I totally enjoyed the first Witcher, but the second was a big disappointment. The fighting mechanics has changed; while the idea to make the witcher to actually fence seemed neat, the execution was very awkward, so you always run in the wrong direction, sick in corners, and fight the wrong guy. There's lots of stupid restrictions like not being able to quickly take a potion before a battle, you have to meditate, and you cannot meditate in certain places (although they're perfectly safe) so sometimes you have to walk back a couple of locations where you can finally take the drug. As a result the game is absurdly hard even on easy levels; you just keep dying. And these "click-click" sequences to aim a ballista nearly drove me crazy; this is one of stupidiest things I saw in games. Gosh, I even failed to pass the tutorial: it insisted on me charming a monster, but for some reason the charming spell didn't work and other weapons or spells were disabled. The tutorial I skipped, but the rest I cannot skip, can I? So I gave up near the end of the prologue. I don't think I'm going to play it. Also, the sound is much worse; the first game had very nice music and effects, but here they are kind of harsher and much more repeatable and boring. The only thing that looks better compared to the first part are the cutscenes, but that's all.
