The Witcher series
(After playing through most of it)
So, I have been playing a lot of the Witcher recently. It’s not a new game series by any means. I was in elementary school when the first came out and a senior in high school when the third came out. So to say the least, I missed the train on this and so me reviewing it now is kinda pointless. But since I did buy all of them last steam sale and have not had the money to buy any recent games, it couldn't hurt to give my opinion.
The story:
This game series has a story I don’t want to spoil. Most have already played it and gameplay can be found all over the internet. I still won’t spoil it though, yeah that’s right. I saw the steam achievement stats. Only 22% of people on steam have made it to the second games end. A pity really, all three are quite good games.
Anyway, the story concerns a man named Geralt. He is a witcher, and a monster hunter for hire. At one point they were a much larger organization, though the order seems to have fallen into disrepair. He was the object of a mobs anger, and got stabbed with a pitch fork. That didn’t stop him, as he survives and ends up with other Witchers at kaer morhen. Shortly after the castle is attacked by another mob of peasants. This time assisted by a sorcerer and criminal organization. There is much more to this story though as leads to a full on conspiracy. The other games all go off from the first game. I would have to say the story is easy to follow in each game. However trying to follow it across each game can be a little more challenging. There is a couple months between the Witcher 1 and 2, then a whole half year between Witcher 2 and 3. This makes it disorienting between games and never really explains what happened between. Though in some ways this can be forgiven. This is because most of the games are more or less self contained stories. The first game has five Chapters and a prologue and epilogue. Now this is an RPG and what RPG would be complete without choices. The choices in this game are really quite good. Some choices that seem small can lead to entirely different endings for a particular chapter. Now cross game choices? Well I haven't really seen one that makes too much impact. I did get legendary armor in the first game and it carried over into the second game. Also I sided with knights of the flaming rose and was able to benefit from that in the second game a bit. Other than those two I haven't seen much cross game choices impact. But choices made in the game usually do have immediate effects. So all in all it’s story is a high point.
Gameplay:
The gameplay differs significantly between games. Cd projekt red clearly experimented a lot when making each game. Each game has roughly the same loop though. You go to an area, and have side quests and story objectives. After completing the story objectives you move to the next area and get a new set. Most of the quests are either monster hunting or solving people's personal problems. The two aren’t mutually exclusive most of the time.
The monster hunting is the main event of these games besides the story. There is truly a large amount of monsters to hunt. Some of them are rather easy to defeat like the drowners, others more difficult. This only gets worse in the second and third games. I would say this is due to Geralt getting much more squishy. The first game had combat between three sword styles, oils, potions, stats, armor, dodging, signs and swords. All of these would make combat easier. Each sword style has a combo and you click an enemy with the mouse and only click more when prompted. This will give a similar feel to the combat system of KOTOR. This combat system even frustrates me in the same way. In the second game they largely change this. The sword styles goes away and so do the combos. It still has most of the other systems but a transition to full real time combat changes things. Also Geralt is hurt a bit easier, on the other hand, he heals easier as well. The signs are less powerful than in the first game as well. Don’t think you can skip the tutorial because you played the last game. The controls are changed up so much that you will need to relearn them. Such issues only become more common in the third game. But I will say that ultimately most of the changes in gameplay are more of an improvement rather than downgrade.
In terms of difficulty, well this is a difficult question. I played the first on normal, and was challenged more than I thought I would. This goes double for the second which I even died multiple times on normal in some boss fights. Don’t even get me started on the third. You want to prepare for enemies in this game, and pay attention to the levels. You may realize that an enemy can two-shot you because you're under-leveled. You may also realize that a werewolf you're fighting has an insane regen rate and no way to stop it. So prep for each monster fight and make sure to keep tabs on your level.
One gripe I also have is that the game throws an awful lot of enemies at you at once. In the first game this isn’t that big of a deal as it has a group sword style. But in the second and third...man I get jumped. The Nekkers especially, they are weak but so many run at you that if you aren’t careful they can overrun you. I hate it in the third right now the most. Got jumped by 10 of 13 of these guys and was overwhelmed before I knew it. All three games seem to take a perverse joy throwing multiple enemies at you at once. Even the final fight in the first game isn’t a one on one. Thankfully in the second game it was one on one.
The potions mechanic is very fun and balanced. Each one needs the formula and ingredients. Each benefits you in a very specific way. Some increase reflexes, refill health, reduce damage, even making bombs or oils to do more damage. How this is balanced is by the side effects. Mainly that you can only take so many potions before they kill you. Each potion adds to your toxicity, to many at once and you die. Only way to lower this is to either make a specific potion to lower these effects (also takes the other potions' positive effects away) or meditate. The oils and bombs do not add to this only the potions, health potions included.
The meditation mechanic helps a bunch. In the first game while meditating you can do Alchemy(oils, bombs, potions), level up, wait till monsters appear, or regen health/toxicity. Be warned, you need flint to light a campfire to meditate in the first game. For the second game this changes a bit. You can meditate nearly anywhere. But you can only take potions while meditating and have a defined time limit on potions. The third game even does away with this and allows you to take potions in combat again, and turns meditation into just a waiting tatic. Even alchemy and leveling up can be done without meditating. Even though needing to meditate in the first game got a little annoying I did like it as a mechanic. It was a unique mechanic, but I guess it does play a bit better with how the third game uses it. The second games version was definitely a mistake.
Conclusion:
The Witcher game series is certainly one of the best I have played. Kinda let down I missed this bandwagon when it was fresh. The story is interesting, and the gameplay is rewarding and fun. Each title has visible improvements and experiments with the formula while maintaining the core gameplay. Though the story can be a bit hard to follow at times. Though keep tabs on your save file as the games do tend to crash a bit. They won’t crash like Skyrim but do crash more than the average game. If you are bored of modern games and want a good story consider the Witcher series.
Written by Rooty
Tuesday 10 march 2020
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