The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

I finished the game and here are my thoughts below. Some spoilers for this game are mentioned in this review. What I enjoyed: 1. Story - I loved how I had to choose between the human named Vernon Roche and the elf named Iorveth. Both choices had their merits. Roche was the soldier who released Geralt (the protagonist played by the gamer) from execution for a crime Geralt didn't do. Whereas Roche saved Geralt, Iorveth is trying to save his race and help a certain female create an idealistic state. In short, I had to choose between paying off my debt to Roche (Roche path) or helping Iorveth create a state where non - humans (elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings) live in peace with humans (Iorveth path). 2. Graphics - They are beautiful and immerses the gamer into the game. 3. Gameplay - A massive improvement over The Witcher 1. It is hard for me to describe it, but playing it feels more graceful and fluid. 4. Music - The quality and purpose of the music did immerse me into the game. It speaks for itself. What I didn't like: 1. Why wasn't Cynthia, the Nilfgaardian sorceress and spy, on the Roche path? She is mentioned by Roche, but there is no scene on the path with her in it. The only reason I choose the Iorveth path is to spend some time with her. She is my favorite character in The Witcher game trilogy!

I am a little bit ambivalent when it comes to this game. On one side I really like it, on the other hand it has its unnecessary flaws. My biggest grievances regarding this game are all the game padding in the form of boring inventory and equipment management, bad balancing at times, and a couple of QTE's. Luckily there are mods that set all inventory items weight to 0, and thereby removes this game padding from the equation. Just do not use "Geralt's Improved Quality of Life" on Iorveth's path: The mod have messed too much with the balance of the game and makes at least sorceror (practically) invincible! QTE's are something that I hate a lot, but at least there are not many of them in this game. On one side I would say that there are FAR to many cut scenes and video sequences in this game, but on the other hand I can see that they are necessary to present the story and background information. So it might be considered a necessary evil? I guesstimate that I spent ca.75 hours playing through the first game. Approximately the same time I used to play through this game. And even if I had the time to get bored at times playing through the first game, I did not have the time to get (nearly) as bored playing through this game. Possibly because there was not as much walking back and forth in this game as in the first one. There was also more variation in monsters and enemies in this game compared to the first game. The crafting is also something that I find is more game padding than usefull: The work and time you have to put into get items crafted, often does not pay off since you often find better items shortly afterwords anyways... I found the fighting OK but at times frustrating: In the first game Geralt could dodge and jump over enemies, but in this game you are to often blocked, overpowered and killed! If I could I would probably have given this game 7/10. But since I can not, 3/5 would have been too low. Even if 4/5 is too much, it is "less wrong" than just 3/5...

A game with both negatives a positives. The negatives far outweight the positives. -Excessive post processing effects which, for the most part, can't be disabled. Even if you could, since the game design revolves around these, disabling them would make the game feel sterile. -Combat that tried to improve from The Witcher 1, and it technically did, but It's way too imperfect. Blocking is practically inexistent AND impractical, sign abuse, though fun, renders melee and sword play completely redundant. Yes, you can go melee, but why would you? You can just spam igni or aard from afar and end with finishing moves that one shot enemies, all while avoiding the clunky combat that doesn't allow for block-moving or atacking enemies when the game doesn't want you too. The enemy seems like he left an opening after you dodged or stunned him? Then expect a steel sound to pop out of his head, you are not allowed to hit him. -Dialogue that sometimes seems ooc. A couple of references are all well and good (LOTR, Dinosaurs, etc) but when Geralt starts talking as if he is trying to impress the player rather than the characters he speaks to every 2 out of 3 conversations, It gets cringy pretty quickly. There are many other things that the game fails at: Way too many combats with multiple enemies in close spaces, Flashbacks where characters feel even clunkier than Geralt since they lack """Witcher training"" and such. I still have fun with the game, replayed it a couple of times and mostly enjoyed it, but as I said in the opening, the negatives outweight the positives when they happen. You may not notice them if you just play the game a single time so you might not even perceive them.

nice game, however the first witcher is better

The witcher 2 is one of the best games of the early 2010's. Excellent graphics, story and gameplay