The Witcher - Final Thoughts @ Twenty Sided
 

You may recall Twenty Sided's Shamus Young had been dissecting The Witcher (see Meet Geralt and Presentation) and after a delay, we have the Final Thoughts. Shamus has decided to avoid actually critiquing the game, other than the obvious inferences in his sarcasm-laden post:
More information.

Well some of those points are really valid.

1- If he actually did read the manual, then he would not have made some of his complaints

2- If he understood that The Witcher is based on the books and the main character of those books, then he couldn't complain about the character customization in the game.

3- Somewhat valid. With the enhanced edition so close to release, and solving many of his problems with the game, it was kind of lame to start complaining now about the game. If he made his "Review" shortly after the game came out, it would be one thing, but to make this "Review" so close to the huge changes being made, is kind of stupid.

4- The game plays great at lowest settings on a min required system. Not sure why he was having problems.

5- I disagree with this. The game was great right from the beginning. So if he didn't like the game from the beginning, then his complaint about that is justified according to his opinion.

I didn't do any of the things on his list either (ok, I might have had a brief look in the manual), and I enjoyed it immensely.

Some of the patch fixes were out months ago, actually. Also, the manual is just 62 pages if you skip the credits and whatnot at the end, which you obviously don't need to read. Plus, it's a GAME manual that's only about 3 inches by 6 inches with lots and lots of pictures, so obviously there are going to be lots of pages. He didn't need to read it cover to cover, either, he just needed to look things up when he didn't understand them.

I didn't like Diablo much. I forced myself through the first game but barely even got started in the second. That doesn't mean I'm going to start blathering on about how the game required patches and reading the manual. I'll just say it wasn't my cup of tea and move on.

As far as I'm concerned, he's still a troll. He's not looking for fun, he's looking for something he can complain about on his blog to get everyone riled up.

This changes nothing what i think of him.

1. Doh?! well maybe i'm just old fashioned if i don't expect everything to be handled for me on a plate :).

2. I had never read any witcher book before playing the game and still had the best rpg experience of last year. Sure now after playing..i'm going to read them all when they have been translated.

3. A valid point, but during these days..its pretty useless to whine about patches. Witcher had few issues, but none of them were a same caliber as bugs in g3 for example. First thing i'll do after buying a game is to check online if there is a patch available. Ignoring a present patch is only idiotic.

4. Pc gaming has always been like this. Some games require more horsepower than others. And witcher had great many optimise options for scaling eye candy down.

5. I still don't get this argument. I loved the game from the begining. The first level is really stunning. the opening chapter is really moving the storyline forward and it presents you the main characters ect.. I agree that the game is more or less linear at this point, but I was so sucked in the gameworld that I hardly noticed it.
'
Witcher simply isn't for everyone and thats why it is such a marvelous game. The reviewer didn't like it for some reason or an other, but reasoning it with false facts (argument nr5 aside) is unintelligent.

When did reading 72 pages, game manual pages no less which means small paragraphs and interface pictures breaking it up, become a chore?

It's stuff like this that makes me think Bethesda may have had a point with their whole "getting a perk every second level is confusing" mentality instead of simply explaining it in the manual/tutorial. And I hate thinking like that.

I just don't understand sometimes what people want from a game. Did he expect to have a commanding mastery over the game straight out of the box? He acts like it was a crime that some parts of the story were vague at the start. He didn't even realize that the "artifact" the Salamanders stole wasn't an "artifact," it was the Witcher mutation recipes. Did he expect the entire plot to be revealed through paragraphs of text at the start of the game?

If you are unwilling to put forth even the slightest amount of effort to read a game manual, or at least learn enough to avoid sounding like an idiot, then maybe you should stick to just watching movies and leave gaming to people who actually understand what the term means.

Even on the books, the laboratory is a mystery, there is almost no talk about it, is just know that was made by renegade mages, that's all, the guys of kaer right now no know anything about the experimentation there that was made there, they just fallow the original directions? I mean is good they don't give much details of the laboratory stuff in the game, and is nice they pick something like this as a first quest because in the books is know that lot of mages want to know the recipes and want see the secrets of the laboratory.

This games is beautiful, i just hope see more games like this, inspire on good books, who don't wanna see a game based on the books of song of ice and fire??
________
Herbalaire Vaporizer

This Young guy is more unfair than the great majority of Codex posters. TW requires PC upgrades? Come on, it runs faster than Oblivion, Gothic 3, and NWN 2, looking great and maintaining a steady framerate even on a 6600 GT.

I got diverted to this guy's site a few months back. At the time, I couldn't figure out
who he was or why I should even care - I concluded that I didn't. I haven't bothered reading any of his inane blabbering since.

He doesn't like it. We'll get over it, eh?

I know I'm in the minority, but I didn't like The Witcher either.

The first thing that turned me off about it was the way the melee combat was handled, I absolutely hated it. I don't understand why they couldn't go with true real-time combat, instead of timed strikes that used a signal to tell you when to swing. The other thing that killed it for me was the lack of variety for the npc models, I quickly grew tired of seeing the same few models used over and over again. The terribly translated dialog in the NA version of the game didn't help either.

All that considered, I still plan on giving it another try with the enhanced edition.

JDR13: Have you tried playing Witcher on hard difficulty? With easy and normal you have that annoying yellow dot telling you when to click, but on hard you'll have no aid. It feels much better when you have to rely solely on geral't movements and weapon sounds. Quite soon its comes to you like the parrying in g2. :)

I too did not like the combat at first. But once I got the hang of it (playing on hard setting) I've come to really enjoy it better than most designs out there.

JDR13, with all due respect I have to say you are one of the most critical posters visiting the watch. I can't recall any game that I've heard you praise unreservedly. While you make many sensible arguments, I've learned to take your opinions with a grain of salt - My formula for deciphering your posts is currently: If you say you really hated a game it must not be worth the disc it was pressed on. If you don't care for a game it must be really good (e.g. The Witcher). And if you say you liked the game… well… it must be gaming perfection, which I've yet to see. ;) ;)

JDR13 did like Mass Effect and, eventually, Jade Empire (although he did start out by panning it). You have to give him credit for publicly admitting that his first impression was mistaken. I have a feeling there's a good chance this will happen with The Witcher EE as well. Especially if he takes your advice and plays it on Hard (which isn't really all that hard.)

Except that you'll have to go around collecting herbs once in a while because you _will_ use potions. But yeah, it's far from the hardest game I've ever played.

Eh? No offense, but I think you were quite a tad premature with that comment. You obviously don't know me very well, or perhaps it's just coincidence that you've seen more of "those" posts. I can name many games that I have a great deal of praise for: the Baldur's Gate series, Gothic 1&2, Morrowind, System Shock 1&2, Arx Fatalis…. just to name a few off the top of my head. Sorry if I don't slobber like a rabid fanboi over certain games like so many here do.

Sounds like I'll be playing The Witcher on hard. :)

What's the difference anyways? Just more hit points for the monsters? Also, is the EE edition supposed have improved dialog\translation for the English version compared to the original release?

There's not as many clues for chaining together combos so it feels much more natural (you end up doing it based on timing most of the time), monsters seem harder (you die more easily too) - potions are probably more toxic. You might get less talents each level as well, though that could just be from easy to medium.

It's not all that hard on hard, but it is a nice challenge at some points - it's probably the level of difficulty the game would be if they didn't want to appeal to a bigger audience.

Yup. More variation in NPC models too.

I completely skipped The Witcher due to EE. Im waiting for that one instead.

Ok, I'm sold. :)

JDR.. my experience with the different difficulty settings made the difference between liking the combat and hating it.
On easier settings I found myself completely focused on the flaming sword icon in order to know when to strike next. Consequently I missed all the "prettyness" of the fight itself and it felt too mechanical. On hard you have no visual cues other than Geralt's sword creating sort of a "flash trail" on his last swing, and a "swooshing" sound. This makes you actually watch the combat (as in a real-time game that you have to time moves e.g. Gothic), and therefore is more engaging. Another secret to playing more Gothic-like is by fighting in Third person instead of isometric. Instead of clicking to move, you have full real time control a la WASD. After getting the hang of it I found myself dodging blows, flipping over opponents and doing all kinds of Ninja-like junk and having a blast doing it. If you really want a challenge then learn to select signs and fighting styles on the fly (via hotkeys as opposed to using the active pause mode). Trust me, if you are doing all those things at once and on hard difficulty, combat is very entertaining. :)

Maybe, but not all that much. The monsters do, however, attack more quickly, hit harder, and defend better. IOW, you need to pick the right style and have better timing to beat them. Alchemy becomes a necessity rather than an optional extra -- you will be using Swallow, Crinfrid oil, Necrophage oil, and Spectre oil a lot. The "flaming sword" icon is gone, too.

The upshot is that you can't beat any but the weakest monsters by simple click-spamming; you have to pick your technique, use buffs intelligently, and use your signs intelligently to get there. But if you do, it's not all that hard.

Put another way, I got the impression that "Hard" was the way the game was designed to be played, but then someone chickened out and made "Easy" the new "Normal" and added a "Really Easy" mode below that.

Yes. Also voiceovers.

Edit: What Jabberwocky said. There's a surprising amount of depth to the combat -- double-tapping to flip over enemies, switching from group style to strong style to finish them off, using Aard to stun, then followed by a finishing move, and so on. You tend to miss much or all of that if you're just staring at the sword, waiting it to go yellow.

I also got the impression that hard was the mode that Witcher was meant to be played. Alchemy for exampe that is supposed to play a big role in witcher's life really comes alive on hard difficulty because winning those big group/boss battles is dependent on finding best combination of various potions and oils. Going to a big battle unprepared is like jumping from the airplane without a parachute :).

and like said above no flaming sword icon helping so you need to understand the flow of battle to corrctly time your fighting moves/stunts/magic usage etc :)

Would you say it on the same level(difficulty) as G2+NotR?

Same here. As soon as I heard of the EE, I stopped looking for it, so to say.

I haven't played NotR, so I can't speak for that. As to G2, I'd say that The Witcher is a fair bit easier in the beginning, but a lot harder in the end, which is a good thing, especially the latter. Towards the endgame in G2, I was swatting dragons like flies; I never got that kind of über-demigod feel in The Witcher -- the late-game/endgame battles were tough, but not overwhelmingly, hopelessly tough. The Witcher felt much better balanced overall.

It's not an open-world game, though, even though it does have some areas that are more open than others; this means that the areas that open up are progressively tougher as your character gets tougher too. IOW, you get less frustration but also lose the marvelous sense of achievement that you get beating foes that you've run screaming from before.

Hm, I think that Witcher on hard is a bit easier than G2+NotR, especially if you play NotR as a mage.
I´ve chosen the hard difficulty for my first playthrough of Witcher and even then it became rather easy somewhere during the third chapter. Some selected fights were still quite challenging but nothing Swallow wouldn´t solve. And with Owl and Igni, epilogue was simply too easy.
Hopefully the EE will boost difficulty somehow because I still had almost no need to use the majority of potions. Toning down the effects of Swallow might help.

I´m pretty sure that G2+NotR would be much harder for someone without any previous experience with Gothic games.

Out of topic, but please try and put spoiler warnings for people like me who didn't get the chance to play the game yet ;-)

Whoops! Sorry 'bout that Hedek. Sure thing.

@ JDR13: No, I wouldn't compare TW to G2+NOTR. TW is difficult at times, but not as brutal as NOTR was. Prima Junta hit the nail on the head.

A few people around here have bragged about not needing potions even on hard setting. I personally had to make good use of them, and I consider myself an average player.

What?!!!!!!


I'm going to just pretend that was a typo.

Yeah,.. What?! So you've played through the whole 2nd Gothic game and yet never managed to play the single greatest expansion ever created?

I know, I know.

I like to think of it as something to look forward to.