Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Madass Game Review: The Witcher
I'll try not to make this overlong for a review. Promise.
The Witcher is a game by obscure Polish developers CD Projekt Red based on obscure Polish books of the same name. Starting as a collection of short stories, The Witcher broke into a large series of novels. The success of the games has seen English translations of the books, which were only available in a handful of European languages beforehand. Currently, The Last Wish and The Blood Of Elves have recieved translations -- the book in between seems to have been skipped for some reason.
The books and games star a character named Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher who passes more than a passing resemblance to another fantasy character of similar name and strikingly pale hair colour. A Witcher is essentially a medieval Jedi -- master swordsmen, genetically altered from childhood, with command over some basic magicks (known as "Signs") and a strong knowledge of herbalism, which they use to brew potions too toxic for normal people. The general running theme is of "men and monsters", and the role of a Witcher in a world where monsters are becoming more scarce, only to be replaced by uncaring, unfeeling bureaucracies. Compounding the issue is the presence of elves and dwarves. In traditional fantasy fashion, they're elder races that walked the earth long before people, but the dominance of mankind has turned them into second-class citizens.
Overall, the setting of The Witcher evokes something between the endearment of traditional fairytales, the cynical, self-aware humour of the Discworld and the uncompromising darkness of A Game Of Thrones. The world is bleak, but not entirely unforgiving, and there are plenty of humorous asides and, sometimes, fairy tales come true. This is the world into which we're thrown for the duration of the game.
The Gameplay
Using BioWare's Aurora engine of Neverwinter Nights fame, the gameplay follows a semi turn-based system, erring towards some real-time dodge mechanics and the necessity of well-timed attacks. Clicking the attack button madly will get you nowhere; you have to wait for the combo indicator to spark and click within its (fairly short) timeframe. While I'm not generally a fan of systems that compromise between real-time and turn-based, there's some engagement to be found here. Because combat can't be won based on the numbers alone, getting the timing right becomes extremely important -- you have to be right on the ball. As Geralt's skills with the sword progress, his combos will gain new animations and new traits. Despite the inaccuracy of the combat, I found myself looking forward to the next attack animation and the empowerment it represented.
There are three sword styles -- "strong", "fast" and "group" -- and two different kinds of swords. The standard weapon for Geralt is the meteoric steel longsword, which is effective against humans and a small selection of monsters. What you'll probably find yourself using a bit more, however, is a Witcher's characteristic silver sword -- the order of the day for slaying monsters. My gripe with this is that dealing with these swords became unwieldy when one had to switch correctly. Geralt had to move through his sheathing animation and then the unsheathing animation. Furthermore, the key for activating the dagger slot is right next to the key for opening one's inventory.
Speaking of which, there are two spare weapon slots. One can house an additional sword, an axe or a manner of other hand weapons, and the other is for particularly small weapons, mostly daggers. The dagger slot can also house a flaming brand, which is useful for dark areas when one doesn't have any Cat potions, which is always since non-sword weapons are useless.
As for potions, you won't beat The Witcher without them. One of the major gameplay mechanics is meditation, which is your go-to state of mind for levelling up and potion brewing. Potions increase your toxicity level, and exceeding the maximum causes Geralt's death. While the standard healing potion exists, it's actually a pretty late-game acquisition. For the most part, you'll be relying on Swallow, a potion which increases the rate of your health regeneration. Since there's no go-to healing mechanic for fast healing and those late-game healing potions have a high toxicity cost anyway, it's extremely important to fight well. There's no other way to survive. Other potions exist, too; Cat allows you to see in the dark; Blizzard slows down the game and gives Geralt a bonus to his dodge rate; others unlock specific, permanent upgrades. There's a lot of potions in the game, but you probably won't use more than half a dozen, if that, on a regular basis.
Magic Signs are cast by simply clicking a button, draining endurance depending on the charge of the Sign. These are upgradable in the same way Geralt's sword skills are. While the Signs proved useful from time to time, they were no replacement for a skilfully wielded blade, mostly serving to soften harsh situations, of which I found relatively few. There are five signs, which include a Jedi mind trick and a trapping spell amongst others. My knowledge of their application was limited; I played the game relying on sword skills supported by tactically applied potions.
One frustrating element of gameplay was that meditation can only be done at a fireplace, or by engaging in a conversation that gives you a meditation option. The Witcher 2 fixed this, thankfully. This means that you'll find yourself looking for a fireplace from time to time in order to brew potions, level up, heal or change the time of day for the purposes of certain quests.
Time mechanics were implemented well here. Some quests have stages that can only be completed at certain times, and some monsters only appear during the day or during the night. Other monsters will appear at any time as long as the environment is dark enough, such as the various kinds of vampires you'll inevitably slay. There's a strong variety of monsters, from various folkloric undead... well, okay, there are other monsters, but the majority are some kind of Eastern or Central European take on the concept of a revenant. In any case, monsters exist pretty much where you'd expect them to and in some places where you wouldn't. The game in general is fond of setting up an expectation and then throwing exceptions at you, with these exceptions often being well aware of their exceptionality.
Overall, the gameplay flows strongly within its limitations, damaged somewhat by occasional bad pathing and general difficulty of access. While the game teaches you how to use the system and what resources to seek when in need of information, it otherwise gives you the freedom to do with it as you please. This puts a responsibility on you as a player to make good use of the resources that are given to you, and there's a distinct lack of hand-holding in the potion-brewing, swordsmanship or magic. You could, if you like, consider it one of the last of the old-school WRPGs -- high in content, only just enough guidance to push you through and a shitload of ways to die. While it shares some more progressive traits with other games of the late 2000s, it stand out for its adherence to the old school while providing something new at the same time.
Next: Narrative (and that'll probably be all, since this is already very long, sorry)
Comments
You're not very good at this "brevity" thing, are you? :P
Words have been with us as long as we've been around.
That's thousands of years.
Words are our friends.
You wouldn't have me abandon a friend, would you?
That line only applies to booze and you damn well know it.
I will be watching you, Alex.
Narrative and Story
This is where the game really shines. As much as the game mechanics reflect the role of a Witcher, a game like this requires strong contextual support and gets it in spades. One of the strongest elements in play here is the lack of a morality system while the game forces you to choose between lesser evils. It's a running theme of the game, and few choices you make will be straight forward. In fact, many of your choices only have implications a chapter or more later, so you can't save scum your way to an "optimal" playthrough -- with no immediate rewards or punishments, you have to make each decision based off what you think is right.
Often, this choice is between who you side with; the Order of the Flaming Rose or the elf and dwarf Scoia'tel rebels. This isn't always easy, as the Order is racist against nonhumans while the Scoia'tel, for all their social progression, are a terrorist sect unsupported by many civilian elves or dwarves and have been known to take civilians hostages -- or even execute them. As far as I know, there are no specific rewards for siding with either group, but you cannot progress without making choices.
One thing that did bother me is that, at one stage, I decided to help the Order so the Scoia'tel would stop execution innocent villagers. This wasn't an expression of political allegiance, but an effort to counter injustice against uninvolved innocents. A few characters, sometime afterwards, gave me a bit of lip and implied I was racist. While this could be taken as a reflection of reality, I didn't like how the game read a motivation into my choices that didn't exist. It missed the forest for the trees in that instance.
For the most part, though, the game does an excellent job of being even-minded and ensuring that you're not entirely comfortable with your choices. Good and evil only exist in a state of compromise, and Geralt's neutrality is his one escape from the political nightmare.
For all the intelligence shown when it comes to racial and political tensions, however, the game has a pretty juvenile attitude towards sex. While the few women who enter battle are depicted in practical gear and only a few female characters have particularly revealing clothing (ignoring the general generosity towards cleavage), the game gives you the option to bed quite a few women. This is accompanied by a background change and a card of erotic artwork. It's all pretty silly, although some of the cards have nice nods towards characterisation, context or humour -- one includes a woman holding a chicken by the neck, which almost redeems the concept.
That said, I still tried to collect as many of these cards as possible. I guess there's no fighting inclination sometimes.
The story itself is based on locating and defeating a shadow organisation that invaded Kaer Morhen, the shattered stronghold of the Witchers. Many years before the beginning of the game (and, indeed, before the beginning of the books), Kaer Morhen was invaded and all the Witchers slain. Only those who were away at the time escaped that fate, and one of them was Geralt. This invasion is slightly different, though, as only a handful of Witchers remain and your assailants and not out for blood alone. At the end of the introductory section of the game, the Witcher's secrets get stolen and everyone parts ways to look for the thief. Guess who finds the trail?
Along the way, you're wrapped up in a variety of subplots as well as having the option to take a variety of sidequests, mostly of the monster hunting variety. Early in Chapter 2, I found myself almost completely broke. I tried the easy way out and gambled what little I had in the hopes of winning enough to cover my current needs -- no luck. Absolutely broke at this point, I instead took a monster hunting job, went to a new area and earned my pay that way, allowing me to progress. That was a pretty good lesson in the economics of this game, as the monster hunting quests pretty much exist to empower you. In fact, many can be done incidentally, as you're likely to come across all these monsters while doing other quests.
While the story itself has some weak moments, ultimately this game represents the direction in which future games of all kinds could stand to imitate. Without any rewards for morality and without any immediate results pertaining to choices, it forces the player to make calls based on their own reasoning and values. All throughout, it does this under the auspice of its "men and monsters" theme while simultaneously refusing to clarify the matter for you. This is a game that demands that its players input, attention and thought to an extent few other games achieve.
This game is well worth the (considerable) amount of time it takes to complete, even with its moments of straight-faced silliness towards the end of the game. Just be prepared to put thought and effort into your methods and choices. This game really represents its namesake; while it may look to be about killing monsters, it's ultimately about solving problems that others don't understand. Your greatest weapon isn't the silver sword, but your sharpness of mind.
Fin.
Good game, entirely worth the (now reduced) cost. It has occasional failings, but makes up for them with the quality that seeps through every other element of the game. If you struggle with 90s to early-mid 2000s WRPGs, though, you might find this a handful, but otherwise this is a complete gem. Having played both Witcher titles, I now eagerly away The Witcher 3.
So I've been striving to find something about what could I complain, and finally I decided that I have to point out Sapkowski's not obscure, just hasn't until recently been translated to English.
I just recently got back into this game and a word of advice, set the camera to over the shoulder, things become MUCH easier.
^^ He's obscure to those unversed in Polish, or modern European fantasy authors, then. :>
^ Yeah, if that mechanic factor and the alterations of The Witcher 2 are any indication, then CD Projekt Red were always going for a more "actiony" experience.
I got bored in the first act and stopped playing. You could say "it gets better later", but a game needs to grip my attention near the beginning or it's not worth playing further, in my opinion.
I'd agree with that assertion. Personally, though, while I found the tutorial section lacking, I was pretty much enthralled from Chapter 1 onwards. Overall, the pacing of the game is pretty pedestrian until the final parts. It won't appeal to everyone by a long shot, but the pacing is deliberate and aims to provide a particular kind of experience. That certainly isn't everyone's thing, though.