Witcher - Retrospective @ GamePressure

GamePressure takes a look back at the first Witcher game:

The first Witcher 10 years later - RPG retrospective

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Was it 10 years already? Whew. Anyway I loved it.

TW1,still the best game ever…right after or, beside TW3.

Hmm, it's never really clicked with me, so far I've tried and failed 3 times to play through TW1. I own but won't play the latter ones til I finish it.

I enjoyed the game, but got tired of the combat. I never was able to finish it.

TW1, a great game. The last battle was annoying as fuck, though.

Hey now, what did he say about Gothic's animations??

Definitely in my top 20 games of all time. The soundtrack is in my top 10.. maybe even top 5.

I find it interesting that he says the combat sounded bad but played well. I think it sounds bad and plays worse. But, I don't know, maybe it was better in the context of 2007. I've been playing it off and on for almost two years now and the combat (that god damn swamp!) keeps driving me off. The story is great though.

The quest where you autopsy the body was genius. Never seen its like before or since. There was plenty of evidence to uncover and you could arrive at quite wrong conclusions if you were not thorough with your investigation.

Originally Posted by Silver
The quest where you autopsy the body was genius. Never seen its like before or since. There was plenty of evidence to uncover and you could arrive at quite wrong conclusions if you were not thorough with your investigation.

I'll second that. Great quest! The best! That quest is a great friend. Very smart. All the other quests are pathetic. Hah, ok, sorry… Sometimes I can't help myself. It just comes out. But, yes, it's a great quest. Among many great quests in The Witcher.

Originally Posted by Korplem
I'll second that. Great quest! The best! That quest is a great friend. Very smart. All the other quests are pathetic. Hah, ok, sorry… Sometimes I can't help myself. It just comes out. But, yes, it's a great quest. Among many great quests in The Witcher.

Now I wish I had thought of it. Trump imitations are the best!

I'm still trying to get my head around how some people who call themselves "RPG players" say that they didn't finish TW1 because of the combat!
1- it's not a frigging hack & slash or even an ARPG and
2- maybe combat wasn't all that great but missing on a very good RPG because of that?

It's Bloodlines of european rpg's…cheesy, over the top and very flawed, but style, ambiance and very interesting in it's own right.

Originally Posted by Korplem
I find it interesting that he says the combat sounded bad but played well. I think it sounds bad and plays worse. But, I don't know, maybe it was better in the context of 2007. I've been playing it off and on for almost two years now and the combat (that god damn swamp!) keeps driving me off.

Not sure I understand criticism here…feels like improved version of round based attack system in Kotor , but with timing/rhythm to your attacks ( instead of simply clicking attack Icon on the screen), changing playstyles and active dodging.
It worked well for it, but lacked more strict timing window and rewarding finishers like in typical combo based systems.
Think it's more an issue of people judging it as a straightforward action game, was more a mix of two systems ( when older rpg's were transitioning to full real time combat).

European setting it might be but the engine (and combat) is canadian. After all this years of my spitting on Aurora (NWN in fact), everyone seems to forget that if an engine sucks in the first place, a game can't blossom on it!
But whatever, I'm a certain type of person who considers combat the least important part of RPG so in my case TW was a great game. It would be much better if you could revisit old areas and make use of a shack you get, but on the mentioned engine something like that was impossible. I just can't say the flower is ugly while pretending it's root isn't rotten.

It was actually just okayish for me. I loved TW2 and 3, but TW1 had too many frustrating moments. The QTE style combat + all the annoying limitations of the Aurora engine means I haven't even tried the enhanced edition, despite everyone saying it's a big upgrade.

You should definetly forget the release version and start playing EE.

Originally Posted by joxer
…, everyone seems to forget that if an engine sucks in the first place, a game can't blossom on it!

NwN has had excellent modules, just saying. Skyrim's engine is also a smoking wreck however it still got GOTY, and "blossomed" off the modding community.

Originally Posted by zahratustra
I'm still trying to get my head around how some people who call themselves "RPG players" say that they didn't finish TW1 because of the combat!
1- it's not a frigging hack & slash or even an ARPG and
2- maybe combat wasn't all that great but missing on a very good RPG because of that?

Dunno, it just got old and tedious. I prefer my cRPGs troupe-style without all the combat endless twitchy micro-management. Deal with it, I guess.

Originally Posted by luj1
NwN has had excellent modules, just saying. Skyrim's engine is also a smoking wreck however it still got GOTY, and "blossomed" off the modding community.

Yeah. Also Trump is the president. Such a perfect world.