The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

Its a great RPG type game! I liked it!

There used to be a time when games were judged not by the graphics and cinematic, but by how much fun they were to play. Playing the Witcher feels like watching a movie, but not nearly as good. The combat system is one of the worst I have seen in a game to the extent that I found it unplayable. It is not difficult. You simply click once to attack, and then when your sword turns orange, click again. Doing anything else while this goes on causes your attack to do nothing. Most flash games have more engaging combat mechanics.

The Witcher is by far one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Not only is it genuinely exciting with an absorbing story but it also actually forces you to roleplay the character... something which is just not as common as you might think in Computer/Console RPGs. I've enjoyed playing quite a few RPGs in my time, be they Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age but The Witcher was one of very few I finished. And it was one I just couldn't bring myself to step away from for too long. If anyone's a bit unsure of it because they've heard it might be a little rough around the edges, I fully recommend they give it a go. Thoroughly enjoyable and well worth the hours it took to complete.

What a slog of a game. Constant travel between locations takes forever, tons of side quests that ultimately aren't interesting, a totally pointless skill tree, spells which aren't useful, a huge item crafting system which (other than health potions) isn't needed to easily win any battle. Tedious inventory management for completists. On top of the slog, multiple crashes and twice a bug which prevented saving (claiming "the disk is full") meant I too often had to replay sections. After 35 hours of game time I was only at the end of chapter 2 (of 5). Mercifully, another bug prevented my completing that chapter, requiring I either restore a save that is 10-hours of play-time old, or abandon the game entirely. The choice was pretty obvious. (To avoid that game-ending bug, DO NOT PLACE ANY SEPHIROTS in the obelisks until you have them all and can do them all at once, or it may lose track of them. Google tells me others have lost their games to this bug as well.) Also, a tip for The Witcher's writers: If you save a woman from a violent gang rape, and spend 2 minutes escorting her home through magic hell dogs, she probably wouldn't actually be in the mood to flirt and suggest a sexual rendezvous as a reward.

The Witcher is an unusual cRPG. For one, the protagonist is well defined from the outset, despite his amnesia. It is also, as I'm sure everyone's heard by now, sexist and primitive in its treatment of woman. However, the game succeeds in places where its contemporaries do not (I'm looking at you, DA): it breathes life, character and charm. And it's beautiful. Now, I don't mean beautiful in the sense that this engine could rival Crysis 2 - although how they managed to squeeze so much prettiness from the Aurora/Odyssey Engine (NWN, NWN2) is a source of amazement for me. No, what I'm talking about is the overall artist direction. I literally spent hours in Vizima - admittedly because the game required me to - and I can honestly say I haven't enjoyed a fantasy city this much since 1998's Baldur's Gate. The incidental detail is magnificent. I also literally spent hours on Black Tern Island, simply gazing, looking out at the horizon... and this, truly, the game *did not* require. The story, too, was a surprise. It wasn't masterful, it wasn't beautiful. It was not magnificent. Sometimes, it didn't even make that much sense. But the last couple of twists, the last few character reveals and narrative u-turns... well, let's just say I am satisfied. All in all... the game is a wonderful, brilliant example of a diamond in the rough. I could list many of its flaws here: endless fetch quests, patchy dialogue, awkward voice-acting, finicky interface... but that would be missing the point. The game; the world of Temeria; Geralt the Witcher, the White Wolf; all sing of a studio (CD Projekt) that loves its craft and loves its source material. In short: you know that feeling you get at the end of a good book? Mister Hemingway put it best: "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was." Exactly how I feel about The Witcher.