Let me say that I didn’t play The Witcher. As I started playing The Witcher 2 I went in completely clueless about the back story, the characters, or even the control schemes.
The first thing to point out is that the game is pretty. Very pretty. I tried running it on medium settings for the first few hours, and while it ran to some extent, at the start of my gaming session last night, I dropped it down to low settings. Which made me sad, knowing that my computer is aging and is now on the low-end of the spectrum. Such is life.
The second thing to point out is the game is hard. It’s probably harder than any game I have played in the past 10 years. The two boss fights I have encountered thus far have reminded me of learning a raid in World of Warcraft. But more about that in a minute.
Being the gamer that I am, the only choice in difficulty was to play on “Hard.” There is another option but the description sounds like perma-death so we aren’t touching that one. I am not a masochist.
The first gut reaction is to start combat like you would in a game like Dragon Age 2. As the game puts you in your first fight you might think “4 guys? Hah, I got this.” And then promptly get wrecked if you don’t prepare properly.
What you will quickly learn about The Witcher 2 is that you will not win a fight going toe-to-to against most enemies. Any fight of remote consequence should be handled with preparation and consumables.
While many RPGs lately let you down potions at will, there is no potion drinking in combat. In fact most potions are some type of duration effect that you need to drink before the fight starts. That’s one reason boss-style fights are so hard.
While Dragon Age 2 tossed scores of enemies at you, the fights in The Witcher 2 are a little more spread out and most of them seem more valuable to the progression of the story.
Combat is near real-time. Other than activating a different spell or bomb/trap, combat decisions are made on the fly. I quickly learned that Geralt (the hero) can’t take a hit like The Champion could. The Witcher might be strong but he is also fast like a freak. You will probably spend more time using the dodge mechanic to avoid sword swings than actually swinging your own.
As I mentioned, I have come across two encounters that would be considered boss fights. The first boss fight was an exercise in teaching me how to use one of my magical abilities and a crash course in dodging. So much in fact that an error usually would end up in death.
I think I reloaded that fight about 10 times before I got through each section of the fight and finally figured out what I needed to do on the last phase. And the kill was satisfying.
The second boss encounter would be an excellent example of identifying gamers who grew up starting a game over after running out of lives and some younger gamers who might be impatient with a fight they can’t beat in an a single attempt. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to lump anyone younger than me in this crowd by default, but you probably know at least one person I could be referencing.
I easily spent two hours attempting the second boss. And while I can’t take a punch quite like Muhammad Ali, I felt like this after I finally defeated the encounter:
If you played Dragon Age 2, imagine having to fight the Arashok in single combat without being able to drink a potion. It was kind of like that.
In terms of the story, it’s being delivered fantastically. I’ve been picking up bits and pieces about people I am sure I was introduced to in the first game. I can already tell I’ve made certain decisions that will impact how the story plays out and I am excited to see the repercussions of them as it advances.
There are a lot of game elements which has made me happy. My inventory fills up with a lot less useless junk, instead being replaced by an abundance of alchemy materials and bomb and trap making supplies. All things I have been using quite liberally in my travels.
Crafting is interesting in the sense where you may not always find the specific material you need to craft something, but rather find a raw material that contains the element that you can use in the crafting process. I might need Aether to make this health regeneration potion, but since I didn’t have processed Aether I found one of the plants I had been gathering along the way said that it contained it and I was able to make my much-needed potion.
There are a few nuances so far that have bothered me. As you play, you gather crafting recipes to make potions, traps, bombs, armor, or weapons. It gives you the list of materials you need but it doesn’t display all the information about the item on-screen at once so you have to wait for the painfully slow scrolling so you know what you need.
There have been a few times where I have done “favors” for individuals with the promise of information to help me along my way. After performing whatever task they needed they tell me some bit if information or give me an item and we discuss it like we had previously talked about when we had no such discussion. It caused a few confusing moments.
Overall though I have been greatly enjoying the game. It’s challenging but not hard in the sense of being annoying. The story is good so far and being driven along at a decent pace.
I do feel the need to mention that this game may have earned it’s “M” rating more than any game I have ever played before. Some of the characters have mouths on them, and apparently brothels are extremely common place. While you can avoid a lot of it, you will inevitably run into a naked woman or some will drop the “f bomb” in front of you.
