Ведьмак 2: Убийцы королей

This is a good game that is unfortunately hindered by poor combat balancing and some strange design decisions. You can't use potions in combat, however you can apply blade oils. Another very strange moment occurs where, at the start of chapter 2, the player suddenly finds themself in control of King Henselt (which is very jarring!). However, imo the biggest issues are the combat and balancing. The developers have completely thrown out the combat system from W1, which is unfortunate, as the W1 combat system (with e.g. the different stances) was imo interesting and distinctive. It needed refinement, not complete replacement. The 'Dark Souls'-like combat they replaced it with feels more generic and derivative. The balancing of the game is very bad - it has an inverted difficulty curve, with the prologue and chapter 1 being very punishing and chapter 3 a relative cakewalk. There are a number of reasons why it seems so tough early on. Monsters/enemies don't seem to scale at all as the game progresses and Geralt's character development is somewhat whacky. It seems to be based on saddling him with a load of artificial weaknesses, which require perks to be obtained to correct. Without the right combat feats, dodging is very difficult; blocking costs valuable vigor points; and you take 200% damage(!) from hits in the back. This last point combines with the combat mechanics to be a big culprit for the early difficulty. Hits in the back do double damage; however there is no way to back away from an opponent whilst facing them. So the only way to escape from a powerful enemy is to turn your back on them and risk getting one-shotted from behind. It's bad mechanical design that makes the game feel difficult for the wrong reasons. The game is redeemed by the intriguing and complex plot, the characters, the roleplaying with meaningful choices, and the gorgeous graphics. I will give it 3 stars, as I feel it has a lot of design issues and the current rating is way too high.

I'm just going to say it. W2 is a typical late 2000/early 2010s AAA title. Form over substance, presentation over depth. Button mashing combat, unpolished fundamental gameloop coupled with bloated unnecessary mechanics. It's a typical and quite serviceable movie-game with some fanservice. If that's your type of game, than W2 can give you 30-40 hours for a bargain of a price [during sales] and will run on any toaster these days. However the question stands, is it worth playing in current day? Probably not. If you missed it years ago, you've really lost nothing of value unless you really enjoy the IP.

This is probably the best story CDPR pulled, but aside from these many political, romance and religious battles the game, the gameplay that is not quite what it should be. There is a vision, perhaps hard to birth into reality, but a lot is not executed well, specially the potions that can only be taken during rest, instead of just outside battle. The hardest difficulties aren't very working, group battles are very weird. All and all it has great ideas and at least on the story side is fantastic but at the actual thing is lacking the finishing touches. Graphics are really what shines here, being held by too simple anymations and eyes that don't follow characters. But there is nothing to top it, even the sequel doens't get this pretty and atmospheric. Not to mention that is is the best Geralt character, not to pretty, not ugly at all. Choices are quite really fantastic and gives you different perspectives and polical choices that I love so much in RPGs, which makes it quite replayable. Not a 5/5 because of the middle-of-the-road gameplay, the fighting is a downer with QTEs. But is such a lovely incarnation of the Witcher, it's world and the Polish voice acting is more than perfect than ever here.

I'll keep this short, because the "Most helpful review" by TigerLord already explains things in detail and I agree with most of it. For me as well, Witcher 2 is definitely the weakest part of the series. Yes, I actually liked the first game better. And, of course, W3 is beyond comparison as the best RPG *ever* (perhaps even best game overall - at least IMHO) and deserves 5+ grade. Now, don't get me wrong: W2 is *still* better than some 80% of RPGs out there. So, if it was a stand-alone game, not part of Witcher series, I'd gladly give him 5 stars. But as things stand, compared to the other two, I have to dock a star. Bottom line: W2 is definitely worth playing and I recommend playing the series in order 1-3. (I played them in order 1, 3, 2 instead and rather regret this decision.) Not just because the proper order makes the most sense story-wise (though if you've read the Witcher books, you know most of the background story already - and if you haven't, what on Earth are you waiting for?), but also because W1 gets you properly introduced to the series and gives you appetite for more. This will make the W2 play through more enjoyable, knowing that the absolute best is yet to come. :)

I'm from India, and believe me when I say it's hard to get a good game here. Most aren't released for PC, and even if they are, DRM screws you over due to lousy support. Thanks guys, for showing that loyalty to a company will always be more effective at stopping piracy than ham handed methods like DRM.