysteries rather, the main one being of where exactly did the items taken from the laboratory go. Like others have said, this game truly stands out because you have decisions that matter. That's all I will say about the story. Combat: Primarily, your character is strongly focused on swordplay with no shield. With incredibly agile and offensive attacks rather than stealth or magic. Stealth is virtually non-existent in this game and magic is limited, so playing primarily as a mage is very difficult, however that comes as a huge part of what makes the character and as you will see, most Witchers are heavily warrior class. Therefore, the RPG elements of this game are solely focused on the warrior class. That is really a non-issue for me. I'm just pointing out the specific RPG factors of the game, however, who knows who it might turn off. Equipment: The game does equip you properly enough throughout its phases and that's saying a lot, as there are plently of games out there where you find good equipment only too late for you made up for your equipment deficits with grinding and leveling up combat, with this game, it seems like CD ProjektRED spent their time wisely by making a very well thought out game. Controls: The controls are great, I love them and prefer them over the Witcher 2 controls. There are no quick time events and I love that as well. Yes, they did take some learning but actually no more learning than other games with a slightly different control layout. I was using a Dualshock 4 controller with InputMapper and it worked great. It did limit my keys but only because my knowledge of creating macros is non-existent Conclusion: The gameplay, combat and story alone in this game rivals many, even by today's standards and in fact this game balances so many minute details and yet seems to draw the big picture just as well that most games of today can learn a lot of things from this game. On a personal note, primarily because of this game, has Geralt of Rivia become my second favorite character of all time. Maybe even rivaling my first, Solid Snake. Both, I would say bring something to the table that inspire me. I'm in fact going to play it again because I want to have the entire story of the Witcher series before I play the third one but from the experience I had, it will be worth it. Very well worth it. Enjoy your gaming.

I just finished my 60 hour playthrough. "Waste" sums up everything. Money is useless, items are useless, quest lines are full of filler content and still take a long time to do. Most quests are fetch quests and kill quests. The Aurora engine used in the game makes sure every single thing that every single thing within the game could become glitched. Crashes during location changes, crashes before saving, save function turning into delete save function (that f-ing sucked). You need a guide for this game, period. Otherwise you will wander around doing useless things such as gathering herbs and killing monsters while not progressing in the game. Quests are the only content in the game and will make sure to waste as much of your real life time as possible. The notorious long fetch and escort missions quite abundant. I still have nightmares of that Vesna Hood save-and-rescue quest. The quests repeat a lot, e.g. multiple "monster in the cellar" missions. You'll be bored in no time. Time you won't have if you are playing this game as a lot of the main storyline quests have around six or eight phases i.e. quest assignments within quests, of which each might require a 15-mnute run around between two places. A simple-looking quest can turn into a multi-hour marathon. Graphics are great and sounds are so-so. The game is all about glitches. I found so many consistent ones that I do not even want to know how random glitches such as my "(delete) save game" one there are in the game. For example, I figured out that I could make connecting a hit on an enemy repeat if I left-clicked on the enemy slightly afterwards while the hit animation was still playing. Rapidly clicking would roll back to the moment before registering the hit over and over again to the point I could drain any fist fighters life completely after scoring just one hit. I once KILLED a fist-fighter that way and broke the game. 2/5 (time wasting quests, game-breaking glitches and crashes dominated the experience).