Haven't played Witcher 3 yet but I definitely prefer Witcher over the Witcher 2. It's going to be a little difficult to get into it because of the dated graphics but boy does the game deliver on so many levels. The voice acting is out of this world good, I really like Geralt of TW1 over Geralt of TW2, the dialogue choices were also massive (probably twice as many options as the Witcher 2), a much longer story than TW2 that I enjoyed alot more. Battle is a mixed bag but once you understand how it works, it's actually quite alot of fun.
So, my story with series began with Dreamfall TLJ sometime in 2010 and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that when Dreamfall: Chapters (DTLJ's sequel) came out, I bought the new game along with The Longest Journey (Dreamfall TLJ's predecessor from 1999). After a couple of years of procrastinating, played it, right before replaying Dreamfall TLJ a second time. Sadly, my second playthrough of this game was not a good one. The original Longest Journey (1999) visuals made my eyes bleed but man oh man was that story amazing & man were those characters lovable: especially April Ryan who was goofy and lovable but also clever & resourceful. Strong but still humble. They took April Ryan in Dreamfall: TLJ & made her a secondary character & sucked all the life out of her, making her unrecognizable. That would have been ok if the new protagonist had some depth to her and something new to contribute for the series but sadly, Zoe, has as much depth and charisma as a British accented puddle of water. TLJ's plotline was also way more thought out & developed than Dreamfall TLJ. It had many incomplete threads that could have easilly filled another 2 sequels. When we left TLJ, Mercuria was invaded by the Tyren - a beast race of barbarian controlled by the Vanguard, a conspiracy that spanned across two universes. Although thwarted, the Vanguard were still a strong and present danger in both Stark and Arcadia - far from defeated. Where are the vanguard in Dreamfall? Gone! Fight for the balance? Gone! The Sentinels? Gone! The Tyren? Gone! Apperently, a couple of weeks after they invaded they got wiped out by another invading and occupying force before we even get to see what they looked like. Hell, Dreamfall even casually mentions a collapse in Stark's civilization occuring after TLJ but insultingly glosses over it. Why did such an amazing and still viable plot-line/main character get buried under a rug only to be replace by one that are nowhere near as interesting?
Helpful Tips: (game Review follows below) ----------------- 1) SPEEDING UP GAME: April can move at a glacial pace sometimes: you can double click to have April Jog across the screen, this will work on any action she performs. At some point you may even want to take advantage of the ESCAPE button which skips alot of the tedious animations or repeat conversations. When you're solving puzzles you'll have to sometimes go between several locations several times, across several screens back and forth, skipping walking animations will reduce the tedium considerably. 2) CONTROL SCHEME: ESCAPE: Exit/Skip I: Inventory X: Toggle Exit Points P: Pause R-Click Cancel Action. A / S : Quick Select Enter/Arrows: Select conversation dialogue. 3) STEAM CONTROLLER PROFILE: steam://controllerconfig/413080/582144026 (Install as a Desktop Config, save your default one before doing so) 4) VISUALS: Personally, I got rid of full screen by editing preference.ini and setting bool_StartFullscreen=0 as the full screen resulted in a cropped image which was making some puzzles undoable. I also set my monitor res to 800x600 since the no FS window is going to be really tiny. I had characters that were basically missing half their textures and resolved that by unselecting hardware acceleration during launch. REVIEW: ------------- I've been putting off playing this game for years, every since Dreamfall chapters came out and I wanted to start the series at the very beginning. I'm very sensitive to visuals and wasn't sure if I could get through this game and yes, the visuals were heavily dated but the game more than made up for it with its beautifully imagined story/lore/universe with voice acting by far superior to anything that the triple-AH studios put out these days. If you can get passed the visuals there is a deeply rewarding experience waiting for you in a universe that has both a Cyberpunk distopia and a fantasy realm co-existing with conspiracies and intrigues that span across both.
