The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

Rating: 8 The Witcher has one of the greatest story I have ever played in a game. The game doesn't get the attention it deserves because the combat simply suck and makes doing many of the missions a chore. The story is fantastic. You are not the savior of the kingdom, just a man with some special abilities trying to do what he can to make things better. The dialogues and NPC interactions are well done and the game gives you extremely relevant choices that shape how the events in the game turn out. The graphics are a bit dated at this point but the game world is lovingly made and it shows. Witcher is oozing with character and life. The outskirts feel like a community of poor folk trying to survive rather than a bunch of isolated huts. Temple quarters is a vibrant town with all sorts of people who all feel real. Walking in town during night and day feel totally different. The leveling system is interesting, but it's nothing impressive. Alchemy is very well done though. It's extremely deep and very relevant to fighting. There are so many different potions, oils and bombs. If you're a fan of gear, you might be disappointed in The Witcher. The upgrade options are pretty scarce. That's not too big of a deal though because you won't have any shortage of stuff to spend money on. The biggest reason this game gets an 8 and not 9.5 from me is the combat. It's a chore pure and simple, which sucks because alchemy is so intriguing and you can't take advantage of it without combat. Next playthrough I'm going to try the full combat rebalance mod, which completely overhauls combat. It's supposed to be much better. If you haven't played the game yet, definitely try it. It can't be worse than the default option. Depending on how good the FCB mod is, the game can be one of the best of this generation. Without it, it's an all time story with real choices, beautiful settings with life, tragedy, heart and characters that you'll remember long after you finish the game.

To be honest, I'm, like many others, am late to the Witcher-verse party. My first introduction was the Witcher 2 Xbox 360 port back in 2012. I originally didn't finish it (mostly because I'd never heard of the Witcher and was recommended the game by a friend--who had played the PC version--based on my obscene love of Dragon Age: Origins and I was very put off by the lack of character creation at the time). After a couple of confused hours, I put the controller down and walked away. Boy, I didn't know what I was missing. Fast forward to May 2015 and the Witcher 3 is released and reviews and gamers alike are gushing about it. I held out for awhile, remembering my experience with tW2, but eventually caved and I'm so glad I did. The Witcher 3 was so great, I decided I had to go back and play the entire series. (Which, brings me to my review.) Firstly, value. In a simi-blind run, the game took me about 60 hours to finish, and I still didn't finish all the side quests. For $10 you're getting a LOT of game. The story is good (many think it's best of the series, but I think mostly that's because it does have some of the biggest plot twists in the series--the later games are better written but without shocking reveals at the end). The gameplay is a little funky. I found going into the isometric screen helped me a lot in tough combat situation. There are lots of different gameplay mechanics involved in this game (just like any classic RPG), and they can be tricky to get used to. The dialog is better than average, and this is the "I lost my memory" Geralt, not the loveable monster slayer with a heart of gold Geralt in tW2 and especially tW3, which can make him kinda hard to really like. Overall, I think it's a great, if a bit odd game, worth more than the asking price (I wouldn't have cash for it at the time, but after playing it once I think that its worth the full retail price of a new game) and a descent introduction to the series (though confusing at first).

I don't think I'm ever going to trust the rave reviews again, yeesh.. The game started out great, it was a new experience even if it felt outdated for me. The same character models that you meet with the same voices but with different names, ok I'll give that a pass, they're NPCS. The problem that I really had with the game, was the story. I don't want to spoil so I'll keep this vague, but if you see your enemy, wouldn't you kill him if you literally had the chance? That's when I gave up. Anyways, the main story isn't so good, the side quests aren't so good either and they were pretty much fetch quests with no real story to it. The trips back and forth to areas is torture. It is so boring and all the enemies that you face, sometimes it's best to just run past them. They waste so much of your time. Some of the areas and enemies just feel like they were artificially trying to lengthen the game and at a certain point I was begging for the game to just end. At first I liked going into caves and being in a dungeon but it's so dark, the game forces areas to be darker than they are. Using your torch while picking up stuff is so lackluster. The torch literally goes away and you have to then bring it back out to see where you're going and where the dead body is so you can loot it but once you do the torch goes away again and you just repeat. Close to the very end of the game, I had no space to put stuff and I'm quite a looter in rpgs and I'm looking for a place to sell my stuff but there's nothing and I'm forced to continue through the main story line. I had so many spells that I haven't even used, potions, and so much food that at the very end of the game, it felt easy and I liked that. A lot of the voice acting felt so dull, like they were zombies, "Hello, I like you", "I like you too Witcher", "Yes." That is literally how it went. The writing is pretty bad lol. I honestly thought this game would have been better than it was but it's just not worth playing.

I got hooked by the interesting storylin e of the series. I tried to dive into this game. And was forced to quit in an hour due to the strange and dysfunctional batle controls. Maybe it's becaus of the fact that the first games of a series are usually flawed in some way. Anyway, 4/10. 4 for the story, and the missing score for problematic combat.

If you use unofficial FPS mod, game looks and play much better.