The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

PROS: • The music is unique and atmospheric. It supplements actual narration excellently. • Believable and vivid portrayals of game characters by Polish voice actors. • The witcher’s fighting choreography. It makes for an amazing visual spectacle and sets him apart from other warriors. With new experience levels you can unlock new combos, which allows combat to evolve. • Intricate alchemy system. There are 5 substances required to prepare potions, oils and bombs. You are encouraged to experiment—it’s possible to discover new recipes on your own. Some ingredients have additional qualities; when combined, they offer extra benefits. • Well written plot with a surprising twist at the end. • Replayability. Depending on your choices, some of the game’s events unfold differently. • Incredible artwork displayed during flashbacks and loading screens. • Great intro and outro. • Varied bestiary. CONS: • While the dice poker minigame is cool, wining is a bit too much based on luck rather than skill. • Yrden and Axii signs take too long to cast and don’t offer much benefit. • Too many NPCs share the same character models. It breaks immersion. • Fast travel is available only for a small portion of the game. • No real challenge even on hard difficulty. • Repetitive locations, particularly interiors—the geometry might be slightly different but textures are exactly the same. You’ll spend at least a third of your time in the same places. • Annoying world traversal—Geralt cannot climb all obstacles. He has to walk around them to reach some spots (invisible walls). • Since defense is performed automatically, using dodges and rolls doesn’t make a lot of sense. • Loading happens too often when transitioning between locations. • Monster deterrents do more harm than good. • Too many fetch quests.

Non, "classique cultissime" n'est pas un pléonasme : on parle de The Witcher 1 ! Le premier jeu d'un petit studio, inconnu à l'époque, encore faut-il le rappeler. D'ailleurs, de quoi parle-t-on, exactement, lorsqu'on parle d'un tel chef d'œuvre ? J'entends par-ci par-là des commentaires : "oh, les graphismes ont vieilli !", "bof, le système de combat", "c'est nul, les aller-retours et quêtes fedex"... désolé, mais vous êtes vraiment des peines-à-jouir ! The Witcher, c'est avant tout, en ce qui me concerne, la plus belle introduction du jeu vidéo. Le combat contre la strige, avec tout ce qu'il faut de psychologie animale pour que l'affrontement soit crédible, vivant. Une cinématique de dingue dans la vieille Wyzima, au soleil couchant. The Witcher, c'est le meilleur système de compétences de l'histoire du cRPG. The Witcher, c'est le titre, en terme d'ambiance, de DA et de Design, le plus fidèle à l'œuvre de Sapkowski : on s'y croirait (vous avez lu les bouquins, les gens ?). The Witcher, c'est du sang, des larmes, un héro qui galère et un joueur qui galère avec lui, dans une sorte de symbiose douloureuse et tragique (de ce point de vue, les aller-retours soutiennent l'expérience). The Witcher, c'est un scénario béton, des personnages profonds, un lore solide. Quand il est sorti, l'alternative était Morrowind/Oblivion... bon. (et on me parle de quêtes fedex dans Witcher ?!?) The Witcher, c'est une DA de génie, avec une gestion des éclairages incroyable, une façon de rendre les saisons presque organique, quand on a vécu à la campagne, on hallucine : encore aujourd'hui, je ne sais pas comment ils ont fait ça. Bref, The Witcher, c'est tout simplement le meilleur RPG de l'histoire occidentale en terme d'art graphique et de conception, avec peut-être DAOrigins et Ishar. Chacun ses goûts, mais SVP : si vous n'aimez pas, pensez un peu à ça quand vous en parlerez désormais. Un peu de respect. Ne serai-ce que pour le travail bien fait, c'est pas si fréquent de nos jours.

One of the best games of all time!

Superb game that lets you slip into the skin of a world-weary, near-immortal monster hunter. The world is dark, you are hated by the very people you help. Religious fanaticism, racism, violence and bigotry abound, and there are no easy choices. As a tough-as-nails and good-looking adventurer who on top of everything is immune to disease and sterile, you obviously get incredible amounts of sex. I like the beautifully illustrated cards that represent Geralt's fleeting memories of his intimate encounters (sadly missing from the sequels). Some of those however go beyond mere sex. Geralt has authentic (if conflicted) romances. He also has great and loyal friends, and you'll care for a lot of the characters and even quest NPCs you encounter. The combat system felt strange at first but it grew on me, and I appreciated the fact that I had to prepare for combat ("meditation") by picking my potions in advance instead of chugging a million of them on the go like in most RPGs. The only negatives that come to mind are some extremely hard bosses in high difficulties, and of course the fact that the graphics and UX conventions have aged quite a bit by now. Overall this is an amazing world mixing authentic medieval elements with fantasy, that you won't want to quit. Special mention to the interesting and sometimes nightmarish monsters you face, inspired by Polish folklore.

It's 2019, and in many respects, The Witcher has not aged well. The face models and 3D renders have aged woefully, yet the art direction and texture work remains surprisingly strong. The controls are unresponsive at times and moving Geralt around Vizima and its surrounding environs can be a frustrating chore. The voice acting is poor and at times unintentionally funny. And the combat, the primary means of interacting with this world, is dated. Players make Geralt fight by participating in a ryhthm game of timing swings of swords, lest no attack happen at all. The game struggles to run on modern systems at time, often crashing when there are too many models on screen or while loading new areas. Save often. And yet despite all this I enjoyed the game immensely, save for Act V and the Epilogue. The Witcher was the freshman game from CD Projekt Red, and it's clear that they both weren't sure how to develop a video game but tried desperately hard. The game is dripping with a delightful yet bleak Slavic atmosphere. The game has taken on a quaint charm due to how poorly some of it has aged. The story is one of the weaker elements on display here. It's essentially a revenge plot that drags on too long. Yet there are fun and engaging side stories to discover and good characters to form relationships with. I appreciated how small the story begins, how it grows in scope dramatically and finishes in a quiet courtyard, with a solid prerendered cinematic at the very end to set up the sequel. The ending isn't a boss rush exactly, but the game does through an obscene number of enemies at you for the last hour or so, and it became tiring quickly. If you haven't played any of the Witcher games before, I wouldn't start here unless you crave the full context of the story, but I think it's more enjoyable to go back later to learn where Wild Hunt came from.