An expanded game of The Witcher
Based on the novels by a popular Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher is an action-oriented, epic fantasy RPG that takes players on a journey through a world which in many ways mirrors our own. Take on the role of Geralt of Rivia, a professional monster hunter, as he embarks on a quest of self-discovery and revenge. The game's time-delayed decision-consequence system ensures that the consequences of your choices will become apparent only in the following chapters of Geralt's story, discouraging returns to a previous save point. The Enhanced Edition includes technical and gameplay improvements that bring shorter loading times, more natural animations, and improved inventory, among others. Two new adventures titled The Price of Neutrality and Side Effects will extend players' enjoyment of the game. Finally, the "D'jinni Adventure Editor" enables players to create their adventures and shared them with others.
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The first of my best trilogy, bad gameplay but one of the best stories.
The Witcher 1 is a relatively modern RPG that, like Dragon Age: Origins, also shares many qualities with the CRPGs of the late 90s and early 2000s, particularly in its writing. The story, characters, and world are the real stars of the game and carry it quite heavily. Although the writing has a pretty large variance in quality, with some dialogue feeling out of place, with characters speaking like people the modern period at times (references to psychoanalysis and therapy in a clearly medieval world?), and some pretty terrible and stilted voices for npcs, although I hear the original version of the game had even worse voice acting. That being said most of the main quests and more elaborate side quests are interesting with believable characters and motivations. The detective/mystery quest in Vizima being the part that actually drew me in and convinced me to finish the game. Starting the game, outside of the main city, is pretty dull and is what caused me to drop the game years ago. Once inside the city, the game improves dramatically. Other than the starting areas, the only part of the game I greatly disliked was Chapter IV, where the game breaks its pacing with what feels like a filler arc. It interrupts the flow of the main quest to dump you into a new area that had little to no significance to the main plot threads (and also has an obscene amount of backtracking across big zones).
It has been said a million times before, but the combat in the Witcher is not very good. While functional and not broken, it is mindless, essentially being a rhythm game where you click at appropriate times and Geralt will do long animations of attacks. There is no impact or real feedback, and it quickly becomes an unconscious ritual where you tune out mentally for the majority of your time with the game. As long as you level up enough, you should not have trouble 99% of the time, because there is a lack of gear. You will be using your default equipment for most of the game, only getting a handful of new weapons or a better piece of armor via a couple quests in the latter half of the game. So money becomes kind of useless, only being useful for gambling, a few bribes, and paying the cheap toll to rest at inns. Alchemy was strangely not as important as the game implied it to be. Perhaps it was because I played on the medium/default difficulty, but I only found myself using the night vision and health potions. I used oils a handful of times and never touched the bombs. By doing the majority of the content in an area I was almost always overlevelled for combat encounters.
Admittedly I had been quite biased against the Witcher for years. When the Witcher 3 blew up in 2015, I saw it as a "reddit/HBO" game and wrote the series off. Now that I have beaten the first game I can say that it is quite a good and well-written RPG, I don't consider it to be flawless or even one of my favorites, but I think it is one of the stronger role-playing games of the 2000s era.
It has been said a million times before, but the combat in the Witcher is not very good. While functional and not broken, it is mindless, essentially being a rhythm game where you click at appropriate times and Geralt will do long animations of attacks. There is no impact or real feedback, and it quickly becomes an unconscious ritual where you tune out mentally for the majority of your time with the game. As long as you level up enough, you should not have trouble 99% of the time, because there is a lack of gear. You will be using your default equipment for most of the game, only getting a handful of new weapons or a better piece of armor via a couple quests in the latter half of the game. So money becomes kind of useless, only being useful for gambling, a few bribes, and paying the cheap toll to rest at inns. Alchemy was strangely not as important as the game implied it to be. Perhaps it was because I played on the medium/default difficulty, but I only found myself using the night vision and health potions. I used oils a handful of times and never touched the bombs. By doing the majority of the content in an area I was almost always overlevelled for combat encounters.
Admittedly I had been quite biased against the Witcher for years. When the Witcher 3 blew up in 2015, I saw it as a "reddit/HBO" game and wrote the series off. Now that I have beaten the first game I can say that it is quite a good and well-written RPG, I don't consider it to be flawless or even one of my favorites, but I think it is one of the stronger role-playing games of the 2000s era.
why did i spend more time reading books than playing
Tentei muito jogar isso, mas não dá. A gameplay envelheceu muito mal, é lenta, repetitiva e chata. A atmosfera é boa, o mundo de The Witcher é fantástico, a história com certeza deve continuar sendo interessante. Só que esse combate com certeza estragou minha experiência e não vou voltar a jogar.
Very early impressions: (not having played other Witcher games)
The combat doesn't bother me at all. It is unusual and unnecessary, but it doesn't really hamper the experience. It is mechanically shallow, and too easy, but that is offset by other aspects of gameplay which keeps the experience fresh.
The story begins in a bizarre way, as if the game itself is also a sequel, and it doesn't really bother to explain much to the player. The only saving grace is that Geralt himself has amnesia, so he's as confused as the player. Unfortunately, he doesn't ask a lot qu- well... he does ask a lot of questions, but he doesn't ask the important ones, imo. He's too aloof, which doesn't help with the player's confusion in the world.
Thankfully, it doesn't get long for you get your bearings if you can withstand this strange alien world long enough. The game does through off the deep end, but you slowly learn how to swim.
The only thing I could tangibly feel being bad and even annoying to an extent is the voice acting; but... even that is charming to an extent in retrospect. It just clashes with the actually good writing of the dialogues. A lot of the jank clashes with what the game is trying to go for quite often, in fact. Random cut-scenes in middle of a wholly different scene, important things randomly happening without much ceremony, complete lack of facial expressions... they're not deal breakers, but they do induce a couple of "wtf"s here and there.
But it's definitely a good game overall. No reason not to play it and skip over to Witcher 2. Just remember its release date and set your expectations accordingly. And try to get past the awfully boring opening. It'll get better once you're set free into the world.
The combat doesn't bother me at all. It is unusual and unnecessary, but it doesn't really hamper the experience. It is mechanically shallow, and too easy, but that is offset by other aspects of gameplay which keeps the experience fresh.
The story begins in a bizarre way, as if the game itself is also a sequel, and it doesn't really bother to explain much to the player. The only saving grace is that Geralt himself has amnesia, so he's as confused as the player. Unfortunately, he doesn't ask a lot qu- well... he does ask a lot of questions, but he doesn't ask the important ones, imo. He's too aloof, which doesn't help with the player's confusion in the world.
Thankfully, it doesn't get long for you get your bearings if you can withstand this strange alien world long enough. The game does through off the deep end, but you slowly learn how to swim.
The only thing I could tangibly feel being bad and even annoying to an extent is the voice acting; but... even that is charming to an extent in retrospect. It just clashes with the actually good writing of the dialogues. A lot of the jank clashes with what the game is trying to go for quite often, in fact. Random cut-scenes in middle of a wholly different scene, important things randomly happening without much ceremony, complete lack of facial expressions... they're not deal breakers, but they do induce a couple of "wtf"s here and there.
But it's definitely a good game overall. No reason not to play it and skip over to Witcher 2. Just remember its release date and set your expectations accordingly. And try to get past the awfully boring opening. It'll get better once you're set free into the world.
Steam